Zoom 707 II

This is my second review of this product; I originally reviewed the unit when I bought it new about 5 or 6 years ago. I've used it live for hundreds of gigs since then and now have more insight into it. As far as ease of use is concerned, the 707II is manageable, but is a pain in the ass live. Arranging patches for optimum use is very difficult and many times during the night I find myself doing the stomp-the-cockroach to rapidly change from one patch another six stomps down the line, even after carefully arranging them for my needs. Very frustrating, overall.

As many here have stated, if you take the time to twiddle, you can produce very good sounds from this unit. I have some wonderful chorusing, phasing and delay patches going and quite often get compliments on them from other musicians, so the unit is very capable of producing good tones. The initial presets are crappy, ugly "12-year-old-with-anger-management issues" tones and are overblown with too much reverb, gain, compression, etc. If they work for you so be it, but my advice is to erase them! My main gigging setup consists of usually strats into a blackface Bandmaster running into a 4-10 cab with Jensens, along with either a Blues Junior or a Blackheart Little Giant into a 1-12 cab. Along with the 707II, I usually have a Bad Monkey or an 808 reissue, a Marshall Shredmaster and a boost, currently an AC Boost (wonderful boost!). Although I am not ecstatic about the 707II, I use it because the tones are as good as I've heard from Korg and Boss units I've heard.

Well, plastic and durability don't go hand in hand, but I've stomped on this thing thousands and thousands of times, had drunk chicks fall on it and spilled a drink or two on it, and it still lives. All jacks had to be replaced, they went bad fairly quickly, and one must remember to keep the footswitches clean and lubed or they will stick. I transport my unit in a laptop bag and it is protected very well. So far so good.

Have never dealt with them.

I have been playing over 25 years now, play at least two gigs a month these days, usually two-nighters. I have a couple dozen effects pedals, but use the Zoom for practicality purposes. It helps keep the space in front of my mike stand clean and makes things fairly easy to handle as I sing at least 25 songs a night and am the only guitarist in a three-piece band. I don't have a lot of time to be stomping on 10 pedals, playing and singing at the same time. I'm just a dumb guitar-player! If lost or stolen, I don't know if I'd buy another, I'd try out some other units and look for a system that featured easier patch switching and routing.

Forget it. If your a bedroom music person, it may work. For live, throw it in the trash. I would rather spend my time learning new songs that trying to setup this cluster f.

I use the tuner. Again, toss it in the garbage. Guess you get what you pay for. I had the thing for about 4 months. With all the live gigs, amps, etc, no time to spend on it. And what little I did was a waste. If I wanted to program something, I'll do it on my laptop, NOT on my guitar pedals. JUNK for live performances.

Pwr connecter will not stay attached. Poorly designed and does not play well with others.

I would not waste my time calling anyone at Zoom for the POS.

Its got the trash can blues.

I don't know if it's me, but I have a hard time working with this unit. I've had it for four or five years and still have not been able to get really good sound out of it. The knobs are small and sensitive to the touch. When trying to change a drum pattern or beat for example, it is easy to zip past the one you are looking for. It's just a little too finicky for my taste. Getting good custom patches out of it is difficult at best. The instruction manual is not the best laid out, so figuring out how to do things takes a while. A few examples of how to get certain sounds would really help the manual.

Sound quality? Well, the quality of the effects leaves a little to be desired. The sounds are weak and tinny. The acoustic modeling has a nasty hiss to it. If you have a small practice amp, it can improve the sound of it, but it doesn't do anything positive to the sound from my Laney Tube Fusion and Epiphone G400. My 9 year old son likes it, though.

I can depend on this thing giving me trouble. All the inputs/outputs are flaky and constantly need jiggling to get them to work. Actually, I lied. The guitar input has been reliable. The others, not so much.

Never dealt with their customer support.

I play everything except Grunge, Heavy Metal and Country & Western and this pedal just doesn't fit with any of my musical preferences. Maybe it'll work for you metal heads, but not for blues, rock, jazz, or anything else out there. All I use this pedal for now is for the drum machine for when I'm practicing alone and for the tuner (I just keep it on BYPASS). I received this as a gift, so I can't really complain too much or I'll be sleeping on the couch, but I certainly would not buy another one.

It's as good as plug and play. I use it for my yamaha DX7 synthesizer so I can't comment on the presets as they were intended for guitar. Editing is very simple and easy, you can do it by trial and error. Effect modules are laid out clearly and the module indicators are very informative - during play mode it shows which modules are active, in edit mode, it tells you what module is being edited. Some effects have two pages which you can access by pressing a button so it helps reading the manual which is very straightforward and easy to understand.

