Zoom G2

La encontre facil de usar, al primer momento que la usas tal ves te enrredas un poco pero ya en cuestion de pocos minutos se entiende muy bien el funcionamiento de la pedalera para hacer tus presets.

Las distorsiones suenan bastante digitales, es lo malo que le encontre a esta pedalera. en cuanto a cantidad de Gain, puedes hacer distorsiones con bastante distorsion. Estas suenan un poco asperas y filosas, por mas que ecualizes los bajos altos las distorsiones no dejan de perder el caracter filoso, en otras palabras les falta un poco de cuerpo.

He provado esta pedalera en amplificadores de transistores. Influye mucho el tipo de amplificador que uses, si tienes un buen amplificador puede que te suene bien. aunque solo la he provado en dos tipos de ampli Marshall y Crate de esos peque??os tuve mejores resultados con el Crate.

Normalmente la uso con auriculares (audifonos), y el 90% de mis presets tienen seleccionados la opcion de (Simulador de amplificador). Los simuladores de amplificador en realidad no son muy buenos pero si te sirven para tocar directo a una PC o con auriculares.

los limpios o acusticos: en esta parte la pedalera si tiene fuerza, puedes hacer exelentes acusticos que sonaran transparentes y nitidos siempre y cuando pases unas cuantas horas dandole premormance a tus presets acusticos. no es muy facil hacerlos buenos pero si te lo propones lo logras, esta pedalera tiene ciertas ma??as en la configuracion de los acusticos con lo cual tienes muchas opciones para provar acusticos simples o acusticos coloreados con Chorus, Reverb, etc.

En la parte de efectos me gusta como suenan los Chorus, tanto el normal como el estereo Chorus, el Phaser tambien anda bien, el Delay esta bastante aceptable, y las reverbs tambien. sin embargo algunos de los efectos adicionales de la pedalera simplemente suenan de juguete, pues esto es un contraste dentro de la pedalera por que le puedes encontrar buenos efectos y malos efectos.

en cuanto a sonido la pedalera se come un poco el tono de las guitarras, yo tengo una Legend Les Paul y una Legend tipo Strato, y un amigo mio tiene una Joe Satriani JS-100. la JS la provamos en la pedalera y resultado fue que la guitarra sono practicamente igual que la Legend Les Paul la cual es una guitarra economica que es una imitacion de las Les Paul.

la zoom G2 esta util para tener en casa pero no la veo como una pedalera para usar con una Banda, tampoco para gravar en estudio ni para gravar por linea directo a una PC. en todo caso para provar ideas pero no para gravacion profesional a exepcion de sus acusticos los cuales si me han parecido buenos.

en la parte de acusticos la pedalera se defiende muy bien. Tomando en cuenta que la G2 es economica pienso que no vote mi dinero, le he sacado algunos buenos sonidos.

A las distorsiones les falta calidad, suenan muy digitales.

Otra cosa que no me gusto es que estas pedaleras bienen sin transformador, tuve algunos problemas a la hora de conseguir el adaptador indicado.en algunos casos cierto tipo de transformadores pueden generar ruido a la hora de tocar.

Una ventaja de la pedalera es que puede usar 4 pilas AA, y puedes usarla unas 6 o 7 horas sin el transformador.

el Manual de la pedalera a mi parecer biene muy bien explicado y esta todo facil de entender echandole una simple leida.

i was looking for a good multi-effects pedal as i was becoming bored of only really having 'one' sound when using my marshall all valve amplifier 50w combo. i wanted a small multi-effects pedal though, i didnt want the typical large heavy awkward thing. i was reluctant though as ive always seen multi-effects pedals as the jack of all trades, but master of none. the zoom g2 is small so this is why i chose this model. it is also cheap to buy used on ebay so i felt there was no harm in giving it a try. im very glad i did. it takes some time to learn how to use the many features of this pedal, but the manual is good so it is not too difficult to learn all of the features.

i love this pedal but i think the sound rating really does depend on what amplifer you use! i am putting my zoom g2 through an all valve marshall 50w combo, so what happens is you have a digital pedal going through a valve/analog circuit. the sound from the pedal is going through 3 mullard preamp valves and then coming out of the two larger output valves. what does this mean? it means the digital sound from my zoom g2 is really fattened up going through my valve amp! you could say it is changed from digital to a more analog/valve/fatter sound, and due to this procedure it sounds GREAT! the distortion sounds i get from the zoom g2 sound much better than my marshall amplifier's built in distortion. it just sounds much clearer, more focused, less mushy and raspy, and has more life. if you put this pedal through some cheap basic digital aplifier though theres no way it's gonna sound as good as the sounds i am getting through my valve amplifier. sorry!

