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new zoom processors

Saw these things in a spotlight review of a Music123 catalog: http://www.samsontech.com/products/productpage.cfm?prodID=1854&brandID=4

Some pretty nice specs (look at the S/N ratio)! Seems that it'll work like the RP series, where amp modeling and stompbox are in one place. From the sound of it, the internal processers are sickeningly fast as well.

Very interesting! Here's a comment I found at one reseller (emphasis added):
Zoom G2.1U Guitar FX Pedal w/USB and Cubase LE
Price: $169.95
The Zoom G2.1u takes guitar multi-effects to the next level Conventional floor-type multi-effect processors are designed to sound good when they are plugged into a guitar amp. Modeling processors are designed for recording in line. Until now, there was no product that could handle both scenarios with equal finesse.Introducing The G Series from Zoom. Each G Series Pedal offers two algorithms: One for live and one for recording. The sound you created at practice or in the studio can now be brought straight to the stage. Or take the sounds you worked out during a rehearsal and apply them seamlessly in the recording studio. Your creative scope has suddenly doubled.


I wonder if anyone is going to buy into that claim anymore, considering with what limited and intermittent luck users have been able to get a good sound out of the MFX series on the market up until now (recently, specifically). Nevertheless, I'm curious to see whether there's any difference with this new one... or if it's just more speaker compensation mumbo-jumbo.

But someone is definitely not only watching the competition, but listening to what the public wants to hear! It becomes especially clear when you see the nicely-outlined, well-diagramed manual.
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Comments

  • It looks cool, but it seem not too powerfull
  • I think the G9.22tt is interesting
  • I have been following the progress of this company for a while, but recently much information has been dropped by the site.
    Does anybody know of their current status? The ideas behind the product seem like an FX junkies dream...
    http://www.modesoundworks.com/index.php
  • edited November 2005
    I always liked zoom stuff back in the 90's I think the lead Guitar work in \"Sugar\" is done with a old zoom box that my guitarist had right before we purchased our GNX stuff. I think it looks compact. zoom always had some cool sounds to play around with.
  • The Zoom 8080 Player unit was awesome, for the time and available digital technology.
  • G9.22tt, i am unclear on this.... does it have 2 seperate FX channels? The tube thing and dual expression pedals are a nice touch. Also says there is going to be modelling software for available download. If you weren't overly sprung over the tube thing it would seem that the G2.1U is pretty competetive also.
    healthy competition has always been a good tang!
  • G9.22tt, i am unclear on this.... does it have 2 seperate FX channels? The tube thing and dual expression pedals are a nice touch. Also says there is going to be modelling software for available download. If you weren't overly sprung over the tube thing it would seem that the G2.1U is pretty competetive also.
    healthy competition has always been a good tang!

    Where's the G9.22tt? I can't seem to find it anywhere...

    Would someone kindly point me to it?
  • So Zoom lay dormant for a while and now releasing competition products to both RP and ToneLab users?! Good for them. I'd certainly like to hear these, out of curiosity.

    But all things considered, I'm guessing I'll wait until a 32-bit A/D/A with higher processing rates is released (my recorder has a 44-bit internal pipeline, hopefully 64-bit standalone units begin surfacing in a few years). Unless there's more to the story than appears to the naked eye, these Zoom things are middle ground at this point, and current GNX/XTL/GT/ToneLab users are unlikely converts for the market.

    - Ilia
  • \iliace\ wrote:
    or if it's just more speaker compensation mumbo-jumbo.

    I dont think a seperate algorithm can produce accurate results for all users's cabs etc, because the the algorithm doesnt take any of the users equipmments special needs/property's etc coz playin through a 1x15 is a whole lot different to a 4x12.

