Zoom 9150 Valve DSP

This is (if possible) simpler to use than a stomp box. I know there's a certain set of standards that most effects processors go by as far as interface goes, but this unit really makes sense of it. It honestly took me ten minutes to figure it out, without the manual. Then I sat down with the manual for about a half hour (bring it on the bus or something) and learned what the manufacturer has to say about it.

Let me tell you, I'm a man who likes knobs, dials and lights. I was a little bit disturbed to get this unit and only see about 9 lights, but the display is not cluttered, everything makes sense, and it's very hard to get lost. (yay, human factors)

I'm using a new mexican Telecaster with this unit, going straight into a Fender Stage 112 combo amp. The clean effects (like wah, flange, chorus, reverb) are excellent. Of course the fender on fender spanking clean sound is to contribute to that, but it sounds a lot better than the stomp boxes I've played with. The effects have plenty of variables, and a mix control, so you can get from subtle to overbearing sounds. The controls are real, and not just there for show. Everything makes sense, and if something *should* work, it does... can't say more than that.

First artist I tried to emulate was Mark Knopfler. It was very easy to get the overdrive that I liked. Sounds clean but warm with very little volume on the guitar end, but add more to the mix and it gets nice and fuzzy. I was also able to get a nice Van Halen sound (think Balance), Perfect Circle, Tool... and I'm still learning.

Unfortunatly, the overdrive can be a bit weak at times. One previous person on this page said that the tube sounds like it's there for show. I must admit that sometimes my Metal Zone pedal could do a better job, but usually, after a little more tinkering, I can get a nicer sound (usually have to alter the color and/or tone values)

Can't really say... only had it a few weeks. No problems so far, though.

No experience with customer support.

I love this unit. It looks great (c'mon... first impressions are important) sounds great, and has a TON of features. The back has two effects loops (one stereo, one mono), an input on the front AND back, a headphone jack on the front (both of the front jacks have knobs, too) The back also houses a MIDI in and out jack, a remote (foot board) jack, and two jacks for the output (one left/mono and one for the right (in stereo)) In short, it plays nice with others.

The patches give you plenty of playing room. I never thought to put a distorted flanger on my signal before, but now I love it. Oh, and it has this option called "step" which makes your sound resemble a stabbing westward "techno blip" sound. I guess you have to hear it... it just sounds really cool.

The overdrive unit gets to be really nice once it warms up. I play a lot of Van Halen, Mark Knopfler, INXS, Front Line Assembly, and whatever else you can think of. I've even brought it to a few jazz band shows, and it's been great at that too.

This definitly helps me make music. I'm usually as creative as a garden hose when it comes to song writing, but this has helped me "hear" more possibilities from stuff I've been noodling around with. I'm sure once the "gee whiz" factor gets out of the way, I'll get more serious. Look out world, then.

very easy to use. Read the instruction manual a couple of times and used it as reference. Can edit patches in split second in between songs during a performance

I have had this module for 6 years now and still love most of the sound. I run it through a Marshall jtm 45 bluesbreaker combo or a Fender Bassman 410. The guitars I mainly use is a les paul standard, a $20 strat copy and a Samick tele. I find it sometimes can be a little sharp(bright) to the ears but I pull top frequencies out to justify this. I also crank up some mid range to get a throuty sound.
I love overdrive two - it produce a nice warm thick blues tone. I never touch the distortion - Just overdrive. I am happy with the rotary emulator as well as most of the other effects. I have also played around with valves to see what difference they make.
It is a noisy little hisser when turned up and driven through a load amp but I can put up with that.

After 6 years I have still the original battery. Only once did it lose all memory of my patches, but this was due to a power surge caused by an inhouse disco.
I have had trouble with the out put socket and have had to open it up and resolder the joints on a number of occasions. I put this down to being out and gigging every weekend since Ive had it. It has already completed 300 gigs with my previous band as well as a couple of hundred befor that, so I think its only fair that I do have some problems with it - A work horse

Never had to deal with them

I play blues, rock, country, soul, swing.
Ive been playing for 15 years.
I probably would buy it again.

I've had this unit for about three years now and I have waded as far as I can go with midi programming, data dumps and of course patch editing. I only use my own patches, never the presets - which are not any worse than anyone else's, but not better either. I have tweaked endlessly. The whole thing is pretty straightforward and the manual is good - but not great. Still, if you have used any page based unit before, it should be a snap. I also use the 8050 foot controller, which is phantom powered - I run a midi out from that to control patch changes on my Roland GR09 guitar synth. Works great. Nice floor unit. Also easy to program. A fair amount of depth to both, but not all the depth in the world. Nice compromise.

