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http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep00/articles/zoom.htm

I have enjoyed this multi effects board tremendously. Zoom
put it out early and rocked the world. GC never carried these
so distribution was low, but if you can find one, jump on it.

Fun to tweak via MIDI / PC link. It has everything, although I like to use its EFX loop to provide my own distortion on SOME patches via either a Radial ToneBone, Fulltone Full Drive II or Fulltone GT-500.

Looks like a sweet pedal. How would this compare to the Digitech GNX3? I've owned it for years and I might be looking to upgrade.

im not sure, but i think ive seen that pedal somewhere. not sure. but it looks very similar to that. (not at encore but somewhere else... forgot where.)

Interestingly,

Zoom put out their most advanced full-featured model in 2000,
then every model in the line thereafter was smaller, with fewer features!

As to how it compares w/ the other boxes, all I can tell you is that it comes down to tweakability. You MIDI hook this baby up to a PC (simple, using a Midiman, Midisport USB 2x2...sold separately), slap on headphones, and then tweak the screen knobs, guiding by ear if you know zip about electronic/mixing/tech variables...EQ levels, frequency ranges, effects, custom distortions, etc.). Name your patches whatever you want to call the tone, save, send to the
GFX-8., done. Anything happens, you've got files backed up
on your PC -and- you can exchange these files w/ other guys doing the same thing, to NAIL various tones.

And that's the real beauty- this thing cornered tone beautifully. My amps are clean (Tweed '59 Bassman R.I. and a MusicMan HD-210 One*Fifty) and in stereo for beautiful stereo chorus etc., effect.

There was an increibly good base for this called 'Fine Clay Matrix', a site out of the UK run by a couple of engineers / guitarists, musos. I can't seem to find it.

Anyway, check out the review at the top of this page.

As to newest gear in the realm which I think rocks- the
latest Line 6 floor models do it. THE biggest problem that held back ALL these cool units was EQ. Live, they sounded 'tinny' why? Either guys couldn't or wouldn't tweak their tone...lazy. Me, I love to tinker and find "that sound". Why buy a bunch of amps? Insane. Used right, these are fun and rock! mvm

From what you've described this sounds very similar to the Digitech GNX3! One thing I love about the GNX is that it has an 8 track recorder that you can loop guitar riffs with live and it also has an XLR mic input for the talkbox effect as well as looping vocal segments.

As for me, I'm definitely a digitech kind of guy...not because the store is a dealer for digitech, but because they seem to have really good quality equipment.

I recently bought a Digitech Vocalist Live Pro and this thing is sweet. I'll probably write a review of it here in a little while so I won't waste space here, but it's a beast!

As for guitar effects, I'm eager to see if THIS UNIT will be any good. It will probably be pretty pricey, but it looks pretty solid.

I love my Zahrim. It's just hard to use it live. People are often beheaded when I turn it on.

hahaha that's a sweet pedal!