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Using New Zoom G3 With Bass - First Impressions

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philtoler

Dec 3, 2009
226
4
#1
Zoom G3 With Bass Guitar - Octave Effect - YouTube

Having got nowhere with either Zoom Japan or Zoom UK in terms of finding out about a possible "B3", I took a risk and bought a G3. On first impressions alone I am very glad I did that. Here's the octave effect and, considering it's a budget guitar multi-effects pedal, it does a damn good job, and I haven't really explored all of the possibilities yet. Since recording this video I have also got a very respectable "dirty Mutron" sound and, playing along with "Sir Psycho Sexy", am well pleased with the result - will post another video in due course. I have a B2.1u and a G1X and this latest offering from Zoom is a big leap forward. It has a 40 second looper which syncs to the rhythm effect. It's also got a USB interface for using DAW and includes CD with Steinberg Sequel LE + edit and share software.
 
#8
superbassman2000 said:
hey cool--i was saving up for a guitar rig kontrol for an audio interface, but this might win out (it's cheaper too!) do you have any experiance with using it as an interface? can the effects go through it too? Latency issues?
Click to expand...

It's certainly got loads of potential, but I only just got it Saturday so haven't had much time to play yet. They quote "...direct monitoring capability eliminates any latency problems..."
 
#9
philtoler said:
It's certainly got loads of potential, but I only just got it Saturday so haven't had much time to play yet. They quote "...direct monitoring capability eliminates any latency problems..."
Click to expand...
The only issue with that direct monitoring quote is that I am guessing they are saying that you can plug the G3 into an amp and the USB at the same time and monitor what's coming out of the G3 live...however, the latency I am talking about is after you plug it into the computer, and then run it through a few VSTs and whatnot and send it back out--there is almost always going to be some latency (at least with the computers that I can afford!) but if it's at a minimum, life is good :)
 
#13
superbassman2000 said:
there is almost always going to be some latency (at least with the computers that I can afford!)
Click to expand...

It's much more dependant on USB driver for particular device than computer it self. Both Win and OSX have generic drivers for USB audio devices, which is cool for manufacturers who don't wont to dive into mess of propriety driver development. And some propriety drivers are not much beter than generic USB audio. However, there are some manufacturers which have very very good drivers which can provide very low latency (like RME for instance, or NI AK1 or KA6). G3 most probably utilise generic USB drivers, so you are stuck with rather high latency (BTW, latency is somewhat dependant on computer, lower latency -> less processing power for VSTs)
 
#14
I got this today in response to a question about a possible B3:

Look for the B3 in the near future, it is currently in the prototype stage

Regards,
Brian Dougherty
Product Specialist / Sales
[email protected]
Office - 631-784-2200 X 111
Fax - 631-784-2201
Samson Technologies
45 Gilpin Ave
Hauppauge NY 11788-8816
Invalid Link Removed
 
#15
recnsci said:
It's much more dependant on USB driver for particular device than computer it self. Both Win and OSX have generic drivers for USB audio devices, which is cool for manufacturers who don't wont to dive into mess of propriety driver development. And some propriety drivers are not much beter than generic USB audio. However, there are some manufacturers which have very very good drivers which can provide very low latency (like RME for instance, or NI AK1 or KA6). G3 most probably utilise generic USB drivers, so you are stuck with rather high latency (BTW, latency is somewhat dependant on computer, lower latency -> less processing power for VSTs)
Click to expand...
that's true, but i was referring more to live processing, not recording.
 
#16
Swift713 said:
I got this today in response to a question about a possible B3:

Look for the B3 in the near future, it is currently in the prototype stage

Regards,
Brian Dougherty
Product Specialist / Sales
[email protected]
Office - 631-784-2200 X 111
Fax - 631-784-2201
Samson Technologies
45 Gilpin Ave
Hauppauge NY 11788-8816
Invalid Link Removed
Click to expand...

Sounds nice. I'll put my G3 GAS on hold, then.
 
#17
How are the delays, mods, and is there any synth? I don't care about the bass-centric stuff necessarily (EQ, od, dist, amp sim), as I'm happy with the other pedals I have. I'm really just looking for something smaller to replace my M13 with (again, just really delays, mod, and synth).
 
#18
gscroggin said:
How are the delays, mods, and is there any synth? I don't care about the bass-centric stuff necessarily (EQ, od, dist, amp sim), as I'm happy with the other pedals I have. I'm really just looking for something smaller to replace my M13 with (again, just really delays, mod, and synth).
Click to expand...

My guitar player got a G3 on a whim, and we put it through its paces at practice this week. The modulation and delays were quite good to my ears - I was especially impressed with the phasers, which got really deep and swooshy (I'm not one for wimpy phasers). The delays were also cool - there were a decent number of options to play with. One last nice thing is that they had a bunch of double effects (ie modulated delay, reverbed delay, etc), which nicely gets around the whole issue of "only 3 primary fx at a time" for those of us who like to get crazy shoegazy with our bad selves.

There are synths - octave down, up and harmony. They were pretty good. The octave down synth had better tracking than my Floor Pod's (though there was still some glitching on faster passages if notes weren't properly staccato).

I didn't have time to try the G3 on my rig, but was impressed enough that I'm certainly going to in the near future. On the whole, I'm not usually into multifx, but the stuff that the G3 did well sounded great.
 
#19
jrmy said:
My guitar player got a G3 on a whim, and we put it through its paces at practice this week. The modulation and delays were quite good to my ears - I was especially impressed with the phasers, which got really deep and swooshy (I'm not one for wimpy phasers). The delays were also cool - there were a decent number of options to play with. One last nice thing is that they had a bunch of double effects (ie modulated delay, reverbed delay, etc), which nicely gets around the whole issue of "only 3 primary fx at a time" for those of us who like to get crazy shoegazy with our bad selves.

There are synths - octave down, up and harmony. They were pretty good. The octave down synth had better tracking than my Floor Pod's (though there was still some glitching on faster passages if notes weren't properly staccato).

I didn't have time to try the G3 on my rig, but was impressed enough that I'm certainly going to in the near future. On the whole, I'm not usually into multifx, but the stuff that the G3 did well sounded great.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the detail, I think you have just sold me on this! ;) I really wanted the ability to stack at least 3 effects, so the fact that there's actually some doubled up singles is icing on the cake.

I looked around a bit more online after my post and read about the computer based editing functionality...that is HELLA cool at this price point if it works well.
 
#20
I got mine in the mail the end of last week from Sweetwater. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play with it since I worked all weekend long, but so far it's definitely cool! Nice layout, well built, and a quick jump through of the patches proved inspiring. I'll report back more once I've got more time to spend with it.
 

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