Zoom 505

It's relatively easy to program. There's a learning curve, but that's true for all push-button programmables.

The manual itself is available online (lost mine long ago.) It's adequate, but not great.

I've been using this (lately) with some vintage tube amps--Ampeg Gemini II, and a Kalamazoo Bass 30 (with guitar.) I play different guitars, from a 70's LP Custom to a mid-90's Ibanez shredder.

I've owned this pedal for years, and had pretty much retired it. All the criticism of the stock sounds, distortion, etc., are well founded. Yes, it can be noisy in some settings. And the FX are limited in adjustablity (this pedal's largest flaw.)

If you want to sound like a metal monster, forget it.

However, now I'm putting this to real use. How? Careful re-programing of the patches. The secret is to start from nothing, then build up minimal layers of FX.

For instance:
Blues distortion-- 4 (30 is max)
ZNR (noise reduction) 5 (9 is max)
EQ -- 27 (0-50, 25 is the center "unchanged" setting)
Hall reverb - 1 (9 is max)

With this setting it kicks *** with the Ampeg, which is mostly clean. Of course, I'm trying to enhance the natural guitar sound, so I have lower expectations for the device.

If you think of the 505 as a simple overdrive pedal with a noise gate...and then realize you can layer on other FX as well (even if they are limited), it's pretty cool.

OK, but it's plastic. The little editing buttons tend to get clogged with dirt and dust. Sometimes they stick.

I don't think it will take a pounding. But for the price, it OK.

I dunno. It was cheap. Zoom is still around, and will gladly sell you a newer, better pedal.

This won't make you a guitar hero. But I'm glad I kept the pedal.

Subtlety was the key. The stock patches are "overkill," and many people don't like them. I don't like them. Maxed, the distortions aren't great. If your amp sucks, this will not save you...

But it really can enhance your sound. Start from zero, then build slowly. It's worth the time.

You sure can't beat the price. I bought mine for $30 new. What could they cost used?

I read the instructions - it took a couple of minutes, and away I went. No problem. It uses presets, so you have to decide which preset is closest to what you're after. Some dials and sliders would offer greater adjustability and "twiddlability", but you wouldn't be able to get this clever little pedal for the price it is if it had these features.

It's ok. If it's sometimes too shrill or middley, adjust the tone on your amp or your guitar (for goodness sake!). It can be a bit noisy, but if most people who buy these cheap little pedals use cheap, badly shielded guitars, cheap leads and cheap amps, of course there's going to be noise. Played with a decent guitar and reasonable leads it's fine. Don't believe the people who blame the noise from their cheap chinese guitars on their processor chain or cables.

I have never, ever, ever had any issues with it. That is after storing it in a damp garage while I was away. I've dropped it, dropped things on it and its never gone wrong. Not bad for a cheap lump of plastic.

N/A

I play loads of stuff from thrash to Van-Halen tapping cheese rock, prog, blues, jazz, samba, folk, slide and have done for over fifteen years. I prefer to use my old westone thunder (1984) and Marshall Master lead combo (1960s / 1970s white edge), Dunlop cry baby, couploe of other bits band bobs.

*Hint
Buy yourself a volume pedal and a splitter cable for the pedal socket and you will double how good this little box is. A little smasher for the price!

this is debatable. sometimes while moving the 505 i accidentally may push one of the edit buttons and have to reach for the manual to sort it. its easy with the manual but a bit tricky if u havnt touched it for a while. switching it on & off doesn't solve it either. you have to press the correct sequence of buttons to sort it.
once u get in the swing of it i think editing is easy. the manual is adequate .. albeit a sheet of folded paper. a small booklet may have been handy .. but then its easier to scan a sheet of paper.

well im a hobbyist. mainly indoor playing using midi for backing tracks. the output of the 505 ive got patched into a Zoom 1201 .. about the same era .. and the results are great. with min chorus and delay on the 505 i can add better fx from the 1201 .. plus i can eq the levels. the 505 has a high output so i can turn the final signal down if im mixing and theres not much amp noise.
my main guitars are Washburn .. dual humbuckers. just purchased a Ibanez S470 & theres no drastic`change in the sound .. different tones but still a solid fat sound.
sometimes a sound may be reminiscent .. but i prefer to get the best sound i can rather than re-create one. those ping-pong / voice / pitch / out of tune type sounds i avoid. a good heavy tone with loads of sustain pleases me and i can get a few variations from this 505.
the audio from this 505 eventually goes thru my mixer and to headphones / amp. i cant really hear this noise that others speak of. there can be some hiss with high level distortion settings .. but i find the gate not too bad. the FQY range (quality)is very good with a high headroom on my 505.

its now almost 10years old. its still working but i have to find a replacement.keep my fingers crossed egh ? ha
so far its been a shear bargain.

not to date

i like lots of styles. i dont think its set to emulate anyone in particular .. but ive a few patches suitable for soloing which i like.

using the cleaner settings .. i must say it helps with some reverb.

i need to replace it as its getting old. ive just bought a RP350 and have to say the 505 blows it away! maybee theres something set wrong or its just faulty .. but im not happy. i dont expect to be able to copy the 505 tones ... in fact something new would be a change .. but the RP350 sounds .. thin - gritty - compressed - low output.

i wish the 505 had a expression pedal fitted. ive got a separate pedal .. but to be honest its too much bother to wire it all up .. & the wires are a pain.

Didn't have that much experience with racks of multi-effects before this so I did initially find it a bit of a work to set all parameters. Once you've done that it is pretty easy. But you can't dial anything playing live. Of course as it it is a multieffect you can preset 30 or something sounds which of course is handy.
The headphone output was pretty useless to me as the sound coming out is so radically different from what you get through and amp

I use a modified Telecaster Custom and a 70's Fender Twin Reverb. Bought this a while after all my other pedals and my amp (Fender75). had been stolen so I couldn't cough up that much money. I was quite satisfied initally but after a while I noticed that this box seriously worsened the sound quality in virtually every setting.
As I nowadays mostly tend to look for effects that allow my guitars original sound to come through this thing is not for me.
I guess you could find one or two useful sounds.

Used it for 5-6 years, haven't failed once.

Haven't dealt with them

Been playing as an amateur for about 25 years.Play mainly rock, reggae and some jazz. The ZOOM was allright for me at a time when I couldn't afford "the real" thing so I guess it could be a useful and cheap alternative for beginners. For my part it has totally put me off multi-effects and digitalized sounds and I have continued to build up my effect chain witha MXR Comp, Ibanez FL301DX flanger, Lovepedal Overdrive, DC Demonizer, Cry Baby Wha, EB Volume pedal.
A few things missing still, but I'll get there...

The unit is labeled clearly enough to where you can figure it out as you go. I hadn't touched this unit in years and I was able to pick it right back up. The effects are easy to sort through and save.

Well, in a word, lousy. The effects are generally alright, but I have very little use for a unit that supplies delay (for instance) without the ability to change how many repeats you get or how long the delay time is.

The presets sound fair, and if you don't mind sticking with what you're given, you can get some halfway decent sounds. For guitar, this is restrictive and severely limiting.

The modulation effects are lacking, again with no true control. The chorus is decent, if a little weak, but the flange is nice and thick. Phase is also weak, and sounds very thin and wimpy.

The distortions were nauseating. Nothing more to say.

The amp simulation is lousy, as well as the acoustic simulator. Compared to today's multi-FX units, this thing is a dinosaur, so I didn't especially expect a real-sounding acoustic emulator. The compressors are surprisingly good, but again a lack of control is the downfall fo this unit. The hallmark of a good amp sim is the ability to hook directly to a mixer and record with some degree of realism, which unfortunately is not the case for the Zoom 505.

The pitch shifting functions are the saving grace on this unit. They're really quite cool, and you get a decent amount of flexability. You can get perfect fifths, octave low, octave high, or octave low and high. I was able to cop a reasonably good 12-string sound out of it, which was neat.

This unit was *just* flexible enough to be used as a vocal processor for live applications. I snagged a couple of good patches for my vocals on a psychedelic folk show I'm doing, so I can't totally knock the unit.

Well, I've had this unit for over 10 years, so I have to commend Zoom on making a good, long-lasting product. It sat on a shelf for the last 7 years, and I pulled it out on a whim the other day. With a new set of batteries, this baby was just fine. Nice work, Zoom.

Never needed 'em. Should say something...

If you don't expect miracles, this unit can be used for very limited applications. All of the effects are decent but totally canned, so their window of application is pretty tiny. However, I liked what I heard on a few of them, so it was worth having.

As I said, I got this unit about 10 years ago, and it's served its purpose for that long. With the number-crunching power of the new multi-FX units (The Digitech RP series in particular), there is not much use for this product, and you'd be much better off going with something else. However, if you can snag this guy in a bargain bin, you may come across one or two presets that tickle your fancy.

Very easy to use, no need for a manual.

You can't get simular sounds of the artist, this is a low cost product.
The excellent thing is that you can use Phaser with Chorus or Flanger. Chorus and Phaser are cool, Flanger is OK, Pith and double mods are catastrophic. Compressor sounds very cool but it also creates loads of ear damaging noise. The distrosions are all ok expect for metal, that one is really crap. DT dist has a cool sound but creates a lot of noise even if you don't play, just like having a electrical problem. Rhytm distorsion is much better then anything i heard in all the multiefects. YOu can play cleans on hi gain things on it. Even with a lot of gain all the noise sounds very warm and valve like. Lead dist is also ok but it sqeells even more then all the others. This unit is impossible to use at koncerts or even rehersals. Can't get good sound with out beeing really NOIZY - this one is for home use only.

It's simple, doesen't create much problems or fails often.
Using this sqeel machine on a gig is a great way to ruin your band chances to make it someday.

This thing is good for beginers. The good thing about it is that oyu can get some really magical sounds combining chorus and phaser.
It doesen't matter what gear you use.
I wish other more expensive multiefects would have a feature with such good rhytm distorsions and a combination of suing chorus and phaser at once.

Quite easy.

This thing sound sucks. Really. The distortions are the worst i've ever heard. the moudulations suck too. the wah has too much trebele boost. the only ok effect is the delay. Sold it..

It's made of plastic. other than that it's fine.

never dealt with them.

this thing can't make one decent sound, and even if you find one - the bypass of this pedal is HORRIBLE, so I won't keep it in the chain even for one song.

Once you get your head around how the various controls work, setting the pedal up for your own patches isn't a problem. The display is a good size, and it's all pretty logical, IMO. The manual is just a sheet of A3, but it covers the basics OK - I guess that says it all, really!

Getting a good sound out of it is pretty easy, unlike some other multiFX I could mention. It's great to use live - set up the patches you want in sensible memory locations relative to each other, and there's next to nothing to go wrong.

I don't generally try to sound like anyone else, but you can get a good range of tones out of this unit that cover most of the bases.

Like most multiFX units I've used, it seems to major on distortion/overdrive FX - but the good news is that some of these are really pretty good, especially if you lay back off maximum on the input. The acoutic emulation may not sound much like a real acoustic, but I've gotten good mileage out of that tone for certain songs with my Strat copy.

Other high points are the modulation FX - chorus is warm and rich, the flanger's well useable, and the phaser will give a slightly thin tone that I find quite attractive.

The pitch mod FX are not particularly useable in a musical sense - the high octave isn't spot-on, which makes things painful, the low octave sounds OK, the fifth etc. settings are better, but limited in practice as it's not an intelligent harmonizer.

The wahs are better than nothing, and I've gigged with them, but there's no real richness there. The cab emulations don't really do what it says on the tin. The gate is not too bad as long as you tweak it right. The echoes are clean and what you'd expect from a digital unit, and the reverbs suit guitar well (they're a bit too "springy" for use on vocals etc., which my 505 has done when patched into a PA in extremis - probably no worse than the built-in reverbs on many an old pub PA out there, though).

Where all the FX except the distortions fall down is their lack of tweakability (which I think was improved in the Mk II version) - but that's the downside of a simple low-cost unit like this.

I've used it with an electro-acoustic and a Strat copy through a variety of amps. With the right amount of tweaking, it did both guitars proud.

A big minus point is that especially with some of the FX, this unit can be NOISY - the gate will help a bit, as will tweaking the amp tone controls. The main culprit seems to be the preamp section - the compressor/limiter is useful, but at the cost of introducing noise right at the start of the FX chain on some settings, and the gain on the distortiomn FX obviously makes this worse. I wouldn't say it's any noisier than the chain of discrete FX pedals you'd have to put together in order to equal it's functions, though! It's OK live generally, but you wouldn't want to record with it (unless you were after seashore-type sound effects, or even the occasional waterfall).

Never really had a problem with it. The big bright LED display eats PP9s, so you probably wouldn't want to rely on battery power for a gig. It's been used without a backup in pub gigs plenty of times, and has survived the odd beer with a shake and a chance to dry out. After about 8 years (I think), the switches and everything else still work fine. With a bit of a clean-up, I could probably pass it off as new.

Never needed it, so no opinion. It was cheap to buy. I suspect it would be cheaper to get another than get someone to repair it.

I play anything from jazz to pop covers to experimental, and have done so for over 30 years.

I bought it as I'd had all my FX pedals and amps ripped off years ago and was broke, so it covered quite a few bases in terms of getting me up and running again for very little money indeed.

It's given me an enormous amount of pleasure over the years, now I look back on it.

I ended up customizing it - if you plug a wah/swell-type pedal connection into the control input on the back, you can control volume, wah and pitch (Zoom sell a pedal for this, but I just rigged up my own with an old broken wah unit). If you rig up an external oscillator and plug it into that input, you then have modulation effects that it lacks - auto-wah, tremolo and vibrato.

In the course of rigging all this up, I discovered that if you short the live control input line to earth, the pedal ramps down then up again over about half a second. So I rigged up my own "electric plectrum" - covered a standard plastic plectrum with tinfoil and took a lead from it to the control signal connector. Provided the strings on the guitar are earthed (they should be), then you have access to plectrum-triggered swell, wah and pitch effects - great fun!

(Disclaimer: You can electrocute yourself playing around with this stuff if you don't know what you're doing - You have been warned! I did this, but that doesn't mean I'm recommending that anyone else do it.)

I now have a PODXT Live, but I think this little Zoom will still see use on those occasions when I want to take along some FX but not the whole rig, especially into situations where gear can come to harm or be ripped off. Funnily enough, although I'm aware that the Live is capable of many more subtleties etc. than the 505, some of the distortion units on the 505 give those on the Live a fair run for their money!

It has character despite its flaws, and it's very cheap for what it can do - what more do you need to know? If it were stiolen or lost, I'm not sure I'd replace it, though - if I was looking for another knockabout unit to take over what will now be its role, I'd probably check out what else is available, or maybe get the Mk II instead. On the other hand, I haven't checked out the second-hand prices for the 505, so just replacing like with like might be a no-brainer.

The Zoom 505 is too easy to use, you can get some good tones out of it but i like analoge better than digital, the patches easy once you look a the manual a few times

well im using a ibanez ex350 through a Marshall MG100DFX, it is a bit noisy at high levels of volume. you can get good eddie van halen tones like 'eruption' and some good metallica tones too

i dont know, iv never used it at a gig only in practice, i would always have a backup if u used it

never needed it

i play rock, hard rock, and metal i have been playing for 5 years now. i own a digitech grunge pedal and a marshall mini amp
Overall Rating - i think it is good but you should go analoge
digital tones are not that good

The Zoom 505 is a poor man's mult-effects pedal. Within this unit is some pretty good stuff. I got mine used and borrowed a manuel from a music shop put it on a copier machine because it has some surprises otherwise. It is FAIRLY easy to edit and get the right sounds out of it. After a little time of use, it becomes easy to edit.

The sound quality of the Zoom 505 is assorted. Some are not very usuable in my opinion. Some are worth the unit alone. My favorites are step!& lead (distortion) It is a second unit to supplement my Digitech multi-processor. I use it with a tranformer (AC) The OD kind of "clippy" the blues too dark, setting the pitch at a certain setting sounds like a 12 string; pretty cool. People talk about finding the holy grail. I think you can take 2 separate units and brands and blend them and find the holy grail sounds and tones.
pretty cool. but with trial and error, baby steps.

I would not gig with the Zoom 505 without a back-up.

In a pedal board, this is worthy to be included for the step phaser alone!! The lead (distortion) really rocks!! The noise reduction ZNR is ok. I do have the FP02 expression pedal and it works well with the pitch bend and wah. The auto-wah is not bad either. I am very tempted to try the G1 made by Zoom. The 32 bit processor. I think the FP02 works with it also.

First let it be known that i am not a touring musician just a humble hobbiest.With that said i had no problems figureing out how to use my zoom505 even though i bought it from a pawn shop with no manual.Editing the patches on it was very simple right off the bat as well as useing the built in tuner,you just press down on both pedals at the same time and blam your there.The zoom505 was a no brainer to learn to use.

I play a lot of metal and rock,from slayer to pink floyd and i can usualy get all the sounds i need out of it.For floyd and the more psycodelic music i like my zoom505 has a flanger,phaser and a cool step feature that sounds very spacey.As far as metal goes i can usualy get most of the distortion sounds i need but not all.I can get a good slayer sound with it using the optional expresion pedal with the wah feature.I use a (B.C.Rich warlock and mockingbird)wich runs through eather my (Digitech Metal master) or my (Digitech Death metal pedal)wich then runs through my zoom505 and into two (Ibanez tone blaster 25 watt amps.All that takes care of the rest of the distortion quite well.Overall the sound quality is pretty good.

