Zoom (audio company)
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Zoom is a Japanese audio company that is distributed in the U.S. under the Samson family of companies. Zoom produce effects pedals for guitars and basses, recording equipment, drum machines, among other products. Most of their products are aimed at the amateur market although they also produce some high quality rack effects units used by professionals.
Zoom first gained worldwide attention with the release of the 9002 guitar belt processor. Roughly 1,5 times the size of a cigarette pack, the 9002 was one of the smallest multi-effect devices at the time. The unit combined analog compression and pre-amp circuitry with digital effects in an attempt to substitute for the traditional effects/amplifier chain.
Over the years, Zoom has become widely known for producing budget-friendly multi-effects. For many guitar and bass players, a Zoom unit was the first multi-effect they could afford, before they moved on to bigger and better, or discarded multi-fx altogether in favor of standalone effects pedals that are typically designed to provide just one type of sound effect. Consequently, Zoom's reputation as a company that builds high quality multi-fx has been tarnished somewhat.
Zoom has always built their products around their own microchip designs. Their current version, the ZFX-3, is a 32 bit processor that is capable of processing digital audio at 96kHz with 24 bit A/D/A conversion. As of 2006, this chip is one generation more powerful than that of direct competitors such as Boss, Line6, Yamaha and Rocktron. The current Zoom flagship model is the G9.2tt multi-fx and amp modeler.
Contents |
[edit] Products
[edit] Effect processors
[edit] Guitar effect processors
- G2
- G2.1u
- G7.1ut
- G9.2tt
- GFX-1
- GFX-3
- Zoom GFX-5
Solid steel body, easy-to-tag pedals, hundreds of possible effect combinations, drum machine, sampling—and that's just the beginning.
The GFX-5 starts with 75 different guitar effects—each one completely rich and realistic. You can use up to 10 effects simultaneously, mixing and matching to create sounds that are all your own. The GFX-5 introduced a brand new effect to the library; Energise. This adds more energy to the effects, boosting tone to far richer, better quality sounds, adding power to leads, or boosting the rhythm sections to much higher levels, above the rest of the instruments. A highly usable, performance quality stomp box, in many people's opinion a better buy than the Line6 or Yamaha equivalents.
- GFX-8
Image:Zoom gfx-8.jpg The top model from the GFX series. It has solid steel dark green body with opto based pedal on the right and red LED display on the top left. It uses the Variable Architecture Modeling System (V.A.M.S ) technology. In general, there are three main internal modules: for drive, for modulation and for delay. The unit allows high level of distortion customization by using specialized software. It also allows using external distortion. The technology used in the unit does not allow full reordering of the effects but allows some of modulation effects like wah and phaser to be connected before or after the drive module. The drive module implements dynamic related effects like compressor, overdrive, distortion and fuzz. After the drive module, the noise gate module called ZNR (ZOOM Nose Reduction) is connected, followed by a parametric equalizer (presence, treble, middle, bass). The amp simulation module is connected next and allows various types of guitar amplifier simulations. The modulation module implements effects like wah, phaser, chorus, ring modulator, tremolo, vibrato, flanger and pitch shifter. The delay module is used to implement delay and reverb effects. Effects that require high processing power use modulation and delay module togheter. One of such effects is the jam play effect allowing, for example, guitar player to play rhythm guitar part and then play solo part over it. The unit design is oriented toward ease of use by providing more knobs than usually found on such units, thus making the unit look more like chain of effect boxes rather than typical effect processor with "few knobs many functions" design. Unit has mature MIDI capabilities, allowing both control from external sequencer or using the unit as MIDI controller. The MIDI OUT can be configured to act as MIDI THRU.
- Zoom G92.tt
Effects processor and amplifier modelling unit. Solid steel body, with heavily durable switches. 120 different effects, controllable in real time via 2 sweller pedals ( one of them is a "3D pedal", which can be moved vertically and horizontically in order to control two parameters with one pedal ). A maximum of 10 simultaneous effects may be used. The unit has two 12AX7A preamp tubes that can amplify the signal in a tube or a solid-state based circuit. ( These functions are referred to as "tube energizer" and "tube accelerator", each of them utilizing one of the two tubes ) The unit can simulate 28 different amp models, and altogether 43 amps and cabinets. User presets can be saved in 100 editable user patches, plus there are 100 factory presets. Further features include an USB interface, MIDI In / Out, an effects loop, 24 bit A/D/A conversion, an aux input and many other features. The 9.2tt is the flagship of the G-series by Zoom.
- PFX-9003
- StompBox
- 707II
- 606
- 505II
[edit] Bass guitar effect processors
- 708II
- 607
- 506II
- B2
- B2.1u
[edit] Acoustic guitar effect processors
- 504II
- A2
- A2.1u
[edit] Studio rack mountable effect processors
- RFX-2200
- RFX-1100
[edit] Digital recorders
- MRS-1608
- MRS-802
- MRS-8
- MRS-4
- PS-04
[edit] Rhythm machines
- RT-223
- MRT-3
- SB-246
[edit] Guitar amplifiers
- FIRE-36M
- FIRE-18M
- FIRE-36
- FIRE-18
