ZoomG1X FOUR Guitar Multi-Effects Processor with Expression Pedal, With 70+ Built-in Effects, Amp Modeling, Looper, Rhythm Section, Tuner, Battery Powered

You would have been unlikely to find a more staunch opponent of (affordable) multi-effects processors than me, until I came across the Zoom G1on. Multi-effects processors promise the ultimate value - a one-stop shop for all your effects needs in a single package - but invariably fall short. Well, in recent years, the entry prices of individual effects pedals has gone down considerably due to globalization and the influx of foreign manufactured models like Joyo, Biyang, etc. Since the late 90's, I had been frustrated by my BOSS ME-30 - it served me generally well, but it offered literally 5 distortion/overdrive options (none of which were all that good), and generally was difficult to work with. And this was at a retail price pushing $200.At first glance, the Zoom G1on looks like more of the same - small orange LCD interface with two footpedals, a single selector knob, and just a handful of dedicated buttons. But that's really where the similarities end. Under the hood, this $50 Zoom G1on is LOADED with functionality, and as a person who owns dozens of dedicated effects pedals, along with other modeling software and some small combo amps, I can say that while this is an unbelievable value for beginning guitarists - even more experienced musicians should appreciate it as a portable practice device and looper.BUILD QUALITY - Again, the aesthetics of the Zoom G1on scream "early 90's", but the casing is actually quite durable and the choices they made allow this unit to sell for $50 while (reportedly) running on 4 AA batteries for up to 20 hours. (9V adapter not included, but if you have any of the BOSS-style 9V adapters around, those will work, or can be found for about $10 online. It can also be powered by the USB jack). The bass of the G1on is solid metal, so only the top and sides are hard-molded plastic. Therefore, the unit has quite a bit of heft to it, and I did not find it tempted to slide around after being tugged by an instrument cable and headphone attachment. I can't speak to the long-term durability of the buttons, but I've seen bad switches on pedals many times, and none of these seemed like a red flag to me on the G1on. Heavy stomping could surely damage the foot pedals, but I actually prefer it on a table closer to eye level for practice. For home use and operated with common sense, I expect it will last.AMP MODELS - While the product is marketed as an "effects unit", it should be noted at the start that it operates as a full preamp and cabinet simulator modeling (now) 22 types of popular amps. These are well-selected, too, offering several Fenders and Marshalls, along with some other classics from Vox, Matchless, and Orange, and modern/hi-gain amps (MESA, etc.) as well. I haven't tried every amp quite yet, but the base amp tones are surprisingly full-sounding and convincing. Tube amp snobs will tell you that they aren't as good as the "real thing", but in my opinion, they sound very good, and are touch responsive in ways that are at least analogous to how a tube amp responds to your playing. Through the LCD screen, you also have an impressive number of parameters to control, including level, gain, 3-band EQ, presence, "tube saturation", and the output cabinet size and type. Needless to say, with this number of options, if you have a particular guitar tone in mind, there's certain to be a way to get something at least close to it.EFFECTS - With a firmware update released months after the G1on was released (and factory-installed on newer productions), the G1on now boasts around 100 effects. Zoom quite blatantly tells you the name and model of the pedal or unit they are modeling, and they have a few of their own effects as well. Obviously, I can't break down all of them in an Amazon review, but I found them to be quite good. What's nice is that there are several options of each effect offered, so there aren't just two reverbs - there's closer to a dozen. And there isn't just a single "blues distortion", there's models of the TS-9 Tubescreamer, BOSS OD-1, a booster, and other options. Some have been critical of these effects as differing from their real life counterparts, but again, that's primarily semantics. If Zoom's Tubescreamer sounds totally unlike a real Ibanez pedal, yet is still useful, that's still an effect I can work with. The unit allows up to 5 effects to be chained at once, though two of those spots are often occupied by an amp sim and a noise gate. Also, you will occasionally get an error message that a certain chain of effects is too taxing on the devices memory resources, and cannot run. However, these are relatively rare, and only seem to appear with some of the more complex modulation effects in a long chain. I would rather the device cut things off if it's overmatched than try to run a complex chain and either freeze up or suffer from stuttering and terrible performance. In general, effects chaining works great, and it does allow you to move effects in the signal chain and even after the amp.USER INTERFACE & PRESET MANAGEMENT - Where multi-effects tend to run into problems isn't so much in the amount of what is offered, but the practicality of how you switch from one sound to another, and tweak the individual