Zoom G2.1u

This is not an intuitive interface type of box, but the logic of it is really very simple --much easier than a ZoomPS04, which I also own -- and once you get it down you can do easy patch correction on the fly using the knobs -- also much easier than with Digitechs (I own three RPs in different sizes). Just bought it two months ago, haven't upgraded yet.

Is it a classic tube amp? No. (I got one.) Does it sound good? Yeah. There's a limited palette--no AC30 crunch, one of my faves, and distortions can get messy (though the Boss stompbox sounds fine to me and the Marshall stack is very good.) The noise reduction is incredible, so you can use it LIVE. Reverbs are again a limited choice but they sound rich and not messy, even the spring (a genre that is hard to get right on multis for reasons I don't know). The clean sounds, Fender and AC30, really shine; use one with amp gain and you get a very nice blues tone, and what I do is based in the blues. I don't try to sound like anyone but myself these days, and this does what I want.

I bought this partly for the power setup-- four AA's that the manufacturer says will last 7.5 hours, and mine are holdiing up well. Its place is on stage beside my amp or into the PA, and it's good in either slot. I like the fact that it's metal. Very sturdy, but light (a little over 2 pounds).

Never contacted them. I will say the packaging and manuals are tops. It's a product that does what it promises, my fave customer support.

Juke modern, Delta style adapted to contemporary R&B, with slide in straight, drop D and open tunings. Playing 40 years and have very sweet gear, starting with three Reverend 390 axes. I'm a small amp freak and with boxes like a Kustom Tube 12A or Fender Champion 110 you need a good front end, and this is the best I've found in its class. It sure beats a pedalboard if you like to travel light. It has capabilities I haven't touched yet -- USB interface, wah, harmonizer, etc. -- but everything I've touched works like I hoped. I would buy it again in a shot. I can't believe how much better this is than the Zoom 505 I tried years ago --it lets the instrument shine, and it goes where you go without an external power source. Nice work, Zoom.

I can't stand difficult equipment and this can be a bit fiddley, so I wasn't pleased at first. The 2 digit screen leaves you guessing unless you memorise all the option sybols from the manuel. Don't let this put you off though, it's the same with any unit and few are as good value as this. In other words, you need to read the manual (DOH!), then it's o.k!

Some of the fancy sounds are crazy (although I couldn't resist some Tom Morello impressions - some sounds really are far out!) but the simple typical sounds are cool. There isn't any noticable hiss noise to be complaining about and the pedal is excellent and works perfectly with the step on/off, just like a normal wah. I plug this straight into my laptop (with usb) for recording with a standard strat or s.g. I often have a bluesy/funky sound but like a really strong distortion sometimes too. I love the wah (9/10 in its self!), it's so convenient not needing to chain pedals.

Looks like zoom have started using stealth technology. I reckon it's sturdier than an f-117a though!

Website has a driver update (wowee!!!). The unit seems so well put together though, I doubt you'd really need to contact them but I'm gonna leave this blank. I wouldnt like to comment on something I don't know about.

I play bluesy, sometimes jazzy funk. I also play metal too for fun and this unit has never dissapointed me yet.
If this was stolen I'd find the person who did it and remove their head. Then I'd probably buy a new one (if not, I'd save up for the more advanced zoom thing).

The out of the box sounds will not suit everyone so be prepared to tune it to your setup. Editing is quick and simple. I use a maximum of 10 patches and control the volume with the pedal (exception wahwah). I have my 10 patches set up in bank A for Direct/Pa (with cab sims) and in bank B for combo amp setup.
I haven't tried the USB/PC thing yet but it sure looks interesting for recording.

There is bang for your buck here. Very quiet and the overtones come through due to the good sampling rate I guess. I use this direct into PA as the best option, but also sometimes with a Roland Cube amp set pretty neutral.

Just bought it 4 weeks ago. Looks tough enough with a metal housing and rubber protectors.

I've had no problems so far.

