Review
The Zoom 707 II is the slightly newer version of the 707.
It has everything the 707 has plus the ability to insert a smart
media card, which you can use to longer record samples, and
/ or exchange patches (the name given to the setting of the
pedal, i.e. distortion, reverb settings etc...) on the internet.
I bought the pedal several years ago when I had just started
playing the guitar at a price of around 150 pounds. It comes with
the unit itself and instruction manuals. If I remember correctly I
had to purchase the power unit myself, but this was only around
5 pounds. The pedal can however be powered by 4 AA batteries
instead.
With 74 different effect types I feel this pedal provides more
than enough for the beginner guitarist. There is a huge range of
things you can do with this little pedal - the guitar signal goes
through the following stages before being outputted:
- Boost - The ability to boost your guitar signal. There
are two types of boosts, one just makes the guitar louder and the
other also distorts the signal a little.
- ISO / Comp - To be honest I've forgotten what ISO was
but the other is a in-built compressor.
- Drive - Choose from a huge range of distortion, fuzz,
overdrive etc...
- Eq - The equalizer. This allows you to adjust the low, mid
and high tones within the guitar sound.
- ZNR - A noise gate. This is useful for filtering out the
unwanted sounds in your playing.
- CABI - Cabinet emulator. Can be turned on to emulate
the sound of certain speaker stacks etc...
- MOD - Apply effects such as a phaser, tremolo, wah-wah,
vibrato, pitch shifter, chorus, etc...
- Rev - Allows reverb/delay to be added.
This pedal also incorporates a drum machine, which is not very useful
except for the metronome which is also a part of it. As I believe this pedal
is suited for beginner guitarists, a metronome will come in very handy as
using it is a critical part of practicing.
This unit has an Aux In (6mm) which you can use to play backing tracks.
Also the sampling ability allows you to record guitar solos from an external
source via the Aux In, and slow it down to a 1/4 of the original speed without
change in pitch. However the quality of the sound does degrade.
Here are the good/bad points of this unit:
Advantages
- Very Cheap - although for me it was expensive, it can be bought
at a more reasonable price now. I even found a website selling it for 130 dollars
which is about 80 pounds? (Correct me if I'm wrong - not good with exchange
rates!)
- A Large Range of Effects - You can do a lot with this little pedal. Some
of the effects include pitch shifter, phaser, tremolo, wah-wah, equaliser etc...
- Portable - This is a small and light effects unit so is very portable, which
is an advantage for band practices etc...
- Ease of Use - The pedal is pretty self-explanatory and therefore is very
easy to use. It also allows the user to make their own patch and save it onto the
pedal in one of the 60 (?) spaces it provides in the "User Bank".
Disadvantages
- The Quality of Effects - Some of the effects don't sound as good as they
should. For example the pitch shifter sounds a bit harsh at times.
- Time Delay - By this I am referring to the time it takes to switch between
different patches. I used to use several patches in one song when I used this thing
live, and it did have a slight delay which was caused by the unit loading the next patch.
Not a big problem but just thought I should mention it.
- Expression Pedal - The 707II also has an added feature which is the ability
to turn on / off a certain effect within the patch by pressing firmly down on the expression
pedal. This allows the user to turn on the distortion at the chorus etc... This leads to the
next problem.
For example say you have set the expression pedal to control the pitch shifter. You press
down on the expression pedal to shift the note up 2 octaves but if you press it too firmly
it will turn off the effect all together! This problem can be slightly minimized by playing with
the settings.
Conclusion
For the price of this pedal I think it is a very good pedal to start off with. It provides
most if not all of the effects a beginner will be interested in at a reasonable price.
Sound Quality: 6 out of 10
Build Quality: 6 out of 10
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