My first portable effects unit was the Zoom 9001 in the early 90s. It sat on your guitar strap and had a small wired remote that I had velcro holding it just above the neck on the body it could select from the four patches in a bank. It was revolutionary at the time. I also had various recorders from them that had rhythm sections and effects. Now I have a Variax JTV-69S and a Helix floor. I have a soft spot for Zoom but love the Helix. Although the idea of putting one in an effects loop is intriguing.
I remember those old Zoom units! Back it the day budget gear was stuff like that and crappy Crate solid state amps lol Nothing beats the Helix/Variax combo, nothing! :)
I agree with you on the editing and scrolling. It feels like forever...one of the reasons I use it for home use only and never for band practice. I just feel the older UI (Zoom G3N, G3XN etc) seems a lot faster. Hope they can do a similar thing through firmware updates. Nice vid Chad. One more subscriber here.
There is a great choice of budget units now.I do like Zoom as a company. I would actually really like VOX to get back into concentrating on multi-effects because they could easily be great for guitarists from budget to higher end.And have the VOX legacy attached. Thanks
Great video. Breaks up really nice with the volume knob. I was considering buying a hx stomp as a backup rig for my helix lt and a fly rig pedalboard. However you may have saved me some money! Will definitely look into this thanks again Chad.
That's a solid plan. It would be a good back up. I wish the control layout was more flexible in terms of being able to assign footswitches and have snapshots, but if it's just going to be amp tones and maybe delay and drive it works well for that 👍
The biggest downside to that is patch compatibility. If you only play three or four different sounds, it wouldn't be hard to dial them in. The Stomp is half a helix, but it's gonna be a lot easier to dial in similar patches because all the amp models and pedals and cabs are the same.
I just pulled the trigger on a used one. I had the G1 Four and hated it. I tend to gravitate back to Zoom thanks to my trusty old PS02 that I've owned for 22 years. Six of my favorite user presets are in that unit and have not been able to get close to duplicating them. My favorite effects in the PS02 are very useful and those are AIR and WIDE. Hoping that this new unit still can get close enough as I bought this to simplify band practice and leave my main board at home.
I wanted a Boss GT1 but Sweetwater didn't have one in stock, so I bought the Zoom G2X4. The presets really suck, I was very close to selling the unit until I worked on my first patch and discovered that not all is lost, so thanks Chad for mentioning how bad the presets are, its good to know im not the only one. Ironically, I had a very basic Zoom effects pedal before and I ended up using some of the presets for my first recording project, and those presets were MUCH better than the ones on the G2X4...great video!
I'm pretty much a helix fanboy but have to admit, the vox and matchless in this unit sounded a lot better to me. Wasn't so taken with the marshall but at the price point, I'd still be pretty happy with it. It's strange how tribal people can get over their modellers.
Yeah the Marshall was my least favorite. Had a strange quality to it. The Vox, Matchless, Deluxe, and the original models I enjoyed quite a bit. I don't know that I'd say any of them were better than Helix per se, but those amp models are very very good on the zoom. Especially for the price. I didn't do an A/B shootout between the two but I suspect on those models either one would get really close. When it comes to feature set and ecosystem that's when the Helix is MILES ahead. I really wish Zoom would update their UI and control layout. It's easy to justify on a $199 product, but looking at their website their top of the line $799 unit looks to be just more of the same on a bigger scale. It has a touch screen, but doesn't seem to add in the things that would make it a competitor: scenes/snapshots, freely assignable footswitches, etc. I completely don't get the tribal nature of people and products. It's so weird. I'm helix/Variax all the way, but I LOVE seeing new and great pieces of gear hit the market. A rising tide floats all ships as they say. Companies pushing gear to the next level is good for everyone. I'd love to see Zoom get with the times and make a truly modern and competitive unit. The tone is pretty much there, but almost all of the products out there sound good. That's just not enough anymore. It's about the whole package. If Zoom just wants to stay in the $200-300 market range then fair play to them.
