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.