Zoom 8080 Super Player

Love this unit! The presets were good starting points and gave a good range of basic sounds that you could then edit and store in the user patches easily. I play in a covers band and we play everything from Green Day to the Beatles and the 8080 has been a great workhorse for me for a few years now. Did not find the manual so easy to use but after a bit of playing about I found out how to edit and move stuff around quickly, plus the 2 footpedals are a great idea, especially for me as a left footer! So many newer units only have a pedal on the right hand side but the 8080 lets you have what you want, where you want it.

I use this mainly with my Les Paul Slash and a Marshall and it always sounds great, so much so that I prefer the 8080 distortions to the Marshall's, which I tend to keep on the clean channel. Can't say that I've noticed any weak points in the sound. I just bought a POD XT Live but I never use it as the 8080 has better sounds and features and I can't be bothered to reprogram all of my sounds into the POD. The only effect I don't use much is the wah as I prefer my cry-baby, but otherwise it's unbeatable and so simple to get great patches.

The unit is great but I keep imagining how fantastic it would have been in a metal case. I had a drunk stamp on my output socket at my last gig and he's done some damage so I am seriously thinking about trying to buy another one as a backup as I would be lost without mine. The only other reliability issue I had was that the power supply kept overheating and packed up and I had real trouble finding a replacement until I found a power supply from an old HP 710C printer which works a treat as is miles better than the original!

Never used them.

This is the best multi-FX I ever had. It is simple to use, packed with great features and sounds and has more than enough flexibility for just about any player. If Zoom made these again today with the same guts and a metal case, I'd buy one tomorrow! In fact, I'll be looking on e-bay for a backup now.

I use this unit primarily for gigging, so the most important thing for me is to get to the right sound quickly. For that I would probably give it a 10.
For actually finding the right sounds in first place, that takes a lot more work, and the manuals are very technical - they don't really tell you what some of the settings really do for you.

Lots of trial and error got me to my current setup, which I am very happy with and never change any more!

More trial and error, and I finally got to a setup I am really happy with.

I don't use the internal distortion or gain, instead I use the Zoom in the effects loop of my amp (Fender deluxe 112) - the manual never suggested that, I just guessed it might work and hey presto.

Delays are great, and with high compression and the right settings can give you infinite sustain.

Some effects can really exaggerate string "clatter" at high volumes.

I've gigged with this regularly for 10 years without a glitch or a hitch.

Never used a backup - but at a pinch I could get by at a gig without it.

NA

My pland plays really diverse stuff from Depeche Mode through to Van Halen, via U2, so versatility is key and the Zoom delivers that, no question, with the ability to switch really quickly between radically different sounds.

I've been playing live for 20 years, and mostly use a Fender Strat Plus Deluxe live.

I am in fact moving to a Lin6 PodXT Pro, but I am letting the other guitarist in the band have my Zoom and Amp, cos it sounds wicked with his SG - even better than with my Fender.

I thought about the Boss GT5, but chose the zoom based on the #120 price difference.

My favourite feature is the ability to control and store the amp channel settings. This gives complete control. Putting the zoom into the fx loop also means I can control volume without affecting the gain sound.

I wish it had PC based editing and a sound library (the presets were no good with my amp).

Considering this has served me well for 10 years, AND I am getting some money for it by selling it on, it has cost me about #25 per year to own - fantastic value

Not so difficult. The factory presets are a good start to create your own sound. Just read the manual, and it's ok

Delay mods are beautiful! Great chorus and honest reverb. I used this for years in a crap 100w amp and sounded great. Overdrives and distortions are good, but nothing amazing... INCREDIBLE Eq flexbility! The best I've seen... Even better than Lexicon. Harmonizer is one of the best things here, for a pedalboard. What a great sound! I hated the wha's, it's too artificial. Resuming, clean sounds = 10, dirty sounds = 7

WEAK! SO POOR.... honestly. If you play more than 2 times in a week on a gig, you're in trouble. It's just plastic!!!! The input and output jacks are terrible!!! You can't keep this working without a HARD case.

