Zoom Studio 1201

Id just like to say thanks to they people at Harmony - Central for a great site. Enjoyed the visit. but back to the plot .. The 1201 is not a difficult beast to use.I got it in a sale & am well pleased.I keep wishing id got the next model up with the midi in .. then i could have sync,d the echoes / repeats to midi .. but never mind.

Not bad Q. When i 1st git it home .. i hooked it up to the ouput of my satelite system .. in fact the shopping channel ( well they certainly can waffle on there ) ha .. & was really impressed by the shear amount of variations of FX. If u have never done this .. please try it. U may find that vocal inputs work much different. ha!
My set up is a Zoom 505 into the 1201 >> thru a 5 ch passive mixer & then into a 16 band grafic EQ then to minidisk.I normally feed my BT2 into the 505 with only a small pcnt of reverb & then use the 1201 for the overall fx. Its amazing how a dead input can come out sounding so spacious ! My main preference is the Bank A reverbs. Oh yeah .. one patch works really well for a chorused sound ... dont ask where it is .. i know its there somewhere in another bank.A quik word about " sounding like " .. well ive tried to get new sounds from my guitar .. but i cant get them. I recon the 505 has its own sound ( bandwidth ) & relly the zoom has no sound processor as such .. either it repeats or sounds like its in the next room ... but this is fine.

errr ... fingers crossed

????

Great .. i used to use a Akai 4000DS years ago to try & get chorus fx but this takes the p*** !!! ( the Akai 4000DS is a open reel tape deck ) There is plenty of reverbs in this box.I dont know how it would work " live " ... i only use it at home.very usefall.

It is very simple to operate - just twist a few knobs and you have the effect you want! It took me a while to figure out the Bank switch though - it isn't easy to see which bank you are in either. The manual is small, but tells you all you need to know.

It is pretty quiet really for a box of its price. It isn't completely silent, and the noise it makes shows up more on the recording.
There are loads of sorts of reverbs which all work well. The manual helps you choose them easilly, which is a good thing. However, the only real edit parameter is length.
The flanger is pretty good - I haven't heard many others before on their own and I guess it flanges well enough for me!
I don't feel that the chorus is that good though.
Delay isn't bad at all - it doesn't seem to want to pan like the manual says it does though.
Pitch shifter pretty OK - makes me sound like Mr Blobby for anyone who knows who he is! Delay with Pitch Shift is pretty good.
AutoFilter does some interesting stuff with your sound - I've been told it isn't really a filter, but I'm not that sure!
Vocoder won't sound anything like the one on that Cher Beleive song, but works pretty well.
Various other effects are all pretty good - Ring Modulation as unmusical as I've ever heard it. The best multi-effect is Reverb + Flange - it generates a lovely deep sound.

I've dropped it once and it still works! I haven't had any problems with it so far.

I haven't ever had to get it repaired, so I can't really comment on this.

I am young and trying to make music, and a good pretty good quality, cheap effect box which does its thing digitally was what I was looking for. I like it alot, and it does some pretty good stuff on trance music that I (try) to make. The only thing that I don't really like is that you can't save your settings. It is simple enough to use though, and in spite of my few complaints I have given it 10 on the basis that it is a first time effects box, like it is for me. For studio use, it may be a little noisy. For a small band - GREAT!

Couldn't be simpler - select the effect and away you go! A crib sheet is provided to get the 'feel' of the effects, but the descriptions seemed to have stretched the writer's imagination somewhat!

Well, regardless of price, the reverbs need a lot of tweaking to get them sounding natural; pile on too much and there's something not quite right about them; the nice thing is that they can work in stereo, not just summed mono. The actual quality of the reverbs is very good - I couldn't hear any bit crunching going on in long fades (listen to a Quadraverb to see what I mean). Bank 3 is what everyone buys it for! Simply wacko effects are extremely musical and first-rate. Avoid the 'vinyl emulation' effects - too repetitive and unconvincing.

I've had it over a year with constant use and not one glitch. Put some caterpillar tracks on it and it'll be a tank. Good, solid 1/4" jack inputs and outputs.

N/A - No problems with device.

Excellent device. Great for 'instant gratification' as far as plug-in and go is concerned. A handy thing to have is some sheets with drawings of the front panel knobs - to note down those 'wow' tweaks before they're forgotten. Keen price, good effects (excellent bank 3 fx) and robust. Smashing!

This thing is amazing, i have had it for just under a year and i still find effects that i have not yet used. Manual? pah! who needs it, just wack in your leads, turn it on and twiddle!
There is no patch editing, and there is no software involved, all peramiters are set with the dials on the front.

It sounds great, i use it on the effects loop of my 4 track (fostex X-55). There is hardley any hum unless i turn up the return a lot on the 4-track. It has 3 banks, a reverb bank, this mostley sounds excelent, but some of them sound a little too boomey, or too thin. Bank B has all the boring stuff you would not be without, such as Deley, Flange, these sound OK. but i don't use them much any way, Oh no, not when there is Bank C. This holds all the realy good stuff, such as distortian, auto filter, lo-fi and all the exciting stuff. If you wan't the enhance the GM Drawbar Organ, then this is your beast, Set it to Ensamble, effect 9 (rotary) and turn that Input dial round untill the little Peak light is about to explode.

