Ok, this one is further to my post “Anybody use Zoom G1 or G2” a few weeks ago.

Curiosity got the better of me and I managed to get a Zoom G2 at a good price on the second hand market, so I thought I’d share the benefit of my experience with the rest of you.

I’ve been using a Zoom 505ii for several years as my live effects unit, and it has been admirable, but it does have a few flaws. The EQ on the 505 is rudimentary at best (you select from a baunch of presets), and plugged into a bright sounding amp, it’s hard to get a good sound out of it. Also, it generates a bit of background noise. This is background noise over and above the sort of high gain background noise which high gain settings on any effects unit/amplifier produce.

I bought the G2 because I thought it would overcome the flaws of the 505ii, and it does. The six-band eq on the G2 is superb, and the background noise has gone completely. It’s a really, really good quality piece of kit for a low price. The delay effects are far superior, and they’ve added one or two new effects.

There are some surprises too, though…

The 505ii allowed you to preselect patches before switching them in: the G2 doesn’t

The 505ii allowed you to modify more than one pedal-controlled effects parameter simultaneously: the G2 doesn’t

The effects sound different: e.g. the OD overdrive on the G2 is a middley sounding thing: on the 505ii it’s much more bass and presence-ish

It’s less obvious how to achieve patch level differences with the G2 – it can be done but you need to fiddle about a bit more

I don’t know if it’s just me, but the G2’s tuner seems a *tiny* bit less accurate that 505ii’s but it might just be my particular unit

The old restriction of using either an external pedal or a footswitch, but not both, is still there.

The packaging of the effects is slightly different on the G2: on the 505 you could have “wah” + “cry” giving a “waaooww” effect (wah + ow) – you can’t do this on the G2.

The switches on the G2 are buttons instead of panels, meaning that you have to place your foot much more accurately (difficult on a dark stage) to switch effects off/enter tuning mode than with the 505ii.

Subtle distortion effects (i.e. a low blues crunch) don’t come so easily and require a bit a fiddling about to get.

Big plusses are:

Knobs to quickly adjust sensibly chosen parameters: hooray!
Huge tonal latitude, courtesy of the EQ section
All of the main effects work well (although ring modulator and step are useless IMO)
The quality of the effects is amazing for the price. If you play at home, you’d be better off buying this and a pair of headphones than a practice amp.

Other features:

It’s got a drum machine: a strange addition for guitarists, but if you want to get that riff really tight, it’s good for practicing, BUT it replaces your reverb section
It’s got a recording speaker simulation function BUT BEWARE, it replaces three of your six bands of EQ so regardless of what the Zoom sales blurb says, if you use the EQ, your recording settings will sound significantly different

All in all, a great piece of kit, but because it’s significantly different in sound from the 505ii, I won’t be committing to using it live for a while yet because my live sound is great with the 505ii and its limitations don’t show in use – I’ll let you know what happens!.