Sound quality is very good. Very quiet. Effects are very good. I've created chorus, flanger, delay, phaser, into hall and room reverbs, they just sound so amazing. The 707 adds another dimension to my DX7 which lack effects. Others say their sound is muddy, thin, etc. I think they may have just phase cancellations in their sound - the 707's sound interferes with other effects gadgets or the amplifiers characteristics. I use a solid state hifi amplifier for my keyboard at home and it works with that. Still to test my DX7 into zoom into guitar amp/cabinets. One thing for sure, my keyboard doesn't sound good in guitar amps so I use solid state amplifiers instead.

It's fairly dependable. I might place a rubber padding on it's footswitches and expression peadal however because it seems slippery.

You will never need one (I hope). And I'll never expect one.

Good pedal, at least it worked for my DX7, and it sounds pretty good.

Super easy to use! expression pedal works in an instant. Patch editing/restoring and patch up/down is easier to use than the older model (707). Drive mode (OD,metal,clean,etc..) very easy to change,no need to go thru the editing mode at all. Manual book and patches table sheet available and easy to use.

I play alot of Tom Morello's (RATM @ Audioslave) effect. Almost got it all. But trying to get his Digitech Whammy's effect, only achieved 85% accuracy of its sound. I also combine this effect with other analog pedals,it sounds ok. For high sustain, just disable the ZNR (noise reducer) mode.

Works just fine for Morello's changing sounds play style,but could get messy sometimes. Better inspect everything before go live. Zoom's products know to have 1 flaw : input/output jack tend to loosen up, thus effect changing in mid of a song could lead to no-sound. Expression pedal is OK,but lack of control in Wah mode,compared to analog WAH.

The patch up/down is easier to step on,compared to the older model. SmartCard (MMC) slot could come in handy, to save a backup for those precious customized patches u've made. Choosing a drive & pedal modes is at a push of a button,every easy to use! For the price i paid, it's a must bargain!

The 707II is very simple to use, making patches or slightly altering a preset is really easy. But in order to actually make good patches (better then the presets) its good if you have some sort of tone knowledge. Some parameters in the effects may not be named or shown the same as they would on the real pedal version of the effect. eg; the delay doesnt have a delay time (400mls,100mls etc) knob, but other knobs like mix, which will kind of give the same effect. reading the manual once or using the pedal for 2 hours and you'll know everything.

Sound quality... well it isnt the best. However there is a MAJOR difference between the presets' quality and patches you make yourself. The presets pretty much all lack tone, warmth, sustain and overall balls. I use a Jackson king V of the x series (not the high end one) and a fender vibro champ tube amp. I mainly play metal or neo-classical shred but also some black metal and ofcourse I like a nice clean channel, although i dont need one. The distortion tends to be very weak, low output for pinch harmonics for example or sustaining notes. however ive made some patches which are definetly decent for what i play, combined with some delay and/or reverb i made a pretty nice lead guitar sound with good output but sustain is still weak. The effects are ok, mainly because you have so many its cool, but the wah is no good (compared to a real one)
all in all its ok, you have big variety in sound, but no sound is really great. Good for beginners

Reliability might just be worse then the sound quality, after a couple of months my input broke and couldnt fix it, however i own my second now, and no i didnt buy another one because of my satisfaction, but a friend gave me his cause he didnt need it anymore. Anyway, on the second one, a few months later the left pedal broke, so this meant i couldnt switch down patches, and i couldnt use the record and play mode anymore, which sucked cause it was kind of fun. And the tuning mode stopped working as a consequence. some other buttons also stopped working.

no idea, havent tried to contact them.

Like i said i play different kinds of metal, through a jackson and a tube amp. for the first 2 years of my guitar playing i owned this and it was good enough, for beginners its cheap and gives a wide variety of sounds, which you can make sound relatively good with some tweaking.
i then had a metal zone pedal which i borrowed of a friend for a long time together with the fx in the pedal.ive been playing for 4 years now amd i will be buying another pedal soon, probably a boss me-50, because i need more authenticity.


its good for beginners but for more experienced players it lacks alot, especially in tone and overall sound quality.

Lots of potential sounds, but you have to tweak it.Considering the amount of sounds possible, not bad.

Overall, it sounds killer.Charvel, Gibson Flying V through 2X el-84 tube amp.I like all music except cuntry.Effects are very good.All kinds of whacked out sounds possible, as well as regular rock/ whatever sounds.Not noisy.

I bought it used, but seems like it will last.Made of plastic, but designed well. I don't cringe when I use the pedal like I do when I use my Behringer X- V amp pedal.