    What we really need is an effects pedal that you can tell it what type of speakers you are playing through.
    Or even better (if this is possible) a \"automatic speaker compensation\" in which, say, you play your desired tone that was recorded direct through one port and the same recorded tone but mic'd through a cab and then into another port on the effects and the unit adjusts the eq etc to match the desired tone. :? not sure bout this but it could be possible...
  • The assumption here is the modeling process itself. A modeler sample is the suggestive combinations of tones that are replicated. No Modeler available suggests that a Peavey rage through a GNX , Zoom, or Line 6 processor will ever sound like the sampled amp...it's just not possible. Just like it's impossible for your Marshall DSL to sound like a Fender Twin. I have a great suspicion that is what users expect from modelers through guitar amps. Thing is, regardless of any bit rates, samples, etc ..a Dual rectifier head used with a Fender Twin cabinet just sounds as bad as the amp modeler and cabinet modeler suggests. So, the modeler itself isn't wrong...it's our concept of thinking we can get unrealistic tones out of models that would never really react the same to begin with. Will an open back cabinet ever sound like a 4x12 closed back enclosure?? Not to my knowledge. Not to say that incredibly awesome tones are not possible..but just to keep things in perspective as how they actually exist.

    Here is what is needed... A guitar amp that is 100% colorless, and a cabinet with transparent speakers/sonic abilities and an enclosure that can automatically change from a 8x12, 4x12 to a 2x12, to a 1x8..with each preset change...isn't that what we have expected all along...or thought that's what modeling can do?? If the real world can't do it, why would a modeler be able to? In this case..modeling does exactly what it is supposed to.. unless you have the utopian cabinet and amplifier I just described. That's just not ever going to happen..

    I had to laugh at a guy who suggested his Vetta sounds like a 65 Twin..sorry...it's never going to happen. the Vetta does not disable to monaural amp mode with only one 1x12 with an automatic door on the back of the cabinet to simulate the open back Fender...nice sound...but not even close! It wouldn't surprise me that one day cabinets will have electronic designs that actually swicth from 2x12, 1x12, or 4x12 functionality...rotating out from Greenbacks to V30's would be a trick to see though! Computers and transparent headphones, monitors give us this virtual notion that modeling processors can make any amplifer sound the same as it's virtual replication.. well, that's virtual reality but modelers will never be able to change the physical and sonic characteristics of all those different amps and cabinets we own...mush less use in our live rigs.

    The only way to create uniformity with a modeler, is to build and sell an amp and colorless cabinet we all would have to buy to go with it.
  • But wouldn't you say that once the sound of an open-back 1x12 you described is captured on an accurate recording, you can distinctly tell what is being played without hearing the actual sound? And if so, wouldn't you say it's possible to use digital modeling to recreate a captured sound, simulating the capturing of it, and not particularly the physical properties of the amp? Seems like a double-edged sword to me.

    OK, some people will say, a GNX acoustic model played into a pair of studio monitors sounds like a recorded acoustic, not like an actual acoustic (for an example). That's true, but when you're on a large enough stage with enough of a crowd to have noise, you have to have the acoustic amplified - and so for live application you'll end up hearing a representation of it, and so a modeler can create such a representation without having an actual acoustic. Not the best example necessarily, but when you're talking about modeling an amplifier, I would think the same logic applies.

    Because, when it comes down to it, I like to use the Line 6 approach: \"Close your eyes, and does it do the trick?\" Sometimes it does, other times not - but eventually it will for the majority of the time. This is also taking into account that we now have a generation growing up with modelers and modeled tones, so it's an illusion that people will soon learn to live with. Perhaps not the hardcore tube-rig crowd, but those coming in their footsteps - likely, I'd say.
  • Amen and amen - FRFR all the way! 8)

    Man, so many parallels to other things that have gone from analog/manual to electronic/modeled...

    Photography
    Graphic Design
    Natural Media/Fine Art
    Telephones
    Televisions... etc. - you name it.

    In every single case, eventually - digital matured to a level where traditionalists no longer had any reason to stick to the old technology/methods. They can now do more with less, accurately, faster, and with far better consistent quality. Some still hang onto the old way of doing things - but the old school membership is getting smaller.

