Post by freekingprawn on Nov 14, 2015 0:34:21 GMT
HOLY ******* WALL OF TEXT AHEAD!
Disclaimer:
I would firstly like to state that I'm not a purist regarding musical instruments and tools. I don't defend tube amps as opposed to solid state as being better. The same way I don't defend analogue effects as being better than digital. To me both worlds have good and bad things and it all comes down to preference, availability and convenience of format.
Secondly, you probably know that Zoom doesn't have a very compelling story to tell [despite people like Robert Fripp boasting being the first one in England to use one of their older effects]. Then again, I really don't care for name tags/brands either. That said, I'll try doing a review as unbiased as possible [though I admit I'll be saying good things about the unit]
The unit:
If you are not a purist and all you care about is having a stomp box that sounds good to your ears, independently of being analogue or digital, there is a lot to save by acquiring one of these units.
When I decided to get away from the multi-fx units I was searching for 3 main effects that I simply must have: a good reverb, a good delay pedal and a good chorus.
I started looking online for the good and relatively cheap alternatives. I came across some interesting pedals, such as the Digitech Hardwire series and the Electro Harmonix Neo and Nano series. Great reviews on those and the occasional Youtube videos almost made me open the wallet on them.
But then I took notice of this unit on some forums where people were praising it for the quality, convenience and price factor; and above all, it seemed to be dedicated to those same 3 effects I was eager for. And they weren't lying.
It seemed someone high above had heard me thinking "all I need is a pedal that cuts away all the amp emulations, distortions and spurious effects that I simply don't need neither care for" and BAM! It happened.
I decided to wait a little longer and let some time go by and see if the wedding period of the people who bought the unit would come to an end and the ugly truth about the unit would be available at the various forums which would make me look for something else. But that never happened. To this day, and as far as I am aware, everyone seems to be rather happy with the little bugger .
But I am a skeptic. I was tired of multi-fx units. I wanted to try something else. I decided to give the unit a shot given the very reasonable price tag hanging on it and if I wasn't pleased with it I could always send it back with no questions being asked.
What I got blew my mind... and not my wallet.
The sheer amount of Reverbs, Delays and Chorus the unit has is worth every penny spent on it. Even if only for a couple of them. But it doesn't end there. Besides all the Reverbs and Delays and Chorus, it also has a 6 band EQ for guitar [and one for bass], a noise gate [that works really well], a Line Selector [that allows you to bypass all the effects or the ones you put after it] and some other effects that one may find interesting such as the Pitchshifter [there is one for guitar and one voiced for bass. Tracks very well and is smooth], the Harmonizer, Phaser, Flanger, Tremolo, Vibrato and Rotary.
Granted, I'm not a fan of the Phaser nor the Flanger in the unit [actually, I'm not a fan of Flangers at all] and the Rotary is one of those effects that I have a hard time dealing with, so I leave it alone.
The Chorus:
Boasting 16 very different chorus from each other, you will find emulations of the following: Corona [TC Electronics], Vintage [Boss CE-1], ANA234 [MXR M234], CE-5 [Boss], Clone [EHX Small Clone] Super [Boss Super Chorus], among others.
Some of the chorus are Zoom's own renditions. There are Chorus for both the Guitar and Bass as well. All very tweakable and [almost all] very lush. Some are subtle by nature, others are in your face and unapologetic. If you want just a tad to boost the higher frequencies you got it, if you want to drown your audience in sea-sick motions, by all means, it's there and is possible.
To my ears most of the chorus are gorgeous. Some I don't care much about [such as the Corona, or the Tri-chorus] but, from prior experience, I didn't care for the originals either. Some have a lot of shimmer [that sparkly quality of the chorus I tend to enjoy] while some are warmer sounding. But most of them offer the advantage of tweaking their own EQ [both lows and highs] which is excellent.
The Reverbs:
There are 25 Reverbs in the unit. Including [but not limited to] HD Reverb [high-density], Fender 63' Spring, Plate, TiledRoom, Chamber, Church, Lofi [TC Hall of Fame], HD Hall, Gate [Hardwire RV-7], Reverse [Hardwire RV-7] Tremolo [Eventide Space] HolyFlerb [EHX Holy Grail], Dynamic [TC Nova Reverb], Shimmer [Strymon BlueSky], Particle [Line6 M9], Space Hole [Eventide Space], Mangled [Eventide Space], Dual [Eventide Space]
All of them have up to 3 pages of menus to tweak to your heart's delight.
