Zoom 505 II

Very easy interface. You can create a patch in a snap.
Would be nice to have a drum machine in there...like to new G1 or G2 etc.

Some nice ones in there. Zoom knows something about sound. It is a cheap effect, but they really chose some useful ones. Mine is pretty clean sounded pedal and the noise level is not too high. I did not buy this one, but the are so cheap used, that no one should even complain...

yea..it's a plastic. so do not drive your car over it..OK?
this midget is always ready for my bedtime practice.I would be careful with those for a gig though. It needs to be attached to a surface with a rubber band or a string. Don't abuse this mouse.

Going to call them soon. They better give me some cheese supplies for this small creature.

Now seriously, for the money,this is a great tool for a hardware recording use. I can tweak the hell of it with my Tascam. The acoustic sim is great, and it makes my seven strings guitar sounds like Marcus Miller meets Victor Wooten-you best believe it. I am going to compose some NASTY grooves with this, and edit it on my Mac. There are so many multi effects out there these days, and they are all the same.. in a way. That means: you always find something that you like, and something that you do not like. Use your ears!!! teak tweak and tweak. Do not settle for the presets, even if it is the Boss GT-10, or a POD X3

This is a good first effects pedal. It features a lot of effects for a low price, and it opens the doors to some interesting sound possibilities. Editing the patches is easy, and the manual is generally pretty clear (there are a few places it is vague).

I use this with a Fender Standard Telecaster. It features "ZNR," or "Zoom Noise Reduction," which works pretty well. The effects are fun, but after you get some experience with some higher end effects, the Zoom 505 II begins to sound a little cheap and thin. I pretty much just use this for the tuner now.

The "ring modulation" sounds terrible, and some of the distortion effects are bad, but otherwise it's pretty good. I like the delay the most.

This is a lower end pedal, so it's not terribly high quality. Mine is plastic, and it feels like a toy. I've been fairly gentle with it, and the output jack is getting really loose; it makes a terrible noise if the unit is giggled a bit and the connection breaks.

This is a good pedal if you are new to playing and want to experiment a bit, or you find a used one for sale cheap and want to just mess around. Otherwise, save your money and get a higher quality pedal. Just remember; you get what you pay for.

It has a ton of effects to mess with, but I wouldn't use it in a gig.

If you really want good effects, find the ones you want and spring for them.

Very simple. A knob and a few buttons...what you need the manual for?

I had a Digitech RP50 and I traded a buddy for the 505 II for the better amp sims. Just the Zoom sounds more analog and harmonic rich, so I think I got the better value. This pedal is pretty metal, I was able to record some tracks for my solo project easy and they cut through the mix well. Most effects are pretty limited with their sounds and parameters, but for half a Line Six Liqua-Flange, a multi-effects box isn't going to be top notch. That being said, you can get nice passive effects that can cut it. After a few months of owning it, the input jack started getting noisy and whistling. More on that later.

I've gigged with this probably three or four times when it was new. then...a year and a half later, the input jack was becoming steadily worse and worse. I was already babying this thing because of its plastic jacks (I hate threadless plastic jacks!!!), and the power would cut out when I changed presets because of the wobbling jack, and it was getting noisier and noisier until I couldn't take it out with the ZNR. Not only that, but the positive terminal fell out of the battery enclosure and I had to rip it apart and secure it again...tightly. So no, do NOT gig with this after a year. but for 50bucks, the sound and time it held up is pretty astounding.

Never called them. Did some home repairs though, and what I fixed didn't break again.

If you're on a budget, want a uber simple multi effects box, analog sound, etc, find an ebay listing (they've been discontinued) or pick up a G1/G1x. I feel my money/trading was well spent and I still got the better end of the deal. But if you want steel pedals and things you can really get good sound out of while stomping them, you're gonna have to shell out more cash. I feel I've gotten great use out of it and I still listen to those old recordings and killer dm distortion.

pretty easy to use once you get used to it

creating and editing patches is simple, switching between then can be tricky. Small plastic buttons are flimsy. LED display does what it should but not great

One good feature is a stereo line out to headphones so you can practice without an amp. Worth owning one just for this

The only reason I bought this pedal was because I had a cheap practice amp with no reverb on it. This was cheaper than a reverb and came with oodles of effects.

If you're using this at home to practice or (as I did) as an interface for recording then it's OK. Don't use it live whatever you do. It's noisy and many of the effects just sound weird.

The distortions are tinny and artificial sounding. Has an amp modeler which is useful if recording straight from it into a mixer but again not that convincing

Reverb's OK . delay is so,so.

Can't remember much else except that some of the preset patches are hilarious.

Not great sounding but what do you expect for this kind of money

Made of plastic. Never gig with. One step too heavy and it's all over for this box. Still, I had it for about a year and it always did what it was supposed to so i suppose that makes it reliable

never dealt with them

I bought this from Sound Control in Sheffield for ??40. As I said all I needed was a reverb but I came away with an all singing and dancing multi-effects unit. I ended up selling it on ebay for more than I paid for it so it cost me nothing.

I'm really not sure how Zoom got so many effects into this thing and who on earth they were trying to compete with but it works beautifuly in a Heath Robinson kind of way

It would be easy to mock this pedal with its weird sci-fi alien bowel motion effects and tin can meets angry wasp on acid distortion sounds but for the money nothing else even comes close. For a guitarist who's just starting out or is on a budget this is the pedal for you. Don't try and compare it to a Boss or a Vox Tonelab because it isn't in the same league (and it may be playing a completely different game). Just accept it for what it is and enjoy it.

I have no regrets about having owned one of these.

Would make the perfect Xmas present for a learner guitar player.

Easy as pie to use. The exact printed manual is available online in PDF format. Setting patches is just about as simple as the predecessor Zoom 505. The 505 is actually a bit easier because you can see at a glance mode what effects were on or off. But, the "dial format" of the 505 II is more robust, and less likely to stick or break. It's actually pretty easy to change a patch quickly if needed (as opposed to a rack mounted unit).

As many have said, the presets are 90 per cent useless (unless you're using headphones or want some outer space sound). As to sounds, read below.

I use the 505 II (and I own a 505 as well) for about three or four sounds. You'll likely want to create your own.

The P7 Pitch Shift is an excellent patch--add a bit of room reverb and you've got a really nice wash that's a bit stronger than a BOSS Super Chorus or Chorus Ensemble, but not as thick as an old Analog CE-2. This is the primary patch I use the 505 II for. It's cheap but effective harmonizer sound that I use for three or four ballads a night, and for colour in a couple of rockers.

The C3 & C5 Chorus patches are also very good--you don't really need to add anything to them--they stand as warm, sparkling choruses on their own. Maybe adding a bit of D1 Delay for slapback on one patch as a change-up is good idea, but the choruses are definitely nice the way they are.

I also use a couple of Delay patches - D1 and D4 that can be used for the odd solo or rhythm.

As far as the other sounds go . . . I rarely use them. I've got a flange patch, and a couple of chorus hybrids, but that's about it. IMHO, this isn't a distortion box by a long shot. You could use the EQ for a high end boost, or to roll of mids for certain songs, but the 505 II is not meant to be a replacement for a true amp sound, a good stompbox distortion, or an amp modeler. The distortion, compressor and can be noisy. Best to stay away from them IMHO.

BTW--the 505 II (and the 505) sound pretty darn good through a effects loop. If you want a stronger sound, the loop works well. Just stay away from the the distortion patches (again, IMHO).

It's never broken on me yet. It's too bad Zoom didn't put it in a metal casing and charge an extra $20, but as long as you have it firmly seated on your pedal board (I use a velcro method) it should last . . . as long as you don't lean on it like a Tube Screamer ;-).

Never had to deal with customer support. TTYTT, for the price of these things, it's not really worth the time if there's a problem.

I'm a classic rock player, but play a wide range of rock-related styles (blues, pop, mood stuff, ballads), but mostly kick-ass stuff. Been playing professionally for 34 years.

The bottom line with the 505 II (and the 505) is that they will not be the be-all and end-all (but neither was any rack mount unit I ever owned). As I said, the Chorus and P7 sounds are the strong suits of the unit, and for those alone, I really like the product. I use it every gig, and even start the night with a tune using the P7 Pitch patch. I also rely on it for songs like Pink Floyd's "The Wall". I know Gilmour doesn't use chorus in the verse chords, but WTH--it adds a nice flavour to that part of the tune. Also, that same patch is just what the doctor ordered for the intro to Golden Earring's "Twilight Zone" or the guitar melody in Billy Idol's "White Wedding"

I have a zillion stompboxes . . . I only load up about 9 or 10 for any given gig, but the 505 II has become part of the overall picture. I can use it with my Line 6 Flextones for smaller clubs, or with my JCM 900/Hiwatt DR 504/Marshall 4x12 for bigger venues.

IMHO, for the price, the 505 II (or the 505) are worth it for the patches I described. The Chorus, Pitch and Delay effects aren't noisy in the least, and most decent pedal chains will have a Noise Gate at the end just in case.

I realize these Zoom units aren't designer stuff, but WTH . . . for the sounds that are good in 'em, they're well worth a place in yer arsenal.

I think it's easy. It may only have a two-character display, but there's only so much you can edit on this thing - Select an effect from the bank, and one parameter. The manual is informative (only a couple of instances of bad translation!). It has explanations of the nature of some of the sounds/effects, descriptions of the factory presets, which can be restored, etc. It's not the worst. My main gripe with this is the two-pedal system. It's something to get used to, but even then, tapping both pedals simultaneously to bypass isn't easy to get right first time, even after two years. It is also easy to select the wrong preset, and also it's annoying having to scroll through presets during a song, so for that reason the only live use this gets is one preset per song, saved one after the other. Can't go wrong that way.

I would say it's not bad, provided that you know what you can and cannot do with it. When I bought this, I wanted something that would provide me with a variety of sounds at a decent price, and this was being sold off at ??35. I have had a lot of use out of it, but it is not without it's limitations. It works well plugged into my computer, as with a POD, only cheaper and not as good - It has a stereo output that also doubles as a headphone out; I haven't bothered with this more than once, but it does definitely work. I do use it in my chain, but mainly as a delay, with presets. Some settings are OK, some are really quite good. The Marshall overdrive is OK, some nice crunch sounds to be had. I have found that it sounds best with the amp simulation on full; otherwise it sounds pretty poor, to my ears anyway. No, it does not sound like a cranked JCM-800 stack, but it really cannot be expected to. All that said, however, I wouldn't use it (the built-in OD) in a gig situation anyway, just for fun when I can't be bothered to set my full rig up, or can't, etc etc etc. The reverbs are quite good, particularly the hall reverb, more than the room reverb (which is also good). I don't really use reverb though, but the hall reverb is fun to play with sometimes - mess around with the feedback times - some interesting sustained feedback to be had - you could be in a cathedral... I can't think of any practical application for it though. The delays are what I use most - they are really quite good. One parameter adjusts the feedback/depth, then the delay time in a separate bank. Another novelty is the cocked wah setting - it actually sounds quite lifelike (I did a shootout against my wah (Morley PWO; soon to be RMC Wizard). For a simulation in a cheap multifx, it's not that bad. I don't care for auto-wah. There's also lots of random sounds in the 'mod' bank, that I'm sure someone can find some use for, aside from the usual chorus, tremolo, etc. I use an Ibanez RG1570, with a Morley Power Wah, Ernie Ball VP-JR, Zoom 505II, Boss SD-1, Marshall GV-2. I play out at my church, and when I do, I use a keyboard amp. At home I've got a Marshall MG10CD practice amp, and an old bass amp of my dad's, which sounds nicer than the Marshall, only is getting old and unreliable. It is noisy, but the inbuilt noise gate seems to curb some of it down to a vaguely acceptable level. It doesn't seem to do anything for the rest of the chain, however.

Now this is where it gets negative. It is made of cheap plastic, and I knew it would crap out at some point. I've had it for two years, and the jacks are becoming unreliable - waggle the cables and it will fizzle and cut out. Not great. I did read on here of others who'd had similar experiences, but you get what you pay for. I'm not hugely dismayed - I never intended to go to my grave with this thing, and i'm getting what I paid for, to be honest!

I have not attempted to get in touch with them - I have no need. It's not worth the cost or effort to get repaired. It hasn't died yet anyway.

Overall, this is a good 'cheap thrill' for a guitarist that's new to effects. I found it great as a means of experimenting, and it's not bad as a delay - I can have different presets for everything. In the future I may accomplish this with a midi board and rack delay. If it were stolen or lost, I wouldn't replace it. It's done its job.

Its easy, sorta. If you've used other multi-effect pedals before, you should have no problem putting together one that you like. My only grievance is that you must cycle through them all if you miss your preset.

As far as quality goes, its a turd. Plugging your headphones into it is about the only thing that it is good for. The presets are okay, some of them. For the most part, you are trying to get your own to sound good. and i'd rather spend my time rockin'.

Its plastic, as mentioned.

its still working...unfortunately.

Its sounds okay through a solid-state amp, but it truly kills your tone through the tubes. It has been banned from my effects chain, and without true bypass, i can't even use it as a tuner. Save your cash and get a real sound.

This thing is pretty easy to use. I've been able to do what I want without much problem. Any questions at all and the owners manual will cover it.

I like the sound quality for the money. You can tweak each patch as well with the built in compression, EQ, noise reduction, etc.

Any reasonable musician should probably realize that a multi-effects pedal that's cheaper than many individual stomp boxes isn't going to ahve the very best sound. But I can say for sure that it's worth a lot more than the price. The sound quality of the 505II has improved over its predecessor.

I've had this for 4 or so years. I've never had a problem with it. I don't tour or gig heavily, but it's lasted through weekly rehearsals, gigs, and loads of home jamming.

Don't jump to conclusions about its plastic body. It's more durable than you think!

N/A never had to call them

I play all kinds of music from blugrass to funk, and jam rock to flamenco, so this is perfect for me. I did't have to shell out much money and got a hell of a lot of versatility from this pedal.

I play a Parker Fly Deluxe through this, and I've been playing now for 13 years. I've used this for recording, gigging, and rehearsal, and have had no issues whatsoever with it.


One suggestion: Don't buy the expensive expression pedal for this thing. I had one and it was a $60 piece of crap. Get an expression pedal of higher quality. Same goes for a tap pedal. I never tried the Zoom tap pedal, but I got a standard keyboard tap for $14 and it works fine.

I have used my zoom 505 II 4 years, and I can say when you know it and read the manual then, you can get the best from this pedal. My new users only play the originals patches. I think is easy editing when you edits your first patch and better when you get out the sound that you want.

The oirginal patches are noises, overall distors, and the acoustic simulator have a lot of hiss, specially when go direct to mixer. I can obtain my best sound adjusting GAIN, EQ, and ZNR. If you want distor "clean" then need in chain other pedal before. I used a Boss DS-1 and my zoom FDR clean. Excelents sounds when I connect two amps for stereo sound. Really is the best sound fot this.

I played rock, and pop and i think can be for begginers, but, in the mix you can fill some decents sounds specially if use amp simulators from this.
The bad things the original patches need be edited for better performance.
The good things, is cheap, have the basics efects, and you can work easy!

Fairly straight forward but can get a little tricky without the manual if you are trying to dial in your personal tone due to a lot of the readouts being numbers and letters that you may not always know exactly what they are saying.

Never buy a $60 to $80 little plastic pedal and expect it to act like a $200 to $300 solid steel floor pedal. I think for the money this little plastic yet very durable little pedal (The Zoom 505 II) packs quite a wallop! This unit sounds absolutely fantastic through headphones for late night or early morning practicing w/FX.

I owned mine for years but when I tried to use it as a serious piece of gear in my chain there was always this certain frequency issue that bothered me and I could not get rid of it even with 2 or 3 EQ's so I only used it when practicing by myself

I recently put it up for auction. During this time I was trying out new tubes in my Marshall TSL100 and had some trouble inserting one of them which resulted in frying a diode or something after turning it on. Sent it to the shop for repair along with my little Laney combo to get an FX loop installed so I had nothing but a solid state amp to practice through. I thought, man, this thing has such a great sound for an inexpensive all in one unit (which I usually am not too fond of) there MUST be some way to get a sound good enough to play out with.

