Zoom GFX-4

After the first day I purchased it, i stayed up until wee hours trying to figure it out how to work this thing. I must say that in manual mode it is a piece of cake since it works just like any normal stomp box. In program mode things kinda get awfully complicated at first,but after two days it seems that program mode is much better to use than manual mode. Editing patches is more user friendly than i had expected. THe manual is informative, clear and easy to understand. You will have to study the manual carefully and be brave to try new things out if you want to get the best out of this product.

I use an Aria Pro II gt series electric guitar and a pair of mesa boogie amps and cabinets. The first thing I noticed was that the factory presents sounded so crappy I regreted buying it. It either sounded too noisy or too weak or too digital or should i say very fake. It took me a week to thoroughly set all the presents all over again to bring out the hidden quality of the product. To add even more realism and life to the sound, the VAMS technology really brings out the character of the sound, even if it is no match to the real legendary fender or marshall amps(c'mon, how much are you paying?!). Not all effects mix with each other. Some sound good alone but sound crap when mixed and vice versa. Most of the present drive effects are okay and the modulation effects sound really good. The delay effects are creditable but you will have to spend time to set it to your liking. All i can say is wether the effect sounds good depends on the user's settings.

On my opinion this unit is surely dependable if compare to it's other units such as gfx 8 and 707. My friend bought a gfx 8 last month and one of the footswithes snapped and ran out of place. I found that the footswitches on the gfx 4 are more stable and durable than gfx 8. The expression pedal is also very sturdy. The only draw back of this unit is it doesn't have a bank down switch which is not very stage friendly during gigs. The circuits seemed to be very reliable and I don't think I need a back up at the moment.

I don't think I need customer support at the moment.

This is the first multi effects unit I have ever bought and I must admit I am very happy with it. I get more that I expected and could possibly ask for compare with the price I paid for it. Those who are seeking to buy their first multi effects processor can give this unit a try.

LOOKING AT IT, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIGURE IT OUT , BUT IT MAY TAKE TIME, PLEASE SEE THE MANUAL, IT IS REALLY HELPFUL, EDITING PATCVHES IT ALSO VERY EASY, I THINK IT IT MUCH BETTER THAN GFX 8, GFZ 8 IS ONLY ABOUT ITS HEAVY PRICE, BUT TRY GFX 4, IT LOOKS BETTER THAN GFZ 8 AND PLUS SOUNDS BETTER THAN IT

ID SAY EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS THING IS REALLY OKEY, EXCEPT THAT THE FLANGER IS A BIT NOISY...... , I GIVE 10 POINTS TO ALL EFFECTS , I GIVE 7 TO FLANGER AND 7 TO DISTORTION WAHWAH, BUT ACCOUSTIC WAHWAH IS BRILLIANT

IT IS MADE UP OF METAL,LOOKS GREAT, LOOKS LIKE A DIFFERENT KING OF INSTRUMENT, IF SHOW TO SOMEONE NEW, THEY WOULD LOOK AT IT FOR MOMENTS AND FINALLY SAY WOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

THEY ARE PRETTY GOOD AT CUSTOMER SUPPORT

BEST FX I HAVE EVER SEEN TILL NOW, I THINK GFX 4 IS THE KING AND, GFX 8 SOUNDS EVEN WORSE THAN 505, BELEIVE ME,505 sounds even slightly better than gfx 8, buy gfx 4 it is the best product, with anew flavour

Nothing new once you are in this business. Moreover, BOSS-like layout makes thing even easier. Knobs (not push-buttons) is a great touch!

LP copy with SD's, Rosewood body Tele with '63 no-name (very bright) PU's, Rickenbacker 1997 to SansAmp TRI-A.C. to ZOOM GFX-4 to either Fender DeLuxe 112 Plus or TORQUE TK50. All sound good, depending on the music you are palaying.
DI'd into my Roland VS sounds MUCH better than Roland's COSM FX.
GFX-4 could be noisy when the flanger is set too high. Even ZNR doesn't solve the problem since the noise starts few seconds after you struck the last note. Rather than that it is SILENT.
By playing with the knobs you can obtain the sound of any top-class guitar player who doesn't use ZOOM as a distortion FX. For real distortion look around for something else.
Compression, EQ, chorus, delay are VG!. Flanger good, but noisy! Reverbs are VG (be careful, though!), delay, vibrato - good. Wah - @#$%$!!! Try VOX or CryBaby instead.

Looks pretty sturdy. Don't know yet.

Thanks God, never had to deal with any Company!

