Zoom 506 Bass Effects

prety ease. no problem

here are the big problems. those sounds are so artificial people may think you are a bass player from jupiter. the reverbs and halls are nothing but cra**. the HISS WILL DRIVE YOU CRAZY. the only useable thing is the baypass, but the hiss anyway........... or the tuner.
THIS IS a LITTLE BIT OF ADVICE: DO NOT use it in thre pre mode of your amp. always use it in the post mode, or chain efgfects. inh pre mode is HORRIBLE. i use a EB music/ stingray. trough a gk head and ampeg cab (classic). man, to be honest in pre mode, with this rig is like putting a geo metro motor into a ferrari. DO NOT USE IT IN PRE MODE. in post would work

as far ok.

never dealt with them.

ok. back in the 1998 the unit cost if i am not wrong $200 bucks. now they go for $39. ??why? well answer is at you own nose. i bought mine for $100. to be honest i think $39 is the fair price. sound are nothing but $20 bucks unit. tuner ok. if you tend to be pro STAY AWAY for this and maybe get a comp/limiter pedal. best invest.

it takes quite a bit of getting use to. but once you got the hang of it. adjusting sounds is `easy' enough.

I agree, out of the box, it sounds a bit digital, but you can, and MUST taylor it to your own needs and sound. and yes there IS hiss in it, but with fine tweaking, it can be overcome for most sounds

My first zoom, which was for electric guitar,which I bought used. died, but I dont know how it was treated and how old it was. I've had this one for a couple of years, and I'm pretty happy with it, now that I've changed every patch in it. no problems so far

haven't dealt with them

i have a listing of every factory patch setting on it, so if i want to recall a factory setting, I know what they are. and I changed every patch so each bank has its own `character'.and made charts showing every setting on every patch. A-bank for accoustic, B-Bank for Bass, C-Bank for chord & chorus, D-bank for distortions, E-bank for Echoes, F-bank for flange and Phase, and G-bank is for temporary use. I load whatever patch I want into the G bank and can switch back and forth between them on the fly a lot easier. I highly reccomend doing this, and ease of use goes' up to a 9 out of 10. it takes a while to program it this way, but the resluts are well worth it. now I can find the exact sound I want very easily, and it can be used with my electric/accoustic as well. the original factory set up has no logic to it. want my patch set-up list ? e-mail me at curbie1150@yahoo.com.

It seems pretty easy to use. I did some patch editing today, as I never like factory settings. It sounded okay, but I'll probably have to tweak it a bit more.

Running through a Behringer 120, i bypassed the amp's preamp stage to get good sound. Apparently, I was right when I thought I got ripped off when I bought my amp. Also, I bought the older generation, not the 506II, and it seems the older ones sound better.

When I bought it, I was told that it kept shutting off and I had to hit a pedal to turn it back on. But I immediately knew the problem (Bad switch in the input jack) and had the equipment and parts to fix it. I replaced them with jacks that bolt onto the case. But hey, for $40 used, and knowing what the problem was, it wasn't too big of a risk.

Never called, but they're probably not very helpful anyways.

Well, It's probably not the best thing I bought, but it does what I need it to do. I play a variety of stuff, from classic rock, pop-punk, a little rap, and some blues.

Fiarly simple to get to know. The main problem is pressing both the pedals to get it to bypass.

I had an active Hohner Jack going to this to a Peavey Firebass but I haven't used it in ages. Mainly due to the noise. You can get some great sounds out of it, I was particularly fond of the octaver which you can sweep if used in congunction with a volume/wah pedal.
The wah itself was fairly rubbish, more of a high/low switch than any wah I've ever heard.
I don't use it any more because it is just too noisy, even on the bypass.

It is plastic but I've never had a problem with it. I used it for about 4 years without any problems.

Never had call to find out

Great for beginners, but try to pick one up second hand.

I'm currently looking for seperate effects but without having played with this I wouldn't know what to look for. Having read one of the reviews here I'm going to stick it into the effects loop off my amp which will let me properly bypass it. This will let me get some of the off the wall sounds without having to deal with the noise.

It has served me well but it's time to move on.

It's very easy to use if in a song you only use a couple of effects and when you program it, you think in your songs.

I use a Warwick Fortress One and a Patrick Eggle Milan V, a level art tube compresor and Trace Elliot BXL 130
If you're locking for a distortion, this it is not the multi-effect that you need, if you wants to do chips, this it is the suitable instrument.
I can't get any good warm distortion (like audioslave or Billy Shehan, in the other hand, they uses a expensives preamps...)

- Don't use batteries
- Be carefully with the connection of the a/c adapter if you step on it, you will have it to reconstruct
- Never failed me
- Be carefully with the small buttons of the side

I play rock untill 10 years ago, if somebody stile it never I bought again the same.
But if you don't have money, you can use the compresor, the amp simulator and you can connect the earpieces to play with batteries in the mountain ;).

The unit is easy to use,but navagation is a little cumbersome.

The unit has decent sound quality. The units standard effects are weak, but with some time and experimenting you can get some decent sounds.
The bad thing is that the unit is noisy, I wish it was cleaner.
Some people say that it is junk, but it is usable if you take time and make good paramater adjustments.

It is made of plastic, but it does seem to hold up well.

I have never had to contact them. Unlike the 505 I have not found any sites with patches available. The 505 had many uses post some interesting patches to use.

Overall it is a good unit for a beginner or some live use, I don't think it would be a good thing to use to record with. If you need a unit for live effects and could get it for $20 it would be pretty well worth it. If you want effects to record with I would get a Boss or pod.

Easy to use, simple. No problem here.

Very very poor....if you have a good bass, it will destroy your sound with hiss and artificial sounds....

Don't worry about it, you will give up before it cracks.

Who cares?

Very poor. Bass is very different than guitars...if you don't have the best equipment, you'd better bypass it. A good bass, amp and cables are essencial...but unless you're already playing pretty good and want to record things, the dream of improving your sound is very frustrating by bying such things....if so, save your money for some bass classes will improve it faster!

Pretty easy to use, switching through the patches takes a minute, but it's pretty easy to do (up or down the bank, not much else to it).

Editing patches is somewhat annoying and takes getting used to. Following the blinking lights is confusing at first.

I used this mostly with a Yamaha BBN5 running through a Yorkville 200B and it was hard to find good settings with it. It's a decent first multi-effect to get your toes wet for playing bass with effects; one or two of the stock patches are ok.

Overall, the effects this thing makes are pretty weak and nothing stands out as being particularily good.

I haven't had any reliability issues with it while I owned it and I bought it used.
Not something you'd want to gig with; well, unless you like your bass to sound like ass that is.

n/a

I had this pedal for about 4 years, mostly using it for the tuner feature, occasionally playing with the patches. It can be fun to experiment with, but overall, the sound you get isn't going to be very good.

It's pretty easy to figure out. It grows on you. The interface does suck compared to digitech's though I miss the knobs 8(

I'm not a bass player. I just needed a couple of the effects/features that were on this and I could get it really cheap.

For those interested:
I play a Epiphone Flying V w/Duncan Distortion in the bridge
into-> Rocktron Gainiac Tube Preamp
into-> Zoom 506
into-> Peavey Deltafex stereo processor
into-> Technics 500watt Stereo Receiver (For the Power amp)
into-> Home built 4x10 cabinet w/ Eminence speakers


I bought this primarily because I needed amp simulation (My stereo receiver kicks out a lot of sound but it has zero tone shaping). I considered getting digitech rp50 or rp100 but I went with the z506 because I found it for 20 bucks on ebay...plus I used several digitechs for years and have come to this conclusion...Zooms simply have way better ADA conversion.

I am very impressed with how this little pedal worked out.
First, I like how the amp simulation has divided the preamp and amp simulators to different parts of the signal chain therefore giving me the chance to disable preamp simulation when I don't need it. I like using some of the clean preamps on here to help shape my lead tone but for heavy gut crunchin' riffs it sound better to have the preamps disabled.

I think the flanger is pretty cool

The EQ seems to be effective but it takes so long to find out exactly what I want that I hate to mess with it.

reverbs are great, delay is okay...

I'm a little nervous here...
I bought it used so I don't know how much abuse it's taken...
Right now the battery leads are open and taped to the battery, I hope to fix this soon LoL. There is no battery cover so If I move it, it can shut off and I have to retape it. I guess I can't fairly rate this category since I didn't buy it new....

Great for what I bought it for.
Excellent tone shaping ability for such a low-class piece of equipment.
I used to play digitech rp300 and I can say that the sound is overall much clearer on the zoom. It sounds more like analogue.

I can't speak one way or another for the fuzz' and distortions on the 506 because I only use the clean amp simulations. I use my tube preamp for the distortion.

There's some noise in it...

All in all, it's a tight little package that has everything I need to complete my guitar effects.

Yo tambien voy a dar mis opiniones y calificaciones en castellano! para que lea algun compa?ero latinoamericano o algun compatriota Argentino. A ver empezamos con lo facil o dificil que puede ser usar esta pedalera. Es muuy facil de usar, esta muy bien configurada y armada, salvo algunas opciones que se quieran realizar en donde hay que mantener teclas apretadas por mas de 2 segundos ...pero esta muy bien, ademas los manuales de instrucciones estan bien explicitos y no hay forma de que uno no le agarre la vuelta a la cosa.

Yo estoy usando en este momento un amp Fender BXR, un Fender Jazz Bass Standard y un Gibson EB-3 de 1967. Yo compre esta pedalera sobre todo para poder usar mi Gibson, ya que buscaba un sonido tipo Jack Bruce (CREAM)y la verdad es que quede muy complacido ya que buscaba un pizca de distorcion y me parecio mas adecuado esta pedalera que un Boss Overdrive Bass que es una distorcion mas metalica, algunos efectos son muy "plasticos" por lo que no son muy buenos, para el Jazz Bass he usado efectos como el chorus, auto-wha...y estan bien..no son gran cosa pero estan bien. Haciendo un promedio la pedalera queda aprobada, es una pedalera no profesional que no sirve para estudio por lo ruidosa que puede llegar a ser, pero esta excelente para usar en vivo.

Si!, es bastante confiable, nunca tuve problemas. Aunque no dependo de ella, el sonido lo doy yo con mis dedos no ella.

ni idea...nunca llame a nadie por reparaciones porque no las necesite.

Para el estilo de musica que hago, que es Blues-Rock esta muuy bien!.He tenido 2 de estas pedaleras y si llegara a perder esta pedalera no dudaria en comprarme otra porque por la calidad-precio es muuuy buena!!!. Siempre tiene sus pros y contras porque cada uno tiene su sonido y resulta dificil adaptarla a "su sonido" pero siempre puede contrarrestarla si se le pone paciencia, y teniendo en cuenta la relacion calidad-precio. Es una pedalera confiable y de buen sonido.

Erm after about a week i got to grips with the thing, 'its kinda plastic' (see PWK WP100). Yeah it's ok.

Any Zoom uint gives off a great deal of noise unless used through some sort of gate, maybe a 'kinda plactic' gate would work? It's ok mind, y'know as a noisey musician is likely to by such a unit, hey i did. The effects are all fully interchangable and you are able to 'muck about with the settings on all 24 patches.

I used this many a time with out back up. maybe if it didn't break down i'd still be using it, mind it is over 6 years old now. the only problem i found was that the soldering overloaded and the inputs failed accordingly. 'it's kinda plastic'hence easily fixed.

Erm, Zoom are still about, yeah? i never called to see how the were, i supose they're great people once you get to know them. they're probably 'kinda plastic'.

Yeah buy one, see how it works, submit your opinion, i don't mind if you slag it off, i like it, it's a pedal, 'it's kinda plastic', useful to mess around with, make a little noise, ven use it on a drum machine as i did, you'll be somewhat amazed after you work it out and give it a little time to make itself at home aroundyour place.

You learn it within a day. Dead easy. Takes some time to set effects correctly, but thats purely a matter of cycling through.

The one downside is for live, its difficult to bypass in the middle of a song as it involves tapping both pedals at once, but I overcome this with a channel switcher pedal as I have two channels on my amp. I run the effects through one channel and leave the other clean, and just set the effect before each song.

Despite what people have been saying about the noise, its not that bad if used properly. The 24 presets have everything up to the extreem and yes that gets noisy.

If you want to use two effects in conjuction with the compression, and an eq setting it'll be noisy. However if run through a decent amp, with a built in eq, just using one or two effects at a time, it is possibly to get some briliant sounds out of this box. The auto-wah (both Fat and reso) are surprisingly good when set correctly, and the same for the chorus, flange and octaver. The synth effect is a pile of crap however.

Haven't had it long enough. Battery life is quite short, but you shouldn't be running a digital pedal off of a battery.