I plugged it in and again it had quite a wide variety of tones and distortions but I just couldn't get rid of that frequency issue. I then turned EVERYTHING to "off" except the distortion and chose my favorite one. Threw one of those old MXR 6 band EQ's (blue one) in front of it because I love the tone, punch, and crunch this pedal gives when pushing other pedals or preamps. WHAM! It sounded fantastic! Possibly too many bells & whistles in this little bugger but I tell you what, I have recently tried out many pedals including a Rocktron Nitro, MXR Micro Amp, Rocktron Silver Dragon, Seymour Duncan Twin Tube, Boss Dyna Drive, DanElectro Fab distortion and a few others I can't remember at the present time and sandwhiched these pedals with EQ's and still barely came up with anything I would play out live with.

These are all good pedals but I just couldn't get the tone I was after. I haven't tried every pedal in the world but the only other ones I have played through within the same price range that sounded as good or better are the Boss SD-1, the Ibanez TS-9 (both Keeley mods) and a used (Paid $99 - cost $189 new) Sansamp GT-2.

Although the presets/patches on this sound pretty darn good right out of the box, you cannot just plug this into an amp and expect eveything to sound golden. This is an All-In-One unit with NO FX loop. If you run this into a head or combo with any kind of preamp gain your Reverb and Delay are going to be distorted and sound absolutely terrible not to mention other issues if there is too much high gain between this unit and your amplifier preamp. Although the fx in here are not real sophisticated, they still sound fine and all though basic, if you run it into a clean amp they sound very good. Sure they are a little limited but my goodness how much quality can one expect from one little unit packed wiah FX, Distortions, overdrives, amp models, EQ, compression, (etc.) for $60 to $80?

I have had mine for years but never played out with it. Although it is plastic it feels and looks pretty durable. I suppose if you threw it against a brick wall as hard as you could or jumped on it with all your body weight you may damage it. Otherwise I think with normal use it should last years and then some.

Never contacted them

Super value for the money! I didn't have a chance to try it out after I found my sound with it due to my main amp being in the shop. It was through a solid state amp that I discovered the trick to get it to sound good but it still sounded warm and natural. I literally had to shut almost everything to "off" except the choice of distortion/gain.

Would I but it again if it got lost or stolen. Well, like I mentioned before, while I was selling mine on Ebay I actually figured out how to get my tone out of then. I would definately buy another one but I am getting the Zoom 510 because I don't need the FX in the 505II and want a plate full of distortions and tones that zoom offers in hopes to find that little extra edge when I get my main amp back. I used to plug this into my clean channel and seriously thought about running it this way and getting rid of the Boss SD-1 Keeley mod pedal but it had that frequency issue. Can't wait to try the 510 when my amp gets out of the shop but I would have NEVER sold this if I would have made this discovery sooner!

EXCELLENT Bang for the Buck! I have always liked the sound of Zoom pedals although only owned one. It was because of hearing a guy plug into one in a music store one day that motivated me to try one. I highly recommend this for an inexpensive route to add distortion/gain to your setup.

This unit takes a little time to figure out, but once you get the basics down, it's really not that hard to ues. Editing the patches is easy,And i would suggest you taylor them to your personal liking.The manual is good.

This unit is capable of a variety of sounds,from country, rock, blues...But I must STRESS, it sounds great in the headphones, or for direct recordings, but most of it's best qualities don't transfer over when you use it with a guitar amp! That said the distortions are good, the effects are good,it's a tuner,and it's affordable.I use this mostly for direct recordings, and to practice in the headphones. It does a great job at both of these.I play A Parker Nitefly guitar, and a Kramer Pacer Deluxe, but I rarely use the 505 with an amp.Some of the more distorted sounds are a little noisy, but not any more than a amp cranked up with some gain.

Why they made this out of plastic I'll never know!I don't think it would hold up very well if you used your foot to change patches, or banks!This is not road worthy, but fine for studio, or practicing.

no opinion

Iv'e been playing for 32 yrs,I own a parker Nitefly guitar, a Kramer Pacer Deluxe, A Line 6 Flextone 3 amp, a Carvin X100B Amp, an ADA MP-1 Tube preamp, asst. FX, and a small home studio, with a Yamaha AW1500 16 track digital recorder .I play classic rock, blues,motown,progressive rock, and some original music.I originaly bought this to practice in the headphones, but after trying it out on a home recording, it quickly became my first choice for recording.I love it's ease of use, good sounds and effects,low cost, and it's a tuner!Whats not to love?It's such a time saver in the studio,no mikes or stands to fool with, just plug it in and your ready to go!This device has helped me make ALOT of music over the years Iv'e had it.I've used it for electric, and acoustic guitars.bass, and even run a vocal mike thru it to take advantage of it's clean sound, and effects!I have since replaced it with a Zoom G-2, but my trusty 505-2 has served me well over the years!

pretty easy to use.

I use a gibson les paul and fender blues junior amp. and... it kills the whole sound.

The distortion sucks. really sucks. usually when i play with it a while, i get so frustrated i simply turn the volume down all the way, unplug the effect and play directly to the amp.

The chorus, phaser, tremolo, compression and most of the others "MOD" is ok but not really good.

the delay is too short and it dosen't sound good.

The wah is a shame.

I may have used it once in a while for some nice effect I wouldn't buy a pedal especially for them, but... it's not true bypass! it kills your sound even when it's off! so sadly i kicked it out from my effect chain.

I would never have bought it anyway, I do check my effects before buying, but I got it to my birthday from a friend of mine who though i'd like it... the numbers probably dazzled him (40 effects). I would have gladly switch it with 1 good effect.

it's plastic! and it sucks.

never needed them, because even if it was broken i'd never bother to fix it anyway.

it all comes down to 3 words: don't buy it.

It is absolutely easy to edit the patches. It is also easy to operate the effect. This is my firstmulti-effect, so the whole thing was new to me, but became familiar with it in 5 minutes. I had the manual earlier than the device and I wanted to learn operation from that, without much success. But this is probably because I had no experience at all.

I think it is cool for playing RHCP and that kind of music. Delayed distortion sounds are rather similar to early Metallica solo sounds. Chorus, flanger, phaser, delay great. Distortion: could be better. There are some funny effects that you'd never use, but it is worth to try them out once... The effect is absolutely silent, I just can't hear if it is on or off if I don't see it. Especially if compared to my Boss MT2. I have an Ibanez RX-40 and a Marshall MS-4. I know that's not too much...

I think it could be safely used at a gig, it seems quite reliable.

n/a

I'm not in a band just like entertaining myself and relaxing with some tunes. I wanted to have some low-budget stuff that would allow me to play many styles. I like playing RHCP, Guns N' Roses, Metallica and Faith no More, and I found it an excellent choice for RHCP songs. The chorus, the delay, the flanger and the phaser are excellent. The distortion will never be anything big with my equipment, but it is not worse than my Boss MT2 Metal Zone (that I sold immediately after buying this one). I compared the chorus to my Ibanez SC-10 (which has very positive reviews here, at harmony central), and I'm so satisfied with the Zoom that I'm selling the Ibanez.
I don't know how this effect would sound on a stage, but I'm definetely sure that I made a good decision to drop my Boss MT2 and Ibanez SC10 and pick up the Zoom, and don't forget that it is at a bargain price.

It takes about 5 minutes to get the hang of this. Also you can have some fun making your own combinations as there are 36 channels which are all editable. All programs come with a pre-set unique effect, so you can plug in and play without having to go through, setting all of your patches up as soon as you get it. The pedals themselves are large and make it easy to navigate channels. The manual is good, there is a list of all the patches and the amps/sounds they were modelled on.

I play this through a line 6 hd75 head and a 4 x 12 ashdown fallen angel cab. I find that even though it is 'stereo' the sound is too thin and scratchy. I play a crap squier strat and the factory single coils are soo noisy, but the ZNR (Zoom Noise Reduction) takes most of the hum away, which is probably the best feature of this pedal. The set effects are pretty crappy, they don't really fit in with any style of music. The wah is pathetic, i think if they knew they couldnt make it even close to a cry baby, they should have left it off the pedal altogether to save from embarrasing themselves. I usually find myself using this as a tuner (it has a decent tuner) and using the amp head's built in distortion and effects.
Sometimes, the tuner will refuse to work, and just sits there with a blank screen (not good if you're at a gig) I have never gigged with this, though i do use it at band practise and it has been ok.

However, this pedal would be ok for complete beginners, who don't know the difference between distortion and a paul reed smith.

This pedal is not the most reliable in the world. Sometimes (even after putting fresh batteries in) it will turn itself off, and back on again, and it always turns itself on on the effect A1, which is at default distortion, so when this happens, you get the amp head distortion and the pedal distortion mixing to create what can only be described as NOISE. Again, NOT GOOD if you're taking a lead part at a gig.

N/A never dealt with them

I play in a band, covering foo fighters to senses fail, but in my own time I like to play some older rock (guns n roses, thin lizzy, bit of metallica..) and it doesnt really suit any of them. I think this pedal goes from general effects to wierd exotic ones (A1 being the standard distortion and F6 a pitchshifted tremolo delay crunch or something) and none of them comes close to matching the sounds of slash's marshall stack/ jubilee head. I have been playing about 3 years, and apart from the rig above, i own nothing more except a westfield p bass copy, a battered acoustic and some practice amps. If this zoom pedal was stolen or lost, it would'nt stress me out, just motivate me to get some decent pedals instead. My favourite feature of the Zoom 505II is the noise reduction. If i went back to the shop where i bought it, and had the same 60 pounds in my hand that i used to buy this, i would ask for a boss pedal instead.

Pretty easy to use. Takes a 10 minutes to figure out, but after that its simple.

I have been playing for a long time (I'm old!) and have lots of professional gear. I play lots of styles of music, and the ZOOM does not really cut it for any of them. It sounds "someting like" alot of stuff, but doesn't really nail anything. The distortions are not sweet or pleasent, the modultion effects, compared with a good peddle, really are pretty thin and cold. Same goes for delay. In the grand scheme of things, it is not great sounding. But it is not horrible or anything. I use it as a headphone amp, and because of my life style, I probably end up using it more than any other single peice of gear that I own, so if it was really bad I couldn't do that.

I've had it for years (maybe five?), and have used it for over 2 or 3 thousand hours and it is still like new, and I don't take very good care of it. It's easy on batteries too!

When I purchased it, I was looking for a simple headphone practice amp. Nothing more than a clean feed, maybe with a volume control. I expected to pay about $100. I got this for about that much. So when you consider that I got a complete self contained "multi-effects/amp modleing/headphone amp" for less than some tuners (which this also has, and it very funtional and accurate I might add), the ZOOM really is remarkable! It is an absolute best buy, and a real conveniant,compact, flexible low cost solution if you are the player who spends alot of practice time on the road and need a practice headphone amp so as not to disturb those sleeping in the next hotel room. I would not recommend it beyond that. So in short, not suitable beyond private practice, butI think it may be the best around for that.

The sound I was able to get out of this pedal was astounding although it was my first pedal that I have owned. The manual was easy to read and wasnt really required as the unit explains itself by being there

I use an Ibanez GAX70 with a Crate amp, I was able to achieve kind of a SRV tone which I really like. Its never too loud and the tone is pretty even.

This product never failed me and I would use it yeah its my only one

I play a mix of classic rock and the blues, and every once and a while I play some harder riffs. the pedal handles all of it. ive played for two years and own my guitar thats it. i plan on buying another one because mine got ran over by a truck. i dont realy dislike anything except the effect where it makes like 30 different sounds at once from one string, not sure what thats called.

hi everyone.

the zoom 505II ist very easy to use, you can edit a patch very easy.

there are a lot of drive modules, it depends on what kind of music you play. but i have to say, you CAN NOT GET A METAL sound out of it(not enought gain). for blues, punk, funki, or rock it's ok, but not for metal.

the EQ sucks, there isn't an normal 3.band EQ, there ist a kind of 1band EQ from 1 to 50.(1-14 bass, 14-25 normal, 25-40 middle, 40-50 another bass). the EQ SUCKS.

and this thing ist very noisy.


the effects, chorous, oktave etc are all very good.

505 had senn some stage und studio, and every one has stepd on it because they haven't seen it, but, ist ok, it's not damaged. very robust althought ist made from plastic.

you can play every thing with it, but not METAL, and noisi is it too.

I find that is is really easy to get great sounds out of this unit once you understand the manual and understand what every effect does. You need to fiddle with everything and find what tyou like, then make your own patches, which is easily explained in the manual- the manual is a great helper. This unit is stock.

Needs a better master volume control for us occasional headphone users.

I'm using this unit through two amps- their basically speakers (Drive cd300 combo and a Jay Turser 10 watt)- since the output on this unit is stereo I fashioned myself a cable that splits the left and right channels to two amps. The manual mentions this kind of cable but it is extremely had to find. And when you find it, it's kind of expensive for what it is... Anyways using two amps makes all of the effects sound WAY COOLER, and fuller than one amp alone, especially chorus or delay/echos. My guitar is a Jay Turser JT-100 Les Paul copy, bolt-on neck sadly, but I've got this baby rigged to be better than the epiphone starters that cost more, the epiphone owner agrees with me on this.

When some Nady headphones, I could hear some strange backround noise that isn't audible when I play through an amp. Very high-pitched noises. Anybody who gets unwanted noises with this unit has too many effects turned up way too high. The manual mentions that some guitars do this. Read the manual people.

-The delay/echo have a cool ping-pong effect in stereo, this is great!
-The reverbs are pretty decent too, they add a good character to your playing
-All of the amp/distortions are pretty good- they're far better and far more versatile than what small amps such as mine have built in.
-I really like the tremolo and chorus effects, and the EQ/Phase controls are really helpful to tailor your sounds.

ZNR (zoom noise reduction) is a great feature!

NEGATIVES: All of the distortions are sort of harsh sounding. I like them, but I really wish that the unit had a smoother, mellow tube-like tone. I've tried everything to get it with my setup, but maybe it's my guitar.

-The cabinet modeling sucks, I don't care for that at all because it takes away the character of the sound that i like.

This unit is totally reliable, but I suggest using an AC adaptor (9V DC 300ma; tip negative) because well, it's better that way.

This thing is really tough, surprisingly. I've stepped on it in all the wrong places and there aren't any knicks, scratches or stress marks. Still functions perfectly.

I've never needed to deal with any customer support, nor have I ever tried to get an upgrade or some repairs.

If you want tons of tonal possibilities for $50 or $60, go for this thing. I can't emphasize enough how much better using this is than using a small amp alone. It's really able to help you get cool tones. I can get some decent blues or jazz tones and piercing leads out of this thing even though my guitar's not the top of the line. I plugged my friends Fender into this once, found the right switch position, put it on a setting that I made- I call it my "RUSH" setting. It sounded awesome! I played parts of Fly By Night and the chorus effect made it so fun to play along to.

I chose this thing for the price and the multitude of features it had, and was very pleased by what I got. I'm sure you could get better effects but I'm not about to go buy multiple pedals!

I wish this thing had a better master volume control! I didn't even know it existed until recently by closely looking at the manual, but it's just becoming an annoyance to turn down the unit every time i need to use headphones.

I wish that this pedal had a left channel output and right/main output so that the option to use two amps was more readily available.

This is a musicmaker for sure; fabulous for the price.

I picked this up used a local music shop for $50.00 cdn. I'm impressed with how easy it was to get going with it. It didn't come with a manual so I downloaded one which answered any questions I had.
I just started with a preset that I liked, fooled around changing settings them saving them as a patch. Once I got into this I found myself moving around this thing quite easily.

I play mainly bluesy rock with a Roadstar II and have come to like the hall settings with some gain.I play mainly through headphones for 2 reasons- I have 3 little kids and my amp is a Traynor 6x10 cabinet with an old Ace Tone head(pretty much overkill for the house, but that's what I've got!).I'm able to get Stones type sounds no problem-I've got a humbucker in the neck and I can get lots of cool blues sounds.

I don't play out hardly at all- I would bring this to a gig because I wouldn't be stomping on it a lot. Just set it and forget it.It seems fairly sturdy but by no means bulletproof.

Bought it used.

I've been playing on and off for 20 years-by no means am I really good, but I do enjoy fooling around with guitars and gear. I only have the Roadstar and a Yamaha acoustic(FG410),nice guitar. If it went missing I would definately replace it, it's just too versatile for the money.

