Zoom ZG2NU Guitar Multi Effects Pedal and USB Interface

I have several Boss stompbox devices I use with my guitar, and wanted a backup plus something a little more convenient to lug around with a portable setup. And there may be an effect or two here that I don't have in some other form. While the Zoom ZG2NU is a little bit larger than I'd pictured it, it's VERY sturdy (top is metal, sides are hard rubber. Not the lightest thing for a portable setup, except that it replaces so much other gear.Plus, it replaced all of my effects stomp boxes except one (the looper-- while the Zoom can do looping, not as complete as the BOSS Loop Station does). And I was able to mimic my usual setup with not much trouble. The interface is easy to use, and it covers most usual effects and a few extra things. One thing I really like about it is it has two delay sections since the Modulation module can do tape delay and echo separate from the delay-only module. And at first, I went for the delay-only module and was a little bit disappointed that the feedback level cannot dial enough feedback all the way to produce an continuous increase (which never decays), but that disappointment went away when I found that the Tape Echo definately can (not that I'd use it that way much, but it's nice to know it's as capable as any other echo box I've used).I've been going for mostly a clean sound with just delay & reverb, and this does quite well in that regard. Once in awhile, I may want a little distortion, or even now and then a dirty fuzz, though not so often anymore. However, this box has a boatload of fuzz sounds, probably more of those than anything else, since setting the amp model will also affect it somewhat, a huge collection of fuzz modellers each of which have their own tweaks, and you can then use the EQ module to further shape the sound. The biggest problem with the fuzz/distortion is going to be going through the zillions of variations to see what they do and find what you like best. It didn't take me long to find an acceptable one for starters tho.And the auto-wah "talking" effects are not bad-- not sure I'll use them much, but they are rather entertaining. Also, the octave/pitch-shift effects are useful-- there's a single octave down in the effect module, but also in the modulation module, a full pitch-shifter, a harmonizer, and a couple of others. You can fatten things up a lot if you want with those. Some of the effects are mutually exclusive, for example, phaser, flanger, chorus, pitch shifters are all in the same module, so you only get one of those at a time. But needing those combinations seems pretty rare to me, and there are some things you can do to work around that-- you may be able to get some flange effect out of the delay for example (haven't tried it, but a real short delay and a fixed flange are basically the same), and the -1 octave can be used with chorus or flanger since they're in different modules. Octave up into chorus, flanger or phaser might be useful, and that looks like a combination you might not be able to get.I haven't cycled through all the presets yet, though some folks have examples of those on YouTube. The built-in percussion loops are mildly interesting, a couple aren't bad but my loop station is way better so I'll probably not be using it much.The Zoom has a looper, but it doesn't look like you can save the loops for posterity or have a collection of them to select from like you can from the Boss loop station. I don't expect to be getting much use out of the looper in the Zoom, it seems to be a little harder to use than the Boss as well. But if you don't have a looper, this'll give you something to play with in that regard.One minor complaint-- it's only got one 1/4" Stereo out, and since I want to feed the stereo out into the dual 1/4" mono jacks in my loop station, getting the right cabling/adapters is a little bit of a pain-- I had enough adapters in my junk box but going through too many risks bad connections, etc., so I'm ordering a couple of additional cables/adapters to clean up the connections inbetween. And apparently, you can put a mono plug into the stereo out, which I suppose has circuitry that somehow protects the unused channel drivers from being damaged from being shorted out, but just because I'm not completely sure about that I'll probably never stick a mono plug in it. Not too big of a deal, since I like to go stereo out anyhow. You can plug headphones right into the output jack though, so that's a nice feature. It doesn't do stereo in though, so it's not as useful with keyboards or synth modules.A lot of thought went into this. You can set the backlight brightness, the tuner uses the LEDs on the panel with a green center and red on the sides, so you can use it in the dark. There's even a setting for battery type, so that if you use rechargeables it will correctly show you the remaining charge, since rechargeables use different voltage levels. And each patch has it's own output level as well. All in all, a nice unit and great deal for the price. I was thinking about getting one of the Korg Pandora units for the portability factor, but I compared the set of effects with the Zoom, and liked the Zoom setup collection just a little better-- and I'm perfectly happy with my choice at this point.

Really, you can't do better than this for around $150, I dare say this thing sounds better than big multi rigs like the Digitech RP-1000, I AM NOT KIDDING. You get 100 Presets (There is not a single one I don't like) and 100 User slots pre-filled with the same presets for you to play around with.You can rig 10 different effects to create literally thousands of combinations to create your own unique sound(s), you can even download presets from the zoom website (some created by famous players like Steve Vai)The software (which is the best way to edit your presets) has a great look and feel and is super easy to use.Now that I wrote some of the goodness this thing has to offer, is time for the bad and the reason I only gave this pedal 4 stars instead of 50. I found 2 big cons (no deal breakers by any means but definitively something to be aware of):1. You can't change the order of the effect in you rig i.e. you can't put the delay before the EQ etc., no big deal since the order zoom places the effects makes perfect sense in a sound engineering point of view but still I believe you should be able to pick the order you want.2. This one is my biggest and really the only gripe I have with the pedal. You can only pick 1 effect of each type in your chain i.e. one wah, one distortion, one mod, one reverb, etc. You CANNOT and pay attention to this, YOU CANNOT combine chorus and flanger since they both fall under the same type of effect (mod). In my case this is not really a big deal since I have more ways to combine the latest via software like NI Guitar Rig but this may or may not be a deal killer for other peeps.I certainly recommend this pedal and the sound you get out of it is top notch despite the pedal's limitations

I purchased this effects processor so that I can add some reverb, chorus, and delay for my new Acoustic Electric guitar. It works perfect in that respect. It's exactly what I wanted. it took me about 20 minutes to figure out how it works, but after that, it was a no-brainer. I like the fact that there's a way to connect it to my PC via USB. I can play while listening to the headphones (plugged directly to the unit) and have my PC record what I play. The recording sounds EXCACTLY like what I played. I especially like the fact that it can be powered by batteries, ac adapter (included), or via a USB connection. One thing I should mention, it took me a few hours to get it to work with my laptop. It turns out that it was not the fault of the G2Nu. I updated the USB drivers on my laptop and after that, it worked flawlessly. Another thing, remember to download the G2Nu's drivers from Zoom's website. Fantastic device! Thank you Zoom!

Good thing, but complex if you arnt a pro.

Unit worked well for six months now has loud hum

I bought this for a simple multieffects practice device to have at work. I'm just a guitar hobbiest, but I think that most of the tones sounded weak. It seems more difficult to use than my Digitech RP255. I returned it.