I like this as a backup for my Boss GT5 which is too big to travel internationally. This pedal does a lot for the price. You may miss the ability to preorder up the next sound patch before you switch to it (I haven't figured how to do that anyway) so you may need to consider which patches should be close together.

"A good sound out of it" is a very relative term. Compared to an analog wah with an analog chorus this thing is different and less dynamic or organic. It is easy to make it sound "like" many different effects.

It is not noisy for one thing. I have owned a ZOOM 2020 and it was hissy, this is not hissy.

The whole unit in terms of sound quality is good however some effects are just mush. For example the Ring modulator, auto resonance, auto wah are terible effects that really don't seem to work properly. The flanger is acceptable whereas the chorus is bad however the stereo chorus is good.

Overall a good quality of sound due to lots of processing power and sampling rate I suppose.

Was using it and it is meant to have a low battery warning. It started making a click click sound and no guitar was coming through it. In other words no battery warning appeared, it basically just died. If used live this behaviour would suck.

One thing I like a lot and nobody seems to have mentioned is that it has it's effects split into two sections, efx and sfx. This means you can run a slow attack into the harmonizer or phaser into the tape echo or whatever you want to use that is available within the two modules. If looking at the ZOOM GFX5 for example, all effects are in one module, so you could not do this sort of thing. I like that the module selection control simply has drive as one setting. I HATE all the drive sounds as they are crap compared to any of my valve amps. Simply plug in some decent headphones to hear the drive sounds and they are a joke. I choose not to use the drive, compression or noise reduction modules. I would like an effect unit that is JUST effects but unlike some units that have a dedicated control for selecting drive type and another for gain this just has one position on the control which I can ignore easily - I like that. Convenient to have a new tuner to, my old one i got in 1985 and it has past it's prime. This unit is a neat little thing to. Looks like some sort of alien technology from Roswell. Powerful yet simple to use like all great technology should be. The jury is out on this pedal. The sound quality and effects quality are proably reasonably good for this sort of thing, but I find the stomp box equvalents to be much more open sounding with a fuller dynamically more organic tone.

Very easy to use after you read the maunal. You will have to revamp all of the presets but this is common on just about every mulit I have tried. There was a USB driver update that I downloaded from ZOOM.

As I said earlier, you have to reprogram the presets to your liking. Unit is very quiet. Switching between presets is very fast almost unnoticeable. All of the modulation effects are very good. It does have some of those weird effects that nobody uses but hey that's OK, maybe someone will have fun with them. The noise suppressor and gates are excellent. Amp models are very good for the clean sounds but you're going to have to play with the high gain stuff a bit. Allows alot of patch and amp model tweaking so if you take the time your sound is probably in there. USB is great for recording. I was able to get it up and running in ten minutes. Drum machine is very good. 40 or so presets with tempo and level controls.

Seems to be built very well. Metal core with hard rubber sides. Expression pedal is smooth with a normal throw for volume and wah functions.

The ASIO driver update downloaded easily.

A very flexable and good sounding unit. Sturdy build quality. Instantanious patch switching and some very handy features (Noise Supressor and gates, USB recording, switchable function expression pedal and drum maching). It doesn't have some of the line patching ability of the higher priced units but for a throw in the bag and gig unit it really shines.

After you read the maunal and play around with it a little this unit is very easy to use. Much easier and less complicated that some other multi's I have looked at. I did download a ASIO driver update for the USB from Zoom soon after I purchased it.

Reverbs, delays, phaser, flanger, chorus, noise reduction/gate's and Echo are very good. Clean amp models are very good (Fender, Vox, and JC120). Gain and high gain amp models need some tweaking. Presets all need tweaking and editing. For myself, I cleared five presets and started from scratch on all of them. All five sound great now. Preset switching is almost instant. No lag at all so it's great for giging. Expression pedal gives you wah and volumne functions and other user defined options. The USB function and bundled software work very well. I use Audition instead of the Cubase LE and it works well with both programs. All in all a great sounding pedal. No, it's not an Eventide but for speed, flexability and good sounds it's hard to beat for the price.