Looked a bit scary when I first saw it, but after 10 minutes, I got the whole thing figured out. It is extremely easy to use, though its a shame that you cant switch banks without leaning down and pressing a button, which is kind of akward when you're trying to play. You can buy an outboard pedal to switch banks but I wouldnt consider buying it.

I am using an Epiphone Les Paul and a cruddy 10 watt amp(I am 15 and on a budget, thats why I am not reviewing a Boss MI60 or something). If you use the noise reduction, the noise is er..reduced. So its not noisy. The distortion is great for metal, and I like the wierd space effects because you can get a great Muse sound.The effects are very high quality and clear, which is great because you dont have to pay through the nose for individual pedals. The flanger and the delay is great.

I dont gig. I am not very skilled yet. Itlooks pretty durable.

Never dealt with them. Hope I never have to.

This is a great little gadget for people on low budgets. I [lay mostly metal and the distortion on it is great. If it got stolen, the thief would get their eyes gouged out, 79euro is a reasonable sum of money. This was cheaper than all the other single effects in the shop, and is great value.

Relatively easy to use... Simple and easy 2 use knobs 2 select the parameters you want to edit. A little reading of the manual is required though in order to learn how to store and move patches.

I use this with my ibanez RG and Marshall MG100. I mainly just use it for distortion and its relatively decent.. i can some really thick distortion from it for rythym playin and sum really nice lead tones as well, its also got lots of other cool effects. Its very quiet on most settings and only creates a small amount of noise on sum patches where the gain is high.. one problem is sumtimes when i plug it in it just makes this horrible squeeling sound and u have to fiddle with the input to make it stop, but i have a strong feeling thats jus my problem.

Its relatively reliable although it is plastic which could pose a problem.. myn has a problem sumtimes it just resets if i stand on the side of the peddal while changing patches.. one thing which is good is it lasts long on batteries provided u unplug it wen not in use.. i use it at gigs without backup.. but i know if sumthing does go wrong i can always use the shitty built in distortion on the amp.

havent dealt with them

I play mainly metal metalcore and this actually doesnt do such a bad job for its price... i mean dont get me wrong there are better peddals out there bt in this price range its up there at the top. If it were lost or stolen i probaby wouldnt buy a new one purely for the fact that i've had it about a year and a half and im bored of it and want to try sumthing new... I love the versatility and ease of use and of course the price but i hate the way i can create lyk 10 nice distortions but none of them are perfect for me, but hey thats just me.

Switching through the factory presets is a breeze, although the volume of those presets is all over the place. It's reasonably easy to figure out how to tweak the patches. Controls are very simple and the manual is quite clear.

My general setup is a Fender Standard Strat through the 505 II into a Fender Frontman 15G practice amp. I don't have impressive gear. I've also played through a Peavey XXX head and 4x12 cabinet.

When I took this pedal home, I thought it was amazing. Since then, I've realized that the quality is very poor. It has settings that sound fabulous - as long as the amp is quiet. No matter what distortion setting you use, it will sound terrible if you turn the amp up loud. There is no clarity to the sound. It just becomes noise. Most of the distortion modes are extremely harsh and totally unuseable.

Most of the other effects are of a reasonable quality, but they don't offer a lot of room for editing. I found the pitch effects particularly limiting: the unit only offers a very limited selection of intervals for harmony, and they aren't particularly useful intervals either. The wah settings are almost completely useless without an expression pedal. The step effect, however, does sound pretty cool.

Another huge problem with this unit is that it adds an incredible amount of bass to the sound. I suspect this is to cover up the quality of the effects so that the unit sounds amazing when you first plug it in and so that in theory you buy it before you realize what it actually sounds like. This bass CANNOT be lessened by tweaking the 505's EQ settings or even by turning the amp's bass knob down all the way. This is not a guitar or amp issue: the amp and guitar both work fine without the ZOOM unit plugged in.

The unit is made of plastic and doesn't look like it could stand up to a lot. The patchcord connections are terrible. If the unit is moved at all while plugged in, a tremendous amount of noise will be heard through the amp, as if a cord had accidentally been unplugged. Once during a gig I shifted the pedal with my foot and it began to inexplicably feed back on me and I needed to turn the amp off to stop it.

Also, the output patchcord connection no longer works properly. It has come loose somehow and so the guitar signal occasionally cuts out without warning. I have checked very carefully with various patchcords and the cord is not the problem. Furthermore, when I opened the pedal up with a screwdriver, it turned out that it is actually impossible to adjust and tighten up the patchcord connection: it is encased in a solid plastic box which cannot be removed. A year ago I could have relied on this pedal but I no longer can.

I've tried to deal with the company before, to get help with a friend's desktop recording unit. There was no e-mail address listed on the website and the only tech support phone number listed on the website or in the manual was a phone number in Japan.

If you're strictly a recreational player and you never intend to turn the volume up too loud, this pedal could be perfect for you. It does provide a lot of effects in a lot of combinations that sound pretty decent at low volumes, and clean sounds are pretty decent even at higher volumes.

If it were stolen or lost, I would not buy this again. I would probably build up an effects collection from higher quality pedals. A year after buying this pedal I am extremely dissatisfied with the tone and it is breaking down on me. For the money you would be far better off buying any Boss or Digitech pedal that you can count on to last.

This piece of kit is VERY easy to use. If you want, you don't even need to look at the manual until you've finished playing with it. The controls are intuitive, clearly labelled and they respond immediately to any and all changes. Within a couple of minutes you can work out for yourself what each button, pedal or dial does. No confusions whatsoever. Very high rating.

Mostly, I use a Peavy 50 watt practice amp (clean inout channel), but I also use the 5050II with my headphones for a lot of quiet practice and experimentation. (ie: 'quiet' for all those others in my house or room). I also use it for some direct recording and it's no problem there either as regards noise.

Using headphones, I find the 505II to be incredibly quiet - virtually silent. The effects are very good and distinctive, although many of the factory presets are incredibly harsh, but then, I'm not a thrash or grunge merchant. My preferred sounds are country, blues or smooth sustain and reverb. With a bit of tweaking and a LOT of fun, all my preferred sounds are available .... I can even get close to pretty accurate Roy Buchanan, Hank Marvin or Gary Moore sounds.

For me, the strength of the 5050II is the speed and ease with which you can experiment, change and store settings.

I use the 505II with both electric (Strat) and acoustic (Fender 6 and 12 string) guitars - the acoustics being fitted with 'soundhole pickups' as opposed to piezo. For acoustic, the 505II works best with the more subtle effects and I generally steer clear of much distortion - but that reflects my preferences rather than any weakness on the part of the Zoom. Once again, I've had a lot of fun trying to emulate the sounds of favoutite players such as Gordon Giltrap, Billy Strange's original 12-string sound or John Martyn. The latter's weird tones and FX are a real challenge, but I've got close. (Just wish I could play as well !!!!)

I have no comlaints here - but (as you might guess from my previous comment about preferred music styles), I'm not a stamp 'n' stomp sort of player, so the unit isn't getting a true hammering.

As for using it on a gig without a backup - I have a 2nd 5050II still in its box after my initial setting-up. I've never needed to unpack it again. Nuff said?

Can't comment.
Never needed to try.

I play country, folk, blues and medium rock, not grunge, thrash or Satriani ! The 505II does almost everything I could wish for in terms of helping me create the types of sound I like to use.

I've been playing on and off for 45 years and used to use a gaggle of separate FX pedals, but now the 505II does virtually everything.

It's compactness and power are fantastic - as is the value for money BUT, BUT, BUT I wish there was a button or easy way to obliterate all factory presets so that you could start with a clean sheet for each effect or even for the whole lot.

I would guess that fully pro, or even a lot of semi-pro musicians who do a LOT of gigging, would need something a bit more robust or with more pedals for instant acces to settings, but if you're a beginner looking for a high value FX processor or someone like me who plays a lot but is not a fully-fledged and really frequent performer, then the 505II is virtually unbeatable.

I've only had the Zoom 505II since Christmas Day (5 days ago) and I've only used it for 2-3 hours, but I've already got excellent sounds out of it without even scratching the surface of its potential. I have already edited one or two patches and found the process very easy. The manual is fine, but with my ropey eyesight I downloaded it in pdf format from the Japanese website and I've printed it out full page size! Much better. As far as I'm aware, its not been upgraded in anyway.

I'm astonished to read that other users have found it noisy. I have found it whisper quiet (in term of unwanted noise). The effects are as loud or quiet as I want to make them. As I'm a home guitarist with no delusions of being a rock star and with a little Marshall combo, I'm not looking for seriously loud anyway.... I've not tried to emulate the sounds of my favourite artists - I don't tend to go for that anyway. I've still got a lot of playing to do but I've tried all of the standard effects and one or two of my own and I'm very satisfied.

Seems to be sturdy enough. Certain made of sterner stuff than some of the pedals I've owned over the years. As I don't play in a band I tend to operate it by hand anyway. I don't see any reason why the unit shouldn;t last, but at the price I paid for it, I'd have no hesitation buying another if it broke.

No dealings as yet. I've no reason to suppose any difficulty. This is an unfair subject to rate anyway. So I will score it high.

I was forced to put my "electronic" pen to paper to write a review because I was stunned by the wide variety of reviews, particularly from guitarists who rated it very slow. For #29.99, with the AC adapter thrown in free, I think this is a superb piece of kit. I'm no great shakes as a musician and, at 48 years old, having bought a new electric guitar this year for the first tome for about 25 years, I bought the Zoom 505II because it was sooooo cheap. It lives up to all my expectations. Perhaps its because I would have KILLED to have something like this back in the mid-70s when I had my first Les Paul copy, that I like it so much. I suspect that some of those who are younger than me are frankly spoiled by their expectations. Its a bit like when I wander into the big new music shop in Southampton and listen to some of the excrutiatingly bad guitarists making a mockery of Gibsons and Fenders - makes me feel quite good that I can sound just as good with my #47 Ebay Keiper, my tiny Marshall amp (another Ebay gem) and the Zoom! If you can afford hundreds of pounds on guitars, effects, amps and whatever, good for you - but don't look a gift horse in the mouth - this pedal cost me slightly more than half a tank of petrol in my Lexus.........

Very easy to use.this one is simple to use and the sounds are great.
zoom are japanese based so a lot of the mauels were in japanese but there was one really good one with information on the different effects. switching patchesis really good but i wish the button to change banks (group of 6 patches) was built to use with your foot. editing is nice and easy.

i use a 40 watt roland amp and a cheap strat style with it and it sounds great. the distortion can be really grunty, light, really gainy and much more. the accoustic and foundation clear types arnt that great though.

The zoom site seys that the plastic is extremly durable, but it looks kinda flimsy. i cant afford to use a back up, but if i could, i wouldnt need to as it has standed up to the knocks i have given it so far. i sugest using a power adaptor with it as it chews battery really fast

never delt with them

i play punk mostly but i think it would also be great for metal.
I read in the manual that you can buy an optional expresion pedal for it (fpo2) but i tried it out in the shop and it sounded crap.
overal its a great pedal for beginer-intermediate and it makes me want to upgrade my guitar. also its a geat price for the quality. you just cant beat zoom when it comes to effect pedals, although there were a few unusal sci-fi sounds that i dont think i have any use for. its a great pedal and you should buy 1. much better than the digitech 1 i tried out

really easy to work out, although creating a patch from scratch takes some time. the manual is very good, and includes a full list of what all the different mods do, which i find helpfull.

This pedal makes my relatively cheap guitar sound better than it really is, especially when being played through a powerfull amp.
(eg 100 watt marshall). lots of the pre-programmed sounds are very noisy, but by playing around with them a bit, you can make it pretty quiet. All the distortion sounds are great, although the clean and acoustic sound tend to sound whffly down the bottom end of the guitar. There are also lots of wierd sci-fi sounding things that i have no use for, but i just delete or ignore them. the equaliser function is pretty much useless, as the sound dosnt really change much from one end of the scale to the other.

my pedal has never let me down on stage or off, but i dont think its had that much of a beating. The casing looks a bit flimsy and so i wouldnt go throwing it around as i might a stompbox. I will, however, say that i once got some water all over it, and it didnt seem to have any effect. i gig with this pedal without backup and its survived so far, but it does eat through batteries really fast.

ive never dealt with zoom so i have no idea.

overall, i really like this pedal, and for the price, its a great option. it works well with most styles of music, but its distortion patches are extremely strong, and it would suit anyone into medium and heavy rock, although the clean sounds can be dissapointing. Im thinking of getting a zoom fp-2 (expression pedal) to go with it. If it broke or got lost, i think id upgrade and buy something like the zoom GFX3, but only because my needs as a guitarist have grown since i bought the 505. its a good pedal, and its cheap as anything, so go and buy one.

very complicated impossible to use at a gig. You must read the entire owners book and re- read it many times to fully understand how to use this gizmo

Im sorry folks, This piece sounds like crap. There were little to no sounds that it produced that were pleasing. I am not a HOME Metal head wanna be but, that is who this pedal is for.

the one I bought would switch to different modes all by itself. That was when I decided it was not usable professionally.
I cannot have stuff crapping out on stage.

the info you need is downloadaBLE FROM THEIR WEBSITE

I am a blues / rock n roll player. I have several amps with no effects so, I thought this gizmo would offer lots of nice settings for me to mix tremolo, reverb, echo and maybe even some distortion although I think I can get the sounds I want from My various amps without a pedal. I do like the tuner part of the pedal but, that was it. I had to send it back.

This is an update to an older review I did here...

the 505-II is very easy to use and program. The only gothca is that you have to round robin through patches as opposed to being able to select a bank of patches at a time (unless you want to bend down and press a button with your finger). You learn quickly to put most used patches adjacent to one another and to arrange banks more carefully.

Editing is a breeze but because of that you have certain limitations. For example, some of the amp models have automatic, unprogrammable parameters associated with them. For example, getting a non-tubby clean on the 505-II is not easy unless you are willing to give up on good bass response.

On successors like the GFX-5, Zoom has add'l parameters like LOW F and LOW G to get rid of the tubbiness without overly impacting bass response.

Still, it was the original 505 that got me hooked on Zoom's interface and since then I've had the GFX-1, GFX-4, GFX-5, GFX-8, GFX-707, 505-II, and 504-II.

The closest living relative to the 505-II was the GFX-1 until the new G2 came out recently.

Overall, very good. I used mine live for several years in bar gigs. Worked great with a variety of guitars and amps plugged straight into the front end of an amp. Gave me a variety of tone needed for the music we played. If it wasn't for tubby cleans, I'd give it a "10".

It was very reliable during live use - never a problem. Afterwards, it developed a problem of going into bypass. I traced it to a problem with the foot pedals, took it apart, sprayed contact cleaner fluid everywhere and it works fine now. Even so, I'm also using the GFX-1 and GFX-5 more now since I moved up after having the problem and before trying to fix it.

I've gotten good support form Samosontech. It hasn't always been correct, but they've been helpful.

Easy to use, very small footprint, decent sounds after tweaking to fit your guitar/amp/music style, cheap... I've had several of these and they are an excellent value.

PRETTY EASY TO USE AND GETA DECENT SOUND FROM
EASIEST THING TO EDIT IEVER WORKED WITH,have you ever had a digitech rp1!
manual is well laid out easy to understand

I have used this pedal for a while now and have used it with a few amps,marshall 250 dfx g50 vs100 and it performed well I played a epi les paul and it sounded good.I used this for gigs every week and it never let me down in 4 years,once the singer jumped all over it once and bust the ac power lead but the pedal kept going which is pretty good considering its made from plastic.I replaced my amp again with a dsl 2000 and this thing does not work with it at all,but you get what you pay for.If the boss me 50 doesnt measure up I would probably have another one and work a bit more with it,for the money there is no comparison.

used for years with out backup and never let me down,that said the bass player bought one(the bass version)and bust the footswitch in about two weeks but he is a bass player,nuff said!

never dealt with them

cover band doing standards need a good spread of sounds
25 years gibson sg marshall 100 watt dsl 1960 cab
overall I would have to give this pedal a 9 like I said for the money you cant go wrong

I've used this product for around a year now and just now learned how to tweek everything just right. when you first get the pedal you will be extremly confused, but as time progresses it will be exalent and one of your favorites.