settings for each effect, amp, etc. I'd be lying if I said that the G1on is free from all of these inconveniences - it isn't. But while the G1on limits you to 100 factory presets that can be overwritten, edited, or renamed, they did make some design choices that make it workable. From the home screen, the left and right footpedals cycle through banks of presets (Zoom includes a very detailed chart telling you what each is supposed to be, ranging from "Classic rock lead tone" to "Guitar tone of the dude from Maroon 5"). The banks are arranged A0-A9, B0-B9, and so on. The 4-way directional buttons allow you to skip to different letter bank for quicker navigation. Once you are within a preset, you can select a particular effect (such as a delay or overdrive pedal), and then the footpedals will turn that effect on and off. One of the best features is an "autosave" option: the default is to autosave every change you make to the patches so you don't lose those settings going forward. While some may not want this, I found it useful to weed out some of the totally unusable sounds. That being said, I do wish it made it a little easier to create and store my own patches based on a simple OD pedal -> Amp -> Reverb pedal setting. You can do this, but only if you overwrite some of the 100 factory patches.RHYTHM/LOOPER FEATURES - I've seen a surprising number of G1on users who could care less about the amp simulations and effects, and buy the G1on strictly because it has a 30-second looper. Try finding a halfway decent looper pedal for under 100 bucks - it doesn't really exist. What's more, this looper can be played along with 68 rhythm patterns that cover a wide variety of genres. The sound quality of the drum beats surprised me the first time I heard it through my headphones...what a great practice aid! The looper is operated by the footpedals: you designate the number of beats for your loop, set the beats per minute (tempo), and then you can infinitely overdub your loops, provided the run time is less than 30 seconds. It does not have "undo" feature, however. This is my first hardware-based looper, and I can see getting a ton of use out of it.DRAWBACKS - While my overall review is a glowing 5-star recommendation, I will mention some negatives about the unit that buyers should be aware of. Most of these are minor, or can be addressed with a workaround. As mentioned above, the unit does not come with a power supply (but does come with 4 AA batteries). It cannot be used as a recording interface, as the USB connection is only for firmware updates and powering the device. It has one 1/4" jack for output, whether you are using it to run an instrument cable out to an amp, or plugging in headphones. For the latter, however, you may need a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter (these are widely available for cheap).The interface has a bit of a "language" to editing presets and individuals effects/amps, but I picked it up quickly. One thing that is a bit difficult to manage is volume. The good news is that it has plenty of output for headphones. The bad news is that the output level of different presets can vary quite a bit. There is no "volume knob" for headphones or output to an amp/speaker. If you are using an amp simulator, there is a volume knob there. There is a second volume option for overall output of each preset. And then there is a Master Volume that dictates the output of the whole unit, but again, this is in a menu and probably would have been better served as a dedicated knob on the unit. For the most part, once I lowered the master volume to around 50, I was able to enjoy most of the presets at a decent volume through my Sennheiser headphones.The unit has a tuner, which is accessible by pressing both pedals, and I found it quite workable. It even has settings for alternate tunings! However, there does not appear to be any great way to "bypass" the entire unit, which limits its usefuless as a "stompbox" into a real guitar amplifier. There is a "bypass" effect, so I suppose you could set up an entire preset just as the bypass. But even in that case, I would expect there would be some coloration of tone running through the G1on, which is unfortunate.OVERALL - Despite those drawbacks, I was absolutely blown away with how much I enjoyed the sounds coming out of my Zoom G1on. I wouldn't have paid $150 for it, and this wasn't really a device I "needed". But at $50, I simply couldn't put my guitar down. So often, we get that "5 minutes of curiosity" as a guitar player, where maybe we just want to experience playing with an auto-wah now and then, but don't want to necessarily BUY a $70 pedal for that sole effect. The G1on makes that possible in a way that is extremely convenient and gratifying. It's also small enough to fit in the front pocket of a gig bag, which means you could enjoy these sounds virtually anywhere. The rhythm and looper features are great, and there are endless hidden gems (the Acoustic Simulator is possibly the best I've heard, and I generally HATE acoustic simulators). If properly used and appreciated, it can help become a better player, provide endless hours of fun and experimentation, and maybe (just maybe) prevent you from spending needless money on ancillary effects pedals, since your $50 Zoom G1on probably already has that sound on board. Highly recommended.

