Zoom G7.1UT

handle position of eq isnt comfortable - this is the first and last defect
g7.1 - very handy unit

dont listen default patches - they are awful
if you have hands and ears in right place you can get a beautiful sound. i dont know what about hard-n-heavy, but it's right for blues, artrock, funk etc - tube works

>Can you get the sound of your favorite artists? Who are they?
http://giasso.s42.eatj.com/ZooM/home.jsp

i've changed microbuttoms inside for more reliable - its the only problem with it

dont know

i like it

holy crap this thing was enoying after about 2 hours of reading the manual and playing with it i still couldnt figure out how to work it properly. was tempted to smash it.

very poor it sounded realy cheap and tinny

not sure it seemed sturdy enuf.

pain in the ***. brought it back to the store i got it the very next morning and exchanged it for some stomp boxes!!!

I have had this this unit for about 2 years. It was a bit difficult to figure out at first having never used a multi-effects unit in the past. The G7.1 has some nice effects however, there are basically 2 effects chains available and if you want to use 2 effects at the same time that happen to be in the same effects chain....your outta luck. For instance, if the "Wah/effects" chain is set up for wah pedal or volume pedal then you cannot use the "Tremlo" patch at the same time as it is in that effects chain. Not a major problem......just a little inconvenient.

When gigging out with my band I have a couple of "patch banks" set up for the styles of music that we do. Don't need to make many changes other than an occasional EQ tweek. However when I am playing with my Church band, I get a number of different styles of music thrown at me and making patch or effects edits on the fly gets a bit challenging. Not impossible but usually requires pulling the users manual out. The user manual is not great but if you study it you can figure out how to make the unit do what it is capable of. Just takes time.....and time usually does not permit.

This unit is capable of producing just about every kind of guitar sound known to man. It will just take some time for you to get it dialed in.

My usual rig consists of 2 or 3 different Strats, a Tele and a "boutique" Tele with humbuckers. I usually play thru a Boogie Studio .22 cal or a Boogie MKIIB or sometimes both in stereo. At the Church gig I plug into the house thru a direct box. I gave up trying to emulate other artists a long time ago and now just try to sound like me. I get good results with all my different set ups. Of course the Humbucker guitar is quite a bit "hotter" than the Strats or Tele and is alot louder than the single coil guitars as one would expect. The unit has an "output volume" on the back panel and compensation for the difference in volume is easy. However, the hotter your pickups are the more emphasized your effects will be. Nice warm distortion with a Strat turns into Big Time distortion with the humbuckers. Set up patch bank for each guitar and your all set. Turning your guitar volume knob down is ok down to about half way. The G7.1 starts to get very "digital" with a low guitar input signal.

As far as sound quality of the amp simulations and effects go......your own ears will have to be the judge. In a live stiuation, the average person in your audience will probably never be able to tell the difference between the G7.1 and "real" analog effects. It is my experience that the digital emulation of the effects are not quite as good as the "real" thing....but close. I am basing that on side to side comparason with a "real" TS-9, TS-808 and an old vintage Hammond Organ Co. Wah-Wah pedal.(before Jim Dunlop bought the rights to produce them.)

All of that having been said......The beauty of it is this......for a little more cash than a Boss Delay pedal you get a unit that will do practically everything.

This unit has never left me stranded at a gig. I usually go to the gig and leave my back-up analog pedal board at the house because I am tired of schlepping gear in and out of clubs. One day I will probably be sorry. My only gripe with the reliability is this......do not be fooled by the "Big Metal Switches" on this unit as I was. The "Big Metal Switches" are nothing more than spring loaded "plungers" that press a tiny 6mmx6mm PCB mounted "TAC" switch underneath each plunger. After two years of stomping in these "switches", a couple of mine have become very intermittent. Makes it a bit difficult to jump between a rhythm and lead patch in the middle of a song when you have to STOMP on the thing 8 times to get it to react. Not quite a solid a unit as it appears to be.

