Zoom 4040

The 4040 have a easy way to edit and save the patches. It have 40 preprogrammed patches and other 40 removables for owner's configurations (You can restore the pre sound)
Otherwise, the unit have lots of combinations and it's a bit hard to get the "perfect sound".
The manual should have longer explanations, despite this, I think is suitable.

I have used a peavy 130 stereochorus, a made in Japan Squire (Stratocaster), and a casio PG300.
The unit is quite noisy, specials with analogue distortions. Have a noisy gate, but is not enough with high gain distortions.
The worst: The wah sound, and auto wah, in my better adjustment, I only gets a regular sound. Pitch control, perhaps is the worst, it sounds like a old game machine, but I think that somebody could find It good in adequate music style.
The best: It have two pedals, expression and volume, a midi out (very useful for computer guitar effects music control) and I think that have an acceptable clean/distortion module (analogue) and a good digital reverb and delay.

For a plastic made unit, I think is quite robust and reliable, but I never use it on a gig, it's not robust enough for that!
Use better at home or in a very calm gig.

When I buy it, more than fourteen years ago, it was a very amazing collection of effects for a good price, I think is still useful for home studio records, and specially as a cheap midi control for guitar effects and direct recording.

Compared to modern multifx pedals this is a piece of cake. The manual is straight forward.

I only use it for 2 distortion patches, the tuner and volume pedal. I've tweaked the patches for an Eric johnson and Santana sound. I've used it on a Boogie Mark I, Fender Twin 65', Jim Kelley FACS, Bogner Shiva, Soldano Decatone, VHT Pitbull 100, Marshall JCM 800 2203x and they all sound GREAT!! On the Roland Jazz Chorus it's ok. The guitars I've used are PRS 22 tentop, John Suhr Classic, James Tyler Classis, Ibanez RGT3020, S470 and Fender Jeff Beck Strat. I have tried countless boutique distortion pedals, every Boss,Korg,Line6 and even other Zoom fx boards and pedals, just to get away from using the Zoom 4040 (because they are hard to replace). For these reasons only, I give it a 9.

Well my first one I had lasted 10 years! Not bad for a plastic casing. A couple of years ago I bought another one in the recycler as a back-up and it's a good thing I did a few thing finally started to go out.

I e-mailed Zoom and asked them if they made their new pedal with the same parameters as the 4040, they said no (bummer). Also if they could repair my old one - no.

I play rock, funk, latin, r&b etc, and I've been doing it for over forty years now,and this is the FIRST REVIEW I have ever written for ANYTHING! Because after having spent thousands of dollars on the quest for the lead tone I have always had to come back to the 4040. Right now I'm looking for another back-up. If you have one put it on ebay and I'll be looking for it.

Mastering zoom's product is just next to basic. The edit button are easy to tweak. You just have to use your ear, to nail the right tone. Its all good.

I use an ibanez rg550 over a 100 watt torque amp which sound fabulous. I recently discovered the tones of my guitar idol, which convinced people. I've tried new fx pedals like the gt6 but it just sound similar with the 4040. You just have to have a good ear to find the right sound that you like. Basically all effect pedal old and new have the same chip that they're made of. SOund wise it will all depend on your inner ear. Other musicians can help on your venture on the right tone, theres no price on asking people.

the only thing down with 4040 is its plastic, thats it. you have take an extra care. I talk with other owners of the 4040. thier story the unit got wet but after drying it still works. So explains the durability.

no need...

I play instrumental music ala' joe satriani, steve vai style. Ive been playing for 8 years now i bought 4040 3 years ago for 3800 php about 71 dollars. After hours of tweaking i got the hang of it. I was satisfied after getting the exact tone of satriani. Ive tried other fx pedals old and new they just sound the same even with "the new technology" they marketing with. I am very pleased with the 4040 performance and the price that i got it and i would be using it for a long time.

I found I could get awesome distortion and delay lead type, hall sounds from it. Some of the other effects dont sound as good as the classic pedals. I downloaded the manual for it.

I use a Australian Strauss Polka (old 60's and 70's Australian brand)
Also I prefer my 1976 ibanez overdrive..
Its my first multi effects board so i like it overall. I only paid $80.00 australian, so I think it is a bargain. This model is old hat now anyway.

