Seeing as I was going through patch cables about once every two months until I bought this set...12 years ago...I'm fine with the hype. YMMV.
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Zoom MS-60B announced... at last
- Thread starter ga_edwards
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Seeing as I was going through patch cables about once every two months until I bought this set...12 years ago...I'm fine with the hype. YMMV.
Oh heck yea. That way I could just have the one pedal for delay AND the noise gate, with the noise gate before the delay. So a short press of the switch turns the delay on and off, and a long press turns the tuner on and off. Then two more of them for other effects (auto-wah and modulation), and finally a 4th that has the compressor always on and OD switched on and off using the switch. So four stompboxes effectively doing the job of seven. Not bad...
The idea of having the different chains (say, two in this scenario) switchable using the footswitch, rather than using the switch to just toggle the desired effect on or off, is a little more complicated than is necessary, though I guess it's functionally the same thing. Plus, it'd make for some pretty intense combinations with each pedal, if one was so inclined.
Thanks to both of you for being so trenchantly helpful, I appreciate it. I was standing on the stool with the rope round my neck, all ready to go, then *blip*, your messages popped up. You really turned things around...
I've noticed some gold plated Monster cables on some of the pedal boards. Not to go too far off topic, but these are likely the most over rated and hyped cables in history. While gold is a better conductor than nickel, in order to keep it from wearing off the first few times you plug and and unplug them, there is a clearcoat over the gold. Clearcoated gold does not conduct better than nickel. Also, the plugs are made a few thousandths thicker in order to make a supposedly better connection. Since it's the ground that this affects, it's meaningless because there's already more ground contact area than tip. Also, use of these cables actually wears the female socket a bit larger over time, which means that regular cables will be a bit looser, a principal I think some of us can relate to
Fair point. Planet Waves had/has a similar issue with those cables they brought out that have the bulged sleeve contacts. They contact better at first, but wear the jacks out quicker and eventually make things worse while not really being any better in the first place. The genitalia analogy is also apt.
The whole thing of gold versus nickel/copper when it comes to electrical contact means nothing. The improvement you get with gold is negligible, so if you're paying extra for it then you're getting swindled. Haven't heard of the clearcoat before, but I'm not surprised cause I know gold wears away quicker than democracy in a freshly Americanised country.
Also, what's the deal with the bold/italics cruise control you seem to have activated? Why can't you just wear a t-shirt with a clever slogan on it and let that be the extent of your individuality, like the rest of us?
SirMjac28
Patiently Waiting For The Next British Invasion
According to the print on the website the second output can be used for recording? anyone try it yet?
Happy day! It arrived a day early! Having a hard time deciding where to place it in the chain since it will be used for so many different things...
Well, UPS delivered my membership card on Wednesday:
The box it came in appeared to have been opened. The shipping label was pulled half way off and the packing tape was broken open mostly, although there were some reinforcing fibers in the tape still holding the box closed at both ends. The box seemed rather light too so I was convinced my new toy had been stolen. I photographed the box before doing anything with it and I videoed the opening process in case I had to make a claim but everything was fine. I don't know what that was all about.
I am really not a pedal guy. I have a couple of passive basses that I had not used to perform with much and which I am now starting to use. They are both VVT basses and while I like the passive sound as an option I also like the tonal flexibility that an active preamp gives you and I wanted an external master volume control so that I can set the volume without having to fuss with the pickup mix. I really started this process looking for a preamp with a volume foot pedal. In short order I moved from that narrow search to one that included multi-effects pedals too and having heard glowing praise of the B3 I looked at that and then the MS-60B. Of course a volume pedal is an extra cost add-on to the B3 and I am currently too cost-constrained to consider it while the MS-60B lacks any capacity for a volume pedal. So they were both non-starters.
The reason I am not a pedal guy is that I play only in a church band and there just isn't much call for that in that venue. The synth player is the go-to musician for any effects that are needed. However, the reason I need a volume pedal is that I want to kill the volume between songs so the bass doesn't start making noise during a prayer or the sermon. In fact a kill switch is all I need. In fact the mute function on the MS-60B tuner mode is perfect for that....