I'm in classic rock/blues and everything near to it for about 20 years. For my setup GFX is just fine (switched from DIGITECH PR-7, was using number of BOSS pedals -OD, CS etc. - didn't like 'em). If it were solen or lost - which is unlikely - I'd probably get another one used or look around for something of this type.
I wish it had another footswitch for jumping from BANK to PROG mode. Maybe it would be a good idea to have less banks with more patches in every bank.

Very easy to use,having used zooms before I didnt really have to use the manual at all but even if i hadnt its nice and simple to use.

1-very dissapointing.the most important thing to me is distortion..the d.s are ok if you want a mildly driven sound but if you use a lot...aaargh it just sounds so awful, really fake and fuzzy.Im using this with a jackson and 100 watt custom made valve amp.The rest of the effects are ok.I had a zoom 2100 before which pobably came out at least 2 years ago and the delays and distorions are much better.

I would use it in a gig but only when very sober and being careful as there is no bank down pedal which could prove dificult when thing are heating up.

dunno

I play heavy stuff mostly,ive been playing for at least 6 years.If it were stolen id get something else,Im probably gonna sell it anyway cos im not happy with it.I guess its ok for a lot of other styles but dont use it if you want good distortion-this ruined it for me.Also the tuner is a bit weird,the amp simulators IMO are pretty rubbish,there's no prescence control,and for some reason the compressors just make your whole output really noisy(with distortion)!Im comparing this mainly to a zoom 2100 which as i mentioned is older, and i cant see any advantage the gfx-4 has over it apart from looking nice,and being slightly faster to change settings.obviously the footpedal is not a bad thing.

This is a follow-up on the previous review from a dissatified player. Actually, this unit is easy to use and to program.Very intuitive, much better than a GT6.

This is the point; very important, it has a true bypass, so if you want the clean sound of your amp, once switched off, it's out of the way. The quality is as good as a GT6, though, less expensive. The fact of the matter is that those kind of devices will emphasise the mid frequency; if you already have a mid amp (Boogie as ex) It will tend to sound very piercing , unless you cut the highs and the mids on the patches. I use to have a Traynor, wich was relly bright, and a Caliber 22 Boogie; the GFX-4 was ok but a little too bright and aggressive for me. You have to have the right amp in combination with the right guitar and effects to achieve a good warm sound; the best match I have found is the Fender Deluxe hot-rod (tubes of course); it sounds warm, musical and the patches on the GFX-4 sound much much much better. I tried it with my other amp that I got recently, a digital Yamaha DG80 2x10 , and it sounds good but not as good as in front of a tube amp. Those things are in fact a preamp and most of the time, they are used in front of the amplifier preamp. I tried in the effect loop but did not really like it. In fact if I have a Fender or Yamaha , it is the preamp I want to listen to! The distortions are good, the fuzz sounds very much vintage, good compression and overall, all the bread and butter effects are there(Distortion, fuzz, tremolo, compressor, overdrive, wah,ring modulator, pitch shifer, chorus, flanger. etc.

Have it for a year, very sturdy and I think it will last

No dealing with the cie.

To sum it all up; good sound and contrary to what a previous review said, the Boss GT6 sounds more brittle than a Zoom , more synthetic. I had the chance to A/B a Zoom GFX-4 side by side with a GT6 and the GFX-4 was more realistic and , i'd say, had a denser sound. I don't think the GT6 worth all the money they sell it for. It is a good machine , but in my view, it tends to make everybody sound the same.

I find the GFX4 pretty easy to use. I checked the manual a couple of times, and that was quite enough. The trickiest bit was how to program the expressionpedal.

I use the GFX4 for chorus, delay and reverb. These three types of effects are of high quality, and this unit maintains alot of the original sound. Noise has never been a problem, as long as the noisegate is activated. I can't comment on the other effects, since I have not really used them to any greater extent. For its pricerange the soundquality (at least the effects mentioned earlier) is great. Also, the bypass function works fine, taking the unit clear out of the signalchain.

It's not sturdy, nor is it flimsy and weak. Pretty standard quality for something not made of metal. It has withstood livesituations, and seems OK construction-wise. I would depend on it, but it isn't made for being abused.

The GFX4 has worked fine for me, and hasn't acted funny yet after a year of use. Watch out for the weak power-input, though. The cord might fall out if you aren't careful.

I have not dealt with Zoom, Samson or the distributor for Sweden since there has been no need for it.

I play 80s popmetal and light rock. This style of music, or at least to suit my taste, requires pretty extensive use of effects and this unit has stood the test. I have since moved on to rackmounted effects, but the GFX4 still gets used from time to time. I would, however, not buy it again if it were stolen. When I had just purchased it, I probably would have gotten another if I lost it, but not now.

