Zoom BFX-708

Just got it a couple of days ago and have tweaked and twirled as much as i could and i have to say its preety easy to use. I like the use of the analogue knobs for quck control. All features are easy to get to. Haven't yet worked out a way to jump from a selected effect to another effect.

Well for someone who doesn't even have a bass (I got a geetar) it kicks). I bought this baby new at a music auction for my friend (a bass player)and hes gonna get it when he pays me back for it.....maybe. Ok. Heres the deal so far i have run it through my guitar, a drum machine and a microphone all via a boss PQ-4 equalizer to remove the bassy sound. Well i managed to pull out some very usable guitar sounds but my whole objective is basically making weird noises, I have tweaked and turned all the little knobs and buttons and it passes my tests. My favourite is making an infinite loop eg. hitting a string the sound keeps going forever, but then I decay it and add more stuff on :). Also i would like to hear it on a bass using the string effect because i think i could achieve something very close to the Primus song Mr. Krinkle. Yet to be seen.
This little effects processor has now also given me a viable way of making bomb/death/terrorist threats to other people on the phone via the detune patch >:) for all those with this machine I recommend doing it. Select the detune effect plug in a microphone turn the second analogue knob to #8 and start scaring the crap out of people "I can see you through the window muahaaha rarara" ehehe. Also another freaky detune is #6 you can sound like you've just sucked in a barrel of helium, this may be useful for passing yourself off as a freaky kid/old lady when on the phone, its very funny ringing people that you know, they have absolutely no idea who you are ..... remember there is a thing called caller ID people.
Now to my drum machine, this thing works a wonder on synthetic bass and drum lines. If your music is a bit dodgy just bring this out and slap on afew effects. Some of the rythms that i wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole now sound awesome once it has been tweaked through the processor. Lastly to do most of this stuff I had to put it through my boss PQ-4 pedal to bring out a more mid range sound for the geetar and microphone usages, but it worked pretty well on my drum machine as it was, depending on which parts i wanted to highlight.

Only had it for afew days....the plastic looks solid enough, but i don't think it was meant to be a trampolene??

ermmm customer support anywhere basically sucks, so my sugguestion is if your looking for a bit of service you might wanna make some threats through this machine to see some action(see above comments)

Overall i'd say its a pretty sweet machine especially for the price. I also just got a boss me 8 for myself, but haven't had the chance to play with it because i haven't got a power supply or expressionpedal for it (14V 500ma)What were you thinking boss?!! I will report on itsoon. My music style ........usually anything that isn't american. Such an uninspiring lot of people. If it was stolen id cry and throw hissy fits.

Very easy to get the flavor you prefer, and the analog knobs are a nice touch. The manual has quite a good amount of errors, but if you just spend time with it you'll get the hang of it. Patch editing can be a little confusing the first couple of times, but it's no big deal.

I have an esp ltd B-105, and a Kustom 200 amp. In the end I run it all through a 3-15 cabinet also made by kustom. The sound I get will probably be different than the sound you will get since I have a 15" tweeter on the top. This pedal doesn't get noisy unless that's what you want. It's tailored for all styles of music. Some effects screw with the sound quality so that you would never use them except as an intro... maybe. But a lot of them do a very good job at what it's built for. The flanger, synths, fretless, and Time machine effects all kick ass over some of the better rigs.

You've heard this before, and it is made of plastic. You can't jump on it, or drop it very often, but it's very for average wear and tear. The strong point is probably the expression pedal. Very strong. I would use it without a backup because i'm not the sorta bassist that wouldn't Riverdance on top of my processor.

Never dealt with anybody. I think it has a descent warranty but I didn't bother to send it in. Even if it gets stolen it isn't that gib of a financial loss.

If this were stolen I would probably replace it just because it lets me be very creative without taking out each individual effect. There are a lot of worthless effects, but you might be able to find applications towards them. You can even just aly back in your room with the headphones on and wail your brains out. The biggest flaw in my opinion would be the size. It's very easy to carry from gig to gig but for people with larger feet it can be a little tricky. If your not careful you could go from the user presets to the preset presets, when in fact you just wanted to turn on the wah.

Ok, I've heard this from a lot of people, and one of the earlier reviews that was posted, but here's how to turn OFF a module (comp/dist, modulation). While in Edit mode, just go to the module you want to turn off, and press both the Module at the same time. The display will read -OFF-. If you want to turn it back on, just press the Module button to get back to your desired effect. This was left out of the manual as far as I can tell. Other than that, the manual is pretty decent, it kind of seems overwhelming at first, but just go through it front to back and you'll have the pedal down splat in no time. I spent an hour maybe just fooling around and making patches, and now I can just zip through doing whatever I want. The knobs are a nice feature, because it gives you that stomp-box kind of feel when changing parameters.