A few day's worth of playing with and through the MS-60B is enough to confirm that it is going to do everything I wanted it to do. The tuner/kill switch is easy and convenient to use and it isn't a bad tuner either. The preamp functions work great to give me that active bass tonal flexibility when I want it and of course there is a B3-as-preamp thread here on TB so I am not the only one to have noted the usefulness of this capability. The amp and cab sims are quite nice and I think the church's sound system has the wide range needed to use them, as does the Peavey keyboard amp I use for practice at home. I have only played a bit with the pitch shifters but they seem quite useable and perfect for those days when a last minute replacement vocalist wants a song performed in a different key. They don't quite sound natural, I haven't heard a pitch shifter yet that does, but I think they will fit in the mix very well. Now I can laugh at key changes just as the synth player always has. Pity the poor pianist! And over time I suspect that I will find use for many of the other effects and capabilities. They pretty much all have a blend control so even the wild ones could be used to add some character to my sound without becoming objectionable in the context. Typically we perform six or fewer songs each Sunday and only up to ten or twelve for special events (although I am usually singing in the choir for those). The MS-60B has way more patch memory than I would need to have a unique patch set up for each song and switching between them is easy-peasey with the ABCD... foot switch control. Already I am convinced that this is a great little box, everyone should have one!!
Are there any cons? The biggest one for me is the lack of the ability to use the USB connection to a PC to manage a library of patches as the B3 can. That would be great, perhaps Zoom would be kind enough to give us that in a future firmware update; I am guessing our four effects at once capability will eventually appear in the B3. The only other thing I would like to see changed at this time is one that I doubt will ever happen. There are many effects modules built into the MS-60B that I will seldom, if ever, use. There are a few effects modules in the B3 that I would use right now if I had them. Wouldn't it be great if all the available effects modules for the B3/60B (and even a few more???) were put in a library and we were able to download and install the ones we really wanted? Essentially you would have a "license" to use 58 modules at a time on the 60B but you would be able to choose which 58 you had at any given time. The B3 would be able to use all of them, or any 111 if Zoom were to add more available modules, something they could easily do. There are plenty of hardware feature differences between the two to justify the higher cost of the B3 and drive its sales. I know, I know, I am just dreaming here....
I have attached a list I made of the factory programmed patches for those who wanted one. You can of course restore the factory default patches at any time using the All Initialize function but that apparently erases any custom patches you have set up as well. If you only want to restore one or a few factory patches without losing your custom patches this list should allow you to do that. I did the best I could but it wouldn't hurt if someone(s) were to review it for accuracy. TheRoadWarrior seems to have substituted BassCry for the MarkB unit in his listing of the Mark+ patch #1 above and I found a mistake in my list as I was printing it out so it is obviously easy to make mistakes when compiling a list like this. If you report any errors I will correct them.
Finally, thanks to everyone on this thread and the B3 threads for your comments. You all helped me make a very good decision about this purchase!
Ken
The box it came in appeared to have been opened. The shipping label was pulled half way off and the packing tape was broken open mostly, although there were some reinforcing fibers in the tape still holding the box closed at both ends. The box seemed rather light too so I was convinced my new toy had been stolen. I photographed the box before doing anything with it and I videoed the opening process in case I had to make a claim but everything was fine. I don't know what that was all about.
I am really not a pedal guy. I have a couple of passive basses that I had not used to perform with much and which I am now starting to use. They are both VVT basses and while I like the passive sound as an option I also like the tonal flexibility that an active preamp gives you and I wanted an external master volume control so that I can set the volume without having to fuss with the pickup mix. I really started this process looking for a preamp with a volume foot pedal. In short order I moved from that narrow search to one that included multi-effects pedals too and having heard glowing praise of the B3 I looked at that and then the MS-60B. Of course a volume pedal is an extra cost add-on to the B3 and I am currently too cost-constrained to consider it while the MS-60B lacks any capacity for a volume pedal. So they were both non-starters.
