Zoom GFX-1

Intuitive interface to modify/program your own patches. Manual easy to understand.

Using with a Peavey XXL amp and usually a Fender Cyclone axe. Noise gate can be set to make unit quite even when amp is in very high gain mode. The only effects I find useful are chorus, flanger, echo/delay. I use the amps reverb and distortion and run this through the effects loop. The headphone jack keeps my wife happy when practicing riffs at home; you don't even need the amp to use this feature.

Built like a tank. If you break this thing, nothing would withstand your abuse. I use this with a power supply I got at Walmart for about $10 and take batteries with me in case it would fail or some knothead rips out the wire.

Chinese made so I imagine you can forgoet about support, but it's only 100 bucks, so if it would quit (which I doubt), get another.

I have been playing country, rock, and blues for 30+ years. This effects box does okay considering the cost. It's not going to be all things for all people, but most will be able to get some sounds to their liking at a reasonable price. I like being able to have 4 sounds set up and ready to instantly use with the push of any of the 4 buttons. The tuner has also proved useful. Capable of 40 presets which you can adjust as you wish. With that many, you can set up groups of patches for each style of music or guitar you may be playing.

I just got this unit online - I'm a bit different from my colleagues who have written reviews in that my bag is country. For a number of years I have used a Korg Toneworks unit through a Peavey Nashville 400 - through our board. Lately I've found that the newer country needs a bit more edge and I needed something that could be controlled with footswitches. I set it up the other night, wondering if I would be able to get the patches I wanted set up before our next gig Friday. I was impressed with how easy it is to modify and store custom patches. In a matter of about 2 hours I had programmed 6 patches that will cover most of my needs - including one killer acoustic guitar sound.

Before purchasing this unit I had bought a Behringer tube distortion unit, thinkin I could combine it with the Korg unit and cover my bases. I used it once - but it set up a horrible noise level that I couldn't seem to squelch. By contrast the GFX1 is very quiet. I agree with some of the other reviewers that some of the preset patches are pretty cheesy - especially the "metal" distortion ones - but I don't use them anyway, and I agree with the person who said that this is typically the case with any effects unit - you only need a few of them. As I noted above I run through a Nashville 400 - with a - you guessed it - American Standard Tele. I reprogrammed A1 to the sort of clean/edgy sound often used in neo-classic country (think Alan Jackson's Chattahoochie or Dwight Yoakam's Guitars, Cadillacs). A2 is set up to give me a full-bodied acoustic sound (saves me carrying an extra guitar!), A3 is a fairly clean distortion that works for a lot of the new country (think Toby Keith). I do agree with those who said it is difficult to get the "tube" sound in here. A4 is a great thick chorus sound that I used for things like Brooks & Dunn Neon Moon. B1 I set up with a reverb/echo sound that works well with Johnny Cash type stuff (think Folsom Prison Blues). I set up one other one, but I forgot what I did with it. I agree with those who singled out the EQ setting for criticism - It mystified me - as I flipped through the different settings I heard little difference. That could stand serious improvement. For example - on the acoustic patch there is a low end rumble that the EQ did nothing to correct. I may take the advice of the reviewer who puts a Behringer EQ unit in the line.

It's too new to me to really comment on it - but it does seem to be built solidly.

Haven't used it.

I think I got a pretty decent deal on this. I bought it on eBay for $99 with free shipping and an AC adapter thrown in! I've been playing for 40 years - I've played most kinds of music at one time or another and have owned pretty much every guitar and amp that has come along. I always come back to the Tele though. Folks - when I started playing if you wanted distortion you poked some holes in your speaker cone (unless you had lots of money to buy a Marshall). Amplifiers had reverb and tremolo on them - something I wish they'd bring back! I'm damned if I can find an effects unit that has a decent tremolo effect on it. If you wanted echo, you had to find some whiz kid that could wire two tape decks together and run them out of phase. As for the other questions - perhaps I'll come back and weigh in after this weekend - we've got three gigs so it'll get a good workout.

Very easy to use, except for the EQ module, which is almost impossible to operate. The EQ offers 50 different presets to browse through. Better just leave it off.
Editing, storing and deleting patches is not intuitive, but very easy once you have a look at the manual.

