Zoom B2 Four Bass Multi-Effects Processor with 6 DI Boxes, Multi-Layered IR’s, Amp Modeling, 100+ Built in Effects, Looper, Lightweight & Audio Interface for Direct Recording to Computer

I've owned a few Zoom bass multi-effects units. This one one seems to really hit a sweet spot in size, functionality, and value. The individual effects' sound quality is darn respectable. It has *all* the goodies in there - drum machine, looper, DI with "preamp" simulations, every effect under the sun, USB output for recording, software configurable. What's not to like? I think the user-interface is pretty clunky - similar to the B6. I think the B1 is *way* more intuitive, although that one has less to configure. Also, as with most Zoom products, the pre-programmed sounds are super goofy / marketing sounds nobody in their right mind would use for reals. It's a solid buy, but for more money, I think the Helix Stomp has much better sounds, although actually has fewer features (e.g. no DI).

Sound quality is great! Solidly built. Lots of presets. The big buttons are easy to press, the directional control ones are a little harder to navigate with foot. Not sure what the other reviewer is trying to do, but this definitely has drum backing tracks. Currently only has an iOS app, hoping they'll bring out a PC and Android app soon.

Giving four not five because I don’t think the tones and effects are really upgraded at all from the B14 and MS60 series. Other than that, works well and lots of options. Would make a good fly rig.

Not thrilled with the presets. A Drum machine is standard on the B3 and B1 four. The new B2 four does not have it. Disappointing. There is no patch editing software for PC. That is a deal breaker. Returned this junk.

Zoom offers a bass pedal with great effects. You need to take your time and find the sounds you want for your gig. It’s easier to change settings from an iPad or iPhone. Its quality is amazing and it’s really light to carry on.

I purchased this mainly because I wanted something to emulate darkglass/parallax style distortions with. It seemed promising, featuring darkglass pedal simulations, and the ability to stack distortions, plus several good compressor options. It was also one of the cheaper effects units that actually features an XLR out! I was also curious and excited about the fact that it had patches that reference L'Arc〜en〜Ciel and Luna Sea! It was cool to see some J-Rock patches on a unit, I've never seen that before.However, despite having settings that apparently let you split the signal to let the lows be clean and the highs be overdriven, and having darkglass pedal sims, i couldn't really come close to those types of distortions that I was looking for, though. The routing options were simply too limited to effectively pull that kind of patch off. Another buzzkill was the fact that there's no universal way to control output at a master level, meaning that some patches will be really quiet vs really loud without heavily tweaking various points or doing things like using a compressor or EQ to use tame them, which will take up a slot of memory in the virtual pedal board. Lastly, there's not way to edit patches on the computer with a more expanded UI. I feel like that'd be a nice option, and apparently its predecessor and the B6 have it? Bummer that this doesn't.I will say that I think it sounds good otherwise, and if you don't mind working around the patch volumes and don't need to do the Clean low end/distorted high end type distortions, it's actually a cool little unit. In the end I ended up returning it cause it wasn't for my needs but I don't think its a bad little unit at all and if i wasn't looking for higher gain sounds, I'd definitely have kept it around.

