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Zoom B3 As Preamp Part 2

#601
A slightly used but very kindly treated B3 arrived at my place today and after reading through roughly half of these 81 pages of shared knowledge tomorrow I'll begin trying to wrap my analog brain around this digital powerhouse. Let me give out some thanks and praise to CharlieC for getting this started and for managing this thread like no other I've ever followed. A big thanks also goes out to the dozens of others who've analyzed, contributed and compiled enough stuff to work my way through to assure me of many late nights of studying all of what this thing can do.

For my part my initial interest is primarily in the amp models. I don't use much in the way of effects if any but with this box in the loop that may change a bit as time goes by. Like ticol07 and drpepper have mentioned I'm currently using a BG250 combo and that's what I'll be running through for now using passive Jazz and P Basses. By tomorrow night I hope to have programmed at least two or three amp models well enough to get a basic idea of how to get what I want out of this combination of gear. I'm pretty much an "old school" blues and r&b guy so the SVT and the B15 models will be where I plan to start.

I'm sure I'll run into some mental roadblocks that may or may not be removed even by reading through all of this so I hope guys like ticol07 and drpepper won't mind if I put an few BG250 specific questions to them as I work my way through the set up and operation. Like I said, I have an analog mind which envisions one knob for each individual operation not a handful of knobs that can control dozens of them so this conversion may take a bit of time. Actually it was drpepper who gave me a heads up about the B3 in the BG250 Owners thread to begin with. It just took a bit before I was ready to set the six string stuff aside for a bit and begin this journey.

Thanks again to all who came before me and assembled this mass of information. :thumbsup:
 
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#602
I finally had some time to sit down for a couple of hours with the B3 and my Jazz Bass and I'm grinning ear to ear. These amp sims are fantastic and even just using something as simple as the Bass Driver as a single effect with no amp sim makes a whole new rig out of this amp.

Ticol and CharlieC thanks for the heads up on the cab sims. I found that I can blend a little of them in with this amp with no problem as long as I stay on the low side. It's interesting to explore the tonal subtleties this thing has and get a feel for the cause and effect of different settings.

What I quickly learned is this box is not anywhere near as complex to operate as I feared it might be. It's really pretty intuitive once you figure out what button does what. Now what I need to do is tailor some stuff to my two basses and figure out how to save those patches.

Thanks again for all the prior work and write ups done here. It really did make jumping off the dock and finding bottom a whole lot easier. I'm up and running now and ready to explore.
 
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#603
soulman969 said:
I finally had some time to sit down for a couple of hours with the B3 and my Jazz Bass and I'm grinning ear to ear. These amp sims are fantastic and even just using something as simple as the Bass Driver as a single effect with no amp sim makes a whole new rig out of this amp.

Ticol and CharlieC thanks for the heads up on the cab sims. I found that I can blend a little of them in with this amp with no problem as long as I stay on the low side. It's interesting to explore the tonal subtleties this thing has and get a feel for the cause and effect of different settings.

What I quickly learned is this box is not anywhere near as complex to operate as I feared it might be. It's really pretty intuitive once you figure out what button does what. Now what I need to do is tailor some stuff to my two basses and figure out how to save those patches.

Thanks again for all the prior work and write ups done here. It really did make jumping off the dock and finding bottom a whole lot easier. I'm up and running now and ready to explore.
Click to expand...

Once you get used to the amp sims, there is the different cabs to try with each head, I'm still experimenting after about 5 months. I found I prefer certain head and cab combinations, but each sounds completely different when you mix them.
 
#604
jking138 said:
Once you get used to the amp sims, there is the different cabs to try with each head, I'm still experimenting after about 5 months. I found I prefer certain head and cab combinations, but each sounds completely different when you mix them.
Click to expand...

Where are the options for the different cab sims jking? For instance; if I wanted to run a 2x12 with a Bassman or a Flip Top B15 or a 4x12 or 4x10 with the SVT where are those options found? All I've explored so far is whatever cab sim is used with that particular amp.
 
#605
soulman969 said:
Where are the options for the different cab sims jking? For instance; if I wanted to run a 2x12 with a Bassman or a Flip Top B15 or a 4x12 or 4x10 with the SVT where are those options found? All I've explored so far is whatever cab sim is used with that particular amp.
Click to expand...

On page 3(?) of the amp sim settings (at the side of where you choose how much cab you want to mix into the sim) you will see it says "original" (or "orig"). If you turn the center knob below this, you can change the cab type.
 
#606
JACink said:
On page 3(?) of the amp sim settings (at the side of where you choose how much cab you want to mix into the sim) you will see it says "original" (or "orig"). If you turn the center knob below this, you can change the cab type.
Click to expand...