The sound quality depends on the way you choose your distortion, but to so many features, it can get to high or to low if you are not careful.

one thing that this pedal has is durablity. I personly play metal and beat the living crap out of my equipment, but my zoom has held up very very well.

This pedal is nice if you are into digital effects and alittle distortion... a definate buy if you have the money

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.

I haven't learned all of the programming on this thing yet, but I have used it in three gigs so far. It doesn't take much to get awesome sounds from it.

I am using an OLP bass, and ampeg 350w stack. Some settings are noisy, but if you adjust your amps equalizer, this can be cleaned up.
I constantly discovering new effects on this. I love the chorus,and flange. I haven't messed with the distortion much yet. One thing that surprised me was the fretless functions. My bass sounds awesome with it, and it reduces slide squeak. The wah is pretty good, but I would like to try it with a pedal to improve the effect. This is a great unit for classic rock and blues.

I must admit, the plastic case scares the crap out of me. I am always paranoid that someone will step on it, or drop an amp on it. It is small enough to slide under my amp between sets, and on crowded stages, I set it atop my amp for safety's sake. So far though it has proven to be tougher than it looks. I have had no trouble with this unit.

I haven't needed them.

I play Classic rock, blues, and a little country. I love this thing for blues. It sounds great on classic rock, especially on the Chuck Berry stuff that we do for Country songs I turn it off.

Like most multi- effects,the presets are overwhelming.It's easy to dial stuff back,though.Good manual.I first gladly paid 160.00 for the regular 505.I lost it,then happily bought this new one.The new one really is an improvement.Mess with it and you'll eventually get good sounds.

This nine only comes while considering the price.Been playing 25years,and this thing IS an idea factory.Charvel and Flying V.Fender 1x12 tube amp.Too hissy and the distortions are a BIT too thin for recording.Not to sound like a tool,but the step filter alone is worth 50.00.The phaser(?) is also killer.The more you mess with it,the more you'll like it.

I'm pretty easy on my effects.Too flimsy to gig with unless you're careful.

If you have a bit of patience,you can get some good info from the website.

See above.Not to sound like a goober, but I'm actually glad kids will be able to snag one of these.This would have been a lot of cash back when I was coming up.( Mid eighties)Compared it to many other similar units.I'd like to get the pedal for it, but it's ten bucks more THAN THE 5052 ITSELF!Still,that very well may still be worth it.It even has a wider range for when you do use the pedal.Snag it if you can.It's a monster!

This is the simplest pedal i have ever used. I got it on ebay so i downloaded the instructions when it was in the post, but i haven't used them. You just twist the Knob, controlling each option with the control buttons, and then save it with the only other button. You can flick through the sounds you have save with either of the pedals, or if you want to get REALLY complicated, you can skip groups with the control buttons.

I can't believe zoom include a large manual to say that!

I won't give it 10/10 as they could could have made more pedals so you can get to your favourites quicker.

It isn't all that bad. I sold my old one to fund a new guitar, and the nice man included this with my new axe. I thought it would be poo, because he was giving it away, but i was pleasantly suprised. OK, some of the effects sound crap but the basics are fine, and the noise reduction is good, and it has lots of effects. If i could i would give it 6.5, but as im being a critic, im going to round it down.

Nb. If your guitar makes noise then this will amplify it- If you have a squier, don't buy this or better still, smash up your squier!

Everyone seems to just say "it's plastic" but is is actually quite tough. Ok, so the metal ones feel far more solid, but i don't actually know what you could do to break it. Im only 10 stone but i do stomp pretty hard, and its fine- I hurt my ankle quite badly once, and i think that says it all. It doesn't feel solid, but try and break it and you will be suprised. I think the people that moan must be really, really fat.

Got it on ebay from a guy called Chris Andrews, and he was very friendly and helpful, so I'll give him a 10!

Don't know about Zoom though. ask someone who got it new.

It is small, which isn't a category, it makes decent sounds, with loads to chose from, despite being plastic it's tough, and it's cheap. The downsides are that it would break if you ran it over with the tourbus (apparantly a common problem), and it doesn't look or feel proffessional. I will buy a new one eventually, but thats just because one day i will want better. You can pick these up on ebay for about #25, or #40 new, and it is very simple, so if you want multi effects for cheap, buy it. It does the job.

Its easy to use ok? Just sit with it for a few hours and presto.

OK, now for all the people who owns a Marshall 100DFX with a ZOOM505II, this is specially for you. I've got a Jackson KVX10 aswell.

I was searching the net for months just to get someone with the same setup as me to get some hints, but could'nt find anything. I just symply could not get anything sorted distortion wise with the ZOOM and Marshall combo.

The Zoom kicks ass. The dt is just to much like a Metal Zone, way to buzzy, especially on the Marshall. So I sat down and got this patch : Dist:Ld Gain:22 EQ:41-45 ZNR:5. Put your Marshalls Bass on 5, Mid on 3 and Treb on 3.5. I put the gain on 5, but play with the Treb to get the desired highs.

The distortion blew me away! You get a Soil/ Zakk Wylde sound and get all the gain to do those pinched harmonics. The only thing you need to play around after you got this patch is your Marshall. The sound is not muffled nor buzzy, its just smooth. Just right to do Hard Rock to Metal riffs.

Hope this helped!

No problems with it, but it is plastic

Very good

Conclusion: The Zoom is awesome, BUT sit down with it, turn your amp way up and get it right!

Quite easy to use, works, however, since I dont get around to mess with the effects that much, the editing is somewhat a problem for me. But it is the user type problem I guess. The navigation could be better also.

Im using it with my acoustic Hohner to my earphones aswell as through a computer to my general music center cd player etc. I can make my guitar play through the same speakers as for example the AC DC Shook me... goes. From what ive heard, no hum, nothing, sound is great, and whats more important- im not a soundfag. And what is even more important- ROCK N ROLL!!!

Im a little worried that stomping on it may cause the footswitches to loose or something, but so far it has been reliable.

Come on, seriously?

In general, the good money for sounds package. Looks a little fragile but so far nothing has happened. Im very happy with it. If i gigged, id probably use it...

A little strange interface at first sight (I haven't used an integrated effect processor until 505II) but once you get used to it it appears quite easy. Great number of patches in internet and some are really good.

Sound is great, I play it on Career Avangarde Series Double Cut and no matter if it is on headphones or on the cube i sounds nice. There is noise in high gain distortion but considering the price, no other in this segment is even closer in sound quality. As emulation of a distortion (it is digital effect anyway, and I have used "MetalZone" before it) it lacks a bit of depth but things are repairable by playing with the settings a bit. The delay and the chorus are really outstanding.

Good! Not expected from a plstic unit, but it is really rugged. No problems, only fun.

No idea.

Great! I made a really big marketing before deciding to buy this little piece of soundwork. I am not sorry for a single cent. The Device is very compact and it fits with no problem in the carying bag of my guitar, gives a very good sound and battery performance and is very affordable as a price. I thought that if my quitar costs of 500USD it is not reasonable to spend the same money for an accessory, so it was a good deal. If you are not a high-end proffesionalist 505II is just fine.

Super easy to use and program. beyond most MFX makers, Zoom has the ease of use thing down pretty good. The manual is helpful but after a short while you'll only need it as an index as to what the 2 character effects names mean.

It's easy to get good tones out of it if you take the time to tweak the patches to your particular guitar/amp combination and your volume level use --- meaning, you have to set it one way for gig-level volume and another if you only play at bedroom volume.

I think the unit sounds fine if you tweak it to fit your guitar/amp/playing volume. For example, the cleans can sound tubby if you don't tweak the EQ settings on the 505-II. Some patches are noisy, like when using the Mt (Metal) overdrive, whihc I don't like. You can use Zoom's noise gate (ZNR) to eliminate much noise *and* to eliminatealmost all of it, just turn down the "patch level" of the offending patches. The higher the internal volume of each patch, the more noise you may get.

I use mine with a gibson semi-hollow archtop and a Fender Super (tube) Amp (used to use a Fender Deluxe reverb with it as well).

I like the chorus, reverb, flanger; auto-wah is eh; distortions are OK is tweaked. Compression works well if you like thta kind of thing.

Does not work well direct to PA - distortions sound weird, but then agian, the unit was designed for DI use.

I've ggied with for 3 years in smoky bars - worked great. I'm using it again in a new music project. Definitely dependable. Might be nice to have 2 programmed the same way, but so far one has been enough.

Very versatile, inexpensive, giggable, decent sounding pedal. I have mine set up for gig volume with a P90 equipped or Gibson humbucker equipped archtop.

I've been playing for 12 years. Have owned - still own - lots of MFX pedals (currently have Digitech GNX3, Zoom GFX-707, Zoom GFX-1, Zoom 504-II, and the 505-II). I use the 505-II almost exclusively - small footprint (unlike the GNX3), decent sound, lightweight (unlike the GNX3), not too many inputs/outs (unlike the GNX3).

I really like it's size and weight for the bang you get.

It helps to make music definitely.

There aren't much buttons on this piece, so you don't have to search in the manual to understand anything of it (but you better do read it, so u see all the options availeble)

Clean sounds are very good, even the accoustic simulator isn't bad.
The soft distortions like blues and stuff are acceptable, but the hi-gain distortions you use for metal, realy blow.

I play in a beatdown/metalcore band, I had only one repetition and I decided to get rid of it.
The problem is that the metalizer is too sharp, and isn't fat enough.
Also when you put on the noizgate, but you use the metalizer, turn up your amp a bit, and you only get noiz.

the effects like flanger, chorus, ... I never cared about, 'cause I never use them.

it's plastic...
also I dropped my adaptor on the floor, one plug is almost broken off, but it still worx.

I would never use it for gigging

never dealt with them

I play hardcore/metalcore, and I wouldn't use this pedal
I bought the 505II after I sold my boss ds1 (you can't use it for metal, the pedal is pretty good for punk)

I play 2.5 years now, my gear:
-BC Rich M7 Sig Special
-Some suckass strat copy
-Boss MT-2
-Laney HCM30R
-Carlsbro GLX100
-Line6 SpiderII Head + Cabin

If it would get stolen or lost, I would never buy this piece again, just keep your money to buy a good effect pedal. I'm thinking of buying a BOSS ME-50, or maybe I'll buy a compressor pedal and noizgate and make a chain


for beginners it's a good pedal, but when u want to start doing the real thing, don't buy it

you need a little patience for this one, but its pretty good once you get the hang of it, making your own sounds on it is great, you can get basically whatever you need

i'm using this with a p-38 parker and a nice sounding small amp. the distortions are pretty good, some are bad and some are excellent. you can even set an acoustic "distortion" i.e. you'll get an acoustic sound. a really nice acoustic sound at that. if you want the best out of this pedal, throw in some "proper" effects, i use boss and dod stomp boxes mainly, but even if you have no stomp boxes with it, it still sounds good

it's made of plastic, but so long as your gentle with it youll be fine

i would think it would be smartest to get a backup, just in case

the manual was in japenese, but they supply english ones as well

i play metal and some rock. not the best distortions for metal, but if you fiddle with it enough you'll get just what you want

if it were stolen, i would be depressed, because i have some really nice settings on there

This is my second 505 replacing the original and let me say, there is absolutely no problems so far. I can make my own patches very easily and they sound good with the effects available! The manual is very good. It describes things great.

With this I use a 10 watt Squier amp and a Squier stratocaster with 3 single coil pick-ups (not that good quality) It cancelles out most of the buzz very well. I can play Metallica on this easily. It has some great distortion. And if you can't find the right effect, just make your own.

I can depend on this thing for live gigs and home practise use. I have used it in a couple of gigs. At the gigs I use my Peavey amp though. I would definately use this without a back up.

I havent dealt with them because it is a well built pedal.

Definately a good reliabe 10 worthy pedal.

The 505 II is pretty simple, there isn't too much to edit anyway. If you want some Flanger for instance you can only selcet the speed, but not the intensity. It's very simple and noone should expect too much of it. But still it's fun playing around with.

I got this effect pedal when I first started to play guitar. I put it in front of a 20watts Rath-Amp and thats how my sound was for a long time. I knew it wasn't the best choice, but still it was fine for me. I managed to get some ok-sounds out of the 505 II.
Now I've got a decent Tube Amp from Engl and decent Jackson guitar. Off course my opinion on the Zoom Pedal has changed. I have absolutally no use for it anymore and I realized how cheap the 505 II actually is.
It is noisy when using distortion and I't doesn't work in an parallel FX-Loop, the effects themselves are mostly pretty poor, too.
OK, the sound isn't absolutally useless for a beginner, but you get my point...

Reliability is another problem. I had to resolder some parts quite often, cause the circut board just isn't built well.
Also the plasic it's made of isn't very good.
I also had a few "gigs", only useing my 505 II. I alsways was afraid it may break, but luckally nothing went too wrong with it. Strings break much easier!

Overall I'd say the 505 II is pretty weak, I would't recomend it to many people, maybe if you find it for a very good price and you're just looking for some fun and want to know how effects sound like.
But if you already have one, just make the best out of it. Hey, it's still you playing.

Well I have owned mine for about 2 years and it is pretty easy to use. I wish I didnt have to turn so many knobs for adjusting the patches but I have learned to live with it.

Well I bought the unit as a practice with headphones rig. I agree with all the reviewer who say the factory pre sets stink as they are basically useless.. If you buy one of these be prepared to wipe out all the pre sets. That being said for the price I give it a 7 in sound, I tend to believe the unit responds better with a lesser quality guitar. I know that sounds nuts but I swear it is true.

Well I probably wouldnt gig with it as it is a plastic unit. But as a practice piece it is ok.. I havent had any problems out of mine in the nearly 2 years of ownership so that is commendable..

Hey I havent had to call them so, I can't answer that one.

Well for the price I rate my Zoom 505 II a 7. But then again I bought it new under $80

Read the manual and play around with it for 20 minutes and you will know everything. Its really really easy to use. Editing patches cant be made simpler considering theres only like 5 buttons on this thing. I guess the only problem I have with it is that the two main patch switches are a bit small. But maybe that?s because I have huge feet. The whole unit can fit in my pocket. But don?t let the size fool you, this thing can make some big sound.

First of all, I would like say that any one who looks down upon this product should be shot. They are either rich, arrogant wankers or they cant play guitar to save there worthless lives and blame it on the effects. The Zoom 505II rocks. I have been playing guitar for three years now but due to lack of the green stuff, I use a cheap single coil strat into a beringer 15W amp. I don?t know why people complain about the noise. I mean there is a bit, but the znr takes it away with ease. I play anything on the harder, alternative side of rock. From nirvana, offspring to metallica to korn, slipknot. If the guitar is good and distorted, I play it. And I can play it with the 505II. Ignore all of the factory patches. They are good for nothing. You need to spend time editing patches to get the inner beast out of this thing. It can make any guitar sound that one would desire. And that?s the important part. The distortions are good and the delays, chorus?s, reverbs are excellent. The auto wha isnt to not good though. If you want to wha, get a wha peddle for this thing. Basically, as a multi-effects processor, the 505II does what it needs to for any gutiar player and does it astonishingly well for its price.

The 505II is made of plastic, so don?t use it as a soccer ball. Its that simple. Take care of it and it will take care of you. I have had no problems with reliability, on and off stage. I strongly recommend the use of the power adapter. Batteries will die on you. Don?t say I never warned you.

No problems so I wouldn?t know.

People must realise that the 505II is not supposed to be top of the range stuff (look at the price). Having said that, this product is simply amazing because it is so cheap. Its sound far exceeds its price. I would like to personally thank Zoom for a great piece of equipment. If you need a cheap multi-effects processor that can hold its own, the Zoom 505II is the way to go. ROCK ON

The presets suck, so you will have to do some programming to get anything decent out of it. That said, programming is ridiculously easy.
Patches are extremely easy to edit, although it's a slow process. you just turn the knob to the setting you want to change and press + and -.
I got this used, and this was the first effects unit I bought. I knew literally nothing about effects or anything and I had no manual, yet after a bit of experimenting I understood what most settings did. This is really a breeze to use.

