Zoom G3X

[dave robinson]

I took delivery of the ZoomG3X this afternoon and within ten minutes had the patches for Apache and Wonderful Land installed using the known timings for the heads on a Meazzi.
This is a terrific piece of kit for the money and has tons of other great effects to play with - everything you could ever want for electric guitar @ £130 from Soundslive. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED !

[roger bayliss]

I have one Dave and have done my own programming and used the EQ and yes a great unit for the price in a compact unit.

[dave robinson]

Things have certainly moved on in the last fifteen years or so, I remember thinking I had the world with the Quad GT which was good back then. Not that it isn't today, but you get so much more for your money and by comparison to the price of similar stuff back then, these new Zooms are a steal.

I spent the time since my last posting about this, about five hours, working out all the Shadows echoes and programming them in, as well as my Duane Eddy and Gary Moore sounds along with a straight through sound and tremolo and chorus added - 10 patches in all, enough to do a regular gig. I must say it's been enjoyable and did have to refer to the manual a few times to programme the swell and wah pedal, but it's done now and the other banks will be easy now I've done this.
I've set it up for a live gig using my Boogie, but I need to get the same programmes installed with amp modelling to go through my Bose system for when I go back soloing again. It certainly keeps the brain going !

[leddo]

Couldn't agree more about the Zoom G3, great piece of kit for the money. It would be interesting to know what patches/effects you are using Dave.

[dave robinson]

I programmed ten for doing our gigs as follows

A0. Apache
A1. Shadoogie
A2. Wonderful Land
A3. Midnight
A4. Man Of Mystery
A5. Slapback
A6. Duane Eddy Twang using tremolo & reverb
A7. Straight just a little compression for rhythm and R & B lead
A8. Chorus
A9. Fuzz for Gary Moore type lead using a little reverb and delay

The five echoes for the Shadows tunes cover all the Shads stuff we play. I don't see the sense in cluttering up
the banks with identical echoes for different tunes, it leaves space on the machine for other projects.

[leddo]

Cheers Dave, that's a neat bunch of patches. Which amp sim do you prefer for the Shadows tracks or do you just stick with the tape echo?

[dave robinson]

I didn't use an amp simulator as I I'm playing through my Mesa Boogie MkIII.
I will be looking to programme the unit further in order to go through my rig on solo gigs, but I need to get it plugged in and have a listen to what suits the best. It only arrived on Wednesday afternoon and all I've done is listen to the factory programmes and done my own bit of programming. The factory programmes are largely useless for me.

I used it tonight at our gig and was pleased with what I had programmed, but was guilty of over echoing my Shads patches so I need to lower all the echo volumes. That's the trouble with doing them quietly in the living room, what sounds great there is totally different when cranked up to live performance levels. I now have an idea what they need to be set at so I'll have them right for next week.

[Tigerdaisy]

I've had two G3s, buying the second one (Vs 2) after I realised how good it was especially at the very reasonable price. Easy to adjust on the actual unit, although I've never tried tweaking on my computer. The basic drum rhythms are good for practice, especially the first patch which if sped up does a good intro to Apache.

[roger bayliss]

I have noticed the modulation delay is a lot louder in output than say the tape delay .... on my Zoom anyway

[dave robinson]

The reason why I bought one is because I heard one recently and it isn't too expensive.
It does exactly what we need it to do as far as echoes are concerned in terms of achieving the correct timings and with careful tweaking you can add the modulation and make it sound authentic. It's also very easy to understand the controls for setting up patches (unlike the Q2 & Q20)
This morning I set it up and did some alterations to my initial efforts and improved what I had done initially. It takes a bit of time and patience but the rewards are immense. I found that you can easily over do the echo volume when playing quietly in the front room, I made that mistake and have made notes of the numbers and percentage ratio between dry & wet, so that I don't have to guess when making future patches. I can't praise this unit enough as it's lighter, smaller and better than my previous kit.