Surprised by the ratings here.They've been nothing but helpful with all my dealings with them.I treat them with respect so that probably helps.Even sent me a battery cover for free.

I play ABC. Been playing 25 years.Doesn't sound as good as my Voodu Valve, but it didn't cost a grand, either.Definitely would buy it again.Don't buy this if you have no patience or imagination.If you have both, it's well worth the price new.Totally kicks ass.

I would like to start my saying that this is the second 707 II I ahve owned. I sold my first one a year ago to help pay rent. So the fact I went back for another one (second hand this time) shows that I beleive in the product.

I also play an Epiphone Les Paul Standard, with Seymour Duncan JB bridge and Jazz neck pickups fitted. This is channeled in a Fender FM212 amp. So I am playing a pretty intermediate setup, probably not too different to yours.

The whole thing is pretty strait forward. Use the left and right foot pads to naviagte the menus with, then use the three knobs to dial in the various settings such as gane, tone, volume, mix ect. The expression pedal again is pretty simple, with the function selectable by the side of the product.

One thing I will say is that navigating through all the patches (and there are allot of them) can take a while, so get to know the layout and use the fast skip buttons.

Also, to get the best tone out of the effects, its best to play around allot and get to know them well. Tweeking is a little more complex then may meet the eye, especially when your combining different effects in chains.

Overall, its very easy to use, and the large navigation screen is a BIG bonus!

Well, here is the thing. If you own a PRS ?10,000 hand made guitar with a Messa Boogy head and cab, and are used to Electro Harmonics effects, you will always be disapointed with this.

However, if you like most people dont have ?30k to blow, this thing is perfect! The tones you get are not as good as the real thing, but yout 80% there. And lets face it, why spend ?70 on a ping-pong delay your not going to use.

So buy the 707 II as your multi effects, then if there is a pedal you just love, go out and buy that. Put it in series with the 707 II and you have a pretty amazing rig.

I play allot of Smashing Pumpkins and Devin Townsend stuff, and the 707 II can 80% nail the tone. The versitility of the 707 II also means you can get all those weird little bits here and there that would mean buying 5 custom pedals normally.

There is no buzz from the 707 II, unless you turn it up to the top, then you will get a mall amount, but then the volume you get out is very very very loud, so in a venue, you wouldnt notice that. in fact. my amp mankes more noise than then pedal.

One critisism is that there does appear to be some tone sucking when you use the pedal, but this is few and far between, and avoidable when you use the amps effects loop.

Firstly, I am a product designer, so i know what im talking about.

People will talk to you about how the plastic case is crap. Well, its not. plastic is not inately crap in that it can be made more resilient than metal. Using a plastic casing reduces posible background electro meagnetism interfearing with the electronics (causing buzz). When you think about it, why are so many pickups (not covers, the actual pickups) encased in plastic? reduced interearence. The plastic used (assumably ABS) is very resiliant and wont fail you any more than metal.

Here are the floors though. The input jacks on my first one did start to have problems after the first few months. This is easily fixed with soldering, but it isnt good. Its all down to the way the 1/4" jacks are held to the case, in a very flimsy way, so this will go first.

Also, changing patches using the foot pedals is a bit 'wet'. On new Zoom pedals they have gone back to the old stomp box switches (like on most small single effects). The padels dont give that satisfying 'click', so you dont feel like your relaly there. Also, the padels make it easier to skip through patches, but also harder to reach your real patch. This can be overcome by using the 'special selection mode' , but this again makes it harder to select patches.

This pedal wont last a lifetime, but then its cheaper than other, which does suggest a lower life expectancy on the product. Just look after it, dont jump on it or through it out of the window and you will be fine.

This is reliable for a rooky, but if your planning a UK tour, bring some backup Boss pedals that can survive a nuclear winter.

Never used them. However the website for the Zoom pedals is a subsisary of another company, and in Japan. So dont get your hopes up for perfect 1-1 support. Then again, i may be wrong.

This is an excellent product for any guitarist who is a beginner to intermediate. Expert players probably will find allot of fault in the sound quality, and get annoyed o long touring gig. Then again, experts hate everything and have enough money for 30 boss stomp boxes.

As i said at the start, this is my 2nd 707 II, and I am very happy to have it. I can plug my headphones into it and play at night. When I move into my new (small small) room in a rented flat, the 707 II and my headphones will be my amplifier.

The sounds you get are very customisable to about 80% perfection. Its not the real thing, but then it loads and loads of effects for a relatively small price.

AMAZING value for money, so go anf get one today. eBay is a good place.

