Bass Multi-Effects

The DOD Bass 30 is one of the earliest bass multi fx units made for mass use, and it certainly was one of the cheapest. It included multiple sections of different effects. The first effect is the modeling, and this allowed your bass to be modeled after a certain amplifier type, distortion type, or synth type. It included Classic, Modern, Rock, Overdrive, Fuzz, Fretless, and Bass Synth. The next section was the EQ/tone section, where you can change such parameters as Volume, Model Gain, Treble, High Mid, Low Mid, Bass, and Gate Threshold. The next section was the effects, where you can choose a modulation effect, such as Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Vibrato, Envelope, Pitch/Bend, and Detune. The next section is the compressor, where you can adjust Crossover Frequency, Threshold, Ratio, and Gain. Next there is a small fx section for Delay and Reverb. And finally, there is a parameter section, which helps you adjust any of the parameters of the fx and models. There is also a wah on this unit as well. UTILIZATION First of all, this pedal is made of some pretty cheap plastic, and if you are not careful, you can easily break this thing, either the 5 foot pedals or the small buttons themselves. But this pedal seems to do it all, and it even has a tuner. If you are introducing yourself to the world of bass effects and processing, you can't go wrong with a unit like this. It is organized relatively neatly, and there are plenty of buttons and menus that allow parameter editing to be relatively easy. SOUND QUALITY The sound quality of the DOD Bass 30 is mediocre to good. Nothing here will blow you away, but the basic effects sound descent, and everything simply does what it's supposed to do. I find the simpler tone modeling, such as Classic and Modern, to be relatively benign, and don't really seem to do much to the tone. They would hide and muddy a great bass guitar or a great bass amp, so there is no need to use those unless you have poor equipment. OVERALL OPINION Overall, the DOD Bass 30 is worth picking up if you need a cheap multi FX that does it all, just to experiment around with. Don't expect it to hold up to heavy touring, though!

Black hard plastic. I got it second hand from a friend. Its a great pedal and has tons of effects, and each one you can customize and save different effect presets. From distortion to echos to synths and even some kinds of noise and sound effects. There is one preset that makes a high pitched squeal when you play even when playing a low B string; useful? Depends on what you are playing, but no matter what type of music you are playing there is bound to be some effect on this pedal that will help you out. It even has a wah pedal on the side which can do more then just wah, it can change all kinds of effects. Its a great pedal. It can take a little while to switch through all the different effects to get to the one you want. If you are playing a gig you are better off keeping any presets you want to use right next to each other so you can switch back and forth quickly. The output jack got a little bit loose and I need to play with the cable a little bit to make sure its in the right spot or else the sound cuts out. I am not sure if this is just a fluke problem or if other people have experienced this. The rest of the unit is very well constructed and doesn't seem to have much more then a scratch on it. It is made of very durable plastic. Its a great pedal and you can usually find it pretty cheap, its a great bang for your buck, there are much better pedals out there and if you have the money you can probably get something a bit better. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I have been playing bass for over 10 years. I have played in local bands. I love jazz and jam due to the improvizational aspect. I bought this unit on Ebay for $350. I was looking for effects with a loop station. I love the ability to make your own sounds. The 8 track recorder/ loop station is great. It is fairly easy to use after reading a few directions. Some of the factory presets wernt quite what I was looking for so I changed them. It is sturdy, but my unit has chipped paint due to being on the road. This is a great practice tool along with sound bank and loop. I love it!! This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought the unit off the internet from Merchant City Music, who are based up in Glasgow. Very help bloke on the phone made the purchase nice and easy - pedal arrived the next day! Its built well, has loads of really neat little features like the Kick drum, which allows you to set a beat going which you can jam along too. It has varoius sampling functions. You can save your favorite settings as patches and use the foot stiches to navigate stright to them. You can save 20 of these. It has an on board tuner. Man what doesn't it do? There's nothing really not to like? It does the job of all the individual Boss bass pedals all rolled into one. If you can spend the cash go for this pedal, it has all the tweekability of the individual pedals. Plus if you buy all them separately it'll cost a lot more, and would be far more clumsey. Err, can you tell i'm a fan of the unit?! Excellent. Solid tough BOSS standard really. Can't see myself breaking it, might be a diffent story if the drummer got hold of it. This is one great pedal. It does just about everything bar cook my tea. Endless tweekable sounds and settings. One can find your favorite sound then save it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I will say I bought the effect peddle in edmonton, but I won't say where. The effect pedal doesn't original come with a power conection, so you don't have to run it on batteries. But the guy was nice enough to cut me a deal. (I didn't even complain about the price figure that). I paid in full roughly $130.00 I is helpful to introduce you to new