All user reviews for the Zoom 505II Guitar

I bought this off of some website for $68 a couple of weeks ago. With the wall adapter and shipping and handling, it came to about $102.

This unit is awsome. It looks nice, and plays great. When I got it I thought the acoustic setting would be lame, but actually sounded very nice. It has a very nice range of effects, suiting just about all types of play. After about 15 minutes of a learning curve, you can operate with ease. Customizing effects is very easy, and rather fun to do. It was affordable, even though it cost more than my amp and guitar together (I got my guitar for like $10 ) The best money I've spent in a long time.

The pedals are plastic, but I can live with that. I wish there was a longer cord on the AC adapter. I can't seem to turn it off without unplugging it, but then again I'm not the brightest kid. Otherwise, perfect.

Like I said, the pedals are plastic, but the rest is sturdy.

If you're looking for lots of effects, with out spending a lot, start shopping for one of these.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Ordered it from the Zoom company in Japan for around US$ 130 with the power pack and expression pedal.

The guitar amp simulator is quite good. The effects can be manipulated to a very good degree, especially with the expression pedal. What I really like is that the expression pedal is a seperate piece from the unit itself. So you can place the expression pedal a good distance away from the 505 II. It's also good if you are used to using your left leg to control the expression pedal. Most other units have the pedal on the right side making you use your right foot. Lots of good effects and an unusual one called the 'Stepper'. I like the unit's size, very small and compact.

There are about 36 user patches but I feel this is not enough if you are a serious musician. Around 60 would've been ideal. Also, I feel that some of the effects that could be used together cannot be used together in the 505 II or it can be to a very limited or small extent. The two switching pedals could've been a little more further apart because in the dark, you might step on both at the same time (triggering the bypass).

The sound quality is excellent but the construction is a bit weak in the sense that the unit it made from plastic. It'll definitely break if you're not careful with it.

Overall, it's a really good unit for it's price. It's good for more professional players who want flexibility with their effects. A good number of effects are available and I would highly recommend this unit to anyone.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Received for christmas gift

Excellent range and combination of effects. Operates clean on acoustic and electric guitar. Can combine several effects and set levels of each, then save it as a new effect.

There is a learning curve and some reading to do to understand the unit. With some practice and experimentation this one pedal can make some great sounds.

The unit appears to be durable and well built yet is very light-weight.

Get the ac power supply. For the money this is the pedal to have

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Like many people, I could not afford the sound of a two thousand dollar rack mountable processor. I had heard a friend of mine playing through the 505 and I was impressed, only hearing it for the first time. One week later I ordered one through Music Emporium back in 96. Recently I bought the 505 II and was more impressed than its prodecesor.

The 505 II has a wonderful warm clean tone sound. If you want more delay or reverb, it gives it to you. The distortion is great! I love the wide range of variety that can be chosen. I like the fact that the tuner is so accessable. Its attractive and portable. Built for quality! I like my equipment to allways look brand new. This unit can be cleaned with ease! Most of all and most important,anyone will get what the payed for. A wonderful, portable, affordable guitar effects processor.

There is only one fault with this unit. It is not in real time. When you get used to it, you will not notice!

The construction of this product is very impressive. It looks great, it is very durable, and can be cleaned very easily. There is no small gaps or pores for dirt to adhere to.

The bottom line is this unit surpasses all others. I recomend this product to any guitarist that cannot afford a rack mountable processor. This unit will earn every cent paid for it!

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

under £100 with adapter and connection cable.

Good wah, pitch shift (down only), good flanger, phase, Equalizer, contour, delay/reverb.
This item has zillions of effects. DO NOT USE HALF OF THEM!!
The noise gate is very good.

The distortion is crap. the one called blues is ok but the rest are very poor. that is what your amp is for. the upward pitcshift is poor as it leaves a component at the original frequency so you get the ghastly diatonics produced.

GREAT!

Good if you dont overuse it. Get a volume pedal and use that as a control then ull be azay. remember to put the patches in order to use them when playing live or u'll spane forever cycling through them during gigs.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I got this on sale around Christmas for about
$90. I wanted several effect but hated to buy
several effects units.

I like the unit OK. I wouldn't gig with it (well
I would, but then the folks I play for are too
drunk to matter), but it's great for fun playing
and messing around.

I like the built in amplifier simulations. It
also had a lot of effects that someone may not
want to buy a dedicated unit for; like flanger,
phaser, etc.

I like the ability to create and save your
own effects also.

I got some noise when switching from a "talk
box" simulator to another setting. Weird. Only
happened on that one change. This unit is not
nearly as good if you don't have the "expression
pedal". The "pedal pitch down" is awesome,
but you'll need the expression pedal for it.

