For sure! I’m still considering the PA amp way. I actually bought it (used) for my Ampeg amp but turns out it doesn’t has a FX loop lol.
Edit: it actually might work if I go from preamp out into the power amp in.
@Paul , a load is mandatory for tube power amps. without a load, the output transformer burns very quickly.
if your amp is an hybrid, it most probably has a tube in the preamp but not in the power amp ; in this case you can use it without a load.
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Thanks Terb 
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I’ve finally pulled the trigger on the B1X four, and slowly scrolling through this thread has been a goldmine of useful information and inspiration. I still have about 500 comments left, but I would like to thank you all for contributing.
Unfortunately, I forgot to flag the most valuable comments (for me), so I cannot really thank anyone specifically. However, @howard’s fetish for compressors and @terb pods’ hunt stuck in my memory 
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I bought this Flamma FS06 guitar preamp recently :
I’m very happy with it. I wrote an email to Flamma to ask if they plan to release a bass version. it would be awesome.
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What do the numbers 1-7 represent?
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there are 7 preamps models, each one with 2 footswitchable channels. for example the 5 is a model of the Friedman BE 100 , with a clean and a drive channel. I really like this interface. it’s very “amp-like”.
by the way I had an answer from Flamma : they don’t have any project for a bass preamp now. hope they will change their mind.
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Pretty cool you should get the FS07 too and you are done with amps and cabs 
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I still have a few amps 
but yeah, it’s very comfortable to be able to play straight on the monitors.
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I received this one last week. This is a very unique pedal, made by the boutique english brand Tiny Tone. I ordered it a few times ago, but they build them one by one, after each order.
This is a notch filter based on the Gibson Varitone circuit (late 50’s, early 60’s) as used by BB King and Freddie King on their ES-345 and ES-355. The famous “Lucille” has this circuit. The Varitone exists and works for basses too.
The Tiny Tone Varitone adds a few tonal options to the original Gibson design, the most important being the Depth control. All high end components of course. The filter is totally passive, and it uses a very special choke. There is a battery but it is used only to light the LED.
Here is a schematic of the Gibson Varitone circuit, to give an idea :
That’s a very strange filter. You can plug in a LTD with a Seymour Duncan Nazgûl and make it sound very close to a Stratocaster in the middle-bridge position, for example. That’s not common.
Also I must say that the guys at Tiny Tones are really nice guys. I had a great time talking with them about the Varitone and what they decided to modify to create their own circuit. Very cool.
The pedal I have is the very first of the second series, with upgraded components and with this new faceplate :
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That’s interesting… I need my Strat less and less all the time 
I might look into one of these…
Soooo I got the Zoom B6. I figured this was a better place to post some initial thoughts about it vs the GAS thread, right? Sure…
It has an optional bluetooth adapter, and Zoom can kindly go to hell for not just using USB so they can charge $40 for it… Anyway… There’s no setting to keep the phone’s display on in the app (many audio apps feature this…), and every time the screen shuts off the app and B6 have to reconnect which shuts off audio while it does so. Oof. CPU was even higher than I anticipated. 30% for a preamp, 39% for an IR, I was at 48% with a preamp and a compressor…
…and I decided to get over it, so I kept going. There was too much good talk of this thing on TalkBass.
I was treating it like my DAW chain or a pedalboard; I always wanted a whole chain of compressor into maybe fx into preamp/amp into fx and finally my cab. I was trying to emulate an entire signal chain in a $500 box (I mean, you could when the POD HD 500X was the $500 flagship lol, miss those days and it’s everyone’s fault for rewarding Line 6 by purchasing $1000+ Helix… but I digress).
This is not the way. I wanted it to be this way and I was getting angry about it. So I started going through presets, kinda cool, played with them, most of the fanciful ones were not for me, I kept going so I could find the user bank or whatever, I got to some really nice solo’y type tones, and I was noticing that none of them, none of the effects-laden patches had preamps or cabs, obviously, as the CPU just won’t handle it, and they still sounded good. I like a lot of the acoustic bass patches on my electric actually. Super thicc. I kept going, and I kept fiddling, and I stopped worrying about always having this or that, and just focused on making sounds I liked, and that is when the B6 finally sparked joy. I found sounds, and made sounds, that are becoming the foundation of a song, or an idea, or something inspiring.
This is the way.