I used this with a yamaha pacifica and a peavey practice amp at first, and of course it didn't sound too great, but to my then untrained ears it was magic. now I'm using it on a yamaha shs-10 synth. I must say it complements the synth wonderfully. I couldn't imagine a better effect pedal for a synth, as it does sound a little grungy and digital, which is exactly the sound I want.
The quality of effects do vary, and I really wonder if some of the more obscure effects have any practical use (some of the pitch shifter settings, most of the step mods). But seriously, a tiny $50 digital effects box is never going to compare to a chain of real high-quality analog effects.
This thing is a NOISY little devil. Seriously. Any high gain distortion setting makes this thing SCREAM.

I've had this for 5 years now, hasn't let me down yet. I've never gigged with it although I plan to. I won't use it as a footswitch as it does look a little fragile and I might break it in the heat of the moment.

Never had any contact

I got this about 6 months after I started playing guitar (age 12 - I'm 17 now), and honestly this is the thing that made me stop playing guitar. I was completely enchanted by this device. I would tweak some settings on this thing, play a couple of chords, and just be amazed. I lost all interest in perfecting my technical guitar ability. This thing does have some sentimental value, so if it were lost or stolen I'd be pissed.
Anyway I soon discovered that synth really is the instrument of choice for me. Now I use this in my industrial synth rig (as stated before), and it fits in perfectly. The sound quality can be pretty thin and gritty, and it's exactly what I need. You can get some really aggressive sounds out of this little guy. The amount of effects available on this thing and the ease of use is completely insane, really.
While this probably isn't a good choice for the professional guitarist with cash to burn, it's the perfect thing for a learning guitarist looking to experiment with effects, or a musician on a budget who isn't afraid of a little bit of digicheese.

I had a 505 before this, so getting a good sound was really easy. Patches are really easy to edit. You can tweak any module anytime, don't have to go through whole patch as in the Digitech RPs.

I haven't red the manual much. This is so easy to use.

No idea of the firmware.

I play this through my old trusty Marshall SL100 daisy chained. It's little bit noisy on some very high gain settings, but ZNR helps alot without affecting to the sound.

I don't use any of the factory settings except the Van's Driver, well I used it only as a base for my own. The factory settings were too over processed.

When I was starting to play guitar over twenty years ago, Ritchie Blackmore was my guitar hero. I can reproduce his sound on Deep Purple and Rainbow albums easily. Of course you have to play with a Strat or similar guitar with single coil pickups. SRV sound is also easy to get. MS DRV sound is very versatile for any Marshall type sounds.

Now I play death metal and all that kind stuff, I use METAL-setting for distortion. It works great with my gear.

The best one on this is MS DRV, it is the closest to the real thing I ever played with any digital simulation device. Guys at the Zoom has made a real good job for this sound. I have compered it with some more priced devices but still it is simply the best. It's dynamics for picking is so close to a real tube amp. At the same amount of overdrive with a tube amp, it acts very identical on picking or turning guitar volume down. Tube amp goes clean just before this baby. I tried this on some other more priced devices, but the result wasn't even close to this 505II, they were overdriven or dead nothing between.
The METAL is my main distortion for rehearsals with bigger gear. I use the other distortion modes occasionally, but haven't found the particularly bad one. The only bad one on my opinion is the STEP and I don't find any use for this sound. Maybe it is an Asian joke for the rest of the world.

I don't see any reason it wouldn't last a normal use. I would use it as a backup for my other pedals. I don't jump on my pedals or kick them around. I haven't got any problems with it.

As mentioned before I play metal, mostly. Sometimes I go to blues, hard rock and so on. I've been playing over twenty years, sometimes more, sometimes less, but last four years more than before that.

I got some this type digital sims (Digitech,V-Amp2,Zoom) and some analog pedals.

If it were stolen, I would buy it again - nothing else can replace it.

As I mentioned before, it sounds great, it's easy to edit. Hate, hmm.. that stupid STEP-sound.

Obviously the MS DRV is my favorite, almost like a real Marshall. Other feature is that the effect chain is in correct order, enabling to use wah and modulations in same time. I had a 707 and this wasn't possible.

I wish it had separate treble, bass, middle and presencs controls...
gets a long list.

It's been my main pedal for years and we have made some good riffs together.

Concidering the price, features and the sound this one of the best gear I've been buying over the years.

to get a good sound it takes a few minutes, remember that is a multieffect unit so it has a learning curve, but when you get the hang of it, it rocks big time.
the patch editing is quite easy as well, like i said before is pretty simple when you got it.
the manual es pretty simple and clear, you'll understand it in a hurry.
the only upgrade that you can make for your 505 II is to buy an expression pedal, then you'll get the most of it.

i use to hooked a washburn bt-3 maverick series guitar into a pro series morley wah pedal through the 505 then to a fender frontman 15 g practice amp, it sound it just great !
its noisy if you wanted to be noisy.
you can get any basic sound of it as well as your favorite artist.
the effects are very nice and cool, they are pretty cool and the sounds are ok and good.

i'll gave it a 9 because its plastic but it has never failed on me.
there was one time when i was jamming on my bedroom and a friend came over and we started to jump, and by accident he stepped on it, but nothing happend to it.

no trouble what so ever, never deal with them, but i'm pretty sure that they will help if you have a question.

For the sound that makes and price its a great unit for a starter, and for a professional would make a day of fun if someone buys it, i dont have it anymore i selled to a friend, coz i needed the money, but i'm thinking of buying it again because the other guitar player in my band has one and the other day i've try it with my expression pedal and it blew me away, in my experience with it i just love it , the amps that has are very good, if you have a big combo amp it will sound great coz of the depth, the one thing that i love the most was the phaser and flanger you can use them both at the same time nice cleans and the cab simulator is quiet and quite useful when recording something right to the mixer...
at a live sound its pretty good, i had many gigs with it and never failed me, always on top of everybody else but nice and rich sounds through a PA system.
the next time that i buy it, i will never let it go !!! trust me.. !!

It takes just about 2seconds to create a new patch if you know what you're doing. Its damn easy to use... and the manual is for dummies. Manual explains everything very well... but if you're smart, you don't require it.

The sound is simply amazing... and for this price its a steal. It gets noisy if you use wrong settings..or if its too close to the amps. Otherwise its fine... but static cant be avoided.. gotta work on that.
Distortion is good... but to get the raw palm mute tone u need to use a bit of wah whichs makes the tone really shrill... but overall.. excellent tone.. good effects.. wah isn't very bassy.. but it is fine with good amps.

i have done so many gigs with it.. and its cool on stage.

Easy to use..m familiar with the way it works...its simple..
you won't even need a manual...except when you need to reset all the patches and some ways to bypass the signal.....

i hate the hiss....some unusual humming noise are there 25 percent of the patches...
m not sure...it could be my setup..
m using 505II with my 504II for my acoustic guitar...I bought 505II because I need to use overdrive/distortion etc....my clean signal is generated by 504...

Yup...you can depend on it...BUT..if you are using multiple stomp boxes along with this, i would recommend you to create a pedal board to protect the connections and the unit as well

no contact

Alternative to soft music...
I would definitely get one AGAiN if stolen..
compared this with the usual stomp boxes..
same price but this has tons of sound

I just wanted to update my previous rating.
i've been using this thing for about two months now and i think its an awesome unit.
All the distortions are very cool.
i just bought an Ibanez guitar and the zoom sounds great with it.
All the Metal, Lead distortions are really Smooooth unlike the MT-2 metal zone which is muddy and fuzzy.
Its great value for money.
its only competitor is the Behringer V-AMP2.
I mean you can use just the zoom and be on your way.

To fully enjoy the zoom you need a good guitar, and a good amp.
i have an Ibanez guitar and a Marshall amp and the zoom sounds very cool.

the chain is only as strong as its weakest link and if there are problems in your guitar or amp the zoom is only going to amplify that.

there no sound in the world you cant get with this unit.
if you can hear it in your head, you'll be able to find it here.

Very Easy. You have to program patches near to prevent searching (A1, A2, A3, etc.) The manual is very well.

I'm a beginner and I play with a Peavy 15 watts BackStage(Tube) and a Peavy Guitar (199$). I play Metallica, other heavy and hardrock. I think for that price, you cannot have better. I love it ! The sound is very good when the gain is not too high and when the noise reduction is used. For a beginner like me, it's fantastic.

Japan reliability !

No need

For Metallica it's perfect ! The acoustic with Hall effect (Fade to black, etc.) is very nice. Nirvana too ! You can find many patches on the web. Look for quality you get for the price. Leave the Pro say what they want, but if you are a beginner, you must buy that !

It's pretty self-explanatory, especially if you are familiar with basic guitar effects. If not, you can either read the small manual (which explains everything pretty well) or you mess around with it and you can figure it out pretty easily.

I bought this pedal as soon as I got my first electric, an Ibanez GSA-60 and a Fender 15G amp. I was creaming my pants with how awesome everything sounded. I notice a lot of people say that the sounds are pretty digital, but what did I care? It's nothing professional, just for fun or whatever. But for that purpose, this pedal will serve you very nicely.

People have lists of settings (up to 500 different ones) out on the internet for the thing to make it sound like virtually any artist or band or sound. Just do an internet search. The possibilities are endless if you like experimenting with different variations in sound.

There's sometimes a little hiss or buzz, but I found that just jiggling the connectors into the unit will do the trick. If there's something else, then tweak the equalizer settings on your amp or even the pedal unit itself and you should be ok. I haven't had any problems with noise.

There's tons of different types of distortion. They all sound real sweet. You can even make it sound like an acoustic (Because of this, I barely even pick up my acoustic anymore). Just set it to acoustic and add a reverb or chorus effect and oh man, that's nice!

If you're looking to use wah...this may not be the effect pedal for you because you can either use the auto-wah or buy an additonal expression pedal ($60 extra) to adjust it. Why not just get the 606 model for $40 more than what this costs. I should have just done that, but I think that if I get any better of a guitar or I plan on using effects live live, then I'll just get either a more expensive unit or I'll get the individual stomp boxes after I fool around with this thing some more and decide which effects I like or need or want most (which is what I reccomend any starter do).

Well, for what I use it for, it works great. I just use it for my own use or when me and my buddies are jamming. It's not really for live gigs.

Never contacted them.

The batteries will last you a while. It uses 4 AA batteries which usually last me 3 weeks to a month. Of course the guy tried to get me to buy the adaptor for $25 additional, but if the batteries last that long, then to hell with the adaptor. When I was stuck in the house and a hurricane came ripping by during the glorious hurricane season Florida had in 2004, the electricity went out and I played my guitar for hours and hours on end. So, because I had batteries, I was a-ok without power. You can just plug headphones into the thing...you don't even need an amp!

This pedal is for beginners or people that are just looking to experiment with sounds to see what they like best.

I'd definitely go with Zoom again. If i lost this thing or if it were broke, I'd definitely go with something different. For now, though, this thing works great. The more expensive zoom pedal boards have better quality.

Honestly, I was expecting something better from this product. Its really easy to use (the instruction manual should be used to wipe your ass). Its fairly simple as there are only 2 thing to tweak. Seriously, the manual needs to be used only if you are a worrier. Editing patches is as easy taking a dump on this zoom boom machine.

Should I use profanities while talking about the sound. Even though the delay is somewhat ok, its still pretty damn bad. The reverb is HORRIBLE. The distortion sounds really really cheap. Its like the most primitive form of distortion (not classic). When you turn up some speakers, the distortion you get is exactly what this zoom's sounds like. I use a Schecter blackjack and a fender DeVille. It is very very Noisy. I can the get the sound of a car in here easily. The effects suck. Save your money. Buy a GT6 like I did.

Its made of plastic. The possibilities of it cracking are very high. This used for a gig????? Kidding me?? This feels like it wont even survive in my grandma's bedroom.

I have not dealt with them and dealing with probably will do me no good or the stupid zoom pedal.

I play metal, jazz....I have been playing for 3 years now. I would never even buy it if I had to save my life. I hate it.

The sounds are easy to get out of the factory patches some are a little to spacey for me. Using it live is total confusion

Im using a basic strat & a ES 335 into a Fender Twin. Im into gospel & R & B. The distortion & flanger is good for that Ernie Isley sound. The effect I really like is the one that makes a repeats then delay people trip out when they hear it. The distortions are good I will admit all the are other patches suck! I ask myself why would you want sounds like that. The wha wha is real weak dont invest in a expression pedal.

It seems somewhat dependable the input jacks are getting loose so that can be iffy. ** DO NOT USE THIS PLAYING LIVE! DISASTER. YOU WILL HAVE TO TURN THE PATCH VOLUME DOWN EACH TIME YOU PLAY. TOO MUCH TWEEKING W YOUR AMP TO MELLOW THE SOUND OUT. MY SETUP ON AVERAGE IS ABOUT 15 TO 20 MINUTES AT 9:00AM SUNDAY IN FRONT OF THE CONGREGATION!
NOT TOO COOL WHEN YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE LIKE AFTER A LATE OUT IF YOU KNOW I MEAN. THE PATCH YOU WANT YOU HAVE TO GO THRU SO MANY TO GET TO IT. OH YEA TURN THE GUITAR VOLUME ALL THE WAY DOWN OR ON STANDBY. NOT GOOD FOR QUICK PATCH CHANGES.

NEVER DEALT WITH THEM

The effect unit is good for bedroom,apartment headphone use & just messing around. This is definately not a gigging unit I gave this thing alot of chances before I sold it. Im one of those guys where my rig is plug in & play no hassles minimal tweeking. Since then back to various stompboxes. Step on & step off that simple. If it was stolen from me the thief would probably give it back in the same box it came from! Peace

Well zoom is the worst company ever. Distortions and overdrives are ridiculous, it's just like if you take acoustic guitar and put a cheap PC mic into it and using some PC program's gain. Delays and reverbs are WEAK, zoom's wah is the most shittyest thing I've ever heard. And it doesn't have a true bybass. NO TONE AT ALL!!!

It is made of plastic

I play music, but it is impossible to play music with zoom, All their products blow fat load. I don't own any zoom's product (I ain't stoopid or something) so be smart and don't ever buy this dog crap.

This isn't the moast simplificated effect that i have ever seen, however after a week it shouldent be hard to control. The manual is ok, it has enought info. A grat thingy is a little information (manual) on the front of zoom.

I have checked it with Marshall MG 15 CDR amp ( with FDD )and ibanez rg 370DX and epiphone sg20 and it sounded very well. It sounded much worse with an old amp (don't know the name). I'm a musician that plays: Satriani, Vai, Metallica, Hendrix, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Guns N' Roses (and lots more) music. Zoom 505 II gives me enought options to hear from it the souds of the effects that all of the musicians ( /\ look up) use.

I love to hear super heavy sounds coming from the amps (metallica fan)
and zoom dosen't give me so much gain as single effects (non multi).
But for rock (in all of it sorts) the effects is perfect.

Clean chorus'ey sounds are very good, the reverb, echo is good too and the acoustic effect is one of the best from all of them.

I GIVE HIM 9 ONLY BECOUSE OF THE GAIN. (which isn't so small, but you can have it bigger with other effects)

I think that it's rather solid. My friend and I have both zoom 505 II effects for about a year. It didn't brak for the whole time hard rock using!!!

The batteries use up very quick.

---

Zoom is a good effect for it's price. It offers 36 memory slots for your own effects or the zoom starter ones. It is really cool to make your own effects. You add some chorus (you pick from 0 or 1 to 10), cry, auto wah, gain, you pitch up the sound and you have your simple effect. There is a very good chromatic tuner (you plug the cable to the input, than to the guitar and press both footsteps at the same time - very simple and usefull). I dont like the second 2 swithes. they are too small.

If you just bought your first guitar and you have no effects for your intrument i really sugest buing a zoom 505 II effect.

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?
Very Easy.
How about Editing patches?
Even Easier
How is the manual for it (if there is one)?
Perfect. Easy to understand. well written.

True Tone guitar -> Stranger DA-1 dist pedal(for boost) ->Zoom505II -> Marshall MG15cd.
ZERO NOISE. i mean ZERO.
Totally noiseless even with the level boost on the pedal on full.
The effects sound very good. Nice sounding distortions, not buzzy but pretty smooth.
i tried a Korg ax100g and it sounded fuzzy.
i use it with a Marshall amp but it's sound good through any amp.
well i sure cant get the sound i'm looking for ..yet, i need another pedal to boost my input even more because i have low output pickups.
i used Alien Connections Revalver and with that using the Metal4 preset with the predist EQ's level on full i could get the Steve VAi tone i was looking for.
Nothing is bad as such, all the effects are pretty adequate. if you sit aroung and tweak this thing you could get sounds you need.
I should have had a preEQ for signal boost and a better Post EQ where you can individually tweak bass mid and treble.
Also the overall sound kinda lacks a little Bass to my ears.
The distortion is nice very chunky.
just try thye C1 preset, its pretty good.