I did not have a very good experience with Zoom, Samson, Sam Ash customer support. I spoke to their Tech Support three times concerning the "Switch" issue. The T.S. rep acknowledged that the "switches" were an issue that they had seen with many units. (all ZOOM pedals that uses those switches.)My unit was past its warranty at the time. I begged them to take my money and send me several of the tiny TAC switches and a replacement power supply to have as a back-up. They could not come up with a part number for the power supply and lied to me about sending me switches free of charge. Got tired of calling them and waiting on hold just to be lied to. I will just order some replacement switches from Mouser and find a replacement PS somewhere else.

I believe that if this unit were stolen or lost that I would probably replace it with the new Boss GT-10. The G7.1 is not a bad effects pedal. It works well for me both in stage and recording situations with the exception of the switches. The reliability issue with the switches makes me wish I had coughed up the extra $200 bucks and gone with the Boss unit in the first place. I have a few old Boss pedals that I bought in the early 1980s that still perform just like they did when new. I compared this effects unit to the other brands that were out there at the time such as Digitech, Boss, Tone Works, Vox Tone Lab, Line 6 and what have you. Based on the perceived level of solidness of the unit and sounds it produces I felt this was the best value (at the time). I mainly play Classic 60's 70's Rock (oldies to you younger guys), Blues and Praise music. I have been playing guitar for about 30 years and have collected an assortment of guitars, amps and effects along the way, mostly Mesa/Boogie, Boss, Ibanez and Fender products.

Right, I've had this 3 weeks, gigged it twice in that time. It is easy to use and I've been very happy with the sounds I have been getting. The manual is worth keeping around to refer to, as there are a lot of useful functions that you may not use every day.

Unlike probably most owners, I use this unit with the cabinet simulator into a keyboard amp (I'm primarily a keyboard player but double on guitar in a couple of situations). The guitar is a Patrick Eggle Berlin, twin humbucker. I've also used it with a mandolin.

The sounds I am after are either clean or on-the-edge overdrive, I don't use the heavier sounds at all. This is the only multifx I have used that nails these mild overdrive sounds (I've tried line6, korg and digitech stuff too). The "boost" parameter is very useful in getting these sounds, as is the tube (set about 1 o'clock and not moved). The Zoom Overdrive is particularly impressive, as are the fender and vox amp models.

Other effects are of comparable quality. One issue I did find was that if you have the ZNR (noise reduction) at high levels it can suck notes in a strange and unmusical fashion. But for humbucker guitars you can safely leave this on the lowest setting, the unit is very quiet.

This is a very full featured bit of kit, I've not found a weakness yet and sonically it seems to do whatever I ask of it

Seems solid and not had any issue. I did hard-case it immediately but I do this with all of my kit.

No dealings.

I've been using multifx since the mid 90s. This is the first one that has genuinely impressed me, particularly with milder overdrive sounds (which is where most of them fall down to be honest).

It has a lot of features and sounds (and feels) pro quality, despite actually being quite a bargain. There is a perception of Zoom being for beginners, but I would urge people to try this out... I was very pleasantly surprised.

It's quite easy, if You get to know it. At first glance its tricky, but after one day You'll know everything about this one. Editing patches is easy, the manual is very handy<since the G7.1ut doesn't have to many knobs, some of them have multiple functions>. This unit wasn't upgraded in any way.

<read the whole review:) 2 opinions here for you to know>This effects sounds flat and devoided of character, when You plug it directly to the amp. I'm using a Laney VC30<wonderful amp by the way>. When you plug it directly, it lacks bass and middle frequiencies, and has to much treble. This is whith the factory patches. Fiddle a bit with EQ and You can get a decent tone, not a rich one, but one with which You can get by at, say, a church with people who never played on good rigs, or, even better, never played any instrument at all. I was really dissapointed, when I heard this. It sounded nothing like the demos on the net.

But.