This unit has two major drawbacks. No MIDI and no footswitch to move down a bank. I can understand why it hasn't got MIDI, since this really isn't a professional piece of equipment, but the lack of the footswitch is pretty strange. This means you can't go from, for example, A2 to A1, but instead has to go thru A3, A4 and A0 to get there. Unless, of course, you want to bend down and use the little bank down-key.

I compared it to just about everything in its pricerange (DigiTech, Boss, Roland) and this came out on top for ease of use, nice design and quality of sound.

The GFX-4 is pretty daunting at first, for a first-time user of a multi-effects unit. The manual is thinner than I'd imagined, but it has everything explained in great detail. As I always find, it's better to dive right in and then look at the manual later - hands on experience is more effective for me, personally.

The unit, as a solid-state multi-effects unit, has a lot of 'knobs and buttons', placed just about everywhere. At first it was a little overwhelming, as I had no previous experience, but it's easy enough to get used to. I realise that there are far more expensive units out there, but this has a lot to keep the user happy, and as such, its ease of use could potentially be impaired somewhat...not so! Once you've had a look about, it becomes pretty apparent. Effects are divided into 'groups', with there being 4 groups (A-D). Each group contains 5 'banks' of preset effects (0-4), with each bank containing 3 separate effects. These effects are adjustable via different knobs that sit above the chosen effect (ie, 3 knobs for each effect). The whole unit can, obviously, be controlled by a simple set of footswitches. There are 4 footswitches - one to control the chosen bank, and 3 to cycle through the 3 available effects per bank. The only disadvantage to this setup is that, to cycle through the available groups, you have to bend down and press one of two small buttons, that serve this purpose. Should be sitting down, two more small buttons also serve to cycle through available banks.

The expression pedal is also very simple to use, and can be customised for a variety of functions - wah, pedal pitch, volume control, etc. Integrating the expression pedal into the effects for anything other than volume has proven a little complicated, but then, I haven't really read the manual as much as I probably should have!

Editing patches is also very simple. You select the parameters you wish to keep, when in 'manual' mode, and press the 'store' button twice. These parameters vary, from the amount of gain you wish to have, to the seconds of delay, to tone, etc. Very customisable, yet very simple to use. When you've saved a patch, it gets stored in one of the 60 available 'user' patches (as opposed to the 60 pre-set patch slots, which cannot be overwritten). If you're currently in 'group A, bank 1, effect 1', the new, modified effect gets saved to the same place, but in user pre-set patches.

The amp and cabinet simulators are very easy to use also, and a brilliant addition - anything from a single tube combo, to classic amp stacks.

The 'drive' option is also easy to use, representing many different sound options. From the thick sounding 'Fuzz' option to the bridgey, twangy, absolutely gorgeous 'metal sound', these can be used in conjunction with up to 8 separate effects at a time. Brilliant.

I'm using the GFX-4 with a Roland Cube-15 amp and an '87 Jap Strat, usually with neck pickup selected, and running the amp on clean channel. I don't have too large a problem with noise from the effects unit, due to the 'ZNR' facility on the unit. This is a peice of noise gate technology, which is customisable to suit the different effects. You simply press the 'ZNR' button once, and, on the LED screen, a number comes up - from 1 to 10. You can quieten the background noise with a setting of 10, with the trade-off coming, apparently, in sound quality of the effect itself - it becomes more 'fuzzy'. I say apparently, because I've had very little, if any, experience of this myself - the sound quality to me remains much the same, with only the guitar volume decreasing slightly. Without a doubt, the 'ZNR' facility is a great help in eliminating background noise.

Effects volume varies with chosen effect, but, if you plan to go on stage, you can simple set the patches you'll be using to have a similar volume, and so this problem is eliminated.

The effects don't sound weak, because they are all fully customisable. If something isn't to your taste, I can pretty much guarantee that, with a bit of tweaking, you'll come to love it! There are endless options for customisation - you really have to see the unit in action to realise just how numerous - and great - these options are.

The sound of my favourite artists are easy to obtain, in that effects like 'Vai' already exist - pre-customised to get a screaming Vai lead, in this example. Satch is also represented, as are a number of other guitarists. More generically, timeless sounds, like the classic British Marshall rock sound are represented, as are numerous other classic sounds.

I can easily depend on this unit, and, apart from the fact I couldn't afford it, I wouldn't use a backup. What do you wanna do with it - jump around on it on stage? You're audience will love you for that...I don't think!

To all those who question its reliability in previous reviews: do you have size 20 feet? Or bad eye-foot co-ordination, giving you poor control over pressure exerted!?