I play a mixture of rock/grunge rock/punk/funk/alternative and rock and roll and this pedal suits my needs perfectly. Its by no means the best but its pretty good. Although I would agree this is a good pedal for begginers, I would also say, people who have been playing a fair while and know the ins and outs of effects would like this for the price, as if you know how to use it properly and ignore the drastic presets designed to sell it in the shop, this pedal can be set up very nicely indeed.

it is quiet easy to use the pedal, just hit one of the buttons.

crap, crap and more crap. When switched on, it gives too much gating, it keeps on making noise, and disrupts me all the time. When bypassed, it is a nice source of distortions, fuzz, and noise, which i don't like at all. THe tuner itself sucks too, by the way.

you can easily use it without backup, no prob here. It doens't break if you hit it too hard, you know.

very good pedal too buy as your first. that way, you will get a feeling of what kind of effect you should buy. Afther that, throw it away, and buy somethign else.

Setting ( or resetting ) patches is a bit painful. During a gig, I accidently got into program mode!

Most of the factory settings are pretty hissy. Even playing through in bypass ( tuner only ) mode, a slight amount of noise is added. I do like the synth on this thing, though.

This thing eats batteries.
Get an AC adapter!

Oddly, I found the tuner to be rather temperature sensitive. This tuner is at best useless on the low B of a 5-6 string bass!

Again, it often gets set to program mode which is a big problem if you are using different patches during a set. In program mode, you can't switch patches.

No idea on this.

If all of your band is loud and a mish-mosh of sound, its probably ok.

I mean if you guys are balls-out-shred monkeys, the Zoom506 is a useful device for the budget-minded. Get the pedal that goes with the zoom506 and you can patch a few effects like pitch shifting and envelope to be variable with the pedal.

If you are on the road to purity in your sounds, You would better spend your money on a better quaulity ( $ ) multi or component effects.

Easy to use, but finnicky to use. Has tiny little buttons for tweaking patches so you can forget about editing on stage. Takes about 5 years of editing to get anything ok sounding out of it.

Bollocks! About all I use it for now is tuning cos the effects are hopeless (and it's a crap tuner to boot!) Pretty damn noisy too. Effects are only good for the "hey, isn't that wierd" comment, but you would never use it for anything. I've used it with many amps of various power ratings, and many basses, but little is the difference. Fuzz distortion was ok, delay is shit.

It works most of the time. Why no 9 volt battery? You need an adaptor cos the 4 AA's don't last very long.

Haven't wasted my/their time.

Please, if I can stop just one person from getting this unit I'll die happy! If it were stolen, I'd be a happier man. Don't fall into the trap of relative inexpensiveness (cheapness is more accurate), shell out more money for something better, something top of the line. There's no midway with these things, it's either the best or a waste of time for all concerned.

its easy to use.....if you can use a calculator, you can use this thing

the thing about it is, i use this with a guitar (strat/ l.p. through a fender blues deluxe amp) i use the dr distortion at lots of different gain levels. i use the auto wah (which is puke) and the chorus (also puke) on a clean setting. this thing is a toy and not for the serious musician. i should be drawn and quartered for trading a still tasty stick of stale juicy fruit and a shoestring for this.

so far i can, but i have some good equipment and this is a toy.....its like having a corvette with a k-car engine in it.

who knows

i play hard rock/ semi-alt./semi metal. the distortion, for me, is a twist because i use this thing with guitars and this is a bass effect. so i have came up with some really original tones, but im in the process of buying a PODpro and mesa tube power amp to drive a 4x10 bassman and a 4x12 slanted marshall babinets in stereo. when i finish building my dream unit, i will trade this thing to some bass playing chick for a suck job or something.

Out of the box and playing with patches in no time... editting patches takes a bit more work. After reading the manual, it's easy to learn the procedure. I give it a five because it takes a while to understand the thing, but after a while it's like second nature.

I use a jazz bass, fretless bass, and a five string through this pedal into my Crate BX-160... the built in noise gate helps cut out noise, but the more effects you use, the noisier it gets. Some effects are fairly decent, like compression, pre amp, modulation and delays, but some are extremely weak, like the auto and pedal wah (with opt foot pedal). It's a good way to get your hands on a multitude of effects, but there are only few ways to adjust effects, but hey, it's less than $100, so no big loss. You gotta play with it for a while and use it live to know what works and what sucks, so once you figure out what you like and what you don't you can just use the good stuff and ignore the rest (like the synth, ha). I use it mainly to compress my signal onstage and in studio and for the "Slap" preamp. Once in a while I use a little delay to make my basslines sound more 3 dimensional, and I always use gate as needed to get rid of the excess hissing. It's definitely not something I'd use if I had a million bucks, but for now it's doing something good for my signal.

Let's face it. The pedal is made out of plastic. I wouldn't put the lead foot on it to change patches, but I've had mine for five years now and have never had a problem with it. GET THE AC ADAPTER... it eats 9V batteries like Sally Struthers in a soup kitchen. I treat my pedal pretty nice, and it's never wronged me. I have a 505 Guitar that a friend gave me to fix... it was all sorts of screwed up cause he threw it around all the time... I just popped the casing off it and it still works as just the circuit board. I'd say use it, don't abuse it, and it will be good to you.

I've never dealt with ZOOM.

I play in a heavy metal band, but I like a big thick bass tone, this pedal helps me get a bigger sound and the noise gate is useful even if you don't use any of the other effects. My wireless system makes a little noise sometimes so the noisegate helps get rid of that. I've been playing bass and guitar since 1996 and I would be pissed if the thing got stolen, but I'm planning on getting rack effects soon anyway, so I'd rather get something with a little more quality. To be honest, as a bass player I don't really need multieffects, I'd rather just have compression, noisegate, and a little drive control to add warmth... I could care less about chorus and flange and all that. I really wish this thing had a 3 band parametric EQ... instead, you get a 1 to 50 EQ control, 1 being bassiest, 50 being trebly, and 25 flat... now way to get the midrange scoop I desire... so I leave the EQ off and use my amp's 7 band instead. But I'd have to say that it's helpful as a signal boost with the compression and for the noisegate, so it's still helpful to me after 5 years with it. Oh yeah, and I'd like to say FURAX RULES!

I've this thing forever, so I don't even remember the original presets. I enjoy making my own, therefore, I've never had any complains about this.

I've used this unit with several basses, a Peavey and an Ibanez, as well as several amps. A Fender and a Dean Markley practise amp. The fuzz can make a lot of white noise but this can be controlled with the Noise Gate.

This was a cheap pedal with a lot of options, so I'm not concerned that some effects aren't the greatest. The Octaver sounds muddy (at the very least) and the delay only has 9 options. Use this pedal for the compression, distortion and modulation effects.

I have used this for several hour-long gigs (without a backup) and it is reliable provided that you go in prepared.

Never had any problems in the four-ish years that I've had it.

If this were stolen I certainly wouldn't shed any tears but I'd be disappointed with having to replace so many effect options with something else.

The Zoom 506 bass is real easy to use, with loads of effects. The manual has everything to reseting the pedal, to making your own patches. It has alot of really unjique presets, and you can make a lot of your own (24 to be exact). If you have problems about the order of your patches, you can rearrange them, too.

I use mine on a cheap Vantage bass on a cheap univox amp and it sounds GREAT!! a quick clean tone , press both pedals. I comes with the exact distortion that Flea (from Red Hot Chili Peppers) uses on Around the World, which is cool. Alot of cool effects, like Flangers, chorus, wah, disto., and such. You can also add a extra foot pedal to make a wah-wah pesal, wich is cool. In the words of Benny Rietfield, "It's comact, has alot of cool effects, runs on batterties, and looks Like a tricorder!". Okay, okay, that was for the Zoom 606II, but they're practically the same, Right?

I would use it in a gig because its easy to use, you can rearrange the patches to your convenience, and (I cannot stress this enough) IT HAS COOL EFFECTS!!. Also, very sturdy, I dropped mine 3 times, lost a pedal and almost short circuted it, but it is in one piece, the pedal just popped back on, and i unplugged the power it Just in time. Do not use a power source higher than it is made for. It can really fry it.

It is easy to repair (the pedals pop back on in broken off) and the shell (plastic) is sturdy, but i have not dealt with the costomer support, and i have not yet fried the inside.

I have been playing for 3 years, I was looking for the right pedal,and BAM! the Zoom 506 is perfect. Doesn't matter what kid of music you play, there is an effect for everyone.

This pedal is very easy to use, very basic and a good over view of all the effects there is out there.

WEll when i played an ibanez 5 soundgear through my crappy old fender bass amp rad bass 75 watt it was good. It was so exciting when i first got it , all the wierd effects etc. But now that i have upgraded to an ernie ball music man sterling , it distorts the effects and amp, it isn't the pickup height either , i think it's just that the music man pickups have such powerful output , and this little thing can not handle it. I do like A 3 it was always a fave very funky,and i made an effect with digital delay and wah which is awesome. The low down though it sux compared to stomp boxes.

I don't think i'd want to use it at a gig simply because of the hissing , lack of bank options , especially having to press down both pedals at the same time for clean tone, i know i wouldn't trust my feet to do that at a gig. also it's plastic you got band members romping around if it gets stepped on it won't be good.

Never had to deal with it. I'm guessing it's good.

Well I've been playing for 6 years now , and at the time i got it 4 year mark it was great , it really was more of a learning process about different effects , what effects sound like mixed and lets you experiment with sounds. It has also gave me knowledge of what kind of sound i want to get and what i don't want. If it was lost or stolen I'd smile and look at the moon and then plug in my ebs bass iq which rocks!!! For all you beginers it is a must have , you;ll learn a lot , but for anyone who's been playing for a while and is serious in the music go for the stomp boxes. I'm selling it now along with my crybaby which also disaponted me . EBS all the way.

a ver...todos dicen cosas en ingles, yo dare mi opinion en espa?ol: la verdad es que para mi me fue muy facil a prender a usar esta pedalera, incluso puedo editar ( si tuviera un problema) en vivo.

tiene algunos efectos realmente buenos, como el reverb, el slap y el chorus, pero hay otros de verdad muy malos, las distorciones se notan muy digitales y el wha es demasiado sintetico, la verdad es que me hice un solo efecto y ese utilizo siempre, como pre amp es bueno.

yo toco Rock, Funk, Blues and Baladas y la verdad es que cuando no lo he llevado a alguna "tocata" lo he hechado de menos, se nota la falta de el y eso que tengo un buen amp (trace elliot) y 2 bajos muy buenos un Fender Jazz y un Washburn de 5 cuerdas

Quite easy. This is a "one-much-little-none-parameter" effect's edition process. The manual is clear.

I used a cheap Washburn Lyon "Precision Bass" copy (with a cheap single coil pickup) through a Peavey TKO 115. It was noisy, but it did a great job. Then I sold these gear to get a Fender American Standard Jazz Bass V and a Marshall Bass State B65 combo. The little bastard cut the signal. It sounds better bypassed than in a clean path, and even bypassed it was too noisy. Quite disappointing. It converts the analog signal into a 16 bit digital signal, killing the sound of the fender's pickups. I'm waiting for a Digitech RP200 (24 bit converter) to test it, but I think I'll rather get analog units. If your bass has bad pickups, this little bastard will help a lot. Get a noise gate.

Well, it's plastic. But it's too noisy to gig with it only. Anyway, it seems to be a hard plastic stuff.

All I know is that Zoom is a japanese corp. Dot.

This is a too general purpose box. It will fit well if playing music is your hobbie. If the music pays your bills, get something better. If it were stolen, I would be sorry for the thief. He probably would return it to me with some money to buy another thing. Just joking, it's not that bad.

It's very easy to use and to get the hang of it. Editing is easy but you should read the manual since it's fairly good and simple.

I have an ibenez TR-300 bass that i connect (in this order) to a Dixon Metal Rocker followed by the Zoom followed by a Danelectro Tremolo. It has many basic fx however they dont sound too true. I mean they are too round and perfect in some cases and in others they sound like something out of an weird science fiction film. What I want to say is that they were hammered in there. The Fuzz (despite not being able to enhance the harmonics the way i want) and the Vintage distortions are among my favourite fx in here together with the delay. I also use the wah because i dont have a separate wah. You can do funny and consistent things with the rest but be careful to balance the sound well. It can sound lousy to vintage purists and sometimes it really does but if you explore it you can do something funny. It makes a slight pause when you change the effect; this is a BIG minus.

You can depend on it an use it on a gig despite being made of plastic. Be careful with the buttons on the side. When you change effect it makes a slight pause as i mentioned earlier.

I play the blues-punk and rock and roll mostly. What i do with this is to try to use one effect on a song and change the sound with outside effects such as a distortion, wah, tremolo etc. I believe it's the best exit to the problem that this device poses when you want to change effect or turn it on. It's very good for beginners not only for it's price but also for the variety of effects it offers. It has the basics.

Well, I bought this little guy used without a manual last year. And I must say it doesn't take much to learn how to edit patches. You can always go online and get the manual in PDF form, which I did anyway. At the moment I can't figure out why I need to activate an effect each time I switch to it. It never used to it. Oh well, it makes no difference in quality of sound.

