Zoom G1X Four Multi Effect-Pedal

I use this for guitar and a small analogue synth. It has most of the effects I need in a small box, that’s easy to take along. The effects are of surprisingly good quality. The UI is decent enough and the companion app on the desktop makes creating presets easy. Battery operated and the batteries last a fairly long time.

A few issues have come up.
- The expression pedal is plastic and the hinges are plastic so it is incredibly squeaky, I mean wake the family up in the next room squeaky. Because it’s plastic, oiling it is a bit difficult.
- The global volume setting is not saved with the preset, so volume matching presets gets very difficult and you frequently need to sacrifice an fx slot to get the level into a usable range.
- Line level input is a bit too easy to send into clipping territory.

Having used the Zoom B1 Four (for bass guitar), I had a pretty good idea what to expect. To be honest, I was a little taken aback by some things.

When I connected the device to Guitar Lab, I realized the memory was already full; I would have to delete some of the pre-installed patches even to update the list. That's not great customer experience. I also found the sound "out of the box" to be a bit on the artificial side.

To be fair, you can address all issues with a bit of tweaking, and someone like me - with previous Zoom experience - faced no issues. But I can imagine a newcomer would be intimidated.

Having said that, for the price you pay, you get a lot of goodness. Basically every sound you want to replicate with your guitar, it's there - including the wah pedal, which is customizable and has a good response. No complaints.

All in all, I'd definitely recommend it, but be prepared for a bit of fiddling, to make it sound the way you want to.