It's hard for me to say what you should do for your specific situation. I typically try to get the best product I can with the budget I'm working with. If it were me and the budget allowed I would probably go for the G2 Four, but they both should be able to get the job done. I tend to always talk myself into the unit with more stuff in it :) In the end though you'll just have to decide if it's worth the extra money to you.
I'm a huge fan of the g3n and g1four and have been awaiting new versions that address the very minor problems... so it boggles my mind to discover that they haven't ditched the scrolling idea. Along with the g6 disaster I'm wondering whether zoom just randomly make r & d decisions and just got lucky with the huge success of the g3n and g5n.
Can you set the default starting position when activating stompbox mode? For example i want the 3 foot switches assigned after the amp (example: 2 mods, 1 delay). Or does it always show the 1st 3 blocks when you activate it?
They really need to make it possible to use any amp with any combination of effects. I can't even use the POG type pedal by itself with just an amp. That broke my heart when getting into it.
Thanks! Make sure you have the correct drivers installed from zoom. In your DAW software make sure that the zoom ASIO driver is selected as the audio interface.
@@joshbruks that's the wrong type of driver you need to be using. It needs to be set to ASIO. I use ableton and I know there is a drop down for driver type and one for selecting your audio interface. I don't know what software you're running, but changing the driver type is definitely what is needed.
Sounds great, and for all those crying about the black and white screen and IR's.... more playing and less fiddling! I personally prefer my amp modeling with analog cabs, none of that IR monkey business, taking more time from actually playing, composing and recording. We are definitely in the best budget amp modeling and effects era of our time, and people have to be snowflakes about it! "Boo hoo, I can't play unless I have 1000's of IRs and dual amps with touch screen, boo hoo..."
I recently did a video talking about this very thing. Basically shut up and play! I'm not a fan of endless tweaking either, and agree that we live in a time when budget gear is amazing. However while I feel like people are tweaking more than playing these days, I kind of get it and kind of don't, if they are enjoying themselves doing that then fair play. I'd rather see more people making more music, but to each their own. How they enjoy spending their time is their business. My personal philosophy is to find a core tone that is "my sound" and go with it. I've been using a version of the same preset for years. I don't feel the need to audition dozens of amps and 1000's of IR's, never used anything other than stock cabs in Helix, I just find what I like and go with it. Of course it gets tweaked over time, but it's an evolution of my original preset. Recently experimented with doing a dual amp path versus single and I'm loving it even more now. The video I just posted is talking about that. But as with your other comment on this video I'm not sure why you feel the need to attack people with a different philosophy on gear than you, or call them snowflakes... To mirror your critique, more playing an less ranting ;)
@@ChadHuskey Guilty as charged, I say it how it is! Not a zoom fanboy by any means, but with the lowly G1 Four I've managed to wrangle some excellent tones. I don't think it is fair that anyone, including you, compare this budget and very capable multifx pedal with a helix or other modelers that cost 3x as much while poo pooing the budget modelers because of their lack of x,y,z, etc... So, more playing, less essays!
@@socialdef3 sorry for the essay 😂. That cracked me up, I like it. I think I was very fair in my review. I openly said the unit sounded very good, and gave sound examples. I also said for the price it's a steal. If stating that it's feature set is not the same as a unit that's much more expensive is poo pooing it then I guess I'm guilty as charged 🤷 If I were trying to decide whether to spend $200 or $1000 this is exactly the type of review I'd want to see. Especially for folks that might be new to modeling and not understand the differences.
@@ChadHuskey Agreed on all points, just making a general statement, not an accusation! But what I can say with certainty is that it was a very well made review and excellent playing and tones. Subscribed!
yes, I have this and they can. You can toggle on or off any of the effects within a patch, with three conveniently accessible at a time via the buttons (and the rest with the left-right buttons). And I believe you can assign almost any parameter to the pedal on a per-patch basis.
Just within the patch. Which is pretty standard. Even high end units like Helix and Axe-FX don't have true spillover between presets. Well to be fair they did add that to Helix in a later firmware, but if you use it you have to dedicate 50% of the DSP to preloading the next preset. So it kind of hampers the kind of presets you can make. But to your point, you don't have trails carry over from each preset.