I'm using this box with my Carvin LB20, through a Peavey Basic 60 (woo-hoo!). Eventually I'll upgrade, but as it stands, this set-up sounds pretty good. Since the Basic 60 sounds pretty average on it's own, this pedal makes a world of difference. On two of the clean settings (B2 and E2), my amp sounds like I paid and extra $300 for it. The 506 acts as a sweet equalizer in these modes, and can really help those with mediocre amps. I disagree with many of the folks here who said the distortion is weak. I like it, and I can find uses for it. This box was used in both practice and band settings, and it sounded great at all volumes. I play with picks, fingers, and slapping, and the pedal performed well.

Don't use batteries in this thing unless you are on-stage. I couldn't believe how fast battery-power is drained by this little devil. I'm using an a/c adapter from my cordless drill, and it works fine. So, it's pretty easy to find something that will power this thing. Apart from my unit changing how it operates on me (2 stomps instead of the original 1), I have no other complaints. Even though it's made of plastic, it's pretty sturdy. Learn about it's limitations on your own, and it's all good.

Never had to use customer service, but if I did, I'm sure it would be fast (zoom, get it?).

I've played MANY different types of music, and I wish I had this thing from the time I first picked up a bass almost 10 years ago. As a musician who's drifited from band to band, style to style, I can't stress enough how important a versitle unit like this is. I was skeptical when I first tried it out, but after playing it for over a year, I'm so happy I bought it. The 506 has really improved how my little rig sounds, and it's hella-fun just to toy around and play with the effects when you're bored. It's far from perfect, the cumbersome bank movement is a bummer. Also, it'll be quickly surpassed by more expensive units as the player moves on in life. Regardless, I luv mine. As a side note, it also sounds pretty good with a guitar running through it. So check this thing out if you're in the market for an inexpensive, versitile floor unit.

Anyboy capable of using his right foot should have no problem at all. However, sometimes I like to tweak effects live which is quite frustrating having to bend over and fiddle around with the edit/store keys. The volume is fiddly too, and I had to fork out more money to buy a matching expression/ volume pedal

I use the 506 with a Yamaha 5 stringer and a Calsbro 400W Custom Amp. Before you my this pedal remember : It is *VERY* noisy when played at high volumes(ie with a full blown band),especially with the distortions, slap effects and flangers.
Chorus is not bad, but ended up buying a seperate chorus pedal due to its lack of flexibility (how can C1-C9,c1-c9 describe all the possible configurations of chorus?).
The Amp Simulator is absolute rubbish, as well as the noise reduction unit, you can really see how gimmicky they are in the first place.
The octaver is a bit muddy. I like the reverb/delay effects and the synth and funzz are fun especially when playing around with artifical harmonics. Nothing's really special, but for those who don't really use effects very much it's not bad. I am however, starting to have doubts on the tuner.

Never failed me. Just treat it as you would treat your bass. Don't drop it, spill liquids, jmp on it etc etc.
Use an AC adaptor AND battery for gigs (funnily enough , my ac adaptor fails me quite frequently)

You get what you pay for : a couple of "general" effects and a few gimmicks. I play mostly progressive metal, but I play just about everything I get my hands on. It serves me well, but I don't use effects heavily : just a bit of reverb, delay and thin fuzz
I've been playing for 4 years and I own another 2 single effects boxes (Distortion and Chorus/Flanger)
If it were stolen or lost, I would probably buy a few single stomp boxes, since they still serve my purpose quite well.
I love the fact that it offers a fair range of effects. I hate the fact that most of these effects are utter tripe at the best of times. This is NOT a pedal for bass effects pioneers.
Unfortunatly even the cheapest single stomp box available on the outperforms the 506 in its field. I wouldn't even dare compare it to Digitech's and DOD's multieffects let alone a studio rack, but anyway, its cheap.
I wish it had finer control of effects.
It definitly, doesn't get in the way, just don;t exaggerate.
REMEMBER : THE QUALITY OF WHAT YOU GET IS DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO HOW MUCH YOU PAY

Theres nothing to it unless ur dumb as a carrot. After getting it out of the box and reading the manual, you are ready to go, unless of course if this is your first fxpedal and your not familiar whats a distortion is and what to step on.

-i love the reverbs and the chorus, for the price i paid this is really god damn cheap!
- the distortions are not that good, i like the fuzz and the vintage one though.
- The ZNR is uneffective, it really has some hissing sounds
- the Wah settings is not that good also

its pretty dependable, just buy an adaptor so that you can play without thinking about power lay off from the unit cause this unit really eats batteries like most people here say!

The unit comes with predefined patches and some of them are very nice but most are not my thing. There are a few sound downright lousy. However, reading over the user manual and you can quickly learn to change the patches and adjust the sounds with ease. Don't try this on stage though; that's not the place to set this unit up. The tuner is also very easy to use. I purchased an AC adapter because this thing eats batteries. When using the battery mode you must unplug it when not using it as it has no on/off switch which is a pain. The AC adapter was 20 bucks but worth what I would pay in alkaline batteries.

I have used this device with a small practice amp, headphones and a big rig; an Ampeg SVT III. Many of the sounds are usable and some are weak. The chorus, phase, echo, reverb and fuzz are great but some of the others are not good at all.

The main problem I have with the sound is that is is very noisy (hissing). The unit comes with a ZNR (Zoom Noise Reduction) but it is ineffective. I also have a graphic equilizer on my Ampeg but it cannot do the job either. That gives you an idea how noisy it is. As a result, I would never use it on stage unless I was using the fuzz or distortions when the noise is part of the play.

I have had this unit for two years now and not long ago one of the patch buttons began to stick. It still works but on occasion it will go hay wire and display all of the patches continuously

I did contact them about the noise problem. They were prompt but they told me to use the ZNR and that would do it but they were wrong on this count.

Overall all this is not a good unit for playing out. It is great for practicing and playing around with different sounds at home but that's it. Again it's biggest problem is noise and lack of an on/off switch.
I would recommend this unit if you can get it used for a few bucks and us it at home. You can get a good AC adapter at Radio Shack for 4 bucks and it works just as well as the 20 buck unit.

If lost or stolen I would maybe buy another if I could buy one used for a dirt cheap price.

Its not that hard to set up, the pre-sets are mostly week

well if you are playing threw a small 25-50 practice amp not to bad...but when I hook it up to my Ampeg B-4r (1000+watts) head threw my 2x15 swr cab It sucks nuts!! The Corus and Flange are ok but week, the the octuve effect is ok but on the E and B strings of my Ibanez EDB-605 it muddys..

Just becarefull with it

N/A

I got mine for free...I would not pay $20 for it

Must Play Around With it To Get Good Sound
Very Easy To Edit Patches
Excellently Detailed And Basic To Undertand

Deville Percision Copy 20Watt Practice Amp
Good Sounding
Sound Good All The Time
20 Watt Sabre Amp
Distortions arn't very flash. Wah Is Good

Good If You Treat It Good. Flog The Arse Out Of It And It Will Die
Yes I Would

All Sorts.
2 Years
Yes I woluld
The Fact it is Easy to use. The fact it has lots of plastic in it. The easy editing functions.
Yes another zoom product. It was on special and the fact it was $300 cheaper
Crybaby, fender bass and a big amp
Hepls to make music
Buy one it is a good unit if you use and trat it right.

pretty easy to use, but I don't like the fact that you have to use the cord supplied with the expression pedal. I love monster cables and mine wouldn't work with it. Otherwise the pedal is pretty easy.

Very poor sound.I use an Ibanez 6 through a seymour duncan head into 2 15's and 8 12's. This little plastic toy is very noisy and the effects are useless.

Absolutely not. This unit is made of plastic! I tried to gig with it once and the noise was too much.

I play a variety of music and this works with none of them. I bought this unit when I was young(and dumb!)I feel that I have refined my musical tastes enough to say NO to poor quality effects. This toy as I said before is not a good choice for effects. I feel that if you want to use effects than use good ones. Yes they are a bit pricey but isn't your sound worth it?

I live by my zoom 506. Its the easiest processor pedal i own and have ever used. The sound is pure and clean and STEREO, yes stereo. Editing of effect is as easy as thinking about it. Just hit edit and go at it then hit store and boom its locked, bamm no worries about loosing an effect5. You dont even need the mannual but its a nice thing to have because it tells you alot about cross patches.

I havent had a problem with it

I'm sorry, but this unit is not user friendly. This is especially true when finding what (if anything) is effected with the FP 101 expression pedal. If you're one who likes to tweak your distortion and chorus sounds, do like I did and get your self a set of BOSS Bass pedals. The best way to use this pedal is for the presets.

Some effects have some noise that even the ZNR can't fix, and preset A2 requires precise level adjustment in the unit so you don't make the drummer crap his pants when you switch to it during a song (for some reason this preset's level is not in sync with the others). The chorus kicks butt though. Honestly I really don't need to go beyond bank A and B for all the sounds that I need.

I Gig with it and haven't had a problem with it. The battery should be replaced before gigs though cause you never know.

Haven't had a severe problem with it.

I played with this in a nine inch nails cover band where I was having to switch between patches frequently (some times 3 in a song). A built in song patch storage would have made this easier. That issue aside, this beast helped save our arse more than once when doing songs that would have otherwise required a dedicated keyboard because some of the noises created on the recordings. The best part of this pedal I think is the extraneous noises you can get out of it (check out B3 slap-pop style and let the fuzz ring out). I plan on trading it in for a 506 II because of the talk modualtation and the more user friendly setup. Not the easiest device to use, but one that helps you get you some bang for the buck.

A quick glance at the manual is all it takes. It has some good effects built in, and it's easy to make your own: simply browse through the eight effects and choose the one of each you want. Press the store button twice (so you don't accidently save something you don't want) and it's saved. There are many tones you can dial up pretty quickly.

Some of the effects are really good, especially the chorus, which I use most. It's difficult to get a good heavy distortion other than fuzz, but if you don't turn up the gain setting too much it doesn't sound bad. The only effect which is actually bad is the compression. It's way too noisy. The unit as a whole is a little on the noisy side: I wouldn't record with it, but it's just fine for playing live

Made of plastic. Hard plastic, but still plastic none the less. Doesn't feel like it will break, though.

Not a bad little unit. Very small and portable. Compare it to any other $100 pedal out there and it's amazing. If you want an inexpensive pedal that can do a lot of things, this is a good choice. It's not a god pedal, but then again, you're only spending $100 for half a dozen effects. Not too bad.

It's pretty easy to figure out. I bought it without the manual and I figured it out really fast. The only things that suck is that if you want to switch banks you have to reach down and hit a little button, and that when you change settings on the effects, you can't just spin a wheel like on some effects processors; you have to hit a button like a thousand times.

Well, you really can't expect the sound of a $1000 pedalboard from something well under $100. That's a given. So I'll just say it does sound GOOD for it's price. It is pretty noisy, but it does a descent job of hiding the noise while you're not playing by silencing it. Some of the effects you can get are pretty good, actually. The distortions are mostly pretty weak and add a little punch to your music, but in my case, they don't really affect the sound much since I have a crappy amp. :-). The chorus is pretty well done also. The amp simulator and EQ can make some pretty nice tones stick out, also. I play it with an old Ibenez Roadster bass, and they sound pretty descent together.

I know I can depend on it. Some people here act stupid because it's plastic. Well, it's HARD plastic. And, am I the only one here that doesn't **JUMP** on my effects pedals? It works fine if you be careful with it. I've never had a problem.

Never dealt with them.

I play a lot of punk rock and Blink-182 style music, so I don't even use it. I used to play other stuff, but it's not that special to me anymore. I'm gonna sell it soon, but it's been worth the money for what I have done with it. I've owned it for a little over a year. It's fun to mess around with, but I don't think I'd ever use it in music.

This thing is the easiest piece of gear to operate. I'm on a small scale and this is good enough for now. Hopefully I would like to get something better. But for now this thing is great.

This little black box gave me a great sound. I play an Ibanez Soundgear 5-String through a Fender BXR-60 Amp. I put the ZOOM right after my Bass Cry Baby. I call it the Big White Machine. That is a great pedal also. But I've always had great sound with it. Even when I plug my acoustic guitar into it. (Side project)

I've owned it for three years and it still works just as good as new. I have used it in gigs before and it still sounds AWESOME. Even with a club P.A. I will continue to use it until it wears itself out. That'll be a while from now.

I still haven't called them in three years.

You've heard about my rig.(albeit a small one). I love this thing. I have written killer bass lines using this thing. Even on cover tunes I usually add one effect, well an effect bank. I like the phase shifter with some fuzz, reverb, slight delay, and chorus. This thing gives out killer sounds if you mess with them. My suggestion. Edit a garbage factory setting and close your eyes and just push buttons and I guarantee that it'll sound cool.

took me 5 seconds to figure it out. the manual could have been simpler and the tuner i don't trust. but otherwise this is a great peice.

i play a memphis 4 string, through a peavey tko-115 blackwidow and it sounds great. a little noisy when the gain is way up. some of the effects are too weak for me but i am still begining. but i am starting to find a sound of my own and thats what matters.

i have only had it a short while but i use the adapter so i dont chew batteries. but i would use it for a gig.

havent had to use it.

i love this peice. i can make it work very well for me. plus my friend has a 505 guitar and we can set things up so we always know what bank to be in. i later want to get seperat pedals but hell i'm poor right now gotta go with what works for now. but now i can come up with better riffs using the sounds i want making my job easier.

