Zoom 707 II

having not had much other experience with fx pedals i would say that it is relativly easy to use, although not the easiest thing in the world. certainly not as easy as turning some dials on the amp.

weak. The distortion (any kind) on this amp is weak and very artificial. I don't own a valve amp (yet), i have a MARSHALL MG50DFX and i can tell you that that sounds better on it's own than with this fx pedal. I used to use it with a PEAVEY RAGE 15W amp (this is where the zoom comes into it's own) until i upgraded and noticed that. The only thing you can use this pedal with is a beginners amp like the one stated. It will make the sound better on one of these, but when you get further up the (price) spectrum for amps, i wouldn't recommend it.
I use it for tuning now, thats it.

i think it's reliable enough. i've never had a problem with it, and mines been dropped a couple of times.
very robust for a plastic pedal.

never delt with them

beginners fx pedal = YES, VERY MUCH SO

someone who knows a little more, with more experience = NOT RECOMMENDED

Well when i first saw it looked pretty confusing.But i got used to the functions.there are manuals in different languages.editing patches is quite easy.

i am using it with an ibanez SA 260 FM and stranger 40W.The effects are good,but some of them are the same.It is not at all noisy(noise reduction system).I play creed,metallica,rhcp,also punk and many other artists.Great for punk and metal.not good for heavy metal.Also not good for soft rock and overdrive sound.WAH WAH pedal is really good.

Yes i can certainly use it on stage.and yes i can count on it.

who are they?hehe

very good for rock and punk rock,good for metal but not that heavy metal sound.i have been playing for 2 yrs.this is a good "first processor" for a start.shifting between patches is tedious.great for gigs and practise.for BEGGINERS it is a really good processor,also cheap.but for paying a little extra you can get the zoom gfx series which is better.50% of the patches are 'kind of' similar.but a good buy

The Effects are self-explanatory, and with threeknobs, one pedal (w/ selector) and two food peds, it couldn't get less complicated

Setup: Vintage '57 Strat (I've added humbuckers and a Floyd Rose), Marshall Amp, and the 707
Sound quality is pretty good. Some of the effects sound digitised when you crank it up, but I'll give it Full Marks for its "Clean Wah". Brilliant.

Sturdy as a rock (it's Jap man), Very good for live gigs.

Not had any probs so far....

I play Hendrix and Dead music, so I love the more subtle effects and of course the monster wah. Great for someone who plays classic rock. Of course, ya can try out its spacy Pink Floyd-ish effects (airplanes etc) but progressive rocks not really my cup of tea.
Also, its great value for money.

Whe you first turn it on it starts up in "Play Mode" - beginners won't even need to bother going beyond this. All the effects are readily available so pick one and play away. Editing patches is very straight forward if you've bothered to read the first few pages of the manual. Could do with a bit more of a range in the editing function. The manual is small and concise with easy to understand instructions. One or two of the more Zoom specific terms could do with a bit more explanation. Inclusion of a glossary would have been handy at first.

Mexican Strat, Vox Cambridge. Some of the clean effects can be a bit too bassy when switching from distortion to clean whilst keeping the same settings on the vox (i.e. if you're switching mid-song). This seems to happen with all the amps I've used it with (Peavey, Fender, Vantage 10watt transistor amp). There are ways round this though if you can be bothered figuring them out (the expression pedal comes in handy for resolving this). The "clean wah" factory setting is good for some steve vai rhythm work with my strat set to the middle/bridge pickups. With a bit of creativity, there are also ways of getting close to SRV's thick tone (using heavy strings 11+ and using the neck/middle pickups helps immensely). As for other artists, all you need is to listen to em carefully and play with the settings a bit and all the effects will get pretty close to what you'll want. Never expect it to be perfect though! There are 2 preset fuzz effects, one is good, the other is bad. As for the others, personal taste will govern whether they are good or not.

