Zoom 503 Amp Simulator

The 500 series of boxes are more or less universal in layout of button function and parameters....I find them user friendly and intuitive....learn one,you've learned them all...

I like to use them together...a 505(multi unit) and a 503 next if I'm going direct..with an amp (Crate Vintage 50),I like to use a 508 (delay) in place of the 503 in order to have greater parameter adjustment for my delay...and also being able to switch/bypass delay patches without disturbing my other effects....the gate(s) offered in the unit(s)work well in my amps loop....and even better when I go direct....But my favorite way to use the 503 is as a cabinet/mic emulator with every thing else in the unit off with my Sansamp PSA-1 It provides the "air" that's sorely missing from all the Tech 21 direct to the board products...Although I've switched to line 6,(XTLive,2.0,pod pro)I won,t give up my Zoom or Sansamp rigs...

Plastic is ,well plastic...and eventually moving parts fail...the internal circuitry seems to last indefinitely.....as a performer,I make it a point to have back up gear for everything...the voice of experience rarely stutters......

The boxes are so cheap,I just toss them and get new ones when ever...

I'm in my second Pink Floyd tribute band now...They seem to be warmer sounding somehow,compared to most anything from Digitech or Boss....all my strats have either EMG systems or Fender's Powerhouse pickup plates in them....so a lot of my power and tonal control is under my right hand....so that alone really minimizes the tap dancing on the foot switches...

This is pretty easy to use as long as you have the manual. I've got it stuck in modes that I had to get the manual out to figure out. Other than that it is fairly easy but somewhat limited in the options.

I use this with Jagmaster guitar, a DOD Compressor/Sustainer, a cheap Arion octave pedal, and a crybaby wah in front of it (in that order). I go through a mixer (with a 3 band eq on the channel) and then to my computer for recording. I can get a pretty decent variety of sounds by tweeking everything in the chain. I record original metal/hard rock and have been very happy with the results for a cheap amp simulator. It's much better through the mixer with the extra eq for more low end impact on the distortion sounds.

I've had this thing for nearly 7 years without a glitch. I used to play my bass through into the PA system live and it sounded pretty decent. Now I only use it in the studio. For the price I've definately got my money's worth out of it.

No Clue. The most I've done is go to the Samson Tech web site and download the manual when I lost it.

I use this to record metal and hard rock and this has worked very well (especially with some added pedals running it through a mixer). I've been playing bass for 19 years and guitar for 13 and this has been great for recording original stuff at home for quite a few years. If it was lost or stolen I would probably spring for a POD, but this has been hard to beat for the price. My favorite feature has been that once you set up the patches you like you can leave it alone and I tweek the sounds with my other equipment. I hate the cheesy buttons so I don't like adjusting the patches unless its necessary. When I bought this it was the only product anywhere near the price which I could use to record guitar and bass so it was an easy choice. It has been very helpful with recording music for several years now (I hated trying to mic cabs consistantly). If you run across one of these used and cheap it is very useful for recording, probably less so for playing live.

User's guide quite clear and straightforward (french translation is worth reading whenever you feel down ...). Edit and restore preset patches is pretty easy. For a unit of this price, parameter control is more than basic.One niggle: a more than noticeable delay when switching between patches makes this unit unsuitable for live use.Built-in tuner quite helpful.

Modulation FX are quite ok, particularly the chorus and tremolo. Flanging is just average (don't expect an EH Electric Mistress type of sound-my favourite). Amp simulations: clean Fender sound is OK, crunchy Marshall or Vox quite OK as well.High gain emulations of Boogie, Marshall or Peavey not very convincing but useable. Reverbs and delays come handy but don't expect miracles . Cabinet simulation : once again don't expect to emulate your favourite 4X12's low-end rumble. Simulations of 1X12 and 2X12 cabs are much more realistic. Noise reduction is very effective, as on every Zoom FX unit.
This unit is clearly not designed to be plugged into guitar amp. It's better suited for recording purposes, straight into a multitracker or a mixing desk. Ideal tool if you feel like noodling and you're surrounded by touchy neighbours. I currently use it with a Danelectro Honey Tone for small scale rehearsals, or as FX unit for my acoustic-electric guitar.

It's plastic, so don't jump on it with your Doc Marten's. I only use it live with my acoustic-electric and it never failed until now.

Nevr had to deal with Zoom. If you lose any ZOOM user's manual it' s always possible to retrieve it on their website.

My only regret is that I traded this unit against a Marshall Drivemaster and a Zoom Driver (5000) in 1997. I definitely should have kept these for live use. Athough parameter control is fairly basic and hi gain amp simulations are less than realistic, this unit has proved more than helpful in live or studio situations. If lost or stolen, I might consider a Behringer V-Amp, as I don't want to fork out too much on a unit I mainly use for home recording.

I guess its ease of use is below average in that this is a complicated device with a lot of functionality which is accessed through four program buttons and two stomp buttons. You need to spend some time toying with it, but overall its ok for what it is.

I am using an Epiphone Slasher with dual humbuckers connected to the low input. For output I use a 1/4" stereo to mini stereo headphone adapter and run it into my computer on the line in of a Soundblaster Live! running Debian Linux with the Advanced Linux Sound System. I then mix the guitar with various MIDI and synth tracks. I think it sounds pretty great with some of the drive and crunch presets. Nice clean crunchy distortion, no wild feedback or noise, overall the default patches sound pretty good through the computer. I have run across a web page with some custom patch settings that look enticing but haven't tried them yet. If you want a good rock sound without a lot of noise then this is pretty good, easy to get artificial harmonics and it sounds better than any other setup I've used. I'm not a pro musician, but this thing will work for me for now and I'm real happy with how it sounds. I'm sure it doesn't hold a candle to a POD, but its a lot cheaper, and overall it sounds good running straight into a computer. Really, my tiny Altec-Lansing computer speakers sound like a wall of professional cabinets and way better than just running a fuzzbox, there is good distortion, some effects, yet minimal noise, and this thing is quite configurable. I'd say its perfect for computer music tinkering for anybody except pro musicians who would get a POD or such instead.

It is made more for studio work than gigging, and its plastic. It looks tough enough for studio use. No knobs to break off anyways. I guess its pretty good for its intended purpose.

Naah. Its a commodity. For as inexpensive as it is, I'd just chuck it and buy another.

Even though this is an older unit, it is still quite good. I try to play new-wave / alternative type music with my guitar tracks mixed into synthesized MIDI background tracks, and this thing is perfect for what I need. I don't want a whole string of noisy pedals, I just want a good somewhat distorted sound with some effects for direct WAV file recording on a computer, and this gizmo seems do do the job fine, I'm giving a it a pretty good rating because its a bargain item nowadays but it is nonetheless still a good unit and a great addition to a budget computer music system.

The 24 banks are very useful in setting different sounds side by side. Especially putting one clean sound with effects next to a
distorted sound making it very easy to switch between the 2 without switching off the unit's effects. It is the best function that a more balance and consistant tone quality of amp sound can be obtained at just a tap on the paddles. The memory setting is far too simple for most guitarists.Use it for stage work is easy without worries of stepping on a wrong paddle. The manual, forget it.

