Zoom BFX-708

Once you've read the manual, editing patches is pretty straightforward. You will definitely want to figure this out from the start, the presets don't really demonstrate the potential of this little plastic toy. In fact, I don't use them at all.

Fairly noisy, and hard to match levels on the various effects - some are super loud, some not so much.
I use this with both bass and guitar, and am pretty happy with a few of the effects: in particular, the tracking ability of the octaver is far superior to that of the Boss OC-2. Not perfect on the very low stuff, but great past the fifth fret of the E string, and great on guitar. The synth effects are also great, in a low-fi distorted way. This is not a pedal to make things sound smooth and rich, obviously - but the digital nasty factor is high. I even enjoy the distortions for what they are: buzzy, grating, and wonderful.

So far so good. Seems like a potential disaster, though, it's flimsy and I feel like the pedals could decide to start sticking or something. I've gigged with it, but I'm a man of faith and ingenuity - if it stopped working, I'd plug it into a foil wrapped baked potato or something.

I play some noisy hard art rock in somewhat of a Mr. Bungle/Lightning Bolt/Freedom Haters sort of vein.
I think anyone could find something to use with this pedal, except for the tone snobs; it's unlikely that anyone will like everything it does.
For the octave effect alone it's a bargain in my book.

it takes a couple of hours to play as good as the pedal can do it. if you dont read the manual maybe the pedal cant do not well that you expected. for example, the manual says you most to put the 708 output volume in a 3/4 position to get a strong and warm sound, high mid range and good signal provide for the effect.if you turn down to 1/2 or less you can notice a weak signal and a low quality sound. maybe the fuzz and all relation with the distortion mod can be useless.
it has 8 little buttoms, 5 knobs, 2 pedals for the patches, and finally the expression pd, each one of them combine different functions depends the action that you want to do.

some people make me laugh: they have expensives basses, with a expensives cabinet, thousands of u$s in equipment and the biggest basses ever made and they are such a fool like to buy an a cheap bass effects like the 708. the most ridiculous thing is they didnt go the the music store an after take a look and play they seat down and think: "this pedal doesnt go well with my ken smith, my tobias, my stingray, my trace elliot, my messa boggie"
they decide to buy the thing and then put a tread describing how bad is the product the buyed. and then said "the only thing i can use is the bypass and the tuner". well my friend, i got to tell you that you are not a business man at all. you can get a chromatic turner for 12 u$s. a Korg one!
i have a yamaha bbg5a. cool bass for me. this pedal is good, thats all. i dont have money right now to buy something better. but is good. low price, low everything.

i recently buyed, so at this time i dont have any problem. but it look like fragile.

i've playing for around six years, im not a big fun of a effects processors, once i've had a 506 1, which was a toy which i played till i boring and sold it for cents. never used in gigs or something. the 708 can be a toy either but is most serious, it has a 20 bit against 16 of the 506 1 o 2, the effects like chorus, phaser, flanger even the distortion was redesigned and sounds with much clarity and quality.
a hundred u$s, not much to ask.

It's not rocket science, but keep the manual handy.

Using a Dean Edge 5 with EMG 40s and the BQS system, through an Alesis EQ and QSC pwr out of 2 SWR Goliath 3s...not bad...but definately not good. The bypass sucks the life out of the sound. The effects are kinda neat, but most are useless. Once you learn how to tweak the sounds effectively, some useable sounds can be found.

I've had it for a couple years, usuing it here and there. No problems yet. Plastic is scary though.

havnt dealt with them.

Playing different styles of rock I can get some useable sounds. As far as it being a preamp, look elsewhere. If you use a switcher, you can bypass this unit until you need some effects, which it does ok with. The convenience of not having a group of pedals almost makes up for the lower quality sound.

The unit itself is easy enough to use after a quick flip through the manual.

When using this pedal, I always find myself flipping through the effects, either laughing or shaking my head. There are only a few effects suitable for playing with, the rest fall on either side - either they're too overblown and ridiculous to use, or they simply lack any real kick. The distortions are terrible, the delay/echo doesnt delay or echo enough etc. I find the only ones I use are the Analogue, Hardpick, and of course the bypass tuner :)

I've had my unit for a few years, treated it well, but just lately the input jack has come loose.