The Instruction manual seemed to try and be confusing. It is fairly hard to edit patches because you've only got 4 button that do 20 different thing and the screen only has two digits two display some rather criptic symbols sometimes.

Its pretty hit-n-miss with this unit. While the chorus sound excellent, the distoritions sound kinda crappy. In general the presets are no good and need to be edited to use. While using it with a practice amp, headphones, or 4 track is OK, this thing sound like total crap through my 300w stack. Way too much background hum and it has some kind of digital high freq noise.

I know a little something about electronics but I cannot figure out why this thing cuts out some times. It doesn't cut completely out it just drops down to a whisper. Also, the external expression control jack doesn't work. Also the whole thing is plastic, not very roadworthy.

I should give these guys a call about my problems with the unit but I'm not looking forward to it.

I would not recommend this product to any pro or semi-pro bass player. While the sound quality and reliability are below our standards, I'm giving this a higher rating overall because its great for beginners. You can't get this many effects the the money anywhere else so it great for them to learn what effects they like and how to use them. Also, I've found it useful for low volume jam and practice sessions where you don't wanna haul a bunch of peddles or a rack of real expensive stuff to.

It is pretty easy to use and editing is easy after and hour or two. tHE manual sucks nuts but its not hard to use.

I play an Ibanez GSR 200 through a Boss ODB-3 and the zoom to an Ampeg BA115. THIS THING SUCKS BALLLSSSSSSS, the presets are weak and even when you edit them they suck. It sounds okay on a little like 15 watt, but when its loud enough that you can hear it, youll crap your pants it sucks so much. THe distortions are all fuzzy, the flanger is weak and everything else sound like sounds from a nintedo game.

I would never depend on this thing, it is thn wussy plastic and there is no way you could switch effects a show without sounding stupid. I would never use this at a gig. It also drains batteries

Nope

I play agressive rock and this thing sucks. It is noisy and a waste of money. I sold the thing because it blows so much. I dont think ill ever trust zoom again. Everyone out there, listen to me, dont be a cheap ass, buy seperate pedals for the best sound or for the next best thing, buy a boss or digitech multi effects processer.

Just plug it up and go. It has a couple of good patches from the factory, however it's better to create your own rather than to sound like someone else. If you take time to read the manual it's easy to edit.
The manual is direct and to the point.

I use it with a peavey max preamp,alesis quadreverb plus,alesis micro compressor,alesis micro EQ,M1400 mackie power amp, 410 Peavey and 115 peavey cab,sure wireless,I play a Peavey Axcelerator 5 string and a 69 p-bass
I use it mostly for distortion
It's a bit noisy if you dont run it through the efx,loop however if you use it's noise reduction it's not that bad.
When asked if I can get the sound of my favorite artist My reply is this, I don't try I play My way and My tone's my signiture .
Thats what's kepet me working for 23 years.
All the efx sound fairly good

I've used mine for about 2 years with no problem
Would I use it on a gig without backup? Yes Four shows a week .
If you dont abuse the unit (i.e. jump off your stack on top of it to change patches) it will serve you well.
Im not nut's about the plastic but prety mutch every thing's going that war so get used to it

Never had to

I've found the 506 to be good for the money you pay
I bought the 506 when my other distortion unit went down at a sound check I found this one at a local music store and intended to play one show with it and it performed so well and I have used it right on.
It's good for players just starting out (and for pro's that find themselfs out in the middle of stix in need of a little distortoin)
If you'r not expecting the 506 to sound like a $20.000 rig, you wont be dissapointed for a $100.00 bucks you cant go wrong
I play not only 4 live shows a week but I also record.
Gospel rock is my main thing but I also play all other styles in the studio.
I've played for 23 years and as I said before my tone is my tradmark and that's How I live, and this little thing does the trick.

Plug it in and off you go. It's easy to use. Use the manual for editing your own patches. I recommend to do so cause if you own a good amp just use the separate effects separated. Otherwise you'll have a lot of noise and feedback goin on. The manual explains anything you need in a very logical order.

I use it with a Trace Elliot AH200 and a Torque 4*10 cabinet. On stage with a second Hartke 4*10 cabinet. Must say take care off the feedback. The ?problem with this device: I sounds so terrible digital. This causes me only to use it for special effects and things like that. The sound of the amp itself is much to good. I cant get the sound of my favourite artists but I dont need to. The best effect to me is the fuzz. Octaver also is pretty cool.

Its reliable. But use an adapter.

I play metal and other heavy stuff in a band. You shouldn't use the pedal for recording cause it shits up the whole sound. But on a gig for special effect can be very nice. If it would broke I'd certainly bought a better device. I don't know any but I'm sure there are things (more expensive) that sound much better.

I wish the effects were more extreme. They are too simple. Like the octaver If you detune a low B to A, it just plays an octave higher or you hear/feel nothing. Specially chorus, delay, flanger and wahwah could be more editible.

Easy to use. Easy editing,although some effects cannot be used together. The built-in tuner is not really useable(not that accurate),I use an Inellitouch tuner instead. The manual is basic.
It explains everything that you need to know.

I am using an 8 string Chapman stick bass(SB8)with switchable mono/stereo output.Active EMG pickups. I have the 4 Bass strings going into a Tech21 Bass Compactor and then into a Boss Ph2 phaser. The 4 high strings go into the 506. Gallien-Krueger 700RB amp,1x15 (400 watt cab). The sound of this unit is great for the stick. The noise reduction is a must though.(set it on 9). The flange is o.k.(a little dull),chorus (there are 2 diff.),is not that hot. The distortions I actually like. The Fuzz set on about 5 or 6 adds a nice warm sounding distortion. The compression/limiter is average,kinda' noisy. The wah is useless to me. The delay is good set above 5,anything under is not noticeable. The room reverb is terrible (very "chattery"),The hall reverb is okay (still a little chattery though). On a regular bass guitar this box would probably sound bad. But on the stick,which has a very sharp attack, the effects add a lot.

I would use it without a backup. I keep it out of the way and it's fine. You don't need to stomp the hell out of pedals to get them to work.

Haven't dealt with them.

I play hard rock/pop(into P.Gabriel,King Crimson,Van Halen).If it were lost or stolen, I would probably try some other brand. Something with more options/editing features. The 506 is a little too limited. I chose this one because of it's price. For the price and for the stick it is great. Don't know about a reg. bass though.

I'm giving this effects processor a 6 because it isn't hard to find a good effect in its data base, but extremley difficult to work with its programming options. I've used it more with my guitar than with my bass, but that is only because not many effects are needed if you are a bass player.

The sound quality is not too shabby on this pedal. I use it with a Peavey Fury II bass and a Dan Markely 15 watt practice amp, along with a Peavey TKO 50 watt amp. The best effect is probably the distortion along with fuzz. The only effect that sounds really bad is the auto wah.

This is a very dependable processor but it eats 9 volt batteries like there is no tomarrow, so my advice would be to get the adapter that Zoom makes for its pedals. If your playing a gig, don't even try using batteries, they'll be dead in 15 minutes.

Haven't had any problems with it.

Overall, this isn't a bad processor, though I doubt I would get it again since you don't need all of the 24 programmable effects on bass. It compares very well with one of the DOD multi-effects bass processors, I just wish that it was easier to program. I'd say if you really want to get bass effects, go with a Dunlop Crybaby Bass Wah.

WIthinb liek 1 hour, i had it set up and was creating my own patches. If you look through the manual while you are doing it, you shouldn't hve any problem. The manual explains everything very well. But, this until cannot be upgraded.

I am using a Fender presion bass with a gorilla 40 watt amp, and it sounds great. There is no added noise, and when on bypassit sounds like it is coming from the bass.Most of the factory preset suck tough. You can get sounds like most artists, while still being able to craet your own creative sound. The delay is awesome, the fuzz is good if you can change the gain, the synth isn't very good. Good for its cost.

I can depend on it. It is relaible as long as you take care of it. If you look at a lot of the other reviews that saw it sucks, its mostly becasue people didn't take care of the pedal. Yes, its plastic, but that doesn't mean its crappy. I would gig without a back up.

I play all kinds of alterative...rock and punk. You can matchg the sounds of artist with effort. I have been play electtic bass for 2 years now, stand up for four, and this was a good buy for anyone. Not too expensve, will last if you take care of it, has good effects if you work for them. If lost or stolen, i would probably go with another piece of equipment, but just one that was more expensive and more veristile. I wouldn't reccommed using this to write music, rather pu it in at the end, but it adds nice effects to creativre music.

very easy to use and quick to pick up

very nice sound quality for the price

its built with plastic, but that doesn't matter, so is a glock, so its all good

never dealt with em

its a very good multieffects pedal for anyone just starting out or and experienced bass player. the price makes it even more nice. as of 6-3-00 they are selling for $79 on the musiciansfriend website, www.musiciansfriend.com, if you wanting one go buy it there its the cheapest you'll find it brand new. in guitar shops they charge around $150 which is way to high.

Very easy...buttons edit buttons are too small...

ok if plugged in to small ibanez 25w amp but in soundblaster64(i make computer music) not enough...Fuzz kicks azz

I have dropped it couple times and its still as a new...But its plastic...

Fuzz is excelent when i play grindcore...and i get more from
my bad amp....

As far as ease of use it's fairly simple to edit but it is very deceitful. The reviews claim you can combine up to eight effects at once ( I belive) and that's a total exageration. You pick the effect you want and it gives you opitions on teaking the parameters you can't for instance: Combine A1 Flager with A2 Bass distortion . At least not with the sound you should. As far as dependable, it's not. I had for a couple months and the pedal reaction is shitty. Yoy step on it and it doesn't switch patches. And the display has a crack from a cable that I dropped on it. The display is very thing plastic, like that of a cheap watch. STAY AWAY FROM ZOOM. FOR 135 DOLLARS YOU CAN BUY A FEW GOOD PEDALS. SUCH AS: Well for those of you who play guitar also like myself. I recomend the danelectro line of chorus and drive. Allthough it would be nice to have a board I'm woring on it.

The sounds aren't bad they just sound very cheap. If you're trying to get a certain sound that you've heard from a cd or some group that you want to imitate, then this isn't what you want. The sounds are in their own world. They have no effect really. It's not good. I mean the flage for instance is weak, I perfer alesis flange.

Absoloutley not. Of course if you want to play longer than a few hours you have to fork over another ten to fifteen bucks for an ac adapter. Which is true with most brands successfully pissing me off.
Bank/patch access is hard I literaly have to jump on the damn thing to make it lock effect. I don't use it any more by the way it sits next to my danelectro fabtone and feels rejected like it should. AVOID ZOOM AT ALL COSTS. IT'S OVER-RATED AND HIGH PRICED.

N/A

Well I listened to a lot of tool and smashing pumpkins at the time and tried to imitate Justin, Paul, and D'arcy. The pedal was good enough for me as beginner but I started to relize that it started to suck.

Definitly have to study the manual to opperate this puppy, but it's not hard to get the hang of it. Outputs, inputs, nobs, and buttons are all labeled clearly(after exactly what they do) unlike DOD's newest line of pedals.

This processor is loaded with distortions, chorus, flanger, phasers, synths, , and any combo of any effect. The prob with this.... to make this affordable they cut corners and made all of the sounds over produce and ridgid sounding. Nothing sounds natural.

This thing broke at a gig because of the thin plastic casing, and the input/output jacks aren't even bolt on the case! They are just floting in a space... so if something fall on you cord while its pluged into your board in puts all the presure on the circuit board causeing it to break. This is exactly what happened to me.

My pedal was still under warrenty when this happened, and I contacted Samson( the comp. that makes ZOOM), and got an authorazation. After a month or so I recieved it back with out being fixed and a note that sayed that it couldn't be fix because of unessesary damage or something to that effect. If you read the fine print it your warrenty you'll find this clause that states just that, to protect them. I even asked if I could just by the circiut board(its so cheaply made my sis could figure this out) so I could replace it and they didn't offer anything like that.

I play metal, jazz, rock, pretty much anything that I like. Don't buy this pedal, even you beginners out there that want hella effects, save your money of the real thing.

It is very easy to use and to understand after reading the manual. Editing is also very easy and if you spend some time you can come up with some crazy sounds.

I play it through a yamaha RBX-260 4 string and a fender BXR-25 watt amp. With this setup it adds really nicely into the guitars and drums.
I use mostly distortion as I play SPEED METAL. I also slap but the Yamaha is not a great slap bass anyway. The fuzz distrtion with flange is my main effect, with a clean bright sound in the solo bass areas.

As long as you have an adaptor it is very reliable. Its my first pedal and I am very happy with it. Since I dont use to many effects I cant tell you how it would hold up compared to the stomp boxes. All in all its very reliable.

