Zoom 505 II

Easy to use, but kind of complicated when trying to edit and store patches. The manual wasn't very helpful. The tuner works great. It should come with a AC adapter.

I am using it with a Peavey Wolfgang axe and a Marshal AVT20 Amp. A few of the presets sound good, especially the distortion ones, but are very noisy. Many of the presets are completely useless unless you are trying to make furturistic robot sound effects for sci-fi movies. I don't know why they didn't include more distortion settings intead of useless special effects sounds. For some reason the pedal creates a lot of hum and noise on many of the presets.

Made of plastic. I've had mine for over 2 years and had no problems. I don't think it could stand a beating and I don't think I would use it live, but for practice it's fine.

Never had to deal with Zoom, but they have a good website with lots of info and user created patches.

I enjoy playing classic rock & heavy metal. I have been playing for over 10 years non-professionally. I recommend the Digitech RP50 over this Zoom 505 II. The RP50 has better tone, is easier to edit, has a built in drum machine, & is $10 cheaper. I do like a few of the distortion presets on the Zoom, but I also find that it creates a lot of unwanted hum & noise. I'm gonna sell mine now that I got the Digitech.

It's a little daunting when you first see it, but after about 10 minutes it's all good.

I can't stress enough how awesome this is. I play metal and this pedal is absolutely all I need. Distortion DS + Full Gain + 9 Noise Gate = Dimebag Darrells guitar tone. No lie. Metal distortion is fantastic too.

It seems solid enough, I have yet to test it full, but I'd gig without a backup for sure.

This thing is banging out distortion that kicks the crap out of pedals twice the price, and this isn't just a one trick pony. Try it, you'll love it. Be warned though, don't plug in a piece of crap guitar, or you WILL get a piece of crap, give it a nice guitar and you will get nice, simple as that.

As it hasn't many knobs or buttons it isn't that hard, but the fact it only has a 2 digit LCD makes the Manual necessary for some of the effect sections as the Drive Models.

It?s a 50:50 thing here. I used it with many different setups already since i bought it in 2001, for example Kustom 20Watts Practice Amp, Pevey 70 Watts 2x12 Combo, Hughes & Kettner 50 Watts halfstack, Marshall 100Watts Hdfx Halfstack etc., also with different guitars like Strat copies and Epiphone or Gibson Les Pauls w/ different Pick ups. Noticeable is that there is a lot more hum in almost every setup than when it is used with normal effect pedals. The only acceptable setup was the Epiphone through the Marshall, although this combination itself isn't the best, so test it first with your equipment before buying!
The Effects are mostly ok, especially the Distortion models sound really butt-kickin. The standard effects like chorus, Flanger, phaser & Delay sound also more than ok, but there are just not enough Parameters to edit! You only can control the effect-"tweak", not more, and this is just too little for matching the presets to the sound you need.
Other Effects like Pitch shifter(greatest crap ever!), Ring Modulator, Step Mode and especially the doubling(never heard something that awful) are only interesting if you want to create really crazy spacey Synth sounds, but therefore you got (as mentioned above) too little possibilities and you have to make sure you have no humming in your Rig, otherwise this will make an abstract sound floor even when not playing anything.
Oh, yeah, and the Equalizer is a bunch of bullshit, 'cause you only have 50 presets varying only too little and it takes an endless time to get from the first to the last.

And I almost forgot: The patch changing times are quite too long for seriously playing this thing live!

It broke the first time 1 Year after I bought it, the main breakingpoints seem to be all the plastic inputs, in the 4 years of playing this thing (mostly when practicing, sometimes playing live) 3 of them broke (It only has 4!).

The guarantee was provided by the music shop i bought it from, so I've never dealt with Zoom itself....

Playing all Styles of Rock it is ok for a bit of practicing and experimentating at your home, best with headphones, but not more! At the moment I had the luck I can use the Chorus, Flanger & Tuner in the Effects Loop for my Bass Amp and it sounds "alright", but if I had a bit more money I would definately buy something new for this purpose. SO don?t buy it, rather wait a month or two longer and get a G-Series by Zoom, doesn't cost that more but sounds amazingly better.....

The only thing I didn't like about it is it doesn't act like a normal stomp box where you can turn it completely off with one click of the pedal. You can't really access a distant patch unless you do some travelling (at least that all I can figure from the few days I have had it).

It's pretty easy though. I didn't have to read the manual that much to understand it.

The chorus and flanger are decent, the hard and metal distortion is good but the blues and rhythm and overdrive could use a little more tweaking. They kinda sound a little dull, but once again, the metal is senstive and tight.

There is an auto-wah feature in the pedal which is pretty sweet. The pitch shifter is not the main selling point of the product though.