Excellent build quality. Small footprint. Have used it without a backup. No problems at all.

Received an ASIO driver upgrade from them. Worked fine.

I use this unit for recording but have gigged with it and have had no problems with it at all. Very good sounds for the price.
Easy to use and very flexable. Would buy it again if stolen or lost.

This is my first experience with this type of effect and overall once you get used to it you can edit patches fairly quickly. But how much more would it have been to add a more comprehensive screen with better feedback on what you were working with. The two digit ?digital clock? display pretty tough to decipher with out memorizing lot of seemingly arbitrary codes or putting together a cheat-sheet. It also does a poor job of displaying alpha characters (M?s become N?s and V?s become U?s). I grabbed all the digital readout pictures from the on-line manual and dumped them into an easy to read quick reference sheet and that helps a lot. But over all it did not seem like any of the other devices in this price range had a better interface so still a decent mark.

Once again I don?t have a lot of experience with this type of device, but I have to say that I have gotten some pretty good sounds out of this little box. My main rig is a MIJ Franken-Strat with Fender custom shop 69? pickups and a few other upgrades, playing though a Fender Pro Junior. My primary reason for getting the device was to be able to play with headphones, do some recording, and to have a few effects for playing thought the no-frills Pro Jr (which I love by the way). It took a bit of time fooling with the device before I really starting to get some good sounds out of it. Like others have stated in reviews, ignore the presets. Only one or two are worth bothering with, it?s when you take the time to start from scratch that this baby starts to shine. Using headphones I was able to get a nice Fender amp sound using the Signal Boost, Fender Clean, some reverb, and tweaking of the fairly flexible EQ. It was also surprisingly dynamic, rolling off the Signal Boost, my volume, or just playing softer the tone would become cleaner. It?s is not as dynamic as playing strait though my Pro Jr. but the effect is there. I?ve also played with the Vox AC30 and a bit with the JCM800. I?ll have to update on those amp models later when I have time to really tweak the settings. Most of the other amps are not much more than novelties for me but they don?t seem to sound bad. Some of the amp models are actually distortion pedals like the Boss OD1 or the Matchless Hotbox, but I am not familiar enough with the real devices to say how well they work here.
Turning off the amp modeling allows me to simply add effects to my existing amp. The primary ones I have used are the signal boost, chorus, reverbs, vibrato, and the delays. The delays include a Tape Echo simulator that simulates the bottom end decay fairly well. Never having owed a vintage piece these all seem to do a fine job of at least producing pleasant sounds. The pedal allows the natural voicing of the guitar to come though so my Strat sounds like a Strat and my single humbucker guitar sounds like a single humbucker guitar, even though the amp models. I find the signal boost quite useful and flexible. You can adjust the frequency range so you can go from a treble boost to a mid-range boost to push your amp just so. I am not sure how I can test it but it does seem that is actually does push your preamp tubes and not just a simulation.
I was not too sure about the expression pedal at first but I do find it to be useful adjusting effect parameters and levels. It sounded sill to me at first but after thinking about it and using the device I can see where the ability to add another expression pedal or switch could be handy for the performing musician.
Recording to my PC with the device so far has been very easy, just plug it in, hit record and go. The bundled CubaseLE seems quite powerful for a pack-in but I have only used Audacity so far for its ease of use. But the few things I have recorded sound very good. Powering the device from the USB port is a welcome addition.
Some of the complaints I have besides the somewhat kluncky interface are ?
Keeping a consistent volume level can be a chore, gain and levels act as they would on an amp so going from a crunchy fender sound to a clean on involves some dramatic volume loss with out some serious tweaking. I know this is how it works in the real world but I already had that. An over all volume knob would have been nice.
Not much a user community seems to exist for sharing settings, or at least I have not found one yet. For that matter they don?t give you any printed info on the presets that exist.
You can only use one effect at a time per module. There are nine modules with a group of effects in each. Now your are not likely to use two amp models at the same time in your chain but you can?t have the signal boost and phaser on at the same time because they both exist in the same module. This isn?t a huge deal and I think all the other manufactures have the same limitations.
Lack of an auxiliary input. This one feature almost had me sold on a Korg. It would be nice to plug in my mp3 player so I can practice and learn songs though headphones. As of now I have an older set of computer speakers with 2 inputs I can mix the Zoom output with a mp3 player.
The G7.1u has the ability to edit patches on your computer in real time, that would have been really nice but is probably asking too much.