Sound Quality: 8
Though it doesn't produce correct amp sounds as the factory decripted, it sounds very nice through my amps.I can get very fat and powerful overdrives with just my strat's rear pickup. It seems single coils sound better than dual coils through it. Putting a Boss Distortion box before it can drive a clean channel with other effects' combinations to construct very distinctive tone colors according to my will.The 503 is far more quieter than my other effects with the gain control at lower levels. In fact, it is not necessary to keep high gains because most amps are bright enough and with the use of a decent EQ, most of the unwanted hiss and whatever rubbish frequencies could well be filtered.
The factory presets were useless and ugly. So I have my 24 banks all set up to my desire.There is one major draw back that the unit tends to soften the input of the pickups especially for the humbuckers. The original guitar sound would be altered even when switching off the effects. I guess it is not a 100% by pass of its circuit design. It is necessary to patch one more channel of my guitar's natural tone to combine with the processed tone to avoid losing any of the good tones from my axes. It works well with my patching design. It sounds great.
I use a Strat replica of alder body with all 1M pots and 0.047 cap on the rear Fender 80 single coil pickup. It has a switch to put the neck PU and the rear in series for high power playing. This setting
drives the 503 to a warm an victorious kind of distortion through a channel set to:

AMP-PV Drive(G6) BANK -D3 GAIN-8 HIG-(-4) MID-E6 LOW-10 DEP-C2 MIC-F9 EFF-C5 REV-L3 VOL-2.2



I run it through fender Pro reverb and Roland JC amps with Strats replica ,Fender us Telecaster, Tokai LP and Epi Les Paul. The
patch chain with other effects:
Guitar-Electro Harmonics DrQ-Boss distortion-Danelectro Pasrami overdrive-Zoom 503-Boss Octava-DOD phaser-Fender 70s volume paddle-Amp.
For the clean channel I use a Roland SDE-1000 rack and a BossDM300 delay to get the chorus effects. The final mix proved the 503
is a versitile effect unit for works.

The plastic case is strong enough for most stage works. The light weight paddles design is better than most other metal boxes. It is a
musical instrument, not someting you dump from the 2nd floor. I don't think it will break so easily. The Japanese electronics are very reliable. Also,top rated QC.

I would not bother for its low price.

I spent about 3 weeks in finding some very nice combinations before I gig with it. It is not easy at all to find proper set ups. The
distortion sounds are variable by setting the tone controls and the cab types to various dials. By twisting a little of some of these
settings, I can get almost over 15 kinds of rich and big fat quality distorted sounds. Its a quality product.

Well, I would say its fairly simple to get a good sound out of this baby... As far as user friendly interfaces go, this thing couldn't be easier.

I used to use this with a les paul, and a yamaha rgx, but i think its irrelevant what kind of guitars you use, theres no big variation of tone, but i would definitely rank this highly if your after a first pedal to get you into FX.. it was my first..

Being an amp simulator, I would assume your not using a particular amp with the pedal, otherwise why buy this model? I haven't compared the sounds with the actual amps its simulating, but i never foudn myself bothering changing the amp simulator.

The distortions are cool, and so is the chorus and delay and tremolo effect. I'd buy this if I was interested in getting all those effects but too broke to buy single units for each of them.

Well, It never blew up... Our bass player had a 506, and that blew up one day in the studio, and i assume that it runs on the same kind of hardware etc.. but that was a second hand baby, and i imagine it had been through a lot of shit in its day and it time just came. I never took this pedal out on the road with me, by the time i hit the road I was using a zoom gfx-8, then i got a Boss Gt-6.

However, this is still in the band setup at the time of writing, because i gave it to our bass player to replace his 506 when it blew up. Its a guitar and bass amp simulator, so its a diverse piece of kit... If your in a band it works as a good bass pedal backup, whether you use something better or single units, if they go, you can always rely on this.. just make some rough patches, and keep it there just incase..

I wouldn't know, I've never contacted zoom in my life. I don't use zoom in my setup now so i assume i never will.

Get this as your first pedal, or as a cheap alternative to a few single units, and get it if you want to copy the sound of amplifiers cheaply

Dave
http://www.thechaossociety.com

All pretty easy to understand, manuals pretty clear. Getting a good patch......not so easy.

Using it with anything, the distortion is AWFULL. The only thing its good for is for its other effects like delay. But it makes such a noise even on bypass, its only a tuner for me now.

Well its never broken, though I realy must try harder. Hatefull thing.

Dunno.

Bit waste of money, youre better off buying analogue effects, certainly no good distortion, but it makes a lot of noise when just using othre effects, presets are awfull.

Within a short amount of time (and WITH the instruction manual) it is simple and fun to get great sounds, but almost all patches need to be edited. They are there only for a starting point. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE A DISTORTION PEDAL. The beauty of this unit is the amp/cab simulations, mic postioning and some usable effects - in my case for home recording.

I'm using a variety of guitars with a variety of effects for straight recording. The on-board reverb is adjustable, and sounds nice. The preset patches should be tweeked to get YOUR sound. So much better than I thought it would be, especially at the price.

Logistically it might be hard to gig with, but that's not why I bought it. Seems very dependable.

N/A

I play mostly original stuff - been playing for 38 years, much of that time semi-professionally. I don't think that I could ask for anything else in one small pedal. I'm not a multi-effects guy, I like individual units, and this one shines for the variety & complexity it offers. Discontinued, but a steal if you can find one.

The only good sounds you can get out of this are clean sounds. DISTORTIONS ARE HORRIBLE!
Editing patches is ok. You can mess around with the buttons or use the manual. Manual is kinda weird though.
Im giving it a 7 just for the ease of use.

I read all the reviews below, got excited, and like a fool got this from Ebay.
Ive connected it to my Marshall MG15RCD amp and to the line in of my Pc. This unit is crap, and the people Zoom should be shot and raped for making this product. Its noisy inspite of its ZNR. Effects are weak and sound horrible. I just could not get good distortion sound out of this.

It has a plastic body. Destroy it as a favour to the poor soul who might purchase it.

Emailed them a couple of times. No answer. They care a fuck.

Ok my favourite bands are:
Megadeth and In Flames. Ive been playing for 2 years (horribly).
If it was stolen, I would laugh my head of at the guy who might kill himself after he tries it.

Very easy after spending a few minutes with it. Patches can be edited quickly and easily but keeping the instructions around that list what each parameter is helps.

For the money it's very good. Some of the presets sound really good and others sound bad. Most of the heavy distortion presets I didn't like but was able to dial the sound in I wanted quickly. Some of the presets like clean tremelo and jets (killer flanging) sound great. I was able to get great clean sounds all the way to full black metal type distortion. Delays, Chorus, Reverb sound good but they're pretty much preset to 9 levels not letting you adjust any effect parameters. Flanging sounds great and is fun to play with. Noise isn't an issue the NR circuit works good with 9 levels of sensitivity. I haven't tried it through and amp just my studio headphones/mixer and a stereo system (which sounded really good).

I haven't had it very long.

I play everything from clean blues to black metal. I have a few guitars and some synths (should make an interesting synth distortion box as well). The main thing I wish you could do is edit the effects as well and not just the level of effect. I chose it because of good reviews and the price of it was very cheap. If you can buy one of these for $50 go for it. I didn't get a chance to try the input line yet. I planning on using it to record directly into the computer to add some guitar textures to my ambient music.

www.mp3.com/isomorph

It's zoom 500 series... One programs the same as the other. All you have to know is what the effects are, and where they are, which can be a little on the tricky side if you don't have a manual.

BC Rich Eagle & Mockingbird > Ibanez Smash Box > Zoom 503 > ART SGX 2000 > Neptune 1/3 octave graphic eq > Peavey Mark VI amp.