Ive had no probs with it, but would always take my classic pedal setup as number one. It would make a good back up.

At least they still list it on there website,,havent dealt with the manufacturer.

I bought this off from a friend and it had the manual. I must say that, at first glance, it's as easy to figure out as some other reviewers here have said. Still, after just having a quick look at the manual, setting up your own tones wasn't difficult at all. The unit has 40 presets, some supposedly modeled after guitarists such as Malmsteen, Jake E.Lee and George Lynch, so if 80's metal is your ballpark, these presets will get the job done on basically any amp.

I use this pedal basically for clean/dirty switching. I use a Marshall JCM 900, 100 watt head and play an Ibanez ST 300 with an EMG 81 pick up, so the sound I get is aggressive and distorted without ever becoming noise or a feedback mess. When I recordo distorted sounds, I don't use the pedal; plugging my guitar straight into the Marshall sounds incredibly good (a Metallica-like crunch), but live is when I need the pedal for my clean parts. The distortion is generous when you dial the "LEAD" st up. The "Metal" distortion" is oversaturated and sounds very artificial. I use the 'lead' distortion with the "Amp Simulator" equalizer preset. That configuration sounds pretty good. The Chorus effect is nice, has nice depth and the delay comes pretty complete. The Wah Pedal effect (which can be controlled with the "expression pedal" is a bit of a letdown, since it sounds too processed and fake, so if you want a wah wah, buy a true wah pedal. A noise feature is the "ZNR" (Zoom Noise Reduction) which can decrease dramatically some of the hiss associated with some of the effects (particularly distortion). The unit has stereo outputs to use for some of the effects, like the Flanger, Chorus and Delay. Overall, the sound is good for the price I payed (around $300 USD)

Although it looks a bit fragile (the top is plastic and the bottom is aluminum) I found the ZOOM 4040 to be very reliable. The circuitry seems to be put together in a very compact manner inside. It has survived many falls and some pretty raw gigs and I'm glad to report that this pedal is very reliable

It's a good pedal for someone who wants to make the jump to more sofisticated sound modeling and not shell out excessive cash. I bought this back in 1999 and it still works very well. I wasn't much into pedals and such, because my music did not demand many effects, but now with this pedal, I've explored more fascinating possibilities with my sound. A good pedal even by today's standards!

This proc. is quite easy to be set. Editing new sounds isn't difficult, but if you really want a good sound, it takes a while to find the right settings. Despite the fact, that I bought it second hand and I don't have a manual, it didn't take long to find out how it works.

I play in a band, that plays New-wave Metal, using pretty much distortion and some really over-effected sounds. The clean sounds and chorus, delay, reverb are good, but distortion could be better. I have a Yamaha Pacifica custom, and an Epiphone Explorer. The first one's good for both playing blues and metal, with the other one I just play METAL!:) With the Amp sim I could get some really brutal sounds, but there's too much bass, which can't be set lower, and it sounds a bit too processed, if you know, what I mean... Lead dist, is quite good, but I find the others a bit unusable (except the clean ones). I have to admit, that it is sometimes a bit noisy, but for the price I bought it (44000Ft-192$), it's still not bad in overall

I find it pretty reliable, I had no problems with it. It's quite durable, it has survived many killer shows:)

In overall, I find it usable, but could be better. It doesn't fully suit my needs, but together with a Boss-MT2 it does the job. There is one tiny thing that bothers me, and that's the tuner. It doesn't get the the tones under D, only the harmonics. Apart from this, it is a nice guitar proc. for intermediate needs in Zoom quality and price

Despite the overwhelming appearance of the unit, it has a table with LED lights which is easy to navigate, and is particularly easy to set-up and store with a little common sense.

If you're not up to setting up your own tone out of this, the zoom also features 36 preset patches, which can be copied and mucked about with as one of your 36 user-definable patches. Also useful and incredibly easy was the chromatic tuner, and setting up times on the digital delay.

I didn't really read the manual other than to get the few buttons that I still couldn't figure out. From what I remember, it seemed to do the job OK.