nice metal case and over all feels solid

Web site seems to be updated, but not too much to the support section. Have nto needed to call.

Into blues and rock, playing for about since 1985 but a big gap not being very active.
Over all I am happy with my purchase. Will a $170 digital device sound just like a 65? Twin (or any of the other models). Well, of course not. Will it get you close without waking up the neighbors? Yes, it does that quite nicely. And it will give you a nice rack of effects to play with without spending thousands of dollars.

This pedal is reasonably easy to use, but in order to get full benefit of the tweakability ,the manual is essential. Editing patches is easy provided you read the manual. The display has some cryptic characters which are not easily deciphered until you...READ THE MANUAL! Switches patches instantaneously, which is nice. Manual is informative and easily navigated.

Overall the sound quality is on par or better than anything else comparable. I have tried many different modeling devices including :the Johnson J-Station,Pod, POD XT, Digitech GNX4,Vox Tonelab. The J-Station has probably the best modeled distortion sounds, but this unit comes in a close second. Clean sounds are great(but these sounds are normally easy to attain). The distorted sounds are where this box excells. I have, through the years, owned 70's Marshalls,Blackface Fenders, Currently own a Peavey Classic 30. I own and have owned a multitude of vintage effects (MXR Dist.+,MXR phase 90,Crybaby wah,Echoplex, Matrix Mini-Boogie distortion, Tube Screamer,to name only a few.) The presets are pedestrian. The true value is in the effect programability. You can get some killer sounds with this box. The tape echo effect sounds a lot like an Echoplex, with its fizzy tail. Through a P.A. this thing is great! Very little hassle for the sounds you can get. Distortions pretty much can nail the amp sound you are trying to emulate. Pitch shifting(except for the Intelligent Pitch Shifter)is gimmicky and lame. Intelligent Pitch Shifter is very useable and is able to be set according to key you are in. Nice.

Looks sturdy with rubber bumpers on the side. Expression pedal seems substantial and sturdy. I would never gig any equipment without some sort of back-up. Years of experience indicate that no equipment is 100% reliable.Seems dependable- So far,so good.

Have not dealt with the company, so can't judge.

I play Classic Rock, classic Metal, Blues. This unit can satisfy all requirements of these types of music. I have been playing for 28yrs.;Pro for five, the rest semi-pro, and as an avocation. I currently own an 80's Fender strat, 80's Kramer Focus, 90's Les Paul,'03 Alvarez accoustic,(6 and 12 string),Yamaha classical,60's Harmony Rocket, a kit Bass,various stomp box effects such as:MXR,Crybaby,Boss,etc. I use a Peavey Classic 30, and Peavey 112 Special amps,currently. I have a DAW with Sonar3 and Cubase recording software and a selection of condenser and dynamic mics. If it were stolen I would hunt the perpetrator down like a DOG! As mentioned earlier, I compared it to various other similar modelers and found that it has very natural and organic distortion/amp sounds which have the tactile feel of an amp, which to me is the most important aspect of a modeler. I don't really hate anything about it, except the pitch effects(octaves and de-tune) are mostly lame. Accoustic simulation is lame, as they all are.It does have very nice Fender and Vox clean simulations.

First off, I read some of the other reviews on this product and although I do agree that it takes time to control any effects unit, I have never heard such unadulterated crap in my life. The presets are presett-y and are quite thin as far as I am concerned. Editing patches takes a bit of time but you can get a pretty standard sound out of it when played with a little.

