Zoom GFX-4

It's very easy to get good sounds out of this thing. Once you are through the manual, it's like stealing candy from children.

I really like the three-knob-per-pedal, which gives you a feeling of handling several stomp boxes.

I use the Gfx4 in front of a Fender FM212 R with 100 watts and a Avora GT 25, both solid state. I play a Cheri Les Paul with DiMarzios, Fender US Telecaster, Stagg Flying V with Shadow P90'S and a Harley Benton HBL500K Les Paul copy. I use a Tubescreamer 808 and a Hellbabe Wha in front of the GFX. First of all, the Drive section is great. It's perfectly for my needs and offers a wide range of sounds, between creamy blues and evil metal. I use mostly delay effects and different OD and distortions and of course the ampsim, which makes my solid state amps sound more tube like.

The expressions pedal is kind of useless for me, the range is too samll to modulate the effects in a senseful way. I use it as Volume Pedal to mute my guitars.

The first thing that borke was the Power supply cable. I replaced it and after 4 years of use the onboard power connector broke and I repaired it. It never let me down on gigs (which are about 60)

Never dealt with them

I play a strange kind of progressive stoner rock and I play guitar for about 8 years now. I have the Gfx4 for about 5 years now. I am looking for a second device as a backup on ebay at the moment. I wish it had a tap speed function for the delays...

It's pretty well laid out and designed. You will need the manual to get your head around how it's arranged, but once you have it's very flexible and can be easily tweaked. The three adjustment knobs for each section of the pedal make it easy to, say, adjust the delay time halfway through a song.

One very irritating problem is the slight pause when changing patches. When you playing you have to get used to hitting the pedal half a second before you need it to kick in. I guess this should be expected given the price of the unit.

The tuner is great, and is far more responsive than the standard Boss tuner pedal that everyone uses.

The pre-programmed sounds are very over the top and mostly horrible, but it's easy to strip them back to basics and create nice, subtle effects.

Generally the sounds are good but they are rather noisy, and sometimes rather synthentic sounding. The better your amp is, the more you'll notice the pedal's limitations. The distortions are probably the most impressive, I managed to get a setting that was almost indistinguishable to the crunch channel on my Marshall valve amp. I'd reommmend you use the compression on the unit to get the most out of the distortions. Phasers, delays, wah etc are all pretty reasonable. They're not as good as individual predals, but perfectly usable.

The amp sims are another very useful feature that means you can use the pedal for direct recording into a PC or whatever. They take a little tweaking, but can be made to sound pretty good.

My first one went funny and some of the buttons stopped working. Luckily, it was just before the warranty expired, and was replaced. Generally, it seems pretty solid, and has survived lots of gigging, although the PSU wire is far too flimsy and breaks easily.

I took my first one back to the shop where I bought it. They sent it back and gave me a replacement. Never dealt with Zoom themselves.

Overall, this pedal will suit a beginner fine, or someone who's starting to play gigs. It gives you a very broad palette to work from while you find out what effects you like and use the most. More experienced (read: fussy!!) guitarists will probably not be too impressed. I don't really know how it compares to other multieffects, as I've not used many.

I used mine quite happily for about three or four years, including tons of gigs. I've now changed it for individual stomp boxes, which do sound a lot better. I miss some of the effects the Zoom has though such as pitch bending with the expression pedal, and I might start using it alongside my stomp boxes.

As it's my 3-rd processor from Zoom Co. I know their ideas so for me it's very ease however while setting some patches I had to chech manual.

My first opinion after one week "hard working" on it was : it's not good... but...
After 16 years playing giutar today I'm playing in three bands : gothic, hard metal and clear pop so I'm using quite diffrent settings. Like it was mentioned som are noisy (flanger) but not so bad you would be dissapointed.
Next thing which is very important for me (keeping on mind my 3 bands) : I need good Metal sounds, dark Metal and clear with chours, delicate tremolo, delay, reverb. I spent many hours to get my sounds but I did it!!!! And I have very critical point of view on any Metal effects, distortion, overdrive (as my favourite kind of music is metal)
You will have to make some experiments with distortion with or without EQ but with equalization from Pitch , Flang or Tremolo as EQ..believe me : it will take time but you will find what oyu want. Chorus :great, flange : could be better, Pedal Pitch : in Zoom 8080 was better (without any additional effects of course). So, I really happy for this unit. I heard Boss GT, Digitech, and I decided to Zoom again- Was thinking about GFX 8 but there is no volume knob ... the rest it doesen't matter for me.

One suggestion for ZOOM Corp - power supply : do something as it's really crap.... I changed after consultation with one of Polish electronic corporation ( they advised what should I use). Body is quite solid, after few years all pedals works fine, no complains. Expr. pedal is Ok but coudl be little biger : I not a brownie and my feet are litle bigger that this pedal... :/

no need for now, but they don't response for my emails

After spending many hours with plenty of effects thie one gives me what I want. I don't have to go with God know how much quantity of single effects playing several music styles. Sometimes I wish the wah would be better but it's not bad and nothing special (exluding coolwah :))) )
And one question : why there is still no option to mix for ex. pitch with tremolo or with chorus ...??