I'll give it 8 because it dose not have an On/Off switch, the only way to turn it off is to pull the little DC plug out the back. it comes with an external power adapter, and so the power is sent to it though stuff that can only be described as cheap speaker cable. Having said that, i have never had any problems with it.

never had to speak with them

For the price it is simpley stupid, they could charge 150 or 200 pounds for it and i wouls still get one. The fact that they are going for 50 quid second hand is also amazing. Its the only effect unit i have, and it has everything i would need. Its a pitty you are unable to do more than one effect at once, except some of the ones on bank B. If it was stolen, or lost i would definatley get another one, or 2. I use it for electronic music, but it could be used for rock, or anything, its got an effect for everyone.

Oh man, none of this punching buttons and taking several minutes to adjust parameters! If you want a sound just turn the knob, select the variation, then the mix! Could it be any easier????

Sounds are top of the line! I was the sort of person when I studied FX racks I'd look at the numbers, the spec's--but that doesn't mean diddily! It's the output that's important! I've tried others but I came running back to the Zoom 1201. It's a amazing what you can crank out of this little thing! The stereo effect is sweet.

Never had a problem with it, so I guess it's reliable

Once again, never used it.

Simply put, best in class, price, and everything else. There's so many cool FX that the other racks don't even come close to. Bank 3 ROCKS! It's got Lo-Fi, cool auto-filter, phaser, amazing pitch shift, and a heck of a lot more. But the best thing is the ease of use. If I have an effect in my head I don't want to spend a whole 10 minutes with a turn dial and pressing buttons, I want it quick and I want it to sound good. The Zoom is THE fx processor, a must in your rack!

Very easy to get good sounds out of it - almost too easy. Simply choose the bank number (3 banks) then general effect type (11 settings) then variation (again 11). Then alter the adjust knob, which alters one parameter in each effect, and its set for every effect. In other words, its not very editable, but there are 363 effects to begin with anyway. The manual is pretty minimal, but there isn't much to learn anyway.

I use it on the effects send of my mixer, mostly on keyboards/drum machines. In this scenario, it isn't particularily quiet - it seems more noisy than my second-hand beaten-up midiverb 2. The noise isn't too bad though, can't really notice it when music is playing, and in live situations it wouldn't be a problem.
The effects themselves cover a wide variety of settings. It's got 121 reverbs, some are pretty clean, but some sound a little rough. But there are 121 one of them, so you should find one you need. The delay is fine, though don't alter the delay time when its in use - it stutters horribly. Things like chorus and flange aren't particularily great, they don't stand out at all. It has some multi-effects (ie two effects, one after the other) and some parallel effects.
The real good stuff is in bank 3. Here you get all the more interesting effects. Pitch-shift (up to 12 semi-tones either way), a good (if a little noisy) phaser, tremelo and pan effect, pitch-delay (sounds great), auto-filter (not a true filter, but good nontheless), ring-mod (brilliant! :), "lo-fi" effects (makes things sound like they're playing off record, over the phone etc), distortion (not hard distortion, but nice i think), rotary speaker emulation, a vocoder (cool inclusion, some nice effects, but it isn't as good as a real one) and some karaoke effect. This bank alone is a reason to buy this unit - I hardly use either of the other 2 banks.
Rating only down cos of some noise.

It seems pretty solid, but no more so than any other rack mount. Its pretty simple as well, so I don't think theres likely to be something going wrong with it - it's only got 6 knobs and 1 switch on it.

N/A.

This little thing is great, mainly cos of the price. You can get much cleaner sounding units, with more programmability, but its gonna cost many times what this does. It would suit any studio musician, and maybe even guitarists - some of my guitar owning friends always want to use it. If I had the money I'd buy another even before this was stolen - for the musician on a tight budget, its almost essential I think. Having said that, if I had some REAL money I would probably buy something like a TC Electronics Fireworx instead. But I don't, so this is the sh*t for me. Kicks the arse of my midiverb2...

is very easy to use, you have to select the FX, and then adjust it with 2 knobs.

i use it in the effects loop in my 4 track (stereo), the noise in this way is small, but is a lot bigger if you connect mic--->4 track. for the single FX,you have good reverbs (121 i think), delay(a few ones), chorus, flanger, pitch, tremolo, png-pong, etc..., and for the multiFX you have chorus/rev, delay/rev, flanger/rev. the vocal 7 reverb is realy good for snares, and for guitars , is the one that i use more.

i think that i always want to buy good things (but i don't have the money) this unit goes very good for the price that i paid, but i will love to have lexicon mpx-1, or a tc electronic fireworx or m2000 "some day ;) "... i am trying to sell it, to buy an alesis microverb 4 or an lexicon alex, i think this are similar units with best FX, but more expensive ( $100, $150 buks more)