Zoom b9.1ut

[lefrash]

I've had this for a couple of months now, played loads of gigs with it, and practiced loads with it too so I now feel I can give a good overall review of the unit.

Build quality:
I would say this is not a small and light unit. Seems to be built like a tank, and the switches etc feel robust. the expression pedal feels pretty good too. It only has a basic digital read out, so I guess thats one less thing to go wrong. I

Ease of use:
The buttons are laid out well and after a few hours of fiddling, I became an expert in it! haha. As it is just now, If I need to make an alteration to any of my sounds, I can make the change within seconds. 3-4 button pushes and the changes will be done and saved. Ideal for gigging situations. I know that it seems to be a big -ve for some folk, but I've not found it diffictult to navigate the system. One issue I have (which possibly is not unique to this multiFX) is that when I set a volume level for a patch, but I then have the expression pedal as a volume boost ie fully down is normal, but fully up is an extra 20% volume, I will have to make sure that when I set it up, that the expression pedal volume is the same as the standard patch volume, or else I will get varying levels.

I also wish it didnt have a volume knob on the back which changes the level of the output. I'd rather just have a standard line level output, as for me there is too many 'volumes'. ie each part of the chain has its own volume, and so does the patch, and also the whole unit.


Sounds:
the compressors are great. The noise reduction is great. The filters and autowahs are pretty good. They synths are a bit hit and miss -I only use one and its for long held out notes, so works well for that. Fast stuff not so much. I cant seem to get the octaver to track well for some reason which is ashame as thats an effect I'd quite like to use. The amp sims are pretty cool. Some are more useful than others. One massive draw back for me though is that you cant set up an amp model then run another distortion through it. For me, that would have opened up so many more possibilities. The bigg muff and fuzz sim's are excellent. They dont suck the bass away, and you always have the option to mix in the dry signal anyway so no matter what, you always have full control of how much fuzz comes through. Delays/reverbs are not something I really use but they seem to be pretty nice. Again, you have complete control over everything, and although delay and reverb are both turned off/on by the 4th button, you can set one of the function buttons to turn it off too, so its easy to have seperate delay and reverb effects.

The tuner seems to be quite accurate. Not really had an issue with it yet. Its responsive enough and you can choose in the options menu to have it either in bypass or mute.

Overall this is very much a keeper. There are definately draw backs to it, which im slowly noticing, but Considering it cost the same as my synth pedal and preamp pedal alone, its definately worth putting up with the -ve's. It doesnt have a very good looper, so dont buy it for that, but for quiet practice its ideal (the cabinet sims are ok too). Its got loads of input/outputs on the back so you can connect whatever you want to it.

[Lord Sausage]

I'm umming and aahing about gettin one. This is quite helpful, but it consolidates my indecisiveness

[mingsta]

Nice review, great piece of kit, especially if you were one of those who bagged it for £100 from GAK over xmas.

You forgot to mention that you need a PhD in quantum physics to be able to work the damn thing. I've had it for a couple of months now and haven't taken it to band practice yet cos I just can't get my head round operating quickly in a live situation!

[lefrash]

[quote name='mingsta' timestamp='1361481329' post='1986517']
Nice review, great piece of kit, especially if you were one of those who bagged it for £100 from GAK over xmas.

You forgot to mention that you need a PhD in quantum physics to be able to work the damn thing. I've had it for a couple of months now and haven't taken it to band practice yet cos I just can't get my head round operating quickly in a live situation!
[/quote]

I have to admit, I find it pretty easy to set up actually. If a preset needs tweaked I can pretty much go exactly to the right option to tweak it. The biggest pain in the arse for me though is for example you have the expression pedal increasing the gain from say 20 (fully down) to 60 (fully up). In this case I would normally have the 'normal' gain at 20 too. If I wanted to alter the normal gain to 30 but still wanted to use the expression pedal, i would then have to go in and change the pedal to make it range from 30 - 60. So I'd have two changes to make for quite a subtle change.

Its also a pain in the arse when the expression pedal gain adds volume overall, so you can then make the expression pedal make a slight decrease in overall volume, so it evens itself out as you increase the gain, but if you make a quick change to the overall volume, it then again means the pedal volume range needs to be altered.

I dont know if I've explained that too well, but hopefully you get the idea. I suppose these are minor gripes rather than design flaws.