Yeah its pretty solidly built. Its plastic but it's compact and rugged.

I play rock, power groove, Extreme meets Pantera kind of music.
I'm in a band called Prithvi.
check us out here:
http://www.rsjonline.com/Bandlands/band.asp?band=PRITHVI&country=India
as a player i try and play Steve Vai's music. Using revalver i could get the tone i needed, cant really do that with the zoom but then i guess its just a basic unit and pretty OK for starting out with.
i chose this over a Korg ax100g only because the korg was about 7500rs and i didnt feel the difference was really justified, plus the distortions on this thing were pretty decent.
I wish it had a preEQ with a level boost of about 14db. tats about it.
and i wish it had a little more bass...but again i havent fully explored it so...
Oh it'll help you make music lright. the day i got the band wrote an original and recorded it too so there ya go !
Yeah i'd like to share this with you:
if Steve Vai or Jimi hendrix played through a Zoom505II, trust me they'd sound awesome and then everybody would start buying zooms.
gear really doesnt matter.
its what you have in your head and heart that does.

God Bless You.

There is definately a learning curve to get over. You will need to sit down with the manual and spend an hour or two to get a feel for the interface and start deciding what effects and distortions you like and dislike. Once you get past that, it is fairly logical. It only takes me a couple minutes to whip up and tweak a patch now. It is also very easy to go back and tweak a patch after you save it. You will probably need to make your own patches. I didn't like the stock patches because most of them were either super high gain or spacey sounding.

Concerning live play: you have to remember that this is a compact multi-effects unit, and as such, it has limitations. Editing patches during play is doable, but it's a lot easier to just save multiple versions of the same patch if there are things you want to change (like adding an effect or increasing the gain). Changing patches is easy. You can also, by holding down the right pedal when you plug it in, put it on a mode where you can scroll through the different patches without changing the actual patch you are playing in until you press both foot buttons together. This is very useful. The big problem is that there is a slight lag when you switch patches. With some practice, you can get the timing down, but there is a split second where the signal cuts out. If you are playing live, your guitar really carries the music, and you need to switch while things are heavy, then this pedal by itself will not meet your needs. This is not to say that you shouldn't get the Zoom. If, for example, you want to flip on some phaser, you can buy a separate phaser pedal and use the Zoom for other functions.

The nicest feature is the built-in tuner. By pressing both foot buttons, you can turn on the tuner AND turn off all effects modules. This means that you can easily switch from any setting to straight clean. If you hold both foot buttons down for a couple seconds, you turn on the tuner and cut the signal. This is useful, too.

Once you get used to it, the pedal is more like a 7 or 8 for ease of use, but I docked points for the learning curve.

I play a Squier Affinity Strat (stock) through either a Fender Frontman 15G or a Crate GT-15. As you can tell, my choice of gear is based on budget and practicality (I can't get away with cranking a tube amp).

Noise generally is not a problem for me. If you put a lot of reverb with high gain on unshielded single-coil pickups, you will get a lot of noise. That, however, is a problem inherent with gain, reverb, and cheap single-coil pickups, not the Zoom pedal. The pedal also has "Zoom Noise Reduction," which helps a lot.

The compressor/limiter does its job. I don't use it and have no objective reference to compare it against so I will say no more about it.

I don't like auto-wah. At least not on this pedal. If you buy the optional expression pedal, you can use pedal wah, but the expression pedal is about $60. If you're going to spend that much more, you might as well buy a 606, 707, or even spring for a gfx-5, instead of the 505II in the first place.

I would say that the distortion module is one of the best things this pedal has got going for it. You really have a lot of variety at your fingers. You can get sharp, smooth,, fuzzy, fat, nasty, etc. There will probably be at least 1 or 2 distortions that you will like. My favorites are amp modeling settings - MS Drive (Marshall Drive) and PV Drive (Peavey Drive). I think the distortion from this pedal sounds pretty good, but I have not compared it with other pedals.

The EQ is difficult to use. You basically get to select between 50 preset combinations (remember, you can leave the EQ flat by not messing with it at all) and then you can adjust more or less treble with another parameter. I find it much easier to just use the EQ knobs on my amp. Remember, this is a COMPACT multi-effects pedal and there really was no easy way to put in an EQ module with an easy interface.

The phaser is ok. You actually get to control two parameters for it, instead of 1 like most of the effects. I'm pretty sure that it applies the phaser after the distortion, so if you want the phase to be distorted, you have to use another distortion (like the amp's drive channel) after the pedal.

I would say the effects module is one of the weaker links on this pedal. For each effect, you can control only one parameter. If you happen to like the way the other parameters are set, then cool. If not, then too bad. The parameters are generally not set too extreme. So it's kindof hard to get subtle effects for things like tremolo (you get control over the speed for that one). It is certainly better than nothing. Remember that this is a compact unit and you're only paying 70 bucks for it.

The reverb/delay does its job. The delay goes up to 370 milliseconds, which works fine for rhythm and most leads. If you want an extended or cascading delay, you will need another pedal.

I have had this pedal for a year and a half and had no problems whatsoever. I have played at church with this several times and really don't need a backup. I don't know how other people manage to break it so easily. Treat it nicely and it should last you a long time.

Haven't had to deal with them.

I play mainly rock and pop rhythm guitar. A lot of the music I play is contemporary Christian worship music (the kind that has electric guitars in it, not hymns).
I have been playing for a year and a half and had this pedal for prettymuch the whole time. As mentioned earlier, my rig is prettymuch a budget setup: Squier Affinity Strat and either a Frontman 15G or a Crate GT-15. The Zoom is my only pedal.

If this were stolen or lost, I would upgrade to a gfx-5. If I did it all over again, I would probably either get the 505II again or maybe get the 606.

What I love about this pedal is that it is, IMHO, prettymuch the most bang for the buck you can get in a pedal. It is very nice having so many different effects and distortions at my fingertips. If I feel like trying something new, I don't have to buy a new pedal. It's also very small. Space hasn't been much of an issue for me, but it is really easy to haul around.

I did not compare this to other products. It would have been kindof nice if it had an audio-in, but both my amps have this feature so I generally don't need it. It would have been good if they could set it up so the effects module had two parameters you could control, instead of one. The EQ/Phaser, distortion, and reverb modules are all linked to a second parameter control, so why couldn't the effects module have a second parameter control? I don't play with effects from that module very often, though, so it doesn't bother me very much.


Bottom line: this is a pretty good pedal and a very good pedal for the money. If budget and/or size are major issues for you, then I recommend this product. If you want this pedal to do wah, then look into a 606 or 707 instead. Overall, I have been very happy with this pedal.

It's not difficult to use but if you don't read the manual you won't know how to do things like get rid of noise edit the effects

I'm using a Washburn G2V with a Holden 50 amp. The sound quality in general is pretty good. You'll want to edit the effects though because they can sound pretty digital but hey they are... Pretty versatile for the money I'd say.

Seems alright. The plastic isn't an issue because I'm not that rough. If you break one of these it's your fault - except the input/output jacks which will probably need re-soldering. I don't have a backup for it so of course I use it live. Calling it a bedroom toy tells me people are either being pretentious or don't know how to work it.

NA

I've been playing about 20 years. I've used all sorts of effects units and I'd rate this one up there. More foot pedals for quicker changes would be useful but you can get around that to a degree by arranging your patches in a smart way. I think it's the best thing around for this sort of money. I've seen better but this is pretty good for the money and I know plenty of semi-pros who use them for live gigging. Not as easy to use live as the Boss GT-6 but it's not a toy unless you're too rough or you don't know how to work it.

Easy interface... turn knobs press some buttons save... good

95% of the effects sounded too digital... and when i mean digital... its not natural... yes yes, you can get that heavy stacked sound that you like when playing heavy riffs.. but im a shredder so i think theres a lack of natural sustain on it... the comp are nice at level 4 but noisy at level 9... wahs are nice (esp. the autowah).. The only dist module i use here which has the most natural sound is the "MS" though it didnt sounded Mesa or Marshall to me. Every dist sounded digital... i do like the Blues dist but with too much high frequency youll never get inspired. and the Acoustic simulator is not that great and it is REALLY BASSY.. the eqs are great together with the contour... good thing the modulation somehow can enable 2 effects at once (most of the time)... every guitarist nowadays use chorus on their guitar, which i really dont like (it takes out the natural sound of your tone)the dly and rev is nice... and i think having dly and rev together (both on) is overkill...

I mainly used it to direct recording and it sounds nice with amp simulation on... i use it with my cheap ibanez gio grg-170...

it is noisy at max levels but can be hushed down using ZNR at optimum levels.

I think you can get a quite close Dimebag sound, close to petrucci's tone, and if you love jazz/funk, i think this can be good using the FDR CLN and adding a bit of Compression... though i do really want to find my own tone for my own music... too bad it just ruins some of my chops...

its plastic... it think it wont break that easily... except for the Input output jocks... and the buttons and pedals... i think they arent sturdy and will eventually break...

havent deal with them yet...

Id say this unit is cool for maximum riffage but for solos... hmm a good decent amp will do to really juice up the tone out of it... but to get a really good explanation on why this unit suck.. first i was using a guitar software, wherein somepoint has nice guitar distortion similar to stompboxes... very natural sounding i tell ya... the only hard part is when you need to record some parts which is kinda hard using this software.. so i decided to borrow it (from Khel Banzon)... i did good in almost all of my chops except for the sweep/tap thing.. or should i say Tapping... it just cuts my tone whenever i tap on my guitar... my settings were simple and noisy C4 (comp), BG27 (dist)
, eq (i forgot), dly (set at 330ms)... i dont have any ZNR on, so that it will not cut my tone... anyways i unplugged it and played with my guitar software and my chops were back again...

but an effect at this price range is prestine!!.. it will give you almost any sound possible.. but you better face the facts that youll not get your natural sound out of it... EVEN IN BYPASS MODE!!!


and before i forget watch out for the pedals.. take extra good care of them.. it will break...

The Zoom 505II has a very easy to use interface i believe. The patches are easy to get. 9 upto once which is great. The only thing is if you have to edit a patch, you have to get down on your knees and use your hands as those buttons are a bit small for your feet (unless you use your toes - wouldn't recommend)

Well i used a Peavey Backstage Plus 35 wat amp. It sounded i believe actually quite excellent in my respect.
Sometimes the input can be faulty and cause noise, but generally it's fine if you nudge it - this only happened to me a few times throughout the year.
Has a huge range of effects like 30 or something. 9 at once. I like the flanger on it. It sounded alot better than what i use now i must admit. Overall good.

Well this is where everyone falls down as you've read.

I believe i could depend on it, sure it's made out of hard plastic but it's stable. I've dropped it a few times and had no issue with it at all. Also, my batteries blew up in the pedal (not sure how - still a mystery) and yet i didn't even need to take it to get it fixed as it still worked just as good. If that counts.

I would use it gigging, in regards to backing up. Well, it depends i don't have another pedal so i really couldn't say. I've done it without a back up before and it sounded fine, no hassles. But i strongly recommend getting the AC or DC adapter for it as batteries can last a long time, but i wouldn't recommend it when gigging.

Never dealt with them

Overall it's worth a buy if your a startering out in the world of effects pedals and processors as i did. Now i'm kinda moving over to higher priced and quality effects pedals - everyone seems to like the boss GT-6 so i'll look into that. But yeah. Definetely give it a wurl for sure i'm sure you won't regret buying it.

it's very simple, just turn the knobs to set the desired effects, adjust the value n press store to keep it. you don't even need to read the manuals.

when i was using this pedal often, i just had my custom guitar plugged into this and then straight into any amp i could find (i was a beginner back then). now, if i feel like playing around with it (i have a gt-6 so i don't really mess with this one that often anymore) i'd just have my jem7dbk -> modded boss ds-1 -> zoom 505II -> carvin sx-200d.

it's sounds pretty good actually. it has some of the distortion effects i like, although it now has retired as a distortion effect. the distortions are thick, full, and compressed. it has some cool effects built in. i especially like it's chorus effect, not the best around but suits me well. it sounds warm and rich. the limiter is one other feature that i like.

the rest of the effects are fine, incomparable to some other leading brand pedals, but if u're not looking for something serious, this pedal is definitely worth a try.

the thing that bugs me is that it's noisy if you have the distortion's gain at high value. it'll give you ear piercing feedback. i had to switch to clean guitar patches to keep the noise down which sometimes annoyed me. also, the wah isn't that great, sounds distinctive but too flat for me. i've only tried the auto wah tho, never used any expression pedal on it.

i've gigged a few times with it. it used to 'restart' itself when the pedal was kicked too much, but turned out that i just need to solder some parts and it's perfectly fine now. it's like new! i know it's plastic, but depends on how you stomp on it. if you stomp on it as if it's a nasty bug, for sure it wouldn't hold for long.. be gentle with it. i've had it for around 4 years now and it looks like it just came out of the box.

i dunno about this, never used them anyway

this pedal isn't that bad. it was my first pedal ever, but i still use it ocassionaly now. i have a gt-6 which is of course far more superior than this one but i'd still play around with this one. i play almost all kind of stuff but mostly rock songs (no definite rock genre, just rock in general) and it served well. i used this extensively in my first band, we had a few gigs and it was doing well too.

used to be my only effect in between my guitar n amp but now it has retired and became a chorus pedal instead (plus some other single effects, depends on my mood)

wouldn't really buy it again if it's lost, but this thing is worth for my keeping and i will keep it safely.

Muy facil de usar, nada complicado aun siendo tu primer pedalera.

Lo use con una Ibanez RG370DX (pastillas Dimarzio no Powersound), con una Fender strato mexicana, una Gibson Explorer, con un ampli Ibanez ToneBlaster15R en practica, Definitivamente no es un sonido "profesional" el que puedes obtener, sin embargo sirve bastante para ensayar o para componer; los unicos efectos que no me gustaron son algunas distorsiones (poco definidas) salvo 3 de ellas; el chorus, delay, echo, tremolo etc, me parecen buenas; en general le doy un 8.

Es un aparatito confiable si lo cuidas, es de plastico pero aguanta, nomas no andes derramando la cerveza sobre el cabron =D

N/o

Excelente para principiantes y para practicar sin "molestar" a los demas con solo conectarle unos audifonos. Por en general toco rock, desde hendrix, LedZepp, etc hasta un buen Death/thrash de sepultura; si tienes buenas pastillas en tu lira, el 505II es genial para practicar y a buen precio; Claro ke para algo mas serio deberas juntar un billete mas y comprarte algo superior. En general Zoom es excelente en pedales, me laten mas sus pedaleras ke los actuales modelos de Boss que son mas caros y no suenan tan bien. Bien por Zoom!

Completly idiot proof.

I have managed to get it to sound very well but it takes practice and a good ear to make good sounds. You need to plan the settup well to be able to use it properly. If your does not sound good at all or its to week or strong it because you don't know how to work it.

This is where the 505II is awful. First off, it's made out of plastic and second the electronics are a mess. But with a few modifacations the buttons won't fail and it will hold to gether. Mine is currently hold togather with scotch-tape and I've redone all the wires (not to many of them) and replaced everything that I can. Now it's working perfectly, but stomping it hard is not an option....you need to take it easy on it.

I play all kinds of music, and since you can get allmost anything out of this thing it works for me. I've been playing for many years and I've owned a few guitars, amps and effects, and I can honestly say that the 505II is worth buying, since it rather cheap. I don't use it when I'm playing live but it's excelent in studio work and at home.
Using it live is simply not an option...the effect change is to slow and you might crush it if thing get wild. One of the good things about it is that it has a tuner that is very easy to use and works great.
If the effect change were quicker and it were made out of metal and had more buttons it would be fantastic.

this pedal at first seems like a life saver, it was my first kind of effect i bought.

creating your own patches is very simple, changing from one patch to another became annoying as there was a split second gap in the sound.

its not the best sound effect in the world, i found myself finding 3 effects i really liked and not using the rest of the pedals effects.

its made outta plastic, so since im in a regulary gigging band it never took long before it fell apart!

up untill recently when i got rid of it it was held together with duck take. which made it horrioble to use live, as whenever i stepped on it 2 change the effect i never new if it would make that horrible humming sound it seemed 2 like doing!

its a alriete first pedal, ive now moved along to BOSS effects which are amaziong compared to it.