How do they sound? Amazing.
Are they exact emulations of the originals? I could not say since I don't have the original stomp boxes to compare them to. However, there are those that swear they are [and some of them with a grudge for having bought the most expensive units].
The reverbs range from very subtle [TiledRoom, Ambience and Air reverbs] to extreme [most of them can be tweaked to infinity]. If you are looking for just a hint of reverb to make your guitar sound fuller or perhaps want to drown in otherworldly ambience, you will find a Reverb in there that suits you.
The Delays:
This is where it gets interesting and - along with the reverbs - you'll find it rather tempting to own one of these units. But it also where the heart of the "is it good as the original" debate flourishes. Suffice to say that if 26 different types of delays are not enough for you, you are hopeless.
Like in the case of the Reverbs and the Chorus, the Delays are in-depth tweakable [giving you much more than just feedback, delay time and volume] and you get other brands emulations here as well. To name a few: DualDigital [Eventide TimeFactor], Carbon [MXR Carbon Copy], Analog [EHX MemoryMan], TapeEcho3 [Maestro Echoplex EP3], DriveEcho [Line6 M9 TubeEcho], SlapBack [TC Electronic], Smooth [Boss DD-20], Lo-Fi [Strymon Timeline], Trem [Strymon Timeline], FilterPPD [Eventifde TimeFactor], etc.
All of the delays have Tap-Tempo and Time Signature [sub-divisions]. Most of them allow you to cut or emphasize the tone of the echoes, and some of them even self-oscillate if you want them to [and it's so cool]. Some are straight simple, some are indicated to the experimentalists and Ambience/Shoegazing. To my ears, they are all usable in context.
I would like to make a special mention to the tape and analogue ones. I never played on a tape delay unit. I have no idea how they sound other than drowned in a music context. From what I gather, it seems to fit most of the people who got the unit, while others not so much. I will let you decide. The analogue models sound warmer than their digital counterparts [even if they are indeed all digital]. There seems to be some quirks that occur in the analogue realm that were replicated here. Such as the slight distortion/breakup and degrading of the sound. The Tape ones can degrade even further down as well as modulate. There are delays in it that have modulation themselves [ModDelay, Pitchdelay, Filterdelay and Phasedelay] which only apply the filtering on the echoes, not on the dry sound. All this can be tweaked further to a great extent and is convenient if you are thinking about using other effects prior to the delays.
All Delays as well as Reverbs have Trails on/off switching. Pretty good if you ask me.
Other Modulation and Time Based effects:
In the same menu of the Chorus, one gets to see that there are more effects in the unit other than what the CDR stands for. They are: Flanger [one for guitar and one for Bass], Vibrato, Phaser, Viber [Univibe-ish sort of], PitchShifter [one for guitar and one for Bass], Harmoniser, DuoTrem [two trems in one, but you can dial down the second one and use the effect as one single tremelo. For those who like tremelo, there are many wave shapes to it. I find it quite good actually. And silent], Autopan [using it later in the chain allows a rather interesting spatial effect, even if you pair it with a panning delay at double it's speed] and RT Closet .
Personally - like I stated before - I don't care for the Flanger or the Phaser or the Rotary. The DuoTrem is good though, and the PitchShifter is the best I tried [polyphonic, tracks flawlessly and you can shape it's tone - which is great when you are switching guitars with different pickups].
Dynamic and Filters:
The useful 4 effects in this menu are just that: useful. A Noise Gate [ZNR - zoom's noise reduction], stereo guitar EQ and stereo Bass EQ [both with 6 bands plus volume] and a Line Selector [the all-bypass or semi-bypass. Handy if you want to take all of the effects or just some of the effects out of the playing].
The Pros:
. Sturdy and heavy. Made of metal, except the knobs. But they won't come out.