Lots of times people tend to base gear solely on their stand-alone use. (ie. i plugged my Les Paul into the Mesa Mark IV and it blew me away, or I plugged the DS-1 directly into the amp, and couldn't get a decent sound..etc..) My point is that a lot of cheaper effects work best when used WITH OTHER GEAR!! Sure this unit may not be the greatest stand-alone amp-sim out there, but when you use the unit's better effects with other gear, it becomes much better... I run the SM-7 into it, and it DESTROYS!!!! If you're looking for something that is simply amazing all by itself, then you're going to be spending a healthy amount of money. For the amount I paid for this unit, you couldn't hope to get any better. As far as the individual fx, go.. the clean amps work really well when running your own dist. pedal(s), and even some of the distortions aren't to bad with some work. THe stereo chorus is cool, the mono...ehhh..; the vibrato is pretty weak, the 'verb is good; the delay.. some fx HAVE to be able to be fine tuneable in order to be decent. Delays, flangers, etc don't come off to well when the parameters are fixed. So, like the whole zoom 500 series, the 'fixed parameter' effects aren't liked very much, but are still useable. The 3 band eq is a nice touch, and proper use af the cabinet sim and mic placement can yield some pretty useable patches. Overall, you won't find a better deal (unless you're on e-bay). However, you can't really put this one in the same category as, say the ME-30, or RP-100. This was designed for AMP SIMULATION ONLY !! The chorus, reverb, etc..(IMOP) are effects that have commonly used as added features on some amps.

Seems pretty good to me.......

As mentioned in the 'Sound Quality' section, when used alone, it may not be the best, or even useable. However, when you use the unit's better features WITH other gear you may have (ie Rat pedal, Boss Chorus, eq pedal, etc...) it can really be an amazing addition to one's setup.

VERY EASY

Im Absolutely blown away by this unit..usaully zoom makes shit..but for some reason this unit sounds HUGE!!!!!!!So Good its part of my rig now

Hasn't broken yet

Whatever I live in Canada and trying to deal with american companies is impossible because most yanks dont know that there is a whole other country above them

AS far as modelling sound and emulation of huge amps, its perfect

0.0 This thing is hard as hell to use, editing the patches takes forever, the manual has small text so you can't even see it. I dont know what the **** your talking about when you say this is a great product

This thing sounds like crap...period...

This thing is made out of cheap plastic, if you drop it, stomp it or hit it on anything it will break..

Didnt get a responce

Piece of junk.. totally ..

Simple simple...I'm sure if you purchased the 503 unit you were already familiar with the rest of the compact zoom series and how they function...but then maybe not. No worries though, these things are easy to figure out in no time. Instruction manual is handy if you have it. Contrary to most people's complaints about the inconvenience of the little push button's on the side(versus the slightly more convenient rotary knobs incorporated on the new updated 505 and 506), I find them not too troubling at all. I'll give it a solid 9 in this category. Oh and by the way...the 503 has seperate adjustments for bass, mids, and treble unlike any of the others in the 500 series. One of the most significant features that sets it apart from this crowd.

OK...now for the good stuff. FYI, this is the first time I've ever bothered to post a review on here because I have been soooo EXCEPTIONALLY happy with this unit as of lately that I needed a forum to simply praise the 503 in it's full $50 glory! It has done wonders for me!!!...no lies. I did not buy this thing expecting to get the best distortion pedal I've ever owned...BY ANY MEANS. In fact, I didn't even buy it with the intention of using it's distortion models at all. I just needed a cheapass direct recording device with guitar AND bass amp models for straight, semi-believable clean tones in order to record simple demos. Tremelo and "spring" reverb were a couple of the few basic effects housed in the 503 which also attracted me since I am really into 'surfy' tones and wanted to get them down on tape. It was actually very suitable for this, and I still use it extensively for DI-recording. HOWEVER, one day I decided to experiment with the pedal through the amp. Keep in mind, I play Fender guitars and Fender tube amps...not your typical "rockstar" rig. The clean tones through my Blackface Fender Showman were surprisingly good[on the Fender and Vox models] and it didn't suck my tone(like the old zoom 505 does, being that it has no real "clean" settings...only to turn the distortion setting to "off" which gives you a dull lifeless sound), and I was happy about this. But THEN I pulled out my trusty Squier Jagmaster(a classic Jaguar/Jazzmaster styled guitar with dual humbuckers!) and rigged up some distortion settings on the 503 and I was astonished! This thing puts out the TONE!!! It puts out 'real' tone, unlike the rest of the zoom pedals in the compact series which put out disgustingly digital sounding distorted tones...that being the reason why I had low to no expectations for this pedal in that respect when I bought it. My assumptions were entirely wrong...Zoom spit in my face on this one. This pedal is 100% opposite of the 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, etc. Something tells me they were just lucky though. At any rate, I am glad they accidentally made a great pedal! They should screw up more often, or try experimenting like this with different sounds instead of playing it safe all the time with their standardized distortion chips. The Mesa Boogie setting with the mid enhancement on "E2" is the only distortion tone you'll ever need...I swear by it. The thing I love about this pedal is that as a result of a lack in modeling technology during the late 90's, the amp models aren't accurate at all. Confused?...don't be. I've noticed now that the harder these companies try to "emulate" amp models, the faker, noisier and more sterile they begin to sound because it's a digital reproduction of a specific sound...not a natural sound. The processor is doing all the work instead of the guitar and the amp. The 503, on the contrary, is very responsive to your guitar's unique sound on both distorted and clean settings. It's amazing! Picked it up for $50 and I couldn't be happier. :)

Plastic but dependable. No complaints!

If something happened to it, I'd probably just buy another one for $50 instead of bothering Zoom. They need to be worrying about making better pedals like this one if the future...not service repairs on the $50 plastic 500 series.

If you have a clean tube amp and a guitar with humbuckers, the distorted tones on the Zoom 503 will blow you away I promise. Keep in mind, The Mesa Boogie setting is not so buzzy and sterile like the real thing, which is good in my opinion. It sounds more like a modern marshall and the marshall setting, funny enough, sounds more or less like a real mesa. I add a little hall reverb and long delay(which is not all that responsive or adjustable, yet for some reason just about right!), to get a perfect emulation of that Van Halen brown sound...artificial harmonics popping out all over the place. I'm telling you, that's plain WeIrD for a Zoom pedal. The effects are minimal, but they are all you would need in a live application. All the basics are there(chorus, flanger, delay, tremelo, reverb, compressor, etc.), they can only be thought of as a great bonus. Who wants to deal with loads of effects on stage anyway?...I don't. I'd rather PLAY. Oh and BTW, if you are playing loud and in a professional situation, DON'T use the cabinet or mic emulation...that just clips the signal and makes things too "boomy"...your real amp cabinet will do just fine. That's what it's there for. Did I mention the noise gate is GREAT! The pedal is extraordinarily quiet to begin with considering all the gain you get, but the zoom noise reduction really cleans things up and the decay is perfect and natural. Sometimes noise gates are TOO good, like on the Digitech units, and it just cuts off your signal prematurely without a proper decay, making it unatural sounding #1, and #2 it makes it impossible to play with feedback. This thing does EVERYTHING perfectly, all by accident! I've tried the new 505 II and it's new Mesa, Marshall, and Peavey amp models don't compare to the 503's! I figured the amp models would be the exact same chip but they aren't!!! They are entirely different and not good sounding at all. AND you can't adjust equalization individually on the 505 II either, making it completely useless. It just generally doesn't sound anywhere near as good as my 503...end of story. I want to buy another 503 so I can have one dedicated to clean tones and one dedicated to distorted tones and A/B it for performance purposes. It's cheap and the features are nil but the sound is as close to pro as you will ever need to get with a footpedal processor. I am just thankful I discovered this well kept secret. Whoever called this thing a "sleeper" and a "dark horse" in an earlier post hit it right on. He's right. I don't know how "sought after" or "valuable" it will be in years to come, but it should be something special to the people who do know about it. Those of you who say it's pointless to plug this thing into an amp, and that it's ONLY useful as a recording device...I don't havea clue what your talking about! I highly recommend this pedal. Rub the Zoom logo off if you want.

easy, but i would rather have knobs. Some of the abreviations in the edits are confusing but a quick look at the manual and you're in buisiness.

For the price I really like this thing. I use it for both recording and live preformance. I play it thru the PA system (No amp) at live preformance and it rocks. Rev, chorus, EQ,compressor, etc not the best, but I didn't buy it for that, I have other fx for those things. My set up vaires week to week. Fender Strat, Gibson SG, Gibson Les Paul it depends on what songs we are playing that week. Sometimes I use midiverb, DOD chorus pedal, DOD phaser, always use an eq and compressor before the 503.