The reason I am not a pedal guy is that I play only in a church band and there just isn't much call for that in that venue. The synth player is the go-to musician for any effects that are needed. However, the reason I need a volume pedal is that I want to kill the volume between songs so the bass doesn't start making noise during a prayer or the sermon. In fact a kill switch is all I need. In fact the mute function on the MS-60B tuner mode is perfect for that....
A few day's worth of playing with and through the MS-60B is enough to confirm that it is going to do everything I wanted it to do. The tuner/kill switch is easy and convenient to use and it isn't a bad tuner either. The preamp functions work great to give me that active bass tonal flexibility when I want it and of course there is a B3-as-preamp thread here on TB so I am not the only one to have noted the usefulness of this capability. The amp and cab sims are quite nice and I think the church's sound system has the wide range needed to use them, as does the Peavey keyboard amp I use for practice at home. I have only played a bit with the pitch shifters but they seem quite useable and perfect for those days when a last minute replacement vocalist wants a song performed in a different key. They don't quite sound natural, I haven't heard a pitch shifter yet that does, but I think they will fit in the mix very well. Now I can laugh at key changes just as the synth player always has. Pity the poor pianist! And over time I suspect that I will find use for many of the other effects and capabilities. They pretty much all have a blend control so even the wild ones could be used to add some character to my sound without becoming objectionable in the context. Typically we perform six or fewer songs each Sunday and only up to ten or twelve for special events (although I am usually singing in the choir for those). The MS-60B has way more patch memory than I would need to have a unique patch set up for each song and switching between them is easy-peasey with the ABCD... foot switch control. Already I am convinced that this is a great little box, everyone should have one!!
Are there any cons? The biggest one for me is the lack of the ability to use the USB connection to a PC to manage a library of patches as the B3 can. That would be great, perhaps Zoom would be kind enough to give us that in a future firmware update; I am guessing our four effects at once capability will eventually appear in the B3. The only other thing I would like to see changed at this time is one that I doubt will ever happen. There are many effects modules built into the MS-60B that I will seldom, if ever, use. There are a few effects modules in the B3 that I would use right now if I had them. Wouldn't it be great if all the available effects modules for the B3/60B (and even a few more???) were put in a library and we were able to download and install the ones we really wanted? Essentially you would have a "license" to use 58 modules at a time on the 60B but you would be able to choose which 58 you had at any given time. The B3 would be able to use all of them, or any 111 if Zoom were to add more available modules, something they could easily do. There are plenty of hardware feature differences between the two to justify the higher cost of the B3 and drive its sales. I know, I know, I am just dreaming here....
I have attached a list I made of the factory programmed patches for those who wanted one. You can of course restore the factory default patches at any time using the All Initialize function but that apparently erases any custom patches you have set up as well. If you only want to restore one or a few factory patches without losing your custom patches this list should allow you to do that. I did the best I could but it wouldn't hurt if someone(s) were to review it for accuracy. TheRoadWarrior seems to have substituted BassCry for the MarkB unit in his listing of the Mark+ patch #1 above and I found a mistake in my list as I was printing it out so it is obviously easy to make mistakes when compiling a list like this. If you report any errors I will correct them.
Finally, thanks to everyone on this thread and the B3 threads for your comments. You all helped me make a very good decision about this purchase!
Ken
Well, UPS delivered my membership card on Wednesday:
The box it came in appeared to have been opened. The shipping label was pulled half way off and the packing tape was broken open mostly, although there were some reinforcing fibers in the tape still holding the box closed at both ends. The box seemed rather light too so I was convinced my new toy had been stolen. I photographed the box before doing anything with it and I videoed the opening process in case I had to make a claim but everything was fine. I don't know what that was all about.
I am really not a pedal guy. I have a couple of passive basses that I had not used to perform with much and which I am now starting to use. They are both VVT basses and while I like the passive sound as an option I also like the tonal flexibility that an active preamp gives you and I wanted an external master volume control so that I can set the volume without having to fuss with the pickup mix. I really started this process looking for a preamp with a volume foot pedal. In short order I moved from that narrow search to one that included multi-effects pedals too and having heard glowing praise of the B3 I looked at that and then the MS-60B. Of course a volume pedal is an extra cost add-on to the B3 and I am currently too cost-constrained to consider it while the MS-60B lacks any capacity for a volume pedal. So they were both non-starters.