I am using this unit with my Peavey Valveking 1x12 combo (this thing is noisy)and peavey Jack Daniels EX guitar (and I hated Peavey). Sometimes I plug it into my wifes Bassman 10 and it sounds less noisy and more "creamy" I suppose. I believe most of the effects are pretty weak. Some just cry out "don't use this one." The unit puts out an adequite Reverb but most do. Kinda hard to mess up with Reverb. Some of the distortions are nice but they end up sounding kind of tin-can like. As a matter of fact, most of the effects leave me feeling that Aluminum effect. Unless I use the eq to kick the Low up to 12 and the mid somewhere around 3 with High set to -3. It just doesn't seem right. The real clincher here is the joke of a USB interface on this unit. This would suggest that it actually pays to use it through your computer since you could possibly multi-track with it. Well, you can...sort of...if you use to separate pairs of head-phones or speakers. See, unless your computer soundcard has aUSB bus connected to it, there is no way that when you plug this thing in, you can get it resonate out of your computer speakers. There goes multi-tracking if I want to use USB on it. Who was the brain-surgeon at ZOOM that thought this gem up?

It looks pretty sturdy. That was the first selling point of this "edsel" for me. I would probably gig with it if I were certain I could get a sound I liked enough out of it.

Nada

I play Punk music and some loungy Jazzy stuff. I dunno, whatever moves me that day, I play. I have been playing for 18 years now (wow, time flies)and own very little gear since I do this binge-purge thing every so often. If this were to be stolen, I would laugh at the idiot that took it. Wish the thief luck and go buy something that works. There are some reasonable effects here but gettingn them right for recordign as opposed to playing live through amp, pa, etc. is just too daunting a task for the likes of me. The whole USB thing with this just makes this thing the dumbest effects unit I have ever owned. I love the looks of it and would buy it on the merits of that soley if sound were based on looks alone. Nuf Said!!! Move on folks. This thing cries LEMON!!!!!

Hmmmmm
well there are a CRAPLOAD of different effects on this thing
you can literally spend hours sorting through not only the many effects, but the diferent settings for each effect, and the eq which can totally change the sound. the knobs certainly make things easier, but its still alot to sort through with only a 2-digit display. i guess thats what u get with so many damn effects!

ONE THING I DID NOT KNO
-if you stomp down on the expression pedal, it turns the given effect on or off: GREAT for live playing. man this thing is packed.

my setup:
Gibson SG special faded
(stock pups)
g2.1u
ibanez 25r combo

--not too serious equipment, i just like to play in my room and jam with my friends

OK this is the category that really matters
this pedal has very good sound quality IF you are smart enough to tweak the many paramaters for each effect. the presets are very weak and do not showcase the power of this thing. but say, for example you put it on the peavey stack amp, frown the eq on the G2 and smile it on your amp, throw in a little boost..hey why not a deisil flanger and WHOA this thing rips!.

sound may be a little digital sounding but like i said, most sonic flaws can be tweaked

DOnt buy a digitech this thing destroys them! seriously they have basically the same exact effects but the g2's are clearer, warmer and stronger and fuller. or... scratchier and mettalic or chunky and heavy and meaty.......whatever you want its here

VERY sturdy...solid metal casing with rubber caps
just trust me this thing is a tank

dont go buying one of those digitech plastic things and expect it to last more than 6 months

if u want a reliable multi-effects pedal go with this thing or the the boss ME-whatever

none, but musicians friend was awesome
it came in like 48 hours
wich is unbeleivable to me

I play mostly:
Heavy rock
....
yeah its awesome for heavy rock cus you ha ve a bunche of great amps right in front of you..
haha actually their not THAT accurate
BOTTOM LINE
this pedal is sturdy, sounds AWESOME if you know what ur doin and has so many effects that it is a must - buy

if you are looking at pedals like i was and was reading reviews like a madman, just trust me...its worth ur money:plus it comes with great recoding software and fjldsjfldsajfksladj f jeez this thing is just unbeleivable

trust me


buy it

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