I used the Zoom 4040 with an Ibanez RG550 and Marshall valvestate.

I have to say that I was fairly disappointed with many of the sounds. The unit offers a wide range of programmable effects, but many of these sounded the same. There was a synthetic 'edge' to many of the sounds that made it sound cold and over-processed.

Despite the ability to fine-tune several settings, the result would more often than not increase the 'tinny' synthetic sound. Both clean channels didn't seem to have much difference between them, same too with the amp sim and Wah frequency settings. Any sort of modulation was no contest for the stompbox that it was trying to duplicate. Some modulation effects admittedly did work well relatively with the 'processed' tone, such as step and flanging, but octave shifting was horrible - rather than a smooth progression (like a Digitech Whammy effects pedal, for instance) it was a series of disjointed steps increasing in pitch with a horribly screechy tinny tone. Also, I have to criticise the bypass - just having the unit plugged in increased Amp hiss to a very noticeable level.

However, the digital delay was excellent, with options to 'ping' the sound through two ouput channels, and using this in conjunction with the EQ (and even a modulation effect in moderation) yielded a few nice results, and the wah pedal, when not 'clipping out' when used with overdrive/fuzz was also very admirable.

Solid metal casing which can seriously take a beating,and the moulded plastic volume & expression pedals are very durable as well.

However, from time to time, the unit has the occasional 'mad moment', particularly when changing from one bank to another, would increase the master volume on that setting before changing to the desired bank group.

Other than that, It's a very durable piece of kit that will last ages, even with a little abuse and a lot of travel.

N/A

It's a very useful all-round kit to any beginner/intermediate guitarist who is beginning to discover and experiment with tones. The sound may not be as fantastic as it could be, but there is a lot here to experiment with, and credit where credit is due, with the amount of modulation effects included, you'd need to buy eight different stompboxes, not to mention a chromatic tuner and reverb/delay and a distortion pedal. This is the big plus. If you're still experimenting with sound, there's a lot here to play with, and is also pretty useful for those moments when you want to be inspired by a particular effect. It's also very light, portable, and a good backup. Best of all, with a pair of headphones, you can wail away and configure different settings well into the small hours of the morning without waking up the neighbours. However, this is fairly generic of most Multi-FX units

Also, the over-processed tone is not to everyone's taste, and if used through a decent amp, the unit will probably be the weakest link. It's nice to have all the effects, but if there's also a static hiss, no-one will notice your music. Another major criticism, which seems to have been resolved by other companies but still remains a 'Zoom' problem is the distinct 'killing off' of the effect when you change a pedal. Rather than feeding the tone into the next effect that you switch to, the transfer is as abrupt as changing a TV channel. Just this one refinement would have merited several extra points on the quality of the sound output alone, but again, is fairly generic for many pedals of its time.

Yeah. That toy is pretty easy. I didn't had to look to the manual to make my presets. The compare button is very useful.

To be honest sounds aren't great. I use Peavey Predator Plus and handmade Tube Amp and with this stuff only one distortion effect (form 8 available) is acceptable but not gorgous. I don't liked any modulation fx exept chorus with is correct but not impressive. Delays, despite the fact that it change clean sound a lot, are good. I liked reverb's to. The worst is wah-wah it is useless even in space effect.

It was very realiable to me until it crashed in the centre of my performence. Yeah it is great feeling whan your multifx beagin to crush in the middle of your solo. Once all delay's in it stoped workin. But i must write that power off then power on was all that i had to do to repair it.

I play strange kind of rock and use it in home studio. I would buy it again in the same price. After 3 years with it I feel bored with it's sound but I think it is good thing for young begginer guitarist.

Warning!!My english is very bad!This FX processor is very easy to use!Even without the manual...I don't have it and I only needed a few times with the 4040 to understand it!

