Zoom Fire-15

i bought this at my local guitar shop. i paid £80 for it which seemed like quite a bargain to me. I already own 2 guitar amps and a decent array of pedals but i was moving into a new flat at univesity in the city centre and didnt have room for them all so i thought a practice modelling amp with a headphone input would be the perfect solution to my problems

For the price i wasnt really expecting the earth to move for me when i played it, but the different amp models where surprisingly good. To be honest its no match for the line 6 Spider or a pod unit but the Marshall model is great fun with the gain turned up and the acoustic option is also pretty good. As you would expect from Zoom the effects are of a fairly high standard for the price and the menu's are clear and easy to use.

Dont even bother with the Fuzz or Metal amp models unless you want to sound like some Swedish death metal band plugged into a cheap Squier amp on full gain, these settings completely destroy any tonal quality your guitar might possess. The slow attack and Ring Modulator effects are fairly redundant as well and the level of effects isnt too impressive. Another problem is that the auto wah effect only seems to work on the 3rd and 4th strings unless you add a load of chorus to them.

The amp is nice and light but still feels sturdy enough, to be honest it isnt really viable as a gigging amp, but you can get away with it for home four track recording, especially if you add the doubling and chorus effects to your rhythm parts. You can also pull off a nice range of Tom Morello style solos with the effects in this thing, overall for the price a decent workhorse of an amp.

I had to buy something like this to allow me to continue playing electric at all, for anyone else in this situation it makes a great 2nd amp to practice on and for a beginner on a budget it does supply the complete package of amp and effects. If i had to be honest though i would advise you to save the money and buy a better amp and a couple of stompboxes.

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

Bought from SoundsLive a local shop in Newcastle for £99. Only recently bought an electric guitar (no amp) to learn on, I was origionaly looking to buy a Zoom 505II pedal to simply use with headphones for practicing on. Then I stumbled across this little beauty while searching the net for Zoom products. I called into my local guitar shop and within 10 minutes of trying it out I was walking out of the shop with one lovely compact amplifier.

It has a big sound for a small amp. Only 15watts, but playing it in the house its still pretty damn loud. The Drive Modeling/amp/distortion settings can produce some real meaty sounds, offering a good choice of amp sounds to choose from.
As well as the overdrive settings there is a whole set of Modulation effects that may be used as well. Basically these are a selection of some of the more usefull effects from Zooms range of guitar pedals, flanger, chorus, phase, wahwah, pitch modulation and several others. Each effect has a range of settings to alter the overall sound.
There is also a seperate delay/reverb effect component that has 4 adjustable types of delay and reverb.
There are 20 channels to store effects settings, 10 locked presets and 10 user channels that may be recorded over.
You realy can get a wide range of sounds from the softest acoustic guitar to wailing growling metal.

The only thing that would realy improve this amp would be a bit more control over the modulation effects. Each effect only has between 5-10 preset values, for most this is fine, but some (like the flanger) could do with a bit more ability to alter the effect.
The effects are realy only practical for home use as there is no easy way to switch between them. You can get a footswitch, but it only swaps between normal and preset mode.

Construction wise this seems a very solid heavy little amp. Its not one of those tiny little practice amps that might fall over if you sneeze on them.
The dials are all clear, easy to use and seem hardwearing enough (although I have only had it for 2 days).

This is a great home practice amp. For a guitarists first home amp it realy does offer increadible value for money. Not only do you get a great sounding amp, but also a set of effects that if you wanted to buy seperate would cost you way more than the price of the amp itself.
Some of the effects may not be as editable as you would like, but to got all this for £99 what do you expect.
Overall not a profesional gigging or recording amp, but one hell of home practice amp.

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

This is not an amp but prcdemment said lamp as an amp modlisation. For the price there are many effects: chorus, Fazzi, more reverb, delay ... and also many other totally useless. It's funny to beginners but there's no point concretely. Headphone aprciable but no line out.

UTILIZATION

Easy setup with possibility to save rglages. But it is still necessary to find a switch operated pedals. With such a marshall pedals must be pressed 2 times to change channels. With ca Coxx not work simply not.

SOUNDS

The clear sound of all abbord can be enjoyable even with a relatively low-end guitar, adding a little chorus even though the serious trs quickly saturated and the power is frankly limited. In overdrive sound is square dgueulasse flat, not hot at all ... The acoustic channel and probably the worst. But by fiddling a bit, alternative channels saturated (especially Peavy drive) s'avrent pretty cool that the channels of the same fuzz and metal. And power on these channels is more than CORRCT for the 15W.

OVERALL OPINION

Overall a good amp for beginners or playing at home but do not use RPET in power (especially in light) is too tight. It is fairly lightweight and the price quality ratio is pretty good especially compared to a 15W Marshall no effect, for example. Practice as a 2nd amp to accompany a holiday too.