I have had it for over a year, use it in my studio and stage, no problems. Works every time

I haven't delt with zoom, yet.

In the studio, a little bit of everything. All Christian Music. But all types of styles from hymns to screaming guitars and noisy cheezy sounding drumsets. No death metal, tho. I'm into life. At live preformance, mostly rythum type, and some screaming lead. I have been playing for about 30 years. (I'm old) but still cool.
I set up the programs i will be using on sunday morning, sometime during the week as i practice the songs. Then on Sunday I just stomp to the programs I need. Works like a charm.

Complex for a stomp box. Don't try to tweak at the gig.

The Marshall and Vox sounds really stunned me for something so cheap.
I think this is a real sleeper. A dark horse. Fender bassman sounded real also.
The distortions are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the Zoom 505. The 505
distortions are like chainsaws but the 503 has amp sweetness

lightweight

what?????

If you have experience with amp tone and are willing to sit down and tweak then the amp distortions will probably please you.
A real value, I really think in many years it will be a highly sought
after item sort of like the Dan Armstrong Orange Squeezer.
A dark horse in my opinion.

You can get the sound you want out of this thing with little problem, but the buttons can be a little annoying at time. Most people like dealling with knobs better, other than that, it's very straight forward and easy to use.

This little box is great, especially considering the price. I have it set up for two different uses. One is to flavor my amp, I use the amp models with no EQ or cabinet selection to make my amp sound like the basic clean sound of different amps. I've got an old 2x12 solid state Road amp, and it seems to sound really good this way. I set it to F Clean with no gain, no EQ, no cabinet select and it sounds basically like an old Fender Twin. I use my amps EQ to adjust the sound, so it's very much like dealing with the actual amp. J clean gives the basic Roland Jazz Chorus 120 sound, VX Crunch gives a Vox AC-30 sound (My three favorite clean amps, so I'm happy there.) I use a Boss DS-1 for distortion, so I don't really use the distortion sounds on the 503 through my amp...I do switch it to MS Crunch to give the DS-1 more of a Marshall Plexi sound to it, and for that JCM stack style sound, I turn the cabinet on to L1 and has more of a wall of sound punch to it. There are some bass models in there as well, I'm going to try to get a Fender Bassman sound using the same basic principal with one of those.

Now all of the above patches I have redone using the cabinet simulation and EQ for headphone practice as well and for direct recording, sounds nice there too. I also have a few extra patches with distortion for portable practice for trips and stuff like that. I really like the fact that it has a seperate 1/8" line in spot. I use that with my Yamaha DY10 for drums and back up when I practice with the Headphones. Since the DY10 is small too, I've got a nice, completely portable system here that I could take just about anywhere.

The effects are all right (not great though), but extemely limited. I did not buy this unit for effects though, but for the cabinet and amp selections. If I were to rate the effects, I'd give it a 5...fair sounding, but extremely limited. I do not think the effects are not that important though, so I do not count that in my rating (I've got the Zoom 509 for effects and Zoom 508 for delay.) I do like and use the reverbs though (4 types, spring, room, hall and echo type.)

Overall I give the sound a 9, just because I always believe there's room for improvement. And just for the record, I had a POD and was not happy with it. I think it's much easier to get a basic sound out of a Zoom 503 than it was with the POD.

OK, so it is plastic, I had a Zoom 505 for 2 years with no problem and the friend I sold it to has had for 2 years now, and I haven't heard a complaint, so I guess it's pretty duriable. I think, like everything, if your careful, it will last. From my experience though, most guitarists can get pretty rough when they stomp their boxes, so I do give it a rating based on that. I don't think I'll have a problem though.

I've dealt with Zoom before. I do not like their support. No E-mail, no phone number, no real way of contacting them on their site. I did find an E-mail address on the site, but not for technical support, I E-mailed there and got a response about 2 weeks later saying the message was forwarded to the proper area and then about a week later a message from them saying they can't help me, but they gave me another E-mail address of someone who could...a day or two later I finally got an answer. While they will answer you pretty promptly once you reach the proper person, finding the proper area to contact is next to impossible, which is the reason to the low mark. I basically like the sound of Zoom, not the support.

Would I replace it if lost...yes...for $50 it's well worth it. The average above would actually only give an overall rating of about 6...But since I think sound is really the main thing here, I added a couple of extra points there for an 8.

Once you get the hang of it, ot's not too bad to edit.

Decent reverb and doubling effects. Very inflexible delay. Combinations of amp, cabinet, and mic placements mean a fairly decent array of sounds. All the high gain sounds are pretty cheezy. Awful compressor. Awful chorus. Main reason why I bought it is for recording bass; I might try using it as a reverb unit only for a live gig some day when I feel like a change.
My setup: 1987 Marshall 2558 Jubilee combo; 1998 G&L ASAT Special; 1984 Strat; 1963 Gibson Melody Maker.

Cheaply made, all plastic.

No Idea

I think this unit is made for kids to hack around in Mom's basement. Not a serious unit, but grat value for the dollar.

If only every pedal was this easy to program. The only drawback is that it doesn't have knobs for the parameters, but like you would be able to twist the knobs at a show anyways!

The sound quality is not as pro as I'd like, but for $60 it kills everything. Lotsa feedback and very unnatural sounding at high volume levels, so mike it low if you need to use it live.

N/A had it 1 day

I have used the zoom 503 (and 505 years ago), and never once had any problem with either. N/A never had to deal with C.S.

For the money, the zoom 500 series are awesome. If you want pro gear, go buy pro gear. If you're poor though, this will make a killer substitute until you can get that $700+ Roland GP-100 with the $400+ foot pedal.

The 503 is a really simple machine. I lost the miniature instructions about 2 weeks after I bought mine, but it was still easy to find my way around on the thing. It REALLY needs bigger buttons though. I hate having to bend down to edit a patch.

I use a Gibson LP-90 through a Peavey XR-600B. It's a pretty cheap guitar but if you adjust your pickups just right you can get a really thick sound with the distortions. The harmonics are really strong too. The chorus is kinda weak, but the flanger and reverb are pretty tight.

As long as you use an AC and keep a fresh battery in it, it should last a while. I've only had mine a few months but other than the battery running out I haven't had a problem out of it. If you do screw something up it's pretty easy to set back.

I haven't had to deal with the support section yet but if you wanna upgrade I hear the 505 for guitar and the 506 for bass are pretty tough. I bought the 503 because I wanted something I could run a guitar or a bass through with no problem.

I play soul, blues, and rock. The 503 is great because it's small and portable with a pretty good sound. If it had bigger edit buttons and maybe an expression pedal, it would be way better. My friend uses a Korg AX1000G which has better chorus and way more effects, but my 503 holds its own.

I bought the pedal for ZAR500 (USD75), got home and had all my patches programmed in about 2 hours (I use mainly three banks). I found it fairly easy to get the sound I wanted. My three banks are close to R.Sambora, R.Blackmore and the famous Metallica grind. The latter is particularly close to the real thing and Enter Sandman is in the bag. The manual is well written, but the layout is horrible and the fonts are too small for ease.

I use the unit with a Marshall V40, a Peavey Special 130 or directly into the desk and it sounds pretty cool. You can hear the noise creeping in as the sound decays, but the ZNR kicks in pretty efficiently. I do not think the effects are weak, but the low frequencies sound boomy on the chorus sounds(without distortion); with distortion there is not enough bass, though this can be sorted out by lowering the mids and highs on the patch. My guitars are Ibanez Roadstar, Ibanez Les Paul and Ibanez Gibson Standard and I am happy with the end result. I have used the unit with a Strat but it sounds horrible, but then A Strat always sounds horrible unless driven through a cohort of effects.