N/A

Extreme versatility. Honest dirty sounds and beautiful clean sounds. My unit was stolen 2 years ago, in a car jack (DIE BASTARDS!)... The Ext. Dist. in the Dist. module is incredible... I hate so much the fact of this unity is so fragile. The edit mode, based on pages, is intelligent and almost intuitive to use. Delay modes, up to 4 seconds it's great too. In general aspects, it's a good deal for any guitar player of any style.

If you have used Zoom products before you will not have a problem with this. I used it for a month before i had to look at the manual. You can figure everything out just by reading your buttons. The only thing i had to use the manual for is to use the amp "sim". If you haven't worked with processors I suggest you start with Zoom's 505 or something easy. It can be difficult if your not familar with zoom train of thought.

I will have to divide it up.
The distortions are ok, nothing brutal or really great. But Zoom make up for it becuase they have the external distortion effects loop. It allows you to use your fav. stopbox as your preamp and allows you to leave it on and store it with a patch. (this is the reason i bought it in the first place)
As always the clean is great with the the effects. The effects are killer and the control you have over them is the best. It has 2 foot controlers which i find kick ass becuase i always got tired of only having my foot pedal only control one volume,wha, effects. Now you can have one set as volume so you can do swells, and have the other one for wah! It also let's you control the amount of effects with 2 other pedals so you don't have to use the footpedal like other models.
If that ain't enough it also will let you switch channel's on you amp at the same time. The only complaint i have is the wah isn't as good as the rest of the unit.

It scares me a little because its plastic. I bought it used and have beat'n it pretty good. I don't know what it went through before i got it, but i know i have ran it hard and it still works

They are the worst. There web site suck's too

Don't waste your money on "New gear" The technolgy might be better but the more tech that's in the product the less amount of features are in it. I think all multi effects pedals should have starndard things like the external distortion. If you don't like the preamp in the pedal then your stuck! I think the zoom 8080 is better than my zoom gfx-8. The distortions are better in the gfx-8 and construction, but the 8080 has more features that I will use.

Confusing abbreviations on the menu screens at first, but once you're past that it's very, very well designed for easy editing and the manual provides a nice guide through the features. You're up and editing pretty quickly.

I have a strat, and use a variety of different amps, including some higer-end valve ones.

It always goes without saying that the individual effects in a multi-fx unit are never likely to be good as the #50+ stand-alone equivalent. The whole point with this kind of unit is the variety of sounds you can get to quickly without having to tapdance on fifteen pedals.

The reverbs, delays and modulations are very, very good by anybody's standards. The distortions less so - I don't think they're as bad as some people make out, but they're not great and distinctly over-compressed (bit of a zoom trait). Compression pretty good. The wah isn't great, but again it's a good, usable effect and that's the point.

If you want the perfect tone, you won't get it, because the perfect tone is probably lying somewhere inside a beast of a high-performance tube amp and a series of standalone effects. But you get a whole bunch of quality gigging tones in a box here, and the unit has one or two things going for it over some of the competition. . . .

1) Seamless patch changing. Godsend if you ever need to switch from any sound with delay to one without.

2) The external distortion send & receive. As long as you get your levels right you can keep your favourite distortion pedal (or even amp, though I haven't tried the set-up suggested previously yet) sound intact and just add all of the top-class effects around it. The only complaint I have there is that it still seems to compress the sound too much.

NB: Ignore the presets. Ignore them. Always ignore the presets on a multi-fx. 'Programmed by top-class pros!!!!!' Really? Pro what? Pro Deaf Bastards? Yes, I can just see Joe Santriani getting together with Eric Clapton, BB King and the guys and saying, 'We've done OK out of the guitar, but I now know what we REALLY need . . . let's make ourselves sound like R2D2 after a night out on the piss!' You can get some good sounds, but the presets are really, really not them.

I'd say it's pretty sturdy. Haven't broken it yet, anyway. The power supply looks weedy, but that seems to go for every unit out there.

zoom customer support definitely take the company motto to heart.