I am pleased because I mainly bought it in hopes it had rough distortion.

It's made out of "space age plastic". I can see it breaking it something really bad happened to it but for daily use and normal wear and tear it'll hold up.

It's dependable. I hope the circular knob stays well. I trust it for practice.

Haven't had to talk with customer support.

I play metal and sometimes I have fun with reggae music. I also play rock. Now I had a DOD Tec 8,and a Boss ME-50 and funny thing, I feel this is better than even those. The Tec-8 I wasn't impressed with that much, the wah was the best thing on that multi-pedal.

My favorite feature is the Metal Distortion combined with chorus or the doubling effect. Also the auto-wah is great too. I've never used it live, just in headphones. Someday I'll put it up to an amplifier. This is what my opinions are based on, headphone operation.

I'd recommend this pedal for practice.

Very very very ease to use.

Sound great. I have Marshall V8080 and F.Stratocaster (made in Japan). I think the guitar is very important beacause other guitar with 505II make a little "plastic" sound. But with Fender sound is beautiful. I even didn;t try to make sound like metallica, satriani, vai or petrucci. I've set up four very good basicly patches (acustic guitar <but it's not sound like acustic>, clean, blues, very good set for rythm guitar, and beautiful for solo)and I'm editing it with efects (delay, chorus, etc.).

Didn;t have any problem.

I've been playing since 1993 on electric guitar. I play progressive rock(metal). I give 10 because i bought cheep multiefect for efects and didnt suppose that it will be my preamp. If it were stolen, I would buy it again. I wanted to change it for Digitech RP21D - but Zoom505II is much better.

I find editing on this unit a breeze. I can get any kind of sound I want from it, although I actually run keyboards and synths through it (rack FX are too "polite").

I mostly use the distortion to create guitar-like sounds. Before the purists out there flame me, I don't have time to learn guitar to the dexterity with which I play keyboards. It works fine what I need, and with the right source sound, knocking out power chords is easy. I don't actually use it with an amp - it's connected as a channel insert on keyboard mixer (a Behringer MX1604).

I use the ring modulator extensively when creating things like drum loops. I'm going for a very "digital" kind of sound, like NIN.

I would gig with it without a backup - and have (as I don't have a backup). Entirely dependable.

Never need to contact them. Website has all the info I've needed thus far.

I bought purely because it offered distortion with a nosie cancelling program to get rid of the buzzes generated by distortion pedals when idle.

It works for me, and give me the sounds I need, when I need them, and above all, it's cheap.

This pedal is very easy to use. You turn the knob, choose your setting, press Store when you're happy with your patch and off you go! To use the tuner, press both foot pedals, and to increase/decrease the master volume press the + and - buttons together.

This is only my first pedal, and I've only tried multi-FX pedals (I want to get an idea of all effects as I've only been playing for about a year) and this one stands out as the one with the best sound quality with the lowest price. It's not as good quality as some of the bigger, badder, better pedals, but they generally cost double the price of this pedal. I mainly play blues/rock, hard/rock, and rock/metal like AC/DC, Guns 'n' Roses, and sometimes the Shadows. Using the delay function I can get a perfect sound for Welcome To The Jungle, and the flange is perfect for RATM's Killing In The Name. It has Zoom Noise Reduction which comes in very useful when the distortion gets too much. I play a Strat replica through a 40Watt Hohner amp w/overdrive, and I played it in my music store through a Epi Les Paul Special, and they sounded great both times.

Some of the distortions aren't that different from each other, such as Metal and Lead. The chorus and flange stand out as some of the best on a Multi FX.

Like I said before, I'm only a beginner, and I don't gig with it, and the furthest it'll ever travel is to school and back. The plastic is surprisingly strong compared with other leading-name budget pedals like the Dan-O Mini series (The ones named after foods).

I speak Spanish so high chances of bad spelling here.
Zoom 505II model. Bought it almost 2 years now. New. The high price I paid for it is because I?m in a #$$$ country where musical stores likes to rip off musicians.

Really easy to use and program ONCE you read the manual. After that, you'll only need it if the unit resets your presets or because at that time, you probably forgot how to use it.

I won?t say, as others, is easy to get good tones right away because that depends on the player tastes. For me, it took a while until I get my own presets; mainly because the EQ feature gives you so many different sounds.
If you are going to use it for home recording, have in mind that your preset won?t sound the same if you plug the Zoom directly to your amp than if you plug it to a PA system for obvious reasons, so make your presets hearing them directly from the equipment you are going to plug it in.

As I wrote above, if you want to make good sounds out of it you?ll have to tweak it to fit your guitar/amp/playing technique. Note: if you ever bypass the unit, then you?ll have to tweak your presets volume to match the amp volume.
On the clean department you can get from good to great sounds after an extensive tweaking.
On the gain, distortion, overdrive, etc. side you NEED to do extensive tweaking just to achieve a decent sound.

