Zoom GFX-707

You can get good sounds out of this pedal quite easily. I think it can't get any simpler. Editing Patches is easy if you read the manual for about an hour (and the manual is good). The only problem is that if you screw up storing a patch on top of another one, you just have to start all over again. That's why I'll only give it a 7. But it's simple to work with...

I use a Washburn N2 > GFX-707 - Crate G160XL. There is almost no noise at all and that's a good feature. I believe it's because of the ZNR (Zoom Noise Reduction). What a good job they did here...
Well, the effects are not that good to start with, you have to edit your own patches if you really want to "like" them. Although some are quite good (20% of them). With a little work you can get the sound of many artists, I guess. But I'm not a sound expert, so I don't really know if I get that or not. Some of the patches (presets) that I like are the Van Halen, Pop, Lead, Detune, Overdrive, Violin... like I said , some are quite good. The rest is pure manure folks. But hey it's a cheap pedal, so you really have to make it sound like you want. It doesn't come all prepared for your taste, right?

I can sure depend on this pedal. It's plastic, but I don't kick it. I use it carefully. I haven't done any gigs but I would use it on a (small) gig, sure. I think the sound is good enough for that

Never heard of them. But the music store (Castanheira, Oporto Portugal) were really helpful and let me try it for as long as I wanted. And the Zoom website is above average, so it's a 9!!

I play all kind of music for about 6 years and this pedal helps me a lot. I can record directly to the machine with this (without using the amp), which is good!! I don't have any other gear for the guitar. I don't think I need it yet. For beginners, this is a great pedal. And editing may seem boring, but it helps you develop a certain knowledge about this kind of stuff. If it was stolen, I'd probably save to buy a GFX-8 or a Boss GT-3, because I would want to move forward. I guess we could store the patches in a different way, because it somehow gets confusing, but that's the only flaw. Believe me, this is great pedal for starters. You'll go crazy if this is your first pedal. Just try it in a store... and for the price, it's awesome. But of course, if you are a serious musician, then buy a better and more expensive one, because this is not the pedal you want.

The pedal is easy enough to play around with if you are happy with the preset patches. The manual takes a bit of following to understand how to edit anything - which is a waste of time. I found any of the settings took ages to edit and the sounds usually came across "over-edited" no matter how subtly you set the fx.

I play an ESP guitar with a Laney LC30 valve amp. I had a small Marshall practice amp before and found the fx gave me easy access to a range of sounds for practicing, but since I got the Laney it just doesn't compare. The distortions on the pedal are all very muddy and lacking harmonic content and the reverb lacks any atmosphere. I thought the chorus was the best effect and the drum settings are fun and usefull as a glorified metronome. The wah is pitiful (i am awaiting delivery of a Morley this moment) but the expression pedal has its use as a volume pedal. I've had this pedal for over a year and a half and was a beginner at the time, not exactly a conisseur of tone but just happy if it had six strings and a Floyd. i am now a much better player (classic rock/metal mainly) and am aware that my pedal isn't even close to giving me the tone I crave.

Well, i've had the pedal for over 1 1/2 years and it's still going after daily usage as if it were brand new, so I can't complain. I do tread lightly on it however if i'm wearing my boots as the plastic doesn't seem indistructable. I wouldn't use it live as i would probably stomp on it in the middle of a rockin song.

Dont know?

As i said, I play classic rock and it just ain't working. I play straight into my Laney now and it is phenomenal, and i'm contemplating buying a few stompboxes like a BOSS compressor and delay as they give more versatility and are easier to adjust. I tried recording myself a few times for my music course and it was when I played it back that I realised how terrible it made me sound. If it got stolen i wouldn't buy another but i would be more upset that I didn't have it to pawn off to some beginner for 50 bucks. For a beginner it is usefull for exploring different sounds and fun but if you are any way serious about playing guitar save yourself the money and buy a decent all-valve amp, they have all the legendary tones you could want.

Sound is not spectacular, just decent. The manual is only somewhat helpful. Editing is easy.

Ibanez guitar, crate amp. Okay sound for some areas, other patches are unnecessary. Somewhat limited in its range. Could get some okay distortions if time is spent on it.

This is where it gets ugly. Today i was playing, and i leaned over to adjust some settings when all of the sudden my cheap guitar strap let go and my guitar came smashing down on the unit. My guitar only had a very minor scratch on it, but as for the 707, it was totalled. I opened it up, and found to my dismay that the circuit board was cracked in half. Time for some new effects, i guess.

didn't deal with them

Okay for casual use. Just don't drop a guitar on it. Guitar, 1. Effects, 0.

Its not hard, you just need to read the manual and spend a few hours playing around with it. You can also use the presets, which aren't bad. 60 of them gives you some variety. If you want to experience all the features of it, you'll have to spend time with the manual though.