"catch us if you can"

I got it for #110. For what it cost new at the time . . . no. Couldn't rate it higher than 6 or 7, not with those distortions. But if you can get one second hand now, it's great value as a standalone unit for small/medium gigs and practice. A bit dated now, but worth picking up.

It's very easy to use this effect board. Menu's are useful so you can easyly edit patches and use them.Swtiching between patches is very easy.

I am using Ibanez Rg370 with Active EMG pickups and I have a 30watt Marshall amp . Sounds are amazing. This product doesnt even look like boss gt-6 or digitech gnx series. The sound is better than digitech and boss. Amp sims are nearly the same as real amps. It has many distortion types from Heavy Metal to Blues.Distortions are really good. tones are smooth. Wah is OK ;not good as CryBabys.

Its made of plastic but it still works=)

If you want an Effect Board with good amp sims and really good distortions Zoom 8080 is what you want. Price/Performance is very good. If its broken or stolen I'd buy it again.

This multieffect is very easy to use but.. the bastards at the store wouldnt give me any manual i think but you get hooked pretty soon

the sound is good but far from very good. it sounds very eigthies and that sucks cuz i play shit like korn and deftones and this sounds is very gigital like. but.. sounds good if you have a good preamp

NOT GOOD AT ALL. the case is plastic so, figure it out for your self... i take good care of my zoom 8080 but if i let drop an amp, the zoom 8080 will be over.

never had to deal with those guys

It its a good effect processor but yet not that good for live shows and recording, but this zoom lets you discover new shit about your playing TRUST ME. there are more good pedals out there but this zoom works fair enough for metal.

It's definitely very easy to use it. Once you are through the manuals it becomes a "A-B-C"

I use a custom Ernie ball guitar but my amp is a fender 20 watt amp but the sound i got was better than most other processors in that price range (32,000 INR)
It's not at all noisy the effects great amp the three amp models are real good to deliver vintage 70's and modern 90's. I could exactly make a patch which sounds like Jon Petrucci's "Erotomania"

Its a dependable processor even in open air or closed auditoriums te only bad thing is control pedal 2 there's a high chance of the patch no 5 to get pressed while using it

Oh that's what i like! I never had a prob so i didn't have to call them.

Bad thing that it went out of production, I had otherwise asked all my students and friends to get it . The Boss GT6 and Korg AX 1500g are hopeless these days

I found it very easy to use after i sat down with it for about 15 minutes or so. Its not reallt all that complicated, just pay attention to what your doing.

I have a not so great guitar are a mediocre amp. With all of this on the bad side, the 8080 really gave it a great professional sound.

I would say it's pretty dependable. The only problem i've had with it was the power supply jack inside the unit cracked and i had to resodder it, which wasn't very hard at all. Also the power supply says it should be running 9v, but when i checked it, it was running 13.6v. That can't be too good on the unit.

I've never had to call them.

I have been in a lot of different types of bands and it seems to just fall right into place with whatever i'm trying to do. I also experimented with it once and it also makes a great vocal processor.

Easy to use straight out of the box but it will benefit greatly from a bit of manual-reading. Patches very tweakable and the layout can be personalised nicely to suit.

I use it straight into the mixing desk on stage and find the amp-sims handy for this reason, noise is minimal. I've been happy with all the effects except the Wah-Wah, which is, of course, digital sounding. A big plus is the ability to set the patches so they run on a bit after changing to a new one, so your sound doesn't get chopped off.

I've gigged this extensively without a back up, the only time I had a bummer was when one of the expression pedals jumped a thread so I couldn't zero it. I fixed it easy but it was tricky at the time. The power supply was crap though, replace it before you need to.

N/A I never needed to contact them.

I've played this on stage for years and never regretted my choice. One thing I really like is the User-defined switch which can be set to put you in manual mode. This turns your set up into something more like a board of stomp boxes, handy for hitting distortion or delays in and out, for example.