I have used tis with a Fender Strat and strat-type guitars, and an Epiphone Dot Studio. I mostly use a Fender Twin Reverb, but I have also used it on Marshall and Peavey amps.
My playing sound is somewhere in the classic rock landscape, mostly rythm work.
The unit steals a bit too much sound when bypassed.
The drive souds are not very good. Might be good for metal (gets extremely distorted), but you can't get a dynamic and crisp drive from it.
The fx modules are all set up in presets (you have 4-6 different presets to choose from within each module). So tweaking possibilities are close to none.
Basically, the fx sound ok, especially considering the affordability of the unit. But if you are looking for great sound, you will be disappointed. It might be a cool gizmo to have if you want to fool around with it, but with the limited tweaking possibilities, and no on-the-fly editing features, you'll get tired of it pretty quickly.

It's a sturdy piece of gear, and it can certainly take a good bashing. Definately built to last. It runs at a surprisingly long time on batteries. Have had it for almost a year now, even used it on a couple of gigs, and never had the slightest problem.
EXCEPT: The featured tuner is not at all reliable. When I've tuned with the Zoom, I can plug into the Korg DTR 1000, and every string is slightly high.

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In my regular band I play rythm guitar with a slightly distorted sound. I also have a lot of side projects, and play everything from heavy rock to qute pop music. My most used setup is the Dot through a Marshall Bluesbreaker II and a Boss chorus, into the Twin. It would be nice to have some delay and wah along with some other fx I could play with, but the Zoom is not very useable at those fx. Because of the sound it steals, I have left it out of the loop for good.
Have been playing guitar for 16 years.
If it was stolen or lost, I probably wouldn't care too much since I don't use it anymore. But then again, I don't think I would get any other multi-effect. I normally don't use too many effects, and I much prefer the feel and possibillities of stomp-boxes.
Limited as it is, the Zoom is ok for fooling around and experimenting a bit with. And at that price, I guess you do get what you pay for.
If it had true bypass I would probably keep it in my setup for rehearsals and jam sessions.

Well I have to concur with some of the other reviewers here. You don't need a manual nor do you need a degree in physics to figure this beast out. Simple interface makes for intuitive programming. It just does not get any easier than this device even if you want to hook up a controller.

Excellent sound quality...and I mean when compared to units such as the V-AMP Pro and POD units. This little box holds it own from a sound perspective. The programming of patches is somewhat limited, which is likley why this unit is so inexpensive, but if you get past wanting to tweak eveything to death, you will be pleased with what you hear. All of my guitars are custoimized with Duncan pickups but gig with a '76 Strat, A Wormoth custom built Strat and a Jackson Soloist guitar. I go from my Cry Baby into an MXR phase 90 in to the GFX-1 and out to BBE Sonic Stomp. My amps range from a Crate Power Block(what a wicked package that is) to a Fender Bassman and a Peavey classic 50/50 power amp. My cabinets vary from single 12's to a couple of 4X12 Fender cabinets.

Built like a tank. If I wait for this unit to fail before I upgrade it, I think I'll be waiting for a very very long time. I would definitely gig without a backup unit but in fact this unit is my backup unit. I have had my entire (rather expensive) rack system go down on me at a gig once. I plugged this unit directly into my poweramp and no one was the wiser of my misfortune. By the way the bateries make it ultra convenient to use as a back up, just make sure that you have spare batteries or an appropriate power supply;-) Any Boss 9V powersupply will work, way cheaper than running next door to the convenience store to buy 4 AA batteris for $7.00. Good that it has a power switch as well to help save those batteries.

I did send off a couple of emails to them and never did get a response. Not impressed.

Great sound but a little restrictive in terms of EQ programming, delay programming and the fact that you can not get delays and reverbs at the same time but in terms of bang for the buck, this unit is great. Going to a quick jam some friends, throw this into your case and off you go. Great back up at a gig for you basic sounds. Great form factor as well with instant access to 4 different sounds without having to scroll up an down. I am looking forward to auditioning the G7.1ut box but the GFX-1 will be a hard act to follow. I'm giving it an overall rating of 8 mainly because of the limited programming capabilites.

1.)sorry for my english(i'm italian)
2.)I'd say it's quite easy to use.If you've used zoom before it shouldn't be a problem.Just got to get used to the thing. Manual is ok.Presets suck!