i would give the zoom g2 a 9 out of 10 when used with a decent valve amplifier, but if you use a crappy thin sounding weak digital amp maybe the sound is gonna be a 7 out of 10 in my opinion.

finally i get a huge range of sounds from a nice small compact multi-effects pedal, while still retaining my valve tone. i get a nice range of clean sounds, through to standard rock, overdrive, fuzz and hard rock sounds, and finally now also i can get really high gain huge sounding metal tones, which i could not achieve just using my basic marshall valve amplifier on its own. i can finally do the maiden/metallica thing properly (ie. a huge sound and plenty of bass in there too), so now im very happy!!

the pedal has many effects built in such as flanger, phaser, delay etc. i would say these effects are quite standard, dont expect absolute perfection here. the delay/echo i quite like. it's just good enough to warrant me sticking with it rather than having to use some analog or valve based echo/delay unit instead. the built in noise reduction is excellent, especially when using the high gain metal tones! there is a built in drum machine which is fun, but you have to use the preset patterns, you cant program your own beats (still good for jamming/practicing/metronome though). the built in tuner is very good but it is a pain to turn it on (you have to press and hold both footswitches at once at the same time, which is awkward). sustain from the pedal in general is excellent. i have never gotten so much sustain from any other pedal, and i've owned a lot. im really impressed here!

seems fine, it's tough and well built, solid feeling, weighty not cheap, with tough casing and rubber 'bumpers' on the side

the zoom website seems ok, but i have never asked for support so do not know how they rate on that, so i have no opinion here.

i think this is an excellent pedal. in the past i have had several different distortion and echo/delay pedals, as well as a noise reduction pedal before i bought this zoom g2 pedal, but now i sold all of the other pedals and only use the zoom g2 to do everything. im very happy and dont bother looking on ebay for effects pedals anymore as now i have everything i need here!

dont forget the important thing though. if you want it to sound really special, use a decent amplifier!! it might still sound ok with cheap equipment, i suppose it all depends on how fussy you are.

Yes, you do have to read the manual, but you'll catch on.

I can hear the analog qualities of the guitar strings better with this
unit than I could with either the Line6 pod or Damage Control womanizer
evidently due to the sampling frequency of 96 kHz. A previous reviewer
hit the nail on the head ... all amp sounds are good, but the Marshal,
Boogie, and Peavey models sound real good! The reverb and the EQ functionality is excellent. Good to very good clean, crunch, and distortion tones are achievable with the unit. Patience has to be applied, when using the flexibility of the EQ options, but the results are very satisfying. And for $100 you get many other effects, such as a very good tuner and a drum machine.

Looks reliable, but I have only had mine for 4 months.

I have never used their customer support.

Like I said earlier, the unit shapes the sound, but allows the analog string subtleties to shine through. It is the best $100 that I have ever spent on musical equipment.

After reading the excellent manual by 13 mins I was ready to use completely ; nothin bad to say bout it. as with the stompbox like controls it's really very easy to use

Although I rate this item with an 6 because I found the Dual rectifier , the MT-2 , Zoom Extreme's , and the Peavey's one very usable and it's sampling of 96Khz and 32 bits Proc. ; this thing has very major features that makes an owner of high input humbuckers like me dissapointed. this thing is not ready to handle such kind of high power humbuckers ; the emulations of JCM2000, Guv'nor, HotBox just SUCK !!, they all sound exaclty the same 4 me and have no use because those distortions sound just horrible; I play many styles but I wouldn't know how to use them (if you don't use the booster with them they just sound like a damn fuzz (unusable and horrible). and 4 getting an usable sound you always have to use the booster 4 the freqs the Humbuckers eats that way ya can't use other effects like the tremelo together with the distortions. The reason for the 5 points is that the usable models sound quite good once you have spent enough time tweaking them and you get no noise at all when you record even with the higher gain settings and also 4 the modulations.
but if it's gonna b your first multieffects, you'll be the happiest guitarist around your block.

