Zoom BFX-708

This is pretty straight forward, I was auditioning the presets right away without cracking open the manual. Unfortunately, I didn't spend enough time with the unit to tell if modifying or programing was easy as well.

What can I say? this thing absolutely sucked the life out of my bass set up. I play a Tobias 5 string (not the mass produced Tobias from Japan, but one custom made to my own specs with all the exotic woods and amazing electronics. It was crafted by the man himself before he sold the company) directly into a GK 800 RB and into Hartke and Bergantino cabinets. All I really needed to do was listen to the bypass mode to hear all my glorious tone disappear into the black hole that this processer is. I went ahead and walked through some of the presets, and could hear interesting things trying to happen, but at what cost? I would not feel comfortable using this in any situation. It might be considered a fun toy, but even in this lower price range you could pick up some kind of single effect unit that could be used professionally. I bought a cheap bass effects box by a no name company back in the 80's for 10 dollars cheaper than I paid for this, and it actually had some usable effects

I didn't have the unit long enough to have reliability issues, but the cheap plastic and light weght did not inspire confidence. Don't let that beefy looking photo fool you, The initial impression is a real disappointment

In some ways, the 5 is a generous rating, but at 89 dollars the price was so low. What Am I saying? I sound like the two old ladies in the restaurant when one says "Boy the food is lousy here." and the other replies "Yes.....and such small portions! OK. I just changed the 5 to a 3. I certainly don't mean to be overly critical, but I've gotta be honest. You may have figured out that I bought this unit from a catalog. If I'd tried it in person I probably never would have gotten as far as plugging it in. Needless to say, it was repackaged and on it's way back to the warehouse the very day it arrived. I suppose the built in drum patterns could be useful to play along with, but what fun is there in playing along and sounding bad? Not much.

This pedal is pretty simple, the manual explains how to create your own patches and the preset ones are selected by the two big switches - couldn't be easier.

I'm sorry, I've read the other reviews and I have to say I'm surprised by some of them - this pedal sounds awful, absolutely minging. I play an Ibanez EDB600 into my computer for direct recordings and the best sound on this bedal is when you hit both switches and bypass it completely. The distortion is useless unless you want your bass to sound like a $10 guitar through a broken stereo, the delays are too quiet, in fact all the sounds are too quiet, the wahs and ring mod and other weird effects might be OK but the analogue footswitch is too hard to use accurately. I only ever use the tuner now.

Well it's never broken so I guess it's fairly dependable.

Would I use it at a gig without a backup? - I wouldn't take it as a backup for anything never mind use it as a first choice.

Never spoken too them so I don't know. I'd imagine they'd be unhelpful though as I'd be hurling abuse at them.

I play a lot of different styles when I'm recording but if I'm using my bass I avoid this pedal like the plague. Strangely enough though, the pedal redeems itself somewhat by sounding amazing with my worse-than-terrible casio keyboard that I've had for over ten years and hardly used. Most of the patches give it a warm sound and some really cool effects so it's not entirely hopeless.

If you want a bass pedal, avoid this one, unless it's going cheap, it's handy to have around but if it disappeared, I'd not notice for a couple of weeks and not be terribly upset when I did.

I find this pedal a little bit tricky to use because of the smaller buttons... i know ure not going to play around much with the editing butons and such when youre playing but the drum machine and sampler should have their own switches.

the sound quality is rather good, HOWEVER, the wah doesnt wah enough, such as a Cry baby... so if ure after wah, get a seperate cry baby. and the amount of hiss or horrible in mine. tho before i say anything bad about it, it could just be mine. and that raises a question of how clean the electrics stay.

Ive dropped it a few times and its still rather solid and good. Ive use it on many gigs simply because it gives my tone a good work out everytime.