I would depend on it for the first 2/3 years. Then you can expect the jack sockets at the back to get very wobbly! I've never gigged without it but I've always used fresh batteries and been very careful about where I put it on stage. Too close to amps can cause you problems when the stage starts vibrating! Don't expect it to last forever.

Never needed to deal with customer support.

I play rock and blues mostly with a smattering of heavy metal and jazz. It's served me well for all styles. I've been playing for 10 years - I've had a zoom 707II for around the last 30 months (used every day) and before that I had a zoom 707 for about 3 years. I think the fact that I decided to stay with zoom says a lot.

I love the fact that it can do 99% of the things you would ever want it to do for stage performance and practicing (not the greatest for recording purposes). I hate the fact that effects units when put through an amp rather than a PA/keyboard speaker don't sound like they do through your headphones!

When I decided to get a new effects unit after wearing out my old zoom 707 I looked at Pod, other zoom products and the possibility of simply using effects pedals in relay to my amp. In terms of value for money, the Zoom707II is the Daddy. If you want to hear the true sound of your expensive guitar and amp, don't expect ANY effects unit to do that. Be prepared to fork out for a different pedal for each effect you want.

I chose the Zoom 707II because I was, and still am extremely unwealthy and it's one of the most underrated effects units on the market.

It's helped my style a fair amount due to be able to replicate sounds for all different musical styles from funk guitar to Brazilian Death Metal. It's also a teeny weeny unit compared to various others (except the Pod which is very small but also pretty expensive).


If you're strapped for cash, or simply don't want a big chogging girder on the stage with you get the 707II. Unless you have a mind of your own that is...then go try it out and decide for yourself. Ba-a-a-aaah.


Hope you find "Guitar Effects Nirvana".

well i bought this with my first shitty amp and my first shitty guitar.Not great. You have to mess your head around with all the buttons and valves.

I use it with my ibanez copy and an unknown rare belcat amp (ever heard of any?)The noise reduction feature is VERY good but you might loose a lot of your guitar's original sound and sustain with it. But it makes it noiseless, loads. Effects are pretty cool and are many. Not all are good you have to mess with them and make your customs. I spend most of the time on my custom D feel. When i bought it i was a beginner and i loved it. Now i completely hate it. It won't give you ANY famous rock artist's sound.

it might be. I never used it live

who are they???

Definately not for those who are serious about their music. But it is fun enough to make your kids happy

Hey, just updating a review again. I've used this unit almost two years now in my stage rig and have worked things out with it for the most part; however, ease of use is an issue. You must line up your patches in a manner that works for you, or expect to be doing a lot of stomping..clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick...ah...B6. As many have said, this is a Zoom, so editing is not a super-easy thing to do. I make sure to assign critical paramters to each patch to the pedal, so I can use the pedal to control the amount of reverb, compression, etc. Otherwise I would spend half of each set bent over playing with knobs.

There isn't a one single patch that I use that has not been altered. The distortions were clearly designed for 12-year-olds with anger management issues, so a lot of frequencies had to be twiddled. I have come up with some really nice stuff, though, so don't think that you can't get this unit to sound good, take your time and it will shine. I've heard guys with units costing three times the price of this sound like rodent droppings, so just take your time, the sounds are in there. Also, the ZNR noise reduction is fantastic, with it on my rig is as quiet as a duct-taped mime.

Had a drunk chick fall on top of the Zoom a few months back, which jerked one of the jacks pretty bad, now the jack occasionally makes noise. Don't let drunk gals on stage, no matter how little clothing they have on! It's a plastic unit, folks, not exactly heckler-beating material.

No contact with them yet, hopefully my call wouldn't be answered by Beena on the Indian subcontinent.

