Can a sub £100 multi-effects unit really substitute for all your regular pedals on stage? PAUL WHITE plugs in and finds out.

Zoom have always been in the business of building guitar effects processors, some of which have been very sophisticated devices, so it comes as little surprise that they're the first company to cram a multi-effects processor into a floor pedal little larger than your average overdrive box and sell it for less than £100. To get the price out of the way first, this doesn't include the external power supply, which will set you back around another £25 if you buy the recommended Zoom PSU. Although the unit will run from a 9V PP3 Alkaline battery, the power consumption is so high that you'd probably spend the £25 you saved on batteries within a week!

What you get for your money is a very stylish, deceptively tough plastic box with in and out jacks, two footswitches, and a further jack for an optional expression pedal, for controlling things like wah wah effects. To access the editing facilities, there are four recessed switches on the sides of the unit, although the degree to which the individual effects can be changed is pretty basic.

The main display is a 2-digit LED window that offers patch information in Play mode and editing data when you're tweaking patches. There is also a list of effects blocks below the display. Each of these has an associated LED, indicating which effects blocks are active and which one is currently accessed for editing. Blocks may be switched off if not required, and when you press both footswitches together, the unit goes into bypass mode where the status LEDs act as the readout for the on-board tuner.

There are eight separate areas where edits can be made, but unless you count output level as an effect, we're really talking about using up to six effects plus noise reduction at a time. 24 patches are available, arranged in six banks of four. All the patches may be modified or completely overwritten by the user. In the simplest mode of operation, the two pedals are used to step up or down through the patches. The new patch becomes active as soon as you change patch. However, you can also switch to a kind of pre-select mode where you stomp through to the effect you need in advance, then load it with a deft flick of the ankle when the time is right. If the external pedal input isn't needed for a controller pedal, an optional footswitch may be used to provide direct bank selection.

THE EFFECTS

Perhaps the best way to see what effects are on offer is to enter edit mode (by pressing Edit and waiting for the letters E-D-I-T to wander across the display), and then step through the options. In fact, this was the only way in my case, as the previous reviewer had kept the manual!

The first effects block is labelled Compressor, although by stepping through the options, you can choose from various strengths of compressor or limiter as well as auto-wah and pedal-wah (the latter needs an optional controller pedal connected). There are no parameter values as such to change — if you don't like the type of compression you have, you choose another compressor variation. There are nine variations on each of the four effects. When you've stepped through them all using the +/- buttons on the right of the machine, the list starts again.

A brief press of Edit moves the edit list down to the next block, which deals with distortion. Eight preset types are available, from blues and conventional rock overdrive to nasty metal. The designations are Acoustic, Rhythm, Overdrive, Distortion, Blues, Fuzz, Lead, and Metal. A further press on the edit button allows the overdrive Gain to be set up in 30 discrete steps.

Next in line for tweaking is the Amp/ZNR section, which is actually two processes in one. Amp simply switches in or out an amp/speaker simulator so you can play the 505 through a mixer or hi-fi without it sounding like a bee in a coke can; ZNR is Zoom's own noise reduction system which keeps things quiet between notes. Here you get nine settings of ZNR, with or without the amp simulator, plus an off position.

When it comes to EQ, don't go expecting bass, treble, and middle plus presence, because that's not the way Zoom do things. Instead, you get a choice of 50 preset EQ voicings or nine phasers. The EQ effects mainly the mid-band, with higher numbers equating roughly to more bite, and low numbers to a fatter sound.

No multi-effects box would be complete without modulation effects, and here you get to choose from chorus, flange, doubling, step, and pitch. There are nine variations on each one where step is a kind of randomly stepping wah filter. Pitch shifting provides parallel harmonies or octaves with up to two shifted notes per patch. The other mainstays of effects boxes are reverb and delay. With the 505, you have to choose one or the other; nine halls, nine rooms, or nine delays. At the end of the line comes a master level control, and that's all there is to it. Once an effect combination has been set up, it can be stored over the existing patch ready for use.

THE SOUNDS

Within the limitations of the 'pick your own' patch editing system, the effects are really very respectable and, when ZNR is in use, quite quiet too. The reverbs and delays are perfectly adequate for guitar use, with a maximum delay time of around a third of a second, and the modulation effects are generally pretty strong. Sadly, there is no echo/reverb balance control, so you have to take the dry/effect mix you're given.

As you might expect in such a cheap unit, the pitch shifter isn't perfect, but it has obviously been optimised for guitar use — it doesn't sound as unnatural as a lot of general purpose budget pitch shifters. A particularly pleasing setting is musical 5ths, which allows quite a lot of leeway without getting your keys in a knot. Octaves are, however, obligatory for those old Led Zep cliches! The sample and hold filter setting is also great for impressive intros or weird endings.

Probably the most contentious part of any guitar box is the overdrive sounds. Using the amp simulator, you can at least plug into a mixer and get guitar sounds through the PA without having to take an amp, but some sounds work better than others. As is the case with most such processors, the very overdriven sounds are really quite good and the clean sounds are no problem, but the mildly overdriven blues amp sounds don't quite cut it — they tend to sound slightly 'fizzy' when you pick quietly or when you turn your guitar down — whereas a good amp is very touch responsive. Even so, there is a wide enough range of sounds to create a good impression. By combining the EQ with the different overdrive settings, you can get a very wide range of tones ranging from thick and raunchy to seriously scooped, with some hard-edge shred metal thrown in for good measure. In fact, the only sounds the unit really struggles with are the subtle, touch responsive sounds.

The more serious guitarist will probably find that the amp's own distortion is more natural sounding than anything the 505 has to offer. In this case, the 505 might be better used in the amp's effects loop with the overdrive switched off. However, as there's no input or output level control on the unit, you'd be advised to try this before you buy as the levels may not match up. If you use the 505 plugged into the guitar input of your amp, then the overdrive comes the wrong side of the chorus and delay effects, restricting the 505's usefulness to clean sounds. Then again, if you have a favourite overdrive pedal, you could just plug this into the input of the 505 (505 overdrive still off), and it's business as usual. I tried this with my Sansamp XXL pedal and heard a noticeable improvement when trying for more subtle tones.

VERDICT

At the price, this little box is amazing value, and it performs very well. It will appeal to gigging musicians who feel at home with the kind of overdrive sounds the unit is capable of producing, as well as to those players who have a Portastudio at home and want to write songs or make demos. For more discerning use, a really good overdrive pedal plugged into the front end seems to offer the best all round results. Putting a 505 in the gig bag would also be a useful insurance measure in case an amp goes down during a gig — at least you'd be able to plug into the PA and keep the show going.

Whether you feel this pedal will meet all your needs depends almost entirely on what sort of overdrive sounds you want, and on how much patience you have for programming if you were to choose a more sophisticated processor. Furthermore, a lot depends on the character of the amp being played through, but on balance, I had a lot of fun and produced the kind of sounds that made me want to keep playing. If you've already heard Zoom products and like them, then I'm pretty sure you'll be impressed. When you consider the low cost as well, the 505 is really quite amazing.