Zoom 1201

well ive run an audio source through it (radio) and it sounded crisp and clear through my hifi & ive got some big speakers and 2x120wtt amp.
im sure theres better quality fx modules around .. but for the price its very good. i think a pre-amp helps.
dont seem to remember any editing on this unit. i think there was a manual .. but hey .. use your ears.

think ive just commented on the quality from my one. ive not noticed any noise more than anything else ive owned. i know some fx boxes can hiss. i listen with headphones most of the time and even my XP30 keyboard can hiss if the levels are not set right.
its getting on a bit. i think there is a 24bit version with midi control available. i did think of getting that just for the midi control.

nearly ten years .. so far so good.

none to date.

see my other review. i bought this for my guitar. i use a Zoom 505 and feed the output into this 1201. it works very well. the 1201 buffers it nicely & i get good quality results. everyone says how good it sounds. ive not been disappointed.
what i hate the most is trying to remember a patch in a hurry. theres quite a few reverbs .. which i use mainly for the guitar. ive not compared it to anything else .. except maybee a EMU Classic keys .. which has the most amazing reverbs .. in fact so much depth u can take a piano tone .. open up the reverb & u just cant recognize it. i made a couple of spacey type loops & used the Emu rather than the 1201.
which works great with my 505.
i will continue using it in this set up.

Very... A friend of mine sticks these in on all his hired karaoke rigs, cause he knows even a technophobe can operate them!

Well, we all know at this price it's not going to be a Lexicon! :-)
All in all, though, it's a darned good sound for the money. My favourite patch (and one of my "signature" sounds, when I'm recording Trance and Ambient stuff) is the "Dimension". If you're into Trance & Ambient music, there's nothing else comes near it for sheer "width" when you're tracking down the strings & analogs.

Ultra-reliable until... Some silly idiot drops it on it's front-panel! Because the pots aren't fastened to the metalwork, that's the weak point. Mine got dropped in that way by a careless member of staff, when it was in use un-racked in a live venue. Unfortunately, it cracked the PCB, and rendered it (in workshop lingo) "beyond economical repair". :-(

I've been trying to track down another one for about a year, but keep missing all the reasonably priced ones on ebay. Wanna sell one? Not a "breadhead" who wants more than the original brand-new price? Contact me!

Never needed to contact them, but I've heard from other people that they're ok.

As I said, mine got broken about a year ago, and my strings haven't sounded the same since! I desperately NEED another one!

This unit is a lot of fun to play with, many cheesy FX to try out (pitch shift with delay, etc.). It has three banks of effects, and each effect has 11 "character variations" (why 11?). It is sometimes hard to figure out where to find a good spot in the variations - they seem to jump around from one number to the next without any discernable pattern.

First, you need to just write the entire bank of reverbs off. They are way too noisy to be of any use.

However, the other 2/3 of the unit is very useful as long as you realize that you'll be eating a bit of hiss along with your effect. I run my keyboard through it, I have used it for vocal effects, and I also use it as a send effect to add some strange sonic goodness to the mix.

As others have said, the vocoder and ring mod are very useful. I also like the vocal distortion and rotary speaker effect.

Keep in mind that this thing not only clips easily, many of the best effects go into screaming feedback if you bring the output up too high. This can be somewhat useful for noise, but having used it for a while, the problem is that the feedback sound is always the same - just a high-pitched screaming tone that you can't really do anything with.

Also, despite the name "zoom STUDIO" this is really better for live sound than studio use because it's so noisy.

It's OK, but seems a bit flimsy to me. At least it's a rack-mount, so you're not likely to be stepping on it or anything.

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I play industrial and noise, and this works in pretty well. I'm still trying to figure out if I should keep it on my keyboard effect chain or use it as a send effect. I'm hoping to get a better-quality delay, since the delays on this are OK but are not very long and get a bit fuzzy.

The main problem I have with it is finding a good balance between too subtle and too obvious. It's easy to tweak the knob to the wrong variation and get a weird space-tone thing going on when you didn't want it, and then everybody looks at you weird or makes funny comments. It's pretty good for a cheap used FX if you're starting out though.

Pretty easy to use once your get the basics - and from then on it's just a matter of playing about till you get something you like. The effects cheatsheet is useful when you're getting started.

Currently I am using this between my Squier strat and Squier SP10 amp :-(. If I didn't have to zoom, I wouldn't be playing guitar as much as I do (because the Squier stuff doesn't sound too great!!)

If you crank the output it can get a bit noisy, but you shouldn't need to do that. Apart from that, all the effects sounds pretty good - not stunning, but you aren't going to get that for the price.

I'd say this is best for big messy sounds, I don't think it's quality enough for some delicate little synths or something.

Had it for 6 or 7 years, and never had a problem. For a budget bit of gear it is nice and sturdy.

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I think every musician could do with something like this, although more likely one of its successors since the 1201 is probably not available anymore. For the price you get some great effects that's a lot of fun.