Built from metal and plastic, it won't break in a hurry. But, as with anything, treat it well - if only to preserve the beautiful looks! The expression pedal itself is reassuringly solid, as are the footswitches - they ain't gonna drop off!

I play a lot of different styles of music, but mostly Blues. I find that one of the effects in particular approximates the clean channel on my amp, but with a warmer sound, which I love. However, true to Zoom form, this unit is built for overdrive - and it does that extremely well! As such, it's excellent for rock!

I've been playing for around a year now, and I own a Westfield semi-accoustic, a generic strat copy (my starter guitar, to which I'm ever grateful) and the aforementioned '87 Jap Strat. I've only played the latter through the effects unit so far, though, but I don't foresee any huge differences in performance, with regards to type of guitar and amp combination used.

If I lost it, I'd consider myself careless, and if it were stolen, I'd be very angry. I'd get another one as soon as the insurance money came through...! 'Nuff said!?

I love the amp and cabinet simulators - a brilliant addition - and the sheer customisation opportunities the unit presents. Excellent for stage use, I can imagine - and soon it hopefully will be used on stage. Looks great, lots of lights! :) In addition, the 'drive' options, and sturdy expression pedal are great.

I compared it to a Zoom 5 series, but decided to go for this, for 40 quid extra, just because I could. Cleared out my piggy bank, but it was worth it!

I'd like to have had a metronome built in - just anything to help keep time. But this doesn't really detract in any way from the all-round greatness of the unit.

It definately helps me make music. Sure, there are sometimes when I just take it out, if I want a general clean sound, or if I want to make use of the built-in Boss effects on the Cube-15. But it helps to make anything sound good, really! It's great for getting different sounds out of the guitar.

Its pretty simple

AWFUL, the unit is so damn noisy its unbelievable. All the distortions are rubbish they all sound crap, you cant gig with this thing because if you play it load there is sooooo much extra noise. The tone of them is crap, they all sound horrificly fuzzy and not solid. The wahs and stuff are shit aswell.

If your gonna gig with it take care, the unit seems so feeble and almost 'flimsy.'
Also the adaptor cable is v.thin

Overall I was EXTREMELY dissapointed, the sound quality was a real let down. If I could go back I never would have bought this thing, and would have spared the time of me selling it.
Take my advice and dont buy it! Its full of cheap amateur tones which might just be suitable for bedroom-play for a kid's first thing, but not even that - its too expensive.
If your looking for a good range of quality distortions buy a BOSS pedal, thats exactly what I went and did.

Very easy to use,straight forward manual.

at first i used it with a headset,and it sounded great..But then when i tried it trough som amps,its just like the sound want come out off the speaker.It gets vwery noisy,and my guitar is drowning in the other ones.Not even the fabric_patches seems right

Coverband,plays everything from Metallica to Beatles.All OD,s are very noisy.tips anyone?

Yet another update to my update of my original post - OASYSCO.

I left the GFX-4 at home and started taking my stand alone pedals - Morley volume, Boss CE-2 (great understated chorus pedal, BTW), a friend's Boss Blues Driver for OD and the amp's channel switching pedal for amp OD, and a tuner pedal. I thought with individual pedals I'd be able to tailor my sound better... wrong...

I had already customized my Zoom GFX-4 to the 10 or so patches I always use - a couple of stadium OD patches, a crunch patch, a couple of clean chorus/delay patches, an organ-like patch (for intro to Black Magic Woman), and a few other specific patches.

Try configuring dedicated pedals like that in real-time. My volume was all over the place... hit one pedal to turn on OD - oops too much volume, back off on the volume pedal... oops, too much - forget it.... Uh-oh, need to tune up... oh the pedal doesn't light up unless it has a AC adapter... bend to the floor... sucks up too much tone, so have to manually add and remove it from the chain... Oops, the light is fading on the CE-2... I guess the battery's dying... what happens if it dies altogether?

The GFX-4 gives me great OD at low or high volume. The tuner works with and has a mute option. I can flip form the organ tone to a clean chorus tone with a single footswitch. I like the OD tone.

My only gripe (besides having to manually switch banks, which I have overcome by moving my fave 16 patches to one bank) is the over-sensitivy of the pedal when set to control volume. Move it a little and you may get much more volume.

OK, I'll remedy that with an outboard, passive Ernie Ball 6166 with tuner out. But I'm using my GFX-4 again. Having all that capability pre-programmed and accessible is just too convenient not to use. It'd be one thing if I didn'tliek the tone, but I do like it and have it tailored for my particular gutiar and amp combination.

Why I ever thought using individual pedals would be easier, I don't know.