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Post by garyh on Jan 30, 2006 18:05:10 GMT -7
Last night I played my Junior with no pedals and wow, the difference was awesome. I have a Zoom 606 I'm ashamed to say (use other pedals with it but I use this for reverb and a tuner) and it sucks the twang out of my tone. I'm wondering if the Holy Grail allows more of the amp's sound to come through. I know a lot of you have them and I am considering getting one. I run the Zoom through my effects loop and notice a volume drop. I wonder if this has anything to do with the loss of twang. Do others experience this or is it just me? I have a rack mount processor I put in the loop as well and the volume drops too. Love to hear some ideas on the loop issue and opinions on the Holy Grail. Gary
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Post by billyguitar on Jan 30, 2006 19:08:26 GMT -7
Those are all things that would make me pull the plug on the Zoom. Try a Line 6 Verbzilla. I haven't heard one yet but if it's as good as others say the Holy Grail is history.
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Post by humphreyaudio on Jan 30, 2006 19:22:58 GMT -7
Greetings, and congrats on the new amp.
I'm not surprised. There is a HUGE reason why so many people use regular pedals instead of these multi effects units such as the Zoom. It's because they do suck your tone, and in a big way.
You can bet the Grail would be a LARGE improvement. If you want to keep the zoom for a tuner, split your guitars signal so you can patch into the amp, AND into the zoom without the zoom being involved with your amp in any way.
Again, they suck your tone in BIG ways. They color the sound, steal the sonic quality of your rig, and just plain don't belong in a high end rig.
Multieffects processors, especially el-cheapo stuff,..... Stay away from all of it and get a few nice pedals if you want the shimmer and shine of your high quality Z amp to come through.
The Grail is highly spoken of. I do not use verb, so It's not a issue for me. I use a pedal board with Wah, compressor, two drive pedals, one lead booster, and two delays, One short, one longer, for my live shows. I patch them right into the front of the amp, and I avoid using the loop.
One reason I do this is for ease of setup. Sometimes I use rented or otherwise supplied backline amps on shows where I'm backing an artists I'm not touring with extensively, or doing an opener, etc.
Most of those amps are usually Fender Twins, either Black or Silver face with no effects loops. I show up with a few guitars and my pedal board.
I choose to hook the Z amp like this also, and it's great every time.
Good luck with your effects search, and I strongly recommend staying away from processors. You want a Z tone, not a processed tone, or you wouldn't be here.
If you Like discussing Guitar tone related topics, please join us at: yahoogroups.com/group/rigtips
We have quite a few Z users, as well as everything else under the sun there. Nice people too.
Mark Humphrey
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Post by garyh on Jan 30, 2006 20:54:13 GMT -7
Thanks for the tips guys. I used the Zoom for the last couple of years, after reducing my rig size. I used to use a rack setup with a Marshall preamp and stereo cabs, midi switching, etc. It became such a pain transporting and setting up that I went real simple. I stopped doing the bigger venues too and didn't need that setup anymore.
Since getting the Z, I've been gradually replacing the Zoom with decent pedals when the $$'s become available. I'll be checking out the Grail and the Verbzilla for sure. God knows I don't want to dilute that fabulous Z-tone.
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Post by John on Jan 31, 2006 13:12:36 GMT -7
I've been using a Zoom 2020 (about 1993 vintage?)
And I always use it in the effects loop. I have never noticed a reduction in sound quality. It's a LOT less noisy that way. However, I must say, I never use it for overdrive. I only use it for chorus, delay and reverb, and perhaps a little bit of eq. And mostly small reverb at that. No, it's not studio quality with slap-back reverbs and multi-tap delays...but the sound quality is just fine. Any Overdrive pedal I put in front of the amp (inbetween guitar and amp)
I've always been weary of sticking several stomp boxes in front of the amp, due to potential sound quality reduction (and noise!) I'm old enough to have a late 70's Morley wah pedal that is the WORST. Suck 20% of your tone.
I know great strides have been made in pedals, and certain ones remove themselves from the circuit when switched off, but it just bugs me.
Also, some effects sound better in the loop. Mostly delay and reverb. Also, you should check for a 'master volume' on your Zoom unit. (it's not really called master volume) Mine has one, and it allows you to pick the overall level. If set incorrectly, you could have a substantial volume drop when switching the unit on.
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Post by guitarman1 on Jan 31, 2006 14:27:54 GMT -7
I'm wondering if the Holy Grail allows more of the amp's sound to come through. The Holy Grail does not alter your tone much.
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Post by garyh on Jan 31, 2006 17:25:35 GMT -7
I use my Zoom in the effects loop too gtrman3 and it's very quiet there. I find it just softens the tone a lot. The 606 has no master volume, just patch volume. Zoom makes good effects but the 606 is a pretty cheap unit for the budget-minded. BTW I visited the Line 6 site and they have incredible mp3s of the Verbzilla. www.line6.com/tonecore/verbzilla.htmlI'm going to the EH site tonight to audition the Holy Grail. I'm sure I'll get one or the other. The Verbzilla has a lot of reverb types too but I don't need much, just a bit of ambience.
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Post by John on Jan 31, 2006 20:34:42 GMT -7
Yes, "patch volume' is a much better way to describe it. My Zoom unit has patch volume, and it's programable along with all the other features of the unit. So if a particular patch has a loss of volume as you say, try increasing the overall patch volume. I had to do this for each of my patches. My unit has the ability to quickly bypass, so I'm able to switch back and forth between effect and bypass. If the effect is too low in volume when turned on, I increase the patch volume to match it close to the bypass volume.
I have the 10 or so patches that I created myself, but the unit still has many of the crappy factory patches in memory. And yes, there is a considerable drop in volume with many of them. (who creates factory patches anyway, chimps? I've found that only about 1 in 10 is really usable, the rest are crap)
I guess what I'm saying is that I had to adapt the unit to the amp I'm using. And the patches I created work equally well on a 20+ year old Carvin X-amp combo, and my new MAZ 18.
I've owned a couple of multi effect units, and with every one, I had to change/alter the patches to get a decent sound, then set the level to match the amp.
One other thing that may effect things: Even though I've written above about matching the patch level to the amp, there are in my experience, certain effects that tend to soften the sound, no matter where they come from. Most notably: compressor and big stadium reverb. Separately or together. I burned through the 'big effects' sound years ago. Now I use as little as possible. Chorus, light delay, small room reverb. No compressor (I want the amp to do that for me) But gone are the 80's days of chorus/flange, eq, compressor, multi-tap stereo delay and coliseum reverb.....ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It can really take the life out of a responsive amp.
I'm rambling and I need to stop and go to bed. Hope some of this might help.
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