Although with the usable sound you can record with good results
Im gonna sell it right now to buy a real effects processor like a POD XT. if there's not something better I would use it , maybe you can say your cables we're working bad...

Couldn't find in their site where to leave your questions like in other sites of other companies

I play rock , jazz , metal , Industrial and everything I want.
been playing by 8 years; own an old PS1 with Duncans.
I wouldn't buy this again. I hate that you have to use the booster to get something sounding acceptable. the favorite feature is that you can make it sound almost good everywhere.
I would buy an GNX1 instead of the G2. with other products in its range of price its acceptable.

Factory presets are pretty useless but that goes for every multi fx I've tried so far.

Don't fool yourself that this thing is going to replace a great sounding amp. It could have worked great for practicing and recording though if Zoom knew how to engineer things with life expectancy of more than a week (see below).

Ha! That's the reason why I am spending valuable time of my life to write a review about this P.O.S. To warn you my friend. One of the only two switches died within two days! Yes you read it right. TWO DAYS OF USE IN A NON SMOKING STUDIO ENVIRONMENT. Now, if that was a 60 switches 30 knobs complicated machine I would have understood it, but this is an as simple as it gets only two switches crapola. To last only a few hours...
Here is the best part. After I returned the unit I decided to not be very critical about Zoom and purchased a few months later the G1 model.
Ha! again. This one had a noise gate with phsycological problems. It was trying to refuse its exsistance as a noise gate and was trying to act as a volume pedal! It would give a volume swell effect even when it was set at 1!!! Never experienced anything like that with any other noise gate and believe me I have tried a few. Needless to say that the G1 went back to the shop too.

Yeah, right.....

Overall rating? Just save your money and buy something else. Actually just buy anything else but Zoom. As the text for rating mark 1 reads: What a hunk of junk!

I bought this unit to solve on problem. I play guitar and sing lead in a gigging band and I do not want to futz around with a bunch of pedals to get different tones and effects for different songs on stage, let alone setting it up. So for on-stage ease of use, I would rate this box an 8.5. Just get to your "home" bank, and switch back and forth with your feet. Easy.
As far as setting up and editing your banks, once you get over 15 - 20 minute learning curve (and RTFM), it's pretty easy to use.

If you have the ear and the patience to get the tone you want to get, I think you will be pleasantly surprised with what you can achieve with this box. If you already have a good sounding amp, go in with the attitude less is more. Use the modeling lightly or turn it off altogether. Use a bit of EQ. A touch of a chorus. A mid-boost in the beginning of the "chain". Go to the extended EQ. Back to the modeling tone parameter. The overall mix. It's all there, and it's all ganged together, and you can get the sound you want. It's actually alot of fun to do if you have the time.
The alternative use is as a the main tone-maker in your rig (you have a cheap amp and your gonna try spend a $100 to fix the sound.), or using the box to record to your computer. You CAN do this, but I have to drop the sound quality number down a bit. The modeling is adequate and not as good as Line 6 or Roland, and the more you rely on the modeling and EQ to MAKE your sound, the more your gonna hear the $100 band-aid.
For computer recording it's a very fun tool, and the cabinet/mike modeling is O.K. - good for noodling around, but not much more.

ADVICE:
-If your try this device in the store, realise that the sounds are examples of what can be done. Some are OK starting points, but you won't get the idea of the power until you go into edit, turn every effect OFF, and start from scratch. Ask to see the manual.

-The compression is AWFUL. Turn it off.

-There are 2 different settings for 'live' and 'recording'. Use the right one! Live settings opens up 3 more EQ bands, while recording is an cab/mike modeler.

I'd be lying if I said I thought this thing could take a beating. It's got a good weight to it, but I'm treating this thing with kid gloves for quite a bit.

I play in a band where I need to be able to go from a country-twang with a fat slap-back delay, to a mid-scooped metal sound, to a bachata lead dripping with chorus, and then back to MY AMP! sound with out a cumbersome and goofy pedalboard. Ok, maybe they're just not me, but I know when I see some dude setting up a huge pedal board with boutique pedals and vintage gear, he BETTER blow me away - and I know I'm NOT that kind of player! I like the footprint, the price, and there is a quality sound to be gotten with patience.

I recommend this product. If you can afford something (you think is)better, get it. If not, just know that your not throwing your money away. It's fun to experiment with guitar sounds. It's just a little more requisite with this product.