Once I read the manual and understood the editing and group/bank arrangement, I think it is fairly easy. The manual is well written and I had working patches quickly.

Not to detract from the FX side, I think the absolute BEST feature is the true bypass feature when selecting the active patch. I wish more FX units had this feature. this allows you to make sure the levels are correct and you know what the amp is doing befo eadding any effets.

OD: better than most Boss/Digitech to my ears (almost a stomp)
Dist: Not bad, beter o the "over the top" dist
Delay: not bad, not able to get fine adjustments on delay time (close)
Mod-Effects: Yeah, the Flanger is noisy, but overall the mods are good.
Reverb: Not a Lexicon, a lot less $ and good variety of verbs.

I use this with a Soldano Decatone and an Allen Tonesavor.

Looks to be well built and I actually bought this for a backup to my high end rig. It is built better than a lot of the cheesy ones ou there. I've always though the Boss GT-5,6,8 had the most robust construction, but this isn't bad.

I bought this used, but is seems to have held up well and looks like new.

Don't know. One plus is that the manual is available from the Zoom website.

If you are a purist and like the true bypass capability, this is one of the few multieffects units that does that. For the price I think this unit absolutely rocks!

Quite easy to use if you regard the manual, which is intelligibly written. Due to its TWO modes (usual multi-effect bank-switching AND stomp-box-like operation), you've got to use your head a bit to get its versatile opportunities. There's need for a bank-shift pedal, so that you would not have to bend down though...

Most of the sounds are great and if not abused relatively noiseless. But, hey folks!I simply can't understand why you folks adore the distortion of this thing. You will need hours of adjustment to get your sound right (that cannot be blamed upon any cheap gear, which I have not!)!
Compressor: fine
OD: it depends...
Dist: Oh, shit!
Delay: great
Mod-Effects: very miscellaneous!I did not expect that from a low-budget piece of gear!
Reverb: ok for most of my purposes

It works! I did gig with it under any circumstances and it never let me down. Looks quite fragile though. Crappy AC-Adaptor. Pedals could be bigger and more distant from each other.

Never dealt with them...

It does its job quite well. If you want this for distortion, go and buy another one or at least test it whether it fits your sound-visions. Great to try out different types of effects and to find your sound. Mind the price!

Switching between patches within a bank if straighforward. Easy to see display with ability to customize patch name. Editing patches is easy. The manual is comprehensive and logical.

I use a variety of guitars including a Strat with Duncan pickups, Gibson V, Aria TS-600,Dillions with Humbuckers and P90s. Also used for Bass compression. The ZNR (zero noise reduction) feature keeps the backround hum at very low levels. Very comprehensive set of distortions. Best suited for Rock and Metal. The expression pedal is very versitile and can be programmed as a volume, wah or effect change pedal.

Very solid construction with a metal body No problems in the 3 years. Used at weekly band rehearsals and live performances. I've never needed a backup.

I've never needed support from Zoom

I play mainly rock and blues. This pedal is better suited for rock, clean or metal. 8 years playing in bands and 20 years overall.
I play through either a Fender DSP 90, London Reverb or Crate Vintage 20. A very good device for direct mixing into a board. The pedal is well suited to tailor for particular amps as you have 60 patches to customize. I wish there were better choices for amp modeling. Better than the Digitech products as I compared the GFX-4 closely to the RP-300. I have many Zoom and Samson products which have all been a great value.

I give it 9 because the manual isn't that useful at showing how to use the basic stuff. That said anyone who has touched a multi effects unit should have no problems as its fairly easy. You can press the manual button, and the switches acts like 3 stompboxes (drive, modulation, delay/reverb), very similar to the Boss ME-50. Patch mode is fairly straightforward, with 3 patches in each group (toggled by the footswitchs). bank up footswitch goes to the next bank. 60 patches in total. onboard tuner is easy to access by foot, so not bad for live gigs. While no bank down footswitch has been mentioned heaps it isn't too bad, as long as you sort your patches out in a good order. Setting up the expression pedal to custom stuff like tremolo speed is also easy to do. Few other advanced things that need reference from the manual but thats about it.