I play spped metal and as I said it adds nicely in with the guitars and drums with the setup I have. If it were stolen I would probably upgrade. But for now I am happy with it. If you mess with it you can get the sound you want out of it. The factory presets aint the best but if you work off of them you will get some great effects.

For everyone who bitches about batteries being bad in this....

Go dig around in your closet and find your old nintendo (regular not super), unplug the ac adapter from it and plug it into your 506.

Problem solved-cheaper than buying batteries or buying the zoom adapter.

Quite easy to use, of course after reading the manual (Easy to under
stand,comes in many languages).Editing patches is very very intuitive, and fast, 'cause de effects have got only one parameter.Has got BANK HOLD and AUTO LOAD options, that are quite useful when you've got two effect you use un one song that are a few banks appart.

I use it with a Samick 4-string with passive pickups, a Marshall BassState 30W, and plugged in the Effects Loop (Wise thing, because if connected Bass->506->AMP is WAY to noisy, even more).
Only one distorion is good (Fuzz), the other are not what I like, I don't feel that they give SUCH distortion...Auto-Whas are decent, but when using the expression pedal, it quite sucks (If you want wah-wah, then try another multieffect processor or get a real wah)
The compression and limiter are good, although they tend to feedback when using in high amounts when distortion.Wide Variety of 'distortions (2 Cleans,fat,slap,drive,vintage,fuzz and thrash).
Haven't got the oportunity to get really really good sound, 'cause it steals some high-end, and when I try it to fix it with te pedal's EQ it gets really a squealer.
The choruses,flanger are good, the synth is qute crazy, and god octaver (The only effect that performs well with the expression pedal).THe Delay and reverbs (Hall and room) are good.
But I still find it noisy, and a bit a dull sound.

If you wanna use it, NEVER use it with a battery, within 3 hours it'll be dead. Get a cheap 9V adaptor.
I've used it in some gigs (And some friend too) and performed weel, but I wouldn't trust the plastic case.
Also the parameter changing buttons (the ones at the sides, not the big ones) get stuck after a month of use.
Although it's survived a lot of rough use, it's still plastic.

It's a good pruchase for beginners.
I bought it a year after I began playing, and it has survived wuite well, but i'm looking forward to changing it for a KORG AX1B.
Chose this for the price.
NEVER,NEVER buy the Expression pedal.
Sucks.
If you REALLY REALLY need to use it, get some volume pedal from a keyboard, (I use a Casio VP-1 I think...)

Many options. 24 effects that can be mixed and matched and put in the order you desire

ITs all pretty cool stuff

It kills bateries. MY suggetion is get the 9 volt adaptor

It kicks ass if your looking for a cheap multy effect pedal.

Very simple to use, tuner is easy to calibrate, effects easy to shift through, simple setup, manual is clear, and if bought used, you can download it at Zoom's webpage

Very great sound I use a Kustom 25 watt mixer amp with a 4-string Samick bass, it sounds incredible, it can get hissy at times but other then that it's excellent

I would depend on this pedal without a backup, with a power supply of course, batteries I'd recommend Duracell ULTRAs they last the longest, about 3-4 hours before lights out.

Never had to use it.

It is excellent for a bassist on a budget, go for it!

The Zoom 506 Bass Effect Pedal is very, very easy to use. A minute after I got it out of the box, it was, literally, working. It requires no setup and most of the provided patches work well. The editing of patches can be a bit confusing, but nothing you can't handle.

I use an Ibanez bass with the Zoom 506, and it is working just fantastic. There is little or no hissing or buzzing, which I am very pleased with. All the effects work and sound very well, but are limited in some ways. I especially like the synth bass with distortion to get that industrial/dance/techno sound. The choruses also sound great!

So far I have had no problems with the Zoom 506, and I expect I will not have any. Even though it is built from plastic, it is well constructed and never fails to amaze me!

No Problems Yet

I generally play rock/industrial/techno/dance music and this pedal works absolutely fabulously for me. I have been playing for a few years now and really love this product. This product definitely does not get in the way of my music, but makes it better!

I've been playing for about 3 years now and the 506 is the first bass effects pedal I have ever used. I found that it was very easy to get started with and the manual was very easy to understand... editing took a little getting used to, but now that I've been using it a while creating new patches is simple. Getting a good sound out of it sometimes takes some work with the noise reduction/amp sim but it's not that complicated. Lose the preset patches by the way, most of them are worthless.

I usually play a yamaha 4-string through a crate bx-15 at home, and with some work the 506 sounds great through it. Once you play around with the effects a bit, most of them sound great. My favorite effect is the fuzz distortion, it really rocks when you play around with it a bit.

It's very dependable with an adapter, and I would use it at a gig without a backup.

I've never had to use it.

I play hard rock, and most of the effects are a good match. It has a lot of good effects for the money, if you want a versatile pedal and you don't have a lot of $, this is what you want.

Pretty easy to use after playing around with it for a while. I have had mine for a year or more now.The sounds are ok but i dont feel it cuts it for gigging.its way to easy to hit the wrong patch. The manual is pretty easy to understand.just take your time reading thru it.

I have been using an Ibanez SR800 thru a Hartke 350 watt head and Hartke speaker cabs 4x10 and 1x15. I have found that it really robs my tone and is noisy as hell.The distortations are weak although the chorus and other effects are ok. Patch editing is ok but I really miss having knobs to tweak(!)i play in a generic rock cover band so i have to cover a lot of different sounds. Why can't effects makers get some good fuzz sounds for the bass??

its dependable for home use and practising.It actually sounds way better thru headphones.i would not use it for gigging anymore as it really sucks your tone up

Never had to deal with them

If I were to recommend this unit to someone then for price alone its worth it.I have seen it advertised for 99 bucks new so money wise its not a large investment for a bunch of effects.However Zoom have brought out a new version of this unit called the BFX so that might be worth checking out instead. I would say this unit is for beginners or folks on a low budget who want to mess around with different sounds. Better if bought used at this point.

Very easy to use. More importantly- very easy to get nice sounds out
of the 506. Editing patches is nothing more than punching a few buttons. Manual is decent.

The sounds I get from the 506 are extremely nice considering the price. I use an Ernie Ball Stingray through a Hartke amp and Carvin cabs. When I kick the 506 in- I don't lose my natural tone and the unit doesn't add overly noticable noise. The distortions and choruses are very nice, and some of the synths are really cool!

It has been reliable so far. It is made from plastic though, with plastic pedals. I wouldn't go jumping around on it. I use it without a back-up, only because if something does happen I can always play without it if necessary.

N/A

My band plays everything from alternative, grunge type stuff to slow ballads and I can always find places to put the 506's effects. I think it is an extremely nice unit for the price. Sure there are better out there, but you are gonna pay for it. By the way- take this over the DOD BassTec any day. The BassTec is the worst piece of equipment I have ever touched!

Very tough at firsst to figure out how to work the banks and so on. It gets easier after you fool around with it a while

Not the best at all. I would rather use a setup of a DOD death metal and flanger combination with a expression pedal

I only had it a few days before I got rid of it. But by the looks it couldnt tand to much

I play from Metallica to Marilyn Manson candlebox and all sorts.I really dont care for it. I own an excellant ampegs 200 wattt cabinet 400 watt head so i know it aint the amp. I would not buy another if stolen. I have a $300 zoom guitar pedal which i hate just as nuch.
A WORD TO THE WISE: STAY AWAY FROM ZOOM

i found ut very easy to use and it sounds great

it sounds very good, with or without the amp. the amp simulater is excelent. the wah is great as well as the overdrive distortion. ther are 24 effects with many different volumes for each.

i woundnt know it hasnt failed in the two weeks that ive had it though.

it didnt come when i ordered it, but it was the sellers fault not zoom

i love this pedal. in the amp simular and tuner, it almost pays for itself. but with 24 different effects, many costing over 100 bucks seperately, i have found this very cheap and a hogh quality product. the delay effect is great.

Well, we can all happily forget that any of the presets ever existed (because they are all totaly useless) and make your own, which is easiler than picking your nose, turn the bank hold OFF, the auto-load OFF and you've got a pedal which my dog could use. The only thing is that the expression pedal can be difficult to use at the same time.

Well, first of all, if your amp has an effects loop, USE IT!! What this does is bypasses the amp's preamp, and the pedal doesnt make any noise at all. Everyone's saying "its noisy", well, thats true if you plug your bass into it, and then into the amp.
Most effects sound excellent on their own, although when you put something on top of it, then the effect goes crap. The most obvious of these is the flanger. If you put a distortion on top of it, the flanging SUX.
The distortions, especailly the fuzz, are all great. They all give the right sound for what they should, eg the clean is clean, the vintage sounds like '70's rock, the thrash is also good.
The chorus, compressor, pedal fat wah, fuzz, thrash, amp sim, hall reverb and tuner are all excellent.

It won't break, and it sometimes gives feedback (in 200+ watt amps) and is durable.
As for power......
BUY AN ADAPTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
nuff sed

No customer support required, because this unit doesn't break. This unit was dropped out of my bedroom window, had a 1.5 meter fall, and it still works as if nothing happened.

I play punk rock, grunge, techno, old '70's rock, funk and jazz. This pedal is perfect for what I'm after, using mainly the thrash distortion for punk, fuzz + chorus for grunge, vintage distortion + room reverb for '70's rock, synth + lots for techno, slap distortion + compressor for funk, compressor + clean distortion + amp simulator + lowest EQ setting + chorus + very little hall reverb for jazz (and this setting sounds exactly like a double bass, only with frets). And when i put it through the effects loop, no noise! *gasp*

I play a yamaha 4 string, through MANY different amps (from headphones to 30 watt practise to 100 watt performance to 500 watt stage amps) and the only thing is that iff you put more than 6 effects all at once, you get feedback from BIG amps.

If it were stolen, i would get it again, + the expression pedal, because they're really compact, inexpensive & easy to use.

If there was one thing it was missing, it is a pitch bend. That would top it off.

I've had this pedal for about 2 years now (and it isn't making noise) and I've still got it, and its working fine. Its best for what I need.

It is pretty straight forward as far as usability goes.. For live performance, it is a little tricky to switch banks... the foot pedal only switches through patches. The bank buttons are small and unless you are barefoot, you probably couldn't switch it.

I have been using a Fender Jazz Bass, a Danelectro Fabtone (fun for noisiness!) and the zoom into a Fender head and cab. Can't remember the names of those... It souns ok live... I just use it for some of the funkier 'synthbass' sounds or sometimes the flanger... The fun stuff was when our band did our demo... I hooked this thing up to the mic and made some funky-a stuff... you start messing with some of the 'synthbass' sounds or other customized settings and you can have a lot of fun. Of course there is a lot of noise but I think that can kind of be endearing sometimes. You know the whole lo-fi thing. I don't think that I would use it if I really wanted a hi-end pro sound. But you never know. The compression is good, IMO.

Haven't had a problem with it. Just need to have some extra batteries on hand.. Guess that is obvious though.

Never had to use it.

Well, I do electronica myself, our band used to do kinda upbeat, brit style pop, now we are going slow and moody, ala Low, American Analog Set, and others.. Except with a electronica spin to it... so a lot of effects will be in order. I could see the 506 having a place in the set up. At the price, it is especially an easy way to get into effects. if you never have before.

most effects are noisy. the noise reduction is ok, but it steals tone to the distortion.
editing patches is TOO easy. the manual shows everything in 5 lenguajes.not upgradable.

i've played it with a yamaha rbx260 in a old big amp and the compressor sounded great. in my house i play it with a samick lb 31/sb and a fender bxr 25. it sounds good, but noisy.
all the distortions are noisy, but good. chorus is good but guess what? it's noisy. the noise reduction is decent. reverbs are very good, but delay is short. eq sux. i can get cliff burton's sound with the fuzz dist., turining the highs off and boosting the mids.

the main pedals are made of plastic. i've been using e'm for a year and so and they sound like "rusted". the edit and store button are very fragile and they fail sometimes.
i use it in gigs without backups, but i can't trust in it.

no.

i would not buy it again. i would prefer boss single effects boxes. you can have more control that way. buy it if you want weid and crazy effect, but when you get bored of playing wierd stuff, you find out that the compressor and just some of the effects are really useful.
by the way the tunes is good, but not exact.

I thought that it was hard to get a good clean and static free sound from the Zoom 506. The other effects were great though, i like the distorted flanger.

it was noisy on all settings. i am using either a fender sidekick bass amp or a Hartke amp, i am not sure of what model it is but it is 120 watts and is not lacking anything in the sound range

it is hard to switch back and forth from effects while playing, especially because of the small size of it and also because you are limited to up and down

no

it is ok

A retard could use this providing he had arms.
Alot of fiddling is needed however if you don't quite like the factory settings. It's all pretty self explanitory. I got mine god knows how many hand, and without a manual and it's easy to operate.

Brand new it was proberbly ok to start with. I can't really comment as I don't know how old, beaten, battered, abused, tormented and embarrassed mine is, but mine sounds utter naff. There is so much buzzing, burring and humming I would just rather play without it.