I love this stupid little thing, though my use-case scenarios are... a little odd. But it is useful in several different situations.So, a few months ago, my lead guitar player gets it in his head that he wants to do this song we wrote in 2016 that has me playing a wah-wah pedal, and it was recorded-- weirdly-- on an old Zoom 606 that had been sitting in a trap case for about 5 years until a few months ago. I actually had just used the 606, for the first time in 10 years, for some fly dates in NYC! It was a bizarre show, in that one of the acts I played with was acoustic, but the other three bands are electric, I can't bring two guitars on the plane, so I brought the old 606 because it has a great "acoustic" patch for electric guitar. Problem solved-- the 606 made my electric sound acoustic enough so that it blended in fine with the 'real' acoustics.But I did notice-- the switches on the 606 were a little dodgy when I was rehearsing to track on the east coast. It got through the shows with no problem, but it's clearly at retirement age.I looked at standalone wah-wah pedals, but they all have tone pots in them, and I know what that means-- the WILL get dusty and go bad sooner than I'd like, and some of them can't even be opened and cleaned. The cheaper multi-effects units have optical or digital pots or something that are less subtle, but more reliable. First, I tried the MOOER GE100, and whoa, what a POS that was-- the switch for the wah-wah turned on and off every time I pressed the pedal, so back it went. Grudgingly, I shelled out an extra $30 for the Zoom...And man, it's SO much easier to use than the old 606! You can SEE which effects are turned on or off, and it's pretty easy to modify a patch on stage-- tap the button to change the display, bring up the individual units, change some of the parameters or remove them from the signal chain, takes no more time than adjusting the tone or drive on a TS9 or whatever. The pedal is also better ergonomically than the one on the 606, though obviously not in the same league as a CryBaby-- I HATE playing wah-wah, by the way-- and the pedal just pivots better, though I can't explain why.Then, we get to the showcase, and this time I'm playing a real acoustic-- but a 3/4 size, because my osteoarthritis has gotten so bad, and the 3/4 is easier to play with Silk and Steel strings-- but being mahogany and a smaller body, and also with the Silk and Steels, it doesn't sound QUITE like a "real" acoustic.So I did something truly demented: I used the "Acoustic" patch on the G1X4 to make the 3/4 mahogany sound... more acoustical. It was FANTASTIC; we did six songs counting sound check, and everyone loved us. I was on the edge of feedback for the whole set, but I got some really wild psychedelic sounds just using the factory presets. Best of all, if the feedback starts to really get out of control, just hit the two pedals simultaneously to engage the tuner, and you're back to a clean signal immediately. Much less disruptive to the set than trying to kill the feedback by turning the volume down or adjusting the tone pots, which will involve more trial and error.It's capable of some of the same zany psychedelic weirdness as the 606, but the audio quality and UI are way better.I don't know that I'd use this for the larger shows I play once or twice a year; even for a compact fly rig, I want a bit more control, a dedicated chorus, phaser, delay, distortion, etc. But the G1X Four is TOTALLY fine for smaller venues. Obviously, it's not gonna have the same sound quality as high-end boutique pedals, but for smaller clubs with beater amps in the backline, really, no one is gonna care.The only thing I noticed: In the effects loop of a BantAmp hybrid, it doesn't play nicely with the solid-state power amp stage if the Gain is set past 9:00. But nothing else seems to, either-- my Mystic Edge and Tube Pilot don't really work in the effects loop either, though the G1X four sounds a bit worse than they do in that particular configuration. My guess is for that particular hybrid, with a tube in the preamp and a solid state power amp, I should keep dirt pedals and overdrives in the input part of the signal chain anyway. So it may not even be the pedal. And could be a non-issue for a full-on tube amp.Highly recommended. Didn't even buy it on sale, but if it were lost or stolen, I'd buy it again.