. stereo IN and stereo Out
. USB port for updates or to power the unit [handy if you have one of those Volto like things, or are using a computer]
. Sound quality: forgetting that the effects inside are supposedly "perfect" emulations of other stomp boxes, there is very little i can point a finger at in terms of sound. Most of the effects sound great. Those that I don't think are that great [or that I simply couldn't care about], might have to do with the sound of the originals. Then again, they might just sound bad as they are presented. Point in case: the Flanger. I have a rather difficult time enjoying it. But maybe because I don't care for flangers to begin with . The Phaser, on the other hand, I sometimes use, but with a very slow rate and in a very subtle manner. It's not that I don't enjoy a good phaser. I think that the one in the unit is not very pleasing. It gives 4 different approaches to it . Maybe I might prefer a 2 stage phaser... I don't know. In any case I seldom use it. But the fact is that the Reverbs, the Chorus and the Delays sound very very good [most of them at least], and that's why I got the unit instead of single stomp boxes.
. the size factor is a plus to anyone with pedalboard space problems. It is the size of a Boss pedal.
. the effects are indepth tweakable which allows you to shape the sound as deep as a Strymon multi-fx machine [and some of the effects have more options than the originals they represent].
. You have up to 6 slots of effects to use at the same time in any given combination, provided that it doesn't drain the DSP. Which means you can have 6 delays or 6 reverbs running at the same time [why you would want that, I don't know. But I can tell you it's damn fun].
. You can arrange a user list of patches and call them via a single stomp on the pedal [the list goes from A to Z].
. Has a Tuner
. Soft Stomp Switch. No cliky-clacky of annoyance.
. Trails
The Cons:
. No Expression pedal capability. A shame really. Some effects beg for an expression pedal to toy around with [delays and rotary]
. Somewhat convoluted menus. Though you'll get the hang of how it operates in no time, I often do find myself hitting the wrong knob/button instead. It's not that the menus are written in an alien language. Not at all. It's just that it's not that intuitive, even if you already have some experience with it.
. No "modulation/other" menu. Meaning that you have to scroll up a lot or down a lot under the chorus menu to get to a phaser or the vibrato. All other effects are properly divided except these ones.
. Not very "Live-use" friendly. This one comes down to preference and I will talk about it a bit further down. It's not that you can't tweak an effect live. You can. The thing is that you have to scroll through all the bloody menus to get to where you want to go and pray to god you don't hit the wrong button/knob while you are at it. Chances are you'll be completely lost in no time. This unit requires a bit of planning ahead if you decide to use it live.
. Tap-Tempo deactivates Tuner/Bypass. For live use this can be rather problematic if you don't have a tuner on your pedalboard or a clip-on.
. Tap-Tempo makes you hold the switch for a second, step in the tempo, step again for a second for it to save.
. Jumping from one patch to the other cuts the trails, sadly [then again, I don't think there are many units out there that improved in this department].
. Doesn't come with an adapter. I'm running it through a Harley Benton power plant thing with no issues, though.
. the dreaded DSP limit is there when using the HD effects. But it will only reach its limit when using a few of them, leaving you room to insert others.
After-thoughts:
The unit is pretty good. Given what it offers, the materials that is built of and the price tag on it, it's a winner. No doubts about that.
The way I see it both the inexperienced as well as the veteran would benefit from having one of these around. It's cheap given the quality of the effects to be honest. I payed a lot more for a lot less in the multi-fx department.
Even if you are already fixed on your effects and just want something extra to goof around with, chances are you will be rather surprised. Even more than that, it's very often the case of people selling their more expensive gear to keep this unit. The size factor is also worthy of consideration, especially if you are searching to condense all your gear to one simple and back-friendly solution.
I confess not seeing it as a live tool for the experimentalists out there. Especially due the menu travelling one has to engage in. However if you have a "fixed" kind of music [ie, if all you require is that reverb, with that amount of delay or chorus] and you aren't going to tweak it endlessly, than this unit is a worthy addition to your board/live rig. It simplifies things in a very good way. It made me a believer in multi-fx again and I am pretty sick of them.
If, like me, you are searching for Reverb, Delay and Chorus mostly, I would say give this unit a try. It stacks pretty well with the other stomps I have and there seems to be no complaint about it being a digital unit [at least not from the non-purists].