I think of this pedal as more of a toy than a serious tool. For my style of playing (experimental metal), it is completely inappropriate, and I am better off using separate, high quality stompboxes.
As stated, the unit no longer works due to the input jack coming loose, and I'm still not sure if I'll bother getting it repaired. I certainly wouldn't buy another one.

The manual is about as easy to read as the diary of a crack addict, but the thing isn't had to figure out once you get frustrated and burn the manual. All around, it's easier to use than most similar pedal effects. The drum machine pretty much blows. You can alter tempo and tone all you want, but without the ability to toss in a fill or a coda or any pattern alteration, I wouldn't gig with the thing.

I have only been using the zoom for practice, so I haven't had to run it through a PA or anything- see other reviews for this info. When I first set it up, as per the manual's diagram, it sounded horrible. I practice with a Genz-Benz M-line 200, so I was able to run it through the onboard effects processor and it fixed almost all the problems. Some effects cut out when you nudge the pedal, almost all sound as digital as they are and the only real fun to be had is in the more outlandish effects (try the theme to Sesame Street on 'fuzz.')

It has worked fine for the last four months, but I do baby it quite a bit. I have a feeling

I sent an e-mail off to ZOOM shortly after I bought it four months ago to ask about the drum machine problem (see 'ease of use) and I am still awaiting a response. I am not sure they even have customer support.

Well, I play a little metal, a lot of punk, and have been playing lounge music just for a change of pace. I have been playing bass for six years and have gone through a dozen different basses. I am currently playing my trusty old, dirt cheap Hondo (stop laughing!) as my MTD was jacked out of my car. This pedal leaves a lot to be desired, but if you are just a poor beginner, yet to make your mark on the music world, go ahead and use this for practice. Just treat it better than your girlfriend and don't leave your car unlocked.

had no problem learning how to use it.

i thought the sound quality was very good. Used it for many live shows.

this is the problem with the unit. It's built cheap. I bought 2 of them and neither one made it over a year. I take pretty good care of my equipment and I even tried to baby these things but yet they both broke. For this reason I would NEVER buy this product.

nah

i play about 2 gigs a month and practice everyday. I really liked some of the tones this baby helped me get but whats the point if the dang thing breaks all the time. Forget it.

Dials are a big improvement, but you still must know (or learn) to use multi-pedal menus. A large LED screen helps with real words like "NOFRET" or "JACOP". Lots of presets of good variety.

Effects and Sounds are quite good. Of course it has that digital pedal noise associated with such pedals and is apparent at very high amp volumes. The distortions sound good when using the amp simulators to take off the electronic chip edge common to digital distortions. I especially like the NOFRET defretter effect. I use it with my 1979 Ibanez Roadster Bass and with my 1979 Ibanez Artist Guitar. (Yes, ZOOM's bass pedals work nicely for guitar, too.)

Had to resolder the INPUT jack. No big deal with a soldering iron and 15 minutes.

Never needed.

Nice unit, but it will gobble batteries. Alkalines last 11 hours according to the manual, so you must (realistically) use an AC adapter all the time or invest in rechargeable batteries. I modified my unit so that it internally tricke-charges Ni-MH batteries when plugged in with an AC adapter; the result is exceptional: no more dead batteries on stage as long as I use an AC adapter at home or in practice sessions. See how I did this at http://www.masbagua.com/zoomcharge.html if you'd like to learn more.

the ease of use is excellent. the jack ports are all labelled clearly and the interface is laid out properly. all the infomation is on the front of the pedal. the only flaw is that the knobs are a bit twicthy and over sensitive.

i played this through a peavey 100w bass amp, with pirana leads and my epiphone thunderbird bass. on the "tight" setting the bass is powerful and has a brilliant sound to it. other effects are flange, chorus, fuzz, wah wah. some of the effects are saft and unuseable like "time" a heavy delay effect-very useless when doing solos. all the effects can be altered-mainly reverb. also the gain (volume) and rate can be altered. full gain on fuzz sounds awesome!

very good-hasnt broke down on me yet. this can take mains or 4 AA batteries. i would recommend a mains adaptor for gigs.n

dont really deal with things like this but theres alot of infomation on the box to assist.

with the music i play (rock and shuffles :D) the effects serve well. for rock i use fuzz, chorus and flange and for shuffles i just have it on normal. the only flaw is the knobs-they are very sensitive so you have to mess about with them. it also comes in with a tuner-and a drum machine! how about that for value for you pennies! with 12 patterns where the tempos can changed for 40 to 240 (for all those metal heads out there). ZOOM have really got a winner here-you brits can prob get it cheaper because i brought it last year. a brilliant buy

Pretty Easy to set up and operate. Only annoying thing is hitting both buttons at **Exactly** the same time to get into bypass mode for the tuner.