So far i've had no real problems with it other than the buttons sticking on it once but a little air in a can fixed that right up.I bought it about five years ago used from a pawn shop and its still going strong to this day. If i had a gig to go to I would be confident in not bringing a backup.The batteries go pretty quick on it but its rare that i use batteries,i normaly have it pluged into my (one spot) plug adapter.I've never had a problem with the pedals when cycling through pathes that i can think of.

I cant say ive ever had to use customer support yet but if you go to zooms website its quite easy to download manuals and other info.Ill give it a five for now.

Like I said before I play alot of metal like slayer,metallica, megadeth,etc and alot of rock pink floyd,black sabbath,etc and the zoom505 is a good match for a lot of diferent styles.Im also in the process of buying a second one for my bass setup wich consists of a (Ibanez soundgear bass)a (Boss v-wah)and a(Fender rumbble 25 watt amp)and at the moment a(zoom506 2 bass efects pedal).The 506 2 has a lot in the way of clean tones but not so much in the distortion department.Im a big fan of Jason newsted and his style of playing wich involvse a lot of cutting distortion through a wah pedal,useing the zoom 505 i already have and my v-wah i can easly pull of anesthesia-pulling teeth,For whom the bell tolls,etc.If this pedal was ever lost,stolen or broken I would definetly buy another,its just worth it.its especialy good for your musician on a budget,you get almost $1,000 worth of pedals and stompboxes for around $50 brand new.It may not be the best multieffects pedal in the world but it works for me.

The ease of use is a bit finicky. Its not as easy to use as my Behringer X V-Amp (and that is hard to get used to when it comes to effects) because of what you have to go through to edit something. Once you get the hang of things, its not bad at all. As any new piece of multi fx gear, it requires you to learn a bit.

The distortion sounds kinda harsh but Im talking digital harsh, not over trebled harsh. Mind you Im talking about the loads of gain settings. Others sounds really nice. One setting on here really livens up the tone and I really like that. Doesn't distort or add much in the way of effects, it just makes a clean guitar even nicer.

I've had it for a few hours and I gotta say, no issues with it so far. Patch switching is easy, big pedals on either side so you dont end up hitting the wrong thing. Also the switching doesn't take that long at all. Not that I would ever use it live because its just something to have fun with. I still run with a Behringer X V-Amp and Im going to pair the two together to see what odd sounds I can get.

I gave it a 6 for customer support (as seen right there). They had the manual online for anyone who happend to buy an old one. I have no complaints or problems to call them up about but if anything happend, Im sure Id open it up and mess around with it like the weird fellow I am. I did trade a ten dollar digeredoo for it anyway.

Could use more features like better floor board support and not just a single pedal switch or expression. It gets different sounds and different sounds have different uses. Overall, its pretty damn fun. If it was stolen, Id beat whoever stole it then steal a piece of his gear as a lesson(of course Id get my 505 back first). As listed, you saw I have the X V-Amp. I play metal and this thing is fine for lots of things other than metal. I love to experiment and thats what this lets me do.

Overall, the reason I got it, I had a digeredoo that I bought for 10 bucks and couldnt play and was offered as a trade for this. Id say I made the right choice.

I got this pedal for about 6 years, it's very easy to use, just u have to read the roadtrip map ( manual ), it's not hard at all, but sometimes you dont know whats is this efect for??? but c'mon if you are looking for a cheap multieffect pedal and its going to be your 1st one, give it a try it wont let you down.

Well, i must be honest as it was my 1st guitar toy, i was amazed of the number of effects that you can make, good solo patches, good acoustics sound, with reverb, delay, flanger...Its true what some people say about high gain distortion, the noisy little buzzzzzzzzzz that the amps spits when you are not playing, that noise....well its not a big deal considering how cheap is this little black machine. Now i got more experience and i realized that now its a toy..not a multi effect processor pedal, why?? cos im playing "muse" and i tried a millions time trying to "clone" matt's effects, with a few y got lucky, but i still can't reach that quality of sound and a 100% match. The 505 still can give a good fight against the new breed of pedals, specially when playing blues, and classic rock!!!

I got mine for about 9 years, still working fine. You just have to treat it good...like any electrical device.

Never tried to contact them, no problems at all

Well...i said that the 505 is great for begginers, and still can be used for more advanced guitar players...Its cheap, it's reliable, a lot of effects to combine, with some practise you can make amazing effects. If its used with the expresion pedal, you can squeeze a little more of it!!!

It was confusing since I found it at a Sam Ash (the same one that repaired my Squier Strat I use with this) w/o manual, but a quick search on Google found the manual. -1 point for being confusing to use w/o manual (Normally I don't need manuals)

I'm using the Squier SE-100 Strat Pack (Squier Affinity Strat and SP-10 amp-rather crummy) and it brings the amp to life! The distortions are good, and the chorus and reverb are what I bought this for. There is an "amp simulator" (don't know what that does) as a bonus. What made me give this a 10 is how it sounded thru cheapo old computer speakers (surprisingly clear).

Considering it's used, and it looks like it's pretty old, it went thru a lot. The buttons seem to stick, though.

This is a good intro to effects for me, a kid who saved up for a simple effect by starving himself to get the money (I also saved for my Squier SE-100 pack that way) It's a good intro to effects for any beginner, for that matter. It also makes a good recording aid. Needless to say I ended my hunger (bad joke) for an effect with this (I didn't need any more money, so I started getting snacks at school again-I didn't eat it!)

This unit was the first of it's kind. The first floor unit with multi-effects. Editing is easy once you play with it a while. One can get the sound they're looking for if you just take your time with it. Sure other units are more user frendly now, but when this unit was designed, it was unique as it had dozens of pedel effects in one box. So use the manual (yes, I agree, it does look like a road map) but it is helpful. Also go to Zoom Cental on the net. There are hundreds of patches others have worked out that you can use. Beware: some are the extreme and just sound like a B-52 bomber on a takeoff roll, but there are some nice patches in that site. Use your own judgement.

Ok, my setup: I play Les Pauls, Strats, and a couple of my own design and making. (I build guitars and amps for fun and profit). Currently I have left the road and no longer gig. So I got rid of all those monster amps and huge wattage units. Now I either run through an 1979 Peavey Backstage 30 that I rebuilt, or through one of my amps that I have made. Either way the wattage never goes beyond 50 watts.
Is it noisy? Sure, anything can hum or sound crummy if you crank it up high enough.
Can I get the sound of my favorite artist? Yes, I can clone any Clapton sound I want. Get the agressive thump of Ted Nugent, Of course. The tone of B.B. King is in there too. Again, you just have to work with it a bit.
Are certain effects good or bad? Well yeah, the higher levels of distortion are pretty poor, but then again I don't go for the "Let's see how loud and offensive we can get" school of thought. All effects are set in a progressive manner where you can pump it up to the point that they sound like junk. Here again, going for the extreme will get you just that. The extreme, but no real tone.
I've read in other reviews that this unit sounds like crap and such. Well think about this...just how many ways are you going to dial in a bunch of distortion? I mean do you really NEED 30 patches of distortion? You're going to forget which one you put where soon and then go on a "patch to patch search" for them. Some folks have said that there's a lag between patches when you shift from one to another. Micro seconds guys. Big woop! My advice is that you set up four really good patches all in the same bank. Then press the EDIT button for a second or two and then simply use that bank for your stuff that you always play. Then you don't have to go jumping around all over the 24 patches in this thing and get lost. So simple.....READ THE MANUAL!!
Over all there are some nice sounds in this box. Some cannot be had simply by design of the effects within. The delay is cool but limited in some respect. The waw waw is generic of course, but functional enough to use. Using the distortion, I mean the one that shows up on the unit as "dt" or Lead "Ld" are great. Others are fair to poor. Reverb is wonderful! It can go from plate to dripping like an old Fender unit.

Reliability. Can you depend on it? Now if you stomp on this enough and really treat it like a "red headed stepchild" as they say here in Texas, you're gonna break it. The case is molded plastic. It can take only so much. Now I've repaired some pedels that were encased in metal that had the switch smashed by some heavy footed folks that just jumped up and down on them and snapping off the knobs in the process. Anything can break if you beat the hell out of it! Treat it like an eletronic instrument that it is and it'll last a long time. Kick it around, jump on it, and generally trash it, and it will break. "Nuff said.
Would I use it on a gig without a backup? Yes, and I have. I've even gone as far as plugging it into the sound board with the band I was with and used the expression pedel for my volume. No amp, just the Zoom 505 for my playing rig with a couple of extra batteries for back up. No amp to lug around. Now how's that for putting all you eggs in one basket? But then again, I don't kick my home stereo or stomp on my CD player either! The 505 has never let me down.

I'm sure that the folks at Zoom are real nice, but I've never had to call them. Never needed repairs.

What style of music I play? Well I'm a bluseman by heart, but I also play classic rock, fusion, jazz, and some metal if it has a decent melody behind it. How long I've been playing? Well let's just say that when I started playing guitar there was no such thing as solid state and tubes were the only thing in our amps. A few decades have passed that I remember. Other gear that I own? No other pedels anymore. The Rats, TS-9's, and Boss effects were either given away, borrowed and never returned, or sold or traded off. All that's left is the Zoom 505 and an expression pedel. I've had this one since I bought it new in the guitar shop that I worked in years ago. If it were stolen? I'd get me another one. I got used to it. Now the guy that steals it will need good insurance as the hospital will ask for it when he's wheeled into E.R., if you get my drift..
I like this unit. It's simple. to the point. Not too many doo-dads to get in the way. In short, IF you know how to tweak it and use it right it will get the job done. If you don't take the time to learn it, you will say its a piece of crap or a piece of shit like some other reviews I've seen here. Bottom line: to each his own.
Anything else I'd like to share? Sure, folks this was a first in its field. No one before made a stompbox with dozens of effects in a floor unit before this. Of course its "outdated" now and is looked upon as a dinosaur these days, but like so many other things I've seen, this little guy will be around a long time and will teach many a young guitar player the joys of effects without having to break his parent's bank account in the process! Use it for what it was intended for. An low cost multi-effects unit that you can have to make your own signature sound or that of others. A great value? You bet!

24 pre set patches which can all be tweaked and stored as new patches.

The editing function is simple enough but limited and can sometimes be frustrating.

If you want you can plug and go with this unit but most of the pre sets are on the "over the top" side to showcase what it can do...not what it should do.

User manual is simple and informative.

Simple large bright easy to read display.

I play Blues....Blues/rock mostly and prefer simple tones. I collect guitars so have a good cross section of fixed neck/bolt on neck humbucking...single coil...hot rail...P90...active/passive...etc.

Main amps are an early Vox V15 2x10 valve combo and an original 1969 Sound City mark 3 custom 100 watt Valve head with matching 4X12 cab with celestion G12 speakers.

As mentioned in other reviews noise can be an issue but I have edited the pre sets and removed most of the unwanted effects leaving patches concisting of simple chorus only...patches with only an E.Q. setting and a hint of hall reverb...mild blues drive with a little delay or reverb...etc. To be honest I dont use a lot of effects so this takes the place of 2 or 3 simple stomp boxes without the hassle of patch leads and the bonus of pre sets. When the 505 is used in this way and the output level set accordingly noise is no longer a problem.

The Thrash type distortion sounds a bit processed and unconvincing but usable...if you like that kind of thing. The Milder gain/distortion types are very good if used in moderation

Reverbs and delays are very good...Chorus is all I will ever need...not into other modulating effects like phase/flange E.Q. is ok but limited.

There is a lag between changing patches but this is nothing major and not as bad as other units

Plastic construction but quite robust...

Never had any reliability issues with it...plug it in ...it works, with either battery or power supply...no crackles from plug sockets.

I would use it for a gig but would want protection for it...to stop input/output jacks getting stood on and broken by enthusiastic singers....god bless em... I would never play without back up

never had any need to contact them regarding any problem with the unit.

Manual went missing some time ago but I got full downloaded manual off their web site no problem.

As an all singing...All dancing box of tricks its well over the hill but as a simple, light easy to use tool to add a little colour and variation to your tone it is very good indeed.

I play for my own enjoyment, and the enjoyment of the neighbours, but I would be prepared to use this in a live situation, probobly with some kind of protection for it though. I use other effects units but keep comming back to this little lad because of the simple honesty of the sound....just makes a great blues sound.

If it was lost/damaged/stolen I would get another asap....E-bay is full of them

You need to read the manual to fully exploit the capabilities of this pedal.

CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! I regret buying this piece of junk.

One of the switches broke after a while. They suck batteries fast. It's made of plastic. Like I said, CRAP!

Haven't dealt with them.

This is my first and last digital processor. I bought it when I was starting out and I didn't listen to my so called "elders" when they said ; "Go analog, buy one pedal at a time, then get a good amp....." But I was young at the time and I said I wanted a piece of gear that had "all of it" in it as I could save more funds. As the saying goes, "When you are young, you are foolish", oh well, I learned my lesson.

I play blues, rock and technical music (I don't want to call it shred). Now, my gear consists of an Ibanez JS900, Marshall AVT50, some Boss Pedals, Dunlop 535Q Wah, Tech21 Sansamp GT2 (I use this when I don't bring my amp) and an Ibanez TS-9. Surely, the 505 can't beat that. Actually, I don't use much of my pedals anymore, except for the 535Q. I just use the dirty channel of my amp and manipulate my guitar's volume knob for the tones I need. When it's time for solos, I use a Boss FV300L through the effects loop. I also have a review of the JS900, check it out.

I've been playing for a couple of years now. So to all of you younglings out there starting out, take my advice: GO ANALOG

You'd be able to save more in the long run.

Yeah this thing is fairly easy to rip into and get started straight away. No worries here.

I find it funny that people are rubbishing the sound quality of this thing!! And complaining about their sound they get at gigs! Lets get it straight, this is not designed to be top of the line equipment, prob not even for gigging (any decent guitarist wouldnt gig with this anyway) I think its best suited to a young beginner guitarist wanting to explore the wonderful world of effects.

And for that purpose and that purpose only, its great! It was my very first taste of effects and I learnt a lot from it. BAck then I thought it sounded great. Yeah!

All good, no worries.

Again I must state that this pedal was not designed for gigging or for recordings etc. I think it is a great first pedal for a young / beginner guitarist wanting to explore the world of effects. i think for this purpose it is a great.

This unit is easy to adjust and there are many free patches available that are much better than the stock settings.

Editing patches is very easy and quick to save.

The manual is very easy to read.

I am using this with a Peavey Bandit 112S and a small Fender amp.

The 505 is far from quiet, but the effects are not to noisy if they are used at low levels. The unit is much better if your amp has an effects loop wher you can plug in a rocktron noise reducer or a Boss.

I was able to get Nirvana, AC/Dc and several other rock tones, I was also able to get some decent blues tones.

I have not had any probles wiht the unit it is sturdy for pastic. I would never gig without a backup (they are cheap so it would be easy to have a backup).

I have never had to contact them.

Overall it is a decent unit and a great value for a good used price. The unit does not compare to a line6 of Boss, but lets be honest it cost much less so lets not compare apples to oranges.

I have been playing for over 15 years and I have used many products so I have a pretty good judgement on products.

If I lost it I would get it again if I could snag one for $20 or less.

The 505 is about as simple as it gets when it comes to multi-effects. I find that the patches are pretty easy to edit, although the tiny buttons on the sides of the unit that adjust the parameters can be hard to mash down, and they tend to stick, causing it to cycle through the intensity rate(drives me nuts!). As far as the manual goes, I bought this when it first came out(95-96) so the thing has long been lost.

I have a Gibson Les Paul Studio, and a Peavey 15-watt transtube practice amp. I sometimes also use this with a mini-marshall half-stack(belt-clip amp). This pedal, as the other reviews have pointed out, is strictly for bedroom practice sessions. Most times I just plug in the headphones, and this is where the 505 sounds best. The amp simulator is good for this application, as it gives you some tightness and heft. The only truly useful distortion settings are the distortion and blues. I never use the acoustic simulator. Metal is the worst. I find the compression to be pretty useful, along with the hall reverb, and setting the chorus to 2 or 3 adds some nice flavor. the octave effects are particularly nice, you can play bombtrack by RAGE and it sounds totally convincing. I would srongly recommend getting a graphic e.q. to put behind this, it will improve the sound tenfold.
The pedal is particularly noisy, and after years of use, it's starting to sound as though it's filtering through a box fan(think Chris Farley doing the Darth vader impression). And keep in mind that all the parameters are fixed. Versatility is not the 505's forte.

The pedal is dependable, but you would have to be suicidal to take this on a gig. There is a lag between patches, which pretty much makes it useless for switching patches in the middle of a song.

I've never had to deal with Zoom, so I couldn't say.

I go from punk to blues to metal to jazz, and this is a good match for all of those. For the money. I've been playing for 8-10 years, and had this pedal for as long as I can remember. I would say it is a top-notch beginners pedal, if you are in the 8th or 9th grade this is perfect. Overall this pedal is less digital-sounding than a Digitech pedal. As much as this pedal has frustrated me over the years with it's limited number of sounds, I still use the little bastard on a weekly basis. I would say 80% of the time I've used simply as a distortion pedal. I wish it came with a built-in expression pedal, but the newer Zooms on the market have this feature, so they obviously figured this out. I have used the 606, and it is a better pedal.

I got this as a gift knowing zero about using it, and had no problems. When I got this, of course, it was a long time ago and I was a lot younger -- honestly, I found ways to use it at the time because it's all I had and I didn't know any better. Is it easy to use? Yes. But now after years of using better FX tools, most any of which are both more advanced AND easier to set and get to work, this 505 ZOOM is pretty clumsy and toy-like in comparison.