I havent had a need to speak to anyone about it. I repair anything wrong with all my equitment. Only person i can trust ;)

Being a music student at University, i try to keep my tone as clean as possible, but when a certain thing needs a bit of crunch or fizz or wah (too a lesser degree) i turn to my BFX. But it really comes down to your quality of playing to make it sound good. Also, i find it to be full of useless effects that just seem stupid... i guess its cool when your sitting around at home with nothing to do and flicking thru some effects. But yeh. It all comes down to what you wanna play.. and if u wanna play something with alot of odd noises and the like, get a BFX. otherwise, just use your amp.

Extremely easy to use, much easier than most effects processors. Editing is a breeze although somewhat limited. You can't change the order of the effects, and unfortunately you can only use one effect from each group at a time. Therefore you can't use a compressor with a "vintage" amp model, nor can you put chorus on the "defret" effect.
The manual is simple and reasonably clear.

I'm using a (modified) Magnum short scale Jazz Bass copy and a pair of $20 Sony headphones (slightly heavier duty headphones are a must with a bass headphone thang). There are pedal glitches on a couple of patches, no big deal though. The drum machine sounds like something lifted from a cheap Casio keyboard from the early 80's, cheesy, but occasionally handy. The "scratch" sampler is a joke and a poor one, although that's not really an importandt feature. However I feel that when a manufacturer includes such things, they should work correctly.
Actually sounds decent for home 4-track recording.

I can depend on it for practice and home recording, I do daily. I wouldn't attempt to use the cheesey "expression pedal" (expletive pedal)live, it's much too small and fragile. I think of this as a practice tool, not something I would rely on live. It's plastic, and looks like it came from an asian toy factory. It's too small and light duty for anything but sit-down coffee house gigs. It is what it is, and it does what it does reasonably well.

I've never had to deal with Zoom. The pawn shops I've been dealing with regularly usually give me two weeks to figure out if the stuff I've bought is working correctly, if it's not they take it back, good guys.

I bought this at a pawn shop for $45 including box, manual, warranty card and power supply. I couldn't be happier. I've played guitar and bass for 23 odd years or so now, and I've never had this much fun practicing bass (alone). Wish I'd had something this cool when I was 15, it would have helped my progress immensely.

To use straight from the box is a doddle. Plug it in, turn it on, and stomp on the buttons to make the patch change. When the pedal light is on, you can use the pedals. Changing main parameters is easy with the orange knobs, and the amp sim is a doddle. Store the changes by pressing store. The basic stuff is easy.

Altering the effects other parameters, level, pedal function, EQ etc does require the manual, but its pretty simple. Follow the instructions, its all there. The sampler is hard to use while playing tho, and I tend to avoid it. The only problem is that I have size 12 feet, and sometimes cant get one pedal without the other when playing live, which is something that may consign this to nothing more than an amp top tuner. Wouldn't be a problem for a shoe gazer tho.

Very quiet indeed. Even with the noise suppressor off its quiet, only gaining a small amount of hiss when gain is high. It certainly wont cause any problem in a chain.

The octaver and ring modulator are really very good, but thats about where it ends. The distortion has no bite at all, and is next to useless, the chorus is a tone free zone, just muddying the sound, there is no filter, the wah is not good (there isn't even an autowah on its own, it has to be with an octaver). The flanger and phaser are passable, and the pitch modulator isn't bad, but its not going to redeem the crapness of the most important effects.

I am not very careful, but the jack plugs are not good enough. Any pressure at all and they come loose, which has happened both at gigs and at practise, not good. I had them resoldered by a decent shop, but they have come loose less than 6 months later. Another reason it will be staying in the bedroom as soon as I get a distortion and an octaver and complete my effects chain. The power input is now loose, and requires wiggling the taping to be OK.

Haven't called them, its out of guarantee now, so I doubt it would be worth it. Can't slag them off tho.

I play alternative rock/metal, and I use a lot of effects, so I thought this would be great. Now I wish I had brought a tuner as that is all its any good for. I'm not a tone freak, nor do I hit my equpitment with a hammer, so it should be OK, even though I know its cheap. It isn't. It might be OK in the studio as it is quiet and has a couple of effects, but its not sturdy enough or good enough to justify having it in my chain. My friend has a zoom 505 and that has had the same jack and power connector problems, so I know its not just my pedal. This will be the last Zoom product I get, and probably my last ever multi effect. I thoroughly recommend getting a dunlop wah, an EBS chorus and a Qtron instead, I have done, and they are much better. Sorry Zoom, easy to use and pretty are nice, but this pedal is simply not what it claims to be.