Seems to be fairly well constructed. No problems.


I like this unit fine for the price. If you
are going to buy it, I would greatly recommend
buying the expression pedal also.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Mail order, about £70. I needed to do some experimenting so i thought that a multi effect unit would be the way to go.

The sounds are great. You can create some outrageous sounds, utterly brilliant noises! The unit is unbelievably easy to use, the manual is pretty sh*t tho, just flick about yourself and you'll find yourself working the unit within 5 minutes. the pedal also makes my amp sound a hell of alot louder. Also the option to bypass the pedal, good for a strong, basic sounding verse, then hit the pedal and kick in to a crazy, loud solo.

The construction seems really weak. I've not gigged with it yet, but i dont think the unit could take much hard handling. The distortions are all quite similar, but you can over come that by mixing them with other FX. If you wanted to use alot of different FX in concert that could be a problem, the selection is quite difficult to get used if using many patches.

12 distortions, contour, reverbs, delays and echo, compression, wah, flanger and a hell of alot more. Easy to use, but looks quite flimsy.

A great unit. Fantastic purchase. Excellent sounds. Yeah, that sums it up.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I never had the pedal myself it was my freinds and I was thinking of getting one myself.I think he paid about 38 dollars. But it was on sale.

I thought the pedal was great. It had many different effects you could mix and and change to find the exact sound you wanted.

The biggest dislike towards the pedal was that it drained batteries real fast. and the power supply cost 20 dollars itself.

The pedal was all plastic and didn't seem to sterdy. But for most that wouldn't matter much.

I think the pedal is great.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I read about this unit in guitarplayer magazine. I had been looking for a smaller effects pedal to use on my pedal board because I was trying to fit everything on an the small SKB pedalboard. I also was looking for a unit that I could hook up through the power supply cord on the board instead of having to plug in another power brick. I paid $80.00 for it.

I love the size of this unit. It is SMALL! It fits easily on my board. I can also plug it to the board with the supplied power cable so no need for an external power brick. I like the amp sounds. They can be tweeked to almost anything you like. It gives me a wide varitety of sounds from heavy distortion to clean and crisp with a nice chorus. It has a lot of effects on it. I like the noise reduction feature. Elimates my external noise gate unit. Lets me compact even more. I have also used it in my home recording studio. The amp simulator works well for that purpose.

The flange and phase effects are not as adjustable as I would like. You can only do so much with them. They seem overpowering for the most part. I use an external phase pedal most of the time. You can only use 2 effects at once- 3 if you use the phase with other effects.

It seems to work like a champ. It is not constructed with the best quality material (plastic) but for the price I think it's pretty good. It has held up live so far. No problems. Zoom is quite reliable.

If you are looking for a low price, small effects unit this is the one. A lot of people wouldn't dream of using it live but it fits my use for now in the band I'm in. It downsizes my gear and since I don't have a roadie any more that means a lot to me. The unit also works great in my home recording studio.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I wanted something to give my guitar more sounds. I had a cheap entry level ibanez with H-S-S configuration. the Gio series one. I was playing it thru a peavy blazer 158 and it just sounded cheap and small. well I didn't have much to spend so I looked at this, and when I played it it had lots and lots of sounds. oh and I payed $79 for it and I think another $50 for optional experssion pedal.

Lots of options. good selection. good effects, good control with the effects pedal. mangable wah..everything sounds like it should.

The distortion sucks I think. and the sound goes from really loud on one to quiet on the other. it picks up any noise if anything hits it. often on the accoustic the low e just sudenly sounds HUGE and overpowers the rest of the unit. weird stuff. it has only one out so you need to use a y cable or headphones to hear the stereo stuff like chorus. and the ac adapter is like another 30 dollars.

its "space age plastic" metal bottom. the battery compartment is on the bottom and easy to get to. my all purpose ac adapter hasn't fried it. the knobs are all easy to use. just don't expect too much on the stage option switching. its small and stuff.

you pay for what you get. its good for the couple pedals you could replace with it, but you can't get all the inbetween settings that you could with a regular stomp box without the expression pedal. plus the tuner isn't bad. probally the best parts are the tuner and the flanger and phaser.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I am a guitarist with a moderate amount of experience but currently, mediocre gear. A friend of mine has the first version of the 505 series pedal and recommended I buy the 505 II. I did some reading, read some reviews made sure it had good backing and even went to the store to gawk at it and on return visits to my friend’s house, used his. I was sold. So, later down the line, when I got a few pennies (actually about 80 bucks) I ordered it from Mars music overnight (because I’m very impatient when it comes to waiting for packages) and the next day I had my new toy.

