Zoom 505

WELL unlike some of the reviews i read ,i like it ,i got got 1 w/ they first came on the market,
at 1st the patches and programming was confusing but w/ time and tinkering it became simple....instructions who needs em....

sound could be alot better ,yes it is 2 noisy ,i run sound 4 a local band @ we use them direct (yes them)
the distortion @ stuff could be better i would have liked 2 have seen
better parimeter adjustments

really good never let us down yet

never

play top 40(pudd o mudd,nickleback, matchbox20,kennywayne,etc.) , metal(ozzy,maiden,etc.)
played for 15 years
stolen? probally try a bigger unit
if you r ever in southeast , kentucky..
check out our c.d or see us live if u like good music

I do not have one of these unities, but I assume that with the help of the manual or internet sites explaning stuff about "patches" is quite ease to use

well I actually do not own one of these 505 pedals. I sincerily do not like multi effects in general, specially those who come with efx that u may never use in your life, BUT a friend of mine got one of these and is pretty satified with this. ZOOM is the ONLY multi efx I've ever heard that doesn't sound as ULTRA DIGITAL CRAPPY SHIT as Digitech and others I heard a Death Metal band playing with a Digitech RP somehwta, and would ya know, it was the worst RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ultra digital "fabricated" stuff I've ever heard. many compl;ain about the 505 but at least ZOOM doesn't make CRAPPY RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Ultra Digital efx that only works well with Industrial. I assume that 505 is good for home guitarrists ( as my friend ) or those with hobbie bands./ But for effects nothing I mean NOTHING beats Boss Stomp Boxes Believe me. I only use a Zoom 507 as Efx Module, but as I mentioned, apart from Zoom ALL OTHER MUTI EFX SUX INCLUDING BOSS !!!! an ex friend of mine had a Boss ME-6 and would ya know this was the worst EFX Ive heard on my whole life,specially the distortion !!! Even he himself was planning on sell this crap RRRRRRRZZZZ Ultra Digital Crap and replace it with good old stomp pedals. even many artists are doing this nowadays !!!

dunno

dunno

I play Metal. My EFX set up is a Boss Equalizer, Zoom 507 ( Reverbs and Delays ) and a Boss Digital Dimension for ( Chorus ). I also have a NS2 Noise Gate but I never used this thing yet. I really prefer good old fashined StompBox pedals, they sound Much better than any Multi EFX youcan get, believe me

This thing is pretty simple to use! You browse with two buttons (down,up), and there's also two seperate buttons for editing and storing your patches. Theese are made cind of small, so you'll have to use your fingers... and sometimes they stick!

I run my 505 trough a Marshall Valvestate combo amp, on clean settings. You can get some NICE sounds out of this box, but it's usually never GREAT. I have a cool, heavy riffing effect that I've made, also a lead sound.. it feeds alot though.
The best thing about this box is the Acoustic Simulator though!
This is the best I've heard ever. NO KIDDING. I'm keeping my Zoom for that feature only. All in all, you can find decent sounds here.. experiment!

It's made out of plactic, and the buttons tend to stick. I've (ab)used mine to the point in wich the up/down buttons begun to stick.
I've used it on alot of gigs, and it's all good exept for the sticking. It also sounds good directly in a good PA. I played a gig once, just plugging in.

I have never been in touch with the Zoom customer support, as I bought mine secound hand.

I play in a very serious band right now. We've just signed a record deal, and I'm saving up for some more serious rack gear. I reccomend the Zoom for any beggining/immediate player! If you're in a gigging band, and want a GOOD effect processor without robbing a fricking bank, this product is for you! It worked for me, and I'm still keeping it because or the increadible acoustic simulators! I got a totally unique signature clean sound with this box, and it's really great!

This box has a good selection of effects... go trough them, and get inspired by the sounds! A good product for the anything-but proffecional musician.

very easy

i'm using the Ibanez GRX-40 (cheap but worth), and the zoom 505 with my computer as an ampilifer bypass, so i get a very clean distortion, a very nice tone (i never touch the one on the guitar), no feedback, but ofcourse there's not much different on the sound if i use it on a real amps

there's only a problem, that is the skip if u browse between the patches.

anyway its not always about the product, sometimes the product itself needs a special skill from a professional to operate it.

To get optimal sound out of this pedal is really not too hard. It's simple to use when you're just in your studio practicing, but I don't think I'd ever count on the stupid foot pedals for a stage performance.
Editing patches in home, again, is simple, but not wholly intuitive.
The manual was extensive, but simple, and explained things intelligently, yet in a way that I could understand.
This is an old used one, so I know little about it.