This pedal sounds great. I was really surprised at the quality of the effects for the price of the unit. I'm playing either a Fender Standard Jazz Bass (fretless) or an Epiphone Accu-Bass through a Peavey TNT 130 combo amp, or a 500 watt powered mixing board. The TNT isn't the best amp to begin with, but I made a clean patch using EQ and Shape and got a GREAT tone that sounds like a more expensive rig. When going through the board, I had a so-so tone running either bass directly to the board through a DI, but with the amp simulator and any effects I want, I can just run the bass through the BFX, the DI, and to the board, without having to lug my amp to get a good sound.
The effects are good overall, some I think are unecessary. All of the Comp/Dist modules are good for everday use, and so is the reverb, but you may have trouble finding a practical use for some of the Modulation effects. The first thing I did was patch over the first bank of user effecs (A1-A5) and set up my own. A1 I set as a good clean tone with the pedal to downtune half a step. (If you've ever had that ONE song in your set list that requires de-tuning, then this pedal is a Godsend.) A2 is a pedal wah, A3 is a flanger, A4 is a nice dirty overdrive, and A5 gives me a cool upright tone. Playing live, I just switch between those five, and some of the other presets for special songs.

I've never used it with batteries, and the plastic feels like it could hold up for a while, but I wouldn't jump on it very hard. The two pedals are a little small, so if you're not careful, you might move up one patch when you want to go down. With a power adapter nothing has gone wrong so far, and I have gigged with it with great success, so I'd say it's pretty reliable. I wouldn't drop it too many times though. In another review someone said it should be made of metal, and I for one would pay more money to have it made of metal.

I play just about everything, and this pedal really helps. There's a large diversity of effects that will help with pretty much any style. One of the things that I really like is that all you need is the unit and headphones to practice. I'm going away to college this fall, and there just won't be room in my dorm room for my amp, and the fact that I will be able to practice and HEAR myself (without annoying my roommate, no less) is cool.

This thing is one of the easiest processors I've ever used. Everything is at your fingertips or should I say at your toes. It's great.

I have 5-string Fender Jazz Bass and I normally run into a 16 channel Makie board. For what it is, the BFX-708 is great for effects. The only problem that I have is when I run it into my Peavey practice amp you don't get the same effect quality, which is to be understood.

The 708 is made af great durable plastic which constantly is withstanding a beating from me. I carry this to any and every gig I play and have not even considered a back up. In fact, I had a Wah-wah pedal and a chorus pedal and sold them both after getting this processor. I wouldn't recomend running on batteries, it's too chancey to go dead on you.

I have never dealt with customer service.

One look through the manual and you should be half way there to understanding it, the rest is just messing around with it and seeing what it does.

Fender Jazz into a Trace Elliott 60W. Adds the reverb i was missing to a high standard and when tuned right you can get a cool slap sound. No excess noise as far as i can tell. The wah was surprisingly quite good at doing it's job. The ring modulator amongst other effects are much use apart from making a bit of noise

It's plastic, maybe if it was made of metal

NA

Overall, it does it's job well and i would recommend it to anyone wishing to improve their sound. The drum machine is also a nice touch.

You can figure most of it out just by messing around with it. The turn knobs give it the feeling of human to analog control instead of the "push the button to find category" and then push the button to increment the value a million times.

I have an old Fender bass guitar, I have not used this thing with it, but I am playing a Fender Strat, feeding it to the BFX08, and then on to a Fender practice amp turned clean and bright. This setup is at my alternate habitat, and by accident I have discovered that if you want the best bluesy tube tone that really brings out the lower strings - buy this thing! You can compensate for the higher strings by turning the amp to it's brightest settings. If you play both kinds of guitars, and only want one pedal, it's a good buy.

Reliability - Ok, the damn thing is plastic, but so is a Glock pistol. Very strong and molded stategically in the right places.

I have a lot of musical toys I have collected over the years, to include a semi full compliment home studio. The BFX08 is one of my collection that I am happy that I purchased.

This pedal is a very nice pedal. There is a little thought involved in using it; however anyone who spent more than a matter of minutes with it could figure out all of the basic functions.

I play with a Fender Precision Bass through a Fender amp. the sound effects are very good but some of them, do not sound well with a bass. Yes. I dont like everyone sound, such as noisy, but i like the wah, echo, tube, and calm.

I would use it in a gig without a backup, but mostly because i dont know who else has a peal like this.

This pedal was a great investment, it helps my playing and it is the best effects pedal for the bass. Enough said.

Relatively easy to use if you're a patch-edit inclined person. The knobs provide quick access to some overall settings without having to edit the patch itself, not sure what kind of issue that is for folks, but I would rather set the whole patch up to taste, not "select a patch and then turn the knobs..."

Poor. Kind of cheesy overall-even the more "natural" sounds. There are many effects, but I'm not sure so many are really applicable to bass. I love effects for guitar, but I think the majority of the ones in the 708 are extraneous at best. Based on many positve reviews, I had high expectations. The output was low, muddy and very lo-fi--I'd say that was for the unit overall.