My biggest complaint is that the parameters can be very interactive, so if you care about fine tuning it, then you will have to adjust, scroll, tap, tap, scroll, tweak, tap, tap, scroll, tap, tweak and then start over at the top because everything's related, etc etc...

So it's hardly ideal, but still easy, just not recommended for obsessives, or the impatient.

Yep it's certainly can get hissy! Honestly, you can get some nice tones out of this thing, but like I said it takes a bit of tweaking, mostly turning down or off a lot of the presets. Compression, EQ, Distortion, "AMP" and Reverb... all these things, added to each other, can get noisy (even with other company's products), so you're best knocking everything down to zero and reading the manual at least once carefully (for example, I misunderstood the EQ part at first which made it sound awful).

Anyway, the payoff of this pedal is that it packs a good bit of effects into a little package, so you get a a sort of swiss army noise-maker without a lot of investment, money nor time.

Pretty digital too, but a creative user will find plenty of to explore.

Amazingly, still with me after 7 (?) years I think.

Seems cheap, but mine has lasted a lot of wear and tear.

I wouldn't "depend on it" but I don't "depend" on any effect.

Plastic but still kicking.

Nah never wrote/called.

I love experimenting. I care about tone, a lot, but I'm no $4000 10-watt boutique amp obsessive that only plays Fulltone clones. As variety is the spice of life, this pedal remains a great thing to have around.

The don't make these anymore, but they make very similar things. I guess if they ever make a newer version of substantial difference, I'd probably get one. Although the old school digital flavor has probably been improved on, whether that's good or bad depends on you.

Not great, but cheap and fun.

No processor is without the hassle of menuing or scrolling. Even the digital Boss stuff you have to move their pots back to zero and then, back up to where you want that particular parameter at but, the ZOOM 505 is pretty damn easy to manuipulate. Even somewhat on the fly. Yes there are effects on it that absolutely suck and those in which you will never use but, believe it or not, there are some killer sounds in that grey box. I mean considering what we paid for it there is some bang for the buck. The road map style manual is shit. I think you have to move up to a different model to upgrade it. I don't care what others say about it, I like it. It does work for me in ceratin situations. Is it as great as a ToneBone or a Hot Cake? No way.

OK, MY trick to using this box is like this. Guitar> Zoom 505 > split the output. One leg to tuner to keep the tuner from degrading your tone. The other leg to a MXR Micro Amp > DOD FX40 EQ > Electro Harmonix LPB 2UBE tube preamp > Tech 21 Power Engine 60 amp. You will not believe how that E.H. box warms up cold digital signals. It alone is the key to getting a nice tubey sound out of the 505 or any other device you have that is cold, hard or impersonal. If your a high gainer or a metal head I would definately suggest linking it into a Boss NS-2 noise suppressor using the effects loop provided on that pedal. On the Zoom 505, the EQ's are preset in stages. Some of them sound the same. Some sound muddy. Therefore it is necessary to use a separate EQ as I have outlined with this pedal. The MXR micro amp is
ALWAY a pleasent user friendly boosting device in any setup. I can get nice crunches on the Blues drive even around gain levels 5 to 8. I can get a nice 12 string sound setting the Chorus on 3 with a Hall Reverb at 2. (Watch out Roger McGuinn). There is even a convincing auto wah in there that I can do Frampton's talk box lead on in "Show Me The Way". What I don't like about it is that you can't have delay and reverb on the same patch. It's one or the other.

Has never ever failed me. Mine is old faithful.

Never needed them. I don't know. I think they just recently replaced it with something called a G2. I doubt you could get one fixed. They are probably throw-aways like cheap Samsung and Sanyo stuff. You can get Zoom 505's for a song on www.ebay.com.

I play classic rock. In tight club setups I can use this device as outlined above by splitting the Electro Harmonix preamp pedal output. Sending one leg to the PA mixing board, the other to a small Fender 1270P monitor on a raised stand (so I can hear what I'm doing). I control my volume, the sound guy controls my front of hall volume. I don't need an amplifier. There is an amplifier simulator in the 505.
I have too much stuff to list. The one who dies with the most toys better leave a freakin' will.

Anything digital is easy to use for me, but I believe noone should have any problem using it.

I use Fender Frontman 15g amp. Sound quality is very personal category, so I will not rate it. You can create so many differrent sounds with this device, so I believe there is something for everyone. Maybe it sounds a little bit too "computerized" sometimes, but I personally like that kind of sound.

I have it for almost a year now, (on power-adapter, not batteries), and did not have single problem. I play guitar several times per week, and every time I go through many sounds on Zoom.
Frankly, the only problem was when I pulled the connector out with my leg and Zoom lost power :-)

Did not need it.

I play mainly rock/blues/metal. I sure would look to buy it again. Sometimes sequencial switch from sound "A1" to sound let's say "C3" can take several seconds (A1 -> A2 -> A3 -> A4 -> B1 -> etc :-), but with additional pedal you can quickly switch banks (A -> B -> C, ...).

Incredibly easy to use.
Was the very first processor of it's kind.

Manual was great but of this giant unfolding map style format that sucked.

Digital chips degrade.
I've heard it claimed that they don't, they just die at once but I notice a drastic difference in performance with mine from when I first got it and also in comparison to newer ones.
It sounds awful!!

When I first got it though, it was great. There is no doubt in my mind the quality degraded because I returned a high end, real tube gain, amp simulating rack mount digital processor with every goodie imagineable which was replaced by this unit and ultimately a simple zoom rack mount processor add on.

After about 3-4 years, there was a very noticeable loss of quality. It got next to no use after that. After getting back into playing and having my head repaired, I decided to try use it again. Man the quality had degraded even more. I used it for like 6 months and the sound literally got oozier week by week until I scrapped it.

It is a silicon chip that gets subjected to heat. Funny that the sound actually became oozy from the silicon gelling up and deteriorating from the heat.

Anyway, no reason to buy one cept if you collect old useless crap, lol.
I'm dumbfounded how much they sell for on Ebay.

VERY RELIABLE

It's 10 years old and still works fine!

eh, dunno

Awesome processor for it's time. It started the revolution. Within a couple months companies like Art and Digitech released these massive floor processors that looked absolutely amazing and sounded a lot better than this thing.
....Something about the 18 bit processors of that time. I think they had the overbearing midrange issue of digital balanced out. Something most companies are failing to do these days with their improved 24 bit processing.

This thing did start it all though and with a good muscley amp it took care of business.

ZOOM is still making the best floor units on the market. Soon I'll grab the Zoom G2 which is everything I've been waiting for from them for the last year or two.

My final opinion.
Great processor in it's day but now a total dinosaur. Put it to rest in your music memorabelia room or something.

Very easy to use if you are not going to treak individual effect modules.
Jumping here and there definitely needs the special technique from the manual. Are you interested to step 12 times to go from A1 to C2?

Frankly the sounds are not bad to me at all for the price I paid. The distortion is very "solid state" but acceptable.
The chorus and flanger and delay levels etc are quantized, so you will not be satisfied if you are too interested in turning knobs for 2.5 degree for a tiny trewking.
The acoustic simulator preset could hardly be said as good, but sounds alike actually.
The floor noisy on high distortion is the only concern while bringing it on stage.

Many many users critize the plastic shell of the 505. But does it really matter if it gives you everything you need to protect the stuff inside?
As mentioned before it's good enough for practicing and small studio, but not reliable enough for gigging because of the noise level.
Backup is nothing to me as I seldom do the customized set up.

Their website keep everything you need for years just for this old cheap model. Who could ask for more?
Never called CS or asked for repair. Hard to comment on this.

I play mainly pop rock and blues. As a man just playing for hobby, I believe this small and low-price toy is good and funny enough to keep me entertained for years.
The Synth-like sounds are not useful at all, but funny and inspiring enough for me to come up with some new ideas in making music.

I bought this effect unit 7 years ago, still very unexperienced with effects and that kind of stuff.
Still after reading the manual and trying out a few things I got on very well with the 505 so it can't be very difficult to use.
From the point of view I'm having now, being used to much more complex machines, I can only say that the 505 is VERY EASY TO USE.

I've used my 505 with various guitars, mostly with an Ibanez Ergodyne.
Sometimes I used it with a small Marshall Valvestate Combo (V30R) but most of the time I didn't use an amp at all, plugging it directly into a recorder for recording, using the phones out or even plugging it into the aux in of my stereo.
The clean sounds are okay, even quite good if you consider the price of this little thing. Chorus, flanger etc. are okay and with the pitch shifter and harmonizer effects (and an expression pedal connected) you can do some pretty cool stuff that sounds quite good.
However, the distortion sounds are aweful!
You'd rather not use the 505 for high-gain sounds.
It's okay for playing around a bit, but the distorted sounds never worked with any setup I tried.
But as long as you keep it clean, the 505 doesn't sound that bad, although, compared to what I'm used to nowadays, this isn't much more than a toy.
But I got to say that I'm still using this 'toy' from time to time and I'm still having fun with it.

For years I didn't have any problems.
After 4-5 years there was something wrong with the power supply via battery.
But I think the reliability of this thing is really okay.

The Zoom 505 is a nice little and very affordable toy.
I you have never used multi-effect units and want to start slowly or if you just want to play around with a few weird sounds or so you should try the 505.
If you're looking for something to use seriously or if you're looking for a good distortion sound this isn't the right thing for you.

very easy to use

like all poducts i tried an worked with from zoom, this pedal also offers a lot of functions for less money. for starters or for people who are looking for a little box they can carry around (to the beach, while you?re sitting on the toilet) to play guitar with common effects, it?s a nice box. if you?re looking for performable and recordeable sounds - beware. this box is (like every product from zoom) just a piece of shit made from 100% plastic. you get 100% plastic sounds. do yourself a favour - don?t buy this or other gear from zoom. i?m always disappointed from zoom shit. get good stuff for cheap - don?t buy cheap stuff - one day you?ll have to get rid of it!!!

not useable forlive- not useable for recordings.

don?t know.

forget this piece of crap.
don?t buy zoom shit!!
it?s cheap - yes!
it?s worse - yes!

It's pretty easy to mess around with the sound and then save your own combinations of effects.

Very noisy, and the range of tone you get from the effects is pretty lousy. Very digital sounding.

A plastic piece of crap. Has got noisier and noisier since I bought it and now it's pretty unusable.

Have not dealt with Zoom and don't intend to. It's a cheap product, and will probably be used simlpy for messing around with noise.

This is quite a fun toy as a first effects pedal, but nothing more. Once you start really exploring each effect you realise you need much more than this thing has to offer. It served me well when I started messing around with effects about 5 years ago, but on the whole the effects sound poor. But for such a cheap, compact unit, what do you expect?

It's pretty easy to get a variety of sounds, labeled from "a" to "f" and "1" to "4" on each letter, so at least 24 sounds not including custom ones. I've never edited patches, it looks intimidating- although it does have lighted LEDs for WHAT effect you are using at the time(reverb, chorus, flanger, etc). Manual?- well, it's pretty descriptive but I like the papers I received that were downloaded and nickname the effect, which letter/number it is, and a brief description. It does have a button to skip letters which helps speed up navigating very well. I just stomp it until I get the sound I feel like monkeying around with.

I have used it with a Dean Markley K20 practice amp and it totally brings it to life, as this amp has no reverb and sounds very cold(besides that it's solid state/cold enough). I cannot STRESS how much you NEED a combined effects pedal if all you have is a basic practice amp. It's cheaper than buying a big amp and will motivate you back into playing harder. I also use it on my big amp, a Crate Tube Drive TD50C but don't use it as often because the Crate has chorus and soaking wet reverb and a nice warm tube overdrive so why comprimise my amp's clean tone? I like the range of sounds it makes, it has at least 4 different overdrives, an auto-wah, 3 different choruses, and at least 2 reverbs, and even an acoustic guitar mimic function. I am not so ear-tuned to find sounds of different artist. You can most probably find any sound you are looking for- the tunability OF that sound?- I don't know, I leave it like it is. The main GRIPE I have is that it goes from low to noisy loud depending on the effect you click on, so BE prepared to lower the volume on your guitar. I guess this is normal though, every effect is combing the sound in different ways and different ends of the pitch. Oh, by the way, I play at home, or the finding a selection at a live gig or getting a fistfull of feedback because you didn't turn the volume down on the guitar before you clicked the next effect could get a tomato thrown at you.

Seems reliable but it's plastic, so don't treat it like a battered spouse, treat it like a newborn baby or YOU might be the one crying. I've been having mine over 5 years and it was second hand when I got it. Even the LED display still works. Unplug the battery though just to be safe. It will however auto turn off if you unplug the output to the guitar from the pedal.

No experience, never broke.

I play rock, a few oldies, Clapton, Otis Redding, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, and whatever else I can figure out. I've played for 20 years but as a novice hobbyist, never live. I'd probably get another or consider the same Line 6 multi-effects pod that the guy I bought the Zoom from bought when he sold the Zoom to me. That even has different amp models, as well as the SansAmp multi-effects pedal.

Using the 505 is fairly simple once you've read the basics of the manual. Its not the sort of kit that you can just plug in the day you get it and start strumming away - twisting a few knobs here and there. Oh no - you need to work out how the thing works first.

I use a 100W Marshall valvestate amp.
The sound quality is my main gripe with this thing. Really poor and destroys the tone. The distortion/gain effects are nothing other than appalling, and wouldnt even come close to the quality of a Boss pedal for example. If i use the thing (which is rare nowadays) i bypass the gain features and use the amplifiers own gain channel instead which is miles better.

To be fair, -its reliable and has never done anything out of turn since i've had it.
On the other hand, -because the sound is so bad, -i rarely use it, so my opinion here is hardly reliable.

I play rock/funk/blues music. Have been playing for about 15 years.
If it got lost, i'd not even notice.
If it got stolen, i'd laugh.
Does anyone want it? - No? -i thought not.

With in an hour of getting it home, I have the sound I was looking for. Editing presets is a breaze, manual ( downloaded ) give the gist of how to use the pedal.

Ibanez Rx - Peavy Audition Plus
I am not hearing the hiss that others are saying prob cause I just use a little amp.
I am liking a few of the presets but they are there just as an example I am figuring and I have already filled f1-4 with my own sounds and they are the way I want them.

While not of course as good as the boss stomp boxes that I have had experience with this fx unit is a nice little accessory.

So far after a couple of days I havnt had a problem, no gigs in the near future for me, while I have been playing guitar for 18 years, I do not play professionaly, so this little puppy is good for what I use it for.

no contact

For what I am guessing this pedal is for ( home bedroom use ) this pedal is a great value, I saw one at teh music store used for $100 Can and I paid $31 can including shipping I say I got a good deal.

Its a small pedal when compared to other multi-effect pedals. Once you play with and get the hang out its very easy to use and fun. The manual that came with it did its job and that was give all the basic understandings of the pedal. Its good for a beginner in the multi-effect pedal area.

I have used this pedal with many guitars, it has always worked well for me. It has covered up bad sounds of cheap guitars, and added some new tones to nicer guitars. Some effects are weak when compared to the quality of a single effect pedal ( ex. boss pedals). The chorus & flanger could have much more range. The distortion isnt the greatest but it can be tweaked to sound pretty damn good. I have used this through small 15 watt amps and larger 100 watt marshalls and sounds good in my opinion. You can in many cases clone your favortie artists sounds with this, but dont expect it to be perfect.It isnt very good for recording at all, it can have static noise and reduces the overall quality of your sound.Its fun to practice with but I would depend on it for a live show.

I depend on this pedal for practice in my room and with music buddies to play with. And for that its been very reliable. The biggest drawback is having to cycle through with a bunch of taps to either of the 2 pedals to get to a certain sound you want, making it useless at a gig if you have more then 2 sounds in a song. However , for instance if all your doing is going from "clean to distortion" or something of a one two switch, then it can be done. Its only plastic so you dont want go stomping on this thing with your boots adn crush it. I have had mine for at least 4 years and I have enjoyed it very much and it remains 100% working condition as it was when I first got it.

N/A

If you want a multi effect pedal that can be found for a fairly decent price nowadays and its fun for messing around with for room playing then give it a shot. There better units out there and this model is rather old compared to whats been coming out but untill I aquire something better I will continue to use it. I wish it had more effects. I also wish some of the effects on it could be stretched even further. It has helped me enjoy playing guitar everytime I play by myself and I do rely on it for creating new sounds to experiment with or to clone an artists sound so I can along. If it was stolen.... I would probaly just get a newer pedal thats out there, maybe give Digi-tech a try.

Insanely difficult to customize patches. 4 buttons is not enough. Most of the effects are not adequately customizeable.

Quiet. But limited.

Individual effects are mediocre. This is a toy, not a real guitar effect unit.

The sample rate is actually low on this unit. I really noticed this when I compared it with a really good multi-effects unit like the GT-6. Guitar amps tend to kill high-end, so you may not notice it at first.

As an example, you cannot set the rate of the chorus or flanger or delay continuously, but only select from 10 different pre-selected rates (most of which aren't realistically usable). These effects have distinct sweetspots that produce characteristic sounds. Whether the detuned tones of a particular chorus setting are audible or not is a function of rate*depth. The limited number of rate and depth settings mean that, in practice, there's only one usable chorus setting (maybe two or three, but you get the point).

Not exactly built like a tank. Unlike boss pedals which will probably survive as long as cockraoches survive, this one will probably survive for a few years at most.

n/a

Much much better than the Digitech stomp boxes (which are comparable in price, but even more limited).

A nice way to get a sense of what various effects do, in a limited sort of way. But, if you buy this unit you should consider it nothing more than a stopping point along the way to buying real effects.

You should buy this unit with the knowledge that you will throw it away once you know enough about effects pedals to want to buy good ones.