I'm using an Acrylic Warlock with a Fender Twin head (yes, a head. The actual amp has been taken out of it's combo to make it lighter, and easier to move around than a combo. Long story.). The cab I use is crappy, as are the tubes, so I can't really say the sound is unbiased. I also use a Fender Princeton. The latter is a bit tinny, but gets the job done.
It's always relatively noisy, but it's a $50 pedal now, what can you really expect?
The effects are often weak, and combining some effects kills one or more of them. The wah pedal is awesome clean, but add a bit of metal distortion to it (for that Blind Guardian sound) and you kill the wah. The distortion gets damn heavy, but sounds pretty fake and hollow.
I don't try to emulate other artists. Unlike many others I see on here, I try to keep to my own style, so I don't keep trying to make my guitar sound exactly like Jon Schaffer's.
Most effects on their own are quite, well, decent. The Chorus is light, but does what I need for clean stuff. The reverb is excellent for a digital unit. The wah is nice for a cheapie unit. The phase and flange need work. The EQ is okay, but kinda bites if you want real control over it. The octave is superb, in my opinion. I use it for vocal effects sometimes, and it does a better job at that than a guitar processor!

It's built of cheap plastic. Little else needs to be said about reliability. This is my only pedal, so I kind of need to rely on it. Problem is, I can't use batteries anymore, since the battery pad snapped off when I was in school. It'd be better if it were one that was pushed into the unit and made connections within, instead of plugging in. The program buttons on the side are sticky, and you can't edit effects without using fingers (I use my toes sometimes). All in all, crappy for reliability.

Haven't dealt with them.

As this is a multi effect pedal, it's really as good with any type of music as another. That being said, for practice, it's good for my type of music: Metal.
I've been playing about 4 years, this is about all I have in terms of effects. I have two main amps, one that's exclusively for practice, and one for performances.
If it were stolen, I'd be really p*ssed. If lost, I'd be irked. I would get something better. Looking at a GT-6 right now.
I like that it's easy to use and has decnt effects for a cheapie pedal. I hate that it has overall bad sound, unreliable, and has crappy editing.
It was given to me as a present for my birthday. No choices.
I wish it had a LOT of things. If you're considering getting it, GET THE EXPRESSION PEDAL. It acts as a volume pedal, as well as wah and octave.
It helps me make music, really. I write with it, if you call memorizing songs writing.
I'd say this thing is good for a beginner, or for practice/writing. Past that, use a pedal that'll set you back some money. You get what you pay for.

After i bought it within 1 hour i had changed all the preset patterns. The unit is a breeze to progrmme. I've been using it for abt 3 years and i am prety satisfied with it. I would realy recomend it to a beginer. It has all the guitar effects which will keep you satisfied for a couple of years. For the manual i got a sheet. I dont think i ever read it. Like i said before programing this baby is prety easy. There is a new version of the 505 availaible now.

I have a Ibanez RG 270 and an RMS amp. The thing i hate most abt the 505 is that although you have most of the effects like delay, flangr,phase shift,wah ... you cannot control the delay rate manulay. You can select from a scale of 1 to 10. The EQ effect is prety sad. You can select a setting from 1 to 50. It would have been better if you could control the high,mid and low end on a scale of 10. Also if you want to adjust the master volume you have to hold 2 tiny buttons for abt 2 secs and this could be realy tricky on stage, in case u miss on button you might just shift to another patch. The distortion sounds are prety good but it cant beat a DOD or Ibanez dist pedal. The model is prety old so the sounds programmed are of the same age.

The unit is prety reliable. I have not dropped it yet but i can assure you that the unit is realy robust. The edit and volume control knobe get stuck sometimes but a little cleaning can set it right.

I've never had a prob with the unit so I've no idea.

I play rock,metal and blues. I've seen a lot of processors from zoom and tone works and roland. I bought the 505 cause it was realy affordable, it had all the effects i need at that time. If it were stolen i would definately upgrade my self. It has realy served me well in all the gigs and parties i've played.

The tricky part with the 505 is that you have only two foot switches unlike it's big brothers (1010 & 4040). So you have to programme in you patch carefuly so that you dont have to do a awful lot of stomping on the pedal before and after your lead. I would have realy wished it had a better EQ designa and an analog delay.

Buy this only if u have to make a decision b/w a single effect pedal and the 505. The 505 has all the major effects you get on most effect procesors but you cannot finetune each effect. If you are looking for a affordable unit, go for it.