Pretty easy right out of the box, but...
If you really want to tweak and get the most out of this unit, you have to sit with the manual and hack at it. Editing is a bit of a trick, but attainable with patience & practice. The manual is NOT as user-friendly as (let's say) a Line 6 or Mesa Boogie or others. After going over the manual with my students & other players, we all agreed that we've seen better.

On one hand: this thing sounds pretty fat & massive with great parameters & relative "tweakability". The amp sounds and FX are admirable with a great sampling rate and 32-bit sound. But remember tubemeisters and tone freaks: it's still synthetic. This was purchased to add to a Crate Powerblock Head loop to provide extra tones & wet signals. Very quiet and has NR capability. All the FX are good for the most part, but don't expect TC Helicon or Lexicon sounds. Just know that the line out CAN handle headphones, 1/4" mono AND stereo Y-cords so you can use two amps/stereo recording: nice feature. BUT THE BYPASS IS NOT TOTALLY TRUE! There is a slight bit of smudge to it.

It's made well: solid metal & plastic casing with clickless switches. Seems better made than most pedals under $100.00. So good so far.

Zoom is overseen by Samson, and wit a pair of glasses on you can sleuth out their toll-free number. They answered and a pretty sharp tech answered my questions. But this is a Chinese company that could have hired some normal gear nuts from the USA to help make the manual's word-usage a bit more "real world" and less complicated.

Just another lazy old-timer who needed a small, well-made piece to add to a head that has no FX whatsoever. Playing for many years with a vast array of amps & rack gear. On the plus side: compact, feature filled & well made for the cost. Negatives: the manual just does not fully explain an E-Z route to tweaking & maximizing FX and boosting presence/EQ/tone shaping.

I know there are a few people out there who may be looking at this unit from the same perspective as me. I basically wanted a unit which handled all modulation and reverb effects, just to keep things simple and replace a whole lot of individual analogue boxes. I have what i believe to be the greatest OD ever, and yes i've tried them all.

I'm also using this thing as a kind of "poor man's" EH HOG/Whammy. The octave effect on this unit is really something. Also, the mono pitch shift effect actually sounds better that the octaver, but tracks SLIGHTLY less well. If you're into these effects, you absolutely must try this unit. It really blew me away how good these effects are.

The main reason i wanted a HOG or Whammy was for single octave up effects, similar to what Matt Bellamy from Muse has been using as of last year.

As a cheap substitute HOG it does the job very well. You only get 1 voice at a time but that's ok i only wanted 1 at a time. The big plus is that you get presets, in addition to a whole lot of other FX.

Actually it was mrmojo's review two below prompted me to write something about this unit.
Firstly I'd have to say i totally agree with him. I use the volume knob on my tele as pretty much the primary tone modifier while i'm playing.
I'm running from my guitar to an Ernie Ball VP, MI Audio Tube Zone Overdrive (best OD EVER!), Boss DD-20, Zoom G2, into my amazing 72 Fender Princeton Reverb.
Basically my idea was to replace a whole lot of pedals on my board. The G2 would cover modulation effects and reverb, and also give me a reasonable tuner. The effects themselves are really quite good. The only problem is that while this unit is in the chain, it pretty much destroys the 'natural' vibe that i get from my amp. The touch responsiveness and amazing sparkly shimmery Fendery goodness is gone. GONE!

If you don't play through a good tube amp, then really you can probably ignore my review.

Even with all effects switched off, this thing just colours the sound a little bit and makes it sound somewhat "not as good". I have considered buying a true bypass looper to use with it. As i mentioned, the sounds are really very good (especially the pitch shifter). Only problem is, most loopers are made by boutique makers, and the looper would cost as much as the Zoom!

I tried out the OD/distortions, they weren't to my liking, but then again i wasn't going to use them anyway and i'm comparing them to the best overdrive in the world! You may like them just try it out first.

It's metal with rubber bits. If i wanted to make myself more durable i would TOTALLY cover myself in metal with rubber bits.

It could be good. Dare someone to call them.

To those who are pretty careful about their sound: This is a great unit, the effects are very good, BUT your sound may get a little bit messed up. If you don't use your volume knob (you absolutely should btw you're missing out big time) you'll probably have less of a problem with this. Also if you use a tranny amp, it'll probably actually make your amp sound better so just go for it!