HARDWARE The design has usability problems (details below)The build-quality is very good for the price. The 1/4" jacks are metal, mounted on the plastic chassis. The 3.5mm headphone & aux in jacks are not metal and not chassis-mounted. A dc power supply is included. The recessed 9V power jack is clever, but might not fit some other power cords. There are big navigation buttons surrounding a select button. Having up/down buttons side-by-side is not intuitive, and the buttons are way too closely spaced and are difficult to use with the foot. When pressing right-most buttons, the foot blocks the display. A diamond configuration (top, bottom, left, and right) would have been much more intuitive.The functions of the 3 foot-switches depend on the current mode. In "Memory" mode, we can select from 3 consecutively numbered patches. In "Effect" mode we can enable/bypass any of three modules that are currently on-screen. There is no customization of button functions.The expression pedal input is only for specific pedal-based FX modules (i.e., no realtime control of other parameters). Though Zoom doesn't publish this, the expression jack is designed to "see" the pot's center lug (wiper) on the ring of the TRS plug-- as opposed to the tip. This is not standard, so you might want to choose an expression pedal with a switchable option ("Standard" and "Other"). The display is bright enough, and easy to read for calling up patches (Memory mode) and Menu functions. For editing, we need to bring it up off the floor, and/or use the GL for B2 Four app. ROUTING With only 5-slots, it is a serial-only path. Fortunately, we can place any FX in any order (within CPU constraints). The DI/XLR out and 1/4" outs are both fixed as post-FX. So both can be wet, or both can be dry, but we can't have dry DI and wet 1/4" outs, which would have been useful. The mono input can be run through stereo reverbs and mod FX. However, if we place any mono module after a stereo module, the signal becomes mono (unless the mono modules are bypassed) This also applies to the DI model. Even if those mono modules have wet/dry mix, the dry output is always mono. So if we want to hear stereo FX, they must be placed AFTER any mono FX modules, and the DI model must be OFF. LEVELS The global EQ with 3 fixed bands (low/mid/high) and a master volume are helpful. However, the lack of a patch-volume setting is disappointing. This requires us to control levels using whatever level/volume controls are present in preamps, amps and fx in ways that won't affect tone. This just means more steps. As long as we do an occasional A/B comparison of dry bass level (bypass all) with the level of the patch, we can probably stay within a reasonable range. EQ/TONE CONTROL Because of the multi-layer convolution, the amp-to-cab combos are hardwired (no user IR's). EQ's are one-band-per-module, so we use up three slots to get a 3-band parametric. Some of the preamps and amps have EQs, with either fixed frequencies or just a few selections. GENERAL SOUND The sound quality has improved over the previous models. The B2 Four does well with dynamics (soft & loud playing), a few preamps & amps have some sag/squish/limiting. Factory patches sound muddy and woofy to me, but perhaps that is how those amps are often used & recorded (?). But there are plenty of settings to tweak the low end to taste.The only noticeable latency is with some pitch shift FX.Depending on what is in the chain, there can be varying amounts of noise. The Zoom Noise Reduction does a good job of gating it. I was playing with a env filter, and noticed the output was clipping; so I put a compressor after the filter, and it cleaned up. This implies that there is plenty of headroom within the module path, but you have to make sure to get it down to a reasonable level by the time it reaches the output stage. THE FXThe compressors sound good. Most are snappy enough for slap. Good range of adjustments and nice variety of options. They have much better quality and response than those on the B1 Four. The only gate is Zoom's Noise Reduction, but it is a very good one. To be clear, it's a noise gate, not actual noise reduction. ZNR can be placed anywhere in the path, and set it to either detect signal from the EFXIN (whatever signal is preset at that point in the chain) or GTRIN (which is like side-chaining the dry input signal). I usually choose GTRIN. Some super high gain FX show that the input generates some noise even with no bass connected.Unfortunately the Slow Attack module lacks a wet/dry balance.Many of the envelope followers are too sensitive, even with the sensitivity all the way down. I often don't want the filter open all the way even when I play loud. Auto Filter is a welcome exception. The Envelope Generator filter has several modes. It snaps from Freq1 to Freq2 when the foot switch is pressed, then immediately begins gliding back to 1st frequency at the set "speed" (regardless of holding the switch).The selections of EQ modules is good, and they are quite flexible. There's a good selection of drive modules for different types of drive. All the drives have either a dry-level, or balance to blend in clean-- except for the TS+Boost Drive. Zoom provides a smart selection of high-end preamps with useful EQ and drive options. The modulation modules are all good, EXCEPT for Tremolo. The triangle waveform is ok. Both the TUBE and SQUARE are clicky, and none of them sound like a proper tremolo. I've heard much better tremolos, even from Zoom. Most of the pitch-shifters are barely useable. The bass polyphonic is ok for octaves. Harmony, Bass Mono Pitch Shift, and Pitch Shift are cartoonishly unusable. The other octavers seem ok, but fall apart on lower notes.The Super Low Preamp has a lower octave, but sounds like a sine wave, where the other octavers are more square. The Bass Talk Synth is too bright/edgy, and the tone knob doesn't begin to tame it, so it needs some filter/EG after. The Z