Sound quality is overall very good. Unlike most multi effects units this has a true bypass (mono out only) that avoids a/d/a conversion, which is good when you use it with a few stompboxes (like myself). Most of the effects are top notch. The entire drive module is well done, with top distortions/od and a decent acoustic sim (needs lots tweakin like any acoustic sim though). The fact the distortions are actualy analog means they sound much better than digital distortions eg. Boss Gt-3, Gt-6. The envelope and auto swell (sounds like Boss sg-1) are also good. Compressors are decent once tweaked. The modulation stuff is mostly excellent. The only bad ones are the pitch shifter / pedal pitch, which like most multi effects is unable to do octave up with out artifacts. Got some decents sounds for 5ths (for RATM - Know your enemy solo), since you can hide the artifacts behind dry signal but wet only (as in whammy sounds) is not too great (but its like that on just about every multi effects around). The choruses are top notch, especially stereo chorus. The Flanger is also good, is a little noisy but most flangers are by nature. Phaser is one of the best i have heard, tremolo is good. I also like the step effect, makes for some cool weird sounds. The Wah is good, but for some reason doesn't work that great with distortion, I got some goods sounds with tweaking though, and also with use of amp overdrive. The Delay module is probably the highlight of the unit with some really good effects here. The reverbs are very convincing, much better than reverbs ive seen in other multieffects units. Echo is also good, and has hold function too, which is a bonus. Reverse is very cool, and allows for wet signal only, making it better than the Boss DD-5 and Digitech X series Digidelay which can't get rid of all dry signal in stock. Obviously with dry signal, the sound of a guitar playing backwards (the whole point of reverse) doesn't come through.

This unit is also one of the quitest multi effects around, with a built in noise surpressor / gate (ZNR), and also has an amp/cabinet simulator for recording direct. Amp sim is decent, of course it can't replace marshall stack but its there.

Tuff plastic and metal. This aint gonna brake easily, the footswitchs are just as sturdy as other units like Boss Gt-6, Digitech GNX. Would gig without backup.

never dealt with them

Top buy, a bargain at under $200. This is better than a boss gt-6 in many respects (better sound quality in many areas) and less than 1/2 the price.

easy to use axcept for the banks...no 'down' switch!
anybody read the manual?...it's a college text book...make it simple..

i'm using esp kh2 and other shit...i'm a metallica fan kinda guy..the wah sound is too mild...i cant get it loud and extreme like kirk hammett sound. help me..anybody?
changing modes(between patches) really effect the sound..u have to tap on the paddle a little bit and toe it down to get the original sound back.

i have to add few more gadgets like a crybaby wah(i use gfx4 pedal for volume), boss ds2 and other rack shit.

since that i play blues, rock and heavy metal...it need to be added few more shit..
i've been playing guitar since 1989...oh yes..i have line 6 pod 2..it's fucking hard to use on stage..need a rack of footswitches! yet..too small..(my advice..dont buy this thing!)
if my gfx4 were stolen..i'll buy something else..

It is pretty easy to get a good sound out of this unit since it looks like the juxtaposition of 3 stompboxes. Editing patches is just as easy. It is impossible to bank down the patches though, ant that is a major annoyance when playing live. The manual is well done overall.

I play with a Washburn Bettencourt model guitar (the cheapest one) and my amp is a Peavey Bandit Transtube II. The unit is not significantly noisy unless I am using extreme levels of distortion Then the noise reductor does its job. I bought this unit mainly for the metal distortion it gives. It is dynamic and sharp after you tweak the equalizer. Reminds me of the Boss Metal zone tone.
The effects are all pretty good quatlity ones with enough parameters to satisfy most guitar players who want a good sound quickly. You will get good Iron Maiden distortions with it. The fuzz sound is good too, along with some other distortions. Some are bad though, but all in all you can find what you want.
The clean sounds are not so good, as they lack tone. It takes a lot of tweaking to get a half decent tone for clean sounds.
The Wah is correct, nothing that can compare to a Cry baby but it's okay to use it once in a while. If you are a Wah freak, buy one separately.
Chorus is good, especially the stereo one, phaser and flanger are pretty good, and the echo/ reverb section is also satisfying and provides all that a guitar player needs.

That's where the major complaints go. I have had this pedal for 2 years and a half and last year I began to have problems with it. the plastic switches just aren't sturdy enough. I have not been tough on it though, but they are stuck and randomly interact with the settings.

I play mainly rock, from funk to metal, with a special emphasis on metal. this pedal is good for it. I have been playing for something like 11 years. If the gfx4 was stolen I would not buy it again even though it is not a bad unit at all. Better than some more expensive units. But I just wish it was sturdier. I am planning on buying a used Boss gt3 from a friend for really cheap. The distortion of the GFX4 is better so I will mainly use the gt3 for the very good modulation effects it gives pluggin it in though my amp's effects loop.

well i just got this thing and i think most of the effects are really easy 2 except maybe for adjusting the expression pedal which isnt explained well in the manual other than that i edited 3 effects in the second day i bought it and they sound outa this world

i kinda have small equipment (esp explorer and a small 30watt amp)and the gfx4 seems to work perfect with them ...i was surprised how quiet that thing is i edited a distortion and created a monster but when not playing its reallll quiet even without noise reduction..

since this is my first multi-effect i surely will go on a gig with bec i went on a gig with boss pedal(ds-2)and it sounded not so bad but this baby i would definatly take to a gig without backup

never tried them hopefully never will:)

i mostly play power,thrash and this effect has it all except for the wah i just cant get out of it the wah used by metallica in their solos ive been playing for almost 2 years but the rest is gr8 i compared it with the me-50 boss and i didnt find a dist i liked in the me-50 so i choose the gfx4.