Pretty easy to use if you can read instructions. There is a section in the manual that shows how to make your own patches step by step. Its alot like the old zoom 505 processer but it has more control knobs.Someone on here said that it took three months to fully tweek the parameters in each effect. I could see that if you turned every effect/drive ect off and started with the first effect(compression) and worked your way to the end. The way to do it right is to start with the Drive Module then dynamic effects like compression/Eq/noise gate then reverb/delay then post amp modulation fx, wha/front of amp effects last. I wont go to far into ease of use because its pointless. If you can use a multi function remote for your tv you can use and program this pedal.

When i first got the pedal i pluged it into a crate xt 120 combo amp on clean chanel all eq's on 5.The first thing i noticed is that the preset levels were to loud.Even when i turned them way down they were still higher than they should be.Also the tones were muddy even when i adjusted the preset EQ...also the effects like reverb/delay sounded like they were all coliding together.I changed guitars from my homebuilt strat with a distortion pup to my epiphone LP standard with a REAL gibson 57 paf pup.This helped clear up the sound a little but the level was still to high and the effects like verb were sounding to lush-thick.What i found out is that when you plug a mono 1/4 inch jack into the STEREO 1/4" outpute, the ground of the jack dosent shut off the right side it causes the right side signal to go to the left or mono side increasing the level and blending the stereo effects.This sounds crapy. What you have to do is buy a stereo 1/4' jack that y's to two 1/4" female jacks and plug into the left if you want mono and plug into both if you want stereo into two different amps.
ZOOm should have pute in two rca outpute jacks and included a y cable to two 1/4" female ends if they wanted to save space on the unit.They dont tell you you CANT use a mono jack from the outpute but if you do the sound will suck.
As far as the sounds went...well its digital and you can easily tell just like every other modeler out there.When i got the first problem figured out i turned off all of the fx on a patch and turned on the PV drive (peavey 5150) added some eq and........was disapointed.It sounded like a muddy distortion pedal.I played this unit through the combo mentioned above a marshall dsl 2000 clean-rythm-poweramp, a crate powerblock, crate bv 120 clean-rythem-poweramp and it never sounded good at all. The best sound was through my crate xt120 combo but even that wasnt that great.Also if you use the outpute for headphones like it says you can, it wont be loud enough...not even with earbuds.

Havent had it long enough...had other zoom products that held up well and it looks solid so...

-na-

After i played this on my friends amps trying to get a good sound i came home, pluged into my crate on the lead chanel, and ohhh sweet analog distortion!!!! No the crate aint the greatest amp but it beats the digital crap anyday.No more amp modeling stuff for me unless its analog like the Tech 21 sans amp.I mainly bought this pedal to play around with as an addition to my combo and as a headphone amp but it failed at both.Oh well ill get my $99.00 back that will go to the eventual purchase of a peavey xxl.

Its fairly easy to use given it limited user interface.
Manual is easy to understand.

My setup: Fender standard strat, Morley Wah, Peavey Valveking 112.

I did not find this thing lending itself to my particular setup and needs.
I am very much into SRV type blues and as such really use and rely on the guitar volume (that is the volume control of the guitar) to get the right drive and tone from song to song from my tube amp. This thing only really sounds good when the guitar volume is at the full.
I bought solely to add some reverb and delay???now I know what you???re thinking???SRV did not use delay, but us mere mortals have to cheat a little. The point is, It still very much ???colored??? my tone to a very cold, edgy, digital sound even using nothing but the reverb effect. This, added to the extreme lose of dynamics when I cut back on the guitar volume makes it pretty unusable to a blues guy with a tube amp. I tried it in-line and through the effects loop, still had much the same results.
But I will say this for it???I ran it through and crappy realistic power amp and a 1-12 enclosure I keep around the house and it sounded pretty good. There is actually one patch (with some tweaking) that had a fairly good SRV dirty sound???think ???Tightrope???. It also had a somewhat better ???feel??? to it also when using the guitar volume. It seems to be much more suited to this type of application.
Patch changes are fast and seamless. The Boss DS-1 and the MT-2 are pretty closely reproduced. The rest, to my ear anyway, was not too good of a ???model???. They can be tweaked to sound pretty good as a sound in general, but do not live up to their namesakes.
I could go on boring you with the details???but I???ll Just give it a rating of 7???all things considered.

dont know...am gonna either send it back or trade it off after only two days of useing it...

Again...won't know