Synth and Bass Synth are both great. The selection of delays is good. However, the only delay that has an LPF (high-damping) is the Hold Delay. The reverbs are pretty good. Ironically, Bright Hall and Bright Room are the only reverbs with a TONE control (LPF). So the two "bright" reverbs are the only ones with darkening capability. The Air module is actually quite a nice stereo-izer when the values are cranked. When summed to mono, it sounds like a small room (but still good). The fretless simulator is a subtle filter effect. I wish it had a wet/dry balance. Combined a short, dark room reverb and a kind of thumpy amp, we might get fairly close to an upright pizz character.I wish the Bomber had three modes: fart, plop, and explosion. I'd use the first two more. This was the first module I removed with the app.The pedal effects are the ONLY way to make use of the expression input.OUTPUT VOLUME PEDAL has no settings. Toe-down, it's whatever level is set by your master level. Heel down it's silent. Any patches with this pedal in the chain will be immediately affected by whatever level the pedal is at. For example, if the pedal is heel down, all patches with this pedal in the chain will be silent as they load.NOTE: All the other Pedal FX have a P before the first knob (see the FX List doc). This P knob value is the initial "pedal" value that is set when the patch is loaded. This is useful if we might not always have a pedal connected. Moving the pedal will immediately override the stored (knob) setting. Likewise, in "effect" (edit) mode, turning this first knob will temporarily override the current pedal position until the pedal is moved again.PEDAL VOLUME has min/mix and curve A/B options-- funny how similar the letter A & B look in that display font. "A" curve increases more at the toe end (exponential), and "B" increases more at the heel end (convex).The Bass Pedal Pitch is officially polyphonic, but it sounds pretty terrible. The Bass Pedal Mono Pitch is ok for changing the pitch of a sustaining note, especially with "Down" which just drops the pitch down to zero. The selection and quality of the amp/cab combos is fine. I wish there was a more modern, non-jazz (non-polytone) solid state amp (a la Hartke). When they are called up, their default settings tend to be quite woofy and humpy in the lows. I did find that even with just the amp knobs, they can all be brought into a more sane spectrum. Additional fine-tuning can be done with an EQ module or two. The factory patches don't show off versatility, rather focusing on usable tones. There are varying degrees of drive, lots of clean tones with hyped lows or low mids. The env filters are all too wide open. Makes me wonder if they were made with/for low output basses? Fortunately any and all factory patches can be tweaked and over-written in their same ID number. If we ever want the original factory patch back, they are easily restored. USEABILITY FUN FACT: when we are in the FX Library (choosing a module with arrows), we are auditioning each module by itself, in isolation from what is in the rest our chain; and we can adjust knobs while in the library, so we can adjust before choosing. In the editor, when we turn a knob the values appear, then vanish after 3 seconds. I understand why it is this way, but it is very frustrating in use. Often, I go to press the right arrow to switch pages between knobs, but I'm too slow and I end up selecting the next column of modules. It would be a little better if Zoom added a preference setting for Knob Display Dwell Time (or dismiss with button press) But better yet, Zoom should just use the screen real-estate differently Put the patch #/name and slot dots on top of the screen, same size, and rework the module graphics. This way knobs could just be always visible for the currently selected module. I installed the app before I bought the unit, to see if I could learn stuff just from the app, but it has no "off-line" mode, so no dice. Once my unit arrived, connecting the unit was easy enough. BTW, I have no qualms about buying the app for $1. There are three sections: The Effect Pool shows a full list of available FX modules (FX, amps). I don't know if Zoom will put new FX there as they become available, but for now it is a list of all of the built-in modules with descriptions. From here we can remove some FX from our unit, or put them back. This could reduce unwanted clutter in the FX Library on the unit. The Patch Pool is empty until we load some patches into it. As far as I can tell, we cannot remove patches from the Patch Pool. We have to uninstall and reinstall the app to clear them. In the News Feed, there is an option to download the factory patches which puts them in our Patch Pool. The Editor is nice because it doesn't do the disappearing knobs trick. To change/add an FX module, choose "Change". Then tap a slot or module. It helps to think of "blank" as a pass-thru module. Enable/bypass via the square above each module. Re-order by tapping/holding on a module then drag. SUMMARY I'm updating my review after having used the unit for quite a while now. I removed a couple stars because the button layout and design choices have been pretty frustrating. The audio quality is excellent, the FX quality is decent to good, but the usability is a bit disappointing. Pros: Versatile sounds, uncomplicated. Many good and useable FX modules. 300 patch-memory locations. Cons: No patch level setting. Knob display awkward. Some modules lack editing depth (i.e., important parameters are missing). The Slow Attack module lacks a dry level control. The env filters have poor sensitivity range. The Tremolo needs to be reworked. Most pitch shifters weak. Cursor buttons awkward for foot. Routing limitations. DI models prevent stereo operation, no customization.

I love this. Super easy to use, tons of great pedal and amp sims. Highly recommend for anyone who likes to experiment with pedals and sounds. So much fun