Zoom 4040

The zoom 4040 has a very easy user interface. Everything you need to know to change effects and values are right on the face of the unit.

The sound quality shines in some departments, and crapes out in others. The distortions are so-so, but will defiantly crunch. I found it hard to find a good light distortion sound, if you're looking for a noisy sound you'll like the distortions on this unit. The compression pretty much blows. The EQ does the job, nothing special. The amp sim doesn't impress me, I pretty much leave that one alone. The auto wah is pretty good while the pedal wah leaves something to be desired. You might as well forget about the pitch shift, I don't know why they put that on here. It is not at all convincing. Zoom needs to do some serious work on that effect. The Flanger was ok. It just doesn't have the depth I am looking for. The phaser gets the same marks as the Flanger, just not enough depth. Tremolo is nice to have, although it only has the triangle type where the volume slowly gets louder and then cuts off. Personally I would like to have seen it utilize the square method where the volume cuts off then comes back on instantaneously instead of slowly gaining volume. The step is interesting, it causes random pitch changes, I haven't found a practical use for it but it has a very interesting sound. The slow attack sucks, we'll leave it at that. The chorus is nice, but is lacking depth (seems to be a trend with this unit). I like the delay, especially the ping pong effect, one of the effects that shines on the 4040. The reverb is the best sounding effect on the board, it has an excellent hall sound, I love it.

I have had it for almost a year now and I have had no problems, but I do take very good care of my equipment. It is made out of plastic so I wouldn't be stomping on it very hard if you want to keep it working. I would defiantly bring backup if I were playing live, I don't trust it that much.

I've never had to deal with them.

I really enjoy the flexibility of a multi effects floor processor because I don't have to be constantly turning knobs, and pressing a million footswitches when I want to switch sounds. I know that there are better processors for the money out there, but this to me was a very good deal. It gives you many effects, for a low price. I think, however, that I would have bought a different processor it I knew more about them when I bought the zoom, but I still am glad that I bought it. It is defiantly a good processor for the beginner who just wants a bunch of sounds for a small price. I would recommend it to others. I really like that fact that it has an independent volume pedal aside from the expression pedal, I think all processors should have this (especially more expensive ones).

The versatility of the Unit is quite awsome and this obviously means that the programing is a little awkward. You have to play while you press the parameter buttons... But I would still classify it as generally easy. The manual is good.

The spectrum is quite wide and it will take you a while to get what you want. The presets are boring and partially suck. The distortions have a tendency to go to Heavy metal/hardcore sounds ie. no base and an agressive sound (ie. lack of warm harmonics) even if you fiddle them. I miss patches that could be used for other guitar styles rather then HM or grunge (ie. Jazz sounds, funk, african guitar whatever..). The strength are definitelly the delays and reverb. The amp simulations are far too inflexible for me and theirs no real instant recognition (ie. Marshall,Fender,Mesa ect.)

You can not really depend on it... I had this unit for 2 years and I had to solder the Input output lines and the MIDI output at least 3 times. It sucks to have one channel dissapear in a concert and it sucks even more when your MIDI signal doesn't change your preamp settings for a really loud passage. ZOOM had better improve on this one since I believe the plastic constructions they offer are good for model airplanes but not for supposedly professional multieffect foot pedals. Shame.

The people that work there are all great, I was bitching about my problems on the net and someone that worked for ZOOM gave me his advice. Still no matter how good the support is the product needs definite rethinking.

For my style of music I think the Zoom is ideal. I love to experiment with effects and generally I go for either a wall of sound or a very minimallist and subtle effects. I would not buy it again because of all the problems I have had with it. After all this resoldering the pads have come off and I guess I have to get another effectbox or change the top PCB. I personnally think this product is good if you don't want to carry around 20 individual effects and fiddle around with the level after every song.

I am not a first time user of mult-effects and because of this fact I expected more of Zoom 4040 (When I got it there wasn't the 8080 and the 9150 - so this was the top). I had (and still have) special dificculty in programing the expression pedal. The tuner just don't get me in tune - the manual say you can regulate it, but it isn't enough.

I didn't notice noisy, except with distortion (expected). And this distortion didn't call me any attention - people say 8080's distortions are better then 4040 - I really don't know!

Here in Brazil I couldn't find someone to help me, neither dealers nor users. I sent an e-mail to Samson/Zoom two days ago.... but they didn't return.

I want something easy to program and deal with. I want more in equalization and distortion. I want support from the manufacturers. So, I wouldn't buy it again, maybe the 8080. I have a big problem with the tuner.... that couldn't solve...

It's pretty easy to use on the whole. I played with it for about an hour before buying it and figured out how to do most of the stuff. Though it is easy to use it is not the kind of thing you can edit much on the fly. Once you're on a certain patch you could conceivably turn certain groups of effects on or off, but that would entail hitting the edit button which is about the size of a tylenol. I would have given the 4040 an 8 or 9 if the edit had been a footswitch. The manual can help you out a fair bit, but I wouldn't really recommend using the factory presets: they're mostly just novelties. On the brighter side the volume and expression pedals are dead simple to use and set.

Okay here's where my big problem is... The boys and girls at Zoom should be shot for making an effects processor so noisey. Sometimes the noise gets to me so much I just give up and revert back to my Korg G3. The effects (with the exception of EQ effects) are great but there's just no excuse for that much noise. I don't care if the processor can play my songs for me: I want it to be quiet. Modulation effects like chorus and flanging are incredibly versatile. I gotta say, most of the effects are like having a seperate pedal in the ways their parameters can be changed. Pitch shifting sucks, that's all there is to it. Don't use it. You probably wouldn't be too impressed with the wah-wah either. Apart from those things all the effects work very smoothly and extremely nicely. I sometimes get annoyed, however, that the sampling rate is only about 32 KHz. One more thing: don't trust the tuner as far as you can throw it.