I'm not crazy about devices that try to get many functions out of a minimal number of buttons, but this one makes a good job of it. I had to look up a couple of things in the manual, and after that everything was self-explanatory.

I have an old Kustom K-200 and a little Peavey club amp, and the 505 adds a nice element of fullness. The unit itself doesn't seem noisy, but when you add enough compression and gain then you start really hearing unwanted sympathetic vibrations in the guitar.
The distortion is easy to modulate, but it doesn't give you that juicy, throaty Clapton/Bluesbreakers sound.
If you turn any of the effects all the way up it sounds ridiculous. The equalizer isn't great, and the amp models appear to do very little. On the other hand the flange sounds very good, and some of the reverb settings are much better than the reverb on my amplifier.

Mine is already broken after very little use, but I got it used and I don't know how the first owner treated it.
If I were playing in public regularly I'd have a different effects box, mostly so I could get the distortion I want. In that situation I think that the 505 wouldn't be a bad backup.

The company responds promptly to e-mail, and they answer their phone. Then they tell you that there's a one-year warranty, and they quote you a price on labor. I'd be happier if the 505 had a lifetime warranty like a Skagen watch, but I really can't fault the company.

I play blues and a little classic rock, but mostly I'm just practicing by myself and waiting to get called as an emergency replacement for Joe Kubek or Tinsley Ellis. It's not stolen or lost, but it is broken, and if I can't fix it I might very well buy another one. If I ever get the chance to compare effects boxes I'd be very interested in the different distortion sounds. For the price and for my purposes it would be close to perfect if it were still working.

There will be a learning curve, so sit down with it and play around with the preset patches until you think it sounds better. I own both the 505 and 510, so I picked up pretty quick.

The 505 can do anything from clean with chorus/reverb/delay to smooth slight overdriven to all out smash your nuts with a hammer! Though the 505 is a great little processor, tuning, tweaking amp settings and a separate EQ may be required! The distortions are great although the Acoustic sim is a bit weak. The chorus, flange and reverbs are pretty good. The delay could be a bit stronger but thats why I use a separate delay unit. The EQ is setup a bit strange so I use my Boss GE-7 and turn off the EQ on the 505 entirely.

It is plastic, gig without backup at own risk! But other than that, the inner workings seem pretty solid.

Never needed

The Zoom 505 does alot of things from one little unit. I haven't tried anything but Zoom processors so I can't say it's better or inferior to anything else out there. Every processor has their selling points and their downsides. If you're just starting out and want a nice processor to toy around with. Do research by reading reviews here at Harmony-Central and go with your guts. Thats what I've done.

Once you've got your head around editing one patch, you can edit them all in the same way, so not much of a learning curve there. Manual is good as manuals go, but surely they're for putting to one side?!

This was my first effects unit (on to stomp boxes now), so I was running it through a '1st' guitar and amp set-up. This isn't a unit for running mid to high-end gear through, so assuming it's a starter effects box, the sound quality is ok, if a little too digital. It's not going to match your favourite artist's overdrive sound or WAH'ed up solo though. In terms of noise, again, the digital nature comes through and it has a tendencey to hiss.

I used it for bedroom / small room practice only, and it never failed me. A little battery hungry perhaps, but addition of power supply didn't alter noise levels or anything like that so use it where you can. Wouldn't gig with it personally (bigger sound systems will only show up the inefficiencies of it more).

Never had to deal with them. Heard good things about Zoom in general though.

This is really a beginners all-in-one effects unit, best suited to bedroom or practice room use. These days, it's a great cheap way to learn about different kinds of effects before you (inevitably) decide upon the higher quality effects you actually want in your set-up. Because of this assumption that it's a beginners piece of kit, I give it a good overall rating.

This is the original Zoom 505 so theres a little less features compared to what they got now.Very easy to use pedal as I'm not much of a tweaker guy I like playing instead of wasting time trying to get a sound.I think theres something very wrong when it takes weeks and months to get good sounds out of somethign you should be able to get something good the first day or 2,and from their tweak it precisely as you play to perfect the sound you want.

I use a Peavey Bandit 112 and Yamaha/Ibanez guitars and play mostly heavy/death metal but a decent amount of clean stuff too.It seems everyone doesnt like this pedal too much but I think it's better then what its given credit for.Although far from a great pedal it is usable for most situations,I've even used it in recording with great results.Now for live thats another story,its quite trebly and digital sounding and doesnt sound too good overall although I keep it as a backup now.For practice this little thing is handy,easy to use and small.The compressor/limiter is ok,drives are mostly crap(especially the fuzz and metal ones uhhh)but the overdrive and lead are ok,as for the distortion(dist)I think this is the only reason I keep it as this is a brutal distortion thats great for the stuff I play.One thing which I agree with everyone and its hard to deny this thing is noisy no doubt about it.Eq is not really good as its only a boost for certain areas and the noise gate is a joke.reverbs are pretty good for a cheap multi fx,especially the hall,rest of the effects are ok,nothing I would use other then to mess around(why do companies still make auto wahs in multi fx are beyond my comprehension)

Although it is only made of plastic I never had problems with it at all,I used it to gig in my early band days and it stood up well but I had many friends who had some and they all broke down so maybe I was lucky.I wouldnt be aggressive with it though.Buttons on the side to edit get sticky which is annoying but thats not a big deal.As for playing without a backup,not a good idea ever so always make sure you got something to cover your ass incase something goes bad.

Never needed it so no rating for customer support

Overall I don't think it's that great a pedal,but for someone just starting to play like when I got it and great sounds isn't a issue it's one of the only multi fx for this cheap and makes a good upgrade when you can't afford expensive amps or pedals.I use a Digitech Rp2000 now which is a great pedal to use,so I would think the Rp50 and Rp100 for the price would be pretty good probably better then the Zoom I got,but I haven't tried the new Zooms and I've heard they've improved considerably.As I've mentioned before,you can use these in band/live situations but I would highly recommend getting something better in that case or a better amp.For practice though Zoom pedals are great solutions if you don't feel like paying big bucks for Line 6,Boss or higher end Digitech

easy to use.
bobo lang talaga mga kano kaya nahihirapan.

all factroy settings are lousy.

EDIT THE PATCHES. do not use more than 2 fx per patch. it will eat up your tone and will make it hiss a lot. why do some people use all the fx at the same time?? thats crazy.

the distortion is bad
the auto wah sounds bad
the modulation fx are ok.
the tuner is ok
avoid using the amp sim

ANG PROBLEMA KASI SA IBA, PINAGHAHALO YUNG LAHAT NG FX SA ISANG SETTING. KAYA SOBRANG INGAY.

never failed on a gig. no back up.

PARE WAG LANG SADYANG SIRAIN, HINDI TO MASISIRA. DIBA??

never dealt with them

ive been playing for 13 years now. im into hard rock and metal. i only use the 505's tuner, chorus and flanger . i get my distortion sound from my boss ds 1 linked to a danelectro eq. the 505 is a very versatile gadget for its price, but i really hope you guys improve the distortion selection.

NO DIGITAL FX CAN MATCH THE SOUND OF AN ANALOG

The pedal is fairly easy to use once youve practiced the editing, getting a good sound takes quite a while. The only thing i like about it its that it has no preprogrammed patches that cannot be edited so if im in A1 i can co to F4 (the last patch) and edit it, i use this pedal mostly for the reverb and the modulation effects.

Here is my complain, this pedal is based on presets for everything, so you have no control for the chorus rate depth or anything at all, you have to stick to using 9 presets it has already programmed. The pedal is noisy has a lot of hiss and it seems to be conflicting with a distortion pedal i have because it creates digital noise (a disgusting blobbling sound ) when the dist is on instead of the normal hum, if you step on it tooo hard the input jacks become crakly , overal the sound is a piece of crap.

Even its made of plastic it has stood up to 6 years of practice and live gigs (didnt have the money to buy all the effects apart) so i guess it is realiable and i have gigged many many times without a backup even on the worst conditions (rain)

Never dealt with them

With the advent of other digital multifx like the Digitech Rp 50 and other, this unit is basically useless, and even the 505II is not worth the money ( the 20-bit depth is just not enough when for a little more you get 24 bit and much more efx), personally im dropping the whole multi fx and im going stomp pedal,( i already own a pedal board with a morley wah, an Ibanez Ts9, and a Boss Ds-1) but i bought it as my first pedal and it wasnt so bad .

It's pretty easy to use although getting a good sound out of it depends largely on the supporting equipment such as amp and axe.
The Pedal itself is a cheap practice unit, nothing more. If your serious about emulating Satch or Morse then you should look at an expensive DigiTech, they're the best.

The Pedal itself is noisy, I have used Boss and DigiTech pedals as well and the Zoom 505 makes too much noise. The distortions are absolute crap, if you have a stand alone Distortion pedal your better to not use the Zooms.

Never use the Zoom 505 in a gig man, it's a practice pedal. The buttons stick too so no you can't rely on it.

Never had the inclination.

I like Satch, Blues (any), Metal - Metallica etc, the Zoom dosn't cut it. I've been playing 25 years. I wouldn't buy a replacement. I bought it at the time because it was within my budget and I wanted to forge a style. I wish it had better distortion and less noise. It helps only because it beats a totally clean amp sound.
If you havn't bought it yet I'd suggest you don't bother, go and guy a digitech, anything but a Zoom 505.

The 505 is easy to use, edit, tweek, etc; The manuel is laid out in easy to understand way.

The 505 guitar processor is noisy. A noticable hiss, the effects are
not weak in my opinion. Some of the effects tone is deep. I like mid tone but not quite that much. It is usable nontheless.

I only use the 505 with an adapter. It is reliable enough. I have used it without a back up.

Never tried to contact Zoom

I really only liked 1 or 2 distortions, the overdrive was clippy, Wish the pitch pedal effect moved only the played note and not hold the origianl. I have the expression pedal for pitch bend and wah.
The unique thing is the step effect. It is a rare find in my opinion.
Line 6 has it on their modulation pedal and not found much anywhere else. to my knowledge.The Digitech RP50 has 10 times better tone and warmth, The rp50 seems to be based on the Zoom 505 . The saying,"You get what you pay for" does not apply to the RP50 by Digitech. It rated #4 on best multieffects in Guitar Player magazine, over a 300$ Korg AX1500G! The Zoom 505 is a poor man's multieffects, kind of fun
but lacking tone and warmth, but for 60$ what does one expect?

Firstly, it is hard to edit without the manual in your hands if you are operating it for the first time. However it took me half an hour to figure out what those four small buttons and those two "small" large pedals did (of course with the manual).

There lies the flaw of a system having buttons that can do multiple stuff in different modes. It's hard to edit quickly on stage. However editing patches is relatively very very easy. I'll suggest the user to double check the patches before going with it for a gig (Actually I wouldn't an advice like that.... Read On!).

The manual is Great, really very detailed. Even the website has the manual on it in pdf format. Or else you can download the manual from "http://www.safaricomputers.com/505/505_manual.pdf".

I use it with a Gi"V"son guitar (in case you think this is some cheap imitation of Gi"B"son, you might be right but have a look at the reviews of GS 1000 before developing any premonitions. It's available here "http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data4/Givson/G-S-1000-01.html") and I use an AMD Athlon XP powered computer with nVIDIA nForce chipset as an amp. I have also used it in gigs and short shows but it disappointed me badly.

Firstly, it's noisy and I had a hard time configuring a decent "clean" patch. Almost all distiortion modes sound the same (a bit fuzzy and noisy). Secondly, it sounds drastically different when you play it with low and high volumes. Imagine not getting good amount of bassy region even with an Ibanez on stage when using Peavey amps and speakers. Thirdly, if I want to inceament the bass regions the treble is lost - which means it is not possible to get a heavy and sharp sound at the same time.

That is why I use a computer these days to pre-process my sound before sending it to the final amp (even on stage). I'll say the nVIDIA nV Mixer has greater acurracy and clarity of sound than this small plastic box. In fact it helps me to get full bass and treble and add reverb to the sound after it has been processed by ZOOM 505.

I have converted my small hostel room into a powerful recording studio and I'd rather rely on my Real-Time Guitar FX Software for recording than this one. If I can't rely on it in studio where external effets can be added, how can I rely on it while on stage? In case the small plastic box fails you definately need a backup (I'm sure that no other FX Processor will give out such a fuzzy sound - I've tried and tested some 20 types of them - and so you need another ZOOM 505 as backup!!!). To be frank, I tried using a Real Time FX software for my last two shows and it passed with flying colours as opposed to ZOOM 505. (WHY?? Read On...)

Moral : Never take this to the stage. NEVER NEVER.

The company logo says "ZOOM : Catch Us If You Can"... I guess that explains everything.

During a gig there was some kind of a problem with the adapter port and there was a constant disconnection and reconnection going on in the equipment. By default the patch is initialized to A1 whenever you connect it to the power supply. I tried calling them but as the saying goes "ZOOM : Catch Us If You Can" I couldn't catch them. So I took it to a local electronics shop and replaced the DC Adapter port. After that I swore never to take it on stage again.

I play Metal, Soft Rock and Pro.. It's not at all useful to me, but I made some interesting patches coupled with my computer which gives really cool effects but alas!! such kind of sounds are only avilable in trance music.

If you are planning to buy this look for something else... although it is cheap value for money is 2.5/10

Although entirely possible, it's not immediately easy to get a good sound out of this unit.
Editing patches is VERY advantageous, but takes some practice to learn how to edit.
I had to download the manual from the website to really figure out how to edit the patches.

Using with a cheapo Crate practice amp, Peavy Classic 4x12 stack, playing on an '89 Gibson Les Paul Standard with stock pickup in neck and an aftermarket DiMarzio that the previous owner installed.

OK, the sound quality of this unit is not absolutely mind-blowingly great. None of the preset patches are useful in real-world settings. After you edit things down, and (in my opinion) never use the ZNR, Distortion, or Metal processors, you can get some good sounds out of it. I find that it's best to not layer too many proccesses. I already own a Boss DD-3 delay, a Boss Flanger pedal, Ibanez Soundtank Tremelo, and Boss TU-2 tuner pedal, so my only need from this unit is Overdrive. I use the spring reverb found on my amp. What I've done is to craft a nice series of Overdrive patches in a row. Starting on a high-gain Overdrive, then a rhythm-gain-setting Overdrive with just a tad of reverb, then a moderate-gain Overdrive with a lower octave double note, then finally a high-gain solo sound with the Lead processor, an EQ bass and mid bump and a little reverb.

The Overdrive patch is the only distorted sound I like at all. The other grunge sounds are nasty!

The flanger is decent, but like I said, I use a dedicated flanger pedal. The chorus is ok, but sounds a bit thin. The Step effect is nice, but should be used sparingly, and the double effect definatly has potential, at least until I get an Octave pedal! I don't like the Autowah, but I've been spoiled by a friend's vintage CryBaby.


So, in summary, good sounds CAN be achieved with this unit, but you have to make your own patches, using few effects at a time.

Seems reliable.

I play lots of styles. I only use this unit for overdrive, so therefore it's only having blues, rock, hard rock, emo, etc. played through it.

It's not so hard to understand the system, but the limited number of buttons means they all have too many functions. And I am not particularly fond of using pedals for anything else than turning an effect on or off, but here I have to use it for other purposes too (although that's similar to a lot of other products).
Conclusion: It's easy enough to use, but editing patch etc. is a slow process.
A display with more than just to LED digits and maybe some knobs would have helped.

I used this plugged into a rather cheap amp and with an Epiphone SG G-400.
I don't expect great sounds, when I won't pay the money for it, but especially the distortions,Zoom's own step effect and to some extent doubling are useless as is the amp simulation.
The chorus and delay are very nice sounding at the price.

Nothing broke, but it's a bit plasticcy and doesn't seem too durable. I cannot rate fairly.

No contact with Zoom - didn't have any problems with (aside from the sound quality).

I play soft rock mostly - with some OD/DS or nothing at all
I have played for a couple of years and am far from professional. I sold the 505 already and wouldn't buy it again.
I liked the chorus and delay, but they no better than most.
If you can find a used unit cheap, it might be worth considering, but get some seperate OD/DS.

This is the easiest, most simple digital effects pedal I have ever used. period. If you're retarded, lazy, or just really dumb. This is for you.

I don't know what everyone's talking about. %90 of the idiots that reviewed the 505 say it sounds like shit... I think it sounds great. But you gotta play around with the effects a bit. You can't just put a whole bunch of stuff together and expect it to sound good. If you go to the zoom website it'll tell you some good settings and stuff. Or just play around with it untill you get a nice sound... it can be done.

I've had mine for only about 4 years... It's all shitty plastic but yet it sems pretty durable. I use this thing like a mad whore,and it's pretty much like new. But I wouldn't be surprised if it ever fell apart completely. The edit and store buttons are broken, i don't know why, but other than that... it's alright. Not great, but alright.

I'm gonna give them a 1 just for the hell of it. I've never dealt with them, but giving shitty marks instead of getting them for once is fun. revenge.

The unit is pretty easy to use in terms of scrolling through different function banks and such, but only up to a point. The tiny +/- buttons on the side of the unit remind me of those tiny LCD games from the 80s that would give you major wrist problems within minutes of use. You're going to want to read the manual to get the most out of all the different banks and customization available.

As pretty much every other reviewer points out, this unit definitely sacrifices tonal quality for price and number of effects and price. Realistically, it's only suited for playing through headphones or practice amps - the sound flaws become glaringly obvious at any sort of higher volume. Above all else, you'll quickly learn why digitally based effects sound almost nothing like the real thing.

