Ah well, it was worth a punt - but back to my trusty Tonelabs

Voxman · October 2018

Tried out the Zoom G5n at band practice on Tuesday evening. Really compact and light, sounds were OK, but awful to tweak in a rehearsal or gig situation. If you want to add an FX to a patch, and assuming you have a spare 'slot' you have to add the slot, select the effect, then move it to where you want in the chain, and then go back into the menu to save the patch. Far too much faffing around - fine for home, but not for gigging. My Tonelabs may be big and heavy, but they sound better and are really easy to tweak on the fly - if I want to add eg rotary, I just turn a dial, and two presses of the write button and its saved. I might go back to using the TLLE though as its a fair bit smaller and lighter than the TLSE.

Ah well, it was worth a punt.

p90fool · October 2018

But would you seriously add an analogue pedal to your board in the middle of a gig? Surely you'd buy it and install it at home in advance?

The G5 certainly has its limitations, but that seems an odd one to single out tbh.

steer · October 2018

I think that the idea is that you get your patches ready and saved before you start playing live.

ICBM · October 2018

I totally understand it. Even if you don't necessarily want to add new effects at a gig - although you might at a rehearsal - even just editing these things if something isn't dead right is a massive pain on stage. I had a G5 briefly and the difficulty of tweaking it drove me bonkers.

Which is why I've gone back to the Boss ME-50 again. Everything is controlled by simple knobs.

And I have gigged with a traditional parameter button/scroll-wheel multi-FX unit too - the Boss SE-70 - which I got very good at editing quickly, but it was still more of a faff than just reaching down and turning a knob... not something you could really do on the fly.

p90fool · October 2018

I guess it's mostly down to familiarity, I can pretty much edit anything on my G3 during a gig.

Voxman · October 2018

p90fool said:

But would you seriously add an analogue pedal to your board in the middle of a gig? Surely you'd buy it and install it at home in advance?

The G5 certainly has its limitations, but that seems an odd one to single out tbh.

Probably not and you're right 're installing in advance. But (a) this was a pain at band practice and (b) I've been in situations where we might do a number off the cuff and I need to quickly tweak a patch to e.g. add a wah etc.

I'll probably try the G5n again at band practice, but the Tonelab design is so much better and easier to tweak, on the fly. The long menus on the G5n are also a nuisance, even with the ability to scroll through categories. And sometimes it's not always obvious which category the fx is under.

The G5n is an 'ok' unit but its simply not as good as the TLLE and TLSE.

Voxman · October 2018

p90fool said:x

I guess it's mostly down to familiarity, I can pretty much edit anything on my G3 during a gig.

Yup, I think the G3 and G5 are actually a bit easier to programme e.g. amp modelling only takes up a single memory slot.

joetele · October 2018

ICBM said:

I totally understand it. Even if you don't necessarily want to add new effects at a gig - although you might at a rehearsal - even just editing these things if something isn't dead right is a massive pain on stage. I had a G5 briefly and the difficulty of tweaking it drove me bonkers.

Which is why I've gone back to the Boss ME-50 again. Everything is controlled by simple knobs.

And I have gigged with a traditional parameter button/scroll-wheel multi-FX unit too - the Boss SE-70 - which I got very good at editing quickly, but it was still more of a faff than just reaching down and turning a knob... not something you could really do on the fly.

Selling the ME-50 for less than close to what I paid for it is the biggest regret I've ever had among a handful. Put it down to being young and stupid. But apart from a few shonky drives, there are some seriously brilliant sounds, especially the pitchshift with expression which is on a par with the Whammy, and as you say, it's so user friendly it's ridiculous. I'm amazed we didn't see more devices in that vein. I have the same issue with recording devices - I'll always want something like the Tascam Portastudio, which is why I went for a Zoom R8 many years ago.

Voxman · October 2018

Nope - might keep the G5n for home use, or I might sell it - but it's way too awkward to use to use in band practice or a gig situation when I might want to change an amp model, or add a wah, or a tube-screamer. With the Tonelabs I turn a dial and I'm there. With the G5n I've got to scroll through menu's and/or find a spare slot, then set the amp model in the menu. It's ludicrously long winded and clumsy. It simply doesn't suit the way that I want an MFX modelling unit to work.

So, the Tonelabs stay - & tonight I'll take my TLLE to band practice as its smaller/lighter than the TLSE.

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Ah well, it was worth a punt - but back to my trusty Tonelabs

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