Zoom 505

Pretty simple pedal to use, it does its job definately for beginners getting into multi-effects.
The editing of patches is a simple routine of really choosing a distortion, bit of EQ, and maybe a touch of reverb, and you're off. Then you've got all the other stuff like the phase, chorus to place if you wish.
As for manual, well, you've got a good 6 or 7 of em, all in different languages, so you'll be looking about a pile for the english version, but reading through that, it gives you all the rough guide lines etc. and some points of where a certain effect takes a change (for example, flange, then chorus+flange).

My set-up is normally an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, into a Boss CE-2, Tr-2 then this pedal.
The sound quality is good enough for what it is. The positives would be the distortions, which being the strong-points during the advertising for this, theres something for everyone here. The chorus just about gets away with, EQ should be ok with most ppl, and the hall reverb is ok(ish) too. the rest really could have been better, theres simply not enough control or options for such stuff on this pedal. Worse part being theres no tremolo on board neither (nnnooo!!!!) The delay is too short for time, those that like to experiment with it, it'll only be good for lead patches (if its what you desire), Wah is abit crap (wouldn't expect a good one from a multi-effects, nothing beats the real thing!), erm, and the rest are average.
even though theres these limitations, a good factor would be that you can create the majority you like, especially if you plan to make a Van Halen patch or something. Also being these are very popular, you can find sites with patches as well, so in the creating and experiment side, you should be ok. this is where it gets a few extra marks in here because of this (i was gonna give this 6)

hhmm, its still working (bought it pretty much when it came out) i've had it i think 2-3 years now. Although its now getting to retirement age (now buying compact pedals) its last and been through a good few things. The expression pedal too is doing ok (which came with my pedal, as part of a deal), though what lets it down is the fact it is just a plastic cover, and those of us who jump on our pedals like ants, you'd kill this after a good few kicks. Which isn't what i do.

Well like i said, still works, ands thats itself, the epression and the adaptor. so i ain't had to deal with this as of yet (probably never once i get the compacts i want)

For it being a cheap multieffects, it does do its job. This pedal sold because of this factor.
I've played for 9+ years now (at the grand age of 17) and its pretty much been used for all my gigs (then again, i don't really have an option :) ) and it serves well enough. Best bet is to actually to think of it like a bunch of compacts, and pick certain types u like, then save patches of each at different parameters.
But yeh, its good enough for those interested in buying though, it'll be good for those unsure of compact pedals you want, this should give u a rough idea of the good effects (though bare in mind that Wah rules, it just sucks on this pedal).

THis Pedal is overall quite easy to use and customise after reading the manual. But if you are a beginer, which i would say this pedal is desighned for, it might take a while to become aquainted with some of the features and controls.

The sound quality in this thing is not great, The distortion is very tinny and the delay is limiting in that you only have a certain choice of times.On Accation you can somtimes end up with a sound like some of your favorite artists but most of the time a bad sound is inevitable .I think this pedal would be a lot better if the setting were controlled by a nob and not having a choice of numbers e.g A1,A2,C1,C2,D1,D2.

Through out the time i have owned this pedal it has been pretty good but it is unfotunatly made of plastic so i would definatly not do a gig without a back up in case an amp of something was dropped on it smashing it to pieces.

I Play many kinds of music from Vai and satriani to eric clapton and bb king so i would a pedal with a wide range of sounds ,i cant say this is the one but its not bad.I have been playing for 5 years and I now have just stuck to a carvin legacy guitar amp and a couple of foot pedals i.e wah-wah ,pitch shifter.If it were stolen or lost i would not replace it.I rather the sound of the digitech RP models to the zoom because the have a bigger array of sounds and settings.

This pedal is fairly simple. Programming takes a few minutes to get use to but overall an easy pedal.

When I first bought this pedal I was only playing for a year or two so I thought it was the shit. Now that I can actually play and have had experience with other pedals, its just shit. The pre programmed effects are shite. Everything has a "tinny" sound to it, the distortion is shit and so are the acoustic sounds. (i've never heard an acoustic guitar sound like that)

This thing broke down after about 3 months. The AC input jack is screwed so I have to tape it down a certain way to get it to stay on. Eats batteries like they're sweet pussy. Id never gig with it. I wouldn't piss on it.

never dealt with them.

Overall this pedal was cool when I was playing grunge and i wanted to add some "sounds" into my songs. It's been quite a few years and Im not into that style anymore. (I can actually play now) I basically have no use for this goddam thing other than to tune my guitar when I have an ear infection and cant hear right. As I said before, I wouldnt piss on this pedal. It's junk

It's very straight forward, no deep editting, all the effects hace certain presets except for the dist which has a gain control.... but for example the eq 's got 50 presets instead of bass-mid-treble....

It's been a while since I've used it. I think it's a subject of discussion. Nowadays there's a new small effects pedal with good quality on the market every month or so.... But I think the 505 is the trendsetter, and was very good quality for the price back then and still is.
I used a fake les paul with a fender 100 watt combo and it rocked... I used it for nirvana and metallica kind of stuff

It seems very fragile, used it only twice at gigs and it never failed.

No oppinion

Back then I played 'grunge' and some metallica and guns n roses... I traded it for something new when I had the chance. I wish I'd just bought somethin new and kept this 505 as a back up, real easy travelling u know, and to you think the non-guitarist audience is really gonna care what u use????? btw I saw a professional band use one in their riggs...

reprogramming is very simple, as long as the user isn't.
the short delay till the effect "kicks" in, is tricky to get perfect.

for the price you cannot beat it.

never had a problem, I dropped it just before the show, it still worked

I play in a band that sound like a gothic Jewel, and for all the effects my two guitarist need, it works great, they both use one.