This was definitely the Achilles heel of the 505. Beyond the plastic construction that is not suited for any sort of giggin or stage work, the unit(s) that I had experienced major electrical problems. At only a few months old, the 505 mysteriously stopped accepting input from the left/right pedals, and would not get out of tuner mode. I also couldn't scroll between effects anymore - it was locked on one particular setting, F1. One day I plugged it in an this was the way it operated. The store that I bought it from sent it back to the manufacturer, and they said that the circuits were fried, and sent a new replacement. Bearing in mind that the unit had experienced no power surge, power blackout or the like, this was quite enexpected. The replacement worked acceptably for about a year, then developed similar electrical/circuitry problems! Again, no scrolling, etc. That, and a second rate wiring job in the AC adaptor that came with the unit frayed and fell apart. The unit still plays, but not in its intended mode. Also, for a 88% plastic unit, I had to laugh when the four screws on the back of the case started to rust.

Didn't deal directly with the company, but they did send the dealer a replacement unit for me when I took it back. But then again, it developed the same problems.

This was the first multi-effects processor I ever bought, back in 1997, and I've finally got around to reviewing it. Since then, I've thankfully moved on to bigger and better things. I suppose for a someone just starting out, the 505 might make a good choice if you're interested in familiarizing yourself with several different effects, albeit some fairly watered down digital versions of them. Still, the overall quality and unreliability of the unit means that I definitely would not recommend it, unless you can pick up a dirt cheap used unit.

Very easy to use as far as a multi-effect can go. Editing patches is really easy too...

Well, the zoom 505 is by far one of the WORST things you can use to get a good sound. I never liked myself digital crap, but the 505 goes really far in the word "crap". It is horribly noisy, sounds decent at low volume but really gets awful when you turn the volume up. There isn't an interesting effect in there, everything sounds cold, digital and ugly with this monster. If you're looking for a good tone, never buy digital crap, but if you still want to use digital things, this things is definately the worst out there.

It's made of cheap plastic... I would never gig with it

who cares? better waste your money on another pedals than wasting your time with the guys that made this horrible thing

A friend of mine lent me his zoom 505 several years ago. I was looking for some effects, and I thought I could begin with a zoom to test and then buy anything better. If you want to play at home, the zoom isn't that bad. But never try to play it loud, you'll be frightened. After testing the zoom I got scared of effects and didn't buy any. Fortunately a couple of years later I began to buy single pedals (wich is the best option to get a good sound) and I learned an important lesson: there are two types of guitarrists. The ones that sound good and the ones that sound bad, no matter how they play. The ones that sound good use single pedals for specific ambiences; the ones that sound bad use digital crap. Period

A retarded dislexic monkey could operate it

Distorion, modualtion etc.....the usual

Killer unit for for practice amps

Decent depending on YOUR rig. Best with SOLID STATE amps that's for sure. Tube and digital are very unfriendly with one another typically.

Typical electronic sound with the distortions but not to the point of a synth....quite digital sounding but the right set up usually filters it out.

The effects sound great through my effects loop and distortions are fine as long as I only use them for voicing by setting gain at 2 and using my amps gain control.

Like I said, the effects sound awesome through my amp. The distortions can vary and not all are usable but the Fuzz is awesome as is the acoustic simulator. The amp simulator can be useful but too electronic sounding sometimes and the noise reduction works great for me.

I must continue though. This and other simular processors can give a 10 in performance granted you don't expect to play some major venue.

These little units were made for practice amps honestly. Take a 15 watt thru an 8 inch speaker amp and hook any of these affordable floor units through one. It will sound amazing period. You can get a good
20 dB of undistorted volume gain by using these type of units. That's a hell of a lot of volume increase.

Great for smaller single speaker combo amps 50 watts and under. For the time it came out, it deserves an 8 period.......
IT SET THE STANDARD.

Very reliable. almost 10 years old and just today one of the pedals finally came off. It's plastic but it's been stepped on, jumped on, kicked around, thrown, numerous liquid spills on it....you name it!

never met um'

Great unit for the beginner or simplist. FOr the most part the distortions aren't performance or recording quality but for my rig the effects sound great. If you were to hear them through my rig you would assume I was using all analog.

Get one of these for like a small Crate or Behringer you can pick up for around a $100 USD...or just whatever practice amp you may already have. You'll be getting close to the volume output of a two 12 combo amp with some of them not to mention for some reason practice amps just seem to work ten times better with these types of units.

DIgital can sound as good as analog this way!

It's quite easy to set up, and you do need to set it up...the stock patches are pretty bad

Ok...For the most part i use a samick going into a p.a.
Depending on the effect it can get noisy mostly on the Dist. and Thrash patches. I play mostly slow, fuzzy & heavey. Along the lines of The Melvins. All the effects are good eccept for Dist,OD,Thrash & Fuzz.

You CANNOT depend on it....I squashed mine.....Cheap Plastic

Never delt with them...

I play stoner metal/grunge This was a mistake
I've been playing for 9 years, now I use A samick-KorgA5-Boss Metal Zone-500 watt Powered Mixer
If it were stolen...Time to move on get something different
For the most part it's for beginers. Not profesionals

not hard to use, editing etc pretty easy. that said getting a good sound is phisically impossible for the device...

I've got a mid 70's riviera SG (aledgedly made by ibanez?) and a frankenstein (built it myself from 3 different amps) 150w tube amp.
the noise in this 505 unit makes mining equipment sound wisper quiet.
my amp and guitar sound kick ass, if I ever want to sound muddy and shit I hook up the ZOOM. none of the effects sound ok in any combination.

It'll stand up to a healthy battering (unfortunately) so there isn't even any satifaction to be had in beating the shit out of it.
gig with whatever backup you have, a poorly taxidermed goat would sound better live.

I'd commend them on a waste of plastic and a valuble contribution to land fill.

I play, punk/ rockabilly (bout 10 years). got a dano daddy O overdrive (surprisingly good pedal).
if it were stolen, I'd enjoy not having this pedal around to remind me of a wasted 70 bucks.
I bought this, when I had no experience or amp. I played through a mixer into my stereo at which time this pedal sounded ok. I've been pretty harsh in this review, but I'd like to emphasize that this is not a good bit of gear for anything other than playing at home through your stereo. If you can find one (but don't actually look for it) under 20 AUD consider it but DONT EXPECT MUCH.

This wonder was the easiest to use of ANY multi effects unit I have used in 25 years of guitar playing

Man, its sweet, the stock effects were OK, but, then I went ONLINE to ZOOM 505 CENTRAL...it changed my life, seriously. I have been playing for 25 years and this thing cranked all the sounds I ever wanted to play. From 12 String acoustics to heavy, heavy , heavy metal, man, this unit did it all, and sounded AWESOME!

I have used it in HEAVY jams as well as bar gigs, stands up well, but, requires a certain technique, which I HAVE MASTERED!
Surprisingly durable and a sweet simplistic alternative to a stomp box etc!

Dunno

This unit changed my guitar playing life, since I have bought one, all my guitar playing friends have bought one. The ZOOM 505 CENTRAL website is what iced the cake, a massive amount of pre-sets, some of professional quality for sure!!
GO SEE http://www.safaricomputers.com/505/

This unit is a breeze to program.

Let's keep in mind that this is an entry-level device. I play out regularly with my band, and use 2-combo amps, a pro pedalbaard with about $1,000 worth of boutique + vintage effects. I use Les Pauls, and a Telecaster. I use the 505 for headphone practicing, jamming with friends, and Through my Pignose 30 watt Hog rechargable amp outdoors (nothing like ripping leads out in the desert!). This unit is exceptional for wanking around like that, it is not a professional studio-quality, roadworthy pedal. I have hovever banged this unit around for a few years, and it works perfect, and it's easy on batteries. As far as sounds for the price, this unit cannot be beat, its a great little effects ubit for short dough. it has a great fuzz distortion; the modulation effects are great also. My rating is based on the fun-factor, this baby can't be beat for the money.

No problems for 3 years, take care of your equipment, and it usually takes care of you.

Never needed it.

As I said, for the cash, it's awesome, many cool Zoom sounds, some wacky stuff, and some great lead sounds. It also works great for home demos in a fix. Very small, low battery consumption (also runs off standard Boss 9V adapter), and it's a vrey fun unit, I use mine all the time for bedroom playing. Not a pro unit, but the cool Zoom vibe can be had cheap.

I have had this piece of kit for nearly 10 years.
Dead simple to use.

OK - you have to bear in mind the price.
It is OK but you do get a lot of hiss with some of the more "trebbley" distortion settings. The trick is to keep the levels low when you are programming it - dont go over 15.

Still going strong after 10 years.
Use it for gigging & home recording

As it is still going strong, have never used customer support, but good website.
pdf manual available from http://www.samsontech.com/products/relatedDocs/505.pdf
even though discontinued!!

Look, for #99 to get 10 years + good use is bloody fantastic.
Not the most sophisticated unit but great for basic effects.

easy to use. Editing patches is so easy.No need for manual.

i only use this with headphones, i only got the zoom 505 for 1 week (bought it 2nd hand). yeah, its noisy on some settings, especially with higher dist level. they're not really weak. use it with my marshall micro amp (sounds great!!!!),i dont know if this will sound good on bigger amp. You can get some of ur favorite artists (pantera, metallica), though i cant really get the sounds of some of my fave artists like richie kotzen..etc...(can anyone help me get RK's patch?). Distortion - too heavy, and when setting to lower gain it sounds fake/lame, other effects no problem...i dont use the wah here since i have a crybaby ...

i havent gig with it, since i only had this for 1 week,but hopefully soon. i dont have back up since this is my only guitar fx..This thing eats battery... better use an AC adaptor, i only have a boss adaptor 9V, 200 mA, but it works, im just worried that it might soon break the circuit in my pedal(hopefully not!!!). i've read that someone here uses the same brand of adaptor ( i just dont know if its 200 mA too..???)HEY U, BRO!!! IN CASE UR READING THIS, HOW LONG HAVE U BEEN USING YOUR BOSS ADAPTOR IN YOUR ZOOM? IS IT 200 mA TOO? DOES YOUR ZOOM STILL WORKING?

bought this thing second hand!!!!

i play blues, rock, ive been playing guitar for 9 yrs. i own a crybaby wah and marshall ms-2 (poor me!!) if it stolen or lost, i think ill buy single fx like boss.. i think the tuner here is pretty fine.. can get close. i hate about this is the noise when setting to higher level. I bought this one coz it cheap, its the only one i can afford, and with lots of effects, its a good choice!!!

Easy to get a good sound out of? -- Not likely....sound quality is lacking, but for rehearsal gear it is decent. Editing patches and saving them is a breeze, manual is quite good.

The sound quality is definitelu lacking. I can say that it has some useful chorus tones and compressor, reverb and delay patches but on the overall it sounds as cheap and plasticky as it looks.
The distortion settings are noisy and the noise gate not always catches much of it.
The really stupid thing is that the two decent effects (delay and reverb) are actually on the same effect patch so you cna use only one.
All I cna say is that if you want to jam on headphones in the night this thing is not bad but you won't be doing any serious jamming with it onstage or at rehearsal. WIth an amp it sounds better, with a tube amp it almost works...

For the first few years of use I could depend on it, after more extensive use the left button started to stick and became almost impossible to switch with. I tried to clean it by opening it up and almost laughed at the little amount of parts it has!
Since live switching with no lag can be done only by pressing the two pedals together (and one of mine sticks) I'd say it is not reliable at all, but will give it about 3 for its first 3 years of use.

Customer support is horrible. When the button started to stick I wanted to see if they'd be interested at looking into fixing it for me -- no response. After a second though I am glad they didn't cause now I have a realguitar rig.

I play metal. This pedal is not a bad at home excercise effect when you don't feel like blasting the real amp. It is cheap and almost disposable and at what I see them going second hand it might be worth owning so you can run reverbs for singing like I do with it sometimes.
There are also a few interesting computerized effects in it that might be of some value, the chorus and compressors are decent if ran thru an amp.

i think I paid 59.00 for this thing a couple of years back. the AC adapter was another 20.00. I had it hooked up to a small practice amp in my room. I took a hiatus from playing electric guitar for a couple of years and then got back in to it. so I started cheap..best bang for the buck. Editing patches is confusing at first but becomes second nature. the manual is basic but works. Doesnt tell you what the amp simulations are. firmware? no nothing about it. With some editing you can get a good sound out of it.

Edit the patches and you can get good tones. The thing that sux is that when you switch between patches, say heavy patch to clean, there is a moment of silence between the two. very annoying and low budget sounding. The pedal is great for what it goes for, but the sounds are very processed sounding. This is a great pedal for home practice or relaxed playing with the boys, I still use it for that. However I don't recommend it for gigs. You can get away with the sound quality, but the silence between patches kills me. plus I get a lot of feedback and a rediculous amount of hum when I use any of the heavier patches at high volume i.e. jamming at the studio.

depend onit? on a couple of different occasions I got a small amount of debri by the edit button and it stuck in place, rendering it unusable. i managed to get it free but i would hate for that to happen at a gig. also, the left/right pedals are too close together, all too often I go to hit one and accidentally hit the other, or hit both and turn it off. Playing barefoot may help...

dunno.

good for various styles...great for at home practicing...small amp or run headphones in to it. For anything else I suggest spending the money and buying a higher quality unit.

Sure its easy to use but it sounds like crap when your using it if you are thinking about buying this don't it is easy to use but sucks.

I'll give it a 9 for easy to use beacause of how easy it is but it sounds like crap.

My setup is a Gibson Les Paul through many boss pedals through the zoom pedal and then into a marshall half stack. The only reason i have this pedal is because someone gave it to me for christmas. IT REALLY SOUNDS BAD. i dont use it any more and i'm glad i dont. the effects are weak and the distortion just sucks.the distrotion well never sound good. The chorus is ok but thats it every thing sucks. when you try to make it sound like an acoustic it has way to much feed bad and a funny buzz

No. its flimsy and slides around on anything other than carpet. it ways about a half pound and wont stay in play every time i hit it im worried about breaking it. If i stomped it to hard it would break. i wouldn't use it for a gig but if i did i would deffintly have a backup.

dont even wanna try

I play almost anything and this pedal doesnt cover anything. I've been around long enough to know that this pedal stinks. I would not buy it again or buy it in the first place someone gave it to me. I HATE IT!!!! I wish it had tone and good sounding effects. I gets in the way. DONT BUY IT

It's super easy to use,and best of all you can go online and get about a thousand diff settings for it.
I didnt have or need a manual,but you can goto zoom website and they will send you a .pdf file of it.Never been upgraded not sure it you can upgrade it.

I use different setups all the time.
It is noisey on some of the patches.
The effects are totally changeable and they are strong.I use a peavey head with a crate stack.You can get the sound of almost any artist with this it just takes time and patience. the lead, accoustic, metal, Blues, there a few more in that category with those if you use them you get ,well at least I get static its low but its there and it drives me crazy

Its reliable ,,but whatever you do if you use the adapter make sure there is no battery in it,it caught my adapter on fire well it just melted it but I saw smoke

Never had to call but the web site rocks they are very helpfull

I play alot of diff styles. Nirvana, Metallica, G.N.R, Smashing pumpkins, and stuff like that and alot of older bands like Lynord Skynord and CCR and Bad Company.If it where stolen or lost I would just buy seperate pedals .only because I have alot of single pedals and they are easier to turn on a off ..instead of going thrue patches and then turning on .

The preset patches are crap so you will have to learn to edit them. Fortunately with the manual this is quite easy. The buttons at each side are fiddly, and having spent 5minutes cultivating a sound you like it is all too easy to lose it when you think it is saved.

Used with a fender strat and fender princeton II amp, I had no noise, but having used other (better quality) effects you realise how cheap this sounds.

After 6 months two of the buttons for editing and saving patches stuck(not the stomp pad buttons.) I managed to fix them but this should not happen in the first year. It has now bit the dust as I used a power adapter which was not made for this pedal, Correct power output, but it started to need a bit of a wiggle to power up, then in no time it stopped altogether. I believe that I look after my equipment well. I have owned all my other equipment for over 10 years, all gigged and in good condition.

Never needed them.

In no rush to buy another one.
If you want to play around with lots of effects without paying loads of money then these are worth a try.
If you want quality sounds, and long life out of your equipment avoid these cheap all-in-one's

It's very easy to use. You don't need to read the manual to edit patches. Maybe to understant features like 'bank hold' or 'direct load', and to understand the mnemonics appearing on the 2-digit display.

This unit was designed for beginners. And as such, do not expect killer sound from it. Like most units, factory presets sucks. I played this unit with a standard Fender Stratocaster and with a Tagima Zero (27 frets, 2 humbuckers).

WHAT'S BAD:
- The distortion tones are too heavy! If you set a low/mid gain, the distortions are lifeless. In high gain, they are too heavy and dirty. It's difficult to get good sound from them.

WHAT'S GOOD:
- Chorus! I like ZOOM's chorus. In fact, most modulation effects are ok. Delays and reverbs are limited, but they sound ok. It's easy to get a good clean sound from this unit. Even the wah is acceptable, considering that most multi-effect units have a TERRIBLE wah! Wah + distortion on this unit sucks. Clean wah is ok.
- ZNR (noise reduction). Works fine for me.

I'll give a 6 for this unit, because of bad distortion and lack of parameters to set EQ (see 'Overall Rating').

The plastic case may look fragile, but it's pretty strong. In 6 years, I never had any problems with this unit.

I contacted'em by e-mail, and they answered all my questions.