Very easy to play just plug & go. Manual self explanatary, Just need the back page really for the factory settings. Not that i stuck with them for long.

Stagg cheap jackson copy (pointy headstock) & Marshall master lead combo 30w. It buzzez away like a swarm of particularly pissed off wasps, but that might be the amp or the lead. After I'd played with it a while, explored all possible variations I think i've just about got it the way I want it now: Very nice acoustic patch, A nice clean patch, A filthy dirty Metal Phil Cambell (Motorhead) Patch, A spaced out phased, flanged, distorted, echoed Dave Brock (Hawkwind) patch (this took a lot of experimenting with, at first I overdid the effects and just got a wash/wind sound and no Guitar I've now set this up so it sounds like Guitar and Bass, overdriven and slightly distorted with echo/delay and phaser/flanger effects subtly applied almost as if they are synth loop effects in the background). A delayed mandolin style patch. I've set these up on the first (A) batch of patches. I don't really use any of the others. The delay isn't really good enough. And I would prefer more sustain. Not totally sure I'd trust the built-in tuner but good enough for what I do.

I've had this a couple of years now, never had a problem. It's a bit cheap plasticky, but I don't abuse it. Would I gig with it? well I would because it's the only affordable way of getting the sound I want. Changing patches is not smooth, so not very good for changing moods mid song. But I'm just a bash it out merchant so it's good enough for me at present, only really up to rehearsals and pub gigs.

Not had to deal with Zoom yet.

I play mostly Hawkwind/Motorhead/classic rock stuff . This little box does the business well enough, certainly worth what I paid for it. It wouldn't get lost or stolen, I take far too good care of my stuff. But in future I wouldn't buy again but upgrade to a more professional multi-effects unit. It's absolutely wonderful with headphones as a practice set up and would use it just for that if I wasn't so poor.

This pedal is very easy to use, but it's very hard to find a good sound.

Horrible sound quality, unless you play clean music only. And even some of the clean stuff sounds bad. The distortion in this thing is really bad (a lot of highs, and never gets low enough). The delay on it sounds pretty good though, and the chorus and tremelo sound decent, but thats about it.

I don't really know if the Box itself is strong, I don't misstreat my equipment. I would never, in a million years, gig with this thing. It's got a delay in it. When switching from effect to effect, the response is too slow. It makes you sound like your not stomping it soon enough.

I play a lot of different kinds of music. This thing isn't good for any of them. Infact, the only thing it's almost good for is recording, but it still leaves you with a cheap lo-fi sound. I've been playing for five years, and I don't think I've ever come across anything as useless as this other than the origional zoom 505. I would never buy another one of these if I lost it, or in my case gave it away.

very easy to use after several uses of it. you could always ask the man in the shop you bought it from to show you the basics.

i use a yamaha eg112 into a marshall 15W amp just for practising inmy room. It is great for this, and rather than relying on presets id recommend spending some time fiddling with it to find sounds that you like and suit your equipment.
Sometimes i do get a bit of background noise when using high-gain settings, but there is the ZNR feature. This should be used sparingly because overusing ZNR can break up your sound too much.
There are all the effects any beginner would need, and some that you may never need unless you like to use weird sounds, eg. the effect 'step'. Loads of different distortions, many of them sound excellent through my small practise amp.
I mainly play chilis stuff, and have tweaked it a bit to get that john frusciante sound, using a bit of compressor.

great, everyone says its not reliable because its plastic but for me its been fine, just take care of it.

never needed it.

superb for the price. any beginner who wants a bunch of effects to play around with, or anyone with a low budget would find the pedal very useful.

i think this it's the best point , i played with it's controls for 20 minutes and i knew exactlty how to use the effects.the ecualization is a little hard to understand, and it's hard to change between paths withot loosing those precious secs.

I use a squier strat. with a squier 10w amp and it sounds really bad. (the amp is responsable of this) The distortion is quite good, i but you can REALLY get a good sound with this pedal by using a soft chorus and a huge reverb. But beeing serious, you can't get a really good flanger or any other effects

i have been using it for 3 years and never broke up. but you cant even use this as a backup

never dealed with zoom

its perfect for begginers without much money and to play home.a pitty it hasnt got an expression pedal.but a good pedal for its price

It's Very Very easy to use. I learned to use it with no manual, Later i downloaded It and did'nt need It..The EQ is a little confusing at first, but once you get the hang of It its ok.

My Set up: Dean Avalanche(2002 or 2003, not shure) and a little fender bullet amp (38) for practice. On live setups I go direct box and monitor.
It sounds pretty decent on my bullet. Totaly weak on live setups. You really can't ask for more 4 that price.

I love the chorus/flanger/delay on this one. The delay way better on 505II than on 505. The WAH's are ok. The distortions are cool (love the oct combined with It) but the gain is way to noisy. Love the Acustic sim.

The sound quality is fair(considering the price)

I really don't think i can depend on this little friend. I used It twice live (as backup)and It freaked out both times. By the way, within a few months you will be shopping for a new input jack. It broke on both 505 and 505II(Crappy). I had to sell them both and sart saving money(and cut the crap) so I could go all the way with a nice and used BOSS GT6(Need i say more??). But if you want a nice practice effects, buy the ZOOM 505II but I preffer for practice situations the DIGITECH RP80 AND 200A(witch some friends have)

N/A

I play everything from heavy metal, progressive, jazz, lead(on my free time) to pop rock and balads(4 living). I've been playing guitar for 12 years now(since I was 12) I own a Fernandes Nomad, a Dean Baby, a BOSS GT6, Ibanez electroacustic(dont remember the model)thats It.

Would't buy It again, id preffer to try something new.

the first time is hard to set up...

it's perfect in my room, where i can't increase volume...
all kind of effects i need are in this little baby... very usefull for home-recording... BUT TOTALLY USELESS in a real concert... when you swith for one effect to another there is an horrible empty-time.

well, effects aren't bad... but also they aren't good..
there are a million of single unit pedal and a million of multieffects better than this one...

i'm using it only for it's tuner.. it's works well!

all in plastic...

usefull for home recording and for it's tuner.
useless for all the rest. :(

Very easy for a multi-effect.

Let's keep things in perspective here. This is an entry-level multi effect unit, it is not a full pedalboard filled with vintage and boutique effects running into a Bradshaw switching system. I have all the boutique goodies running in stereo into two tube amps in. The Zoom 505 II does not compare to my pedalboard, there's no way it could. What this Zoom 505 II excels at is jamming around, or late night with headphones. I use it to play outdoors into a Pignoes rechargable 20 watt hog amp; it works excellent for that. The Zoom has great distortionsd, and all the effects sound great. For less than $100, this unit can not be beat! There are some very interesting effect combinations, and the Overdrives, and Fuzz are awesome. All in all, it's a very powerful unit for the money.

Take care of it, it's plastic. I've had mine for years, and not a single problem.

Never needed.

This is the best of the inexpensive units, and a ton of fun! I would definitely buy another if this was lost/stolen!

Fairly easy to get good sounds from it after tweaking some of the presets. Programming and re-editing your own isn't tough but time-consuming. The manual is easy to read.

I run an American Standard Strat (stock) through a Fender Princeton Chorus amp, and find the pedal compliments the set-up nicely. Sounds great through headphones when plugged into the amp, and even sounds good w/out the headphones. good for practice in my apartment. My amp has much better chorus, but i like the pedals eq controls (although NOT user-friendly). I can also get a very good blues sound from this pedal. Don't have an expression pedal, so I don't know how the wah would sound. Also can get a good Edge-U2 clean sound from it also, as well as a decent Pat Metheny clean sound, closer than my amp alone. and some nice smooth distortion after fiddling around with the controls. The ring modulator hasn't got much use, but is cool for the one-in-a-million times you would use it, after figuring it out. I've been playing for 16 years and except for a crybaby, this is my only pedal i've ever had, so its a lot of fun, but for gigging...?
OVERALL-for practice w/headphones 10/10; w/out headphones 7/10

so far so good--but it stays in one spot and the cables are never removed. I prefer to have two extra cables and remove the cables at the amp and guitar end. Not sure if I would gig with it, I have to hear the Wah with an "expression" pedal first.

never tried to contact them.

Good for: distorted blues sound, can edit for some nice clean sounds, only problem is too much delay in the doubling and pitch effects. Not enough depth in the tremolo. overall, its fun to play with, and is good for practising or writing.

I have used it for couple of years now so I'm pretty familiar with it however any of my friends who try and fiddle with it give up pretty quick. I think a good read of the manual (as is the case with most things) should get you on your way. When I first got it I found I really only used a couple of the factory presets but its really quite programmable. If you lose the manual the website provides a printable version.

Guitars consist of a 25 year old Hondo II (Strat Copy) with Dimarzio pickups, 1964 Eko 12 String, Epiphone Les Paul (Soon to receive a set of Seymour Duncans) through a EH smallstone phaser into the Zoom 505II and An Ibanez PDD-1 Programmable Delay which runs stereo into my a 50W Mid Sixties Jansen Solid-State 2X12 Combo. Certain effects better suit clean sounds others like it dirty. I was having lots of trouble with noise till I went & got a set of lifeline cables. I dont like to rely too much on the ZNR as it seems to affect sustain on the higher settings...its almost mandatory though if you are into metal/high gain settings, and even then the noise is only when you're not playing. Is invaluable as a headphone practice tool for late night noodling. I think the best results are achieved when you realise that this is a STEREO unit (try it into a HiFi stereo you'll see what I mean) this is when the unit shines because you can layer effects on top of each other and create some quite ethereal effects in stereo (Hint: Try programming some patches with headphones after a night on Mood Enhancing drugs HEHEHEHE....funnnnn) Most effects are best when used with subtlety unless your as into warped sounds as I am. I use most effects except for the tremelo and reverbs (I have a spring reverb and tremelo built into my amp....think surf rock deep and sproingy) Delay only for getting odd repeats in between the ones from my PDD-1 and the overdrive/distortions are extremely versatile if you take the time to work the EQ to what suits your guitar and amp.

Ive NEVER had a problem in 2-3 years of owning it. Plastic seems to put a lot of people off but then again you can pay big money for solid metal boxes with crap switches built into them so.....I have big feet and heavy shoes and its stood up to them just fine. Its also been dropped a few times with no problems. I wish I could say the same about the expression pedal though....come on Zoom its only hinged on ONE SIDE!!!!!???????? I think I might be able to fashion something out of a volume pedal or the like if it breaks.

Never dealt with anyone in customer services...I did however find it relatively easy to go on their website and reprint a manual (Mine wound up covered in coffee......) I doubt I'd buy another if it was stolen because my playing has advanced enough to justify paying more for boss/EH effects anyway. And as for getting it repaired I think Id be lucky.............

Well Ive played since I was 10 (Now 23) Got my first electric at 16 but didnt really get into effects till I was 19. Im into a huge range of music lots of 60s and 70s Rock (Think Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Beatles) but also Grunge (Nirvana, Soundgarden) and more recently Bands like Tool and Queens of the Stoneage also New Zealnd has a couple of really good Prog/Art Rock bands I really like (HDU and Jakob). I think that the 505II is a good tool for someone to learn how effects interact and how they affect your playing style. Sure its not rack quality effects but how many musos can afford that kinda gear when they're young or starting out? Its best to recognise it as a bargain for what its capable of. Ive definitely grown as a player since getting this thing while I read a lot of people on here bitching about it...maybe a bit of patience would help??? Either that or its not what you should have taken home from the store.....

I didn't get any instructions when I was given this, but as I'm used to effects chains from the stuidio and gigging, it was fairly straight forward to use.

I switch between a Les Paul, Strat and BC Rich Virgin and find that some pre-set effects sound pretty lost unless you tweak with the EQ.
Some effects are just plain stupid and unusable, but the distortion pre-sets aren't too bad.

I wouldn't use this during a gig because of the limitations of effects and having to change effects on this can be a pain in the ass/foot if you're not quick enough. The casing could do with being stronger and less resembling to tin foil. It wouldn't fair too well if it was dropped onto a hard floor, I'd imagine.

Never contacted.

I had this given to me over 2 years and find it's good for practise, but I'd rather be using my Crybaby wah instead of the poor excuses found on this. Zoom have always made fairy good budget practise boards and this is better than average. More pre-amp settings and a proper fuzz effect would be beneficial to some, but get rid of the ringing modulators and 'zoom' effects.

Read the manual once and started to create my own settings, with the knob it's great for beginners.

Bought it in August 2003 after 10 years of not playing, needed something with versatility (i had no more accessories) Now that I use a Marshall Valvestate S80, I just can't use it anymore because it sounds like crap! Big humming!

No problem here!

N/A

Again, great for beginners or pratice at own only! Not for gig. I'm looking to buy a multi effects unit instead, like a BOOS GT-5 or 6 or even a rackmouny GX-700. Any sellers reading! Contact me.

This is an update for my original review dated 11/8/2001. The plastic inputs have become a problem. I don't use the thing all that often. Now when I hook it up for delays and modulations only at the end of my chain, it doesn't work. Makes loud humming noises. When I turn the jacks in the inputs it makes terrible noises. I never gigged the thing. I only used it in my bedroom several times a month.

Haven't bothered with it. After 2 1/2 years, it's not worth the time or effort to fight with them over a cheaply designed unit.

If the unit works, it's acceptable for bedroom plug 'n play at best. I would never take it out in public because it'd break.

Time to invest in a decent Boss or MXR delay/modulation pedal.

This thing doesn't cut it

this pedal is very easy to use, sure you do need 2 read the manual otherwise you wont know wot the hell your doin but after that its a great pedal to use its so easy 2 edit patches you just choose the settings and press store. the only problems are that while standing thers no easy way of quickly fliking between patches without going over others. and that the volume goes up 2 full as soon as u turn it off

im using a squire strat and a fender frontman 15g amp wiht this pedal and the first thing i noticed was the feedback was lost as soon as i pluged in the pedal. some of the effects are hard 2 nitice such as the tremlo unless u turn the volume straight up. al 12 unique distortions however are all amazing particually the metal it gives my strat a lovly distorion which i was unable 2 get through my amp.

im yet 2 gig wiht this pedal but im sure that when it came 2 it ,it would hold out fine apart form the difficulty 2 change patches and i wouldnt trust any batery wiht it long life or not i would take a power supply

ive neva had 2 deal with the company but i dont think i ever will need to

i play heavy metal and rock and the 12 distortion models work great wiht this style of music. my fav featrure on this is posibly the crazy weird effects you can make by mixing effects up.

The ZOOm 505.2 is a fairly easy to operate pedal.The manual that comes with it covers every inch of the pedal, to giving definitons on simple words like distortion and giving hints like what the preset effect is good for playing. The only problem i have with it is the + and - buttons arent accsesible when standing

i play a Washburn with a Fender 38 watt amp and it sounds fair.But it is really hard to get a good classic rock sound with it,Me, i love Lynard Skynyrd's style and sound and ive really had a hard time getting that effect.some effects are way to loud and some are way to low.this can be a bit annoying but you can edit it by selecting patch level, overall its ok though

only had it two days.If you are going to do a show HAVE A POWER SUPPLY OTHER THAN BATTERIES!!!!!!!!!

i have been playing for a little over two years and it suits me at the level i am playing now, i would recomend it to any beginner"dont get ripped off like me though"And on the way home, stop at Radioshack
and get a 9 volt adapter for it"may be wise to ask for help and show the associate the product overall it is an must have for guitar players that have 1-3 yrs exp.

IMHO it is quite easy to get a "more-or-less" sound out of this unit. From the start I didn't bother with the factory settings, considering them fairly useless, and I plunged into doing my own settings. I opened the manual, mucked around, and I got the hang of it pretty quickly.