I have been using the unit for six months now on pretty rough heavy metal stages and have had no accidents, though I am always subconsciously aware of the featherweight construction and have the feeling that sooner or later it will crack under a boot. My only backup is the built in drive of my amps and have never had to use it.

Have not dealt with the company and do not feel upgrades are necessary fo this price; If I need upgrades I would rather add another unit to the board.

I play heavy metal and hard rock and have no problem with matching the patches to the style. I own a RP-10, Boss effects, Rockman Distortion Generator and a Russian Wah. My main sound unit is the Zoom, though. The most unattractive feature is the repetitive pressing of the pedal to get to the desired patch. There is also this small gap between switching patches, but it is nowhere as wide as the RP-10's. A piece of advice - do not use the unit before other distortion or modulator effects eccept for delay - sounds like you are playing in a large bathroom!

Instruction manual isn't bad, but is printed on a paper which you have to unfold (booklet form would have been better) plus the printing is so small you almost need a magnifying glass to read it. Editing, storing, and switching patches is not too hard. Doesn't take long to get it going when you use it the first time.

Fender Srat plus into Crate G-60. This doesn't sound too good through an amp; the distortion and effects are much weaker. However, this works great as a headphone amp and for direct recording. The distortion sounds are ok, but not great (MESA BOOGIE sounds best to me), the chorus sucks, reverb is ok. But the flanging is excellent, especially on clean patches. The amp simulations don't really sound much like the amps they are supposed to imitate in my opinion. The best sounds from this are the clean sounds. 3 clean simulations are available: Fender, Roland Jazz Chorus, and just Clean. I think Clean is best, especially with the flanging effect. Overall, this is good for headphone practice or direct recording but not through an amp.

Made of cheap plastic; switches are suspect as are the jacks. No I would not gig with this, with or without a backup. Step on it hard or drop it and it would most likely break.

nope have not dealt with them

I play classic rock. This is only a fair pedal, too cheaply made and no good through an amp. I like the Zoom 504 Acoustic pedal and 505, that is why I bought this. Don't expect a VOX AC30 or Marshall stack from the 503. Would not buy it again if lost or stolen. The clean sounds are best and flanging is the best effect. Good for practice through headphones or direct recording only. Not bad to operate and edit.

First off, ZOOM's 2 stomp, little edit button thing has got to go. I can use it, and since I dont breathe from my mouth it didn't take long to figure out how to edit, but really....this could have been approached much better. Scrolling through menus is great in Windows, but a few knobs sure would help this one.

I tend to agree with the prevailing clean good/dirty bad sentiment on this page. The clean sounds do precisely what I wanted when I bought this, which was to record direct to four track without running mics to my combo and destroying close relationships. It seems to play nicely with other boxes, but this should definitely be placed last (as you would, say, a real amplifier). The distortions dont sound bad, necessarily, but sho dont sound like Marshalls I've ever heard. Decent efx if you're short on real ones, but dont expect much variation. No chance to run this out of my amp yet, but Ive heard its kinda pointless.

Im not a big destroyer of equipment, but I feel as if I accidentally step on this in the dark, it would break in half. Not at all the solid feeling of my Boss or even my Ibanez potato-bug boxes. And it seems to like the volts so keep an AC adaptor handy. Suspect jacks, as well. ZOOM stuff just has an air of cheapitude about it.

Never dealt with ZOOM. Ugly manual, as well. Use your brain.

I got a good deal on this one and wanted an amp sim for recording and headphone-practices and thats what I got. There are many, many adjustments I would make here (fix the distortion, rethink controls, higher grade plastic housing, better jacks, etc. etc.). But really...I paid $85 and it does the job I ask of it. Or, I could've paid 3 times as much for a Sans-Amp. A good amp sim on a budget, but realise that more money invested will result in a higher quality effect (not necessarily the case in other effects boxes.)

I've used various processors i must say this is one area where the 503 really excells. If you're a beginner a quick glance at the manual(which is very good by the way) and youll be editing in no time. If your experienced with multi-effect processers you probably wont even need the manual to get this bad boy up and running.

Now any idiot has probably figured out that this little box isnt gonna sound exactly like a bunch of marshalls and fenders. But that doesnt mean it doesnt sound good. So as long as you dont buy the 503 expecting to get a 5150 and a fender twin in the same box at that low of price you shouldnt be dissapointed. First the clean sounds. The 503 offers 3 different clean amp models, a fender, roland and the other one i cant remember. My favourite out of the 3 is the fender, I would say the the clean sounds on this unit are the best thing about it. It has 6 dirty amps too, ranging from a crunchy fender to a very distorted peavey. While the distortion is not the best a couple of them are useable in a home environment. The 503 also includes different cabinets and mike posistions. Tweaking these will yield a quite a few different sounds. And to top it off they've included some mediocre effects, reverb, and delay. Overall this is a good unit if its used at home just to practise.

Ive had the 503 for over a year and ive never taken it out of my house and i probably never will. It weighs about half a pound and is made of plastic. But at home it has always worked for me.

N/A
Never delt with them.

Overall it is a good unit, i just use it at home for direct recording and it sounds alright. I dont like the reverb and effects, i use another processer for that. If your looking for a processor to practice with at home i suggest you pick one up.

This is a follow up.

I reviewed this unit almost a year ago, I think, when I was looking for an amp simulator of some kind to go direct to a board for my church's music. I ended by saying we went with the more expensive POD from Line 6, which has been wonderful.

I have recently wanted something for home recording, and thought I'd give this thing another shot. I only wanted it to be able to give a decent clean sound and some decent distorted sounds. I didn't even care about specific "amp models" (i.e. Boogie, Marshall, Fender).

I tested this out at the store with my Tascam Porta02 and an American Standard Fat Strat (humbucker in bridge position). First of all, to be positive, the "Fender" clean sounds were fantastic, even better than I remembered, even better than the Tech 21 Sansamp GT-2 that I'm going to end up getting. Sounds acceptably tube-like. The modulations are good, the cabinet and miking positions change the tone, the reverbs are good.

So if that's all you wanted, it would work fine. But wouldn't you think an Amp Simulator would do an acceptable job with distorted sounds, too? ACCEPTABLE? No way. This is what I remembered from trying it last time, too. They all sound cheesy, like you're playing your guitar directly into your home stereo. With varying degrees of gain, of course. I tweaked and tweaked for about 45 minutes, and could get nothing I thought was close to acceptable. I just don't understand how this gets good reviews in this area. It sounds no better than when I have tried running a Tubescreamer direct into the four track recorder. Fuzzy and buzzy. I even tried headphones direct out from the unit, bypassing the Tascam. No better. I tried the Fender clean sound with a Danelectro Daddy-O overdrive in front of the box. No better.

I wasn't expecting the POD's quality, but I wanted at least a couple usable distortion sounds. Test this thing out yourself before buying, PLEASE!

This is a follow up.

This is another entry in the Zoom 500 series. It provides amp simulation models for a variety of amps including, Marshall, Fender, Peavey, Roland, and Mesa Boogie. Editing patches is straightforward. If you want a decent copy of the manual (ie readable) download it from Zoom's website.

I use this unit both as a headphone amp and to drive a Marshall VSR30 or Mesa Boobie Subway Blues, just for some different sounds. Most of the presets are over the top and not really useful, but editing is easy. The Zoom Noise Reduction feature seems to work pretty well at cleaning up hiss, especially at some of the overdrive settings. Most of the amp sounds are good, especially the Fender clean, Mesa Boogie drive , and Roland. There are enough parameters to play with, such as EQ, gain, cabinet types, mic placement, some basic effects, and reverbs, to tweek a half way decent sound from most of the selections. Is it useable for recording? depends on your tastes and experience. Like I said before you can get decent sounds out of it but don't expect knock dead emulation. One note, the bass patches can be changed to electric guitar which opens up eight more patches.

