As shown in the title, in this reasonably short article I will be talking to you about the Zoom G9.2tt Guitar Effects Console. At the end, there is also a short demo track that I have quickly recorded via the USB facilities of the console.
Why did I get it?
Well it was about that time when everything you have is slowly breaking itself. I previously had another Zoom pedal, a reasonably cheap Zoom 606 (about £80). This pedal had always served me well, but the sound was getting a little too electronic and it was hard to get good clean sounds from it. Not to mention that the expression pedal had broken off (could have been fixed but I lost the bolt). I have a couple of FAB distortion and overdrive pedals, but they’re not really that much good on their own. So, I went searching around the internet for a new effects console, at about the same price.
What really caught my eye about the Zoom G9.2tt is the fact that it has so many expensive features (notably the tubes) all packaged into this one well-priced console. Having always been with Zoom and they had never let me down, I decided that this had to be the best one out of the lot. It took a lot of careful research and review searching to finally settle on this pedal (although there weren’t any contenders, I just wanted to be sure about spending the money). As you have probably already noticed, you are hard pushed to find a negative review of this console. The only bad thing I could find mentioned about this console is that “The Wah effect is a little too weak”. Now that didn’t really bother me either as many others had countered that comment and suggested otherwise. Apart from all of those reasons, for £200 I mean come on, thats a bargain if ever I saw one.
What do I use it with?
I don’t spend that much money on expensive guitars, and I like to keep guitar items within a certain price range for the moment. So I don’t have it going through a very impressive “rig”. To start with, I have an Ibanez GRG170DX standard setup, I’ve just adjusted the height of the pickups to give me a little more definition for the higher notes, and modified the EQ on the console to even things out. To end with, believe it or not, I have the output from the console going straight to a 200W PA system. A proper guitar amp will be my next purchase as the little 10W Squier I have looks a bit twee. Because I like to keep my wires nice and neat, I have employed the help of a wireless guitar bug from AKG (£120 - gasp) which means I have no wires going from my guitar to the console. Although many people may scowl at that, I’m a bedroom player so it doesn’t really matter.
If anyones really interested, I play with Jim Dunlop Nylon Standard 0.73mm plectrums with Rotosound Yellow .010 - .046 strings and use Fast Fret to clean them (good stuff). I’ve used this combination for about a year now and I just love them and would recommend them to anyone. Anyway, below is a picture of it if you don’t want to have to mentally visualise the above description (its a hard life).
Where did I get it from?
I purchased both the console, and the wireless system from an English company - Andertons Music. You can visit them by clicking here (if any of you use Firefox, I suggest you switch to IE for ordering, they’re messed it up a little). I got the console for about £210 and the wireless system for £120 (all including delivery). This is certainly one of the the best prices I’ve found (all thanks to Matt who pointed me there). The quote next working day delivery and they are true to their word. Mine came the next working day with no problems at all, everything perfectly smooth. The only thing that I was a bit disappointed about was that they sent no email saying that they had dispatched your order, only the initial confirmation email from the transaction provider. Apart from that, i would highly recommend this company.
Useful things that I could have know about
- I would recommend having a quick browse through the manual. At first I was a little stuck on how to navigate through patches, but this was just because it was slightly different to the way I was used to.
- I wouldn’t take much notice of the default patches, as with most Zoom patches, they’re not the best and most of them are just psychedelic ones that no one is likely to use. I would recommend just getting straight into creating your own ones by modifying the defaults. Don’t worry about messing up the default sounds, they’re all stored in a read-only are as well so you can always get back to them.
- Don’t go buying another power supply, although i couldn’t find it anywhere, it does include one with the console (sounds stupid I know, but its happened to me before).
- Although they provide the Cubase software and the USB port on the console, as with most companies nowadays, they don’t provide a sodding USB cable to connect the darn thing. You might want to nip out to the shops and get yourself one before you get it. Just look for one in the printer section, they’re the same type.
Okay okay, so whats it like?
I couldn’t use any other word than perfect and above. This has to be the best thing I’ve used since I was born. The quality of the effects is just superb. You can’t tell the difference between a board of separate analogue pedals and this console. Zoom have really put some thought into this one, and have taken on previous complaints and rectified them. Let me start with a few things that make this pedal stand out from the rest:
- Superb build quality. Everything that could be made out of metal, has been. This thing wouldn’t break if you threw it off a cliff (although it would be tricky, its damn heavy for it’s size).
- The inclusion of pre and post tubes really livens up the sound. You can achieve really warm crunchy sounds by using the Energizer tube, and can also give some light compression etc by turning up the accelerator.
- The pre-amp simulations on this console have to be one of the best parts of it. With a little bit of tweaking, you can model the sounds of most of the great amplifier manufacturers.
- Dual axis expression pedal? A little strange but very interesting to use. Quite nice for modulating a few effects to make the guitar sound as if it is talking. If you really don’t like the idea, it can be locked to only the traditional up/down so no worries there.
- Very easy to use, you can get making patches within minutes of getting the thing un-boxed.
- Excellent noise cancellation. You can just leave a not playing and it won’t cut it off, but yet it’s completely silent when not playing. Perfect.
- You can achieve high quality clean sounding effects with this console, which is something that other consoles around this price range struggle with. That was another main reason why I bought this console.
They were just a few of the highlights that i could think of off the top of my head. I’m sure you can delve deeper into the reviews and find some more technical responses. I however don’t have all of the traditional board of pedals to compare this console to, but I can certainly say that you will have trouble trying to find something better than this for the price.
I need some sound!
As I haven’t completely learnt all the ropes yet, the quality of the patches I have created are perhaps not the best and they are certainly not what the console is fully capable of doing. I’m really just testing out the USd audio interface and at the same time recording this demo. I’m putting this up as I could not find many other demos other than the ones posted at the Zoom site.
Track list:
1) Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond
2) Pink Floyd - Money
3) Boston - More Than A Feeling
4) Jimi Hendrix - Little Wing
5) Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo Child
DEMO NOT RECORDED YET, COMING SOON!
This post was written by 
Matt
January 4th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Always glad to help old chum.
Now get those demos up speedy like.
Matt