Sounds great, but it's always the talent behind the strings! You make anything sounds really good. The the thing with this unit is the screen and lag in the display is hot garbage. For less money, IMHO, the Mooer GE150 or the Valeton GP-100 is a better choice... Way better screen, faster and more intuitive.
I appreciate you saying that :) The Zoom is the first of the "budget" units I've tried out in a long time. While I liked the sounds the UI is for sure a deal breaker for me if I were looking to use it all the time. I noticed the lag in the display as well, especially if the preset was maxed out DSP wise. I may have to check out the Mooer and Valeton at some point. It's kind of fun playing around with some other stuff and seeing what's out there. But the Helix/Variax combo isn't going anywhere anytime soon ;)
Never underestimate ZOOM or Roland-Boss either and you might be very pleasantly surprised plus, you won't have to sell your blood to afford them either.
It doesn't sound like this even has those cheap, fizzy artifacts that always plague these types of processors. Or does it? Bcoz that's definitely a deal breaker for me.
Why compare? Most people don't need all that crap that comes with $500+ modeling units, but consumerism is a thing and the good 'ol USA is a leading example of how people who don't need something, trip over themselves to get one, while poo pooing budget modelers that are getting better and better every day while others drool over things like a cortex or fractal unit. Consumerism plus snowflake generation is very funny to watch from the outside.
I'm not sure how you got to consumerism and snowflakes from a comparison of guitar pedals lol I think making a comparison makes perfect sense. On paper the lower budget and more expensive pedals for the most part do the same thing. So why not see how they compare in the real world? If all you're going for is good core tone then the Zoom is an AMAZING value at $199. Truly incredible at that price when you think about what was available "back in the day" at that price. However I think the more expensive pedals are absolutely worth the extra money if you need the features. I happen to use all the "crap" that comes with the Helix Floor and my Variax. I use those features at every single gig. I'm so spoiled by snapshots and assigning parameter controls freely to pedals that I would be very frustrated to have to go back to not having these features. They help me keep my focus on where it needs to be: playing and performing music! Thanks to snapshots I don't have to do tap dancing during songs to get the settings/changes I need. With the variax/Helix I can do things like playing the rhythm parts to a song like Gimmie Shelter in open e with tremolo, then switch to standard tuning lead tones for the solo, then right back. All with hitting one footswitch. Or doing an open E acoustic for She Talks To Angels, etc. What you're able to accomplish used to take huge racks of gear and midi controllers. What you pay for a digital unit these days to be able to do that, most all of the major players are under $2k, is a STEAL. As I said in the review if you don't need those extra features save the money and just buy what you need. There's not better or worse, it's just what you need and the appropriate price to get those needs met. I'm not sure why you're attacking people who do use/need those features...
Zoom has really evolved into a serious audio video tech company. I just hope that on this unit they have improved their pitch shifting effects.
My first portable effects unit was the Zoom 9001 in the early 90s. It sat on your guitar strap and had a small wired remote that I had velcro holding it just above the neck on the body it could select from the four patches in a bank. It was revolutionary at the time. I also had various recorders from them that had rhythm sections and effects. Now I have a Variax JTV-69S and a Helix floor. I have a soft spot for Zoom but love the Helix. Although the idea of putting one in an effects loop is intriguing.
I remember those old Zoom units! Back it the day budget gear was stuff like that and crappy Crate solid state amps lol
Nothing beats the Helix/Variax combo, nothing! :)
I agree with you on the editing and scrolling. It feels like forever...one of the reasons I use it for home use only and never for band practice. I just feel the older UI (Zoom G3N, G3XN etc) seems a lot faster. Hope they can do a similar thing through firmware updates. Nice vid Chad. One more subscriber here.
There is a great choice of budget units now.I do like Zoom as a company.
I would actually really like VOX to get back into concentrating on multi-effects because they could easily be great for guitarists from budget to higher end.And have the VOX legacy attached.
Thanks
Sick demo! I’m buying this pedal.
Thanks a lot. Nice démo and brillant playing. Is there a way to get a rotary speaker effect without an external expression pedal?
