Zoom B3 sound samples and patches

Zoom B3 Bass Sound Samples and Patches

Here are some sound samples recorded with my Zoom B3 bass mutlieffect.

Note I'm a self-taught, intermediate player.

Click the cgraham.com logo above for links to my other pages.

My quick review:

Pros: The price! Very easy and intuitive to use, easy to see tuner with both LCD and red/gree LED, lots of bread-n-butter effects, plus a variety of unique experimental effects not found in other units such as bitcrusher, auto-pitch bend (BendCho), synth effects, and unique envelope controlled modulation and delays, a really good noise gate that you can trigger from the effect chain or your raw input, the latter allowing you to get some really tight gates for interesting effects. Clean blend on most effects which is often desired by bass players plus a master per-patch clean blend. 1/4" and XLR DI outputs, headphone output (uses L MONO jack), and USB with... YES! drivers and editor apps! If only BOSS/Roland would produce factory patch editor apps!!!
Cons: A lot of the effects aren't fabulous sounding which is always one of the issues with multieffects, though you usually have more than one to choose from. Most of the drive effects are buzzy in the highs and not particularly thick and saturated in the lows/mids like their hardware counterparts would be, though this is common with digital multieffects. Drive effects are also not "touch sensitive" so they have the same basic sound at all input volumes unlike a natural tube overdrive which cleans up when the input is rolled off. No MIDI input so no way to slave a MIDI clock or control via MIDI, in fact there isn't even a tempo setting per-patch it's one global setting which is super annoying if you want a bunch of different patches pre-programmed to specific bmp. Requires an external footswitch to use tap tempo, but then you cannot use an expression at the same time as there's only a single sereo control jack. No really good way to directly switch paches while playing. An editor app, but no online library to faciliate easy user sharing of patches, can power from a Voodoo Labs 250ma 9V connector so you don't need the annoying external power brick. Bingo!

Conclusion: At the sub-$200 street price it's hard to really complain about this unit and there should be plenty of features to help you enjoy the device.