PS: thank you for your patience (hide)
Disclaimer:
I would firstly like to state that I'm not a purist regarding musical instruments and tools. I don't defend tube amps as opposed to solid state as being better. The same way I don't defend analogue effects as being better than digital. To me both worlds have good and bad things and it all comes down to preference, availability and convenience of format.
Secondly, you probably know that Zoom doesn't have a very compelling story to tell [despite people like Robert Fripp boasting being the first one in England to use one of their older effects]. Then again, I really don't care for name tags/brands either. That said, I'll try doing a review as unbiased as possible [though I admit I'll be saying good things about the unit]
The unit:
If you are not a purist and all you care about is having a stomp box that sounds good to your ears, independently of being analogue or digital, there is a lot to save by acquiring one of these units.
When I decided to get away from the multi-fx units I was searching for 3 main effects that I simply must have: a good reverb, a good delay pedal and a good chorus.
I started looking online for the good and relatively cheap alternatives. I came across some interesting pedals, such as the Digitech Hardwire series and the Electro Harmonix Neo and Nano series. Great reviews on those and the occasional Youtube videos almost made me open the wallet on them.
But then I took notice of this unit on some forums where people were praising it for the quality, convenience and price factor; and above all, it seemed to be dedicated to those same 3 effects I was eager for. And they weren't lying.
It seemed someone high above had heard me thinking "all I need is a pedal that cuts away all the amp emulations, distortions and spurious effects that I simply don't need neither care for" and BAM! It happened.
I decided to wait a little longer and let some time go by and see if the wedding period of the people who bought the unit would come to an end and the ugly truth about the unit would be available at the various forums which would make me look for something else. But that never happened. To this day, and as far as I am aware, everyone seems to be rather happy with the little bugger .
But I am a skeptic. I was tired of multi-fx units. I wanted to try something else. I decided to give the unit a shot given the very reasonable price tag hanging on it and if I wasn't pleased with it I could always send it back with no questions being asked.
What I got blew my mind... and not my wallet.
The sheer amount of Reverbs, Delays and Chorus the unit has is worth every penny spent on it. Even if only for a couple of them. But it doesn't end there. Besides all the Reverbs and Delays and Chorus, it also has a 6 band EQ for guitar [and one for bass], a noise gate [that works really well], a Line Selector [that allows you to bypass all the effects or the ones you put after it] and some other effects that one may find interesting such as the Pitchshifter [there is one for guitar and one voiced for bass. Tracks very well and is smooth], the Harmonizer, Phaser, Flanger, Tremolo, Vibrato and Rotary.
Granted, I'm not a fan of the Phaser nor the Flanger in the unit [actually, I'm not a fan of Flangers at all] and the Rotary is one of those effects that I have a hard time dealing with, so I leave it alone.
The Chorus:
Boasting 16 very different chorus from each other, you will find emulations of the following: Corona [TC Electronics], Vintage [Boss CE-1], ANA234 [MXR M234], CE-5 [Boss], Clone [EHX Small Clone] Super [Boss Super Chorus], among others.
Some of the chorus are Zoom's own renditions. There are Chorus for both the Guitar and Bass as well. All very tweakable and [almost all] very lush. Some are subtle by nature, others are in your face and unapologetic. If you want just a tad to boost the higher frequencies you got it, if you want to drown your audience in sea-sick motions, by all means, it's there and is possible.
To my ears most of the chorus are gorgeous. Some I don't care much about [such as the Corona, or the Tri-chorus] but, from prior experience, I didn't care for the originals either. Some have a lot of shimmer [that sparkly quality of the chorus I tend to enjoy] while some are warmer sounding. But most of them offer the advantage of tweaking their own EQ [both lows and highs] which is excellent.
The Reverbs:
There are 25 Reverbs in the unit. Including [but not limited to] HD Reverb [high-density], Fender 63' Spring, Plate, TiledRoom, Chamber, Church, Lofi [TC Hall of Fame], HD Hall, Gate [Hardwire RV-7], Reverse [Hardwire RV-7] Tremolo [Eventide Space] HolyFlerb [EHX Holy Grail], Dynamic [TC Nova Reverb], Shimmer [Strymon BlueSky], Particle [Line6 M9], Space Hole [Eventide Space], Mangled [Eventide Space], Dual [Eventide Space]
All of them have up to 3 pages of menus to tweak to your heart's delight.