    The digital/modeling technology of our beloved MFX is gathering momentum and acceptance. Part of the equation is a good matched output rig... FRFR just seems to be the best option right now. But I see modeling speakers and clean poweramps popping up here and there - those might be just what we need next.

    I do like the idea of a digital cabinet that has 2x12\" woofers, a mid and a good horn... and has the modeling logic built in to alter the voicing of the speakers from 1x8 through 8x12... open/close back - and beyond.

    I've no doubt that it could be done. I am just not smart enough to make it happen.

    Anyway - enough ramblin'.
  • Whether it is digital or analogue all i can say is that man am i so freaking glad that i took the easy way out never attempted to replicate anybody's particular sound, or specific rig. Don't get me wrong here i have a lot of respect for anybody that can even begin to comprehend all this technical know how, i am simply saying that i am happy with being lazy about it. :o I am sure i am missing out on a lot by not trying to understand the why's and how's that a particular artist used and went through before he / she settled on a specific sound, but in the end i think it just comes down to the sound that your own ear likes and i like a lot of FX that the GNX has or has the potential of creating. There is so much to keep me busy on that front. Now as far as usability in helping me be creative i am always open to improvement. If that means that these new units make it easier to get the sounds you want and to even explore more easily then Digitech should look hard at them too.... which i am sure they do all the time. All the competition helps me be more creative as the tools get better and i have to do less as i have already revealed how lazy i am.
    i feel ashamed, look away
  • All the tech advancements would be great indeed. Point here is that someone buys a modeler and expects the unit to compensate for things the modeling mfg cannot help. Use an artsit preset that has a 1x12 Fender and a Ts9. Now, play that patch through your Marshall and 4x12..

    To comp every rig as such, you have to have an amplification rig similar to that of the ones used like near field monitors. Every difference in any guitar amp will add or remove the tone represented by the patch of another amp rig. That's where most users miss what modeling does. They say it stinks live, but it really just simulates exactly what it would sound like if you connected any Fender to a Marshall... The modeler digital or not..is accurate. The user can't get past the fact that their amp rig is responsible for the varaibles. Very simple if you think about it as it is.
  • Good, point / reminder, you spoke of this setup between patches and your soundsytem on other occasions and i believe you included it in one of your tutorial videos? If so maybe you could post the link for those who haven't read / watched it? You are right it does make sense, i have tried to think of flat response when shooping a live sytem and i have found nothing and have been told that the idea of this is sensless as you \"want\" to color your sound with the cabs for live sound. If they did sell flat response cabs / amps it would make it a lot easier than having to mess with each patch. I have also found that adjustments are nessecary based on the level of volume you are pushing through yur PA. Any noise that was in that patch is going to become evident when you turn it up and the corization seems to change with the sound system so again you have to compensate for that as well as venue size / acoustics.
    whew! I'm only going to concentrate on perfecting a few for live use for now.
    your counselling has always been appreciated 3456
    D.
  • Hi all... I got a chance to try one of these new Zoom G2.1u pedals. Here's a quick funk rock clip I did. I used the Zoom direct to Cubase LE (which comes with the unit) via usb. I didn't do a lot of tweaking or anything like that. Just used pretty much the preset tones with a bit of adjustment on the delay time to fit the tempo of the song. I was pretty impressed with how easy the unit is to function, and I thought the sound wasn't too bad for just plugging in and playing. I ran the bass guitar through a blank patch, no cab sim just a bit of added eq from the zoom unit itself. Check it out at the link below.... Please excuse my playing as I am not a pro by any stretch of the imagination... :lol:

    http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=433798
  • Yeah, that sounds quite decent. The tune got a bit of an early solo Michael Angelo groove to it, especially the lead tone.