Plug it in, fire it up and you're running. The manual is not very lengthy, and you should already know how to apply different effects (i.e. like a vocoder or ringmod), otherwise this won't work for you. nice: two levers for input and output levels. not nice: no bypass switch in the front (but a connector for a bypass footswitch).
There is a three-way switch and an 11-position dial for selecting the effects (thus giving 33 different effects) and one 11-position dial called "character" and a continuous dial called "reverb time/adjust". For reverb, the character selects still different reverb modes, for other effects, it adjusts one parameter.
There is not much editing with this unit (apart from turning the two knobs), and you should know (or look it up in the manual) what the two knobs do.

I use this in my small rack connected to a patchbay, connected to a Korg Wavestation EX, Roland MC-505, Nord MicroModular, Roland V-Bass, mike signals (sax, vocals, trombone), Electrix Repeater, TC Electronics Fireworx, Behringer DSP 2048 Virtualizer, TC Eletronics Finalizer, Mackie VLZ1202 Pro, Line6 DL4 and Korg Kaoss Pad (and a patch bay, in case you wonder), connecting the 1201 either to an effects send or in the repeater's effects loop.
While the device contains most of the effects that one comes to expect from a modern effector, there are certain ones which really make this one special. The vocoder is among the best in any acceptable price range, so is the ring mod and the leslie. "vocal distortion" is a beautiful effect (combineable with chorus and delays). While the normal reverbs tend to sound a little bit thin, there are a few completely surreal algorithms excellent for all your weirdstuff ambient electronica stuff.

This doesn't exactly look like completely failsafe...but I've got two other multi effects in my setup, so I do not really care.

never dealt with them.

This is really not the device taylored for all your traditional studio needs. No MIDI, no patches, delay times only to be set with a continuous lever - you name it. The strength of this unit lies in the few special effects mentioned above, and in the artificial reverbs. And for the price I paid - this would be okay for an excellent leslie effect or vocoder alone!

Plugged it in, set the controls to 12 o'clock and switched it one. Bingo!

The Switching between patches is easy enough but exactly what the Character/Variation and the Adjust controls do are sometimes unclear...

Using the 1201 in an effects loop in a guitar amp (Marshall JCM 2000 TSL602) is pretty good. Not really interested in the ring-mod typ eeffects (bank C), only the delays, reverbs and choruses (Banks A & B).

Turning the input up above half way always clips it. The output can be turned up all the way without any problems.

The effects take some "tuning" to get the right sound. The Delays are crystal clear, choruses are very thick but the flanger is a quite bad: not really strong enough. The Reverb options are emmense: from small rooms to huge ambient sounds.

I don't really use reverb much, so the delays was what I concentrated on. Absolutely ace.

Well, I got it from a church to try out and it had been sitting dormant there for years. I just plugged in a switched on a it went first time. Ergo, excellent reliability. Design also looks rugged enough, although, as with all rack units, would be best in a rack mount.

Great bargin for budget guitarists who still want quality delays. Would still recommend a separate delay/chorus unit but this does a good job.

plug it in.
plug in cables from sound source.
twist a knob, bingo.....fx

mines a bit noisy if you turn up input and output more than 1/2 way
the fx are ok.
the vocoder, vocal-dist and ring mod easily the best

i hope so
just got mine

never dealt with em...yet

good fx for wird music, techno, electronica and stuff
quite a few famous users in the dance fraternity
the manual is not so good, its like 4 A4 sheets.
I dislike the fact I dont know what the variations actually do to the soud or what parameter the adjst knob actually controls for each effect, therefore its more siuted to if you are happy to play around and wait for that killer effect. If you want a reverb-flanger combination with specific parameters there is no way to set these-no LCD/LED display. ITS A USE YOUR EARS MACHINE!!
10 points alone for the ring-mod and vocoder.
Wahaaay.......Im daft punk!!

How easy to get a good sound? Easier than typing this yer review! Just plug in, set the mix, pick a bank, variation and muck around until you get the right sound.

I`m running it as an aux effect out of a Mackie 1202 VLZPro. No problem with noise. Distortion could do with having some more guts and a full EQ stage, like the Boss Metal Zone pedal ( tip- run a drum machine through this pedal;-) ) but otherwise spot on.

Reliability- absolute. I have used it live, both for my trombone and in a PA rig.

No need to contact Zoom.

If it were stolen, I`d either buy another or go for one of the RFX series, for MIDI control.

Plug in and play

No probs with sound quality, although sometimes its hard to get it sounding subtle, plus it takes a lot of fiddling to get what you want.

Solid as a rock. Can;t imagine there ever being a problem, unless you were superman and ripped off the knobs when twiddling (hmm?)

Perhaps not as flexible as I had originally thought it to be, but for the price this is an easy and excellent addition to a set-up, especially a budget, starter's studio such as mine. However, if buying again I would probably go for something more comprehensive and with MIDI.

if you can turn a nob you can use this unit.

it is a noise unit but for weird scary music its great

it has no LCD screen so that doesn't go wrong and its all metal so it doesn't fall apart.

very friendly and helpful.

the sound is to raw for any soft pad sounds ETC. but for raw drum sounds it's a winner in my book.