It has got all the effects you need to play even serious stuff.BUT YOU HAVE TO USE IT WITH AN EQ!Put something like a boss pedal-eq (i use a behringer eq700... 19Euro, does the job)after the gfx1 and you will get good sound for an unbeatable price!But use it without eq and it will sound really digital and not nice at all!
I've been playing for about10years,used single coils,humbuckers,cheap guitars,expensive pro guitars,15W combos,big stuff from marshall,fender,laney,mesa and a lot more I can't remember. I've always tried to spend less money possible but have highest quality for the money I paid!You can have nice,clean,warm (even nearly-studio-quality) sounds with cheap gear and you can sound like shit with gear worth 2 cars!It depends on you, on what you want and how many time you invest in doing researches in terms of sound quality.
This is a nice multieffects-pedal but incomplete if not used with aditional stuff!But great value for the price!!

You can depend on it.It's build VERY well.Metal is always better than plastic!!I've used it life/in studio/in my "little" home-studio/on the road/and so on. As I'm traveling a lot and NEVER travel without a guitar one of my concerns while I was trying to get myself a multieff.pedal was (beside the price) that it had to deal with the "i'll take that thing with me anywhere-factor". And it did well. I bought less than a year ago and it's still doing a good job!I'm actually using it (with lots of other gear)for recording sessions. If you search you will find stuff that costs less and has the same effects BUT I HAVEN'T FOUND ANOTHER ONE(from another brand)that is built better than this one!
But as I always say: Treat your gear good and it will sound/work good for quite a while!
And if you have the possibility make sure to have ALWAYS backup gear.

DOn't know.Everything's still working...Never dealt with the company

So this is the overall rating.Well,I play 80%metal, 10%Rock and 10%whatever comes to my mind.I mean give me any guitar, tell me what to play and if it's not solos from Vai or Satriani I'll play it(or at least i'll try).Yes ,it's a good match for my style! I like this little 4-pedal thing 'cause it's small,works long enough in battery mode,has a nice sound(used together with an eq as I've explained before),it's very resistent,has a stereo output(you can use it with headphones/cool for me as I travel a lot)or use it with a stereo jack going directly into a mixer,a stereo eq or 2 amps,it's quite cheap,you can buy an aditional expression pedal and so on... I like this thing! Hope my review is usefull for some of you as some of your reviews where very usefull 4 me!!!

It doesn't get much easier than this. Although punching through dozens of presets, especially on the eq can be a pain, it is still very easy. The manual is small for a reason. You almost don't need it to get going. The only thing I would recommend for the manual is to outline the individual settings for the presets so you could see what combinations were being used without physically going through the patches.

American Strat through a Hot Rod Deluxe. I'm sure a tube amp will enhance any set up but I can get any sound I need in live situations while covering everything from Rock, Blues, Southern Rock and Country. You can really hear the compression and noise limiter kick in without any negative effect on the sound. The delay time is not the longest but fine for most situations, same with the chorus. I will likely get a separate wah pedal. Check out the suggested settings from "bigjan", they were great, thanks!

Kicked around this metal chassis with no problem. Runs great on batteries which is very convenient. Never had any problems with other Zoom products I've owned.

This is a great unit for live sitiutions and especially for someone who does not want to carry a pile of pedals. I've been playing for 20 years and have owned other pedals and effects but given the total package (price, number of effects, portability) this is by far the best deal around. The 4 pedals are worth the price alone. This unit will likely make all other "2 pedal" options obsolete. Separate on/off switch will save batteries. For the money, its hard to complain about not having more control over delay and eq settings. If it were lost or stolen I would pick one up on the way to my next gig and have it set to go before soundcheck.

If you are a tone junkie like me, do not buy this thing. First of all, let me explain what kind of a tone junkie I am. I like classic vintage tones, mainly from tube amplification. Think Angus Young, Alex Lifeson, Glen Tipton and KK Downing (70's era Judas Priest), David Gilmour, Tony Iommi, Duane Allman, etc.

Editing patches is really easy, in fact, one of the few positive things I can say about this unit is it is really easy to use. You don't have to be a guitar tech or sound engineer to figure it out. The manual is fairly straight forward. Editing patches is quite simple.

If you like that wide open tube tone, the GFX-1 will compress it. There is a compression setting built into the unit, but by default this thing completely eliminates that godly tube tone, even on it's lowest compression setting.

Trying to get any vintage tones, a la Classic Rock disortion is futile. I've played this thing through several tube amps and I get better tone playing straight through rather than hooking up to this thing.