I've had it for a year and no problems. I've edited all the patches dozens of times and everything is still working fine. Yea the plastic is cheapy looking but it seems to hold up and for bedroom playing is perfectly satisfactory. Get a 9 volt adapter fom Radio Shack and forget the battery.

Their website is very good and provides all the user manuals for their various effects

I play mostly blues and jazz plus whatever sounds good. I've been playing about three years. I like the fact that this unit is easy to use and delivers good sounds for a reasonable price. I compared it to other amp simulators but for the price it is hard to top. If it were lost I would probably not replace it simply because I like to try different stuff. The bottom line, this device is fun to play with and provides a variety of sounds that help me shake up my playing when I get in a rut.

The owner's manual states: "Compact multi-effect device convincingly recreates the sound of famous guitar or bass amplifiers." Preset patch number 2 is called "Twin-Lead", and since I do not currently have the means to afford a '65 Twin Reverb Reissue, I thought this box would be a good alternative for the time being. It is important to note that in the configuration of effects, Zoom has placed the tremolo before the reverb. Ask yourself a question, "Is this how a '65 Twin Reverb works?"
The way it works on the zoom, you will degrade the tremolo effect in proportion as you increase the reverb. Suppose you hit a chord and immediately mute the stings. You will not hear any throbbing from the tremolo as the reverb gradually fades out.
Unlike a previous review, I actually value the tremolo effect, but I can only use it without any reverb (contrary to what I had hoped). I simply don't have time to write a full review of this box. It does have some nice points, but I wanted to make this "feature" known to other prospective buyers.

There are so many parameters that I feel like I haven't yet tapped into all of the great sounds this little unit is capable of. Editing patches is very simple once you get the hang of it. The manual is terrible, but you won't need it once you've edited the patches a few times. I have 4 patches set up for headphone playing, and 4 patches set up for playing through my amplifier, because what sounds good through the headphones won't necessarily work through the amp.

Played through an amp, this unit can completely change the characteristics of any amp. The Fender Blues Jr, which is a wonderful sounding amp for blues, can take on the sound of a hot-rodded high gain amp with the help of the 503. Through the headphones, this thing simply sounds great. I don't play too much with the chorus effects, etc, because I just wanted something that sounded convincing through headphones and DI recording. This does both of those things well. The unit has noise reduction built in, and that is a good thing. Turn off the noise reduction and it isn't pleasant. The distortion is excellent.

Other reviews have stated that the unit is made of plastic and doesn't look very sturdy. I'd like to say that the thing seems to be pretty sturdy. I don't gig so a backup isn't an issue with me, but if I were I'd keep my old, trusty Arion SD-1 handy.

I've never dealt with Zoom

I play blues rock. The 503 is good for just about any style of music. I've been playing for almost 20 years. If it were lost or stolen I would get another one because it's dirt cheap. I love the sounds, hate the chorus effects and tremelo (why is this stupid 70's amp feature suddenly popular???)

Manual is kind of bizarre, like a road map, and slightly confusing. But once you figure out the basic setup, you'll be fine. Editing is fine.

I play in a contemporary church band. We do many styles of music, from country to alternative to ballads, etc. Myself and the other guitarist were trying to figure out a way to minimize stage noise in an effort to get a better mix out front, and getting rid of our amps was one way to accomplish this, so we investigated this pedal.
We tried many guitars: PRS, Les Paul, Danelectro, Fender stuff. Both of us use Fender Deluxe Reverb amps, mine's a Hot Rod Deluxe. We both wanted that clean tone, with the ability to get a really nice overdriven sound. Weren't too interested in heavy-distortion kinds of sounds. We went straight from this unit into a very high-end Mackie mixing board.
We didn't even care if the amp "models" matched actual amps like Mesa, Fender, Marshall, Vox, Matchless, etc. We just wanted an acceptable clean sound and the ability to get a decent overdriven sound.
What we found was that we could achieve an "acceptable" clean sound, although it didn't sound like "Fender" or anything in particular. Pretty generic. However, we tried and tried to get some kind of acceptable overdrive sound and could not do it. Everything sounded fuzzy and horrible, like playing through a home stereo or cheap headphones.

Pretty cheap-feeling plastic. Probably wouldn't last under any kind of heavy gigging.

What we ended up buying about a month ago was a POD from Line 6. This thing has been getting rave reviews, and we went for it. It's fabulous. Clean sounds are really nice (although they still, to my ears, don't sound like Fender clean) and it has lots of versatility in overdriven tones. And the overdrives are excellent-sounding, very focused and complex for the different amp models. It's more expensive, but at $330 or so, it packs a lot of great uses (as well as wonderful digital effects).

This model is a very good amp simulator, considering it's price. Frankly, it kinda behaves like it's job is to waste batteries, rather then to produce some cool sound (which it does very nicely, though). It's presets are cool for people like me, that can't be bothored by editing their own patches.

I use an American Telecaster Deluxe guitar with my Fender Prosonic head + combo. I like the effects very much but most of the time it's easier just to use ordinary pedals, after all I've got a pedal for every feature that it holds, so I don't use the 503 much except when I'm recording in a studio.

I don't use it when I'm gigging because it's easier to use the normal pedals. It wastes batteries so fast I don't like having it without a backup. Although, when I'm recording, I like having it, it's much better then the ordinary pedals there, if I have an AC adaptor present.

It hasn't broken down yet.

I play rock, pop and metal. I think the 503 is fine, it's great with all music. I have been playing for 31 years and I haven't found it's match in the studio.

Once you've set up the patches you like, operation is very easy. Programming is fairly straightforward, but the user interface is one of those where you have only 6 pushbuttons to perform mode changes, play/edit navigation, and parameter mods. The display is a 2-character LED, so codes are used to represent the various types of effects and at first, you must refer to the instruction sheet to decypher these. Although the interface is crude, it's workable, and not unexpected for such an inexpensive unit. Although you should tweak the patches to your taste, it's easy to get a great sounds out of the 503. The instuction sheet isn't as convenient as a booklet, but it's designed pretty well and you'll learn the 503 pretty quickly.

With my standard Strat, the 503 sounds great. It produces a variety of good drive/lead and clean sounds. The effects/reverb/cabinet simultions are quite useful, and are very tweakable. The output of the 503 sounds studio-processed, and it records well (home recording on a cheap 4-track) and sounds good in my small Fender and Peavey amps. I thought the unit was pretty quiet, especially for the money. It's quieter than any of my stomp boxes.

No problems so far, but a couple of notes: you need an AC adapter, batteries don't last. I got a 9v 500ma one from Radio Shack at about half the price of ZOOM's adapter, but be careful that you get the polarity right if you don't get the official adapter. Also, the 503's plastic case isn't going to be as bomb-proof as a metal stomp box, but that's no big deal to me.

No contacts.

The ZOOM 503 is perfect for me. I've played for 30 years, mostly in the closet, and like everything from Bach to Rock - anything that has quality. I like Fender-style guitars and play into small Fender and Peavey solid-state amps. I can get the lead sounds i want out of it, and the cleans are marvelous too. I love the sounds and flexibility, but find the programming a little awkward. I'd definitely replace it if it were lost, since it has made all of my other stomp boxes obsolete. Has anyone done a side-by-side comparison with the Line6 Pod? I think the functionality is similar, but the 503 has a cruder interface and is much cheaper.