I use a variety of guitars with this unit, strats, teles, pauls, rics and ovations - I can make it work to advantage for each one. There is some noise on the extreme distorntion patches, the compressor (of course), extreme treble eq settings and a bit of digital white noise on extreme reverb settings. All pretty typical of any effects device that's not high end. Mostly not noticable through my amp rig - which consists of an ART Levelar tube compressor, a Marshall 9001 tube preamp and a valvestate 8008 power amp (all nice peices of gear). I run the 9150 through the effects loop on the 9001 and balance so that it's about 75 percent effected sound with 25 percent of the marshall on top - this really beefs up the bottom end and provides great clarity. Fantastic for the otherwise "harsh" wah sounds from the 9150. The wah throw can be adjusted nicely if you work on it, but wah + distortion I found hard to mellow separate from the 9001. Nice pitch shifts\whammy - a little warble, but not bad. Nice trem, chorus, flang, phaser, etc. I have emulated - quite nicely some artist sounds, for laughs, so I have labels like "TROWER1", "EDGELEAD" "SUMMERS" "CLEANRIX" "DICKDALE" etc. but the unit shines at obtaining unique - and some really twisted - tones. The "artist presets" that come with the box (steve stevens, et al. - are not much to talk about). Some are too noisy even to bear listening to. Badly programmed.
Replacing the unit's tube can really color the sound and I auditioned a variety of tubes before settling on a low gain Jolida - which technically is not a great tube, but sounds best to me in this unit. THE TUBE DOES MAKE A DIFFERENCE - even though not - as I understand it - many volts are going to the plate. For really outside sounds, I also run a Boss SE50 and a Digitech RDS 8000 looper through the 9150's effects loop. I'm experimenting with just chaining these devices instead, as I'm not crazy about the way the zoom's effects loop sounds - a bit noisy - and bypassing the looped boxes seems to deaden the zoom patches when in mixin or insert mode.

The unit is very reliable, so far. I notice a little play in the data wheel, but, as I said, that's after three years of constant tweaking. I've only changed the tubes out of desire, not need. The battery is so far so good - but I keep my patches dumped out as a backup on a regular basis.

Contacted them by phone with general questions and they were very helpful - specifically identifying some generic part numbers for me so I could obtain replacements at - say - radio shack - should the need arise. I have not contacted them since this box was discontinued, however. That usually sounds the death knell for manufacturer support. The website is pretty good, but does not contain an historical product section. They want to sell what's current.

This is and underrated box - thank god. As evidenced by some of my patch names, I play a wide range of styles and have about 20 years experience at it. The 9150 is not the best box out there. But it is a good one and not many people seem to use it, so you are not going to sound like every other player with it. I am considering getting a second one as a backup. They are still showing up on e-bay in the $100-150 range.

This unit is very easy to use, you just hit the edit button, change parameters and hit store (twice) simple.

Excellent distortion tones the tube gives the ability to have some really fat drive sounds, although I haven't been able to get good clean sounds at high volume. I have recently bought a Roland GS6 which I have patched through the EXT2 effects return loop. The Roland has great clean sounds, so now I'm trying to work out how to use the 9150 midi to control patches on the Roland (any help would be appreciated) I also have the 8050 foot controller which is great.
I rated this as 8 because I love the distortion sounds.

This unit has never faulted !!! I've had it for about 4 years, excellent

I dealt with these guys once when I wanted some answers to questions about midi a year ago, I didn't get a good response and it was difficult. (support@samsontech.com) said that I couldn't use the 9150 midi to control patches on another unit e.g Roland GS6
However since I've actually connected the Roland I find that using my 8050 Zoom foot controller DOES change patches on the Roland - there just seems to be no rythme nor reason to what changes !!!

I probably paid too much for this unit but it did come with the controller

I can really say it is easy. Just try to compare this with a Digitech 2100 unit. I don't want algorithms and other stuff I can't easily set to get a good tone. Nice control knob and buttons for each module makes this baby a very user-friendly unit. Manual is ok, in 4 or 5 different languages.

I changed from my Zoom-9002 to this unit. Definitively a huge change in my tone. I didn't like the all-digital, thin tone of an emulated distortion of the 9002. The 9150's tube driven pre-amp section works great. I have used this through various amps and the tone is really good.

I use an Ibanez S470LTD with an Air Norton(n), a Steve's Special(b) and a HS-2(m), an Ibanez S7460 7-tring and a Parker Fly Deluxe. They all sound great with distortion. If you use the Parker's piezo pick-up, or the middle and neck pick-ups from the S470 you can get awesome crystal clean tones from this unit. The FX are ok. Mostly, I use some reverb and chorus. Nice sounding digital fx with virtually no noise at all. The only thing I don't like is that, no mater how much noise reduction you used on it, when the "Turbo" option is turned on, it gets really noisy.