I plugged it to the amps effects loop. ****! This thing's came to life when I mixed the amps signal and this one. I don't use the distortions and overdrives provided, I think that my drive channel on the Laney is superb and adding the zoom distortion only makes it muddy. When mixed, the tone I get is rich, the modulations sound really good - I can get everything from sweeping phaser sounds, rock flanger effects, to Mars Volta and King Crimson strange sounds. You can make short loops<5s max>, so You can try doing Robert Fripp-like soundscapes. When recording, You can adjust the delay time to ms, so that everything fits into place, and when playing live, You can use the tap tempo function. With the expression pedal<looks solid and trustworthy> You can also adjust the settings of anything, from level of distortion, the speed of some modulation effects, feedback on delay, volumne... Amazing.


Plugged directly - sucks. I'd give it maybe a 6.
But because God gave us people, who invented the effects loop, I'm giving a 9. It deserves it. The effects are rich, theres no sterility in them as far as I can hear<I've never used the legendary, vintage stomp boxes and thus, I compare what I hear with what I can hear on various records.>

The other good thing is, that You can get both a minimalistic, hard rock sound with maybe a touch of delay, and You can create fantastic innovative new, trippy sounds which can make Your music more interesting.

What more do You want?

Had it for a year now. I wanted to wait before writing this review. Very reliable. The only thing is that the pedal got loose, and didn't stay in place<sucks, when You found, say, the right rate of a phase effect>, but that was easily repaired by adjusting the screw underneath.

I would gig without backup with this zoom. No worries.

Never dealt with them.

I play rock, jazz, electronic music, sometimes I mix'em up. It's a perfect match. I've been playing for 4 years I think. I won a Laney VC30 and a Epiphone Del rey guitar. If stolen, I'd replace it, or, if I had a bag of money, I'd buy a lot of better stompboxes. But for now I don't need anything else. What do I love about it? It's everything I need and more. I don't really hate anything about it. I compared it with some PODs, and it sounded fuller. The only thing I wish it had would be tap tempo for the tremolo.

slightly confusing, but easy over all. patch editing is lengthy, due mostly to the sheer number of parameters. there are A LOT of tidbits to tweak. the manual is straight forward, but for the most part you don't really need it. i perused through it once or twice and have actually lost the manual due to its lack of use, and that was almost a year ago. i don't refer to it anymore. the specification catalog got me so "amped" that i couldn't contain myself (sorry for the corny pun).

i use ibanez and bc rich guitars, namely an rgt42, an xpt700(xiphos) and an rg7321 7-string from ibanez (the xiphos has dimarzio d-activator pickups) from ibanez and a 2005 platinum virgo from bc rich. i run one output of the pedalt through the efx return of a hartke gt100 head/marshall mg412 cab and the other through the pwr amp in of a 100 watt peavey 212 efx combo. all my guitars have d'addario stings. i would say about a third of the effects feed back really bad, and an effect will feed back on one patch and not on another (i suspect codec conflicts). HOWEVER, the znr loop has a noise gate and a dirty gate, and enabling one of these and plugging through the back of the amp as opposed to the front fixes this 100% of the time. the amp select feature lets you choose the voicing that suits your sound/amp best. some of the distortion emulations sound better than the original (in my opinion). the zoom originals sound amazing, especially the extreme ds and distortion +, as well as the z-stack z od and z clean. the modulations are good; some could be a little better but most are high end.

as i mentioned before, i have had this thing for almost a year. it has been dropped, tripped over, and even heavily drooled on by my baby cousin. i have taken it for use in my guitar class it my high school and now i'm a music major in college and i lugg it to and from school every day.

n/a

i play most types of rock music from classic rock to grunge to modern metalcore. i listen to and play songs from bands as diverse as creed, lamb of god, dimmu borgir, trivium, dream theater, mastodon, van halen, lynrd skynrd, molly hatchet, korn, incubus, greenday, goo goo dolls, etc. i listen to just about everything that is rock, blues, and jazz, all but country. it matches all of these well. if my *pride and joy* were lost or stolen i would buy the same thing over again. you would have to pay ME to get me to buy something else. i have friends and neighbors who have digitech, boss, ad pod multi's for similar prices and i honestly like mine best.