It's pretty simple to get a good sound out of this. Lots of folks complain that the presets are unusable for these types of units, but I am of the opinion that the presets are there to show you the unit's range of ability; it's up to you to find a sound you like. If you're fairly familiar with the sounds of the amps being simulated, then you can have an idea ahead of time what to dial in for a custom patch. If you're not, then it'll be trial and error finding which amp sounds you like. Either way, a couple hours of tweaking and you're on your way. Manual is kind of skimpy, although I guess comprehensive. Just a pain to fold it this way and that to find the section you want. Of course, if they made a fancier manual, we'd have to pay for it. One glitch tho, is that it can be confusing sometimes because certain effects will only be active if you've selected a certain type of amp; otherwise you have a different effect (ex- you only get compression with clean amp settings, but with drive or crunch amps you get gain).

I have an old Ibanez roadstar with a stock humbucker, a Yamaha acoustic, a Peavey Classic 30, a Yamaha MT4X 4-track, and various plug in toys. BUT, I only use this for direct recording! It goes guitar-zoom 503- 4-track; then the sound is good. Put it in front of your amp and you'll get crap. It's NOT a distortion pedal baby. If you sit and tweak for a while, you can probably get it to sound ok in front of an amp (turn off the cabinet emu and the mic pos., tho. Make sense?), but that's not what I got this for. For headphone practice and direct recording, noise is not bad (I mean, you expect noise if it's trying to sound like a cranked wall of Marshalls!). To be honest, I haven't checked out the effects on-board. I was mainly interested in getting an amp simulator so I could get believable sound direct to tape. I have an effects processor that I use in my 4-tracks loop to handle chorus, flange, rev, etc. so I haven't really been concerned with checking them out extensively. What I have checked out so far is as follows; amp sounds are good and varied enough to let you find the mood, or inspire one. Cabinet types also good, and mic placement makes quite a difference. The time effects (Ch.,Fl.,Del.,Rev.,etc) are fine for headphone practice, but I haven't used the tremolo. Noise red. is good. I really haven't tried to sound like anyone, although for the masses, it seems predisposed on the presets to go into EVH territory.

It's plastic, and light. I use it at home only for 4-track recording. If I was playing a mellow, low key gig and couldn't use my amp, I might try it direct to the PA. But I wouldn't be too happy about it. :)

N/A

I play some covers; Dylan, CSNY, Pearl Jam, Neil Young, Ani DiFranco... My original stuff is kind of funk-folk-rock-chocolate goo. I've been playing around 12 years. I have in addtition to the above stuff a Boss DS-2, digtech chorus-flange from the early 1800's :), a couple mics (audio technicas). If it were lost etc., I'd probably buy it again with the insurance money. It's pretty much the cheapest in this field of gadget. While there are better products, I didn't have the money or patience to wait. I wanted to play and record, and I'm very happy with this. I do like the amp variety, and while it won't fool any pros, they probably have the money for something higher end anyways. I'm not trying to fool anyone, I'm just trying to write music. Compared it to H&K redbox, Sansamps, multieffect boxes (ME-3,etc). This was cheap and in my neighborhood music store. In case you haven't figured it out, it helps make music. If you're not into sonic snobbery, have a limited budget, and want to record at home but can't crank your amp because of your neighbors, then this is great...Whew.

Getting a good sound is as simple as plug and play, I haven't yet tried to edit any patches. The manual is small print but pretty straight forward.

Pleasant surprise: through my Seth Lover pickups the unit is whisper quiet. Through my P-90 equipped Les Paul Jr re-issue, it is a bit noisier. I like the presets and the fact that I can edit and come up with my own. Some of the bass patches work actually rather well with guitar (other surprise!), better than some of the guitar patches...

I've only owned it for a few days, it's primary function being as a practise headphone amp and an amp simulator to DI in my HD recording setup. Whisper quiet as long as I use the Seth Lover equipped guitar, the P-90 equipped one picks up everything from the lights to the PC monitor ... that's noisy!

Hasn't broken down yet!

I must admit that I was a bit reluctant to get this unit since my previous Zoom pedal experience was bad to say the least: impossible to get a pleasant tone out of it, temperamental foot-switching etc ... I returned that one within the hour! In this case,I'm happy I got it: this baby goes though shades of dirty and clean that with a little work can sound rather exquisite!
I'd buy it again in a second, should this one get stolen or broken.

It takes a while to figure everything out, but once you get to know it, it is not that hard to get the sound you want. The manual is a little confusing

I'm using a Cort Ferrarri III guitar and a Gorilla GG-25 amp- truly cheap toys. the 503 makes them sound HUGE!! It's not that easy to tweak the effects, though. the flanger successfully reproduces Van Halen's "brown sound"

if you're looking for durable, go buy a Boss. and unless you live in a Duracell factory, i'd buy a 9 volt adapter.

this thing is perfect for just recording the great little ideas you get at 1 a.m. and jamming. i'd buy it again- for the money, its got a lot of stuff.

Very simple, but maybe because I cheated. I went to ZOOM's website at www.zoom.jp.co/english/ and perused the instruction manual before I ordered the 503 from American Musical Supply (www.americanmusical.com). The printed instructions that come with the unit use a very small font, so it might be best to download the Adobe Acrobat reader and visit the site (which allows you to 'magnify' the text). Editing and saving patches is simple for me - and this is my first experience with a multifx pedal. I found it very easy to get a very good guitar sound by editing the presets and a teeny bit more difficult to get a likable bass sound for my needs.

So far, I have only used the unit for direct recording into my Fostex XR3. I play a Yamaha 112 and a Yamaha Motion B bass. In the weekend I've had it, I am very happy with the sounds I've been able to get. The distortions for guitar are pretty diverse - I am quite happy with the metal-ish rythm guitar tracks I've laid out. The lead guitar sounds available seem very good. I don't have any previous experience with bass distortion, but the bass distortion seems a little weak when it is EQ'd toward bass. Otherwise, there is a noticable difference in each level of each parameter for all levels of distortion, cabinet types, mike positioning, reverbs, and modulation effects. I prefer not to compare any sounds to Nirvana or Metallica or Rush or Styx or the Monkees or whomever, because I haven't tried to get those sounds.

I will use it mostly for recording myself in my own pseudo-studio (or psteudio), weekend jamming, and occasional performances. I would use it on a gig without a backup. But, I'm weird - I would see an effects failure as a sort of artistic inspiration to improvise in other ways. Now, if an amp failed, THAT'S a different story.

The only support I've used was this site (Thanks, HC!) and the aforementioned ZOOM site. I haven't had a need to call Customer Support, or research a problem.

I try to play many different styles, but I keep returning to rock/punk/metal sounds. I think this pedal should keep someone like me - who finds something appealing in lots of different genres - happy. It probably wouldn't satisfy a jazz purist, a techno fanatic, or a metal extremist, but it's great for my purposes. I suppose if you try hard, you can emulate some famous sounds. You can also try *less* hard and get some very good sounds that might make you sound pretty original. I think that for a single pedal that provides a wide spectrum of sounds for both guitar and bass, this is a great value.

I find some of the abbreviations for effects banks a bit confusing and have to keep referring to the manual for explanations. The manual is a fold-out affair which is a real pain to read but the instructions are easily understood.

I'm using this unit to provide a decent sound with which to go directly into my mixer and it does a good job. Some of the more distorted sounds are a bit too fuzzy. Only a couple of the presets stand out, one of which is called Liverpool and provides a classic Beatles-esque sound.
I haven't used the unit for bass yet so I can't really comment on the bass section.
The cabinet simulators are pretty good, with adjustable cabinet depths and mic positions.

I have gigged with a similar unit (the 506) and with a bit of care it should hold out for a while, although for heavy gigging you'd maybe be better off looking at something else. The case is plastic and subjecting it to a Doc Marten from aloft would result in a broken unit. It's great for studio use though.

Never used support.