I use a Yamaha Pacifica(Telecaster kind)with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup(powerfull!!) and sometimes an Hohner Baron with the two original humbuckers plugged in the ZOOM and I use a rack with a Rocktron Velocity 120 amp and a Marshall 9000 series Pre-amp(I only use the clean chanel)that's plugged in an Hughes&Kettner Attax cabinet(400w)..The 4040 is preety noisy in lead and metal effects and the ZOOM noise reduction sucks.The wah is very bad!!The best of the 4040 are the clean sounds that you can make with the excelent chorus,reverbs,delays effects.
The EQ is fair and I don't like the AMP simulator..Gennerally the modulation effects are good but the pitch is a joke..Power distortions are very,very noisy...I need to be very carefull in the solos because the feedbacks and stupid noises will appear for shure..but as I said,a guy can do beautifull clean sounds with chorus!

I never had any problem with it...it's not as weack as it seems!!My backup on a gig is the distortion channel of my Marshall 9004 pre-amp and a foot-switch...never needed it!

I play some latin and popular covers(crapp!!) and I also play some covers from Creed,Papa Roach,Nickelback,The Calling,Gene Loves Jezebel,etc..here in Portugal there are places where you can get some money by playing some latin and popular songs but I what love is nu-metal,some hevy metal and some rock'n roll!!the 4040 is a good match but I'll buy an ART SGX Nitro rack processor..It's much better but it's expensive!!I wouldn't buy a Zoom 4040 again!!I hate it's poor distortions that sound really bad but I love it's Clean+Chorus+Reverb+EQ effects!!they're lovely!!I like the Volume and Expression pedals!!very usefull!I've choose this one because it sounded great at the first contact..and it was cheap!!
My conclusion:the ZOOM 4040 is excelent for those who are already reazonable guitarists and need some decent clean effects!if you want to play songs with powerfull and brilliant distortion solos forget it!!Perhaps you can buy the ZOOM 8080 or the BOSS GT-6!!Sorry about my horrible English!!BYE

Hey, i'll try to write correctly, ok? I'm not very good in english. It's very simple in function. Choose an effect, adjust the level, mix it up with other effects an listen the results. If you like it, store in the zoom; if not... start again. I think really nobody must have problems. Whowever, it's not perfect.

It use it with an amp Peavey Rage 158 in studio-home and with a Marshall head and a 4x12 in live performances. I use a Peaver Raptor Plus guitar (3 single coils), a Yamaha RGX (1 single coil central and 2-humbuckers), a Fender Squier and a Les Paul Standard). Of all it, only the Peavey Raptor is a little bit noisy, except in position 2 and 4 of pick up selector. The Squier sounds really good and the Les Paul is Excelent. Of course there are some noise, the noise reduction parameter in not great, but what you expect from a mid-quality digital processor!!! Everyone complain of it, then i recomend use the volume control of the guitar. I play classic rock, blues, progressive and rythm & blues and always find a good effect for my intentions. In fact, i'd achieved effects sintetizer-like in Pink Floyd songs, Jethro-Tull, Zeppelin and others. The chorus-delay effect is great, and a clean-delay-chorus-EQ patch is simply gorgeus. If you combine it with the use of volume and tone controls of your guitar, you can get really professional sounds. Nevertheless the metal effects are really bad, and the wah is awfull. The expression pedal is usefull only with chorus, dist and flanger effects. You must learn to use ALL the controls of guitar-processor couple.

The 4040 have limits, like you. To know the limits you must use it, care it and experiment with it. I never had troubles in 2 years of use.

The 4040 works good, i never need help.

It's great for classic rock, blues, jazz, progressive and experimental rock, and bad for metal. it's my first sound processor and i'm really satisfied with the 4040. However, if it were stolen, i think buy a Boss, Roland or something with more tradition/quality. In general terms, i love the experimental sounds, clean-chorus-delay mixed up are the best of this machine. Soft distortion is good too but metal are really bad. Volume pedal are usefull but expression not always. The best part of it is you can emule other rare-effects. In a MIDI the horizont is larger. Nevertheless, i rather prefer more quality effects than other horrible ones like metal and the 'aliens voice'; they are a waste software. Another dark side of 4040 is that for a perfect perfomance, you need the perfect amp, the perfect EQ, perfect PA and a very good guitar. I give for 4040 the 'studio class' or the 'recording class' processor. Is not an expensive precessor, in fact the price-quality rate is ok for the 4040.