Guitar: Tradition CAB-10T Telecaster clone upgraded with excellent Seymour Duncan STR-1 and STL-1 pickups and a Gotoh bridge; I also have a Gibson Invader but I don't hook it up to this effect: it is way beneath it, frankly.
Amp: Fender DeLuxe 85.
Noisiness: yes, definitely. Pretty much at any setting.
The effects can be ok in that in most cases you can approximate more or less the sound you have in mind by tweaking the different settings. However, you must keep in mind this is NOT A PROFESSIONAL PEDAL by any stretch of the imagination. It's an entry level effect for beginners. Once you accept that, you won't be too p***ed off when you realize just how weak the effects sound compared even to mid-level pedals.
No way will you ever get the sound of your favorite artists, unless your favorite artist is Joe Schmoe-lives-next-door who bought the Zoom 505II a week before you did.
Some effects approach mediocrity better than others (the "acoustic guitar" imitation is truly horrific IMHO), but none are particularly good.

It's made of plastic, it's small and it's not particularly rugged.
However, I've had it for a year now and yes even gigged with it twice, though I've since decided to use it only for practice and composing, never for gigging again.
I have used it on a gig without a backup but only because I'm a poor amateur musician and can't afford a better effect at this time.

Never dealt with them.

OK, look: I bought this pedal a year ago, together with my CAB-10 guitar; it was my first pedal and my first electric guitar, after 30 years of strumming acoustics. Since then, I've learnt a thing or two about what an electric guitar should sound like, and I've realized that this pedal is perfect for what I was: a beginner. The idea is to practice with it until you outgrow it, then give it to your kid brother or to another beginner and get yourself a decent set of effects if you have the mullah.
It won't get stolen, I guarantee it. It may get lost, but I doubt it. It stays in the house pretty much all the time.
I give it a 6 because it's ok for beginners.

This processor is pretty easy to use if you just leave the factory settings as they are. Editing patches is actually a painstaking process which is irritating and time consuming. Editing one particular patch is somewhat easy but there are like 32 patches so it can take some time.

The factory settings are not too good. I only use about 5 settings exactly the way they come from the factory. I like A1-C1-F1 and F2 off the top of my head. Plenty of variations of distortion and overdrive but it lacks clean sounds from the factory.

The plug ins are a little touchy. I have had the thing go off on me while using the adapter. I think it is best to leave your chords plugged into this thing so you don't ruin the inputs. Mine is a touch flaky but overall ok considering it is about 2 years old now.

I think for the $ it is fine. It will give you some ideas. If you want to sample out sounds this is for you. It is not a professional pedal but it is fun. I leave my amp on it's clean setting and use this processor for all of my overdrive and distortion. I think that is it's main strength. I wish that it had a decent acoustic simulation but it doesn't. What do we expect for $50. I would buy another again in a heartbeat.

Good manual, easy to figure it out without the manual as well. Editing is a breeze with the new rotary knob.

It sounds pretty good. I use it mainly for practice in hotel rooms. I am a busy musician and I needed something quick and easy that will get me a few different sounds. I use this with a small Crate GX15 practice amp. I wouldn't consider hooking it up with my main rig that I use at shows. Like I said, I use it at low volumes for writing songs and maintaining my chops. It's perfect for that. I definately would NOT base my entire sound on this unit. It's a little bit noisy, even at low volumes, but the presets are OK, and easy to edit. Some of them are pretty thin and useless but if you screw around long enough, you can get some good tones.

My old 505 worked for years and I doubt there will be any problems with this one. Keep in mind, though, I'm not using it for gigs. Just some demo recording and noodling in the hotel rooms.

Never had a problem.

Well, I play lots of styles and there are a lot of tones to be had with this box. Like I said, I would not use it as my main sound source, but for small situations, it works great. It is by far the best value for a multi-unit that I have seen, all things considered. It's a quick, easy to use box that keeps me focused on guitar rather than realizing how boring a hotel room can be all day long before the gig!!

This is an update on my zoom 505-11 that I have owned for about a year now. I have not really been able to come up with good patches on my own but had better success tweaking the preprogramed patches such as adding a bit more reverb or more noise reduction. Some of the effects leave me wondering how they would fit into the context of a song. The equalizer on this thing is very strange, I don't like it. This thing is a tone sucker indeed as other reviewers mention. Tryng to run one effect with some reverb and leaving everything else off or in nuetral settings sucks the tone from the guitar. The preprogrammed patches sound lively and I don't notice that same problem with the tone. These effects do not sound like studio quality effects to my ears but for the average Joe guitarist not interested in recording they are probably fine for live performances and other plunking around. All in all it was a good investment.

Once I first bought the 505II, it took me awhile to get the hang of getting the best sort of sound I would like out of it. If you want to get the perfection out of it, its going to take you hours, because theres so much choice of sound. And I'm inpatient.

My setup includes an Epiphone Les Paul Standard with a Peavey Rage 158, and the sound is nearlly perfect. A little bit of hissing, but nothing really to complain about. You can very loud on this pedal. The distortion for metal can be very strong, but screws up the sound quality. However all the other tones seem to be fine. My Peavey Rage 158, I put it on clean so it doesn't interfer with the Zoom sound. Ok heres the deal, if you want to play Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Iron Maiden decent metal with a strong sound and good sound quality, the Zoom 505II isn't right for the job, buy a Boss MT-2. If you want to play punk i.e. Offspring, Pennywise, Blink 182, this is it.

I've had this pedal for about a year, and no real problems, until recently the adaptor input at the back, snapped off inside, so I had to solder it back together, and I was lucky it worked. The thing is made out of plastic for crying out loud, do you think it's going to be that reliable? don't think so pal. At gigs your bound to move around, and if u tred on this thing, theres no guarntee its gonna pull through. If your careful it will be ok, but not necessarly ideal for gigs. Boss pedals, you need a steam roller to break em.

When the adaptor broke, I knew that it would cost just as much to buy a new one, then to repair it. And I knew I wouldn't get it back in ages. So i didn't bother, and I have never contacted Zoom.

I play thrash/speed metal i.e Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer, Pantera and its only good for acoustic, and slower type of music. The only good the distortion is used for, is punk music really. You may judge me but I've been playing for about 2 years and has grown ideas for preference. I don't own any other effects yet. My next move will probably be the Boss MT-2, then i want to get a wah pedal. I must admit the Zoom 505II is handy, and it holds a lot of types of sound and i do need it. I loved the fact that it holds all the tones n sounds instead of me goin out and buyin every Boss pedal. I hate the fact that it doesnt have a good metal tone. I was a beginner at the time and this was the practical one that appealed to me. It does help me make music, and I'am going to keep this pedal, because I can't afford to buy every Boss pedal, and I wouldn't get much for it if I part exchanged it.

At first, quite complicated, and it takes a while to get really good sounds out of it, but if u read the manual, you'll be fine...

I love the sound of this pedal! Most of the effects are useless to me, but the lead distortion to me is a killer. Works perfectly with my strat(bridge pup and neck in series, in phase). Adjust the tone, add some compression, maybe a touch of chorus, and instant brain may. May not appeal to every-one, but i love it...

Ive never had a problem with it. Sure, id gig without backup.

Never had to deal with them. Innocent untill proven guilty.

This pedal, as stated above, may not appeal to everyone, but once u master it you can great classic rock tones as well as good modern tones. For the money, you cant beat it.

Easy to edit once you've read the manual. You WILL need to read the manual to understand the effects. I give it an 8, pretty good.

The factory sounds are mostly just ok. Spend time editing and you will get great sounds. My band covers songs by Van Halen, Trower, Ozzy, Clapton, Brian Setzer, Police, etc and I am able to get pretty darn good signature sounds. I run usually humbuckers thru the Zoom and then into a relatively clean amp (i.e. distortion is from the Zoom).

While the sounds are good and completely acceptable for live use, I use other more labor-intensive setups for recording. But it's up to your ears!

It's also fun to use as a headphone amp but you need to tweak it differently for that, for best sound.

I use this without backup all the time, but I'm careful with gear. I worry about someone stepping on the inputs, so I keep it close to the mic stand. Pretty solid, but its still plastic.

Never needed assistance. And that's good.

The convenience and versatility of this pedal are amazing. Battery life is good, lots of effects, solid, reliable, and cheap. I like it so much I bought my brother one. I'd definitely buy another one if this one were lost. Been playing guitar for 35 years. The only thing I miss is the spontenaity of being able to stomp madly on a pedal collection and tweak settings while playing - you won't be doing that with the Zoom! (I guess you *could*, but it's not as easy.)

Wish list: More patch locations. Metal construction. Delay feedback/level controls. Normal EQ controls. A pitch shifter that sounds more in tune. More pitch shifter choices.

Tips: If you are going to play in daylight, make a display shield from a plastic 35mm film can so you can see it. Plan your patch location usage for efficient live use. Use the "doubler" for slapback. Make a paper list of your patches and carry it in case of some kind of reset (never happened to me tho). Carry extra AA's too! The Dura "M3" cells are great.

In this topic is very good. The manual helps a lot, and is simple to configure the patches.

It does the trick... It's not the best distorcion I've heard but it's ok. For beginers can be good, but it's very far from the sound the professionals want.

It's difficult to broke or something like that. In this point of view is very reliable.

Terrible. I wanted buy a expression footswitch and no stores has it. Why they do a jack to connect a footswitch if it does not exist?

Is a effect pedal for beginers. I used it for 3 years. Like I said before, It does the trick. The price is the best. You don't burn your money... but try to avoid cheap things.

Has alot of presets to play straight away but if you want to create your own orginal sound it can take some time. The most annoying thing about this pedal is you have to skip so many patches to get to the next sound definately not recommended for gig's.

Alright for rock and a little metal but overall not a very good sound I ended up selling it and going back to the built in distortion on my amp. Has quite a screeching sound gets on your nerves.

I wouldn't depend on it and I definately wouldn't use it for a gig.

I Didn't have to deal with them.

I play pretty much just metal sometimes a little rock or even some country rarely I have to say I couldn't find a good sound for anything. For home use it would be ok (but still not very exciting) you'd be better off with a boss or an ibanez pedal.

Once you get the idea, it's very easy to use it.
You have 6 directories named by A, B, C, D, E, F,
In each directory you have 6 effects, which makes it a total of 36 effects.
Some of them are repeated, with slight changes of extra reverb, extra gain and shit like that.

You don't have to be much into effect making to create or edit an effect.
Just play with its tunes until you hear a sound which lights your ears and that's it.
However, it would be more effective if you know how to edit patches.

I use a nice Ibanez S270, which suits the pedal just fine,
and a Fender Frontman 15V (I don't know what's wrong with people,
15V is kinda weak for an amp, but on level 3 out of 10, I can blast
the shit out of my neighborhood's windows).

Its noisiness changes according to the pickup setiings.
But I bought a transmitor which goes on the amp's power cabel
and It reduces the annoying static sound.

About the effects themselvs... some of them are nice, and some aren't.
I took the ones who aren't and eddited them. Made myself some nice
distortions and clean sounds and I'm quite happy with it.

I found a website which has Zoom 505 configurations for popular guitar sounds.
For example there's an "...And Justice For All" type distortion.
Or Dimebag Darrel's distortion. It doesn't sound exactly the same, but...
ohh well, at least they tried :)

I've gigged with it several times.
Sounds pretty good on stage. However, I don't use a Marshall which can
deaf the audience, but my Fender Frontman 15V has the clearest sound
which gives me the max good sound out of the pedal.

Thanks to god I didn't have any issues with it.
Except for my mother fucking cables, which get screwed each time I play.
Their contacts got fucked up and I'm too tired to go to the guitar store
and buy some new ones (and those bastars cost much !).

I've tried many many pedals, some were better, some were less.
But I don't know.. it's weird, Zoom 505II has a reputation of a begginer-like pedal
But I'm playing guitar for 5 years now, I'm quite happy with it.
It has everything I need.
I've tried pedals which are in the size of a mother fucking keyboard
and they didn't sound good to me as my Zoom 505II

As with all multi effects pedals, there are a few ways to get it to sound really good, and about a million other ways for it to sound really bad. This is no exception. This pedal is, however, quite easy to use. You definately need the manual to help you through some of the interfaces when editing patches, but it gets prettty simple after awhile. So basically, its easy to set up different patches but hard to know whether what you're doing will create a good sound or not. The only interface thats a bit difficult to understand is the EQ. It's supposed to be a four band EQ, but all you do is set one number from 1-50 and, uh, I guess you'll need the manual to figure that one out.

I play a Samick SG clone, and an Ibanez Talman, usually through a peavey bandit 112 amp. I usually have the amp's EQ setting kept to a minimum. Nothing past 5. I really don't like the reverb on the amp either, but the reverb from the pedal is more than acceptable.

As I've said before, there's a only a few ways to get it to sound good, and a million other ways for it to sound bad. Many of the preset patches are good, but not perfect. You'll definately have to play around with them for awhile to get it right. But when you do, it sounds awesome. With some work, I've been able to emulate the sounds of various artists like The Offspring, Lunachicks, Green Day, the Crowd, Agent Orange, etc.

The distortion settings I like are the MS Drive and Blues. MS Drive is supposed to emulate a British style tube amp. I'm not sure if it really does or not, but it sounds great. The Blues distortion is really cool because you can have it set a couple notches higher than with the other settings and still have no feedback. The Overdrive, Lead, and PVY Drive are okay, but all the rest of the distortion settings are crap. And no matter what setting you use, you probably shouldn't put the Gain past the 22-24 range. (it goes from 1-30) I can usually get perfect distortion even in the 17-19 range.

I don't really use the effects too often except for chorus. The chorus sonds good as long as you don't put it up too high. Thats basically how it is for most of the effects. The Doubling and Pitch Shift effects are cool, but I really don't have a purpose for them.

The noise reduction on this thing is a MUST. I always keep it at 9, which is the highest it goes without getting into AMP simulator mode. The amp simulator, by the way, sounds lilke crap.

The compression setting works good. I usually keep it at a minimum though, or else it starts to affect the EQ. I don't use the auto-wah or the limiter too often.

As for delay/reverb, its pretty much your basic delay/reverb effect.
The delay and echo settings are good. The room reverb is a little better than the hall. To me the hall reverb sounds a bit fake.

The EQ, as I've said, is pretty hard to understand without the manual. For most of my patches, I keep it set some place in the low 40's, or sometimes low 20's. Most everything else gives it way too much treble. There is also a Contour option, which boosts either the high or the low end, depending on if its set positive or negative. (negative 10 to positive 10) I usually set it no higher than negative 6.

This is a pretty reliable pedal. Once during a gig, about six months after I bought it, the input jack began to short out. For awhile after that I had to duct tape the cable in tight to keep it from shorting out onstage. Later I opened it up and re-soldered the whole input jack, and it's been working fine ever since, for over a year now. Some people get a little worried since its made of plastic. I guess I can understand that, but it's really never been a problem.

I've been playing guitar for aobut 3 1/2 years now. I really like this pedal for the style of music I play, but its not so much the pedal as it is the settings I use. I play in an alternative rock band. A little punk, a little grunge, a little progressive, but all things alternative. Except metal. Well there is a bit of metal. You can't escape it. www.mp3.com/venusinfurs if you're interested.
But anyway, I've never used anything different onstage, and this pedal has worked great except for that one time. If it were lost or stolen, I'm not sure what I'd do. I'd probably try to get another 505II. But I might look into getting something different, just for the sake of variety. I'd probably miss the 505II a lot, though.

It's a multi-effects box, so you ahve to spend a lot of time playing around with it, but once you get used to the functionality it is quite easy to do what you want. The manual is concise and pretty well written.

I'm running a solid-body with dual pickups and the sound is quite good through my Peavy amps for most of the effects. The distortion can be noisy, so an external gate might be a good idea if the noise bothers you. I don't notice noise at all while playing. Some of the effects are trendy, but you do hear them used sparingly by professionals if you listen closely. I'm not sure why so many people rate the distortion poorly. I've been able to get any distortion I want from the Zoom, it just takes experimentation. The distortion is rich and multi-tonal; my heavy guitar probably helps this. The chorus and pedal flange are very nice and the reverb functions are excellent.

It's never bombed on me, but I wouldn't use any pedal without a backup.
My only complaint is that the pedals bounce sometimes and skip the patch you're calling (so press them, don't tap).

I've never dealt with Zoom's customer service.

I was using three analog pedals that sounded quite good, but I've replaced them all with the zoom. If I were a semi-pro I'd buy expensive analog pedals, but for the casual player this is a nice effects box at an excellent price.