I agree with most of the previous posters who say this sucks alot of life out of your tone. The unit is good for home practice and noodling around with. Playing live, I only really use the tuner plus two sounds, one with everything off except a small amount of compression, and the defret patch, which gets some passable Pino Palladino type sounds with some fretless warmth and 'bark' - if you set it up just right.

At home, I use the unit as the front end for my homebrew practice amp. Live I use it with a Yamaha TRB5II and Trace Elliot 7410HSM. I plan to make up a switch box to bypass the unit except when I want the defret patch - even bypass mode seems to suck tone out. The unit gets a 6 for the passable defret patch but that's about all I find it good for.

Not convinced by the plastic case. I haven't (yet!) had some of the problems with connector reliability that other users have reported. I keep it in a laptop type padded case, and I would recommend other users do similar.

Don't get the Zoom PSU - I have repaired Zoom PSU's for friends - and they are C**P! CPC (www.cpc.co.uk) in the UK sell PSU's which is far more solid and relaible than the Zoom PSU, cost about half the price, and don't have the problem with 'spider' type PSU plugs shorting to metal guitar leads.

Never dealt with them.

I have been playing bass about 15 years, and have used this unit for about 2. I play mostly praise and worship music, and find the defret patch good for slow worshipful ballad type stuff, but that's about all I use it for. If it were lost/stolen, I would probably look around for another way of getting a fretless type sound (without using a fretless) before considering this unit again.

Easy to tune and edit the effects and other parameters. The manual is complete and easy to understand in several languages. However, there is a great lot of features wish makes it long and difficult to go through all the possibilities... neverending fun :)

the effects are all good and if it's not the way you want it to be, you can edit any patch over and over to finally get the perfect sound that will fit your highest expectation. A little bi noisy sometimes but you can fix it by changing some parameters. I play an Ibanez 4 strings with a Marshall BassState 65 amp and I don't have any trouble getting a great sound.

I didn't need to contact customer support.

I've been playing punk and metal since one year and i'm really satisfied with my effects processor. I like the fact that I can play about 10 to 12 hours with one set of batteries. Another cool thing is that you can tune your bass guitar directly in no time, very handy. Seriously, I have been very lazy playing bass guitar without effects, and since I got this, I play a lot more and also a lot better.

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......

Having spent years programming Boss, ART and Digitech products as a guitarist, this unit is a piece of cake to edit. As others mentioned, you have to be careful with the real time edit knobs as they may drastically alter the settings. The manual is good, an easy reader.

This unit is in my pedalboard: Pedulla 4 string/Steinberger 5>Boss chorus (splits the signal to have separate wet and dry outputs)>Boss Heavy Metal> BFX-708 >Digitech RP-12. Both the BFX-708 and the RP-12 have their own loops so I can cut the out of the signal path entirely. I run into a SWR/1x15 for the effected signal and an Eden WT-400/ 4x10XLT for the dry signal.

The unit is quiet when used by itself with headphones but I get a nasty hum in my pedalboard. This is probably due to my budget power supply creating ground loops and 60 cycle hum.

I basically got sold on this unit for the crazy effects. The ring modulator is great, the time warp thing is way cool and 3 of the 5 synth effects are totally usable to me. As others have said, the flanger, phaser and fuzz are great. The cool thing about having the foot pedal is that you can push the phaser/flanger speed up in real time for momentary laser beam- freak out effects. The step filter is too weak to my ears and the pitch/whammy stuff sounds terrible. Because of the wild effects, I give it a 9.

Seems kinda fragile. I got this one cheap because there was no adapter and the output jack was fautly. I fixed the output jack and it's mounted in my pedal board so it shouldn't get kicked around too much. I would use it by itself as log as I had a way to bypass it completely on the fly.

No need yet.

