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Tech 21Bass Fly Rig or Zoom B3N?

sanwin17

sanwin17

Please mommy, you just gotta buy this amplifier.
Gold Supporting Member
Jan 23, 2010
1,067
536
Highland Beach, FL
#1
Experiences, opinions, sound quality, ease of use or whatever might me helpful choosing between these two. Real world experience preferred. Not just general opinions about the company or brand. But feel free to rant if you must.
Thanks
 
#2
Fly Rig might have a better sounding amp sim - I say this as I've only tried Zooms previous generation. It also has a DI out, but the other effects are not that great.

Zoom has tons more amps and FX, looper and drum machine and the headphone amp has an aux input. And it's cheaper!

Fly Rig might have the edge for stage, Zoom has the edge for personal practice.
 
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#3
I use a Zoom MS-60B as my main pedal, often "ampless" so I'd go for the B3N as it's quite similar so no real learning curve for me. If you're not already familiar the Tech21 has WAY less learning curve - but can't do 1/10 of what the B3N can but quite possibly enough for you - I use about 6 of the pedal emulations in my MS-60B LOL.
 
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#4
dannybuoy said:
Fly Rig might have a better sounding amp sim - I say this as I've only tried Zooms previous generation. It also has a DI out, but the other effects are not that great.

Zoom has tons more amps and FX, looper and drum machine and the headphone amp has an aux input. And it's cheaper!

Fly Rig might have the edge for stage, Zoom has the edge for personal practice.
Click to expand...
I’m thinking more for a live setup. Band uses no amps. Everyone drummer too plugs a modeler direct to pa.
 
#5
I thought the VT Bass / Flyrig was much more usable than the amp sims in the B3 / B1on / MS-60B. There are tons of people happily using them live though, plus the amps in the B3n are a generation forward and reportedly much better then the previous gen. There aren't any decent demos of the B3n I've seen that go through the amps in detail though. You could very well find one in there that you prefer to Tech21.

I think the best solution would be to pick up a B3n, then find an old VT Bass pedal since they are fairly easy to find used. With any luck you should be able to get those for the same price as the Flyrig. If the Zoom wins on the amp sim front, sell the VT for the same price you paid. If you prefer the amp sim in the VT, either keep the pair and use them together, or trade for a Flyrig if you really need that more portable form factor.
 
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#7
dannybuoy said:
I thought the VT Bass / Flyrig was much more usable than the amp sims in the B3 / B1on / MS-60B. There are tons of people happily using them live though, plus the amps in the B3n are a generation forward and reportedly much better then the previous gen. There aren't any decent demos of the B3n I've seen that go through the amps in detail though. You could very well find one in there that you prefer to Tech21.

I think the best solution would be to pick up a B3n, then find an old VT Bass pedal since they are fairly easy to find used. With any luck you should be able to get those for the same price as the Flyrig. If the Zoom wins on the amp sim front, sell the VT for the same price you paid. If you prefer the amp sim in the VT, either keep the pair and use them together, or trade for a Flyrig if you really need that more portable form factor.
Click to expand...
Excellent advice.
 
#13
NoElephant said:
For what it's worth the Fly Rig is much easier to use. The B3N can take a bit of fiddling to get what you want out of it.
Click to expand...

+1,000,000

The reason to get a B3n is you need to use lots of different effects. Tweaking it on stage is a nightmare because it uses menus. The Fly Rig operates more like an actual amplifier.
 
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#14
brianrost said:
+1,000,000

The reason to get a B3n is you need to use lots of different effects. Tweaking it on stage is a nightmare because it uses menus. The Fly Rig operates more like an actual amplifier.
Click to expand...
Not really that hard actually.
You can use it in patch mode to bring up presets or in pedal mode which will show 4 of your effects each with 4 knobs.
Almost as simple as analogue.
 
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#16
Loring said:
Not really that hard actually.
You can use it in patch mode to bring up presets or in pedal mode which will show 4 of your effects each with 4 knobs.
Almost as simple as analogue.
Click to expand...

Since most of the blocks have multiple pages of parameters (i.e. there are more than 4 in almost all cases) it's a lot fussier to work with under the gun...I stand by my opinion.
 
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#17
sanwin17 said:
Experiences, opinions, sound quality, ease of use or whatever might me helpful choosing between these two. Real world experience preferred. Not just general opinions about the company or brand. But feel free to rant if you must.
Thanks
Click to expand...

Though I've never used either the fly rig or B3n, I have used a VT bass pedal, a Zoom ms60b, and a b2 pedal. If I was in your place, here's what I would do...

I'd get a VT bass deluxe and a zoom ms60b to use in the effects loop. That would give you great amp sim technology with a DI, plus a wide variety of effects. Best of both worlds, in my opinion. You can turn off the loop and scroll through your effect patches, then kick on the loop when you get to what you want.
 
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#18
Bodeanly said:
If your basses are active, don't go with the Fly Rig. I clipped it like no other.
Click to expand...

YMMV. My active does just fine.

I echo the above - BFR feels better as a live rig to me. But don't depend on it for coloring. It's at its best when you're just using the basics - SansAmp, bit of comp, tuner. Chorus is useable, distortion/octaver is... iffy.
 
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#20
brianrost said:
Since most of the blocks have multiple pages of parameters (i.e. there are more than 4 in almost all cases) it's a lot fussier to work with under the gun...I stand by my opinion.
Click to expand...

You've obviously never used one. There are quite a few on the amp side that have 8 parameters and as such take 2 blocks - there are never any pages or menus to scroll through at the effect level.

There are global settings for master volume which is a set it and forget it setting and there is a menu for adding / removing and changing order of effects - I would argue it's easier than analogue pedals in that regard.

I like my analogue stuff better in some cases but the B3N is crazy simple to use. The Fly rig more so if you like the effects and how they are set up. The Sans Amp is great but try to cop a trace elliot or SWR or Markbass or B15 or EBS out of it. The B3N does all of that plus a pretty good SVT.

Once your amp is set up you would leave it alone. That leaves 4 blocks for a variety of effects. (amp usually uses 2 and speaker emulation usually uses 1)
 
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