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MGR/Keith « Zoom Fire-15 Modeling Guitar Amp »
Published on 06/23/03 at 15:00Bought 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
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