Zoom B1Xon Bass Multi-Effects Pedal

I have to preface this glowing review for the Zoom B1on with an admission - I'm not a "real" bass player. I have about 20 years of guitar experience and really enjoy playing, researching, and reviewing every guitar-related gadget imaginable, but my bass experience is limited to a single Squier P-Bass and as much knowledge/ability as I might need to lay down a bass track for something I'm recording at home. So I can't represent that I understand the nuances between this bass effects unit and a $2,000 bass rig. Fortunately, at $49.99, Zoom has made a quality product here that allows me to cycle through thousands of dollars of gear (as easily as changing to the next preset) and sound great through a set of headphones. At present, I don't have a bass combo amp at my house, but if you do, I've heard the B1on sounds great as a tone shaper/effects unit into the front end of your amp. Compared to the excellent G1on (for guitar), I found the factory presets on the B1on to be infinitely more practical and useful. A lot of bass tones can sound "same-ish" to the untrained ear, but the B1on assembles a great suite of varied amp models, plus effects that range from simple compression and overdrive to wild synth and octave effects. If you want straightforward rock bass tones, the B1on has dozens of them. If you want crazy, fuzzed-out, sustaining notes that sound more like an analog synthesizer playing a distorted square wave, the B1on can do that too. Best of all, there's a pretty effective noise gate/suppressor included, so even the most effects-laden tones remain relatively quiet and functional. BUILD QUALITY/INTERFACE - Zoom is really it's own worst enemy when it comes to the aesthetics of their devices. I remember the first time I saw the G1on, I scrolled right past it and didn't even pay attention to the features. I was certain that this $50 piece of plastic out of the mid-90's had to be a piece of garbage. It wasn't until I did some more research and (ultimately) tried one for myself that I realized how much technology was crammed under the hood. And, actually, once you acclimate yourself to the interface, I find both the G1on and B1on to be fairly durable and easy to program. There's a great 30-second looper that time-syncs with the programmed drum patterns, and it's better-implemented than units I've tried from DigiTech and other companies costing 3 times as much. The colored knob turns in notched increments, so it's fairly predictable if you have to skip over three pedals to the right, for example, to adjust a gain or EQ setting. Best of all, all of your changes auto-save, so if you find that preset is too loud and fix it, you won't have to do that a second time. RECORDING/DI FUNCTIONALITY - I want clarify one thing about the output and recording functionality of the B1on, since I still had some questions after reading the other reviews. The B1on, unlike the more-expensive B3, does not operate as a USB audio interface. The USB jack is strictly for firmware updates, and cannot send/receive audio. There is only one "output" jack on the device, which is a 1/4" instrument cable. This can be fed to the front end of a combo amp, or to headphones with a 1/4" adapter. HOWEVER, the output is not "line level" in the sense that it is meant to go directly into a mixer or recording device. In other words, you should think of the B1on as an effects pedal that does modeling and tone shaping, but it is not a "preamp", and will require additional amplification before you send it to a power amp or mixer. That being said, there are workarounds that allow you to record with the B1on quite easily. If you have an interface that is already designed to accept instrument level signal (such as the Apogee JAM for iOS devices), then you can run the B1on in front of that like a simple effects pedal and end up with a raw audio signal that includes all of the amp and cabinet models in that signal. Alternatively, I believe you could run the B1on into a preamp/DI box like the $30 Behringer BDI21, and then run that pedal into a mixer or interface, and that should generally work too. These options won't be as "clean" or "authentic" as using a true DI or USB Audio solution, but it's completely functional for my needs. CONCLUSION - I think the Zoom B1on is a outstanding unit that could be useful to a broad range of musicians. If you're an experienced bass player with some decent gear, it seem pretty likely that you could find $50 of value out of the dozens of effects and different sounds offered by the B1on. Even if you aren't much of a bass player at all, or are just starting out on bass, this is a $50 device that allows you to experience a huge variety of studio-quality tones, practice with headphones, and even play along with drums and a looper without having to commit to buying large bass amp for your home. It even can be used as a bass amp modeler for recording, using a few of the tips/tricks I discussed above. Like it's guitar FX sibling, the B1on is an impossible value, producing beautiful sounds from a less-than-beautiful plastic enclosure.