How do they sound? Amazing.
Are they exact emulations of the originals? I could not say since I don't have the original stomp boxes to compare them to. However, there are those that swear they are [and some of them with a grudge for having bought the most expensive units].
The reverbs range from very subtle [TiledRoom, Ambience and Air reverbs] to extreme [most of them can be tweaked to infinity]. If you are looking for just a hint of reverb to make your guitar sound fuller or perhaps want to drown in otherworldly ambience, you will find a Reverb in there that suits you.
The Delays:
This is where it gets interesting and - along with the reverbs - you'll find it rather tempting to own one of these units. But it also where the heart of the "is it good as the original" debate flourishes. Suffice to say that if 26 different types of delays are not enough for you, you are hopeless.
Like in the case of the Reverbs and the Chorus, the Delays are in-depth tweakable [giving you much more than just feedback, delay time and volume] and you get other brands emulations here as well. To name a few: DualDigital [Eventide TimeFactor], Carbon [MXR Carbon Copy], Analog [EHX MemoryMan], TapeEcho3 [Maestro Echoplex EP3], DriveEcho [Line6 M9 TubeEcho], SlapBack [TC Electronic], Smooth [Boss DD-20], Lo-Fi [Strymon Timeline], Trem [Strymon Timeline], FilterPPD [Eventifde TimeFactor], etc.
All of the delays have Tap-Tempo and Time Signature [sub-divisions]. Most of them allow you to cut or emphasize the tone of the echoes, and some of them even self-oscillate if you want them to [and it's so cool]. Some are straight simple, some are indicated to the experimentalists and Ambience/Shoegazing. To my ears, they are all usable in context.
I would like to make a special mention to the tape and analogue ones. I never played on a tape delay unit. I have no idea how they sound other than drowned in a music context. From what I gather, it seems to fit most of the people who got the unit, while others not so much. I will let you decide. The analogue models sound warmer than their digital counterparts [even if they are indeed all digital]. There seems to be some quirks that occur in the analogue realm that were replicated here. Such as the slight distortion/breakup and degrading of the sound. The Tape ones can degrade even further down as well as modulate. There are delays in it that have modulation themselves [ModDelay, Pitchdelay, Filterdelay and Phasedelay] which only apply the filtering on the echoes, not on the dry sound. All this can be tweaked further to a great extent and is convenient if you are thinking about using other effects prior to the delays.
All Delays as well as Reverbs have Trails on/off switching. Pretty good if you ask me.
Other Modulation and Time Based effects:
In the same menu of the Chorus, one gets to see that there are more effects in the unit other than what the CDR stands for. They are: Flanger [one for guitar and one for Bass], Vibrato, Phaser, Viber [Univibe-ish sort of], PitchShifter [one for guitar and one for Bass], Harmoniser, DuoTrem [two trems in one, but you can dial down the second one and use the effect as one single tremelo. For those who like tremelo, there are many wave shapes to it. I find it quite good actually. And silent], Autopan [using it later in the chain allows a rather interesting spatial effect, even if you pair it with a panning delay at double it's speed] and RT Closet .
Personally - like I stated before - I don't care for the Flanger or the Phaser or the Rotary. The DuoTrem is good though, and the PitchShifter is the best I tried [polyphonic, tracks flawlessly and you can shape it's tone - which is great when you are switching guitars with different pickups].
Dynamic and Filters:
The useful 4 effects in this menu are just that: useful. A Noise Gate [ZNR - zoom's noise reduction], stereo guitar EQ and stereo Bass EQ [both with 6 bands plus volume] and a Line Selector [the all-bypass or semi-bypass. Handy if you want to take all of the effects or just some of the effects out of the playing].
The Pros:
. Sturdy and heavy. Made of metal, except the knobs. But they won't come out.