WHAT'S BAD:
- There are no parameters to each effect, only a "general level", example: on a compressor unit you may have 'threshold', 'attack' and 'level' controls. On 505, you only have C1 to C9 levels of compression.
- You cannot individualy set each band of the EQ. There are "presets" for equalization parameters. You have to try all of them until you find one that gets close to what you want. I think it's the WORST thing of this unit! :[

WHAT'S GOOD:
- Very low cost, for the bunch of effects you get.
- Great chorus.

It's a good unit to have at home to practice. For live and gig, only people that play VERY heavy music (doom, thrash) will like the distortion tones.

You can use it to colour your clean tones at a low price. Chorus is great, despite of the lack of parameters.

I recently sold mine to get a 9150 Valve DSP. As anyone would expect, the 9150 distortions and EQ are *WAY MUCH* better.

I'll give a 7, because of it's low price.

Pretty easy to use. Instructions were a bit more confusing than helpful when I first got it but I was new to programming. All in all it's really easy to use and within ten minutes I was doing fine having ignored the instructions and mainly used them for reference such as effects explanations/defenitions.

I've used this pedal with several amps. Older Yamaha with twin 12's, single 12 w/50 watts and most often with a Crate solid state head and half, now full stack. The compression is quite satisfying in my opinion. The more compression you use the more it compensates by rasing the input level. Auto wah is a great but the pedal wah is really disapointing. Don't use the limiter but it does what it should. The Distortions tend to suck BUT not with all amps. I use it with whatever distortion and the gain on 1. My amp heads gain takes on the voice of whatever gain I choose even the FUZZ. THEY SOUND AWSOME!!! Some amps when used as meant they sound digital and really like shit. My Yamaha and old Crate they sounded great on. Not digital at all. The modulation effects give you ZERO parameter control but don't sound digital at all on my main rig or any rig I've used them on for that matter. The Flanger is what mainly leaves me craving parameter controls but I guess the Phaser really does make up for that and when both used compenstates for it. The pedal pitch bend is decent but also quite lacking giving you bend down or dual octave bend which is really useless FOR ANYONE. The amp simulation and Zoom Noise Reduction are absolutely great. While the EQ could have been set up for specific bands it still does very well. It is a very unique simple parametric EQ basically. The Delay and reverbs are actually exceptional but again lack parameter controls. The room reverb is great as is the hall. The delay can give you a short echo, ping pong in stereo or on the 1 setting the EXACT delay sound Kirk Hammet used to use. My only MAJOR gripe is the output level. It's set at +4 db for going straight into a
P.A., mixing board exc. for recording. Most ppl are using it straight into an amp and when doing so it delivers an annoying amount of white noise. not enough to ruin your sound but enough to annoy you especially at higher volume levels. Pisses me off the noise reduction gives you perfectly clean sound but the output level is that of Pro Audio gear when it shouldn't be. It should be -10 db for going straight to an amp. This with a few other minor drawbacks earn it a seven.

Bought mine online but my friend at Sam Ash was shown how to sell them. THEY STOOD ON THEM! The guy I know infact jumped up and down on it while standing on it!!! Plastic but it's very solid. I have had mine for 7 years and stood on it the other day for the hell of it. WORKS FINE. Been chewed up in my car, crushed under furniture....you name it it's been through it! Spilled soda and a number of other beverages on it. It's very reliable and if absolutely was a must I'd gig without a backup but otherwise NO WAY WITH ANYTHING!

Never dealt with them till recently for a battery cover. Never got back to them cuz I'm sure they'd wnat 5 bux for one plus shipping which would be ridiculous.

Overall its a great pedal. The effects don't give you parameter control but there is enough of a variation that you can get the sound you need for basically any cover song. The distortion seems to perform differently with different rigs but typically sounds very shitty cuz it sounds digital. Sounds great though the way I found to use it as mentioned above. The white noise is just unacceptable so if I get the 505 2 as planned I better check it out in the store first. All in all it's a great pedal and will save you a FORTUNE in single pedals or even if you build analog pedals yourself as I am now getting into.
Beginner or Pro this unit still has a lot to offer you. Anyone who can't manage to get the sound they need from it is quite simply gear incompitant. But hey thats 70% of musicians/guitarists out there!

I got this off a friend a while back, while at first i thought it was shit,we found the manual somewhere and actually fucked with the thing and belive me if you fuck with it enough you will get the effect you want.

All i can say is...transtube...i think the only reason people don't like it is because there output is anything but. This thing was built for it. Some of the fake harmonics and that fucking bassy sound are tacky but its all about settings,most people don't even bother spending time with it

doesn't look like anyone has gigged it, but actually i couldn't find mydod, so i took this on stage and it did the trick....although that was only for 2 effects, it survived but i switched to a bass pedal at intermission and suprisingly did better 0_0

nope

all in all i think this is neat to either have fun with, play when your heavy trippin,or you lost your pedal, but i don't glorify it,the bitch gets a six...

Ease of use? Very easy but the continuous button pressing is extremely anoying! Everything is straightforward on it as it is designed for beginners. The manual was pretty good but mine came in japanese and chinese not english and i purchased it in Australia. Weird.

Remember dont expect much from this box as it is designed for beginers who dont really have a trained ear. It is pure crap. I currently own a Fender roc pro 700 with a tube preamp and have been using it with a jackson ps4 whcih i just sold and am purchasing an ibanez rg1570 instead. i also use a boss mt2 which sounds crap going through the zoom as it is weakened and muddied by it. It is extremely noisy on any setting and the noise reduction thing just decreases sustain and clarity. All the effects are weak and thin with no quality in them what so ever. The distortions sound fuzzy and like a computer distortion while the cleans are muddy, unclear and thin. you cant get the sound of any artist through this thing. one thing. i have to admit that there is one effect that sounds half descent. its a distortion patch with delay. thats all and even that is only good through a tube amp and quality guitar. But anyway who needs all this extra digital crappy effects. jsut by 2 or 3 analog stomp boxes. Clean, distortion and any other preffered effect. Trust me its worth it. Dont buy. not even for beginers as they will eventually hear the pure crapness of the pedal.

OK this is its only strong point. Its made in Japan,is solid and the plastic is quite sturdy aswell.

never dealt with em

For all those idiots who rate this thing good your nuts. dont get me wrong it may sound good to you but if youve got ears it sucks. just my oppinion. Do not buy.

This thing is easy to use - when you are knowing how it works.
It has many functions, but you have to read the complete manual
to use it. 24 patches.

I am using it with a Rickenbacker 330 (copy) Jim Harley and
an old Rickenbacker TR 7 (solid state) amp.
Most programms are not useful. Some are good, some are crap.
Sound is sweeping from good to really bad.

I would not play a gig with it.

N/A

I bought it 6 or 7 years ago because this thing was the only thing
with a compressor I could get. I wanted to play Beatles and Byrds,
but the result isn't good.
If it was stolen I would buy something else.
But it's good for beginners to see what effects are possible on a guitar.
I don't like the plastic on it, and the thing, that it hasn't got an
on/off switch.
Mainly I only use it to play with headphones (my amps headphones-jack
works only together with the speaker, so I can't play quite only with headphones)

its relatively easy to use. 6 buttons. just read the manual, or be like me and mess around with it

being a multi-effect pedal, i wouldnt expect spectacular quality from any of the effects but for some reason this pedal sounds sweet on tube amps (all i have owned are tube amps (silvertone, carvin, etc). even as my taste has matured and i have learned good from bad effects, the zoom 505 was my main pedal for years.

well, its been dropped, kicked, stuffed in bags without padding, and even pissed directly onto by my dog and it still works fine (it always picks the most expensive item on the floor to relieve itself on..) . not too shabby for a plastic pedal

never really contacted them, so no comment

i play zeppelin, floyd, pumpkins, weezer, hendrix, and whatever else i deem good music. i think the distortions are the best features this pedal has to offer (when programmed with the equalizers and compressors also on the pedal)

i got this pedal in the 6th grade, along with a vintage silvertone amp (before i was really serious), and it was an excellent way to learn about all the effects out there. ive played it through numerous les paul and strat style guitars, and its sounds great on all of them... but much better through a tube amp. i cant stress that enough.

although i wouldnt suggest a seasoned player should buy this pedal, its great for beginners.

You need to use the manual quickly, which is very small. Once you do the unit is very easy to use. It's gets stuck in certain modes sometimes which can be a pain.

I am using this with an old Fender "The Twin" amp. For the price you pay for one of these nowadays, I don't think you can complain about the sound too much. The high gain settings sound kinda crappy, but I find the setting with a small amount of overdrive sound suprisingly good. I have gotten some nice clean tones out of it. Overall, I was able to get useable tones, and a ton of them, from a unti that cost me $25 CDN used. So you can't really knock that.

It seems flimsy when you pick it up, but it can take a beating. It eats batteries as others have mentioned. I picked up an adaptor that works with it for $12 though so no biggy.

bought it used.

I play a mix of Surf, Punk, Rock and Roll and Hard Rock in my band. For $25 I got a unit that allows me to switch to a clean "slapback" tone for surf, and give me a fairly nice overdrive. It lets me set up identical settings, but with a different volume for each one which is great for leads. Again, for the price you can pick one of these up for used I can't really knock it.

Easy

The distortion is really fake but the other effects sound good

This is why i am really posting this review. I have had this thing since they came out. I used it for home practice so i didnt have to lug all my gear home every day after practice. THIS THING IS ONE TOUGH SOB!!! The batteries went dead so we rigged up this power suply that started to smoke and the 505 was acting funny. I threw it on the band room floor and thats where it sat for 2 years. Last week our bastment flooded and the 505 was under 2ft. of water and mud for 3 days. After i cleaned it i put some batteries in it and the f#$k'n thing still worked.

its tough, Effect are ok, good deal for the money

Digital stuffand it is really for beginners who want to have a little fun....Hard to get a good sound out of it, patches are easy to get on the net and apply, but..............
Ehhh......cycling thru the banks to get to where you are going is a joke!

Neat at first...But no useable sounds ....EXCEPT a slightly modded and gated F3!
I use that to play several songs from Gilmour's Live 1984 gig in Bethlehem PA and I can get some pretty close stuff with that setting!
The rest I would erase and make those patches "OFF"!
"9" for the modded F3
"1" for the rest!

Still ticking and I don't bring this out until the very end!
LOL..........

Fugggedaboutit!

Read the above and there you go!
A one trick pony in my book, but it's a pretty good trick!

I love my zoomette... I've used so many peoples different amps that don't come anywhere near the sounds i get. Editing patches is easy... I have a load set up next to each other for songs where i need to switch between them, and i find it easy.

Most of the distortions are a bit poo.. The one i use 95% of the time is the basic overdrive. It gives me a nice thick ampy sound with the drive on about 20 with my not-a-les-paul, and with the drive on 1 or 2 with some treble boost and reverb, i get a nice twang that;ll crunch up when i hit it hard...

I go straight into a PA, or mixer for recording. I think maybe it prefers that kind of amp to a guitar amp, judging by other peoples' reviews. Give it a power amp and some nice speakers to play with, and it will love you...

My clean sound is often mistaken for acoustic... Loads of reverb and a bit of chorus, and i'm a happy bunny.

Touch would, its been fine so far.

I got it half price when they brought out the 707. Bargain. I recently got an expression pedal and am having loads of new fun with the pedal wah. I get sounds from metallica to GnR, to my own sound out of it with no problem at all...

El pedal es facil de usar, basta con experimentar unos 20 minutos, hasta cogerle el tiro.
El manual es de gran ayuda (yo tuve que bajarlo del site oficial de zoom), como compre el pedal usado, me lo entregaron sin manual.
Estimo que cualquier persona puede aprender a usar este pedal.

Los sonidos no son malos, pero tanpoco son excelentes. Digamos que son fantasticos para el precio que pagas (actualmente he visto en internet que lo venden a $45 bucks). Me gustan las distorsiones, si las seteas bien, puedes conseguir un sonido decente. Yo la he usado con una guitarra baratilla "primer" y con un amp BEHRINGER vintage.
He conseguido "imitar" el sonido de ciertas bandas, tales como deftones, nirvana, greenday, y aunque el sonido no es el mismo, suena muy bien. Los efectos son buenos, con excepcion del wah, me parece muy debil, y carece del "feeling" de un pedal wah analogico.

Lo he utilizado en varios lugares (con diferente acustica), la verdad, si tuviera suficiente dinero, compraria efectos independientes montados en un rack, pero invertiria casi 6 veces lo que me costo la zoom 505. No me quejo del sonido conseguido en presentaciones en vivo.

El pedal funciona muy bien, no se que cuidados habra tenido su anterior due?o, pero sigue funcionando conmigo. Al parecer los materiales empleados en su fabricacion, son de excelente calidad.

Yo toco musica grunge-punk. Las distorsiones son buenas para este estilo, no me quejo. Llevo tocando unos 3 a?os, antes tenia un pedal independiente de distorsion, pero deje de usarlo cuando consegui la zoom 505, debe estar botado en algun lugar de mi habitacion. Si se me perdiera, o se me da?ara la zoom 505, probablemente compraria la 606 con pedal de expresion, me parece muy atractiva (ademas, como que ya es hora de cambiar a la vieja 505).

Relatively easy to use, deceptively hard to get the several great tones out of it...

I'm not going to scroll down and read the hundreds of reviews already posted, but I just want to mention that this is a great cheap effects unit for your home computer studio. Add some color, compression, reverb to your vocals. The EQ section shouldn't be underestimated. Although it isn't very flexible, you can find that the high/low cut and mid-boost EQing properties can drastically change the way your signal sounds. The same with the "amp simulator" section. If you have a noisey preamp, you can also use the ZNR noise reduction feature. Setting it too high will make the noisey signal funky, but keep it at a minimum and that hissing mic will be much cleaner (until of course you start singing or what not).

It's also a great effects processor for keyboards. Really. All those digital effects will sound right at home with artificial keyboard sounds.

This is a mediocre guitar effects processor at best, but a sleeper preamp multi-effect unit that will give you a lot of tools for your little home studio. I have this plugged into my sound card with a stereo 1/4" to 1/8" converter line. An ART Tube MP preamp is before it in the signal chain to boost mic levels. Otherwise it can be used as a DI preamp by itself for guitars and keyboards.

I've gigged with it lightly, but it rests on my desk top now. Like someone wrote below, the biggest design fault isn't the plastic case, as it's very sturdy, but the fact that the 1/4" plugs are directly on the circuit board.

Again, as a guitar effects processor, it get's a mediocre rating at best, but as a preamp stereo multi-effects unit (especially for vocals and keyboards and microphones) you might be pleasantly surprised. Doesn't add noise if you stay away from the distortion effects so that's another plus.

You can manage it even within 15 mins.
It's a cool thing for BEGINNER like me.

But there comes a little problem when you switch the effect during your play. You couldn't switch without a few steps on it.

I use a cheap Fernandes guitar with a practise amp.
It sound a little bit noisy when turned the volume low.
However, it turns out not think enough with the volume is high.
Anyway, its sound is quite good with such a low budget.

Although it's covered by plastic case, it seems it's hard enough to endure my legs!
Reliable when you've got power supply.

I play heavy music and it does a good job on it.
I used it for 2~3 years and it still functioning well.

If you have enough budget, I recommend you not to buy ZOOM 505.

NOTE: I bought one of these guys in early 1997, just after they came out (and were available in Australia). It was sold in early 1998 when I moved outta home and went to uni. That's like 5 years ago. Since then I've bought far better equipment and my ears are probably a billion times more subjective. This review is based on memory alone, so how accurate a review this is, I don't know. This is my 2 cents.

Very few buttons, 2 character LED display. Not immediately intuitive but with the 'manual' once you figure out what code means which it was a piece of piss. Programming in patches isn't hard but it isn't quickly achieved either. I just set up most of the patches to suit the usual collection of tones/effect combinations I used, and left a few for experimentation.

Only 2 footpedals (UP and DOWN, rather than the BANK/PATCH layout of the other x0x0 systems) is a little limiting too when playing live, you'll need to sequence your patches carefully (at least it was easy to move patches around).

Get's an 8. Pretty good.

'Twos 1996-7, and ZOOM, masters of the bang for buck, and just produced the 505, which delivered a shitload of bang for very few bucks. I, then a cash-starved high school student who played and talked guitar all day and dreamed it all night, couldn't resist.

Of course, they built it down to a price, not up to a standard, and the cost cutting is obvious. In terms of sound quality, the ZOOM 505 did very well considering how little it cost, but for discerning ears it probably would have been too much of a compromise.

Thankfully I didn't suffer any of that back then. All I played were metal covers with my college band 'Turgid Throb' (best band name ever, really) and the ZOOM delivered plenty of cool sounds. Any fidelity or subtlety would have been lost thanks to my Ranger Strat (eventually replaced with an Epiphone LP Special II) and Marshall 10W Valvestate. Not to mention our drummer and the ZOOM 506-equiped Bass player.

Someone here mentioned that the ZOOM sounds great through a bass amp. I'll second that. I'd run lineout from the Marshall into the second input of our bass players' amp and it sounded much thicker. He always whinged that it killed his bass tone but having my own little 'stack' did rock very much.

Of course, in the light of now the 505's effects and amp sounds aren't anything special. Far better units are available for not much more money. But at the time, when ZOOM's other units were several hundred bucks, let alone anything from Digitech, Korg or Boss, the 505 did bloody well.

Gets a 5 in 2003, but got a 7 in 1997.

Light plastic with a thin sheet metal base. Not so much of a stomp box but a gentle-prod-with-your-toe box. I only gigged it a few times, we did more practising than actual gigging back then, but the jams were furious and I never damaged the thing. Took pretty good care of it though... it was cheap but still took several months of delivering papers to buy, was my most prized possession (for a while anyway).

Gets a 6. Take care of it and it will do the same.