I use mine with an Ibanez RG570 into a Peavey Rage 158 just for home recording and bedroom practice. Never use it with my Marshall JCM900 because I use pedals for cleans (Boss pedals sounds much better than ANY effects on this type of units) and I don?t need to use a pedal when using the gain channel. In fact, I don?t see why any has to?

I like the chorus, reverb, delay and even the auto-wah. Compression works well, also.
I have 6 presets: light overdrive for blues, Mesa-Boogie distortion type for rhythm, Marshall distortion type for leads, Fender type amp with chorus + delay for Satriani?s clean type, Fender type amp with long delay for clean arpeggios (THE ARPEGGIATOR PRESET! HAHAHA), and a non-amp, reverb preset for clean jazz and blues. ALL of these presets are tweaked with different EQ?s, of course.

No problems so far, I use it only in my bedroom, never gigged with it. Don?t worry about its plastic made; as long as you are careful with the unit it will last. (Just try to not stomp on it like a drunken elephant).

Read above.

It?s quite versatile, cheap (at list in the USA) and a decent sounding pedal.
If you are a semi-pro looking for a floor unit to gig with, be aware it?s a beginner pedal. The pedal has a PAUSE between presets.

I play from ?90s heavy rock (Satch, Vai, Malmsteen, Friedman styles) to standard jazz and blues.

I've been playing for 10 years. Have owned many amps: Fender Super 60 (great amp), Fender M-80, Crate GL 80, Peavey Bandit, Marshall 30 something, Marshall JCM 900 and many others. Have owned many guitars too: Ibanez Roadstar II, Ibanez RG350, Ibanez RG570, Washburn CS780, Washburn N4 (incredible guitar), etc.

For what I use it and for the price is ok (practice and home recording)

If it would get stolen or lost, I?ll probably try something else, maybe a Vamp2.

The 505 II is easy to use. half an hour or so with the manual tells you all you need to know.
Editing patches is easy. Even if you lost yhe manual you can download it from Zoom's website

I use the 505 II with harmonica. I use either a cheap dual impedence microphone or a vintage 60's Lustraphone mic. I can either plug this in the PA or use it through my 70's Linear MOSFET amp (very clean!)
The heavier distortion settings have a tendency to cause feedback, but I'm not that interested in them for blues harmonica anyway. I use the fender clean, overdrive and blues settings to dirty up the harp sound a bit. The limiter/compression function is useful too.
I dont have much use for the auto wah, ring modulation, chorus or flanger settings, but I've had a play with them anyway. The real reason i got this unit though was the fact it does reverb/echo/delay. this can really alter the basic harp sound.

OK, so its plastic. I cant understand how some of these reviewers are breaking theirs though! Do they all weigh 150 kg (300 lbs)and wear stilletos? (if they do, I dont want to know!)
the 505 II seems to be well enogh constructed. Then again I don't change patches much. I would rely on it for a gig, but I'd want a power adaptor.

Never needed it

I play blues harmonica. I also play some rock stuff too.
I can't afford a #300 tube amp and a #100 green bullet mic. this gives me a cheap way to alter my sound. I couldn't find a reverb pedal for the price I paid for this.
If it were lost or stolen? I'd probably try one (or two) of the new beringher stomp boxes instead as the MRSP is #22 each for them.

If you buy this expecting a high class, do-everything super effects box then you'll be disapointed.If you buy this wanting some good fun, and a cheap way to give you lots of effects then you'll probably be a happy with it.

Its pretty easy 2 get around it once used to it my advice is keep the instructions near ya wen u r playing around with it the fist time and dont just dive in cus u mite do sommit wrong on it.

im using the pedal though a bc rich warlock kerry king wartribe and a marshall mg10.
i think the sound quality of this is phanomanol and am amazed at it because of its size and wat not.

iv not had it long but yeh i would be preety confidant wen giging with it.
just have an adaptor and spare batteries would be a gd idea.

i oreder the pedal of off www.imuso.co.uk and thats were me guitar came from and i went o them and they were offering the best deal 4 it and like the first time i used em they didnt let me down. u should check it out.

Im a metal head so the distortion is gr8 for me and so is everything else. im so plzed iv got this pedal its really is a gr8 piece of kit. like i sed i have a b.c rich warlock kerry king wartribe and a mg 10 by marshall andsome accesories with it. It was stolen i would replace it as i think its gr8 besides who wants to pay #50 for one pedal with one effect on it i no id rather pay #50 and get 30 odd on one pedal.im in a band and cant wait o get usin it for the new songs.