I have been playing bass for 12 years and have been running effects on bass for about 2 years. This unit is way cool for the few crazy effects I was looking for. I play in a progressive rock/ funk band so the weird FX and the synth sounds are great for me. I was set on getting a Line 6 FM-4 for all the cool filter/synth effects but this unit gave me what I was looking for at a fraction of the price. The line 6 also seemed to have a lot of REALLY non-usable effects. The best thing about the pedal is the build-in expression pedal to alter the effects in real time. A cool unit!

pretty srait forward there. i like that the amp simulator is independant of the different patches. the patches were allready quite usable.

have to give it a ten because it delivers pro enough sound quality for the price. i DI it right into the front of house and send the line level signalfrom the "to amp" into the low input of my peavey mark 4 head and 1810 cab. sweet sound!

haven't got there yet! i mainly like to use the amp sim sound to get a good front of house sound. i'll be very nice to it and see.

not yet

i like it, i recomend it, but keep in mind it's plastic, good deal for the price!

The BFX was a pretty good unit to get various "colors" from out of the box, even if you didn't open the manual you could integrate this right away into a jam session and enjoy yourself. And the best part, even find yourself playing more experimentaly. But keep reading, it gets worse...

Using a Warwick Thumb 5 and a new Fender Jazz, I've always been happy with the sound quality. More so through the headphones - if I could achieve THAT sound through my Hartke rig I'd be in heaven.
And I mean the sounds are great across the board, TIME patch really breaks up the band - if not terribly useful.

Nope. It's already busted! And I pampered it. It's a symptom I've seen posted - the INPUT area near the plug has to be wiggled, then utterly motionless. Consider the expression pedal feature and you'll see why this is unworkable.
Tried to give it one last chance in rehearsal last night, but yanked it. But, what did I expect for the price?

I emailed them and got an auto-reply. That was it at this writing. Disappointed.
Sure, I didn't send in any registration - was that wrong?

For my diverse playing influences the zoom BFX was the jackpot, the part that breaks my heart is that I loved practicing with it (yes, practice can be fun with this) with the rhythm sample/metronome and the headphone was great for after the kids are asleep...
But it failed after using it on only two gigs - and I babied it, if I had know I would have never let it out of the house. I used it on recordings and it sounds great - because of the unreliabilty I have a Sansamp Bass DI on order, while not the same thing, I've read here that it rocks and is better made.

Fairly easy to use, I figured out how operate it in about 2 days, about an hour total manual reading time. The manual does its job well, and is easy to navigate. Easy to use, but the myriad variety of effects and their parameters may overwhelm you at first.

Lots of functional effects, lots of wacky-ass space effects. It's all here. Built in noise reduction eliminates feedback. Effects sound great once they're tweaked to perfection, but unless you adjust them they'll sound somewhat plastic, and lack force.

Plastic, but as long as you don't stomp it to death it should be ok. Expression pedal seems sort of fragile...

Haven't had to deal with it.

I play fuzzy rock with spacey touches. I'm using a cheap ass samick stingray ripoff bass, a Crate BX-100 amp combo, a Boss ODB-3, and a Mini Q-Tron filter pedal. The Q-tron provides all the funk i need, so i dont usually use the BFX. As a backup or for a really odd number with lots of odd parts, it (BFX) would be well suited. I usually just use my Boss overdrive and Q-tron though. Anyways, Ive been playing for 3 years. If it were stolen, i wouldnt replace it, I like its versatility and ease of use though. If you buy this, you will mess around for months with effects and lose all musical direction (temporarily). After that things will even out though, and you'll learn to use it tastefully and occasionally.

personally, i love this gizmo. patches sound great if you are prepared to tweak them to your own personal preference. editing is easy but i have lost my manual so i'm stuck with the sounds i have for now. bought mine new in September 2000 and have had no problems so far.

I use the pedal with a westfield 4 string and a session 100w combo. sweet sound. and the edit feature means you can adjust high, low frequencies. patches can be stored to a desired location, so, if you are like me, you keep your favourites close to each other! i am into dirk lance of incubus and with this pedal, i get reasonably close. obviously his rig costs more than all the equipment in my band!!!! it's all about the flanger!

as i say, my unit has been very reliable. i know a lot of people have had problems but, unless you are a stomper, there are no real problems. treat her like a lady!!!! i can feel that with one hard stomp the pedals would break so i don't do it.

have not had to deal with this yet so i cant tell you.

I play in a funk, metal type group. i have played for 5 years. although i love this pedal, i will definitely be looking for something else in the not too distant future. it's great. they had no business putting the drum machine on but it's cool! i love the sampler feature, a nice touch. overall, if you need a nice back up or value for your money then choose this! that's right kids!! this is a good unit.