Zoom 505

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.