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

It is not fun, intuitive or easy to program, but you MUST unless you want to make yourself ear-sick listening to it. I sat on my couch with a headset and painstakingly reprogrammed nealy two dozen patches.
After I had the tone I wanted on each patch to my disgust the patches all sounded TOTALLY different through an amp. I don't mean a little off.. I mean the whole feel. But read on..

Here is why the patches sounded to bad after taking hours to perfect each of them. The battery voltage is different than the voltage suggested for the add on voltage adapter (wall wart)! So being curious and mad as hell that this pawn shop leftover was about to go into the trash, I bought one. May sound like good money after bad, but it wasn't. After I plugged the adapter in and provided the extra voltage this thing needed.. the original sounds I had programmed before WERE THERE! In fact even the preset patches sounded much fuller!
I must say puzzles piss me off and buying poorly designed and engineered equipment does to. But if you DO spend hours setting custom sounds and DO apply the needed voltage. It sounds pretty freakin' good.

No I would be looking for something in a more professional catagory.

The web was OK.

Take hours and tediously program it and it wails... if you have the power adapter!!!! Battery users throw this $%^^ away.

Recording works well. Get the 128 card and the conversion software from the web.
Drums sound good. Real good actually.
How stupid to have the delay and wah capabilities disabled while recording! Have to record with a mike then feed back into this thing through the Media card. Stupid time consuming fix of the day.
They could have had a winner, but WAY off. So.. if you enjoy reinventing the wheel on patches... maybe you could sell them back to Zoom! Fire the engineer and the lame patch programmer, put it in a metal case, allow delay into the recording, and then what? Good pedal.

I have struggled for 2 yrs. now tryin to get any type of good tone out of this thing. i have tried every possible combination of amplification that i can think of. The editing software isnt to difficult to figure out, and i do mean figure out. Mine didnt come with any Manuals that were printed in English...

I have used it with a Washburn Maverick, Fender Strat., and other guitars, with all types of different amplifiers from vintage tube to modern digital.. The thing sounds like bacon frying, SOOO noisy.. The Pitch Shifter cant track at all.. The wah is pointless, i can do more wit my tone knob.. I did think that the V-Chorus was decent..

Can I depend on it?? Yup, depend on it to switch on and sound like ass.. I dont even let my friend know that i own the damn thing..

Never had to call.. Why would I though.. The day this thing breaks will be the day that I rejoice..

This thing os HORRIBLE... cant belive i wasted the money to buy it.. If anyone should want it, plz e-mail me, i still ahve the box, and all 10 different lang. manuals..

its relatively easy to programme apart from the shit part about having to make sure that each patch is about the same volume...

well i usually play rock and metal, so the some of the distortion sounds here are really good if u add some eq and the stack modulation but overall the effects are too digital and most of the types of distortions offered are really useless

i would never take it for a gig because its really hard to control the patch volume levels(eg. patch A1 and A2 may be set to patch lvl 25 but both vary in loudness) furthermore if u step too hard u end up jumping forward by more than one patch (eg. instead of from A1 to A2 you end up at A5)

Forget it... It may seem a good buy to amateurs but don't be fooled... This pedal ain't gonna see u through any gigs...

I've own the 70711 for probably 4 years now. It's very easy to get great tones. The first bank of patches are great. I personally did not need to tweak any patches except to set the drive to clean. The manual was simple to understand and all the Patches are listed on the back page for reference.

In the beginning I used my Fender Strat into the Zoom and then to a Fender Champ with DSP. Now I use my Telecaster with the Zoom and the same Amp. Playing the Fatclean setting makes my Amp shine. I use the Bark for heavy metal, the hyper for downtuned riffs and the pedwah for Hendrix style playing. My favorite patch is the GaryBD, perfect for my style.

Using it at home I've no problems except for inputs for guitar and amp are getting loose since its made of plastic. Used it for Jam sessions and other musicians were impress with all the effects for such a small modeler. Played two gigs with it but had to careful not to step on the cables and break the unit at the inputs. It now has been retired to the house as a practice tool, this is where it shines!

Never needed customer support, but one day I will need to.

My style of music is a mixture of Eric Johnson meets Gary Hoey with a little ZZTop thrown in. I've been playing for 30 plus years. Can get all the Tones I need from this modeler. I would replace it for one thing that doesn't get mentioned much is the sampling feature. I upgraded to a 128mb smartmedia card which gave it like 32 minutes of recording time. Perfect for laying down chord progressions and then playing lead over them. It is great for practice this way! Works easy with just the press of a button and operating the two foot switches (play/Rec}. The only fault that could be corrected is having the Wah effect work when playing with the recorded samples. Also another plus with this unit is you can record from CD/Radio and slow down the playback for learning.