You can depend on this pedal to fuck any song up of any quality.
Apart from that, it holds well and is quite beefy.

Never had any problems.

A waste of money and effort pulling the wallet out of your pocket. I hate it, I hope the Zoom factory that made my specific one burns down in a war of torment and malice encouraged by my minions.

If you're not one who likes to tinker you won't like this unit. It has many variations for setting up the numerous patches and it can make one dizzy at times. I guess more is better with regard to versitility. Taking time is the key to using this device.

Sounds great with headphones. It also sounds OK with a practice amp. But I have an Ampeg SVT III head and a single 15" cabinet. When I first hooked the 506 up there was a tremendous amount of hiss for a number of the effects. This is especially true if you're using a bass with active electronics. Be careful.
I agree with many of the other submissions; the preset patches aren't very good. It's really easy to overdrive this unit if you're using a preamp with a decent graphic equilizer.
The chorus is very nice and very adjustable. I compare this to a Boss Chorus pedal. The echo and 2 types of reverb are also very nice. The compression and limiters; I cannot say as I have nothing to compare them to. The phaser is OK but this is where some of that hiss comes in if you over do it. The fuzz is great if you like this sort of effect. There is good variation in the adjustments for this effect.

Definitely buy the AC adapter. The batteries don't last long, an alkaline battery will last about 4 hours. However, the AC adapter seems to be a bit fragile so for those of you who use a stomp to activate your stomp box it may not be suitable for your needs.
As far as breaking or breaking down, that will depend on the user and the environment they're using it.

Haven't had to deal with them.

I like to play just about anything but my preference is rock and blues. I've been playing for about 15 years. My ovewrall opinion is that it is worth the money but I would also include the AC adapter ($25 US)and the expression pedal ($60) to complete the unit.
My overall philosophy is that pedals are great but there is always a danger of overusing them. I like clean bottom end bass and I think the best "effects" to come along for the bass are compression, EQ, and chorus, not necessarily in that order. I really don't have much use for the others at this point but they are fun to play with.
This is the kind of device that one must take time to explore. If you don't you probably won't be very happy with it.
If I lost or had it stolen, I would buy another.
I chose this device because the Bassplayer magazine gave it good reviews for the price. Generally I would agree with them.
I did not compare it to other comparable devices except the Boss bass chorus pedal. The 506's chorus is much better and more versitile.
What I like most. It has versitility. It has a geat bass tuner. It is fun to fiddle with. It is great for putting on headphones and playing in private; the feature I like best.

The user's manuel is well done. Forget the presets. Make your own patches. The editing is pretty simple.

With my JB Std, your can find great sounds for chords playing. The reverd channel is really good. For slap, it's more difficult. Cela demande un peu de doigte et de patience. Dans un SWR Silverado, certains sons vous collent au mur. Le probleme, c'est que si on utilise un seul effet (au lieu des 8 cumulables) par patch, c'est pas vraiment terrible. Par exemple, avec un chorus, mieux vaut ajouter une reverbe, egalser un peu le sound pour faire resortir les aigus. Au casque en stereo, ca tue!
Par contre, la pedale d'expression/volume assez chere (3000FB) me parait etre une sacree arnaque pour une pedale de moins de 6000 francs.

Avec mon propre groupe, je l'utilise souvent pour gonfler un son (slap par ex.), un chorus avec reverbe pour un son proche d'une fretless. Dans le groupe de reprise Blues et R'n'B, j'ai essaye une fois. Pas deux...
Par contre, pour enregistrer a la sortie du SWR (XLR), cela me parait assez indispensable.
C'est comme la pile. Je tiens une demi heure avec un pile rechargeable. J'ai d'ailleurs achete en meme temps une alime BOSS (1200 francs).
Tres bon accordeur chromatique, mais on peut trouver moins cher!

Si on me la pique, je rachete la nouvelle KORG AX Bass.?Pour le meme prix, on a une meilleure qualite. Mais en 1996, y avait que la ZOOM.

You can't get a good sound out of it. everything about it sucks. I say if you want a good sounding pedal, buy a tech 21 sansamp bass driver di. It won't give you all kinds of different effects, but will make you bass and amp sound awesome. after you use it once, you won't be able to put it up

i use a 6 string carvin bass and a 15"swr amp, and this effects pedal made it sound like s**t. everything about this pedal sounded like s**t. it is way too digital, doesn't sound real. It sounds like those old nintendo games.

the battery would last about 4 hours, which is not good. I'd never use this pedal in a gig any way. It feels like it will break if you even step on it.

never had to get a hold of them, but if their service is anything like this pedal, I wouldn't even bother calling.

i play all different types of music. this pedal just sucks. if you're looking for a pedal that can make your gear sound awesome, buy the tech21 sansamp bass driver di. this pedal is well worth it. do not by the zoom 506 bass, it is crappy. I shit better quality stuff than this pedal. If you own one, leave outside ,i'm sure someone would be happy to steal it of your lawn.

10 it is really easy to use it only took me 15 minutes to set up i started to play in no time it is easy to set up it is not even confusing for a beginner.the patches are easy to edit!!

9 carvin lb75 5 string and carvin 600 head. it is not noisy at all it is actuly very quiet i can get the sound from nirvana the chorous is really good on here if u like chorus get this!!

i can depend on it all the time it wont let me down. i dont even need back only a battery!

the compony is nice and very helpful!i have never have to repair it!!!

i play punk hardcore crap it is a really good match.i have been playing for 4 years now this is my favorite bass effect!i would bye it again defently!i love the chorus on it.the chorus is my favorite feature ilove itit makes music life a heck of alot better !!!!

Without the additional expression pedal it's basically worthless live, unless you play through one bank. Editing patches takes a while, and adding effect upon effect just makes the signal muddy.

I use mine with a 98 American standard Jazz Bass, and a SWR workingman's 12 for church, and studio gigs. Different effects are at different volumes, so unless you E.Q. each one to the same level you have to adjust the volume of your amp. I thought the limiter, flanger, phaser, reverb, and distortion were rough sounding. The distortion sounds like every other crappy bass overdrive pedal out there. I did like the chorus, light compression,and light auto wah. With some tweaking, I was able to coax a tone kind of similiar to Marcus Miller's, but that also could be that I'm using an SWR.

One of the springs in the on one side popped out, and hasn't been the same since. Judging that it is made out of plastic, it isn't very reliable.

I own a Boss Stereo Bass Chorus, and it makes the Zoom sound like crap when compared to Chorus. Its such a hassle to use that I only use as a tuner now. The tuner is a very good one though.

You have to get used to selecting effects and going to bypass mode, but otherwise, it's a piece of cake to program, it's just tedius.

I'm going to rate every effect this thing has on a scale from 1 (low) to 5 (high): Chromatic Tuner-2 Compressor-3 Limiter-2 Fat Wah-3 T Wah-4 Clean 1-2 Clean 2-4 Fat-2 Slap-1 Drive-4 Vintge-3 Fuzz-5 Thrash-5 Gain-5 Noise Suppressor-5 Amp Simulator-4 EQ-4 Phaser-3 Chorus-4 Chorus Ensemble-3 Flanger-1 Synthesizer-3 Octave-4 Chorus/Octave-5 Delay-4 Hall-5 Room-3 As you can see, some of the effects are great (fuzz), some are decent (chorus), and some, unfortunetly, are very poor (flanger).

BUY AN ADAPTER! This pedal will kill a Duracell 9V battery in only 4 hours, and when it cuts off, so does you bass! It's built pretty tough, too, so as long as you get an adapter, you're set!

I'm an effects nut, and this pedal is great, especially in conjunction with other pedals. Some effects, like the auto wah and fanger, are total disappointments, while others, like chorus and hall reverb, kick some serious ass hole. If you like bass effects, get this.

I found the pedal fairly easy to use while it actaully worked.

I was at first pleasantly surprised by the sound quality and lack of noise. This changed drastically after only 2 months of light use.

During the first 2 months of use I wa duped into thinking that the 506 was a great pedal. After 2 months it developed a self-oscillating hum that sounded as if it was channeling a motor boat engine.

After I returned it to Zoom (through the vender AMS, that's another story!!) it took a total of 2 months to get the pedal back. That was 2 months I had to do without a tuner or compression... After finally receiving it I found out(surprise) that the noise was still there...

Zoom-"Catch Us If You Can" indeed! Now, I'm out $100 bucks and have to face the prospect of buying a higher priced unit after all. (Any suggestions?) Final words?? Don't waste your $100. It may seem like a bargain at first but in the end you would have saved more just buying a better pedal outright.

Within half an hour, I had it set up and doing synth effects. Within 1 hour, I was editing and creating my own patches. VERY EASY!

I use it with a dean edge and a samick 5 string on a fender bxr 100. No noise at all, with strong effects. Chours's, octave's, and slap efx are great! Eq can add a little bite to your low end and the compresor/limiter rulz!!

I do depend on it and it works! Only switching to bypass mode is tough, but just takes a little getting used to. I would definatly use it at a gig.

I play punk and metal, but can be used for blues, jazz, or even poka if you like. I have been playing 3 years now. I would brutally KILL anyone who tries to steal it(lol), but if they did, I would definatly buy another one. I love it's programability and ability to edit factory settings. I don't perticuly care for it's construction, but it will not break on you, even though it is not a DOD!

About 2 minutes after I took it out of the box I was playing with some of the weirdest bass sounds there are. Editing is simple and if you make a mistake, you can get the factory patch back quickly. The bypass and volume controlls are a little tricky but I am used to them now.

The distortions are a little weak, the chours is functional at best and overall it is a little noisy. I just crank the ZNR and most of it goes away. I like the quality of the wah and octave effects. Dropping a low B on a five string down an octave is fun and the 506 tracks it almost perfectly.

The plastic body is a littly shoddy but other than that it is decent. I have used it at shows without a backup with no problems.

Never needed it.

I play anything from hardcore/ska-core to jazz and funk. I've been playing for several years and this was my first effects peal. I use it with and ESP B-205 and a Peavy TNT-115 and i find it indespensible. I would definately buy another any day. The only problem I have is, I dont have and expression pedal so I cant take full advantage of the wah and octave functions. You wont find a better pedal in this price range anywhere. THIRTY2MO forever.

It is very easy to use. It just takes a couple of days to figure the programs out on it, that is if you are like me and buy it without a manual.

I have a Squire P-bass that I hook through it to a Peavey Basic 112. It is not that noisy, blast it all you want. the effects were not that great when I got my 506 so I had to reprogram them and change them around to fit my style of music. I can basically get the sound of silverchair, Incubus, Korn, Creed, and Rage Against The Machine. All the effects sound great but you might want to reprogram them.

Yes I can count on it, and would use it without a backup processor.

No if you treat this thing with respect you won't need to get it fixed because it won't break.

I play in a band that mostly plays hardcore/hardrock stuff and this pedal seems to cover every sound. I have been playing for a year. I have a DOD fx-92 grunge pedal to go with my 506. I don't think they sell the fx-92 any more so good luck trying to find one. I would buy another one if this thing got stolen. I love the easy programs that you can customize on it. The Phaser kicks ass. It helps me create different sounds and helps me improve in song writting.

Very easy to use - switching patches is a snap. The bank hold feature allows you to switch patches at your convenience, and activate tehm at the right time with a simple press of the foot. All the other effects I looked at were either on or off. Excellent feature, great pedal.

I've been playing with an Ibanez ATK4 through a Hartke 3500, 1X15+4X10. Great sound - very versatile. I play a lot of classic rock, and the effects can bring on just about any sound, from Pink Floyd to Neil Young.

I've had some problems getting it to work on battery power - but I use it without backup, plugged in, and have never had any problems.

Haven't ever dealt with the company.

For what I play, this effect pedal can't be matched. It's easy to use, easy to program, has a great manual (mostly a map of patches). The only drawback is that it's a little hard to read in bright light. Playing dark clubs, it's not a problem, and the tuner is dead on. Great product!

The majority of the factory patches are very nice for their purpose

I'm using this with my Ibanez 6-stringm and all the effects work great The best effects though are the drive and fuzz, sounds a lot like old-school punk

It's a bit fragile compared to all my other pedals

I play in a ska-core/punk rock band and I love using this pedal to at shows to give the audience something to laugh about :-) It's the best thing that's ever happened to my bass playing

Most of the presets are useless (4 or 5 good ones). But that doesent matter because editing you own patches is pretty easy. The manual is helpful enough.

My setup is Ibanez Ergodyne 5 string and Peavey TKO 115s 80w amp. This is a VERY useful little thing considering the price.
Delay, auto wah, octaver and noise reduction are pretty good.
Chorus is great, can go from almost unnoticable to shimmering.
Flanger is good, i can get a pretty good Tool "46&2" sound.
Compression is average but useable.
Phaser is cool although is messes with the bottom end(probably supposed to)
Synth is fun but useless unless your in a techno band or something.
The most dissapointing feature is the distortion although the fuzz is pretty good and possibly the drive, all the other distortions are crap.