-- it took some time for getting a good distortion sound.
-- editing patches is as easy as drinking water.
-- u dont need manual for editing, storing, transferring patches... cos its real easy. USB connection, Midi connection etc are clearly discussed in the manual........

-- fine
-- no noise at all with ZNR on
-- sometimes effects are weak.... as i said u have to spend some time with this box to get good sound
-- iam not using any amp now. just my headphone
-- no i dont hav any fav tone of any artist... i make my own
-- Clean tone is awesome....

-- ya i depend on it 100%
-- i just use a shoulder bag to carry it... no other hard casae

-- no idea, never tried....

-- i play death metal
-- 3 years iam playing, i hav a ibanez GRX40
-- if its lost or broken i wud must buy it or g9.2tt.
-- i love its look... hate some distortion tones
-- i tried Boss GT6. which is great but costs more......
-- it helps me making music a lot... i record a lot with it.
-- never make any comment about this pedal unless u spend some time with it.... cos its factory presets are too bad.

if youre into multifx.. this ones easy to tweak... press a module... control the parameter knobs... voila!!... :) tube intensity and the Energizer (Boost) works fairly good getting the grit to blend into the output of the fx... some editing especially using the Tap switch and the EXP pedal is a bit confusing... all in all easy to use...

ok after using this Unit for almost a year, on a pc recording theme, and on live situations ive come to a certain point that this is not the unit i was looking for...

im not after having a nice SIMULATION of a brand of amp... instead i look for the ones that will suite my taste... the thing here is that i use this as my main Distortion unit... so to tell you my story here goes... i wanted to buy the G7 because i have the G2 once.. and wanted to have a bit more of pedals to push (patches to be made).. plus the added tube and other stuff im willing to upgrade my mfx.. of course you can dial in a nice MS Drive and get its natural saturated sound but the fact of the matter is you have to COOk the damn drive to get what you want.. i know some enthusiasts will get mad because they'll say that its a multi for christ sake!! but for me the true color of the distortion is by itself... nothing more... maybe a little eq'ing will help but its simply is the ability of that drive to stand alone... and guess what... it DIDNT...

in order for you to get that nice chunky feel is that you have to either add a BOOSTER (included on the G7), and/or a bit of Compressor, a bit of over eq'ing!!! and thats gonna be your drive... to mee its just damn too much.. really... the only drive i was happy to be playing with is the Big muff emulation... of course with the added Booster option to chunk up the tone...

as far as the distortion goes (or preamps on others) there are nice and there are not good ones... let me enumerate a couple... starting from the clean ones... fenders doesnt do well,

but the Vox and the Hiwatt is very very usable...
going to the crunch mode... Bg crunch is great + the booster
High gains... MS is just fucking Muddy, Bg + booster works for me, DIEZEL + booster, good... some are pure Muddy i tell you!!!
stompbox... the DS-1 and Od-1 are good copies but not really excellent maybe a rating of 9... the ts808... passable... Fuzzface... never tried one... Big Muff + booster probably the MOST NATURAL OD in this unit... Metalzone??? is not not not good... Guvnor, Hothead passable...