. stereo IN and stereo Out
. USB port for updates or to power the unit [handy if you have one of those Volto like things, or are using a computer]
. Sound quality: forgetting that the effects inside are supposedly "perfect" emulations of other stomp boxes, there is very little i can point a finger at in terms of sound. Most of the effects sound great. Those that I don't think are that great [or that I simply couldn't care about], might have to do with the sound of the originals. Then again, they might just sound bad as they are presented. Point in case: the Flanger. I have a rather difficult time enjoying it. But maybe because I don't care for flangers to begin with . The Phaser, on the other hand, I sometimes use, but with a very slow rate and in a very subtle manner. It's not that I don't enjoy a good phaser. I think that the one in the unit is not very pleasing. It gives 4 different approaches to it . Maybe I might prefer a 2 stage phaser... I don't know. In any case I seldom use it. But the fact is that the Reverbs, the Chorus and the Delays sound very very good [most of them at least], and that's why I got the unit instead of single stomp boxes.
. the size factor is a plus to anyone with pedalboard space problems. It is the size of a Boss pedal.
. the effects are indepth tweakable which allows you to shape the sound as deep as a Strymon multi-fx machine [and some of the effects have more options than the originals they represent].
. You have up to 6 slots of effects to use at the same time in any given combination, provided that it doesn't drain the DSP. Which means you can have 6 delays or 6 reverbs running at the same time [why you would want that, I don't know. But I can tell you it's damn fun].
. You can arrange a user list of patches and call them via a single stomp on the pedal [the list goes from A to Z].
. Has a Tuner
. Soft Stomp Switch. No cliky-clacky of annoyance.
. Trails
The Cons:
. No Expression pedal capability. A shame really. Some effects beg for an expression pedal to toy around with [delays and rotary]
. Somewhat convoluted menus. Though you'll get the hang of how it operates in no time, I often do find myself hitting the wrong knob/button instead. It's not that the menus are written in an alien language. Not at all. It's just that it's not that intuitive, even if you already have some experience with it.
. No "modulation/other" menu. Meaning that you have to scroll up a lot or down a lot under the chorus menu to get to a phaser or the vibrato. All other effects are properly divided except these ones.
. Not very "Live-use" friendly. This one comes down to preference and I will talk about it a bit further down. It's not that you can't tweak an effect live. You can. The thing is that you have to scroll through all the bloody menus to get to where you want to go and pray to god you don't hit the wrong button/knob while you are at it. Chances are you'll be completely lost in no time. This unit requires a bit of planning ahead if you decide to use it live.
. Tap-Tempo deactivates Tuner/Bypass. For live use this can be rather problematic if you don't have a tuner on your pedalboard or a clip-on.
. Tap-Tempo makes you hold the switch for a second, step in the tempo, step again for a second for it to save.
. Jumping from one patch to the other cuts the trails, sadly [then again, I don't think there are many units out there that improved in this department].
. Doesn't come with an adapter. I'm running it through a Harley Benton power plant thing with no issues, though.
. the dreaded DSP limit is there when using the HD effects. But it will only reach its limit when using a few of them, leaving you room to insert others.
After-thoughts:
The unit is pretty good. Given what it offers, the materials that is built of and the price tag on it, it's a winner. No doubts about that.
The way I see it both the inexperienced as well as the veteran would benefit from having one of these around. It's cheap given the quality of the effects to be honest. I payed a lot more for a lot less in the multi-fx department.
Even if you are already fixed on your effects and just want something extra to goof around with, chances are you will be rather surprised. Even more than that, it's very often the case of people selling their more expensive gear to keep this unit. The size factor is also worthy of consideration, especially if you are searching to condense all your gear to one simple and back-friendly solution.
I confess not seeing it as a live tool for the experimentalists out there. Especially due the menu travelling one has to engage in. However if you have a "fixed" kind of music [ie, if all you require is that reverb, with that amount of delay or chorus] and you aren't going to tweak it endlessly, than this unit is a worthy addition to your board/live rig. It simplifies things in a very good way. It made me a believer in multi-fx again and I am pretty sick of them.
If, like me, you are searching for Reverb, Delay and Chorus mostly, I would say give this unit a try. It stacks pretty well with the other stomps I have and there seems to be no complaint about it being a digital unit [at least not from the non-purists].
PS: thank you for your patience (hide)