There are few good things about this unit. If you like Metal, this thing has some killer Death Metal crunch. I was quite surprised by how tight and focused the Metal patch is. Also, I was able to customize a clean channel with a dash of delay and chorus that sounds pretty good too, but again, it's compressed and not open sounding how I prefer.

It's built like a brick, nice thick metal body, should last a while. The footswitches are not that great though. Unlike a stomp box, there is a millisecond or two delay after depressing the footswitch which sucks when you want to change tones on the fly. If you don't do it just right, like in the middle of the song, it sounds lame. Stomp boxes are the way to go.

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I got this thing as a gift and I've played around with it for a few months. It's just not my cup of tea. It's got good Death Metal distortion, but that's it. Everything else sounds flat and boring. Oh well.

if you want a good sound, it's not hard to get a good sound. there are effects that are useless because of poor quality, but that exists for every pedal model and varies from musician to musician. you spend $1000 on a pedal and you will find flaws, so there's no big deal. the important thing is you get 4-5 excellent quality sounds from this thing, because essentially there's only 4 pedals. trust me, you will find more than 4 quality sounds out of this multi effects processor. there's 40 different types and each are distinct. ther may be a few you won't use, but you can fool around with it.

editing patches are quite tricky for a beginner. behringer is a good example for beginners and i used to have a heavy metal distortion pedal. okay, it's not bad, but i refunded it 20 days later and bought this instead. not surprisingly, this gave better effects and more effects. editing shouldn't be a problem if you read the manual, just like a video game. read instructions before you complain. chances are everything you ask will be written in the manual. if not, ask someone, but don't cry about it. this isn't rocket science, just a guitar pedal.

i was a bassist at first, and i plug my esp ltd ec-50 into a yorkville xm100c. say what you want about not getting a variety of sounds through a bass amp, but it's not like you'll use every single effect. however, after hooking this gfx1 to the bass amp, wow, i was amazed. all these different sweet sounds from good distortion to glass clear cleans. makes me consider why i even bought an acoustic when my electric produced such sweet cleans through a bass amp. if you're using a guitar combo, there shouldn't be any problem whatsoever. you'll get more effects than me, but it's not a huge difference. i have a 100 watt amp and didn't want to waste money on a cheap guitar 30 watt combo, so i used this money to buy an effects processor and i'm glad i did.

noisy? i don't think zoom manufactures know what 'noisy' is in english, because there is no noise at all! when it comes to distortion, there may be a bit of hum, but come on, it's $135! again, there will be flaws, but for $135, nothing comes close. besides, the hum isn't irritating yet anyway, so don't worry about that. if you're asking about cleans, then it's fine too. i thought i turned off my amp when the gfx1 was on clean. it was so quiet. it seems like a noise gate is included, but i may be wrong. it's quiet.

again, each pedal has flaws and you won't use every single effect because there's so many. there are effects that are as good as 10/10 and as bad as 1/10, but for the bulk of it, i am happy with the nice effects and most of them i can have fun with.

there's 5 different 'good' distortion where you can pick out the note you are playing. good sound, it deserves a 9 for overall quality.

if you're using 4aa batteries, then you might need a back up, but i bought an expensive power supply ($26), so that shouldn't be a problem when it comes to power outage. i'd gig with this without a back up, because it's built like a rock. it's made of metal and behringer is made out of plastic. go figure.

why am i comparing behringer to zoom, you might ask? well i want to compre products i used to have and the price range is in that range. zoom > behringer.

never dealt with it, hopefully i don't have to.

but i give a 10 for the refund of behringer. i lost the package and they still refund me full price. excellent service from long and mcquade. very nice. i ended up going to tom lee music for the gfx1.

the 10/10 goes to long and mcquade.

zoom has excellent effect products. they cost more than behringer's, but that extra money will give you extra quality. the pedal itself is only 135, but i also bought a seperate power supply for 26 and after tax it comes to around 185. not a bad deal, and i'm not unhappy because it didn't include a power supply, since many other products did, but it's fine. for 135, youy can't really argue it when it comes to effects.

if you're on a tight budget, this is one thing you don't want to miss out on. live or recording, it'll sound cool and can mimic some artists as well. how well? you can be the judge of that, because effects aren't the only thing that mimics. it's also your rig, guitar, etc.

