Zoom 505

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.