Preset patches are mostly useless, but it is very easy to modify them to create your own patches.
The manual is just a sheet of paper, but it solves any question that you may have.

I have a Yamaha Pacifica 112 (it's not a great guitar, but it's worth its price) with two single-coil pickups and a bridge humbucker. When I bought the 505 i was playing through a crappy 10-watt Yamaha amplifier, and i thought the Zoom sounded great, but now i own a 120-watt Laney TF300 and,..erm, you can tell the difference.
The first thing to say is that it is quite noisy. You can fix it using the noise gate, but if you do so you cut all your sustain. I find the distortions quite good (not death-metal,though), since i can match the sound of the groups i like (radiohead,placebo,muse,smashing pumpkins,nirvana), but the EQ is very limited. Chorus and flangers are OK, but you can't customize them much (no time, no depth...). Delay is very limited, and you can't use it with the reverb. Auto-Wah is pure crap.I find the tuner not very accurate. Also it has a not-very-short delay between patches.

Although the case is made of plastic, it is very reliable (3 years with it and it hasn't broken down),but the small buttons that are on the sides are very keen to stick and begin changing the effect parameters forever.
It works well live, but you have to keep and eye on it, because when you stomp it you may press the two buttons at once,activating the bypass mode and causing it to mute the sound terribly!

never dealt with them (hopefully)

for its price, it's the best stuff you can find.a good (and cheap) multiFX for beginners, but i think it is not a good choice for playing live or playing through a serious amp. now i'm saving to buy a digitech RP-12 used...

at first it is easy to use. then after a while the little buttons on the side that r used to edit the effect stick and the thing u r working on wont stop changin. very annoying. i made the mistake of gigging w/ it, thank god nothing happened, but of coarse i duct taped cups around the knobs so they wouldnt move and stay there.

yeah, if u r a beginner and dont have much experience, it sounds really cool, i loved it when i first got it. once u buy a quality pedal, u realize how bad the 505 really sounds, and want to get rid of it as soon as possible. or maybe do what i do and keep it on the side of ur rig and sometimes use it as a tuner if the bass player isnt around to tune to.

the buttons stick and make it impossible to work w/

n/a

its cool at first, especially if ur a beginner, but dont be fooled, it sucks.

It took me a while to figure out how to edit and save patches, etcetera. If you want a good sound out of this, however, you're out of your mind. It may be full of features for such a small package and price, but that's where all the budgeting obviously went in the making of this thing.

Alright, I'll admit when I got this pedal about 4 years ago and wasn't even playing full-sized amps, I thought this thing was cool. The effects are good to tinker around with if you've not had the chance to mess around with them before, but they definitely are bedroom metal practice amp quality. Hissy, grainy distortion, not true bypass, no tap tempo available, etcetera. Definitely not worth the price, unless you never plan on playing out.

Wouldn't gig with it, but it works fine.

Never dealt.

If you never plan on playing outside of your basement, be my guest and throw away your money on this piece of shit.

This pedal has a fantastic sound for it's price and the fact that it is not a dedicated unit. Editing patches is simple but the controls for it are fiddly, and it isn't possible to edit them whilst playing.

I am using this pedal with a JHS SG-type guitar and Columbus amp (very much a budget setup). The pedal is only noisy on high gain settings, but this is to be expected, and the Zoom Noise Reduction feature is useful for eliminating this (though sustain is lost, and it doesn't sound right when using this with delay).
The various types of distortion available tend to have a quite papery edge unless you whack up the gain to a stupid level and then compress the signal fully. It lacks the smooth overdrive of a dedicated pedal.
However it is fantastic on cleaner settings, or when you need to cram in several effects. Since I am a U2 fan I can easily produce with this pedal the clean, delayed and atmospheric sound of Pride (In the name of love), or the rough high- gain sounds of The Fly.
However, as mentioned before, it lacks the ability to give a smooth rhythm sound, which is in my opinion, vital.

This pedal was good while it lasted, but it lacks survivablity. It is made of plastic, and after two years of not particularly strenuous use, the conatacts for one of the switches have packed up, meaning I now need to arrange effects between banks rather than within them. It also means I can't access the chromatic tuner, or bypass the pedal.
The last time I played live I had trouble with this, and as such, I would never depend on it again.

Neve did, wouldn't know how.

If this was stolen (and I doubt anyone would want to steal it) I'd definitely get something else. Something more sturdy which doesn't drain batteries and has bigger controls.