Very easy to use, editing is quick and easy.

I am playing my Jackson ps-2, with a Dimarzio Norton Humbucker on the bridge, and a Yamaha amplifier and I get a pretty nice metal tone, not noisey at all,ok let's get into the effects: distorsions are ok but "Metal" "Blues" and "fuzz" sttings suck so bad I never use them.
Metal distorsion is shit, anyone trying to get a decent metal tone try the "Distortion" type it's so much better for metal, better crunch, nice depth, and it's bassy but not as bassy as Metal mode which is way too much for anything to sound clear.This is how I rock:
COMP:3
DIST:distortion
GAIN:30
ZNR:9
EQ:16
REVERB:3(room reverb)
LEVEL:19
This is to me a much better metal tone than what you get with a metal zone which has more gain but sounds fake. Since I have the 505 I sold my metal zone.
I think this sound ok for metal especially if played with a humbucker equipped guitar. The Lead distortion is pretty good too, nice for solos with a little delay, rythm dist is ok too very good for rock or blues, I never use overdrive or fuzz even if they are not bad in my opinion, I just find I already get a cool tone with distorsion.
I really think that the 505 have pretty good distorsions but I also think the 505 have very shitty effects, wah is awful,phase is shit,pitch shifter is a bad joke, step is useless, chorus and flanger are ONLY ok, the EQ is probably ok but is the hardest to use since the 505 doesn't show what frequency you are cutting or boosting, delay is ok but don't even think about comparing this to a serious delay effect stompbox like a boss digital delay.
pretty cheap effects and nice distortions period.

Yes you can depend on it but you better get an AC adaptator because this thing eats batteries like there's no tomorrow.

This is a good effects processor to start to mess around with.
allright some of the effects are so bad you can't use them so for a more serious sound you must get a more expensive piece of gear.

I find it very useful. With a little patence I find it quite easy to find the sound I want. The buttons small, but its not really somthing that I would get bent out o shape over. I never got the manual. The guy that I bought htis off of lost it. I find that usually people that were spoiled and always had fancy equuipment find this too hard to use. But it really isn't if you have at least three brain cells

I use it with an Epiphone Les Paul and it sounds fine. I liked it so much actually that I got two!

I can depend on it. My only ackup is my other Zomm 505

Obviously, reprogramming it is a pain...

I use this pedal with a Peavey Reactor, Predator, and Horizon.
I also use it with a Daneltro Hodad...some keyboard stuff, too.
I think it's a pretty cool little pedal. It doesn't suck a lot of a guitar's tone when it's off, and you can come up with a handful of decent programs. How many hundred sounds do you need at a gig, anyway? I didn't think it's as noisy as most folks, I guess. I play it usually thru a Peavey Transtube Bandit, and I think it sounds pretty good, especially LOUD. It sounds sort of "cyber" due to its digital nature, I suppose, but it's a great tool for twisting ANY sound. I think it's GREAT for recording. Remember how everybody thought the ROCKMAN was so awesome? It would be cool to see what the Beatles could have done with a 505!

It's plastic, but seems pretty tough. Probably not much of a problem as long as long as you didn't stomp REAL hard...

Had a hard time downloading the manual as a PDF

When I bought this pedal in a pawn shop, it didn't even look like it would work. Submerged, but not operational! Took it home, put in the battery, had a friend of mine (thanks, G) reinitialize it, and off I went. If you can find one cheap, SNAG IT!

Cakewalk for the basic features. The other things like Direct Load, tuner calibration, and patch editing are made easier with the manual.

The distortion sounds leave a little to be desired. There are a couple that aren't THAT bad, but none compare to the quality of a stompbox. I have been able to coax some pretty good clean tones out of it, though - but they usually end up being a little bright or a little too loud. Yes, those parameters are adjustable, but not for spur-of-the-moment live changes.

I've never had a problem with it. It'd help to have an auto-save feature when you finish editing a patch so you don't space it and forget to save your changes. I think I've had it a little over a year now. I honestly cannot remember when I bought it, but it's a tough little bugger for a plastic toy.

Also, I bought the Limited Edition model that was offered by Musician's Friend a while back... I must say that if you are going to buy a 505 (first run), buy this edition. It's got the transparent blue shell (which looks a little better), plus it uses "AA" batteries. I put new batteries in mine three weeks ago, and they've been going strong for about 8 hours total on time.

The adapter is a nice addition, though.

Never dealt with them.

Overall, it's a nice toy. And, it's a nice INEXPENSIVE toy. I don't think I'd ever play a real gig with it and definitely would never record with the thing, but it's cool to jam with and I love it as a headphone amp.

One thing that I never liked about it is the tuner never seemed to get it right. It gets close, but I'm one of those perfectionist weirdoes when it comes to my tuning and I can't be 100% happy with the tuner. And I'm convinced that it sucks volume out of the signal on bypass mode... Some of the effects can get loud as hell, but otherwise it's too quiet to be consistant.

It's a good learning tool and a good toy... No serious musician should ever buy one of these with the intent of having anything more than just that.

It's not too hard to use, but the buttons are annoyingly small, a dial would have been much better.

I'm just a home user, and I find the sound quality fine. Does sound a bit "digital" sometimes though - especially using some of the distortion effects.

Well, I've had it for about 3 years now, and the little buttons always get stuck, so editing patches now is VERY difficult.

N/A

Well, it was good for its time, but I think now, for only a little more you can get a lot better. If it were stolen, I'd be surprised, and buy maybe a digitech rp100 or rp200. My brother's got the zoom 707, and I think that's quite a big improvement on the 505 - the internals are very similar, but the casing is MUCH better, and it's got an expression pedal. (and no stupid little buttons!)