Ah ha.:woot: Saw that icon but hadn't explored it yet. Just the original cab. Thanks JAC. :thumbsup: Something more to explore now. It's gonna take a month of Sundays just to work through half of what this thing will do. I'm already impressed as hell with it just toying around with some learner level stuff. I'm almost afraid what I'll find once I get going.

Gotta jam to do tomorrow where I use a small 1x12 amp so I'll add this and see what unfolds. Nothing fancy but the B15 and Bassman sims should be good for this. I love the mid punch of that B15 and I haven't even used it with my PBass yet. It should really shine there.
 
#607
I traded my last bass amp away for some guitar gear I needed for my most frequently gigging band, playing keys and guitar . . . still could practice bass thru my studio monitors but it sure wasn't the same. playing thru only one channel of my mackie power amp was ok, but not really gig worthy volume.

last week I finally bought the proper cable to use bridge mode on my mackie m800 power amp. Now I can plug straight from my zoom b3 into it and finally have enough volume! Sounds very nice through my 15" cab and I think it's time to go on a few auditions.
 
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#608
Got a chance to use the B3 this weekend doing a jam in a small room and playing through a little Ampeg BA112. Whoa, did using the B3 make a difference. I was playing my Jazz Bass and using the B15 and Aguilar amp sims and the sound was nothing short of terrific even through that little amp. Bigger, bolder, punchier are how I would describe it.

I had some time yesterday to play around with the B3 and my PBass run through all of the amp models and all of the various effects making some notes as to which I found useful for me. Man there's a lot of possible combinations to choose from. Today I'll work with just one or two amp sims and tweak those along with an effects chain for them. Those should be my first patches.

A couple of questions I have for ticol, drpepper, tubatodd or anyone else as they relate to a BG250 are how are you running your TubeDrive and Spectracomp? Completely off or blended in with whatever amp sims and effects you have in your B3 signal chain? Also what have you been using for a Gain Level with passive basses? Just curious what's worked best for you guys.

The other question is more general. Are you all putting your compressor and preamp before the amp sim or are you running the preamp after the amp sim and the compressor before? I realize there are no hard fast rules but I'm just curious if running the preamp after is anymore effective. I guess the real question is using a combination of compressor, preamp, and amp sim what's the most favored order 1,2,3?

Thanks again to all who have contributed the knowledge and experience to this thread. I gained enough from reading to be able to just sit down and start using the B3 with just a quick review of the manual and a little operational experimentation. All I can say is how did I ever do without this for so long. It's like have an entire herd of bass amps instead of two.
 
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#609
Yesterday I was able to work out a signal chain and settings for all of the amp models on both my Jazz Bass and my PBass. I set all the BG250 amp settings at 12 o'clock to begin with and tweaked a bit from there. I shut down the tube drive and the internal compressor then set the volume at 5 and tweaked the gain until I wasn't overdriving the preamp section. I may add a little of the Tube Drive back in but the compressor models in the B3 seem to work just fine and I still have the option of shutting them down on any amp model and using the internal compressor.

All I used in from of the amp model was a comp and a preamp. Some may need a bit more tweaking for the PBass because it's pickup output is higher. The goal here is two find two or three that work best for each bass and focus on those although the decisions playing live may alter those decisions made in the den.

I was playing at nearly stage volume to get the most accurate feel for them I could. God Bless my neighbors for their tolerance. They compliment my guitar playing sometimes but I doubt 4-5 hours of bass experimentation was very pleasing. :thumbsup:

Doing it this way for the first time I was able to get a real "feel" for the differences in the voicing between the various amp models and cabs. Some sound better with the cab sim at 50% and with other sit needs to be cut back. God I love this thing. Everything is just punchier and that BG250 is pretty punchy on it's own so this just adds to that. It should cut through a mix just fine but I guess the true test will come by using it live. Then I'll get to see how easy it is to tweak the basses and amp settings for the room.
 
#610
After a year of use. My B3 seems to be getting a tad noisy. Anyone else have this issue? I've switched cables and checked other causes. It seems to be the B3. My levels have been the same forever, but I notice it's fairly quiet until you activate a patch or a single effect for that matter. Just curious?
 
#612
gard0300 said:
After a year of use. My B3 seems to be getting a tad noisy. Anyone else have this issue? I've switched cables and checked other causes. It seems to be the B3. My levels have been the same forever, but I notice it's fairly quiet until you activate a patch or a single effect for that matter. Just curious?
Click to expand...
Any particular effect or type of effect initiating the noise?

For example, I had a B2.1u in the past that began to have an occasional issue with reverbs... But everything else was fine..
 
#620
ok then...I was just amazed by the tone of your fender Pbass & jazzbass, I'v heard it from your website zinfanus/zoom_b3.
The bass signal only of your Pbass & Jassbass are very clear and the tone of 'are you gonna be my girl' is flawless.

I was just wondering if a mex PBass/jassbass could give me the same tone ?
cheers!
 
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