Its plastic so i would'nt step on it too hard. Otherwise you should be ok.

havent needed to yet

I play everything from Pink Floyd to Tool to Primus to and even some metal and this is very good for the $110 i paid. Although when I get more money some day I might get something more high-end but for now this is very good. More control over the parameters would of been nice but it just aint so. I would highly reccomend this as an excellent first multi-effect unit

This one's easy to use; however, I'd still need the manual to figure out all of the features it offers -- if you pick one up without a manual you might miss some stuff it can do. I found the manual to be very easy to read.

The noise gate is really effective on this baby. My amp has a defect in it that makes it hiss a lot, and the noise gate eliminates it when I'm not playing.
I find, however, that it makes my bass sound kind of tinny when I play with the Zoom pedal alone hooked up. The sound fattens, however, when I put my Alesis Nanocompressor ahead of the Zoom 506 in my effects chain. However, I find certain effects sort of decay and are intermittent when I have anything, including my compressor, ahead of the zoom effect in the chain.
The effects, however, sound pretty good. My favorites are Miller's Slap, Crazy Phase, Lover's Funk, and some of the Chorus effects, and there seems to be a lot of possibililites for creating your own sounds with the easy programming features the unit has. other possibilities with the programming feature.

I reserve an opinion because I've only owned it for two weeks, although I've played it over and over and over again, for hours and hours during this period. Further, I don't gig -- I play at home with custom bass karaoke tapes.

Never had to deal with them

Overall, I like the effect, in spite of the trebly sound I get out of it. I play an Ibanez Soundgear and Modified Squier Musicmaster Bass with a Gallien Krueger head and SWR Cabinet, and also use a Boss Dynamic Filter and Alesis Nanocompressor. I play fusion, jazz, and rock, in that order.
Some shortcomings are the fact that it's hard to switch between effects since they are all in one pedal. If the two effects you want are far away in memory, you can't use them in the same song with any speed. However, you can store the ones you want in one of the 6 banks which allow you put four effects side by side.
I find that it is a little hard to bypass the whole unit by stepping on the two sections of the pedal, simultaneously. If my foot isn't dead on the sweet spot, I sometimes inadvertently go up or down to a neighbouring effect, rather than bypassing the pedal altogether. The adaptor, too, was $38.00 CDN -- a fairly hefty price for an adaptor, which raised the price significantly from the $165 CDN I paid for the pedal alone.
However, for the price, you do get a lot of effects -- octaver, noise gate, compression, EQ, flange, reverb, chorus, bass synth, gain, distortion, auto wah, and volume control. Further, I know of no other multi-effects units in this price range. The only other unit I know of is the Boss ME-8B, which Roland told me is more than $700 CDN-- not even in the same price range as the Zoom 506. (So here's a business opportunity for all you guitar electronics firms looking for new products).
Someone else said in their review that the pedal isn't for pro's, however, for someone who wants to dabble in effects without having to sell your first-born child to pay for it, this one's a keeper.

plug in your input jack put battery in/plug in to socket PLAY!!!!!!!!!!

it gets a little fuzzy some times in the head phones my favorite effects or the chorus & synthesiers

I would gig with it without a back up partly because I cant afford one right now. I wouldn't jump on it after all it is Plastic

haven't had to

I play every type of music. My favorite is jazz I like everything about it. I wish it came with a pedal built in

After you spend a night reading the complicated intructions and figuring out how to edit it becomes like second nature. With the factory presets its very easy and the editing takes time, but is worth it.

My setup is an ibanez soundgear300, customized, into a peavy minx 110. The effects are great on the factory presets, but with some customized settings it's not very loud and if u turn it up u get fuzzy noises coming out of ur amp. But it is still very good. I can get the sound I am looking for with an octave, chorus and small thrash metal effect, which is like KoRn.

I can definitely depend on it (with an ac adaptor instead of battery)U have to be kinda gentle cause its plastic but its good

I play metal and it is perfect for it. I've been playing for 2 years, this is my first pedal. If it was stolen or lost itd buy it again. I love everything. I almost bought 4 boss pedals for 350 but this is a much better deal. I wish it had a little more factory presets. It helps make good music.

The ZOOM 506 Bass contains a lot of effects, for the price of one Boss pedal. There are a number of presets, and it's really use to change 'em. Unfortunately, you have to save your own presets where the factory presets are. You can use up to eight effects at the same time, but NONE of the effects have good sound. You can't set 'em the way you would want to, and that's really bad. The tuner is great though, and easy to activate.

The QUALITY of the sound is good, but the sound itself is really lousy. I tried the 506 with my Fender Jazzbass on a Peavey Mark III amplifier with the Trace Elliot 1248 4x12. The only cool effects are the flanger and the chorus. They're pretty OK, but the rest is just garbage. I wouldn't waste my money on this unit again if it broke or was stolen.

I've used this live once, but I had to use a battery, and the battery was drained after 10(!) minutes! If I can't use a battery eliminator, I won't even consider using the 506 for libe playing again. I play heavy metal and such, and I don't think the 506 will survive for along time, since it's made out of plastic.

I've never contacted ZOOM, but I've heard that they're great.

I wouldn't give this away to my worst enemy! It's small, and the tuner is good, but $200 is WAY too much money to spend on a tuner... I never use the effects, 'cus they sound really lousy. I guess it's good if you're on a budget, or if you're a beginner, but I wouldn't recommend it.

This pedal has far too many settings for each effect so you'll never get the sound you really want. It also has sounds so bad they would not even compliment bands such as Macabutu from Bognor Regis, England!!!

Not bad.

Providing you dont need to use more than 3 settings its ok.

I play punk rock so this was as helpfull as a Russian in a tutu, but if yur into Pink Floyd for some strange reason it will be ok. its well over priced but if your overly rich or stupid you wont mind.

This thing is too easy to use, you could sit there for hours just messing around with it and if you screw it up it can be fixed easily. Editing patches was quite simple. they had me doing it in the store after about 2 minutes. Manual is simply a map really, pretty basic.

I originally had a Marshall park 25w bass combo but I recently purchased a Fender eclosure and a 300w Traynor head. It sounded great on my little 25w and when i jammed with people with larger amps, i simply created a patch to make the amp louder. Can cause the amp to give some nasty feedback but that's normally when it's cranked and all the pre set patches have different level settings so i simply set them so that they are all in the same loudness. Haven't really tried to get any other artist's sounds out of it.

Pretty good, fairly dependable, use it gigging

never had to deal with company

sounds great, my range of play varies very much, dabble into all sorts of music. was going to get a digitech pedal but they were about 2 1/2 times more expensive, and for the price the zoom provided me with everything i needed. would gladly buy it again

I had seperate Boss Parametric Eq and Flange pedals, but was stuck with one sound from each durign shows. Being able to change to a patch with just slightly altered eq (say for a solo or bridge) was easy and I edited them right outof the box.

I use a couple of Gibson Basses but mostly an epiphone with a 800W peavey head over a fifteen cab. I think the sound quality is affected more by your instrument/amp selection. It porduces a different sound from different setups. *Tip don't edit your patches using the headphone option. Your patch wont sound the same thru your amp!

getting power to it has been a nightmare! Batteries - forget it! I've used it 12hrs a week for a year. Two months ago my ac jack died and I was forced back on batteries! Two days later the battery jack wires snapped off of the plug when i was changing th batteries. I fixed the battery cord myself. ****Worst feature***; The more light you have the more imposible it is to read the display. My guitarist uses a 505 and we had an outdoor gig. We could not read the display outside!! We had to place our pedals up on stools so we could bend down very close and change patches with our elbows!! It sucked!

We play straightforward rock! I don't generally use effects heavily so having an arsenal of effects in one pedal I ususally have the patches set to just 1-2 effects to lightly change my sound! I love the polish it adds to my sound but have had to switch mid stage to plugging straight into my amp since it has failed so many times. WHY CANT THE SOUND SIGNAL GO THRU THE PEDAL WHEN THE BATTERY DIES!

i had the thing for three days and i am already editing factory sounds are a bit odd so i had to get my own sounds from the rig . it did not come with a manual so if any one can hook me up please do

i a playing a ibanez 5-string sound gear bass through an ampeg SVT 2 i think that powers an eight 6.5" speakers not the sound i am looking for but is what i have . i find it to be very quiet espeacially with comp. the effects i have pathed in sound great but i hate the banking situation ( all the switching through banks ) but i like the over all sound les claypool to jason newsted at the movement of a toe i find the delay alright but definently not as good as those vintage "U2" rigs

havent played out with it yet but pln to im just getting into the effects world and will use it as much as possible

have gotten that far

the band shadow proof is a heavy hard band that is loud and weird (if i was in that band which i am) i would own this pedal i would suggest not using it in all the songs you play for the reason that it gets in the way ( again the banking situation)

it's pretty user friendly. The first day I had it, I was editing patches. The manual I got with it is extensive, but I dont think it is complete.

Im using a yamaha bbg4 bass with a yorkville bass master 200 amp. It's pretty good setup with the zoom. With this amp, however, the zoom isn't as good as my other amps. It's just the pedal. I've used fuzz pedals, and i got better distortion off it.

I do depend on it. I use an ac jack usually. It goes through batteries quite fast.

Up here in canada, theree is no support for it.

i play grunge/alternative.. the sound is good.. but not the bst. If i had tonnes of money, i would buy every pedal separate. but for it's price [equivilant of 2 separate pedals], it's a good buy for a bassist on a budget

First of all, I don't have much experience with effects pedals. But, this has got to be the easiest one to use out there. Editting is a breeze. One very good thing, is that you can listen as you edit. Meaning that you can hear how your changes are affecting the patch as you are changing them, you don't have to save them before you can hear the finished product. It's great!!

I am using a Fender Precision Bass, and a TK00 Peavey amp. The effects are good except for the delay, it's pretty weak. It is kind of noisy sometimes. Chorus, distortion, and flange effects are good.

It's a very solid peice of equipment for being made out of plastic. If you take care of it, it will last you a while.

Bought it from American musical supply. www.americanmusical.com Cheap prices, good, quality stuff.

It would be good for all styles of music. It's so versatile.I would buy a new one if it were stolen or lost. You can't beat it for the price. It's like having every Boss pedal, for less than the price of one!!!!!!!!! This is one great website!!!! I always look here before I buy anything. They have writeups on any kind of equipment. To Whomever keeps this website up and running, Thanks alot!!!!

Well, if you know what you're doing you can get some pretty cool sounds out of this thing. You should read the manual before messing around with the EQ or the compression or limiting settings. Sometimes a hiss is unavoidable and can't be fixed by the EQ on the unit, but it can be eliminated if you have an EQ on your amp. As far as editing patches go,just press the edit button and your in business.

Well my setup is a Squier Jazz Bass pumping through a Ampeg B-150 combo. It has always has some form of noise to it, mostly white noise. If you want to cut back on this noise as much as you can don't use the following: compression, limiting, amp simulation, and reverb. You can get a lot of professional sounding effects on this unit. Your compression is decent; however, it leaves some hiss to the sound as well as the limiter. The fat wah could be stronger, but it is pretty good, it just needs a bit more oomph. The reso wah can be dangerous to your treble levels so be careful. Moving along to the distortions, Clean 1 is too dead sounding and really serves no purpose. Clean 2 really makes it clean and fresh, it sparkles; however, here again there is a bit of hiss, and you have to be careful about your treble levels. Fat is sort've fat, but it lacks a more rounded tone, if you know what I mean. Slap is a good quality slap, but here again you have to watch out for your treble levels. Drive is a bit weak, but if you have it on a higher gain level it should serve you some. Vintage is one of my faves for getting that vintage tube sound; however, I recommend to keep the gain on the lower levels and the EQ in the upper 40s. Fuzz can get messy so watch out for your gain and try to clean it up a bit with the EQ so you can distinguish notes. Thrash is not exactly thrash, but it serves as a very good distortion if you have the gain all the way up and the EQ at 50. I'm not gonna comment much on the noise reduction and the amp simulation (they do there job to an extent). Read the manual on the EQ. The phaser is exceptional. You can get some wild and awesome sounds with it. Chorus 1 is good for your simple chorus sound, and if you want more shimmer to your sound chorus 2 should do just nicely. I think the flanger is too weak. At times it is barely even noticeable. The bass synth is too dirty. The Octaver is good, but the pitch shift could have been done better. I don't like it. It's not clean or very accurate. It's too tinny on the top. The delay is good. I like the hall reverb, but it tends to get distorted a little bit at times. Room reverb is good too, but it has some weird noise in the background that I don't like.

I feel that I can depend on it just as long as it doesn't get wet or cracked. I would use it in a gig without a backup because I trust in it a lot and it has never failed me; although, it is made out of plastic and contains a single circuit board.

I never had to get it repaired.

I can't exactly establish my style(s), but it's a good match for most; however, I'd probably recommend trying it out first. I've been playing for three years and this has probably been the best thing I've used so far, I really want to go for Zoom's new 3000B bass effects processor, all because of this pedal. I just love the fact that you can create your own combinations on this pedal. I don't know if I'd buy it again because of the Zoom 3000B release. It really helps me express my music and spice it up. It has a great deal of decency to it.