This is a great pedal! It 25 user patches that you can edit and play with all you like, and 25 preset patches that just stay the same. The manual is very clear and easy to understand, so you can get used to the pedal in about a day, and start making some really good patches.

All the effects on this pedal are great, i dont think i've ever heard a really bad one. The sound quality is really impressive - i play it through a trace elliot cab linked to a peavey black widow cab at gigs, and the sound is just perfect. Always perfect.

I use the pedal at gigs without backup, and have no worries. I never have any problems with it.

I've never had to deal with the Zoom customer support.

I play all sorts of rock from indie and ska to metal, and this thing is so adaptable for each style i have ever had to play. if i lost it i would be straight down the shop to buy another one. it helps you to improve your sound with EQ and noise reduction, compressor the whole lot, it even has some really nice bass overdrive and synth sounds that wow everyone who hears them! when we're writing somgs it aids us dramatically. It rocks. well worth paying for.

I played around with it a lot when I got it to set up the sound I wanted.Now that I've had it a while it's a pain. I don't like the digital controls and my eyes are really bad so the small writing is confusing. I like the big red led readout. That'ds why I chose this over some other more expensive units.

I bought this unit specifically for my fishman matrix acoustic pickup. The 707 was really wirey and overdriven but this unit must have gain levels for active bass outputs so it does an awesome job on my acoustic. The tuner is great too but I never use the rythm or sample features.

Absolutely not!! This thing is treated as tenderly as my kids. Always in the box when not in use and I never use the expression pedal. The same problem as i've seen with others. The input and output jacks are terrible design and very fragile. They break even with gentle use. There's no feeling quite like cutting out in the middle of a solo and having to nudge the unit to re-establish signal!

The guys at the shop fixed it for under ten bucks so that was great. If I sent it away that would be useless. But it's busted again so I'm going to try trading it in.

I would not buy this again. Too undependable.If you want one look around, there must be plenty of guys that are fed up like me and will sell their's used, cheap.

Fairly easy for anyone of the last two digital generations, or anyone older who just knows about that stuff. A breeze once you've been at it awhile, but a bit complicated though so don your reading glasses if you have them, it may be a long night.

hey, it's a zoom, what do you want? It's cheap as dirt, but the sound isn't. The distortions leave quite a bit to be desired, so much so that I have recently purchased a Boss ODB-3 Overdrive pedal. However, for those on a budget, particularly those who are just getting into effects this thing is great. Really the delay is flawless and extremely flexible. It's barely exaggerating at all when it claims FULL programmability either. The sampler only has 6 seconds in it and is a bit difficult to use while onstage without stopping the show so I don't recommend relying on it but the drum machine is great for practice and improving time as it covers a pretty wide range of time-signatures and styles and bpms(speed for the newbie).
This was my first pedal and I was quite satisfied with it for some time indeed. However it is certainly not to be used as the back bone of your effects supply for more than your first year or two of playing. The delay, which is what I use it for the most, is flawless. The pitch bending, however, often leaves a bit to be desired as it sounds VERY VERY VERY digital and, often, lifeless. A big fat distortion often helps to disguise that little problem, but nothing is failsafe right? There are some rather useless patches but I'm sure someone, somewhere has found use of the ones i haven't so it's all relative right? The flanger and phasers are rather mediocre but not horrible and the EQ is pretty decent. The distortions often sound either too distant or too lifeless. The synths sound ok. Sometimes it can be a bit noisy and the bypass takes a LOT out of the sound. It's very strange, like hitting the tone defeat button. However if you work at it enough you are bound to find a few settings with every parameter that work for you.