The preset effects are pretty good, but there are just too many useless distortions, fortunately, most of those are in the editable memory blocks. Many of the other effects are pretty cool though (60 total). Some say that they only use like 2 or 3 effects and the rest are useless, well, why would you buy a *multi* effects pedal? They have single effect pedals for those people, yet they insist on buying a unit like this and then trashing it because they baught the wrong thing. I find a lot of the effects very useful, since I play more experimental type of music, and you can make some really awesome patches if you put the time in to it.

The amp modeler, well, that depends on what kind of amp you have. If all you have is a fender squier sidekick, then it is extremely useful. On the Combo A setting, it'll make that little piece of junk amp sound like a real amp...at low volumes at least, until the speaker gives. If you have a real amp, then I can't say there because I don't have one at the moment.

One thing, this unit is NOT staticky at all, those that experience static have either bad pickups or their guitar volume turned up way to high. On my RG120 Ibanez w/ DiMarzio pickups turning the volume knob down just a tad keeps any static from showing up.

Had no problems what so ever in the 3 months I had it, and I'm pretty abusive.

never had to deal with them

For the price, it is pretty damn good. It can match the sound of many of the more expensive distortion pedals. If it were lost or stolen I'd definately buy another one. The only thing on it that completely blows is the "drum machine". It is useful for nothing more than a metranome, and the sampler is pretty shitty too. Then again, you want a good drum machine, get one, you want a good sampler, get one. If you want a good cheap multi effects pedal in this price range, get this.

Soon as you get this thing you can use it and in my opinion the majority of guys who are gunna be buying this are beginners who don't own any other pedals or processors. For them the effects that are pre programed are great, when I got this I was running it thru a Squier Strat and a Squier Sidekick amp, this was probly the most limited setup soundwise that anyone could get therefore getting the pedal opened up alot of doors for me. I found it easy to get a fairly decent sound (compared to what had at the time) by using this pedal. After a while I felt like experimenting, the manual for it is very very hard to understand at 1st however the actually editing process is not nearly as difficult as it looks, editing patchs is an easy step by step procedure even if it is a lil time consuming. Basically your not gunna learn howto run this thing overnight however as u use it it will become easier.

My gear has changed alot since I got this pedal, I now use a Peavy Studio Pro 112 or Marshall Grd 15 and a 48th Street Custom Strat. The pedal is not usually noisy you do get the odd fx settings/pickup postions where it creates a lil noise but thats only very very rarely. Ok now for the quality of Fx, Clean Chorus is brilliant I can achive amazing clean sounds on using this pedal it rox, the flange is OK but a lil on the weak side, Wah is probly the weakest thing on this pedal but as I don't use the Wah much I'm not too worried about that, Distortion like the Flange is a lil weak but is much better then Amp Distortian the only way yer gunna better this is with a stomp box or expensive processor. I play all sorts of different music and for most this thing suits me fine. I'd give this a 7.5 If I could but thats not possible so i'll give it an 8.

I've had it a year and a bit and it's starting to let me down here at first it was ok but now the input/output sockets are starting to come loose, I think that can be fixed though and I haven't had any other problems.

Dunno, Don't care :-)

I play a lil bit of everything and for the beginner who dabbles in a bit of everything this thing is fine. I've been playing a year and half maybe maybe a lil more most of my other gear i've described above. If lost or stolen I'd probley save up for a GFX 4 maybe and 8 I dunno. Other pedals in this range are pretty much the same but this one had a few extra features so I choose this. I record alot line in also and this thing works OK for that 2, If any of you guys wanna hear what this pedal can do check out Guitarwar.com and look in the past elec melees my name is "Twads" and in war 687 I use this pedal to createthe lead sound. L8rs

It's really pretty easy to use, just put all your setting where you want them, and play around. You can play the guitar while changing the settings to find what you really want. The manual is a little inspecific about some things, but with some basic knowledge you can overcome that.

I run this with a Fender Strat to a Fender Frontman 25R. I don't try to do too much, just keep it simple. Some settings are worthless and stupid, but I just made my own settings in their place. I was just playing with the settings and I can get decent Creed clean and distorted sounds, and some STP. The acoustic stuff doesn't really sound acoustic, and some patches, like I said, are just dumb.

It works for me, but I don't usually play gigs. It hasn't fallen apart yet, and doesn't look like it's going to, so yeah, i'd use it for a gig.

Don't know, no trouble so far.

I play rock mostly, this seems to do the trick, I just have to alter the patches to get what I want sometimes. I've been playing almost 2 years, by no means an expert, but I have a Fender P-Bass, a Yamaha acoustic, and a junker guitar. It gives me more options in my music than just overdrive and reverb, so It does just fine for me.