Dunno about ZOOM back then, these days they're ok.

I dealt with Pro Audio back then, they had the cheapest prices in Australia at the time. Unfortunately the 505 was in such strong demand back then that I was on back order for some 6 weeks until I got it. The guys at Pro Audio were extremely apologetic (it was ZOOM's fault for not allocating enough units to Australia), they were also very helpful in providing a 3rd party power adaptor and expression pedal too (the actual ZOOM unit was nearly the same cost as the 505 itself, I used a $30 volume pedal and it worked brilliantly).

My musical tastes are far more refined now, but back then I breathed ate and shat metal... Pantera, Marilyn Manson, Tool, etc. I've been playing since 1993 but still considered myself a rank amateur back then. The ZOOM 505 was a great little unit, and despite it's obvious shortcomings it was a barrel of fun for me. I couldn't afford a brace of BOSS pedals, nor one of the better multieffects units that cost over AU$1000 back then. The ZOOM allowed me to play around with what were at the time pretty decent sounding effects without having to shell out a small fortune. With the cheapo volume pedal attached as an expression pedal, I also had a nice wah wah pedal, though I would have even been more impressed if the pitch shifter worked like a whammy pedal and not like a second harmony (the 506 worked this way).

Say what you like about the 505 now, but back then music retailers couldn't get enough of the things... they were the hottest thing for a while, bar none.

Of course, that was back then and now things are much different. My crappy guitars have now been replaced with a lovely Tele, plus a Kramar 7 string and Yamaha acoustic. I can now afford separate pedals and use a JStation when recording into my DAW setup. I now know and appreciate good tube tones and quality effects. If I heard a 505 today I probably wouldn't be impressed.

To recommend one today isn't easy. The 505 is now a second generation unit which I'm told does sound better, but with so many different units from Korg and Digitech, not to mention things like the POD and JStation, which do so much more for so little money, it would be hard to recommend it new.

However, if you're a young muso with fook-all money, the 505 can be found on eBay for virtually nothing, and while its distortions and effects aren't fabulous, they're certainly enough for you to experiment with.

If this was 1997, it'd get a 10. But it is 2003, so it gets a 4. Isn't progress wonderful?

Very easy to use, i got it years ago when i was young and go into it right away!

This multi effector isn't generally noisy, although on some distortions it's stupid noisy but on those who cares man that's what you want! Some of the effects to be frank suck! however, if you want all plush effects then you're gonna have fork out a lot of money! This wee thing is the bee's knees for some stuff! The delay and hall reverb can be used in great combination, i mean a GREAT combination, when i learned how to use the e.q. on this thing i was blown away. Turn off all the effects on use the c9 at the start a mid range e.q. the hall reverb and delay and oh my word. maybe add in the rhythm effect and som distortion on the next patch up and you're off! So nice even for expensive effects!

Sound quality if used right is TEN! if used wrong like most of the lower range zooms is one

Hasn't shown ANY signs of breaking yet and i've had it for about five years and have been gigging for two of them!

Never had to use it! But all shops know all about them!

I play quite rocky stuff! I like atmosphric sounds! It's a great all rounder! Good clean sound and good Reverbs/Delays not a bad wah either, One of the distortions i use on it is quite beastly for the money

Well, with about 450 reviews already submitted, what do you expect?

This is a beginner's box that I bought to mostly to experiment with combinations of different effects.

It's easy to learn and difficult to use. That means, the controls are logical and you'll figure it out in a minute, even without the manual. But editing the patches is somewhat painful, as you have to step through the modes -- lots of button presses to do.

The rating?

For the price, it's awesome. You get a lot for 50 bucks.

But then, 50 bucks is not very much, and the sound quality is poor, digital, cold and distorted when compared to professional units.

Again, this is a beginner's unit, and usable for trying out different effect combinations at low volumes.

I have a Tokai Les Paul and a Charvel 475, and a Mesa/Boogie Studio .22. But mostly I use the Zoom with just headphones, e.g. when playing and experimenting at night.

It hasn't let me down, except that it eats a lot of batteries -- in practise, only useful with an external power supply.

But the construction looks very easy to break. The case is plastic, but that's not a problem; nowadays plastic can be very strong. The real problem is that the input and output jacks are directly on the circuit board. You kick or step on the plug that sits in the jack, and it's gone. The lack of reliable construction would prevent you from gigging with this thing, if the sound quality would not.

No experience here. Bought it used, don't expect any support.

If you are a beginner, get it!

It's a piece of junk, but good value for money.

The 505II (which I don't own but have tried out) is considerably easier to use and sounds better, although it's still fundamentally the same kind of toy.

If you don't have any effect pedals yet, this is a good piece to start with. You'll be going up in quality and price after this, but with the Zoom you'll have an idea of what the compressors, distortions, flangers and delays do, and you'll get some experience.
Then you'll know what pedals you need and what not, or if you are going for a more advanced multi-effect device, you'll spot the differences more easily.

I've been playing 20+ years myself, and I find this toy sometimes useful when trying out different sounds, as I don't own too many other effects (I use mainly just a Line6 MM-4 modulation effect box on a Mesa/Boogie amp).

If you read the instructions that come with it,you'll soon figure it out :)

I used this unit with a tanglewood starfire,and a strat,through a peavey rage 158 (sounded good),and a marshall g80rcd(only 1 setting was tolerable).

When i was a guitar newbie,the variety of sounds impressed me and got me used to what effects did what.
Some of the effects are silly(delay,pitch shifters ,etc),
Some of the sounds are o.k like the fuzz,distortion,and it's easy to change the tone of the sounds also.
If your into hendrix this will do it for you!,
My unit seemed to lose alot of sound quality towards the end ,but i did have it for four years,and it served 40 hours each week.I think i wore it out.
It's pretty quiet too,not much buzzing or anything.

I wouldn't gig with it,but i had it four years,and it only died recently ,R.I.P lol

Never dealt with them.

I play blues,metal,and i used to play hendrix stuff when i started playing,you can get a good hendrix tone from it,especially using a good wha pedal.
I think this is a good buy for people who are just starting out playing guitar,i've heard worse multieffects that were twice the price (korg ax 1g for example,which someday i'll review on here too).

I own a marshall g80rcd,but the zoom is horrible through that,
My zoom 505 sounded best when i played through a peavey rage 158.


I had some great times on it,but i've moved on to the seperate pedals now.
If you have a dodgy amp,that will affect the sound,obviously.
I wouldn't buy another one,i prefer seperate pedals nowadays.
Hope that helped :)

I got the pedal on eBay, and it didn't even come with the manual. I figured out how to use it in about ten minutes.

I play a Fender Strat on a 30w Marshall. I'd say that the advantages of the sound is that there's so much to combine, and you can get some really unique sounds, however a lot of the stuff really does suck. I very rarely touch the distortion, as it really is horrible. The only major thing I've got against the pedal besides that is that it increases the level of static on the amp enormously, so that if you're, say, wanting to switch between clean and an effect, the clean setting will be really shitty sounding.

It's perfectly dependable, but I wouldn't use it on a gig, purely because of the quality of the effects at any louder level.

Never used it

I play an enormous variety of music, and this pedal does have a lot of potential for PRACTICING a lot of different types. I've been using it for PRACTICE for about a year and a half. I'd probably buy another if it were stolen, because you can get one on eBay for between thirty and fifty dollars, and it's worth that for a couple of effects and the chromatic tuner. I've got a Boss multi-effects pedal as well, and it's got four effects, as opposed to something like thirty, and I really like it (the Boss) a lot more. Once you get some really nice effects down, this is an okay pedal-just don't plan on depending on it.

very easy to use. editing patches is a breeze. the manual isn't really needed for this product. if you need a manual to operate this, YOU SHOULDN'T BE PLAYING GUITAR!

I currently am endorsed by Yamaha guitars, so I use a Pacifica 112m with a duncan screamin demon trembucker in the bridge position, and two stock single-coils, running through a marshal valvestate vs100, an alexis quadraverb, then running through my marshall 4x10 cabs. This thing is very noisy, but i use a noise gate (i put my noise gate RIGHT BEFORE my cabs in my setup)so that's not an issue anymore. Some of the effects are great, others suck really bad...... depends on your taste. you can get some excellent clean tone out of this mutha, but most of the distortions blow. HOWEVER>>>> certain patches generate killer tone, remenicent of george lynch, or maybe jake e lee...... i use this thing to record albums and tour with it, and it sounds good, not great. the delay lacks something, the hall effect is killer...as are the flanger and the chorus, but overall this unit sounds too contrived... like something i payed little money for.

I have spilled beer on this thing. I have dropped it dozens of times. I have kicked it, thrown it, done various other things to it... and it still works flawlessly. I have toured alot with this thing, and never needed a backup.

N/A

I write music in the style of 80's guitar-god metal, and overall this unit does add some flavor to my tone. I have been playing for 11 years, and this is probably the best 30 dollars i've ever spent on anything music related (i only say that because all my other music gear is WAY more expensive!). I currently own and operate my own studio and distribution center, Weird Fucker Records, and just about every other song i've ever produced has the 505 in there somewhere....
i use it on my own albums as well. if this thing were lost or stolen, i wouldn't cry....i'd just spend 30 dollars on another one! personally, i'd say go with rackmount processors, but at this price (30 to 60 bones) pick one up, just to have one, i guess.

Well, the Effect settings are pretty easy to configure: just a sheet of paper and playing around- you can figure out how to set up the delay with distortion and flanger at one go... editing is just as easy... the only thing is its DIGITAL, which means you can forget turning knobs on pedals but slowly go through the patches and numerals ONE-BY-ONE... sometimes during jam sessions you'll have a pissed off drummist waiting for you to come out with the right distortion for the correct amp setting...

I use a Fender Squier with an old vintage amp made in the 70's... and boy it does make a lot of NOIZE ... now thats a fact most would agree... the effects could have been better, but come to think of it, this small box has SO many effects all compliled together with an affordable price (you'll have to pay much more $$ for numerous analog gadgets...) Well in the past I started off with bands like early radiohead... considering this was my 2nd pedal I ever brought, it really impressed me alot initially... not until I can't exactly get the distortion/feedback that I used to love... went back to a simple DS-1 at times and still sound better ...
This gadget's great for switching heavy sounds to a jazz tone at just ONE step.... did a recording with it, and sounds rather good, not that bad as most had imagined... but I felt if you need something to just jam along anywhere anytime with roughly the sound you want anyplace this IS the PEDAL!

As long as the adapter works fine, you won't have a problem... just handle with care, all pedals will be reliable as long as you value them

I play all kinds of music English-Chinese-American-whatever-Jazz-blues-experimental... actually frankly to say this box has EVERYTHING that you want to do in music, just that it doesn't sound that great... you want a good overdrive? you got it... Add a delay to it? You can do it too... question is you can't just exactly set it to your expectation on the frequency like analogs... great for beginners, and meeting up with new jam sessions.

This is an extremely easy to use pedal, it was the first multi effects i ever used and itw as breeze even when i ahd no clue about what individual effects actually did. Great for a beginner

i use a marshall valvestate 8080 with a less paul. i ahve to compete with a much bigger amp on stage (as my bands other guitarist has a top of the range stack) however although the sounds are very basic and feedback can be a problem, with a bit of work some acceptable tones can be generated. The delay is quite nice but could prolly do with more user definability. my band play alot of heavy stuff (www.sixstagesuicide.com) and ive managed to make my sounds cut through. for the price its a good sound.

its never let me down i stamp on it it normally gets kicked all over the place jumped on etc. and considering its only made of plastic it has done well (though gaffer tapping the power supply in is advised). ive played many big gigs (along side the likes of suga coma and the buff medways) and its not let em down yet

have had no need ofr custommer support

I feel its more of a pedal for someone starting out although i still sue it (simply cos i cant afford another 1) it serves me well enough but does let down the sound. i wouldnt record with it. a more user definable set of effects would be nice rather than the straight forward 9 settings for each sound but not a bad lil pedal

Easy as eating pancake

Ok so listen up if you are just starting to play guitar and planning to do live. like me. I was using this effecter for my 10w small practice amp. It sounded alright. I could play a riff of system of a down toxicity and chop suey pretty fine with heavy metal effect.
but i used bigger amp on live. it was terrible. it turned 6 minutes of hell. riff was wiped by bass drum and destortion was wiped by noise. just terrible. i do want to forget what happend then. i recommend Ibanez Smashbox effecter. use this for practice. but remember pedal sux too.

no not on live
but practice maybe

just for practice kids

pretty easy to use,it takes approx. 5 minutes to figure it out. the manual explains everything.

I play dream theater and queensryche style progressive metal and some megadeth and pink floyd stuff. If you wanna play progressive stuff or metal (or anything distorted) the 505 won't do .if you use it with headphones, it might sound o.k., but no chance to get good distorted / overdriven sound on an amp (I tried a few, torques,marshalls,crates. it's very noisy and digital sounding. forget about using this for serious recordings or on stage. the acoustic sounds (reverb, delay, slight flange) are nice, though.

i just bought a boss gt3, so I wouldn't use it on a gig, but i've had the 505 for 3 years now and never had a problem with it. a friend of mine once dropped his 505 and it sort of fell appart, so I wouldn't try this.

never had a problem (expect the crappy sound, lol), so i dunno

Despite the 4 for the sound quality my overall rating is 7, because I think this is the best (and probably cheapest) choice for a beginning musician on low budget or someone who travels a lot like me. i gig and record things with my boss gt3, but it weights about a ton, and i do practice 5-6 hours each day, and it's much easier to carry the 505 around and it doesn't sound too bad through headphones. if you want a good sounding fx check out the boss gt3 or some line6 POD stuff.

CHECK OUT THE FOLLOWING UNDREGROUND PROGRESSIVE ACTS:

Stonehenge, Pain of Salvation, Without Face, chaos IN gray
great music.

It's kinda hard to understand what everything does. But good thing for the manual! Editing patches could be a pain, as well as selecting them.

When I first bought this pedal, I was new to the guitar. So I didn't know anything about tone and the like. Back then it sounded all right to me, but now a days the effects sound very cheap. When I finally upgraded my amp from a cheap 10 watt Yamaha to a 50 watt Marshall- I had to get rid of the pedal. It was ridiculously noisy. Especially on the distorted patches. But the pedal did a good job getting close to emulating other artist's tone- such as Creed and Metallica. But I would never use it again for performing. The other bad thing is that when you switch between patches, there's a delay that gets very annoying, especially if you're going for dirty to clean (or vice versa). It's very noticeable.

This pedal has never broken down on me. so it seemed to have been reliable.

Never had to deal with them.

This pedal is good for beginners who know nothing about guitars, like how i used to. But if you start getting good and start playing in front of other people, upgrade quickly. This pedal is not meant to get studio quality sound. I ended up selling it a while back and bought other pedals. I probably won't buy another zoom product, nor will i get a multi-effect processor again. Those things are pains in the butts to work with, especially if you have to switch inbetween patches.

Pretty easy to use. If you've ever dealt with a multi-effects pedal, it's a piece of cake.

None of the effects are terribly bad, but none are very good either. I wouldn't count on using the distortion for anything much, but other than that it sounds fine. If you really work with it, you can get some decent sounds, but I'm just sticking with my Boss single effect pedals.

It's plastic. I've had minor problems with it, but nothing serious. I wouldn't count on owning one for decades, but its not going to break in half on its first use.

A good beginner effects pedal, because you get a lot of effects for a fairly cheap price. I wouldn't gig or record with it. I play mainly hard rock/grunge type stuff, and this didn't suit me very well. The delay, flanger and chorus effects that I was really looking for weren't great, (but what do you expect from 50 bucks, really). I would only recommend this pedal to beginners who want to see if a multi effects is for them. If not, spend the extra for a boss or digitech multi-effets processor.

yeah...easy.....real easy....exceedingly easy....you don't need no stinkin' manual.....

i like the choruses.....frankly, i haven't delved too deeply, as this is but one member of an arsenal of toys....the tuner's cool....i play it thru a fender blues jr. a randall 212 combo, a peavey bandit, and a marshall vs65r....tradition les paul clones, and a mexistrat, plus other odd assorted guitars

yeah, it's alright....no throwing it against the wall, though

dunno

bought it 'cuz it was cheap...needed a multifx....it's ok....will buy another

Fairly simple up or down edit dtore ...easy

Several custome guitars, Gibson P100's, Seymore Duncan pickups into a 72 Twin. I would give this a great rating for a headphone amp. It fitts in your case and is easy to travel with which is why I bought it about 5 years ago. Just reciently I pulled it out of the box to play around with and instantly remembered why I put it in the Box. The sound absolutly sucks!!! Reverb is OK but my twin has plenty of that. The distortion leaves much to be desired, I hate compression anyway but this one is awful, forget about the wah, flanger is noisy, the unit overall hisses at you, the amp modeling is commical well amp "modeling" in it self is really kinda funny.

It lasted very well for several years in a box in my closet which if u get one you will find that this is the best use for it. But since it is made out of cheap plastic you know its only a matter of time.

never used it

I play mostly hard rock to fusion and have been playing about 12 years I also build guitars so I am very conscience of tone. I run my guitar signal through a rack of Boss pedals and think they give the best and most reliable sound for the price. If this unit were stolen I would feel very sorry for the thief. I really do like it for a hotel head phone amp though I must admit. But if you are interested in getting a signature tone you wil not find it here. I got this unit b/c it was cheap and I was on the road and wanted a headphone amp. A lot of comments here were saying that it would be good for a beginner I would suggest that the beginner get a nice guitar with a great amp and start there. some of the best punk, metal, fusion ect was played this way period. dont be fooled by "plastic" sounding effects...

