OK folks... the new Zoom B3 arrived yesterday!! WOOHOO. I've only had an hour or so playing with it so I'm far from an expert but figured some folks may be interested.
Ahh the new B3 being unboxed...
The first thing I noticed about the new pedal is its color - its different than other Zoom bass pedals (b2,9, etc). THis version is darker and has a slight purple tint to it. Honestly, red Wine colored seems about right.
The side profile - the pedal has a slight tilt to it making the viewing angle. No issue seeing the pedals close up.. but due to the LCD's all be monochrome its a little hard to see when your a few feet away (plus I have old man eyes).
Next the rear input section... one slight concern I had was the passive/active switch in the back of this pedal. I was concerned about knowing what mode I was in when I was in front of the pedal. Fortunatley Zoom shows you what mode your in on the middle LCD screen. I haven't used any output except the Mono out to my amp. It appears there is some ECO power mode.. need to see what that's about. NOTE - the input for the power is recessed - you will need a straight barrel power supply (vs. right angle).
This photo is the tuner... you simply hold the middle pedal switch down. THe middle LCD shows you what string your tuning.. the right LCD allows you to adjust your tuning pitch. The row of lights above the LCD's (one red light on) shows you if your sharp/flat...
Next up the Looper... works pretty slick and you don't need the damn manual like Boss pedals. Click on the left pedal and you are now in record mode... if you had the drum machine on it will give you a pre-record countdown.
Looper in record mode... left LCD shows your recording progress... clicking the switch starts to play the loop. You can always click on the middel pedal and it will put you back in REC mode. It works slick .... you can have a drum beat going on... lay down a beat... click on the right pedal switch and change effects pedals... then go back to Loop mode and laydown more funk.
Holding down the left switch puts you in patch mode... here is where you can select a specific pre-defined patch. A patch in this world is simply the combination of 3 effects pedals and their pre-defined levels. I assume you can store patches... but I have yet to get that far.
The patch in effect... this particular one is the Victor Wooten - W10 Stepup. You will see each of the LCD's are in effect and the default levels of have been selected. If you want to change out one of the effect pedals you simply select the Type (Up/Down) buttons. It will then scroll through all of the available effects/amp pedals. For each effect it has level settings which can be adjusted by the 3 knobs below the screens. If there are more than 3 variables on the effects pedal you can scroll through the other settings but clicking on the Page button.
Crappy little video of me powering it up and showing how you can change the effects levels via the knobs. Can't get it to embed so here is the link
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/3391/mu0b.mp4
Overall I'm pretty impressed with it. The sound quality of the effects seem to be fairly good (at least as good as my b2). I don't have a lot of sonic references to compare to (I know the B9 has higher sampling rate). I don't notice any signifcant tone suck when all of the effects are off. One thing which was slightly dissapointing was the drum machine... its easier to use than a B2 but it appears to be pretty much the same. Sonically the drum sound quality is just fair/OK. Not bad, but I was hoping for an upgrade.