Parameter adjusting with the knobs is quite intuitive, but its sometimes hard to know which knob for which parameter is, since they change depending on the fx type. I found the 505 easier to configure, but it also has much less adjusting options for the effects.

I miss a real smooth distortion. The distortions also seem very dirty and have to be corrected at low end to be used at a line in. However, I achieved a good classic rock sound in combination with my Fender Strat, using OD2 and GAIN set at 1. Effects sound nice, and some have really good stereo depth. When I practice with my Dolby ProLogic decoder on it sounds ok. It interprets the stereo signals to give it a front/back dimension.

never had a problem. Sure, effect boards with metal cases stand more kicks and hits, but for a little gig in a little nice club (...if it had better distortions...) it's ok.

never had to use it. Although, I didn't like the fact that they raised the 707's price around 40$ (don't know for sure how much, I paid in german marks) when the 505-II came out.

Although I was overwhelmed with the variety of effects when i first got the 707, I'm already (2 months later) thinking of getting something more professional in terms of sound quality and features. It holds a lot of effects which would dry your wallet out if you bought them all as single effect pedals, but it's only a compromise in terms of quality. noise reduction however, is really good.

It's not like adjusting your three knobs box but after reading the manual and spending some time on it you can easily create your own sounds. I own it since 4 months and i played with every setting. Much easier then some other units I've tried.

I have Jackson PS-4 Performer and I use the ZOOM for practice with headphones or recording with PC. It's a funny toy but the sound quality is not good. In the Dist/Comp module, only the Dist-2 setting and the Acoustic Simulation is interesting. Compressor settings suck. Metal dist stinks. Modulation effects are weak and generally useless except some chorus settings. Espescially the wah sounds are ridiculous. Pitch shifters have long latency times and sound horrible. But the noise reduction does a good job. Reverb and echo effects are not flexible enough to find good sounds, in fact, nor are other effects. Amp simulation is just a bunch of EQ presets and alters nothing but the frequency response. Expression pedal and drum samples are good features for this class of units, but since the wah sucks, pedal is not so much necessary. Jam play and sample features are weak and only usefull for fun.
When I try to make direct records with it, it causes a low end boost (even with the "line" setting) so the result is a growling bass sound which is not tolerable. I defianly can't get 80's classic metal sound like Judas or Ozzy though I've tried every combination of effects.

It seems reliable, nothing happened yet but DO NOT use it on gig! I did it on a small gig and the led display was invisible on the scene so I had very unpleasant time there. Trust me, don't use it!

I haven't deal with them. But the guy who sold it to me was very and helpful, I bought my guitar from the same magazine and had a problem with it, I brought by guitar and they solved the problem in a half hour.

I play 80's metal (not thrash or power but classic and glam). I have only one usefull setting and I practice with it. I play since ten years and personally I do not own anything at home. But at my school's studio there are some usefull units. If my GFX-707 was lost, I'd buy a Line-6 POD wich I tested longtime and that sounds great. Don't buy it, add a little more and buy POD. Well ZOOM GFX-707 is a funny toy but nothing more.

Not too tough, but editing cool patches was not enough intuitive. Dialing a good sound is easier on pedals.

Used a Ibanez RG (HSH) and Fender Strat (mexico) thru a variety of Marhsall Valvstates.
The distortions are simillar to what you can get from a cheap peavey blaser (I know coz I got one of those at home) and the Wah is pityfull compared to my CryBaby. I went to the music store to get a good multi effect pedal, I tried the Zoom for an hour or so and then decided it wasen't worth it's price.

Also, the patches suck and some of 'em are USELESS.
Can't get a blues sound that has balls with this P.O.S.

No, it's made of plastic... it's not really made to last.

nice web site, I'll give'em that

It's useless, either save up money to buy a real multi-effect (Line 6) or buy each pedal individually, one at a time, like I did. I bought a Boss BD-2 instead. It's great!. Next stop is the flanger!

i have just got it for christmas and this is the first pedal i have got, the instructions are a bit advanced for me to get my head round, an idea for ZOOM would be to give you examples to try out.

i use a fender squire strat with a fender practice amp, i got good sounds without the box anyway so i had somthing to compare with.
like others have said, the distortions all sound the same! there are some good sounds i must say, but on most of the sounds i have found the "expression" pedal useless.

the box i would use it at a gig no probs but the sounds..well.
i havent had any problems so far...

needed none

i play all sorts of music, but as i am still a learner i havn't really been able to compare the boxes capabilities with others i have had, which is to say none(!)
if ever it was stolen i would probably buy another box to sort of broaden my experiences with them.
i think overall since it's the first box i have had i would say it is quite good, the drum beat function is cool, but only to practice, i woulden't use it in a gig.