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PuppetXeno « Still lovely after all these years »
Published on 05/30/19 at 16:42
Value For Money :
Excellent
Audience:
Anyone
Once bought as my first effects pedal and having used literally hundreds of different pedals and multi effects units from various manufacturers since, from time to time I keep coming back to this little gem.
The pros:
Standalone, it offers a limited but useful chain of effects, suitable for the basics in a band setting. Simply set the pedal in EDIT mode and use the foot switches to turn the distortion, modulation and delay/reverb section on when needed.
In combination with other pedals, it functions as boost pedal, noise reduction, compressor, wah (with proper expression pedal, unfortunately doesn't work well with a generic impendance curve), equalizer and has a neat retro modulation and delay/reverb section. I'd say the chorus is really nice, and the room reverb provides a nice layer of fullness if set correctly.
It has analog distortion circuitry. This feature is actually what makes it still relevant and even excellent to this day. Merely for this fact, this pedal is worth getting your hands on! It offers eight very different (and each one useable) distortion types which all come with optional amp simulator for d/i use.
Has a built in tuner (this is my excuse to bring it along on my pedal board
)
It uses standard center-negative 9V adapter.
The cons:
It is mono.
It does not have tap tempo.
It has no battery operation.
Factory patches are all over the place, this is no good advertisement if you want to get a grasp of this pedal by testing the factory patches.
UI is not modern - no turn knobs but push buttons to change parameters instead.
Outdated technology obviously makes it limited in options.
Wrap up:
The compromises made in designing this pedal were clearly well thought through, and yielded a product that was amazingly versatile and it has helped out many guitarists low on budget to give them access to compression, wah, distortion, modulation and reverb/delay in one go. Zoom understood something, and today's Zoom's multieffects show they only expanded on that understanding.
Analog distortion options alone make this is really nice choice for the experimental guitarist on a budget. From fat fuzz to simulated cranked up tube amp - it does it convincingly. The modulation section is retro but the chorus is nice enough.
For todays prices you can't go wrong on this pedal - you will need to fiddle with parameters to get the sound to where you want, obviously, and there's more than just the 3-4 knobs on a regular pedal, so there's that. Despite it's great ease of use it's more versatile than you might think and some patience is required. Well, patience pays off!
The pros:
Standalone, it offers a limited but useful chain of effects, suitable for the basics in a band setting. Simply set the pedal in EDIT mode and use the foot switches to turn the distortion, modulation and delay/reverb section on when needed.
In combination with other pedals, it functions as boost pedal, noise reduction, compressor, wah (with proper expression pedal, unfortunately doesn't work well with a generic impendance curve), equalizer and has a neat retro modulation and delay/reverb section. I'd say the chorus is really nice, and the room reverb provides a nice layer of fullness if set correctly.
It has analog distortion circuitry. This feature is actually what makes it still relevant and even excellent to this day. Merely for this fact, this pedal is worth getting your hands on! It offers eight very different (and each one useable) distortion types which all come with optional amp simulator for d/i use.
Has a built in tuner (this is my excuse to bring it along on my pedal board
)It uses standard center-negative 9V adapter.
The cons:
It is mono.
It does not have tap tempo.
It has no battery operation.
Factory patches are all over the place, this is no good advertisement if you want to get a grasp of this pedal by testing the factory patches.
UI is not modern - no turn knobs but push buttons to change parameters instead.
Outdated technology obviously makes it limited in options.
Wrap up:
The compromises made in designing this pedal were clearly well thought through, and yielded a product that was amazingly versatile and it has helped out many guitarists low on budget to give them access to compression, wah, distortion, modulation and reverb/delay in one go. Zoom understood something, and today's Zoom's multieffects show they only expanded on that understanding.
Analog distortion options alone make this is really nice choice for the experimental guitarist on a budget. From fat fuzz to simulated cranked up tube amp - it does it convincingly. The modulation section is retro but the chorus is nice enough.
For todays prices you can't go wrong on this pedal - you will need to fiddle with parameters to get the sound to where you want, obviously, and there's more than just the 3-4 knobs on a regular pedal, so there's that. Despite it's great ease of use it's more versatile than you might think and some patience is required. Well, patience pays off!