So many great multi-effects units out there today, you should be able to get good tones out of anyone's mid-line product. Heck, a friend of mine still uses his ART ECC (you know the one, it's 15 years old and about the size of some full-size pedal boards) and he gets a few really good tones out of it, especially the chorus and tremolo. While I still have a dozen or so pedals at home, I bring a couple overdrives and an EQ with the ZOOM to each gig. My '65 Bandmaster is a bit sensitive to the ZOOM, but I just tweak things at each gig...oh yeah, new complaint I forgot about; how hard would it have been to put a clipping light on the unit so you could tell when you have the gain set too high, instead of just using your ear and guessing? That's a big pain to me. Okay, I'm whining...

Firstly, it is quite easy to get along with it if you just fiddle around with it for half an hour. However, incase you need manuals for extra knowledge and understanding of the equipment you can refer to on the 10 manuals it comes with after you've selected in which language you really want to read. However if you've borrowed it from friend, etc, there's a fair good chance that you wouldn't have either of the 10 manuals. Here's the one in English http://www.samsontech.com/products/relatedDocs/707ii.pdf .

It really helped me as I borrowed this thing from my friend. Don't get me wrong. I'm not posting a review after using it for just a couple of hours. This review is the result of the huge patience and auditory training that went into configuring, using, recording, etc. etc. for more than 8 months using this one.

Editing patches are easy. If you can't edit them, then ask someone with a better knowledge of sound, gears, etc. He can help.

There is a sticker with a 6 digit number but I'm more than sure that it's not the firmware revision number and guess what? you'll never find it. (Just the tag "Made in China" on mine).

Overall 707 II scores well in this category.

Forget the presets. 80% of them are crappy and another 15% so-so. What you'll really need to do is sit infront of the amp with your guitar and this 707 II. That way you'll be able to create workable patches for your stuff.

I said workable in the last paragraph, and it's true. The effects are not that great but will work. I'm happy that 707 II showed significant improvement from 505 and 606 in terms of the overdrive sound. However, if you've never used a real overdrive before, this thing is going to give you a wrong conception of overdrive.

The good thing about it is that the pedal is configurable. But personally, I hate the wah. This is not how a wah should sound like. The cleaner effects like reverb and delay are good, ok I change my mind, very good.

These guys put a question "What amp are you using it with?". I'd say, "It doesn't matter". You'll have to sit infront of your amp with the guitar and this thingy to make *workable* patches.

Not that good. Just workable

Can you depend on it?
NO! NO! NO! And that's not at all because it's made of plastic. Infact the plastic is quite durable and I bet, it'll be hard to break it unless you try to tread the footprints of Nirvana.
Lesser mark on dependency is due to the fact that the knobs aren't good, neither are the small switches. They'll get stuck if dust accumulates around them. Infact two of the knobs of the one I own does.

Would you use it on a gig without a backup?
Never even think of doing it unless you are really poor like me.

My few cents worth of knowledge and advice :
Please prepare your tracklist way earlier and then arrange the patches for easy switching. There's a quick switch option available but beleive me, DO NOT even try that on stage.

The company logo says "ZOOM : Catch Us If You Can"...

You can't catch them. Better rely on the good old friend of yours who has better knowledge of electronics equipments.

I play Metal, Soft Rock and Pro.. It is a 5/10 match but the effects are cheesy. However that's what I'll have to use for now. (As I already said that I'm poor). I post process the sound after I record it. That way it sounds a lot better. But believe me, you'll have to spend a minimum of 3 days to get that perfect "not so perfect" sound which can be easily converted to a post-processed "perfect" sound"

If you are a beginner then this is your toy. Else you have two other options. a) If you are a tube amp freak then go buy Boss effects + a Crybaby wah pedal and assemble them and plug them in. They're more sturdy and will give you exactly what you need. (Will be around $ 500) b) If you play neo metal, new age like me, save money and later invest in a POD Xt Live ($ 400).

Overall, its not even value for money.

Plain simple to hit some pre-sets; need for handbook to sink into patch programming and to take full advantage of features. But overall rating is very good; names for patches help and not too many buttons sports multi-functions.