The reason I am not a pedal guy is that I play only in a church band and there just isn't much call for that in that venue. The synth player is the go-to musician for any effects that are needed. However, the reason I need a volume pedal is that I want to kill the volume between songs so the bass doesn't start making noise during a prayer or the sermon. In fact a kill switch is all I need. In fact the mute function on the MS-60B tuner mode is perfect for that....
A few day's worth of playing with and through the MS-60B is enough to confirm that it is going to do everything I wanted it to do. The tuner/kill switch is easy and convenient to use and it isn't a bad tuner either. The preamp functions work great to give me that active bass tonal flexibility when I want it and of course there is a B3-as-preamp thread here on TB so I am not the only one to have noted the usefulness of this capability. The amp and cab sims are quite nice and I think the church's sound system has the wide range needed to use them, as does the Peavey keyboard amp I use for practice at home. I have only played a bit with the pitch shifters but they seem quite useable and perfect for those days when a last minute replacement vocalist wants a song performed in a different key. They don't quite sound natural, I haven't heard a pitch shifter yet that does, but I think they will fit in the mix very well. Now I can laugh at key changes just as the synth player always has. Pity the poor pianist! And over time I suspect that I will find use for many of the other effects and capabilities. They pretty much all have a blend control so even the wild ones could be used to add some character to my sound without becoming objectionable in the context. Typically we perform six or fewer songs each Sunday and only up to ten or twelve for special events (although I am usually singing in the choir for those). The MS-60B has way more patch memory than I would need to have a unique patch set up for each song and switching between them is easy-peasey with the ABCD... foot switch control. Already I am convinced that this is a great little box, everyone should have one!!
Are there any cons? The biggest one for me is the lack of the ability to use the USB connection to a PC to manage a library of patches as the B3 can. That would be great, perhaps Zoom would be kind enough to give us that in a future firmware update; I am guessing our four effects at once capability will eventually appear in the B3. The only other thing I would like to see changed at this time is one that I doubt will ever happen. There are many effects modules built into the MS-60B that I will seldom, if ever, use. There are a few effects modules in the B3 that I would use right now if I had them. Wouldn't it be great if all the available effects modules for the B3/60B (and even a few more???) were put in a library and we were able to download and install the ones we really wanted? Essentially you would have a "license" to use 58 modules at a time on the 60B but you would be able to choose which 58 you had at any given time. The B3 would be able to use all of them, or any 111 if Zoom were to add more available modules, something they could easily do. There are plenty of hardware feature differences between the two to justify the higher cost of the B3 and drive its sales. I know, I know, I am just dreaming here....
I have attached a list I made of the factory programmed patches for those who wanted one. You can of course restore the factory default patches at any time using the All Initialize function but that apparently erases any custom patches you have set up as well. If you only want to restore one or a few factory patches without losing your custom patches this list should allow you to do that. I did the best I could but it wouldn't hurt if someone(s) were to review it for accuracy. TheRoadWarrior seems to have substituted BassCry for the MarkB unit in his listing of the Mark+ patch #1 above and I found a mistake in my list as I was printing it out so it is obviously easy to make mistakes when compiling a list like this. If you report any errors I will correct them.
Finally, thanks to everyone on this thread and the B3 threads for your comments. You all helped me make a very good decision about this purchase!
Ken
Congrats, Ken!
Thanks for the great post and welcome to the club
Cheers!
I have mine now and as I mention above I may have call to use this feature occasionally at church. Personally I think it sounds reasonable if the shifts are small, three half steps or less. Like every other one I have used it gets funky as the shift grows larger but still quite useable over any range I can envision actually using to accommodate a vocalist. So far I have never seen more than three half steps needed for that purpose but it can go 5 or 7 without sounding too odd, IMO. Plus, in the mix with other instruments I doubt it sounds too bad to use even at an octave shift. I'm not sure what you mean by "tracking". If I hit a note and let it ring it doesn't ever seem to lose its place and wander off into the weeds as a synthesizer can. That is what I would call tracking and I don't think the process used to do the frequency shifting is susceptible to this kind of tracking errors. If by tracking you mean transient performance, how well it handles rapidly played passages, I may not have done enough experimenting with it to have noted any issues yet. I certainly haven't noticed any problems with it so far, I think it will do the job for me when I need it.
