Zoom 9150 Valve DSP

Very easy to use. I modified patches easily without the manual. The data wheel is nice as is having a seperate button/indicator for each effect module.

Now this is the big issue!! Overall the tones are good, quiet operation, good effects....but....(and i dont know if its just me?) no presence!!! I originally tried this unit plugged into the effects return of a jcm900 and it sounded good enough to make me buy it. I've tried it through a fender and a few Marshall Valvestates only to find a lack of harmonic response. I have even tried a different valve in the unit!!!!
i cannot give a good rating of the sound quality of this unit until i can make it work to its full potential.

Very reliable.....its been kicked and dropped and still works fine
I WOULD use it without a backup if my harmonics came out!

I havent actually dealt with zoom....i guess i should!

Overall, if i had the components to make it sound gooo, YES i would buy another one. Also i found the 8050 footcontroller very good (ever though the chassis was bent and didn't sit properly on a hard floor.)

Very easy to use...even without the manual I was able to figure most everything out..even the midi stuff. There are a few advanced features however that I still need the manual for.

Contrary to what what one owner said, I think that the tubes make a GIGANTIC difference in the tone. I very subjectively compared the Zoom 9150's distortion sounds to all my solid state distortion pedals and effects processors and the 9150's distortions were definatly warmer, fuller, and just harmonically richer meaning that you could hear the chords very clearly and the distortion was tight and detailed. For direct recording however I would'nt recommend using it by itself. However combined with a Hughes & Kettner Red Box or when running through my Digitech RP-1, it sounds absolutely killer especially through the RP-1. I use it mainly to get monsterous death metal tones which it excels at! Plug this baby into a good halfstack and will thunder and crush your audience with a massive cranial crushing sound especially if you down-tune your guitar and spend some time tweeking the eq on your distortion patches. Ok...now some gripes...REverb: sucks bad..usable on guitar but terrible for studio use on vocals as it sounds metallic. Chorus and Flanger: pretty good. Pitch-shifter: not the best but ok sounding if you like wierd sounds. Phaser: One of its best effects..absolutely killer..kinda like a Boss SUper Phaser...very intense and really twists your guitar sound inside out. Delay: Pretty good, and is clear and pleasant sounding. Compression: Ok, not too bad...again not the best but usable and does add some sustain in distortion patches. Special effects: hmmm rotary speaker effect isnt all that great..interesting but not mind-blowing...the rotary speaker preset patch in the ZOom 3030 is much better. Other special effects are ok sounding for interesting little special effects but again nothing mind-blowing...the Zoom 3030 has better and more special effects if you like that kinda stuff. Oh another gripe...clean tone...well it kinda sucks...mainly because its not very clear when compared to other solid-state processors. It just doesnt have that sparkling clarity like on the other zoom solid-state processors and their is noticable tube compression when you hit the strings hard even with the compressor off. Maybe its just because I'm using a very high-gain guitar (Washburn Dime333). Oh and the noise reduction works pretty good also....I also fergot to add that this puppy has two programmable effects loops that you can hook other effects and pedals too and it has full MIDI programabilty....very cool.
Anyways, for Death Metal, crunchy light rock stuff, and for really smooth and vibrant lead sounds, this processor will do it and at a very low price!

I bought it used on the net in a studio house-cleaning sale that some studio was doing where they were selling cheap their equipment that didnt get much use and that was just sitting around gathering dust. Anyways...no problems so far...everything running smoothly. As it has tubes I definatly would bring a backup as tubes can break easily.

I've dealt with the Zoom before and they are pretty good at repairing stuff though their turn around time can be a little long sometimes especially if you are returning it through a local dealership. (They repaired my old Zoom 9000).

For the money you can't beat it...maybe not as good as a Mesa Boogie Tri-Axis or a Marshall JMP-1 but definatly close to them. I think that its definatly one of the best deals out there for a tube preamp AND a digital effects processor. Try it out before you sink a load of money into a high end guitar tube preamp. You can even use it to warm up digital mixes and harsh vocals.

I felt this was a really easy to use multieffects unit. I remember reading a review of it in a magazine that praised its interface.