No problems...yet.

I sent a letter to Zoom about a month before getting my processor asking for specs and possibly a brochure. I left my e-mail address, my phone number, and my address. I STILL haven't heard from those dorks. Draw your own conclusions.

High on quantity, low on quality. Most effects kick ass but the ones that blow really blow. I guess the thing that really annoys about this unit is the noise. I can usually get it under control, but I bought what i had hoped to be a fairly high-quality floor unit (because I don't want to mess around with a rack) only to find out that if it looks to good to be true, it probably is. If you just want a ton of effects and don't want to buy individual pedals, the 4040 is where it's at. There are twenty-five effects including eight analog preamp settings. Much as I often get annoyed at this thing I have to admit I just love being able to tap in the stereo delay tempo. That is the best feature of the whole thing. If you want high quality distortions and wah-wah either look elsewhere or have a Vtwin and a Crybaby.

The easiest effects I have used. Everything is layed out in the matrix cross-reference format.

The compressor, preamp and EQ are virtually unuseable because they are so WEAK. This is apparent by the abundance of patches with delay doubling to beef it up. Even using other others distortions with this unit doesn't work. I ran my amp distorted through it and it totally reduced the gain, probably because the sampling frequency is only 31.25Hz. This is audible in bypass mode too. The strength of this unit is the modulation and delay sections. The modulation section has a really bad pitch shifter but I found every kind of chorus, flanger, phaser and tremelo I have ever heard. Also has STEP (arpeggiator) and slow attack. You can get some trippy sounds by assigning the modulation parrameters to the built in expression pedal. The delay is a great all purpose delay fully configurable from 1-1000ms. The reverb is a bit weak but still useful. This unit is good for crunchy industrial sounds and I found the built in volume and expression pedals and delay excellent for creating ambient soundscapes.

Have had no problems with it however the sound is too weak too use it live unless you run a clean signal or cover it in delays.

I bought this unit when I didn't know alot about effects. I wanted useable distortions and lots of weird effects and so I sold it and bought a Boss ME8. It has a lot better sound quality.

This unit is easy to program. There aren't too many little buttons, they x-and-y axis programming makes life easy for editing of patches.
The main panel is well labelled, once you know the basic jargon. The text is small, however, which makes it very hard to program in low light situations. This should be expected given the number of features packed into the size, however.
Switching between patches in play is excellent and easy to do with the foot sized buttons. There is no lag between patch change.
The manual is concise, not too wordy and explains all of the features. Quite a lot of jargon, though, which for a beginning effects user like myself is a little daunting.

Lots of effects: compressor, distotion, eq, amp simulation, wahs, pedal ptich, flanger, phase, trem, step, slow, chorus, delays, reverbs. All fully configurable.
Being electronic-based, the 4040 picks up noise from my unshielded computer monitor, and very close flourescent lighting (mind you, so do my Strat's single coil pickups).
The majority of the effects are very serviceable. There are 40 patches built in on ROM, and another 40 patches you can define. Some of the "modulation" effects (for example, step and phase) don't sound as strongly as I'd like (but then, as a beginner I'm not very subtle with my effects). Other than that, it is all worthwhile.
The delay rocks (in my U2-biased opinion) - fully configureable from 1-1000 ms. You can even have it (and a couple of other effects) in stereo, if you're wealthy enough to have two amps. You can also connect any other effects you own to it, and program those into your patches.
There are six different flavours of distortion, each with a gain variable for 1-15 for extra flexibility. I'm not a big distortion fan, but there appears to be a good range.
My favourite effects at the moment are the pitch shifts, and there's heaps of them - you can shift as little as a fraction of a tone all way to "infinity" - ie so low/high that it's above my 12" speaker amp's range. Very handy for playing tuned down songs without having to tune down.
You can mix and match the effects into patches in a number of ways, giving literally millions of possible combinations.
Bear in mind I'm a beginner - little experience with effects means I'm not well qualified to comment on the quality compared to other units.

I've had it a week, it works fine. Will post another review in 12 months. It's made of plastic, so probably wouldn't stand up to a thorough beating.

There's two pedals - one for volume, the other fully configureable for distortion level, chorus level, delay, eq shift etc.
Don't buy this unit for the built in tuner - tuning by ear is infinitely more accurate!
I like it - it gives me *plenty* of flexibility. Did I mention you can plug a microphone in (with an adaptor for the bigger plug)? This isn't in the manual, but I did it and it's hugely entertaining.
My acoustic-electric sounds quite good through it, too.
Don't like the tuner, do like the price (it was about 1/3 off list).
I wish it had a separate input for a microphone! :) Does have a headphone socket, and a MIDI out (untried).
Feel free to email me to trade patches/ask questions etc!

Pretty easy to use, just edit the patch and pick your effect. I wish their was an option to control the level of each effect.

Distortions and Eq are poor. I'd recomend using your amps distortion and running the unit through an effects loop. Most effects and delays sound good and are easy to use. Good quality for the price.

Good floor multi-effects unit. Does alot and includes volume and expression pedals. Expression pedal provides many sound options (Whammy). Has its own effects loop to add other effects and also has footswitch input for your amp. If you can't afford a rack system, but you want alot of effects, this is the processor for you.

The volume and expression pedals are great and convienent for live performance The mannual is a bit too simple