It's a little tricky at first, but you'll get the hang of it in just a few hours...

It's got a few effects built in. It is a multi effect processor after all. The problem is that alla the effects sound terrible! This was my first effect and I still have it. Nowadays I use it for one thing, the reverb for my accoustic guitar. Nothing else. Why? As I said. Its a terrible effect processor! Sounds like crap.

It has never faild me. Never... Ill give it a nine bacause of the footswitch. Its getting looser by the day!

Never dealt with them, so I can't really tell.

It's a great unit for those who have no feeling for great tone! It's a great unit for those who've just begun playing guitar and have no idea of what it should sound like. It's not that expensive (therefor the quality of the unit). You get what you pay for.

If someone stole my Zoom 505, I would never ever buy a new one!

Easy to use if you read the manual. Takes quite a while (a few minutes) to set up your own patches, but on the web people have set up their own databases - so its easy to get a close approximation to some of the great guitarist's sounds.

The manual is clear and easy

Sound quality is debateable - overall its great and for what I paid it is worth it as a very versatile wah-wah pedal or flanger or digital delay - or all three.

Noise is controllable with the built in filters - so no excuses.

Effects are variable - delay flanger chorus wah wah are all good. Some of the amp models are a bit wierd - some are good.

Easy to get many Hedrix, Santana, Morcheeba type sounds.

My main bithc - if there is one - is that it 'knocks back' the Blues breaker that I preceed it with in my effects loop. It would be useful to be able to control gain without having to have an amp model in the set up prior to this.

This thing EATS BATTERIES. One PP3 lasted 8 minutes. Or rather it doesnt eat them - just strips the top end away and is very voltage sensitive. Bateries taken out of it have worked for weeks in other pedals. SOLUTION was a #12.50 regulated power supply - its been ultra-reliable since its use - with a power supply - NO PROBLEMS.

It's made of some sort of balistic plastic and is very robust - have gigged with it.

Good web site - manuals available for free download in PDF format.

This thing came with the additional FPO2 foot pedal in the price - a volume /or WAH pedal - so great value

The 505 is incredibly easy to use -- I only spent a few minutes with the instruction manual, and then never picked it up again. Sometimes it is hard to keep background hiss out, but it is possible after working with it for a moment (as opposed to the otherwise easy as all hell programming.) And for the price, I'm not complaining.

I have this set up with my Yamaha RGX-312 guitar (its an old '87 rip-off of an Ibanez.), and I use a Crate GFX-15 Amp. For its price, the sound quality is quite good, and there are a crapload of patches published on the internet, so I can get pretty much any tone I want. The sound quality is good, not amazing, just good. You get what you payed for. (Not necessarily in a bad way.)

It great, very sturdy, and I like it.

Never dealed with 'em.

I would recommend it to someone who wants somethin in the price range, and this thing has gone strong for me ever since I bought it off of eBay. Today I am ordering the FP02 expression pedal for it, so I'll see how that works out for me. Good pedal. But there is better out there.

after a little bit of fiddling, the 505 is very, very easy to use.

i used a Gibson SG clone from circa 1980 (el degas), and a squier stagemaster 7 string. i've got a fender jam amp. the 505 worked great on lower volumes with the clean tone on, but anything higher than about 3.5 on the master volume turned the distortion part to crap. the pedal has no individual effect EQ, just amp modelling and a main EQ for every effect being used. almost better to go with seperate pedals for every effect.

reliable as hell, always worked for me.

i had it repaired because it got wet in a small basement flood and it worked great for about 2 months. i had it fixed because it shorted. took about 7 weeks (!) to get the thing fixed, and it was good as new then.

i'm a big metal fan. mostly korn and deftones, stuff like that. this pedal's great if you just want to jam by yourself, because if you're learning a new song with effects including in the transcription, you can just change the settings to whatever you need to. 6 banks with 4 spots each = 24 user programmable slots. with 9 different settings per effect, this pedal has lots of variety. the delays are especially good. 8 distortions, i used mostly the Metal setting, with the amp model on 9 and the EQ on 25 to get a ballsier sound for the 7 string i own. this pedal is great for stuff like incubus too, which uses a lot of delays and phaser effects. because it doesn't have a seperate EQ for each effect though, having a stack or a combo is better than just a plain amp. note: if you want sustain in your distortion, stay the hell away from the "distortion" setting ("dT" on the pedal)!
anyways, its a fairly good pedal. if in America, pick it up for about $125 or less. elsewhere, look forward to $150 or higher. its worth it to explore different guitar sounds, but i'd stick with individual pedals if you want more managablilty in your sound.

WELL unlike some of the reviews i read ,i like it ,i got got 1 w/ they first came on the market,
at 1st the patches and programming was confusing but w/ time and tinkering it became simple....instructions who needs em....

sound could be alot better ,yes it is 2 noisy ,i run sound 4 a local band @ we use them direct (yes them)
the distortion @ stuff could be better i would have liked 2 have seen
better parimeter adjustments

really good never let us down yet

never

play top 40(pudd o mudd,nickleback, matchbox20,kennywayne,etc.) , metal(ozzy,maiden,etc.)
played for 15 years
stolen? probally try a bigger unit
if you r ever in southeast , kentucky..
check out our c.d or see us live if u like good music

I do not have one of these unities, but I assume that with the help of the manual or internet sites explaning stuff about "patches" is quite ease to use

well I actually do not own one of these 505 pedals. I sincerily do not like multi effects in general, specially those who come with efx that u may never use in your life, BUT a friend of mine got one of these and is pretty satified with this. ZOOM is the ONLY multi efx I've ever heard that doesn't sound as ULTRA DIGITAL CRAPPY SHIT as Digitech and others I heard a Death Metal band playing with a Digitech RP somehwta, and would ya know, it was the worst RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR ultra digital "fabricated" stuff I've ever heard. many compl;ain about the 505 but at least ZOOM doesn't make CRAPPY RRRRRRRRRRRRRRR Ultra Digital efx that only works well with Industrial. I assume that 505 is good for home guitarrists ( as my friend ) or those with hobbie bands./ But for effects nothing I mean NOTHING beats Boss Stomp Boxes Believe me. I only use a Zoom 507 as Efx Module, but as I mentioned, apart from Zoom ALL OTHER MUTI EFX SUX INCLUDING BOSS !!!! an ex friend of mine had a Boss ME-6 and would ya know this was the worst EFX Ive heard on my whole life,specially the distortion !!! Even he himself was planning on sell this crap RRRRRRRZZZZ Ultra Digital Crap and replace it with good old stomp pedals. even many artists are doing this nowadays !!!

dunno

dunno

I play Metal. My EFX set up is a Boss Equalizer, Zoom 507 ( Reverbs and Delays ) and a Boss Digital Dimension for ( Chorus ). I also have a NS2 Noise Gate but I never used this thing yet. I really prefer good old fashined StompBox pedals, they sound Much better than any Multi EFX youcan get, believe me

This thing is pretty simple to use! You browse with two buttons (down,up), and there's also two seperate buttons for editing and storing your patches. Theese are made cind of small, so you'll have to use your fingers... and sometimes they stick!

I run my 505 trough a Marshall Valvestate combo amp, on clean settings. You can get some NICE sounds out of this box, but it's usually never GREAT. I have a cool, heavy riffing effect that I've made, also a lead sound.. it feeds alot though.
The best thing about this box is the Acoustic Simulator though!
This is the best I've heard ever. NO KIDDING. I'm keeping my Zoom for that feature only. All in all, you can find decent sounds here.. experiment!

It's made out of plactic, and the buttons tend to stick. I've (ab)used mine to the point in wich the up/down buttons begun to stick.
I've used it on alot of gigs, and it's all good exept for the sticking. It also sounds good directly in a good PA. I played a gig once, just plugging in.

I have never been in touch with the Zoom customer support, as I bought mine secound hand.

I play in a very serious band right now. We've just signed a record deal, and I'm saving up for some more serious rack gear. I reccomend the Zoom for any beggining/immediate player! If you're in a gigging band, and want a GOOD effect processor without robbing a fricking bank, this product is for you! It worked for me, and I'm still keeping it because or the increadible acoustic simulators! I got a totally unique signature clean sound with this box, and it's really great!

This box has a good selection of effects... go trough them, and get inspired by the sounds! A good product for the anything-but proffecional musician.

very easy

i'm using the Ibanez GRX-40 (cheap but worth), and the zoom 505 with my computer as an ampilifer bypass, so i get a very clean distortion, a very nice tone (i never touch the one on the guitar), no feedback, but ofcourse there's not much different on the sound if i use it on a real amps

there's only a problem, that is the skip if u browse between the patches.

anyway its not always about the product, sometimes the product itself needs a special skill from a professional to operate it.

To get optimal sound out of this pedal is really not too hard. It's simple to use when you're just in your studio practicing, but I don't think I'd ever count on the stupid foot pedals for a stage performance.
Editing patches in home, again, is simple, but not wholly intuitive.
The manual was extensive, but simple, and explained things intelligently, yet in a way that I could understand.
This is an old used one, so I know little about it.

I'm using an Acrylic Warlock with a Fender Twin head (yes, a head. The actual amp has been taken out of it's combo to make it lighter, and easier to move around than a combo. Long story.). The cab I use is crappy, as are the tubes, so I can't really say the sound is unbiased. I also use a Fender Princeton. The latter is a bit tinny, but gets the job done.
It's always relatively noisy, but it's a $50 pedal now, what can you really expect?
The effects are often weak, and combining some effects kills one or more of them. The wah pedal is awesome clean, but add a bit of metal distortion to it (for that Blind Guardian sound) and you kill the wah. The distortion gets damn heavy, but sounds pretty fake and hollow.
I don't try to emulate other artists. Unlike many others I see on here, I try to keep to my own style, so I don't keep trying to make my guitar sound exactly like Jon Schaffer's.
Most effects on their own are quite, well, decent. The Chorus is light, but does what I need for clean stuff. The reverb is excellent for a digital unit. The wah is nice for a cheapie unit. The phase and flange need work. The EQ is okay, but kinda bites if you want real control over it. The octave is superb, in my opinion. I use it for vocal effects sometimes, and it does a better job at that than a guitar processor!

It's built of cheap plastic. Little else needs to be said about reliability. This is my only pedal, so I kind of need to rely on it. Problem is, I can't use batteries anymore, since the battery pad snapped off when I was in school. It'd be better if it were one that was pushed into the unit and made connections within, instead of plugging in. The program buttons on the side are sticky, and you can't edit effects without using fingers (I use my toes sometimes). All in all, crappy for reliability.

Haven't dealt with them.

As this is a multi effect pedal, it's really as good with any type of music as another. That being said, for practice, it's good for my type of music: Metal.
I've been playing about 4 years, this is about all I have in terms of effects. I have two main amps, one that's exclusively for practice, and one for performances.
If it were stolen, I'd be really p*ssed. If lost, I'd be irked. I would get something better. Looking at a GT-6 right now.
I like that it's easy to use and has decnt effects for a cheapie pedal. I hate that it has overall bad sound, unreliable, and has crappy editing.
It was given to me as a present for my birthday. No choices.
I wish it had a LOT of things. If you're considering getting it, GET THE EXPRESSION PEDAL. It acts as a volume pedal, as well as wah and octave.
It helps me make music, really. I write with it, if you call memorizing songs writing.
I'd say this thing is good for a beginner, or for practice/writing. Past that, use a pedal that'll set you back some money. You get what you pay for.

After i bought it within 1 hour i had changed all the preset patterns. The unit is a breeze to progrmme. I've been using it for abt 3 years and i am prety satisfied with it. I would realy recomend it to a beginer. It has all the guitar effects which will keep you satisfied for a couple of years. For the manual i got a sheet. I dont think i ever read it. Like i said before programing this baby is prety easy. There is a new version of the 505 availaible now.

I have a Ibanez RG 270 and an RMS amp. The thing i hate most abt the 505 is that although you have most of the effects like delay, flangr,phase shift,wah ... you cannot control the delay rate manulay. You can select from a scale of 1 to 10. The EQ effect is prety sad. You can select a setting from 1 to 50. It would have been better if you could control the high,mid and low end on a scale of 10. Also if you want to adjust the master volume you have to hold 2 tiny buttons for abt 2 secs and this could be realy tricky on stage, in case u miss on button you might just shift to another patch. The distortion sounds are prety good but it cant beat a DOD or Ibanez dist pedal. The model is prety old so the sounds programmed are of the same age.

The unit is prety reliable. I have not dropped it yet but i can assure you that the unit is realy robust. The edit and volume control knobe get stuck sometimes but a little cleaning can set it right.

I've never had a prob with the unit so I've no idea.

I play rock,metal and blues. I've seen a lot of processors from zoom and tone works and roland. I bought the 505 cause it was realy affordable, it had all the effects i need at that time. If it were stolen i would definately upgrade my self. It has realy served me well in all the gigs and parties i've played.

The tricky part with the 505 is that you have only two foot switches unlike it's big brothers (1010 & 4040). So you have to programme in you patch carefuly so that you dont have to do a awful lot of stomping on the pedal before and after your lead. I would have realy wished it had a better EQ designa and an analog delay.

Buy this only if u have to make a decision b/w a single effect pedal and the 505. The 505 has all the major effects you get on most effect procesors but you cannot finetune each effect. If you are looking for a affordable unit, go for it.

Preset patches are mostly useless, but it is very easy to modify them to create your own patches.
The manual is just a sheet of paper, but it solves any question that you may have.

I have a Yamaha Pacifica 112 (it's not a great guitar, but it's worth its price) with two single-coil pickups and a bridge humbucker. When I bought the 505 i was playing through a crappy 10-watt Yamaha amplifier, and i thought the Zoom sounded great, but now i own a 120-watt Laney TF300 and,..erm, you can tell the difference.
The first thing to say is that it is quite noisy. You can fix it using the noise gate, but if you do so you cut all your sustain. I find the distortions quite good (not death-metal,though), since i can match the sound of the groups i like (radiohead,placebo,muse,smashing pumpkins,nirvana), but the EQ is very limited. Chorus and flangers are OK, but you can't customize them much (no time, no depth...). Delay is very limited, and you can't use it with the reverb. Auto-Wah is pure crap.I find the tuner not very accurate. Also it has a not-very-short delay between patches.

Although the case is made of plastic, it is very reliable (3 years with it and it hasn't broken down),but the small buttons that are on the sides are very keen to stick and begin changing the effect parameters forever.
It works well live, but you have to keep and eye on it, because when you stomp it you may press the two buttons at once,activating the bypass mode and causing it to mute the sound terribly!

never dealt with them (hopefully)

for its price, it's the best stuff you can find.a good (and cheap) multiFX for beginners, but i think it is not a good choice for playing live or playing through a serious amp. now i'm saving to buy a digitech RP-12 used...

at first it is easy to use. then after a while the little buttons on the side that r used to edit the effect stick and the thing u r working on wont stop changin. very annoying. i made the mistake of gigging w/ it, thank god nothing happened, but of coarse i duct taped cups around the knobs so they wouldnt move and stay there.

yeah, if u r a beginner and dont have much experience, it sounds really cool, i loved it when i first got it. once u buy a quality pedal, u realize how bad the 505 really sounds, and want to get rid of it as soon as possible. or maybe do what i do and keep it on the side of ur rig and sometimes use it as a tuner if the bass player isnt around to tune to.

the buttons stick and make it impossible to work w/

n/a

its cool at first, especially if ur a beginner, but dont be fooled, it sucks.

It took me a while to figure out how to edit and save patches, etcetera. If you want a good sound out of this, however, you're out of your mind. It may be full of features for such a small package and price, but that's where all the budgeting obviously went in the making of this thing.

Alright, I'll admit when I got this pedal about 4 years ago and wasn't even playing full-sized amps, I thought this thing was cool. The effects are good to tinker around with if you've not had the chance to mess around with them before, but they definitely are bedroom metal practice amp quality. Hissy, grainy distortion, not true bypass, no tap tempo available, etcetera. Definitely not worth the price, unless you never plan on playing out.

Wouldn't gig with it, but it works fine.

Never dealt.

If you never plan on playing outside of your basement, be my guest and throw away your money on this piece of shit.

This pedal has a fantastic sound for it's price and the fact that it is not a dedicated unit. Editing patches is simple but the controls for it are fiddly, and it isn't possible to edit them whilst playing.

I am using this pedal with a JHS SG-type guitar and Columbus amp (very much a budget setup). The pedal is only noisy on high gain settings, but this is to be expected, and the Zoom Noise Reduction feature is useful for eliminating this (though sustain is lost, and it doesn't sound right when using this with delay).
The various types of distortion available tend to have a quite papery edge unless you whack up the gain to a stupid level and then compress the signal fully. It lacks the smooth overdrive of a dedicated pedal.
However it is fantastic on cleaner settings, or when you need to cram in several effects. Since I am a U2 fan I can easily produce with this pedal the clean, delayed and atmospheric sound of Pride (In the name of love), or the rough high- gain sounds of The Fly.
However, as mentioned before, it lacks the ability to give a smooth rhythm sound, which is in my opinion, vital.

This pedal was good while it lasted, but it lacks survivablity. It is made of plastic, and after two years of not particularly strenuous use, the conatacts for one of the switches have packed up, meaning I now need to arrange effects between banks rather than within them. It also means I can't access the chromatic tuner, or bypass the pedal.
The last time I played live I had trouble with this, and as such, I would never depend on it again.

Neve did, wouldn't know how.

If this was stolen (and I doubt anyone would want to steal it) I'd definitely get something else. Something more sturdy which doesn't drain batteries and has bigger controls.