There is a tube in the preamp and I don't think it does anything to warm up the sound. It's just there for marketing reasons. I thought the unit was kind of noisy when I first got it because I expected it to be a vast improvement over pedal effects. It wasn't. But I have since tried other multieffects units and they don't seem that much better. I'd say this is pretty middle of the road on noise. Yes, it has noise reduction which works fine, but I hate how any noise reduction sounds. The distortions can get pretty crunchy and I was able to get quite a range of sounds out of it with the use of EQ. I didn't like the reverb. The compressor didn't have much effect on the sound. The flanger was pretty good (I was used to the heavy flange of a Boss pedal). The Chorus, Auto Wah, Pitch Shifter, and Delay were all pretty nice.

Never broke.

Never broke.

It has a ton of features for the price, and is a pretty respectable unit. I sold it because 1) I felt like it didn't let much of my guitar or amp's tone through, but every multieffect unit I've ever played does the same thing. 2) I didn't want to invest more money in buying the pedal board to hook up to it. I bought three Boss pedals with some of the money I got for it (Metal Zone, Delay, and Flanger) and will be getting a Chorus and possibly Wah. I bought most of these used and so far have spent $175. That being said, I saw one the other day in the classifieds for $200 and I would have snapped it up if I had the money to spend. At $200, or even a little more, I think it is definitely worth it just for the variety and to have certain effects I don't use very often (Auto Wah, Pitch Shift) when I want them.

It is pretty easy to use, especially edit. Just hit the edit button, hit the button for the preamp, modulation, or whatever, step through the pages, tweak the data entry dial, and store.

It can be rather noisy if the overdrive is cranked up and flanging with heavy resonance is used. The ZNR noise reduction is pretty good and can deal with a lot of the problems. The pitch shifting isn't as good as the AX30G or Digitech RP-10, and colours the sound quite a lot (and is pretty poor for bass). I'm not 100% happy with the reverb in that it seems difficult to get a 100% reverbed signal, but then I might need to tweak the predelay parameter? The step flanging and phasing effects are good.
The overdrive is especially good. I use it mostly for bass, and for bass the OD is better than anything else I have tried - ME6B, AX30B, Boss bass overdrives pedals etc. For guitar the overdrive is not noticeably fizzy and not too bad for direct-to-tape, although I felt the 3 amp colours were a bit limiting and so invested in a Marshall DRP-1 to add extra variation for direct recording applications. Given that there are two effects loop I can slip the DRP-1 in almost anywhere in the chain, which adds a lot to the flexibility of the unit.

The rack ears are not terribly convincing and seem a bit loose on my unit so in my rack I have put little supports under it, just in case. The on/off switch is confusingly upside down. At the moment I still haven't offloaded my Boss ME6b so in theory I have a backup but I would expect to be gigging with no backup at all. No reliability problems yet.

I have been waiting about three months for an experssion pedal to arrive for this unit. I'm not impressed

I love the overdrive sounds for bass, and the two fx loops are a godsend, allowing me to plug in (when I'm using it for a bass) an ART Multiverb LT (for its distinctive gated reverb) and (when it arrives) a Korg G5.

Pretty easy to edit parameters of each effect and store, once you get used to the controls. Small manual, but helpful.

Input and output level control very helpful for controlling noise along with the Zoom Noise Reduction. All pre-amp settings sound great, especially tube overdrive. Distortion also sounds good, with effective controls

Have not had a problem with reliability. I even dropped mine from about three feet onto a hard tile floor. Just picked it up, plugged it in and cranked it up. I am using it at performances without a backup.

Never used

I would buy it again. I really liked the two effects loops. I looked at a quite a few others including some from Boss, Alesis and Art. Overall, price, performance etc, this was the best deal. I previoulsy used stomp boxes which are very expensive, somtimes noisey and difficult to control and set.

Very good presets. Knob for easy selection of patches, as well as editing. Manual is a little thin, but so well layed out it does not matter...

This samples at 31.25 but it still sounds great. running it directly into a four-track. The Tube makes a difference. Real Fat sound. Still need to play with the Verb, but hey...Check the price.

I would recommend this unit, particularly if you use MIDI, Great Sound, really good pre-sets