    How do you compare this thing to a GNX?
  • Comparing the two is kinda hard... I love my GNX 4 for all that it can do... It truly is the ultimate guitar workstation... That said, I find I have to really tweak the gnx to get the sound I want for each song. It's not a bad thing though, because the outcome is really great sounding. The Zoom, on the other hand, has much better presets out of the box. This makes a quick take much more efficient. With the gnx you can fine tune things a bit more and utimately get a better sound. Zoom, however, is using something like 32bit sampling for its models which do seem to give them more of an analog feel. With the Zoom you get the amp sim, a tone adjustment, and a 3 band eq plus cab sim (which is not adjustable), but a choice of dynamic or cond. microphone and distance are. Ultimately, I still feel the GNX 4 has better quality sounds (after tweeking) and much more flexability and features. Though, the upcoming Zoom G2.9tt and G7 may narrow that. We will have to wait and see. I'm sure Digitech will, as always, rise to the challenge. :wink:
  • That did sound pretty sweet, I am really wondering about the Zoom G8 with tube driven dual fx channels and dual expression pedals. nice groove btw, i was diggin it man.
  • D. Alexander - Thanks for the kind words. I too am curious to see what Zoom will be releasing in the near future. If the Zoom G2.1u is a little taste of what is to come, I think Zoom will prove to be quite a competitor in the modeling multifx game.
  • Eminence Legend Modeling 12's..

    If you want a colorless cabinet, Modeling 12's are a great way to go and have minimal coloring in the design of voice coil and paper on the cone.. Modelers and modeling amps take on a whole new dimension and much less tweaking of your guitar amp is needed.

    Zoom, has taken a slightly different approach to their ZNR application. From what I hear, they went for a more transparent cabinet modeling and pre tweaked for use. It's not adjustable. ZNR is a reduction technique for noise and artifacts between amp model variables. Nice sounds though.. I was always impressed with the 505 a while back! The MRS recorders and amp models in the 1044 were pretty impressive. They do great on drum machines..a while with guitar amp modeling and I think they can be contenders... unfortunately, they beckon the lower end market as always! I'm looking forward to the 9.1tt..(something like that)
  • i thought the G8 model was going to be the highest of their offerings, here it is thought the G9
    http://www.imuso.co.uk/ProductDetail.asp?StockCode=EG00896
  • Getting the amp model sound is not that difficult...think..full range No Eq..and a unified preamp..

    Mesa 50/50
    Mesa 90/90
    Mesa Simul 120
    Peavey 30/30
    Peavey 50/50
    Samson Servo 120 (low power SS)
    Behringer EP1500 ( Pa type SS amp)

    Now, get a cabinet with a couple or 4 (if halfstack) Modeling 12's (Eminence) speakers. Connect for 8 ohms impedance

    Now the GNX gets to be the preamp...you control the volume. The modeling 12 speakers are flat in comparison to any other guitar speaker made to date. This is the absolute best way to yield the modeling tone of any guitar amplifier combination when live. All other amps, guitar speakers albeit Celestions, JBL, Bubinga, Tone Tubby, etc will COLOR THE GNX tone.. remember..the GNX model simulates the ALREADY COLORED amp..coloring it more with guitar amps..not the greatest solution...and will almost always require tweaking of the original presets to use live. This will be the same no matter which multieffect pedal is used..ZOOM, GNX, POD, Boss..any of them.
  • thanks for the advice on the setup. Maybe Ebay will yeild some off hour deals on this stuff?
  • MumMum
    edited November 2005
    Correct me if I'm wrong but 32 bit processor has nothing to do with the sampling rate. The DA/AD convertors, where the analog signal from the guitar pick-ups is converted to a digital signal are still only 24 bit. Just like the GNX3K and all the other Digitech products. Besides.... CD quality sound is still only 16 bit so even after you record in 24 bit you still have to down-mix to 16 bit to put it on a CD. So what's the point?

    Who cares?

    I'll have to agree with D. Alexander on a lot of issues concerning the MFX pedals.
    I can guarantee you that the person in the front row of the venue you are gigging has no clue what a Marshall Stack or a Fender Tweed or a humbucker is and certainly doesn't give a rat's @&&.