I've never used effects pedals at all in my many years of playing...thought I would give this one a shot since the price to features ratio was stupid good. The pedal is very easy to figure out. I was impressed with the variety of patches preloaded. I picked a clean tone using the SWR amp model, then added some compression, and EQ. I then saved this sound to every other slot in bank A. I then added some neato effects in the remaining slots in bank A - I'm now only a click up or down away from a clean tone that I'm happy with. The preselect option is cool, but I fumble with stepping through several clicks, then hitting both pedals to select it...this method works well for me because I typically don't use the effects much, but it's cool to have a method I like when I do use them. I repeated the same thing on bank B, but with a different baseline tone, and trippy effects on every other slot. I took all of the amp models featured and made solid tone settings for each slot in bank C - I can dial up classic amp sounds that sound very distinctly like what they are modeled after. Nice work, Zoom. I've found the best tone for me happens when I go from the Zoom to my EQ pedal and into the effects return of my combo amp - bypassing my amps internals/EQ which altered the sound too much even with amps EQ flat. Additionally, check that your overall levels for each effect that you're using - found in "Patch Settings" are similar, or you could get some unwanted brown note when you hit that Big Willie patch setting and the level is jacked way up there. Great product, lots of fun...the drum set and loop stuff is great for generating ideas and staying sharp on your timing. I trust it for live sound and would recommend to those like me who want some variety in their tone but without a substantial investmest and easy learning curve.

I'd like to begin my review with a little background. I've been a musician in some form or other for more than 20 years, and I've been playing electric bass and guitar for 16 years. I've had at least eight different guitars and basses in my lifetime, and an eclectic variety of amps and effects. I've always enjoyed playing a range of music, and have never had time for anything that can only do one or two things, even if they do so very well. As such, I've grown accustomed to multi-effects and modelling processors that are either quite expensive (Line 6 Vetta II) or are entirely lacking in quality. After a number of events in my life, I ended up getting rid of most of my gear and putting music on the back burner. Recently, I've wanted to get back into music. I bought an economical Ibanez 5-string bass and a 25-watt Fender bass combo. My old Zoom 506II from years past was beat up and did not sound at all pleasing to my ear. Imagine my surprise when I discovered a highly-rated effects pedal from the same company that was not only less expensive, but had a vast improvement in quality! I've only scratched the surface in the last couple of days, but there is a whole new world of sonic potential in this humble unit. I am already amazed at the pre-amp and amp models. The aggressive tones with a little grit sound wonderful, and funky lines really come to life with the dynamics models. The more atmospheric settings allow for some interesting moody work, especially when using the looper. Speaking of the devil, when I was last in the market for one of those, the retail price for a 30 second looper was in the hundreds of dollars. To have one built-in as a bonus to an already great unit is awesome! Overall, this is one of my favorite purchases from Amazon. If you need to add some tonal variety to your bass guitar, this effects unit is a must!

As a guitarist, I used many effects. Since becoming a bass player, I never used any, instead preferring the clean sound of just bass straight into the amp. Because of that, I'm not very familiar at all with many of these different bass effects. But after spending a week or two with the Zoom B1on, I now have a working knowledge of what each of these effects boxes are supposed to do. And I've learned that many of what I thought were clean bass signals on my favorite artists' CDs, have actually been enhanced, although just enough to merely 'flavor' the sound rather than completely change it. A touch of compression, a hint of chorus or reverb...you get the idea. The best thing about this pedal is the price. For $50, I get all the effects I could ever want, and I do not have to spend $150 EACH for an envelope filter, compressor, OD/distortion, reverb, flanger, chorus, octaver, etc. I've read from some of the more experienced players that these are not exact copies of these effects, but merely close-enough representations. So what. For my ears they tell me all I want to know. Once I figured out the interface it was easy to create my own patches, or simply edit some of the 100 presets. It is so cool to be able to A/B back and forth between the Sansamp and the MXR DI+ with one push of a pedal. Or do similar comparisons between different compressors, choruses, filters, etc, to see which one suits your taste best. Then you can chain these effects in any order you want. Extremely flexible and relatively easy to program, this box will keep me occupied for a long time as I educate myself on not only all the different effects, but then going one step further by playing with all the different settings on each effect. Still learning the looper and rhythm machine but I'll get there eventually. So far, just having way too much fun experimenting with the effects. Did I mention the price? Awesome little dynamo!