Sure I can depend on it. Hard cased and the tube is working perfectly. I may have some spare tubes around, but I don't think I will have to change it in the middle of a gig. Also, I bought it new, inlcuding the 8050 foot controller. Good deal, huh?

I had my Zoom-9002 main FX processor chip changed through a local dealer. That's the only timed I needed some customer service and they did OK. The only bad thing is that they lasted long to get this done, but I don't know if I have to blame the factory or the dealer.

Great value and great sounding FX. I play heavy music an the 9150 fits my style very well. I've been playing for 10 years now. I worked at a music shop for 4 years, so I got to know a lot of multi-fx and stompboxes. I liked this the most for value/quality. I love the tube feature. This one has been with me for year and a half now and no problems at all. I think I will stick to it til I get the money to buy a Tri-Axis preamp, but I don't think I'll sell it. Works very well over any amp. Huge amounts of distortion and you can also get some nice cleans out of it. So, what else do you need? A 15-voice harmonizer???? LOL.....

I changed the factory presets within the first 10 minutes... very easy even using the foot control to change my patches was easy to set up

The tube gives it a fuller sound I think compared to the others I've tried like the Digitech RP-12 or Rp14. You can even use the pitch shifter as a transposer or detuner and the conversion time is instant unlike the true transposer of the Digitech models

Had it for almost 4 years. Gigged with it and no problems. My foot controller got drowned in about 6 inchs of water when a pipe broke in my basement and after a day to dry out it still works with out hesitation and that was 2 years ago

Haven't had a reason to call them yet

We play loud and full of punch and this processor keeps up no problem. I've just ordered an expression pedal so now I've got another level to learn and use

It is really easy. I do not need to wiew the user manual to use the unit even at the first time.But I must confess that you must buy the foot controller to make it easier to use the unit during a live performance.

I have an Ibanez Jem 555 and I use it with a fender amp., with my comp.'s speakers, with my Philips headphones and I dont think it to be possible to get a vacume Tube amp sound from a stereo headphone! This unit has a vacume tube (12AX7A) inside and it gives you to ability to create more powerful and real (such as Gary Moor's screamy drive tone) tones. I used ZOOM 1010 and ZOOM 3000s and I was sick and tired of hearing the digital drive tones till I buy this unit.

I didn't test it for a long period but I think it is a good idea to have a auxullary tube in your case in order to have the chance to repair the unit if it breaks down during a noncomfortable travel.

Bad, Bad, Bad! ZOOM's site (www.zoom.co.jp) dosn't have a mail address and I could find information, user manuals pictures and everything about ZOOM's any product BUT MINE!...

It really sound goods with my solo based rock style. It wish it had a longer delay time and it had the capability to record my riffs by operating an external memory unit.
If someone has this units manual in PDF format please send it to me!

The editing is rather easy. I only had to refer to the manual a few times. I still prefer the ease of pedals but I suppose the rack has its advantages.

This is a big issue for me. I almost wonder if something on my unit is defective. If I'm playing through an amp, it sounds tolerable, but I often record straight to the mixer sometimes using a speaker simulator. It sounds so weak. I used a spectrum analyzer and all it put out was midrange. There is excessive noise, even when the guitar is turned down. In general, I am really unhappy with this product's sound.

Never been a problem, but it hasn't been around much.

Friendly people at zoom, I'll tell ya.

I bought it because of good reviews in magazines and because Nine Inch Nails had one, and I like their sound. I do industrial and ambient, and I wanted a good multi effects unit to help me get the exact sounds I'm looking for. I wish I had bought one of the comparable digitech or boss units. They're much better sounding. I partially blame this products lousy sound quality to a creative dry spell. I have since bought better effects, and my creative output is back.

Best in it's class and price range.

I use it more than two years without any problems.

9150 is ideal as practicing/rehearsing unit.Of course Mesa/Boogie Triaxis with TC2290 plus Lexicon 480 and Eventide....sounds incomparable better but for much more money.

Traditional effects package. Pretty straight forward controls. Factory presets are horrible.

Distortions are simply incredible. I have tried to replace this in my rack w/ a GSP2101A and a Boss GX700, while the clean stuff in the GSP2101 and the GX700 are unequaled, the metal sounds of the Zoom 9150 are massive. I can get 10 distinct metal voices that cover NIN to Pearl Jam to Ozzy. Excellent harmonic overtones. I haven't been able to get a good newer Gilmore sound yet, but I admit i am not sure where to even start?

1 year, no problems.

Excellent, they have answered questions by e-mail & by phone quickly.

I have tried to move to one of the top-end units GSP2101 & GX700, because I like their sparkling clean stuff, but I can't replace the metal voice of the Zoom. I can't believe it myself! $200.00...need I say more!