Do you have any experience with the B1 Four or B1X Four?
If so where would you place them is all of this?
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Zoom MS-60B+ (a compact B2-Four?)
- Thread starter Al Krow
- Start date
If so where would you place them is all of this?
I tried one out for a few days and decided to pass. Had similar thoughts, but it just wouldn't work on my board. Being able to get a somewhat serviceable downtune would have been nice, but it sounded pretty bad. If it was going to take the spot of my HX One on my main board, it had to have that capability and it did not. The modulations and drives and amps were all pretty decent. I did still notice just a touch of tone suck when I bypassed. May have just been how I set it up. While the new navigation buttons are an improvement, for me personally and my feet (especially wearing boots at shows), I could not make use of the navigation with it on a board.
I still considered keeping for messing around at home and think it could serve ok as an all in one fly gig device, but I figured if I was going to do that and get into trying to learn how to really dial in a modeling effect, I should get something a little easier to use, so I have a B6 coming. I am going to work with it at home over the coming months and maybe someday in the future it will get out on a gig to see what happens.
I have a B1 Four too. The newest generation is an improvement to my ears. It really depends on your needs/usage. I never found a use for the b1 Four as it doesn't have a DI and didn't play well with other pedals.Do you have any experience with the B1 Four or B1X Four?
If so where would you place them is all of this?
With the B2 Four, I was thinking about adding some bumps on the nav buttons to make them more foot friendly. Sugru® is pretty cool for stuff like that.
Yea, I had an MS-100BT, and used that step through A, B, C... feature on a show. It was useful and worked well. It's a shame they got rid of it. But I suppose if they added USB MIDI to call presets, that's their "excuse".
Yea, the only Solid-State amp on the B2 Four is the Polytone sim. It's a lo-fi kind of retro sound, that I don't care for. It is NOT versatile. A GK or Hartke would have been a better choice for one solid state amp (better yet, why not have 2-3 solid state options?). You can always make a modern amp sound old and thin. But it's impossible to make the Monotone sound modern.
I don't want to influence your decision. I suspect though if you don't care much about the size of the unit, you'll like that the B2 Four has the same sounds, and makes patch switching easier-- particularly between banks of 3 patches.
I have an old box of pedals. My best is my old original MXR pedals. My M117 flanger and MX120 envelope filter then some DOD, Boss, and some Behringer odds and ends. I'm not a real pedal guy so when one of my son's friends came over with a Zoom 506II years ago I was intrigued. Years after that Zoom came out with these…
I got the B1on, after a long while of goofing around with it and having fun and seeing they were discontinuing them, I got the B1xon as well.I watch the others come along and it seemed while improvements were made part of the feature set I liked were dropped along the way. Since I'm slow to commit I waited to see if they do something I liked. It seems its always a compromise, I like these thing but they dropped that other thing I liked.
I guess I was hoping the would redo the B1xon with all the feature it had only with all the sound quality and multi layered IR stuff and the movable split and looper. 6 or more effect slots. with a DI out. Maybe some kind of B1 Four, B2 Four mashup. The B6 could be for me if it had all of that.
I guess I'm hoping for too much
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Are you saying that the HX One does have a serviceable downtune...? Or that it doesn't, and so you're still searching for one? I'd appreciate you clarifying as a workable detuner is a "must have" for me.
The MS-60, MS-60B+ and B1 Four are are only battery-operable multiFX units I know of that have a pitch shifters. Unfortunately, none of them seem to have a good enough pitch shifter.
The HX One has a very serviceable downtune. It is not the very best by far, but it is more than ok in a gig situation. From experience, the HX One downturn with the Poly Capo, is much better than a Digitech The Drop.
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Be interested on where you land on B2-4.
It's now been confirmed by Zoom that it is not going to be possible to display the patch name, rather than defaulting to one of the underlying fx making up the patch, which makes using this thing live less enticing for me. That, plus lack of PC editing capability means that the 60B+ is not sufficient 'better' over the B1-4 at the things it does well for my purposes. Add in the drum machine, looper and headphone amp capability of the B1-4 for home practice and it continues to remain remarkably good value and will survive for another day on my board. |So, having spent a couple of full days working with the 60B+ I've decided to return mine and will maybe head back to a higher end multifx in the near future e.g. the Boss GT1000 Core.
This is the sad thing about Zoom. So much of their gear "would be great, except for...".
B1 Four: no DI out.
B2 Four: can't run on batteries, can't edit on a PC or Android, no master volume.
MS-60B+: can't edit on a PC or Android; patch names don't persist in patch mode;
My B6 is great, but the large form factor and reliance on mains power makes it not the ideal solution for gigs where I have to get on and get off quickly. A B2 Four which ran on batteries would be ideal for those gigs. Or an MS60B+ with two foot switches to change patches up and down, like the Line6 POD bass.
I wish I could get access to the MS60B+ source code. I'd love to have a go at re-programming its UI to better suit our needs.
After 2 days with the B2 Four, I've decided to send the MS back. The B2 Four has the same great sounds as the MS+ and B6. I'd say virtually identical. It's definitely a keeper as a "fly rig" type of pedal when I don't want to bring my pedalboard. I'll post a more detailed comparison tomorrow.
Use a powerbank. I do and it's awesome. The only cables I need are from and to the B6. The case I bought for my B6 has enough room to fit a powerbank behind the B6 so all I do is take the lid off, add2 cables and I'm set. And with 20k mA, it'll run for 4-5hours easily. Probably more, but I haven't tested it beyond the 5 hours mark yet.
Yea, there are some things that could definitely have been improved or kept from the old model. Don't get me wrong, I like it and it'll do fine for what I want to do with it. The tones you can make for the price is awesome. But some choices are.. ok I'll just say it, stupid. Or perhaps the Japanese just don't think like we do. I don't know, but Zoom has always done it's own thing.
Should you (or anyone else) get your hands on the source, be sure to open a thread. I'm sure people will have ideas on how to improve the UI.
Is there any way to transfer patches from the B6 to the MS-60B+?
(I vaguely recall seeing a post somewhere saying that Zoom had changed the file format, which I think would render this impossible?)
If it were possible I could program patches on my B6 on my PC, then transfer them across to the MS-60B+ for fly gigs.
(I vaguely recall seeing a post somewhere saying that Zoom had changed the file format, which I think would render this impossible?)
If it were possible I could program patches on my B6 on my PC, then transfer them across to the MS-60B+ for fly gigs.
You would have to make the patches on the B6 then recreate them on the MS+ using like effects. That’s the only way I can see it being done.
As mentioned, the B2 Four can run on a powerbank via the USB connector (in some ways that's better than batteries, but that for another thread). I did have that experience where the B2 Four drained a high-capacity power bank really fast, and I still haven't followed up with further tests. I'll try to get to that today.
It has absolutely does have BOTH Master Volume and Master EQ. In Memory Mode, the four knobs are Lo, Mid, Hi, and Vol (as labeled).
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Test results on B2 Four with power bank inconclusive. Seemed to work fine when I connected to the USB A port on the bank.
It does? Well that's great news. Thanks for straightening me out on that.
Thanks too for the powerbank test. IMHO they're not quite as convenient for fly gigs as being able to grab a single pedal with internal batteries. But I know many will feel I should just "cope"
Thanks too for the powerbank test. IMHO they're not quite as convenient for fly gigs as being able to grab a single pedal with internal batteries. But I know many will feel I should just "cope"
No, I get it. Power bank is just another thing to keep track of-- hardly more convenient than any other power supply. That said, swapping out batteries is also hardly more convenient than a power supply, either, but on day-of-gig, much quicker.