Original Review - 1 Star Defective out of the box. Powering on, I get a faint, fuzzy static for all features. Disappointed. Troubleshooting and a reset produced no results. June 19 Update - 4 Stars An update. Amazon return/replacement is fast and convenient. As soon as I contacted Amazon Returns, they provided a link that allowed the printing of a return slip. This was during a weekend, but on Monday UPS picked up the defective item. The very next day UPS delivered the new, replacement Zoom. Amazon has been great, to say the least. About the Zoom ... I don't typically have need for an effects pedal, but I bought the Zoom because I specifically wanted two effects: polyphonic octaving and delay. The various amps and distortions are great, as well as the overdrive and chorus, and I will use them, but I really wanted polyphonic octaving to give the bass an 8 string effect (octave up, not down) for some songs. Happily, Zoom can do this (up or down). While not a perfect emulation, it certainly sounds good, which is good enough for my purposes not wanting to spend $1000 or more on an 8 string guitar. The delays aren't exactly what I'd hoped for (even the lowest settings are too long for what I wanted), but happily the Zoom has a fretless effect which turned out to be almost exactly the sound that I was looking for. So, well done to Zoom, especially for less than $75. The musicians who developed the patches obviously put a lot of thought into them. Many of the clean and distortion patches (along with the amp effects by themselves) are so similar that one has to have a discriminating ear to favor one over another, especially when heard through a combo amp or cabinet (like my Peavey and Behringers). Listening through headphones is a good idea here because naturally the effect becomes more attenuated when heard through a sound system. That's not Zoom's problem; it's just a fact of life when dealing with sound equipment. Several of the patches do sound goofy and unnecessary, like some of the cheesey 70's disco effects, or the Space Martian-ey sounds, but I assume they were created to demonstrate the versatility of the pedal itself. The ability to use 5 effects at once, and to put them in whatever order you want, adds another order of magnitude of sounds that might be produced. It will be some time before I've had a chance to explore just some of the thousands of permutations this little pedal offers. In fact, between bass, Zoom pedal, and sound system, there is no reason why anybody couldn't create their own sound thumbprint that nobody could ever duplicate. Another plus is that your changes to a particular patch can be saved automatically, or the unit can prompt you whether you want to save it or not. I don't auto save. I'm glad for the option to discard a patch, because my initial impulse is to experiment with every patch I play, and not every experiment goes as planned or needs to be saved. Now, one negative I will mention is that there is no On/Off switch with the Zoom. Why I don't know, but it adds an unnecessary set up step (plugging in somewhere, depending on how you decide to power it) each time it is used. It's not a huge deal but it would be nice just to flip a switch with a foot and play. Another negative is the lack of blank memory space for patches. If you want to save a patch you've created, then you have to overwrite a patch that somebody at Zoom put thought into creating. Losing any patch is a pity. Even if I don't plan to use a patch, like the goofy disco sounding patches, someday I might want to reference them for some reason just to see how the experts created it. A reset would get those patches back, true, so I'll have to save my created patches to a notebook for that possibility. Now, if this had cost $150 or 200, I would be inclined to give Zoom a lower rating because of the negatives mentioned above. The original I received was defective, too. But I didn't pay $150 or 200 for this box, not even close. There are lots of effects, and they sound good. The only limitation to this pedal in the near future is my own imagination. And Amazon got a replacement into my hands within two business days of my reporting a problem. Taking everything into consideration, I can give the Zoom 4 Stars. It's well worth the money.

I am a gigging musician that plays about 60 shows/year across a variety of genres in cover bands - rock, disco, RnB, pop - dance music mostly. I had been using a Line6 Basspod Pro rack unit. When the floor pedal died I figured it was time to look around. The B1On sounds too good to be true, but really offers almost exactly what I need in a pedal - amp sim, EQ, compression, and the ability to create a half-dozen presets for the different genres described above. On the theory that less is more, I don't need any of the OTT fx, just the meat and potatoes needed to sound kind of like popular recordings in a live venue where we need to get people moving and I need to make rapid seamless sound switches between songs. Caveats: 1) The 100 presets it comes with a good starting point, but you really need to dig into the settings and build your own custom sounds. This takes sitting around with your real rig at real volume twiddling knobs until you get it dialed in. For me this took a few evenings, making some notes, revising, etc. Be careful - every setting change should have a reason and don't use more than you need. 2) I play a Fender Aerodyne Jazz bass (J+P) thru a Roland V-bass combo (15" + horn). I found eventually that the B1On sounded better going direct into the FX return than into the guitar input on the front. In this way you bypass the amp's internal EQ and all the front knobs other than the volume control. 3) With the amp sims, there is a mix setting that lets you mix how much speaker sim is used. I have found that a little of this is needed - 25-40% maybe. Too much gets muddy. 4) This is not like a pedal board where you can make changes to individual fx in the middle of a song. A single preset encompasses ALL of the fx. As a bass player this is not much a problem, as you generally want the same tone throughout a song - a different concept than guitar. I put an Ernie Ball volume pedal in front of the B1ON, worked up six presets - FlipTop (classic RnB), SVT with OD (70's arena rock), GK with chorus (80's), Marshall with OD (hard rock), etc. There are a lot of samples online that can give you a good start on these classic sounds. I have gotten lots of nice comments on an improvement in tone from other musicians whose opinion I respect. I notice that the signal is quite clean - far less noisy than the Line6. I also use an iPad to keep track of lyrics, so it was easy to put the preset for the song at the top of each page. As I swipe to the next song it's right there telling me what to change to, altho I also give the presets names that kind of make sense. It's been durable thus far (6 shows?). Being plastic I do not "stomp" on it. At $50, if it croaked I'd just get another one. The display is a little small - I could wish that I could read the presets more easily at a gig, but then the device would be bigger and I'd be complaining about that. It can be battery powered, but I don't trust batteries. Luckily it can take power thru USB via any old phone charger you have lying around. Altho it was not originally available, a guy wrote a program that lets you backup and rearrange presets - it's free for DL. I do not think much of the synth sounds thus far - but maybe I don't know what I'm doing. I do not use the looper or rhythm parts.