This little pedal makes my 15-watt fender scream. I’m very impressed on the solo practice personal use side. It has good distortions and the presets, while some of them ridiculous, held among them, a few gems. From my experience with the first version of this pedal there have been many great updates. You get two extra patches to each bank (making it a total of 6 patches in each of 6 banks and thus, 36 total), a knob for selecting different specs in edit mode, and some other good controls. Depending on your taste it has a better outer design and it seems smaller but still equally useable. If you can manage to get settings down well you have a potential for tone and put through a good amp, this baby is a monster. Also, the inherent ability to display your patches in a written form (ie. Volume: 25, gain: 12, dist: blues, etc…) internet sites have done a good job of putting up many patches for you to choose from.

First off, this is a digital pedal. That makes for a small gap of silence in-between patch changes but as my friend demonstrated, you can be creative about working around this minor detail. Secondly, I don’t like the plastic construction and I personally would have preferred a different style of pedal maybe more along the lines of a stomp box style button switch. More problems come up when switching to patches that are separated by other patches. You have to be a quick trapper to get it down unless you want to place patches together based on your need of them in a performance type situation. And lastly, I cannot read that damn LCD in any kind of daylight. Only in a moderate or darker lit room can I read it well.

You would assume a plastic casing on a stomp box style pedal would be a bad choice and while I still say it is, it has proven it self more than worthy. I have stomped the heck out of it and once dropped it on concrete form a standing height while fumbling with the battery slot. Still works!

Professional musicians, this is not for you. I would not even recommend this to a gigging band unless you use only one or two distortions per song (in which case I recommend you nestle them together). This is for people who sit in their room and play a lot. And for the price you simply cannot beat it. Just think, ten years ago, you would have to buy a rack mount in the upwards of 500 dollars to match this baby.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

i got it as a gift from my brother. He bought it on a trip to Manhatten. I have no idea how much it cost but i assume around 79 bucks.

It's a really cool little system. Has 36 built in effects. 12 different distortions, metal, blues,basic overdrive and other cool sounds. It also has 33 effects like, chorus , flanger, slow attack,cry compressors, limiters, wah-wah,delay and echos, phaser,pitch shifter and it's all in one unit! ain't great?It also has a tuner in it but i never use it. After a little "fooling around" you will get the hang of it. I easily built a few effects to my satisfaction all by myself. I believe any guitar player will enjoy this little trinket.

It's really a fun multi-effect. The only bummer with it is that you can only use
9 effects at once. But that isn't such a great disadvantage , at least for a beginner such as myself.
I don't think it should be used for preforming. I have a friend that used the unit when he was on stage and he said he had a problem switching through the effects. Sometimes there was a moment of silence when the switching was done and basically uncomfortable to work with on stage. So i guess this is the ultimate multi-effect when you are playing at home and definetly for a beginner.

seems to me like a pretty sturdy unit. i don't really like the way the foot switches work. sometimes you have to press a little harder or you pressed to much.This is another reason why its not very good for preforming.
Now, about the power source. You have an option of using either, four AA alkaline battaries or DC9v electrical connection. I use the battaries because i don't have that kind of connection and they have been working well for quite some time now.

This is a reallu Great unit for a beginner and also serves the experienced player well when he's fiddiling with effects at home.
Although i don't know how much my brother paid for the zoom 505$ i have seen some places with very good prices. You can't beat those prices for a great Item like this one.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

Bought this one used for £60 because I'd heard that it was a good place to start for a beginner. Seems like they were right!

This unit is brilliant for anyone starting out on a guitar - although the distortion effects seem pretty weak, they work very well alongside other effects to produce a clean, nice sounding result without any bg noise. Very versatile, easy to use and very well supported are the factors I found most satisfying about this - check on the net for more user created patches, most of them are great and it has a great user base to boot.

The biggest problem I had with this unit is the actual design - it feels very fragile when I'm using it and I can't imagine it lasting me for an amazingly long period of time, but I'm going to make the most of it while it does. If you're used to using durable pedals I wouldn't recommend this one because you'd probably end up breaking it very quickly. Good for personal use, but this easy breakage wouldn't make it so great for gigs. As a multi-effects pedal it's great, but the individual effects don't really stand out by themselves.

Still, like I said - it isn't particularly durable. BUT - it does have a nice design that's good to use and has a unique look which makes it stand out from the rest. The effects are good enough and it seems to have been put together very well with that traditional Zoom feel and look.

I thought this effects pedal was great - it did everything I expected it to do, worked a treat and has a huge support base. I find it great for personal use, but if you're looking for a sturdy pedal for gig usage I really wouldn't recommend this. If you're going for personal use, this is a great place to start - especially for beginners. I found it extremely useful and thought it was worth every penny I paid for it.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com