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.
I started out with nothing..... but I've still got most of it left (Seasick Steve)
Comments
The G5 certainly has its limitations, but that seems an odd one to single out tbh.
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.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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.
So, the Tonelabs stay - & tonight I'll take my TLLE to band practice as its smaller/lighter than the TLSE.