Zoom B3

MP3	Patch Download (right-click and choose Save As)	Description	Instrument Used	Interface Used	Notes
	n/a	First custom synth	Lakland Duck Dunn, Lindy Fralin pickup, D'Adarrio rounds, pick	Zoom B3 USB	MonoSynth into MonoPitch one octave down and blended into Z-Synth which is the key to the deep, fat, rich tone heard. This 145bpm clip illustrates the limit of the retriggering possible with the monosynth effect, at least with my playing ability. I'm heaily palm muting and playing all down strokes which seems effective with aiding retriggering though you can hear my notes falling behind the beat frequently. Playing quarter notes instead is no issue but I thought I'd illustrate the boundaries of the performance of the unit.
		Custom synth collection	Lakland Duck Dunn, Lindy Fralin pickup, D'Adarrio rounds, fingered	Zoom B3 USB	Batch of custom synth patches, some of which are leverages from the factory "Moog" patch. Sound clips is just me noodling live through each of the patches included, cycling through them in patch mode on the B3.
n/a		Bit Crusher	n/a	n/a	A few bit crusher patches. 01 is a killer vocal synth sound produced by sending an envelope filtered synth voice through a sample reducer, the other two are more of a gated/noisey bitcrusher tone.
		Gated High Gain Fuzz	n/a	n/a	My attempt at heavily gated, high gain fuzz sounds. You hear clean, then the three patches shared here, then a standard gated fuzz from the Octavius Squeezer. Each is cycled with straight fuzz (no amp sims) and a BOSS OC-2 with OCT1 soloed. Keep in mind no amp sims are used here so you're hearing the raw tone of the fuzz. Listenin to the clip I find the Zoom fuzz to be more pleasing, but overly bass laden compared to the Squeezer fuzz which sounds awesome through my amp. For some reason it comes through thin sounding here, though it is definitely a more mid-focused square fuzz. Bah, should've recorded through an amp sim.
n/a		Octaves	n/a	n/a	Patch is bypass by default, then Pitch Shift, MonoPitch, and Octaver all set to -12 soloed so you can quickly compare some of the different octave sounds. Note I've adjusted the tone of each to be fairly dark/deep but they all have tone controls to brighten, if desired.
n/a		Contra / Double Bass	n/a	n/a	First crack at a plucked double-bass type sound. Make sure to play like you're using a double bass - with fingers, and near the neck.
		Touch wah	Lakland Duck Dunn, Lindy Fralin pickup, D'Adarrio rounds, fingered	Zoom B3 USB	Patch has the ZTron, A-Filter, and M-Filter as heard in this clip. The clip starts: clean/bypass, ZTron, A-Filter, M-Filter, then two different envelope-only patches from my Chunk Systems Octavius Squeezer for comparison.
		Compressors	Lakland 66-40 Jazz, front+rear pickups, tone rolld slightly, unknown rounds tuned D-G-C-F, picked then fingered	Zoom B3 USB	Quick attempt to compare various compressors. Loop recorded into BOSS RC-2 for repeatability across all compressors. Fingered run, then picked run, both with obnoxiously accented attacks at the end. Here's what you hear: dry, MXR Bass Comp ratio:8, Zoom D180 soft knee ratio:8, Zoom M-Comp ratio:8, Zoom Dual Band Comp. I did my best to setup each comp similarly so you can hear their performance and tonal differences. Check the shared patch for my exact settings.
n/a		Muff Fuzz	n/a	n/a	Best attempt to create a couple patches that sound somewhat like a classic Civil War muff using my Wren and Cuff Box of War tone as a template.
		Custom Synth Collection	Lakland Duck Dunn, Lindy Fralin pickup, LaBella flats, fingered	Heil PR40, M-Audio Profire610	All of my current synth patches. Played against a dirty Abby Road Drums loop, into SLM Ampeg SVT-CL and Peavey 15" Black Widow. Whipped up a fairly simple synth bass line using jumped octaves which are typically a challenge for most monophonic pitch tracking effects. Some of the missed notes are my playing, some are the B3's difficulty tracking particularly on the "low_synth_01" patch, and sometimes on my E string even though I'm playing fairly high up there playing a B and sometimes down to the A on a few runs.
n/a		Muff Fuzz (more)	n/a	n/a	Another attempt to create a patch that sound somewhat like a classic Civil War muff using my Wren and Cuff Box of War tone as a template. This one soundsa little more creamy due to the heavy compression, and I think tonally less thin and brittle in the top end due to using a preamp as a tone shaper to roll off the highs and scoop the mids. On the downside, no noise gate so it has an audible noise floor.
n/a		Envelope Filter w/ducked delay	n/a	n/a	Patch I made for a bridge in one of my band's new songs. Has a fairly fat envelope filter with an optional ducking delay which sounds great with held notes as the delay fades in. You'll likely need to adjust the filter sens as my bass has a fairly high output so it opens the filter easily, some of my other instruments require a bump in sens.
n/a		Three Comps	n/a	n/a	Patch I made to test out three comps. Theoretically set for similar output levels and overall compression action so you get to hear the difference of the comp models. I personally tend to favor 160 and D-Comp models.
		Straight LPF	Lakland Duck Dunn, Lindy Fralin pickup, GHS pressure wound, fingered	n/a	Attempts to mimic a Moog MF-101 or DOD FX25 setup as a static filter for pure LPF rolloff of the highs. I couldn't really nail the specific tone but I think it gives you an overall static LPF quality which could be good for reggea, dub, etc. Normally you would simply set the Moog filter model with sens=0 but for whatever reason none of the filters can be set static, they always have movement. If you need more highs in the tone adjust the Frequency in the splitter. Sound clip: clean, DOD FX25, Moog MF-101 then the Zoom patch all into Ampeg SVX amp sim.

Last updated 04-03-2013