Exciting times for guitarists !
That Life without you intro and solo got me I had a 505 back in the day very interested now..
great playing!!
Great video. Breaks up really nice with the volume knob. I was considering buying a hx stomp as a backup rig for my helix lt and a fly rig pedalboard. However you may have saved me some money! Will definitely look into this thanks again Chad.
That's a solid plan. It would be a good back up.
I wish the control layout was more flexible in terms of being able to assign footswitches and have snapshots, but if it's just going to be amp tones and maybe delay and drive it works well for that 👍
The biggest downside to that is patch compatibility. If you only play three or four different sounds, it wouldn't be hard to dial them in. The Stomp is half a helix, but it's gonna be a lot easier to dial in similar patches because all the amp models and pedals and cabs are the same.
I just pulled the trigger on a used one. I had the G1 Four and hated it. I tend to gravitate back to Zoom thanks to my trusty old PS02 that I've owned for 22 years. Six of my favorite user presets are in that unit and have not been able to get close to duplicating them. My favorite effects in the PS02 are very useful and those are AIR and WIDE.
Hoping that this new unit still can get close enough as I bought this to simplify band practice and leave my main board at home.
I wanted a Boss GT1 but Sweetwater didn't have one in stock, so I bought the Zoom G2X4. The presets really suck, I was very close to selling the unit until I worked on my first patch and discovered that not all is lost, so thanks Chad for mentioning how bad the presets are, its good to know im not the only one. Ironically, I had a very basic Zoom effects pedal before and I ended up using some of the presets for my first recording project, and those presets were MUCH better than the ones on the G2X4...great video!
How did you record the sound of the G2? Through its own audio interface?
Cheers
Yes I recorded directly over usb using it as the audio interface. I always try to have as few AD/DA conversions as possible.
@@ChadHuskey Thank you very much. I really like your first solo... sounds great!!!!
@@followyourpassion8378 thanks so much! 😎
👍👍👍👍👍👍♥️✌️☮️
I'm pretty much a helix fanboy but have to admit, the vox and matchless in this unit sounded a lot better to me. Wasn't so taken with the marshall but at the price point, I'd still be pretty happy with it. It's strange how tribal people can get over their modellers.
Yeah the Marshall was my least favorite. Had a strange quality to it.
The Vox, Matchless, Deluxe, and the original models I enjoyed quite a bit.
I don't know that I'd say any of them were better than Helix per se, but those amp models are very very good on the zoom. Especially for the price.
I didn't do an A/B shootout between the two but I suspect on those models either one would get really close.
When it comes to feature set and ecosystem that's when the Helix is MILES ahead.
I really wish Zoom would update their UI and control layout.
It's easy to justify on a $199 product, but looking at their website their top of the line $799 unit looks to be just more of the same on a bigger scale. It has a touch screen, but doesn't seem to add in the things that would make it a competitor: scenes/snapshots, freely assignable footswitches, etc.
I completely don't get the tribal nature of people and products. It's so weird.
I'm helix/Variax all the way, but I LOVE seeing new and great pieces of gear hit the market.
A rising tide floats all ships as they say. Companies pushing gear to the next level is good for everyone.
I'd love to see Zoom get with the times and make a truly modern and competitive unit. The tone is pretty much there, but almost all of the products out there sound good. That's just not enough anymore. It's about the whole package.
If Zoom just wants to stay in the $200-300 market range then fair play to them.
@@ChadHuskey well said man.
@@ChadHuskey k
The editor app crashes constantly, rendering it useless to me. I hope they fix it.
How Many new effects have the app ?
As entry level guitarist is to worth to add extra and buy this model or go for g1x four. I Only playing in church. So please advise. Thank you.
It's hard for me to say what you should do for your specific situation. I typically try to get the best product I can with the budget I'm working with. If it were me and the budget allowed I would probably go for the G2 Four, but they both should be able to get the job done. I tend to always talk myself into the unit with more stuff in it :)
In the end though you'll just have to decide if it's worth the extra money to you.
I'm a huge fan of the g3n and g1four and have been awaiting new versions that address the very minor problems... so it boggles my mind to discover that they haven't ditched the scrolling idea.