This pedal has a lot of features for the price. On that basis I give it a high rating. The presets are very easy to edit. I just tinkered around with it for a bit and was able to figure a lot of it out. Some of the presets are ones I don't intend to use, so I will edit them to be more along the lines of what I prefer. I do like the ability to put the effects in whatever order you prefer. That is a big plus. I am not too impressed by the amp simulation though. Look, when you have a distorted guitar or bass, you generally, for recording purposes, don't plug them directly into your recorder. You basically will run them into an amplifier, which you will then mic. My hope was that the amp simulation would be adequate to run the distorted bass directly into your recorder with the quality being at least somewhat close to placing a microphone near the speaker of an actual amplifier speaker cabinet. Not even close. So I ran it into my computer and used amp simulation software for that and it sounded very good. I used the fuzz effect from the Zoom unit to see if distortion could be smoothed out by using a software amp simulation program on the PC. It worked great. I can, however, run directly into a recorder from this unit as long as I don't use distortion effects. Everything else would be fine to run directly into a recorder. It's just that when you use distortion, running through an amplifier and speaker cabinet, it smooths it out a lot and you get the resonance of the wood in the cabinet. I have yet to try a pedal with amp/cabinet simulation that was really close to an actual amp and cabinet in sound quality. So it's not just a Zoom thing. However, I have tried amp simulation software that works great. I love using the presets that use the compressor effects. It really makes the bass sound nice and they can go directly into a recorder. So the only issue is using the distortion effects and trying to run directly into a recorder. However, overall, I am very pleased with what it offers.

Pros: A great loop station and a drum machine. The timing on effects is in sync with the drum machine BPM. Great choice of effects and preset patches. I used it in a couple of shows and at rehearsals. Amp models are good, if you don't like the amp sound at the rehearsal space you can adjust it. This processor lets you decide what pedals you need to buy. ----------- Cons: Perhaps my active bass is too hot, but sound quality degrades in some of the effects and I can hear digital artifacts, particularly with the compression effects. The foot switches are unpredictable and there's no click. Sometimes it does not switch at all. When you engage the tuner it may switch to a different patch. Effect/volume pedal does not have a spring and it's really hard to position it precisely. It's pretty useless. Tuner is not precise, which is a shame. I don't use it anymore. Headphone amp needs more power. Summary: good for solo practicing with a looper and a drum machine and a backing track. Will work on rehearsals when you need some effects. Not a reliable workhorse, particularly the footswitches. for the shows and some effects may have artifacts depending on your signal chain.

For the price this is fantastic. Plastic so not something you are likely to take out on the road but for home use and the beginner bass player this works great.

Muy bien producto con muchos efectos, solo aún no puedo realizar cambios de forma más rápida, pero excelente producto

Not bad for the price. Actually use some good heavy wattage amp with this device. A mere 40 or 80 watt amp won't help.. use a 120 watt amp and you get the full potential of the processor. I have been using this since 4 months and it sounds decent for the price. The only con is you have to buy the specified adapter for 2000 bucks extra. Coz. Any other adapter will create hum.

Its just reach to me in 3 days & packing is safe. The processor is just osum! Tunning afficency for 5 to 6 string bass is accurate. Many effect, stomp box effect, many pedals are working well and just feel free to play any thing. And drum and rhytham pattern gives me the great exercise time to play with it. Lopper gives me the the great beauty of playing. Overall happy with it !!!

Fantastic tuner on this thing , very accurate. It's easy to use and affordable. If you are learning Bass and want to try some new sounds this is the product for you. Shipped quickly, and very affordable.