ZOOM's distortion however is really usable... and the Zoom Clean?? is remarkable good... and did i mention the Zoom OD? its really dynamic!! .. like a guitar driven on a Sonic Maximizer.. Zoom Drive... is a hybrid of like a marshall and a fender... good for new age metal... Acoustic is somewhat like an electric acoustic guitar... the Extreme dist is the meanest and very close to DIMEBAG'S Sound...

there are other od's and preamps in this unit that i havent mentioned because i never have used it...

now comes the good parts... and i dont want to ellaborate them all coz i was into the preamp of this thing... Modulations are excellent!! and the delays are superb... also the reverbs... nice blend of wet and warmth... Delay can be tap tempoed (also reason for buying the thing)... the chorus especially the Ensemble... is fascinating... phaser has 4 colors... which is very versatile... Harmonized pitch shift is nice and sounded much better than on the GFx8... The Whammy is thin sounding... its just a bonus added feature i guess... as this one really is not useable... but for the poorman that i am... i still use this as a substitute...other than that some dynamic delay and flange that is pick-responsive... good :) The tremolos are very basic.. and has a nice float on them.. the Wha's are great and now as close as the Crybaby's... forgot to mention that the COMPression are nice and thick...

THE THING IS SO DAMN QUIET!!! and this is a plus for the UNIT even in its fullest gain... but when a Wah or a booster is added it cant control it... obviously.. (booster cranked + preamp cranked? NOISE MAYHEM!!!!)

Ive used it on a peavey bandit 112, peavey studio pro 112, on a marshall valvestate 50w, and my altec speakers and other cheap sounding Guitar amps... each amp has a different tone.. so if not tweaked right.. it will emit that digital highs

heres the thing after a year of using it..some knobs and footswitches wont work... one button died with it... its not realiable i guess even if it was made of metal... the damn buttons are flimsy... jocks and the pedal is sturdy though... always brought (and the reason for selling) is a damn cheap behringer GDi21 for backup

mine is an upgraded one...

i have forgotten if ive already posted my comments here from some time now but the point is... if you really wanted an all in one pedal that is cheap and dont want to argue whether you want to over process your sound.. then go with this one... it can sound good with a few COOKING... my only gripe was that the OD's and Preamps doesnt feel natural... and it is seriously bothering me... compared to the GDi21... damn...

This doesnt feel right... i know its a processor but why did the Gt-3 has that nice analog feel? the Gdi21 is better (but with a lot of noise though) try it...

im gonna have both the GT-3 and Gt-5.. i prefer this units as they both have Nice clear and better sounding distortions than the GT-6 and they have EXTERNAL LOOP Options so if you dont want their od's or somthing.. yuou can patch in your favorite pedal to the effect chain... :) sorry but i guess if im going to buy a zoom product maybe a cheap g1 or g2 just for practice...

This is really a follow-up review to a previous one of mine. Scroll down a bit for the original.

I said before that this unit sounds terrible in front of an amp, and it's no good through a PA. Well, I can take back some of that. It can sound good in front of an amp and into a PA, but it takes A LOT of tweaking and perfecting. In the end, you can get a good, usable sound (good for live gigs that don't require top-notch tone), although good stompboxes in front of your amp will still sound a lot better. That shouldn't be surprising - this unit costs under $300, and it gives you everything. Of course a $100 overdrive pedal will have a better overdrive sound - that's all it's made for. This can give a respectable overdrive sound along with a host of other respectable sounds. If you put in the time, this can be a worthwhile purchase. But like I said, it takes a whole lot of tweaking to sound great.

Some tips are to use the booster effect and the air delay effect. Both can round out rough edges that you can't tailor with the EQ (one of the disappointing things on the G7). Also, try cutting gain in the EQ rather than boosting to get the tones you want. For instance, if your tone is too fat, cut the bass rather than boosting the treble. Usually, you get a better outcome. That may be rookie advice, but hey - not everyone's a pro at working an EQ.

Fairly easy to tweak. Includes software editor which makes it easy and fast. Also comes with Cubase LE which is nice.

Now, for the price this unit sounds pretty good in the area of amp modeling, overdrive, distortion, etc... But for other types of effects it is pretty weak, like tremolo sucks, wha is tricky to use, reverb is totally awful(as with most pedal boards)
Also, tremolo and phaser are in the same section, so can not be used together:(

Overall this is a very good board for the price and for rock and blues styles of music. For a more modern and... effecty sound, boss or even korg can be a better choice.