Along with the g6 disaster I'm wondering whether zoom just randomly make r & d decisions and just got lucky with the huge success of the g3n and g5n.
Can you set the default starting position when activating stompbox mode? For example i want the 3 foot switches assigned after the amp (example: 2 mods, 1 delay). Or does it always show the 1st 3 blocks when you activate it?
They really need to make it possible to use any amp with any combination of effects. I can't even use the POG type pedal by itself with just an amp. That broke my heart when getting into it.
You Can combine any amp with any effect. What you cannot do is to combine amps with the IRs of other amps. They are fixed blocks.
Isnt tonelib computer software usable?
Great video🎉 i cannot manage to use it as interface to record music😢
Thanks!
Make sure you have the correct drivers installed from zoom.
In your DAW software make sure that the zoom ASIO driver is selected as the audio interface.
@@ChadHuskey it says MME in the software
@@joshbruks that's the wrong type of driver you need to be using.
It needs to be set to ASIO.
I use ableton and I know there is a drop down for driver type and one for selecting your audio interface.
I don't know what software you're running, but changing the driver type is definitely what is needed.
@@ChadHuskey great!! You saved mu day thnks bro!! New sub
Sounds great, and for all those crying about the black and white screen and IR's.... more playing and less fiddling! I personally prefer my amp modeling with analog cabs, none of that IR monkey business, taking more time from actually playing, composing and recording.
We are definitely in the best budget amp modeling and effects era of our time, and people have to be snowflakes about it!
"Boo hoo, I can't play unless I have 1000's of IRs and dual amps with touch screen, boo hoo..."
I recently did a video talking about this very thing. Basically shut up and play!
I'm not a fan of endless tweaking either, and agree that we live in a time when budget gear is amazing.
However while I feel like people are tweaking more than playing these days, I kind of get it and kind of don't, if they are enjoying themselves doing that then fair play.
I'd rather see more people making more music, but to each their own. How they enjoy spending their time is their business.
My personal philosophy is to find a core tone that is "my sound" and go with it. I've been using a version of the same preset for years.
I don't feel the need to audition dozens of amps and 1000's of IR's, never used anything other than stock cabs in Helix, I just find what I like and go with it.
Of course it gets tweaked over time, but it's an evolution of my original preset.
Recently experimented with doing a dual amp path versus single and I'm loving it even more now. The video I just posted is talking about that.
But as with your other comment on this video I'm not sure why you feel the need to attack people with a different philosophy on gear than you, or call them snowflakes...
To mirror your critique, more playing an less ranting ;)
@@ChadHuskey Guilty as charged, I say it how it is! Not a zoom fanboy by any means, but with the lowly G1 Four I've managed to wrangle some excellent tones. I don't think it is fair that anyone, including you, compare this budget and very capable multifx pedal with a helix or other modelers that cost 3x as much while poo pooing the budget modelers because of their lack of x,y,z, etc...
So, more playing, less essays!
@@socialdef3 sorry for the essay 😂. That cracked me up, I like it.
I think I was very fair in my review. I openly said the unit sounded very good, and gave sound examples. I also said for the price it's a steal.
If stating that it's feature set is not the same as a unit that's much more expensive is poo pooing it then I guess I'm guilty as charged 🤷
If I were trying to decide whether to spend $200 or $1000 this is exactly the type of review I'd want to see.
Especially for folks that might be new to modeling and not understand the differences.
@@ChadHuskey Agreed on all points, just making a general statement, not an accusation! But what I can say with certainty is that it was a very well made review and excellent playing and tones. Subscribed!
@@socialdef3 thanks so much! I enjoyed the conversation 🙂
Thanks, any idea if the footswitches or exp pedal could be assigned to momentary tremolo? Cheers!
yes, I have this and they can. You can toggle on or off any of the effects within a patch, with three conveniently accessible at a time via the buttons (and the rest with the left-right buttons). And I believe you can assign almost any parameter to the pedal on a per-patch basis.
sounds great for the money. i like it.
