On the B1four (and the B3n) nearly all of the individual effects are good to great.
Many of the factory presets are terrible, but they are basically demos you can ignore. The real strength of the thing lies in its individual effect models that you can arrange however you like.
And for learning about effects there is no better buy. I still consider the Zoom boxes I have owned some of the best money I have ever spent on gear.
Stu Hamm, Marcus Miller, and Victor Wooten have all gigged with them (usually the B3n). Here’s Marcus with a B3n:
Are the modeled effects just as good as regular pedals? Well, no, not all of them. (though some are - the compressors are great and some of the modulation effects are really good.)
But considering that for $90 you get essentially all of the pedals, they are a steal.
Well, brands do it and players play big bucks for it
I haven’t got a clue if that aging changes the sound as well… I guess so for some treatments at least
I agree to @howard that the Zoom B1 Four is a great piece of gear and packs a lot of good things… just it does not really allow you to use all of those good things together.
For me I hoped to use it as a single device to practice independently with headphones. But it does not have so much gain on the bass signal so the rythm box and AUX input easily overwhelms the bass sound.
If you use this pedal before the amp input, AUX input and rythm box becomes useless becuase they get amplified times over the bass signal. So you need to get the rythm volume as low as 5 out of 100 when using with an amp. You can get the backing track from another source of course.
So far my most successful use case, has been connecting the output of my VOX Amplug Bass Headphone Amp to input of Zoom B1 Four.
Bass->Amplug->Zoom->Headphones
Basically pre amplifying the bass. Supplying both Zoom B1 Four and Amplug from batteries… for me this is the ultimate mobile setup while using all the functionalities.
Today I watched this video and it really inspired me!
Other use case was connecting it to the Digital Audio Interface which I think many people also do.
I sold the Battalion and BDI-21 when I got the ValveDrive and VT Bass DI. The ValveDrive is actually doing well covering for both but I can see another VT Bass DI someday. Going to focus music spending on synths for a bit though, going down that rabbit hole again
I’m definitely going software synth, they are just so damn good now. I’ve really been blown away by a few of them. At this point I am having a really hard time deciding between buying Arturia Pigments or Kilohearts Phase Plant. Probably going with Phase Plant because it’s basically going to end up being the next Serum.
I did just grab a great deal on a used Alesis V49 though. Needed to up my MIDI controller game.
I’ve been eyeing Boss synths too!