IT is a zoom. They are cheap and nasty pieces of work. Every thing takes to long to do. Editing patches is a pain in the ass and it takes ages to surf the menue

I run a custom jackson loaded with seymors through a matamp and a hand built cab so the zoom didn't sound to bad. But really in the end it is just not on par with any other effects units. The distortions are lacking and the wah is usless.

I would never gig with it unless I had about 20 backups.

It's cheap plastic that would not stand up to a gig.

I play Steve vai to martin talyor to my own stuff. I need a versitle sound and amp. I have that with the matamp. I brought this as an expermient. I wanted to get some different tones. It failded misserably at that. Pathetic in every way.

Sounds bad
Built like a stack of cards

IT dosen't do it for me. IF you are a beginner then it may be not so bad. Try the digitech range instead.

You do need to look at the book, but considering what this pedal is capable of, you do need to bring a little something to the party.

If you set the Zoom Noise Reduction filter (znr), there is virtually no noise. I use it through a small Marshall amp. Sounds great no matter what I play it through. It sounds as good (or bad) as I want it to.

Batteries will run out eventually.

Good website provides everything I've needed.

In the presets you can find some decent sounding settings. But the great thing about this pedal is that it gives you complete control over all the parameters for each of the nine modules - so you can create virtually any sound you want. But to do this, you do have to read the booklet and experiment with the settings. I bought this because I was looking for a wah-wah. When I saw what this could do, plus a drum machine, plus a "slow downer" - for this money? Great bargain! Maybe it's not "professional quality", but my ears can't tell what is cost!

Using it is very easy. There are about 40 presets, you press the pedal to get to the next one. Editing patches: read the manual, after about 1/2 hour you should get the basics down. 40 places for saving a patch (one side is read-only, the other is user area, eg read/write). I have a Boss GT-6, the same principals apply. the real pain is moving a patch. You may want to save the patch at the target location before stomping on it with the new patch. So there's a lot of shuffling, and it's really a pain scrolling thru with the foot pedals. There are 2 "move to bank X" switches - they are tiny and really hard to get to. I ended up putting all the patches, mine and
theirs, into an excel spreadsheet.
Summary: editing a patch to add, delete of modify an effect is easy;
"patch location maintenance" is a chore.

I have 2 Ibanez's (Iceman & JS1000); also a Marshall 100W. Most people knock the quality of the sound produced - I think they are good over-all. The Boss has some superior sounds, but also costs 3x more. I didn't really notice excess noise from this box. The overdrives are OK - not great. There are some interesting effects: "step", "violin" (really good). Zoom underutilizes digital delay in their settings, I usually take theirs, like MT Zone, and add some delay, renaming it "MT Zond". They could have done a lot of variations with delay - you'll have to come up with your own, manually.
The presets.. blah, there are too many uninteresting ones (I focus on heavy metal), so there's a lot of clutter. I went thru each one and ranked them, to know what to avoid.

HERE's WHERE THIS BOX SUCKS.
First, it's real cheap plastic. The [wah-wah] pedal squeaks, probably because it too is all plastic. I use the pedal only for wah-wah. It's programmable, but setting it up for something else was too much work for me. There is some reinforcement for outdoor use - the pedal has a rough finish to it, so you can use hiking boots on it, and the pads underneath provide some protection. I've used it playing on sidewalks and stuff. It's OK, could be worse, definitely could be better. Not sure what they intended it for. Steel would be more suitable for me.

The input and output jacks started shorting out one day. I'd have to jiggle them endlessly to make a connection. Started bending the cords to extreme angles, if they moved a millimeter, the connection was broken. I took the unit apart twice trying to repair the endpoints, but they are pretty inaccessible. SUCKS. I threw it across the room and stomped on it insanely one day. Now I'm shopping for another effects box.

N/A (never used it)

The plusses: it's small and very portable. The 4 AA batteries are a major advantage. I have a hog-20 amp, so with this, i'm fully battery powered and portable. They should have bundled an adapter with it, I had to go to Radio Shack to find something, or better yet, have a cord built in to it. Since the input jack ports are so flimsy, I have to give it a thumbs down. I'm looking for something that won't break after a couple of years, like this did.
If they: a) added a cord/adapter; b) reinforced the exterior and connections; had a USB port to upload/download settings to a computer; c) had a better set of default preset sounds; d) had ~5 foot buttons to select sounds
...then this would be a great unit. But then I guess it would be a GFX.