THe guy in the store showed me how to use it in 2 minutes. It is very easy to edit. The bypass switch is tough at first, but you'll get use to it fast.

It is built for bass, but I have used with such things as: a guitar, bass, drums, and vocals. The effects are awsome, but some arn't really neccasary. I use it alot to get a cool slap effect or a sound like Tool.

I've brought it to a bunch of gigs and dropped it a whole bunch of times. It still works like brand new.

For the money this is the best effect you can get. It's the coolist feeling to put on one of the strange effects, pluck a note, and look at the peoples faces in the crowd. If you spend time with it you can get any effect you want really. I use it alot with my four track for compression and just cool effects. I would definetly buy it again. Please write me with new patches.

I love the hundreds of combinations of sound you can piece together with this, I just wish you could jump between them insantaneously. Figuring out how to use it, however~ piece of cake.

I play on a Carvin 5-string into a peavey 150 watt head and carvin1x15 cab. When using the distortions I get fedback, but that's due to the active electronics in my bass. Getting the right sound is always possible, though it takes some time tweaking the settings.

Soundwise- like a rock. I've been using this thing for about a year with no problems. BUT- I wouldn't call it a stomp box. The pedals (two of them) seem fragile.

Never had to call em.

Okay, let's be realistic. For a hundred-twenty bucks this thing is a god-send. It has a built in tuner and output level control. I get full sounds, and the bright poopy ones that I need when Im whippin out the funk. I can play metal and sound like I hate the world. All the sounds are there, you just need to tell it you want em. The only thing I dont like is that you cant jump from preset to preset easily. You can change the order of the presets, but this becomes a disgusting mess. Number one thing I love about the ZOOM 506? Plug in you headphones to the output jack and you can practice anywhere!

Anybody with two brain cells to rub together should be able to use this with absolutely no worries. The manual is a simple fold-out piece of paper that tells you clearly and concisely how to use all the functions. Editing is a snap (hint for the lazy: take off your shoes and you can do it with your toes!).

Okay, I'll be honest, my gear is substandard. Haven't quite got the money for that Trace Elliot cab yet =) Given that though, this thing could only sound better! Compressor and limiter are good, the 'fat wah' is excellent for Geezeresque playing, but the 'reso wah' is to my ears a little ugly. Of the 8 settings in the distortion module, 4 are simply preset EQ settings, with flat (clean 1), scooped (clean 2), boosted mids (fat) and boosted treble (slap). Of these I really like the slap setting, and I play heavy stuff! The 4 distortions are driver, vintage, fuzz and thrash. Of these I like the driver (Lemmy sound) and the fuzz (Cliff Burton), which has an especially wicked sound. The vintage is too subtle for my tastes - and what the hell were they thinking when they did the thrash setting? It reeks. Noise reduction is _very useful_ as without it the distortions would be hideous! All the freqeuency modulation type effects are very nice indeed, but you're somewhat limited in what you can use at once. Delay is fairly short (1/3 of a second max)but is still lots of fun.

Like most people, I haven't had to deal with Zoom yet...

First things first, this obviously isn't the world's greatest multi-effects pedal. But for an entry-level player like myself, the 506 is a godsend! This is possibly the best and cheapest way of finding out what effects you like to use, which ones you hate and which ones you can't actually find a use for. I haven't tried the expression pedal, but I want to get it. That Trace amp comes first though =) The range of sounds possible is huge despite the inflexibility - muck around long enough and you _will_ find a sound you like, be it clean, chorus, distorted or whatever. One of my patches, when played with a slide, sounds like whalesong! One thing, make sure you get a wall plug for it - the 506 sucks a 9 volt dry in 4 hours - since I use it for my basic sound these days, well... I'd buy it again if I lost it, for sure.

At first the 506 is a little confusing. The first thing I noticed is the manual is map like, not to worry, you only need it for about 10 minutes and then you can throw it out (actually recycle). In the store, dont be intimidated, you can really get shit scared when you haven't read the manual. But after a while you feel very smart going from playing to editing mode in 10 seconds and whipping up your own patch. I gave this a nine because at first you can be scared, but after at most a day, its easily a 10.

The sound quality is great, the most usefull thing being the noise reduction setting, very important. Without it the effects box would sound very ordinary. Of course a good idea is to experiment without the noise reduction if your not using any distortion, becuase then you can fully benifit from the EQ tones.

I think I could esily go to a gig without it. Put it somewhere you wont tread on it to hard and your fine (e.g. directly behing the foldback), I think I could accidently step on it, but just not accidently jump on it. Why I would jump on it, I have no idea.

The only cusstomer support I've used is the great comments at Harmony central, etc... Because this is a popular box, there are many users who would happily share their comments. Its also good because their is at least one page with a patch repository. (http://home.earthlink.net/~eswilliams/zoom)

I play in a funky metal band and I feel the Zoom fixes my effect situation and budget situation. Luckily I've got a power adapter. I haven't got the wah pedal yet, but because of my love for this box, I should be getting soon. The tuner is great and the bypass mode is good, except a good idea would be to patch (out of 24) a clean patch with nothing but commpression, EQ, noise reduction and your away. The only prolem is the much hyped Synth effect is noisy and annoying, I do not know what band would use this, on the other hand its great for harmonics and soloing.

The manual (a fold out map like thing) is easy to read, and simple to figure out. I was editing within 10 minute of taking it out of the package. Editing is as simple as it gets, yet effective... It is a little hard to switch between banks and patches but what do you expect for the price?

Extremly good for the price! The distortion (noteably the drive distortion) are just as good as some of the higher priced products out there. The noise is manageable with the ZNR noise reduction option. I use thise with a Jazz Bass and a P-bass run through a peavy Data Bass Amp (100 watts) and works great. I can go from Jaco to Cliff Burton to Victor Wooten and back again and all for about $120. Not bad indeed...

I have used in in several gigs and no problems yet. It is however made of plastic so if you are used to jumping on your boxes, look else where. It won't take a direct shot like some other boxes will but for those of use who have a little control, no problem. Never go to a gig w/out a backup, no matter what the pedal...

Haven't had to deal with them...

It is stupid to compare this unit with the more expensive units. But who are we kidding? for 120 or so dollars this put the power at your feet and you can still afford to eat too. I would definetly buy this again (unless I became rich as hell) The sounds aren't bad and with a little planning of the placement of your sounds, this is a unit to be reckoned with! As always, e-mail me w/good patches...

I bought it last night so I'm running on first impressions here. It's a quick learn for using out of the box. I *must* attach a volume pedal to benefit from the bank hold feature. Otherwise, I'm stuck with cycling through multiple effects or will have to reprogram it. Editing is a little tedious but you get used to it. The manual is a foldup map type. I prefer books. The content of the manual is "just enough". I like more technical detail.

It's plugged inline before a Hartke 7000 which feeds a Hartke 410xl and SWR Basic 2-way 15". The octave based effects are QUITE MEATY. Like this. The distortions are ok so far. I suspect that tweaking the ZNR/AMP setting will improve this. The first problem I see is that the output levels of the different effects are different. It makes for some unpleasant surprises while cycling through the patches. I haven't done the "do I sound like?..." train of thought yet. I still sound like me but with added dimension to the sound. That's what counts.

Too early to tell. BE GENTLE with it. It feels as if it would crumple under too much pressure by the foot.

It seems like a worthwhile purchase. I was getting quite frustrated with a Quadraverb and it's inability to come up with good efects quickly for bass. The sounds that I've heard are basicly good but will need tweaking for my desires. During practice last night, it definitely opened up some ideas that I don't think would have been there without the unit. I like.

OK to use. Editing is easy, but by-passing could be easier.

presets are basicly useless.. the unit was noisy. all the distortions sounded the same. the only cool effect was the auto-wah which got some wild sounds.

ok for at home practices, but I would never take this to a gig.. get a better unit for gigs

Would never buy this thing again. but it is good for someone who just wants to mess around with effects. If you are serious about effects then spend some more money for a better unit...

GOOD,AS ALWAYS,READ THE MANUAL!EDITING PATCHES TAKES A LITTLE TIME TO DO,BUT ITS WORTH THE EFFORT TO CUSTOMIZE A SOUND FOR YOUR OWN SYYLE.THE MANUAL IS A BIT CONFUSING AT FIRST,TECH HEADS WILL LOVE IT!THE UNIT HAS NOT BEEN UPGRADED.

I USE A FENDER BXR 100 COMBO+IBENEZ ROADSTAR BASS.NO NOISE.ALL EFFECTS ARE STRONG.I CAN PASTORIOUS,P-NUT,LEE+AND ANY ONE I CARE TO COPY.ALL PATCHES SOUND EXCELLENT FOR A UNIT THIS PRICE!

SO FAR,NO PROMBLEMS,EXCEPT AS USUAL:BATTERIES!!!!!DONT FORGET EXTRAS!I AM PLANNING TO BUY A SPARE.

I PLAY ABOUT EVEYTHING!I GIG ON WEEKENDS.20+YEARS PLAYING,I PLAY BECAUSE I LOVE TO!IM STILL WORKING ON THE UNITS FEATURES,THERES ALOT MORE TO WORK WITH THAN IT FIRST APPEARS.I WISH THE EDITED PATCHES COULD BE SAVED AFTER THE UNIT WAS TURNED OFF.

The unit comes with many pre-programed patches that provide quite a few different sounds. Most of these are great and can really open up your creativity. The patches that are not desirable (there are like 4 slap patches, too many} can easily be cleared out to hold a patch of your own. The manual is a joke though. If you can figure out what they are saying though, it's not that difficult. I wish there was an easier way to switch between patches than just hitting then all in order untill you get to the one you want, but that's a small sacrafice

I use a Series 10 (almost entirely rebuilt) with a PJ pickup configuration and an Ampeg B-100R (a 100 watt 15" vintage reissue combo amp) The pedal is very quiet which is nice. Some people have said that the distortions are weak, but I found them more than enough. The fuzz is really great, but it sounds more like an overdrive than a fuzz.

I was a little worried when I bought this pedal because it has a plastic housing. I was wrong though this is one tough mother! I wouldn't stomp on it like a stomp box, (I don't slam on stomp boxer either) but this unit shouldn't be treated like a pedal, but more like a compact rack system with foot controls. Imagine if people treated their rack systems like their pedals! OUCH!!!

I have not had problems with the unit, but before i bought it, i requested any product info they had, and they were quick to respond.

I play a lot of metal, this pedal helps to give great dynamics. From something like a good reverb/chorus setup to an all out thrash overdrive. The flanger is great for sounding badass too I've been playing for about 2 years. The only other pedal I've ever "owned" (and I don't mean I've stolen other stuff either) was a peavey chorus pedal. I paid $50 for that. For 3 times the price I got 20 times the effects. If I did ever lose this unit, I would buy another one. I love the versatility of the unit, but I wish it were easier to switch between patches. I looked around for products to compare it to, but I couldn't fing any. This is the only multi-effects pedal in this price range. The only real gripe I have is that the delay time is too short. This unit inspires me to create better music, because I become so enthralled in the sound. The only thing I would warn people about is that if you are going to play bass, you must select your effects very, very carefully. Use effects only when you have to, don't let the effects control you.

Changing the settings is easy, but it is hard to determine what effect is going to do, i.e. there are 10 flange settings -- 1 through 10. Determining the rate, depth, feedback, must be done by ear. Which isn't bad, but try to distiguish their 50 settings on the 4 band eq.

Distortion is very guitar-like, compression & limiting is good, octive is good on higher notes (not low e), the synth sound is cool you dont hit other notes (it will warble) if you like that sort of sound. Delay is only a short tap. Reverb is good.

Used it at a couple of gigs, still works.

I e-mailed zoom to see if i could get a list of what the Eq settings were. they emailed me back and said they would get back to me...still waiting.

Hey for $119 bucks, if you only like 1 of the sounds, its worth it. I like several. GREAT entry level processor!

Relatively ease of use. After not programming it for a while, I had to go back to the manual to remember how.

Ther is a certain amount of noise when listening intently with headphones. when live it is fairly unnoticeable

no problem, I wouldn't drop it

I work in a theatre with lots of wireless systems. This unit seems to spit out some kind of RF funk. Therefore I can not use it at my primary gig. Customer service could not be bothered helping me.

Good box. But maybe not for the pros.

After about 3 minutes i had my pedal up and running. Editing patches was so simple. Everything was explained rather well in the manual.

Sometimes the chorus gets a little noisy, but that is taken care of with the ZNR/Amp simulator. The distortion is definately weak but i love the SLAP setting. The Wah Wah is a little weak but it sounds cool with phasing

The only problem i have is that the battery runs out too soon. But with an AC adaptor that problem is gone. I would use this as my soul effects pedal at a gig.

Never needed it

I would buy one of these pedals in a heartbeat. If you have a small budget but need great effects, this is for you.