I have just bought it. I tried it via a mixing desk, headphone and a G-K combo. Very quiet unless you select hard dist models (in line with the real things and not quite!). Clean and acoustics models shine. Nice zoom distorded classics, not very greasy the match/mesa/etc... high gain and the like. Fair -on an absolute scale, would be great for the price- reverbes and echo. Nice modulations. Unusefull wha and the like. Would be 9 if it did not try too daring distortions. wall-mart adapter much better tha batteries, which rapidly fail to give enough voltage and reduce dynamic headroom.

undependable pedal. First impression: rather good if you take it for home woodshed, coffe-house gigs, rehearsal. Not the stage horse to abuse.

I am playing bass -and guitar- for some 25 years now and I tried/owned most of the pieces of gear you read and dream about. Multifx-wise I am currently using digitech (large pedalboard) and korg Pandora, Pod tires you in few weeks, beheringer is not making the mix, Boss is as good as usual (too usual to me). Though not my main, this is a very good piece of an instrument if you take into account the price and some. Acoustics and fenders models are as good as they come, no matter the price band of the tool, provided you feed in good sound dough. My Gibsons and Yamahas appreciate. More complex models lack of ... complexity! May be too digital. For the sake of self-training, ok the jamalong jack, nice sampling feature with smart media (though no mod/rev is a real pity!) and fair drums (with very nice real time chain option viafootswitch: intro, patterns...). Sound wise, properly used can fit many situations, from recording ones (but then the compact size is not very critical and you could go for dedicated modules on the effect you need for the song)to live one(if you are not stage stomping too hard). You just need to be able to put to use you tools ...

I didn't buy this for playing out, but mainly as a practice tool. I don't really care about having 40 kinds of distortion and 12 flangers. Although the fat clean tone is good. Like my digitech 200, you have to sit down with the manual and tweak things to get it right.

Where this box shines is in the sampler. I bought a 32mg smartmedia card for $20 and I can lay down all kinds of rhythm tracks on my electric, acoustic, and bass guitars, then loop them and play lead forever and ever, without pissing off the band. Great practice tool. I also hook up a CD player and sample riffs and slow them down. The sound isn't good but you can pick things apart and figure out what Tony Rice is actually playing.

Some of the drawbacks of the sampler: You can't switch between affects during the loop play back. You have to exit from the loop then change patches. Also, the pedal will only control volume during loop play and can't be used as an expression or wah pedal. Wah! Also, you can't feed the drum machine into the sampler. And, there's a niffty option to cut out the beginning and end of the sample, but you can't store it that way. So, maybe Zoom will come out with a 707-III and fix these problems, or if anyone knows how please let me know in your own review.

I have tweaked it much, but the fat clean is pretty cool.

I've only had it a few weeks, but it seems sturdy enough. I'm okay with it being plastic.

Haven't had the need. I bought it on line with a 60 day return policy. I think they phasing out smartmedia because of the 128mg limit. But there is plenty of room for samples.

I've been playing for 30 years. I play blues, rock, and bluegrass, and bass guitar. You may be better off going with individual pedals. It's a step up from the digitech RP200 because of the sample/loop fuction. I'm happy with it and am not returning it or selling yet. Buy the memory card for a great practice tool! Enjoy.

a bit fiddly at first but nothing too complicated

set it up correctly and it can rock, set it up bad and you will suck. simple as that

a bit plasticy but definately gigable as long as you dont intend leaping on it from the balcony

never needed assistance

I play mainly punk and rock. and have been on lead guitar for about 6 years. This pedal may not be the pros choice for gigging but you will not find a better pedal for the price ANYWHERE!! plugged in between My PRS Soap Bar and Vox amp makes practising and small gigs a hell of a lot more fun, and that is what it should be about right?

Don't listen to all the bitching from these wannabe musicians. if you're any good you will sound good on a shitty #100 guitar amp package. This will help you add a bit of variety to your music and bring a smile to your face when you remember how much it cost.

like all music tools, this pedal is only as good as the person opperating it. setup correctly it can be excellent!!

gets my vote