Wouldn't gig with it...

The only customer support I dealt with was the point of purchase to send it back--and get a Tech 21 Bass Driver DI instead (which is most excellent by the way)

Friends don't let friends play through a BFX 708

At first use editing patches can seem confusing but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.The manual could have been better

I use a Tobias Growler and a Music man Sting ray(both 4 string)I use the Bfx708 as a preamp before going to the board.The unit is very quiet and the amp simulator is excellent.I no longer use an amp-I use mainly patch 01 for slapping and it gives a tone similar to an swr amp setting I like-most of the effects are super.I originally bought this unit for practice but recently I use it live since it eliminates carrying around a load of junk.The drum sounds are really good to practice with away from a live drummer-it has enough to keep me happy-for me simple is good-I want the best from the least-this is a great deal for the price.

Unit seems very reliable-so far it seems well constucted unless you have heavy feet.If you are a big stomper I suggest you buy a backup or two since plastic is not indestrutable

I play funk,gospel and rock and contempory christian.I have been playing guitar for 15 years and bass for 5 years-If it was stolen my insurance would replace it,or else.....I love the preset sounds,the amp simulator,the drum sounds for practice.I wish it had an input so you could jam with cds...that would be cool..I have other bass effects but I love this one because of its size,weight and simplicity.The uint is super,super enough to use live,Good job Zoom

Pros:
Cool analog knobs that are big and allow for easy editing.
You can actually name your patches (DirtyWah, FatPhase, etc.) with up to like eight characters. Sweet.
Outstanding manual. Outstanding manual. Did I say the manual was outstanding?!

Cons:
Analog knobs don't display the effect parameter values before you turn them, so if you accidently turn the wrong one significantly with out knowing what the value was beforehand, you're going to be searching. If you're careful, this doesn't pose much of a problem.
Maybe I didn't read the manual all the way through, but there doesn't seem to be a way to actaully TURN OFF an effect group (distortion/compressor, modulation, reverb/delay, etc.) once it's on. What you can do is simply turn all the effect values to zero, and in essence the effect should be bypassed and have no effect on your bass signal (I would assume, and hope!).

I use a Ibanez SR485 5-string and ran it out of my friend's Fender 60-watt amp.

Pros:
The unit is VERY quiet, and quiet enough even when your effect values are outrageous.
The phaser, flanger, and chorus are simply amazing, with rich tones that EFFECTIVELY BLEND with your bass signal (much better than the Digitech BP-8 [the BP-8 has a huge problem with effects blending with the bass signal] or DOD Base30). Distortion is a very usable rich fuzz, and mixed with modulation you can create some jaw-dropping textures. Tremolo, octave, whammy, and delay are all very usable and impressive (extra points for a delay effect that's feedback depends on the strength of your attack). Wah and auto-wah aren't earth-shattering, but like most of the effects on the BFX they preserve your low end.

Cons:
The fretless simulator, although much better than the BP-8's, does not have as many options and does not sound as good as the DOD's Base30. It's still very usable though, and another effect, called the Slow Attack, is a more noticeable bowed effect that emulates such string instruments as a violin and cello.
The Bass Synth, although much less annoying than the Base30's, cannot contend with the Boss SYB-3 Synthesizer. The sound quality, although usable, simply couldn't be used in a professional studio recording environment.

Pros:
The BFX is small, lightweight, and very inexpensive.

Cons:
I wouldn't jump on it if I were you. It's footpedals seem durable enough for casual stomping, but the casing is plastic, and I wouldn't imagine violence being much of a friend of the the BFX.

I've only dealt with the middleman, the retailer Zzounds (www.Zzounds.com), of which I can only give resounding praise.

Considering the price, size, and weight, it simply doesn't get much better for the beginning or intermediate bass effects user. Even if I one day own a seasoned, expensive array of stomp box effects, I can imagine keeping this pedal for its lush phaser, flanger, and chorus.
I've owned the Digitech BP-8 for nearly a year (of which I recently sold... peww!) and this smaller, much less expensive unit is MUCH better. I even sat down and compared the BFX to the Base30 side by side, and the Zoom's sounds were just richer and more ballsy.

Features:
Pros:
Awesome drum sampler that has many samples from almost every style of music (including a barebones metronome) and different time signatures; it also allows you to change the speed and volume level of the drums.
6 second loop sampler allows you to playback a segment of recorded input (from a CD player, your bass, or otherwise) at normal or half original speed.
You can adjust the wah pedal's firmness to change how hard it is to rock back and forth. Cool.

Cons: I miss the Jam-Along-Jack function present in both the Digitech BP-8 and DOD Base30, allowing you to play your bass along with music from a CD Player or otherwise. I absolutely loved this function, and if the BFX had it, I'd buy ten of them just to illustrate my praise for the unit.