and old effects out on the market. The effect in the bass there were only a few I find neat and atractive but there are others out there that I know are not practical but are still fun to mess around with. I like combining a wah effect and a delay and chorus. If you rub your hand on the string it sounds like a DJ using a record player. The thing I don't like about it is that there no really way to stitch to other effects if needed, or switch back to normal sound of needed. That is amditory in praticing with a band or playing live The quality of the sound is good better than getting an annoying buzz from regular magnetic effects. The effects is good for a starter who is wanting to know what kind of effects are out there, but there are allot more for your information. In performing live it would hold it's own if switch to diffecnt effects with little effort weren't a proble. that is about it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Purchased it from eBay for a whopping $36.I wanted to create my own sound a little, and this unit seemed to have more than what I needed. This thing is pocket-size. Very easily transportable, looks great and can run on AA batteries if you dont have an adapter. I like the # of effects it comes with (30+). The Echo and Delay are worth mentioning. Customizing effects takes a little time. The tuner is a nice addition also. The Pre-amp maximizes my sound and the Noise-Reduction works good also. This unit is also made in Japan. The distortion is quite bad. There are several types of dist. to select from, I cannot say the sound quality is very high. because this product is about the size of a few CD's stacked on top of eachother, there are only 2 foot switches. This makes swicthing from different effects difficult since you don't have 4 seperate foot switches to stomp on. The digital display screen coul be a little bigger also. The unit is mostly plastic. The bottom is metal. I have not experienced any problems. I baught this piece used and it looks brand new. Not a scratch on it. Unless you are going to stomp full furce on the foot switches, you have nothing to worry about. I think there is a lot that a bassist can do with this piece of equipment. If you are looking to create your own sound this thing has over 30 effects to choose from. Combining different effects is also a plus. You can layer up to 8 if I am not mistaken. For 36 bucks I am satisfied. For stage use this product is good, but switching between effects can be time consuming. If this is your first time buying a multi-effects pedal and you get a good deal on this product, then go for it. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this processor off of www.Zzounds.com for $145.99. That may seem a little pricey, but hell its worth it. I play bass and instead of buying one pedal for each effect, i bought this. I like that this unit has over 10 different effects. It also has 16 different Cabinet models. It has Delay, and Reverb, it also has an expression pedal built in to it so you can control whammy or wah. I also like the fact the you can create you're own effects by combining them and adding different cabinet models. N/A It has a SOLID metal construction unlike that plastic Zoom 605 Model. This pedal will withstand almost anything. If you are a bassist and need a few effects, don't spend hundreds on seperate pedals, buy this and you will use it very often. Another great thing about this processor is that it works well with electric guitars too. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I got my zoom bass 607 pedal from a music shop in the United Kingdom , for that is where i come from . I purchsed the pedal for it displayed an array of functions suiting my needs , making me a very happy customer . I paid £99 in british currency but in american dollars i would of paid $199. It is a highly satisfiying unit which in my perspective is most important feature.I wanted this unit to get my bass to achieve more gnarlier yet dissorientating sounds . I love the action of the wah-wah pedal and tone when 2 or more patches merge together this feature is rare as many more expensive pedals do not fulfil it . I also liked the expansive array of functions that this unit carrys aboard . The sound on the whole is punchy yet smooth depending on your specified patch that you requier to achieve the sound(s) you want . I regret to say the product is not very strongly built this effecting the pressure that you can apply to the pedals .I also don't like the un-wanted feedback this unit sometimes gives . As i mentioned earlier in the things i don't like about the product the manufacture is not the best this does effect some styles and basslines that require excessive pressure on the pedal I thought the pedal was extremly satisfying and nice to play with but the manufacture was the only thing i wasnot happy about for the reasons i talked about above . This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I wanted an effects pedal because I wanted to prove to my band that we only needed one guitarist (I love Pantera!), and after looking in all of three decent music shops in Cork, Ireland, this was the first with an expression pedal and the salespeople werent trying to flog a guitar pedal on me. It sounded good, so I bought it for €99, second hand. It is small, looks good, and has a good sounding wah, plenty of options on it, and a relatively useful manual. When I was personalising the effects arrangements, the manual made it easy to understand how to move them around, and modify them. The pedal can be used for gain, wah, volume, and many more, and although its tricky to get the right distortion sound at first, it pays off in the end. It also has an onboard tuner, easily accessed. It also has the capability of storing up to 4 minutes of sound samples on a smartmedia card (which I haven't bought or used yet) to be played back during sets. Power adaptor and smartmedia card were separate, and you'd never use some of the preset effects that are available, and they have a tendency to clutter up the list of effects. It has a rock solid (graphite?) base, and the surrounding plastics are fairly solid. At first I thought the tone of some effects were fuzzy, but I had to configure them to get them sounding right. It is a very good pedal. It is my first one, and it has given a very good impression, especially given the price. I recommend it to anybody who has been playing bass for a short while and wants a good pedal at a good price. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I purchased this pedal new from Counce Bros. Music in Muscle Shoals, AL. about two years ago for roughly $150.00 (before the prices went down). I needed an effects unit that was flexible, and cheap in price so if a beer got spilled in it, I wouldn't feel the need to kill a drunken redneck. I like having all these effects at my feet, in one unit. Being a bass player, I don't have the need to run more than one or two effects at a time, so noise really isn't a problem. The Zoom 506 Bass has a great octave effect, the chorus is nice, and when I use the envelope filter in conjunction with a little fuzz, it replicates my old BassBalls pedal nicely. As far as reliability, I have filled it full of sand from playing gigs on the beach, club-owners dogs have taken massive pisses on it, and yes, beer has been spilled in it (the redneck lived, btw). Still cranking out the sounds after several cleanings. The only complaint I could have about the Zoom 506 Bass is when I have tried to run several effects at once, there is an ever-present noise that is almost as loud as the original signal. As I stated earlier, this isn't a real-world problem that I have to deal with. The whole unit is plastic, but is still half-way sturdy. Unless your performance includes standing on your effects pedal while doing a ballarina twirl as your high-heel spiked army boots are in flames, you shouldn't have a problem. Effects quality is very high, especially considering the cost of the unit. Great sounds, lots of effects to choose from, all at good to great quality, cheap in price, and should last a long time. When this one finally dies, I will replace it with one just like it, or the updated version. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I began looking for a multi effects processor that I could use when our band meets and at home when I wanted to learn a new song or play along with a CD. I also wanted an amp/effect mobile processor I could use with my travel guitar when I am out of town (about 3 days a week). I searched on line and found one for about$200. AS time goes on they can be found cheaper than that. The ability to play a CD and fill in on the Bass part (low range is muted) is a lot of fun and helps get a great sense for timing and emphasis the Bass plays in any new song your trying to learn. I also like the Phrase recorder which allows you to loop a portion of the song from a CD or from my guitar then play it back and work on the bass part until I get it down. The Rhythm tracks are also a real plus, and although the PX3B is specifically for the Bass, I use it (as my amp/effects)with my Traveler guitar on the road with a set of headphones. The batteries don't last long and I recommend that you get power adapter and use the back lighting only when you need it while using the batteries. I which you could use the rhythm backing and phrase trainer at the same time. When you use the Phrase trainer the Modeling effects are somewhat muffled or muted. I am sure all of the above have to do with the amount of processing power and the need to keep the unit small. The unit is pretty well constructed and has survived several drops as well as traveling in a suitcase for over a year. I was amazed at the sound it could generate from such a small box and I think it will serve me well for years to come. I have yet to spill any liquids on it, but I think it would handle minor amounts of moisture. I think anyone with a bass guitar needs to have the Pb3x if for no other reason than to be able to be the bass player on any CD you want to play. Unlike playing along with a CD where you have to fight to be heard or overpowering the song the unit will mute the Bass and you can blend right in with just a little tweaking. Of course being able to plug in head phones and not have to fire up your amp will be appreciated by friends and family and the price is great for what it offers. Especially mobility. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I bought this multi effects pedal from frets & keys in chesterfield, england. Originally the unit was priced at £120 but this one was reduced to £100 as it had been used for demonstrations. The wide range of effects i very useful for someone who is not looking for any particular sounds, but just wants to experiment. The in built tuner and metronome add an extra incentive to buying it. The ability to edit and create your own personnal effects is superb, and i have spent long period of time tweaking everything to my taste. The large pedal used for wah-wah effects is very difficult to switch on and off as it is not spring loaded. A better set-up would be to have one pedal for volume and one for wah-wah effects. The quality of the effects arnt as good as if you buy the pedals individually, but that is to be expected. Heavy duty platic with steel bottom. I have kicked it and stamped on it during thrash songs and its still in perfect condition. If you want to try lots of effects, but have a budget, this is the pedal for you. All of the effects sound good, and the edit function is great. Wah-wah pedal isnt much use though, but this the other features make up for it. If your looking for your first pedal, look no further. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com