I liked the DI emulations; it was basically like having a free speaker cab IR instead of using those. I still need to see if I can replicate some sounds I’ve made elsewhere or see if I can get close.
I guess I’ll keep this thing after-all. For now. At least they’re pretending to GAF about bassists even if they probably only sell one B6 for every ten G6s XD
I even like the tuner, and I’m married to strobes.
Edit I am having waaaaaay too much fun with the bassified Metal Zone 
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The Zoom tuner is super usable, I liked it a lot too on the B3n.
For me the way to use it was Stomp mode but it sounds like you found a path you like better with the B6. Cool.
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The POD Go is still around that price. The Helix is just a step up in quality.
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PODGo--line-6-pod-go-guitar-multi-effects-floor-processor
Line6 aside I absolutely love Zoom stuff. I recently purchased a Zoom MS-70CDR MultiStomp for all my FX effects. The cool thing is that you can actually hack these devices which give you the ability to use MS-50G(uitar) and MS-60B(ass) effects too. Not that I need that right now, just toying around with delay, reverb, phasers, chorus, etc. is a lot of fun. Yesterday I got completely lost in ambience sounds while playing on my strat.
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I really wish they did more with that form factor. The MS-60B shares the same processor and effects as the original B1 and B3. It’s three generations old at this point, but IMO the best form-factor device they have done yet.
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Yeah for sure. This is something you can place on your pedalboard. I’m not really interested in the mediocre amp and cab sims from Zoom, but the effects are all top notch.
Oh and it has a built in tuner too!
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I used mine mostly for amp and cabsims, and chorus. But yeah there’s much better amp sims out there. Cabsims I’m less picky about - not the type to download hundreds of IR files and corksniff them all 
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The Zoom amp sims are not bad but just old. In the recent years sims have improved quite a lot. They may have been revised for the new Zoom B6.
I rather have a few really good cab sims instead of 1000 options. For now I go with the cab that goes with the amp.
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it took them a long, long time to come out with the cheaper POD Go after the Helix came out. I’m well aware it exists 
The HD Line was also a “step up in quality” from previous generations. I think the HD500 Pro is still being sold but I don’t want to look it up 
Me, too. I have the MS-100BT, the redheaded step child sibling of the MS-50G, MS-60B, and MS-70CDR. Somehow the app magically still works but eventually it will probably stop working. The app lets you load effects from both of those units onto the MS-100BT over bluetooth. But it makes you reset it for every new phone you try to use with it (sighs why are you like this, Zoom??). I like it for using it as a “select a chain of effects at once” sort of pedal to put in the FX loop (which I might do here). It can hold most but not quite all of the effects Zoom has available.
I’ve seen firmware hacks and custom effects on the Multistomp subreddit but they were for the MS-70 CDR iirc, or the others. I don’t think the 100 sold as well, I barely see it mentioned. I might sell it for a 70 and install a custom firmware or something
For the CPU cost they better be lol. Nearly every preamp or amp sim is 30% or more, with 1-2 in the 20ish range. The Dark Pre is 40% iirc, as it mimics a B7K Ultra or something. Hell, the Corona TriChorus is also like 40% lol… The HD Hall reverb is in that range, too
During some testing I did last night, and in using my Element or the Exponent, I really don’t like cab sims on bass as much as guitar where it makes a much bigger difference. I never did like SVT 8x10 IRs, for example. Honestly I like the DI emus much more than the cab sims and those are “free” (ie CPU cycles are quietly reserved for them I’m sure XD). I do really like the Hesu 2x12 Ola Englund made available to download, though. But yeah, I’m happy with the B6 and not using IRs. Most of the ones available really darken the sound.
Tbh the preamp thing is barely an issue; the Tone Capsule and Fluences sound spectacular on their own.
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I got a sound on the B6 with their “DarkPre” that I like better than my actual Darkglass pedal 
Though to be fair I haven’t used my B7K with these new pickups/preamp (Fluence bass and Dg Tone Capsule).
It was an interesting experience all the same. 36% CPU load but I was only running a noise reduction in front of it. There’s definitely an output difference between my basses now; the C-5 GT retains its “I’m obnoxious and brash and loud; crown lol
I like using a multipedal on the floor vs my MIDI foot controller for the DAW tbh. It’s easier for me to keep track of what does what vs a generic controller
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That B6 sure sounds like a new killer product from Zoom. 
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