It's no helix, but for the money it's hard to beat 😉
Better than g3n and g5n series?
The last zoom unit I owned was the older g3 model. This was definitely better sounding than that model, but that was an older model.
can you use multiple delays and reverbs in one patch?
Yes. You can do any effects in any slot until you run out of dsp.
@@ChadHuskey thank you for the prompt reply!
Does the delay trails carry over to the next patch in patch mode? Or within the patch only like the previous g3 models?
Just within the patch. Which is pretty standard.
Even high end units like Helix and Axe-FX don't have true spillover between presets.
Well to be fair they did add that to Helix in a later firmware, but if you use it you have to dedicate 50% of the DSP to preloading the next preset. So it kind of hampers the kind of presets you can make.
But to your point, you don't have trails carry over from each preset.
Variax Rules!!😊
@@balotpenoy371 yes it does! 😎
Does it have trails?
Is there a way to just assign 3 different presets to each of the 3 buttons and just switch between those?
Yes, it does that by default
Is it plastic or metal?
Sounds great, but it's always the talent behind the strings! You make anything sounds really good.
The the thing with this unit is the screen and lag in the display is hot garbage. For less money, IMHO, the Mooer GE150 or the Valeton GP-100 is a better choice... Way better screen, faster and more intuitive.
I appreciate you saying that :)
The Zoom is the first of the "budget" units I've tried out in a long time.
While I liked the sounds the UI is for sure a deal breaker for me if I were looking to use it all the time.
I noticed the lag in the display as well, especially if the preset was maxed out DSP wise.
I may have to check out the Mooer and Valeton at some point.
It's kind of fun playing around with some other stuff and seeing what's out there. But the Helix/Variax combo isn't going anywhere anytime soon ;)
Tap tempo possible?
Yes you can set a tap tempo.
I won a G2.1u from Sam Ash back in like...2006. I thought it sounded pretty derpy, but I was just a shitty player then 😅
Never underestimate ZOOM or Roland-Boss either and you might be very pleasantly surprised plus, you won't have to sell your blood to afford them either.
It doesn't sound like this even has those cheap, fizzy artifacts that always plague these types of processors. Or does it? Bcoz that's definitely a deal breaker for me.
Love my Helix but honestly it's comparing a Yugo to a Mercedes.
This pedal sounded surprisingly good for $200. But helix is in another league for sure.
Why compare? Most people don't need all that crap that comes with $500+ modeling units, but consumerism is a thing and the good 'ol USA is a leading example of how people who don't need something, trip over themselves to get one, while poo pooing budget modelers that are getting better and better every day while others drool over things like a cortex or fractal unit. Consumerism plus snowflake generation is very funny to watch from the outside.
I'm not sure how you got to consumerism and snowflakes from a comparison of guitar pedals lol
I think making a comparison makes perfect sense. On paper the lower budget and more expensive pedals for the most part do the same thing. So why not see how they compare in the real world?
If all you're going for is good core tone then the Zoom is an AMAZING value at $199. Truly incredible at that price when you think about what was available "back in the day" at that price.
However I think the more expensive pedals are absolutely worth the extra money if you need the features.
I happen to use all the "crap" that comes with the Helix Floor and my Variax. I use those features at every single gig.
I'm so spoiled by snapshots and assigning parameter controls freely to pedals that I would be very frustrated to have to go back to not having these features.
They help me keep my focus on where it needs to be: playing and performing music!
Thanks to snapshots I don't have to do tap dancing during songs to get the settings/changes I need.
With the variax/Helix I can do things like playing the rhythm parts to a song like Gimmie Shelter in open e with tremolo, then switch to standard tuning lead tones for the solo, then right back. All with hitting one footswitch.
Or doing an open E acoustic for She Talks To Angels, etc.
What you're able to accomplish used to take huge racks of gear and midi controllers. What you pay for a digital unit these days to be able to do that, most all of the major players are under $2k, is a STEAL.
As I said in the review if you don't need those extra features save the money and just buy what you need. There's not better or worse, it's just what you need and the appropriate price to get those needs met.
I'm not sure why you're attacking people who do use/need those features...