Zoom B1 Bass Multi-Effects Pedal User Reviews at zZounds

"Zoom B1. A great product. Just go and buy one." submitted August 23, 2008

By a customer from iprimus.com.au

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

Manufacturer Support

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: Hobbyist

Music Style: Rock

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Sound: I tried out the zoom B1 after being disappointed with some Korg machines that were noisey as hell. They were full of digital hashy fuzz. The B1 is Quiet, no digital fuzz and no background noise. Brilliant. The effects are excellent but overall I select either the Fender Bassman or the Tube Preamp sound. The drum sounds are great. Feature: You get a Tuner, a headphone amp, a Drum machine to practice to, a preamp, a chorus, a flanger, a echo unit and cool bassamp sounds for about US$50. It doesnt get any better than this. Ease of Use: Read the manual and away you go. It only took me an hour or two to get familiar with the unit. It makes sense and I like the simplisity. Quality: Even if it is a plastic case it seems pretty strong. Value: Its a bargain. Great product for a great price. Dont even hesitate, go a buy one. Manufacturer Support: Its only new so I have had to use the warranty The Wow Factor: I will be able to use this with just a power amp and speakers. No need for a preamp as you can dial up a great sound. Overall: I dont want lots of features and controls to confuse me. I just want a great sound without to much trouble. With the B1 just dial it in. I looked at the B2 but it had the same sounds with more parameter control. This is not necessary as the B1 provides plenty of variation if you want it.

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"Throws "too good to be true" in the garbage" submitted March 10, 2009

By a customer from yahoo.com

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: 15 months behind a bass, 6 months in a band

Music Style: rock, heavy rock, metal, nu metal

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Sound: well, this being my first pedal ever using, I don't know anything about the statistics or anything of the sound, I just hear "good noise, bad noise" and good god this is a amazing noise. Feature: this pedal would make (and has made) an awesome first pedal, it has pretty much everything a bassist could want, a built in drum machine really helps in my case, because our band at the moment is lacking a drummer =D but with the basic customization of your sound, theres always a new riff or solo poping in your head going "hey, I should play this with that patch" Ease of Use: after reading the manual and messing around, it became like a part of me, Im still a little bit in the dark about what some words and symbols mean, and the "PLAY" button should be out enough to hit it with your foot, for those non-druming intros, but other then that, its easy. Quality: at first, of course, I was skeptic about buying a plastic pedal, but all in all, but it's made of some really thick plastic, I doubt it will ever crack, snap, or break in any way unless your really trying to. Value: i've looked at like, $300 pedals, and even more than that, and so far, this is the best pedal, for the best value i've seen by far Manufacturer Support: havn't had to deal with the company yet, and I doubt ill have to The Wow Factor: kinda like your first real relationship at first your kinda nervous about buying it, because "it's too good to be true" or "all the other ones have let me down" but once you have got it in your arms, and after your play and learn all of the patches, and beats, exc. you've realized that your in love. Overall: this will/is a vital part of my bass playing, and I doubt ill ever find anything else to replace it, its an amazing pedal, for an AMAZING price, and all in all, you must buy it.

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"So much for so little" submitted August 21, 2009

By a customer from hotmail.com

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: active musician, home recordist, proffessional studio and stage side jobs

Music Style: ambient, rock, alternative 'pop', singer-songwriter type solo work

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Sound: I really like a lot of the presets. It takes some time to program because the interface and display are not very intuitive. I had to set some of the levels different because some of the preset patches are much quieter than others, and I wanted to be able to switch without having to keep turning my volume on my amp up and down. Minor detail. It only takes a couple minutes to edit a patch and just bring its master level up or down. The effects are fine, clear, good job there. The amp models are nice sounding but don't always sound like the amp they are supposed to emulate. Some do, other, while sounding good, don't sound like what it says it is. No big deal there, they still sound nice. I like that it has a lot of exotic, less used effects like the resonator, slow attack (I use that one a lot for ambient stuff), the synth, that wierd 'step' arpeggiator thing that zoom created, harmonizer... lots of wierd little effects to mess with if you like experimenting with ambience and wierd unnatural noises. Feature: It didn't come with an adaptor (grr I hate that!), and the drum machine, white cute, is hardly useful as an actual drum machine. I think of it more as a glorified metronome, or a jamming toy to mess around playing along with when you're bored Ease of Use: Its easy to just cycle through the presets, but programming it is another story. Because of its limited display, and lack of many buttons, I have to keep my manual nearby when I try to program a new sound. I don't like that you have to just click up and down through patches, instead of selecting one first and then clicking to trigger it to change. It just changes the moment you hit one of the footswitches. I'm not sure, but I think there's a way to change the setting that lets you do that, I just haven't done it yet. Quality: Well it's durable for plastic. The buttons and stuff are all designed to be knocked around a bit. You could drop it, but I wouldn't suggest dropping something ON it. Value: Hey it has its flaws, but just for the sound quality, and number of posibilities it offers it's easily worth its price and then some, even if its not built like a tank, and a little awkward to program. Manufacturer Support: I've dealt with Zoom before for other stuff, and they are cool. The Wow Factor: I think small boxes that do lots of things are very desireable. I hate giant pedal boards. Overall: It's not the ultimate bass station with tons of controls and footswitches to make life easy, but I don't think bass players need as many toys as guitarists anyways, they need tones to choose from. In this, it excells. It has all the toys a bass player could want, and makes home recording easy to get great amp tones they would never have been able to afford if it weren't for modelling. It's 50 bucks, and does so much. It's the only bass effector I need, and if mine died, I would buy another one just like it.

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