Category: Opinions and Facts

I had been using my Line 6 Helix as my bass rig either direct to house or run through my QSC 10.2. It’s an awesome bass rig but I’m a pretty simple man when it comes to bass and I didn’t need that many options and I also wanted to see if I could find something smaller.

First I tried the Tech 21 Bass Fly Rig. I just didn’t click with it. I had looked at the new Zoom B3n but it didn’t have an XLR out which was a deal breaker for me. Then a friend and bandmate said she had the Zoom B3 and loved it. It’s the older, now discontinued version and in my opinion (and others I’ve read) superior to the newer B3n, and it has an XLR. I was looking at used B3s when I decided to search “bass multi-fx” here on Sweetwater and see if anything else looked promising. The Zoom B6 looked great but again, way more than I needed. Then I stumbled upon the B2 Four. PERFECT.

Small, simple, yet still LOTS of options, and it had an XLR out. I was also very impressed by the design in that the navigational buttons are on a raised corner meaning you can use them fairly easily with your foot too. Looks sleek. You can “only” have 5 FX at a time (that includes amp sims) but that’s plenty enough for me.

Today I went through all 250 presets and was very impressed. They sounded great and spanned lots of sounds and genres and most were very usable. It’s fairly intuitive and if I have one complaint it’s that the manual is pretty sparse and basic but has all the information you absolutely need. My first impression is that there are tons of great emulations and a huge variety of ways to run it. I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find many sounds you like and cover anything you would want.

There’s many varieties of all the different kinds of FX, plus a great selection of preamps, amp/cab emulations, and a dedicated switch that steps through 6 different modeled DI boxes, 3 tube varieties and 3 SS versions. Or you can just turn it off, which I do since I run amp/cab sims so it seems weird to put a modeled DI after an amp/cab sim.

I also wasn’t exactly sure how the preamp models should be used. It seemed strange to me to put a preamp in front of an amp/cab sim, but some of the presets definitely did that, and I mean there’s really no “rules.” If it sounds good, it sounds good. I might just be too mired in old analog thinking of “Bass into amp/cab.” I mean who knows, maybe a preamp into an amp/cab and running one of the DI models might produce something cool. I haven’t tried yet. The presets also serve as a great way to learn the unit by analyzing them and seeing what’s running verses what you’re hearing. I remember one preset that was running the pitch shifter module but not actually doing any pitch shifting, but the unit itself definitely drastically changed the tone just being on. Another one used that same unit with a pitch shift of 1 cent to get a pretty good “With A Little Help From My Friends” sound. I never would have thought to use it in those ways.

I’m very happy with it and can’t wait to give it full run at next week’s gigs where I’ll probably run XLR straight to front of house. I have a simple patch set up with a noise suppressor, compressor, drive, and chorus, into an amp/cab, and I can use the 3 footswitches to toggle the compressor, drive, and chorus on/off. Your mileage and needs may vary but this unit was EXACTLY what I was looking for.

I love it. I love everything about it. The sounds. The quality. The efficient and smart design of every facet of it. The more I dig into the more I’m just blown away by it and can understand why it’s a professional standard seen on the biggest stages around the world and in seemingly every television or video performance I see. Yes, they are crazy expensive, and worth more than many used cars but now I understand why. They are hand-built in Stockholm. The side caps and pitch bend stick are made of wood. The wood pitch sticks are all hand-carved by a man named Aaby Henriksson who is now in his 80s. Of course you can find endless information on line about specs, features, details and all, but so much of the ingenious design is in the more subtle things that you feel when you’re using it and hard to quantify in words. I have yet to encounter a single moment of wondering why they did something a certain way or wishing they had done it a different way. With so many knobs and buttons on the keyboard itself, you are very rarely diving into any menus. Many of the controls have other functions as well if you use the Shift key or hold them down which makes for more efficiency and simplicity without trying to find room to add even more controls which might start bordering on overwhelming and would also surely add to the already sizable expense, but also thanks to the smart design, is also just unnecessary.

Recently I found myself needing a live gig keyboard. I have my trusty M-Audio Keystation 88 in my studio that I use with all my soft synths, and on the rare occasions that I’ve needed a live keyboard, I’ve taken it out with my laptop running my soft synths and it’s been fine, but as I’ve started to play more keys in a few projects I wanted a simpler solution. The thing is, I’m still mostly a guitarist and bassist and so that, combined with the fact that I was only playing some keys and I did still have my MIDI controller and soft synths made it hard for me to justify a high end Nord, Kronus, or the like.

That’s when my friend and bandmate David Houston introduced me to the Medeli AKX10 which he had just ordered for the same reasons, as he hadn’t played much keys in a while and had just taken on a keyboard gig. Now like a lot of musicians, I initially had my doubts about this keyboard for several reasons. One it’s sold as an “Accompaniment Keyboard” for one-person band type situations, like bistro singers who want to be able to have features like one-finger left hand chords and backing accompaniment that can follow your chord changes in various styles and arrangements. That plus the fact that any keyboard with built-in speakers, to my experience was mostly a low level keyboard that would make pros would turn their nose up. I found myself falling prey to some of these biases as well. Though to be honest, I do like some of the frills like the pulsing colored lights on the sides of the keyboard and the different color schemes you can choose from for the buttons. I just needed a big variety of great sounds, good feel, and a great usability, so why would I want to pay for a bunch of extra stuff I’ll never use like the auto-accompaniment and such?