I don't know if I would buy this unit again, mainly due to the fact that it's a bit inconvenient to use in my tiny studio...a rack-mounted version would be heaps better... I think that this unit has a lot to offer for most styles of guitar, although it is a bit limiting in terms of parameter adjustment (9 different settings per effect).
For the price, this is a great unit with some good features and for somebody in my situation (ie big ideas, small wallet) it can't be beaten. I already own a 505 and 506 and was put off ZOOM gear for life but after playing this unit, I changed my mind completely,

See bottom of page for previous review.

I did install the lil 59 and the JB Jr. in the neck and bridge and WOW! What a difference this has made in my sound coming through this effect. More "Balls" are there to really put this unit to the test. I recorded with it today and I was able to get a Roland JC-120 tone for rhythm, A nice fat bass sound, and for lead I was going for the "Woman tone" that EC was so fond of with that SG. This is great for recording so ya don't have to drag your 212 when you want to tape.

Don't gig.

see previous review below.

Like it more, and again Zoom should install that aux. input jack on everything, so musicians have something to jam to.

I was messing around in a music store and the sales guy said 'you've GOT to plug into this thing". That pretty much sums it up, plug it in and play.
It's fairly easy to modify patches on the unit, but there's not a whole hell of a lot of parameters that you can change - personally I think that's a GOOD thing. The manual is a skimpy, ugly, hard to read, and very large fold out affair, but since it's a straightfoward unit to figure out, you won't need it much after you play with it for the first 30 minutes. You WILL have to do a certain amount of try-this-and-see messing around with it, but it will reward you in short order.
Of course, since it has a small LED panel which imparts no other information than the patch number, you actually have to remember what patch is where, which, for the IQ-challenged people like me, leads to a lot of clicking and swearing.

I demoed the box through a 50 Watt Crate w/12" and through headphones, with a Fender TexMex Strat, a Godin something-or-other, and my terminally ill Ibanez 570. I also tried it through an old Roland DAC-10, but let us never speak of that again... The Tex Mex Strat sounded incredible, no doubt due to the Pearly Gates humbucker and the fact that I was staring at the 503's price tag in shock at the time.
The Godin sounded great (and played wonderfully, regardless of how, well, upsettingly ugly it was...), the Ibanez sounded thin, but that's just because my pickups doth suck mightily.
The thing to keep in mind is that FOR THE PRICE, this box is unbeatable. I was flat out amazed by what it could do FOR THE PRICE. The dirtier tones seem to suffer from a bit too much high end, but judicious use of the EQ section helps tremendously. The clean sounds are great.
FOR THE PRICE, this wee box will get you anywhere you want to go (assuming you have the patience to play around with the patches) very quickly, and it makes an incredible practice amp as long as you have an AC adapter handy - batteries last for a few nanoseconds.
Again, if you haven't taken the hint yet, FOR THE PRICE, awe-inspiring sounds.

Dunno, it sat on my desk and acted as a DI to my Mac. I wouldn't get drunk wearing Doc Martens and expect it to survive, but it should be OK for a non-drunk running shoe type person.
Oh, and tape the adapter cable to the box otherwise it will slip out.
Oh, and don't ever, ever, ever expect to use ANY !@#$%^& box like this for computer based recording, unless part of your compositional process is to play with new and interesting buzzing noises.

No idea. I don't use it anymore, but I have no trepidations about selling it to a friend (he doesn't wear boots when he's drunk). I think that's a pretty decent endorsement of reliability. Alternately, it's a bad endorsement of my friendship ;-)

I do strictly my own stuff for my own entertainment, and have been doing it for about 16 years now. I enjoy everything from Hedges to Slayer (OK, honestly, I LOVE Slayer), and this box, with a little bit of coaxing, can really deliver to a large degree. It will NOT, no matter how hard you try, allow you to mimic Eric Johnson's tone, but then, well, that's not surprising.
I wouldn't buy it again, but that's only because my wife 'allowed' me to buy a Digitech 2120 VGS and now she's set a precedent as to how much money I can waste on toys (silly, silly woman). I'd reccomend it to anyone on a tight budget and I love the fact that you can just shove it into your gig bag and run off.
For direct recording on a budget, it's a dream come true. For an alternative to distortion pedals on a gig, it's also way cool
FOR THE PRICE

I got this because of Zoom's good rep. and I needed something to play my Ibanez EX Fretless Bass through, as I don't have a bass amp. I first saw it in the Musician's Friend catalog, so try it right? I also have a Warmoth strat w/SD Classic Stacks and a Line 6 Axsys 212 amp. I don't have the time to always pull out the 212, so I thought I could practice with the 503, that's why I got it. The presets are set- up pretty good A-D are for guitar and E-F are for bass. They try to cover all the "usual" sounds some of the clean/chorus stuff is very nice, but the distortions could use some serious tweaking, by themselves sound pretty harsh.
Haven't tried to edit much but it is the same principal as the other Zoom stuff, trial and error till you get what you like.
The manual was made for the stars of the 60's TV show,"Land Of The Giants" by one of the giants. I am seriously considering purchasing a magnifer page just to read it. Especially the preset sec. and then type it into my mailbox of WebTv. I tried a 505 when they first arrived and I remember them having a "Roadmap" format of plastic. Now it is recycled yellow paper and really small print. Rating: 1 for the manual.

The sounds are sometimes noisy, but they have a very good NR system and you can dial the hiss right out. Distortions are the noisiest. I haven't tried it with an amp yet because as a simulator I am using it as an amp substitute. To be honest I've had this for a month and find it has some pretty cool patches to use for my home recording projects( that I could do more of if I could get off this internet) I like the one called(squint) Liverpool a very good all-around 60's Beatles clean tone(RAIN) and a Tremelo tone good for Creedence-type stuff. My favorite influences are so many to list them would take up too much space:but at the top of the list would be Steve Howe,Allan Holdsworth,David Gilmour,Mark Farner. I don't play like any of them but they all make an appearance now and then for a bar or two. I have been trying to find that warm sustain from the neck p/u ala The Yes Album but not even the 503 can get me to that place, I am thinking of putting a SD, 'lil 59 in the neck so I may do another updated review after I change p/u's. The bridge is going to be a JB Junior.
I thought the delays were lacking in variety and not very adjustable, but the reverbs sound real nice and there are many to choose from.

Zoom has that plastic top and if you step on it hard you could probably break it, I would take it to a gig but be very careful with it if I had to, with the Line 6 I don't.

No contact with zoom. I would deal direct with the store I bought it from.

I play mostly Progressive Rock/Jazz/Fusion and I do like this unit for the very reason it does what I wanted. I also use an E-Bow and an original Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Electric Mistress I got in 1979.
If it got stolen/lost I would get it again just because I need something to practice bass on. I tried the 506 out but found lot's of the "synth" patches to be useless distortions, that's why I chose the 503 for a more general simulation of different amps,cabs,mic placement,chorus,flange,trem,reverb,delays,DISTORTIONS. Not the greatest thing I ever heard, but for the price quite alot gets covered. My fav feature is this is the only Zoom unit that has an input jack so you can jam with another source,cd,cass.etc. and I played with Magical Mystery Tour on the fretless which was a blast. My least fav. feature besides the manual is the thrash metal sound, just rediculous. But there are level adj.to warm them up to be fair. I want to try this with my Fostex X-30 and use it for the bass it gets a nice sounding phase for bass, and not as dry as direct. I'd just like sum up this is my first product review so if I rambled to boredom I'm sorry. I would recommend the 503 to anyone that needs a way to practice without an amp wearing headphones. I use Sennheiser HD-420's and the 503 sounds great with them. It really takes the place of a bass amp for me as I have no need to buy one at this time, I will use this unit frequently and I'm glad Zoom decided to invent it. P.S. I wish/think that Zoom should add the input jack to everything they make in this 500 series. I'm sure it would be useful( one of the reasons I traded from the 506) Thank you to Harmony Central for this format. It has been very helpful for over a year to inform me of musical equip.
I have been a guitar/keyboard/bass player for 32 years, and I love music.