if it was lost or stolen, i'd probably buy another zoom product. i don't know if i will buy the same one, but i like to try out different things. nonethless i'd probably spend more money if it's stolen and upgrade for something expensive if i save up. but yeah, say no new models are coming out, i'd get another purple gfx1.

there's other modelers out there, but preamps and such give you lerss effects. if you're budget is from 100-300. you really need to try it. i was planning on buying the zoom g2.1u, but there was no stock and there was only one pedal. i usually change effects within one song, so that wasn't a cool feature. i heard the sound quality is the same with the g2 and gfx1, so save moiney and buy something cheaper.

if you have 300, you don't need to spend everything. buy what's suitable and spend the rest on your girlfriend or something.

i'd reccomend this one for sure.

This thing is fairly easy to use. There isn't a lot of tweakability (is that a word?) for the effects, amp models, etc, but the presets for them are useable. I'm using this mainly for the doubling effect, phaser, flanger, chorus and the echo set fairly low. I'm not using the amp models in a live situation, but I plug it in to the PA for rehearsal, and the sound aren't mind blowing, but it gets the job done, and it beats lugging my amp to rehearsal. I use mainly the MS Drive model, which I think is supposed to be a Marshall JCM800, and it sounds pretty decent through the PA. Editing patches is very easy, and the manual is concise and doesn't wade around in bulls**t. Very well laid out.

I was quite impressed with the sound quality. The built in noise reduction is nice to have, as I've only run it in front of my amp so far. I will try in the effects loop to see how the sound quality compares, but the effects I'm using sound very good. They don't sound as good as individual pedals, but I use the effects very subtley anyway, so for what I want it's very good. The flanger setting is actually my favorite, and it did the 'Unchained' thing quite well. The other guys in rehearsal were quite impressed with that one. The doubling effect is very good, and it thickens my sound the way I want and doesn't sound electronic.

Nice casing, and the footswitches seem nice and heavy. I don't forsee a problem using it live.

Never had to contact them, and if it's as good as I think it is, I never will.

I play in a Rock cover band. I really only have one sound to begin with. I use a 50 Watt Marshall SL-X and Avatar 2x12 cab. I really only bought it for the above mentioned effects, and the built in tuner (I sold a Boss TU-2 to pay for this, and I had enough left over for a couple of other goodies). It will certainly do the trick for me. Seems sturdy, sounds pretty good, and I imagine it will be on my pedalboard for a long time. Unless I receive a cash windfall and buy all the effects pedals I want. But for now this will keep me happy.

AS easy as ABC... Just need to refer to the menu for any little problems. I give it an 8 because there is no display screen to show the name of the patch... but for S$130... what can you ask for?!!

As another Singaporean had submitted a review, I totally agree that the metal distortion (in fact, most of the distortion are good) blew right into my face. I cannot get enough of it. However, the EQ is more of like a set of pre-made pattern. It is unable to edit individual settings. At least, zoom did have this "Contour" thing to add abit of colours for the tone. I should say that EQ is not a problem, as I can just get an individual EQ pedal from BOSS or MXR or Behringer....

I own Korg AX1000G and Digitech RP2000, what I realize is that this ZOOM pedal lacks is extra setting for each effects/mods.... perhaps something like - Chorus can be set with depth, shape or colour. The ZNR is good. At times, there can be hissing sounds, as long as you set the ZNR right, it kills off the hissing sound.

As for me, I am looking for cabinet simulation, distortion types, EQ and small little effects. I use little of delays and reverbs. I like this ZOOM pedal. I'll just get an individual EQ pedal to control the tone.

I hope that ZOOM can add in a new feature such as Pickup Simulator. I was also looking for Multi FX with such features and in my area, I only can find Digitech and Korg Pandora 4.

I give a 8.5 to 9 because it is good enough for me, and i like the distortion.

I recommend that buyers get an adaptor. You never know what will happen during performace. I think many this ZOOM pedal can last long.

I look at the website and download pictures of it. I thought that it is longer. However, when I saw it, it is like smaller than I thought.

No comments.

I play Sevendust, Siam Shade, Pop, Funk, some Black Metal...
Quite a range.... So this pedal is alright for me.

I have been playing for 12 years since 14 years old.
I wish ZOOM can add Pickup Simulator for their next series.

For beginners, you can try this product rather than investing on individual pedals.