Ken
Finding this pedal to be WAY more useful than anticipated. Probably the best $99 I've ever spent on bass equipment...no joke!
Spent some time this morning coming up with a patch to create the effect in the intro of the song "Everyone Praises", by Desperation Band. You can find the song on YouTube if you're at all interested in the sound. We play this song a lot at church, but have never been able to recreate this intro. Thanks MS-60B!
The effects I used in the patch are:
ZNR (play a passive jazz and like to back off the bridge pup a tad, so noise reduction really helps) > Bass EQ (big boost to lows and low mids, total cut to high mids and highs) > Seq Filter
I have it set up a bit differently than the recording. Reversing the EQ boosts and cuts and playing a higher octave A would more accurately reproduce the recording...pretty a,axed with this pedal.
Spent some time this morning coming up with a patch to create the effect in the intro of the song "Everyone Praises", by Desperation Band. You can find the song on YouTube if you're at all interested in the sound. We play this song a lot at church, but have never been able to recreate this intro. Thanks MS-60B!
The effects I used in the patch are:
ZNR (play a passive jazz and like to back off the bridge pup a tad, so noise reduction really helps) > Bass EQ (big boost to lows and low mids, total cut to high mids and highs) > Seq Filter
I have it set up a bit differently than the recording. Reversing the EQ boosts and cuts and playing a higher octave A would more accurately reproduce the recording...pretty a,axed with this pedal.
SirMjac28
Patiently Waiting For The Next British Invasion
Great post Ken I talked with someone and hey mentioned that there will be updates in the future he couldn't confirm a date I'm sure someone is going to hack it soon enough
So I contributed 1 patch listing, and I even messed that one up...
Thanks for your list, Ken! And have fun with the new toy !
Ken I've been screwing around with a bunch of the stock patches and kinda regretting it...THANK YOU for this list...I'm gonna go restore some factory settings now...
So I contributed 1 patch listing, and I even messed that one up...
It is real easy to do because if you played around with one of the factory patches just to get familiar with how to run the box, all your changes are automatically saved! You probably did accurately list what was in your box when you looked at it. I, on the other hand managed to get one wrong on a box that I had intentionally not fiddled with so as to avoid this potential problem. I can only hope ...
... that for kmon's sake I made no mistakes other than the one I noticed and fixed!!
Ken
SirMjac28
Patiently Waiting For The Next British Invasion
If I'm not mistaken the only way to totally bypass the pedal is to have one patch that just has the " thru" selected? I have a patch with that and the threshold selected so I can totally bypass the pedal is that right?
You can set up the tuner to bypass rather than mute the pedal. It would not be easy to switch between those modes while performing however so if you sometimes want the tuner to mute and you want a bypass too then the technique you are already using is probably the best option.
Ken
Ken
That's true if you're using it in Multi-FX mode, running patches of multiple effects.
However, if you just scroll through the list to a single effect, and are only using the one, then stepping on the stomp button alternates between effect and bypass, just like a conventional effect pedal.
Be aware that like other multi-FX, this is not a true bypass pedal. However, I am pleased to note that it is a very clean, uncoloured, low-noise buffered bypass.
SirMjac28
Patiently Waiting For The Next British Invasion
I use a true bypass looper pedal to bypass the ms-60b. I have to say that the clean tone of the pedal without any effects on sounds just like when I bypass the pedal. That's amazing for a pedal with no bypass at all. And to add I used to have the B3 into my looper and it sounded just a little different but it wasn't bad either.
+1. I set up a true bypass looper and ended up hardly using it at the last gig.
Hey guys, I've got a question for the signal path.
can I send a clean signal through one of the outputs and a dirty one through the other?
Cheers, Sam.
can I send a clean signal through one of the outputs and a dirty one through the other?
Cheers, Sam.
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