    You know what else? I've been playing the guitar for close to thirty years and even I don't know the difference. Mainly because for the first 20 some-odd I just played classical and acoustic. It wasn't until I was overheard playing one day while I was tuning the Praise & Worship team's guitarist's axe and was asked to join the team did I even use any amplification to start with. After playing an amplified Ovation thru the house PA (FRFR) for a couple of months I decided to get my first electric guitar. (not even two years ago). And soon to follow was my first MFX which, after much research, happened to be a RP200A.

    I was in awe of the things you could do with that simple pedal sound-wise.
    However, it was not very practical playing live for obvious reasons so I traded it in for a GNX2 which I just recently sold after another upgrade to the GNX3K. All these upgrades were mainly inspired by functionality, not sound quality of the effects. That was surely a bonus but not the real reason I used to convince my wife that I needed another pedal.

    To be honest, I really don't use any of the factory presets. I DO use them to get me close to what I like to here, what sounds good to me, what turns my crank.

    I am getting to a point here and it is this....

    ALL of the pedals out there (I would imagine) today have the ability to make a guitarist very excited about playing music. Some are easier to tweak than others. We know that. Some are better for recording than others. And obviously, some effects will be different from pedal to pedal, manufacturer to manufacturer, model to model. Here I go again... I'm going to miss the point.

    The point is....
    Who cares? Only us. Nobody else knows the difference.

    I, like D. Alexander, was blessed to not have all that crap about what this amp and that cabinet sounds like to start with. But I know what sounds good. And, more importantly, I know what sounds good to me. And if I like it hopefully someone else will like it.

    I don't understand why people want to sound like someone else anyway.

    It's just like the guitars themselves. They all sound different. I don't have a MAINSTREAM axe like Fender, Gibson etc, etc. I chose a Godin because I liked the way it felt and sounded to me. Besides ... It's a better made guitar for the money. Robert Godin's company has been making necks and bodys for Fender and Gibson for over 30 years.

    A few years back we bucked the Vinyl to CD paradigm. It's all CD's now ain't it?

    Guys are complaining about too much fuzz in a certain amp model only to add the Fuzz stomp effect later on in the chain.

    One thing is certain though. I am so happy I chose Digitech. I just sold my year and a half old GNX2 to a guy that just bought a Zoom pedal (I don't know what model number) and he is much happier with the GNX2. But you know what? If he hadn't of been able to get the GNX2 at such a good price he would still be using the Zoom and still having a lot of fun.

    You know, my Pastor plays an Ibenez thru a Digitech pedal and I think it sounds like crap. But he likes it. The congrigation seems to like it so...

    Who cares?

    Get the one that works for you. This comparing BS will go on forever anyway.

    A little side note... I really like the ability of using someone elses time and energy of creating different settings and am very interested in trying some of the Super models or what ever you call them.

    Out of all the possibilities there are with these things I still onl
  • Out of all the possibilities I still only use a handful of patches live or in the studio.

    I sure am happy I chose Digitech though. They make a really fine pedal. Tough as nails. Not like the Zoom one my friend has.

    Have fun guys!
    Terie
  • Recording 24-bit vs 16 bit does make a difference, regardless of what you're mixing it down to. Dynamics are much more accurate at higher bit rates, and rounding errors are reduced. Think of the difference as this: are you better able to manipulate something on the scale of 1 to 65,536, or on a scale of 1 to 16,777,216? Obviously mixing in 24-bit will result in better-sounding (or, rather, more detailed) 16-bit CDs.

    On top of that, sampling rate has nothing to do with bit rate. Sampling rate is the number of 16- or 24-bit pieces of information stored per second of sound, so the two are not even dependent on each other. A/D/A conversion is better off with a higher sampling rate, since there's no amplitudal (bit-wise) manipulation at this stage; whereas a processor is more powerful with a higher processing bit rate, since it will have to manipulate data and could use a more microscopic scale to work with.
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