I had a slight problem after about a year where a wire had come loose but it was nothing a soldering iron couldn't fix. luckily i keep one in the case of my primary instrument. DO NOT THROW FROM MOVING VEHICLES!!!! That's not what I did but my point is that as long as you're reasonable with it it'll work fine. I can't pinpoint when the wire was knocked loose because I don't recall mishandeling it. However my drummer or father may have droped a bass drum or tom rack on it when i wasn't looking.

I don't bother them, they don't bother me.

I got this pedal so that I could better experiment with my sound. At the time I had only an epiphone starter bass i pulled the frets off of and a 10-watt amp that came with it. Doesn't sound like I had much right to branch out so early I know but I think it really helped me to diversify my skill. Maybe it's just coincidence I don't know. But my band released an EP in 2000 on which I use it almost exclusively with my 5-string ESP LTD B-205 w/dual EMG-HZ humbuckers that I found used for 450 and my BXR-100 I got used for 180. And it still sounds fine. Even though I now have a boss limiter, chorus, and overdrive, an eh micro-synth and a dod flanger I still find myself using the zoom for the delay, some forms of pitchbending(both up and down, though up sounds very electronic) the phasor I programmed and a very slight variation of a preset for an EQ which I copy to all the other patches before creating a new sound. I am constantly adding to it. It's got a definitly cut and dry interface, an option that allows you to search through the settings before you change them(an option lacking in the older zooms), it allows for all sorts of effects at once, all sorts of expression pedal options, and with all its flaws it's still a very good pedal. It's like an old friend i think, maybe it's pure sentimentality but I don't think I'll ever retire it, unless it breaks beyond repair and then I think I'd either frame it or formally bury it.

The manual is a little on the complicated side. You will need to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the unit. Editing the patches can be confusing at first.

Sound quality is pretty good. I play a 12 string bass with a single 4x10 & 1x18 rig with a Peavy head. The unit does some pretty amazing things. Some people have been very critical of the 708, but you must remember that no effects pedal will make up for bad technique or sloppy play!!! Granted, not all of the effects are great, in fact some are not useful at all to me, but it's not the falt of the box, it's that I have no use for that particular sound. The drum machine and amp simulator are perfect for late night quiet practice.

Have not had any problems with it. It is made of plastic, but appears to be able to stand the rigors of serious giging. Some have said that it can't take a pounding, well, it's not suppose to take a pounding. It's a musical accessory, not a fucking sledge-hammer. If you don't abuse your equipment then you should have no problems.

Haven't had to use them.

For the price and considering what it gives me, it is a great value. There are better, but at a considerable price.

Pretty easy. I think that if you can adjust a digital watch and/or program a VCR, you can do it.

I used it through a lot of different configuration. But the main test is when it's plugged directly in the mixing console. The sound is great and there's not that much hiss coming out of it. The distortion of the unit is kinda guitar-like. It's not really suited for the bass since even if you set the distortion level very low, it still hisses very much. Though you can't get a real overdrive simulation with it. Also, the Octaver effect is very limited. You can mix the effect output but you can't mix the original signal. Since I'm playing with a piccolo bass, I like to have the balance a bit more on the effect side than on the dry signal. And the pitch shifter is one hell of a sucker. Even if you use it for a 2nd tone aside the dry signal, it produces some sort of an "out of phase" sound. The defretter effect is actually pretty surprising.

I can't say that there's too much unusable effects in that thing but there are some.

I can only give it a 5 because I had mine for more than 2 years now and the "down" pedal-switch is malfunctionning (gotta bang it real hard to work) and it's made of plastic. To protect it a bit, I bought a laptop case for transport or else I would've scrap the thing a couple of times.

Never had to deal with them but I'll try soon.

For the price of the unit, you get almost every effects a bassist would need and more. Just by buying the cheapest brand effect pedal for each one you've got in there, you'd end up paying 5 times the amount the unit sells for. Although the BFX-708 can't be a #1 choice for studio recordings, it does the job on stage very well.

But....I gotta save some $$$ for the Boss GT-6B......