The look and layout of
ZOOM’s G5 processor has
more in common with a
control panel on the Starship
Enterprise than with the
spare control layouts of the
other two floorboards in this
roundup. But what looks
complex on the surface is all
about ZOOM giving players more on-the-fly amp and effect adjustment possibilities,
rather than placing the majority of those
features in a series of scrolling menus. And
compared to the other two processors in
this roundup, the G5 has a lot more tools
on hand—not just for producing and shaping tone, but assisting in songwriting and
riff ideas too.
The G5 has a ton of emulated amps and
effects— 22 amps and a whopping 102 stompboxes. The amps cover pretty much what you
would expect from most modelers—vintage
Fender cleans from such hits as the Twin
Reverb and Bassman, ballsy British crunch
and cleans from a Vox AC30 and a handful of
vintage Marshall emulations, and pummeling
metal wallop from interpretations of the Mesa/
Boogie Dual Rectifier and Krank Revolution
1. They could have stopped there, but ZOOM
went a step further and filled the G5’s amp
coffers with some great boutique choices, such
as the Diezel Herbert, Bogner Ecstasy, Carr
Mercury, and Matchless DC- 30, among others. And while the G5’s emulated effects models are populated with common selections such
as the Boss CE- 1 and MXR Dynacomp, they
also include a ton of custom models that are
pretty unique, such as delays that are routed
in tandem with reverbs, stepped sequencers, reactive resonance filters, and a bunch
of other cool gizmos. There’s even a separate
footswitchable boost that uses a real 12AX7
tube to goose the output with tube warmth
and feel. And the unit also includes ZOOM’s
3D Z expression pedal, which not only senses
up and down movement, but side-to-side as
well—making it possible to control effects
parameters in wildly different ways.
The G5 does a lot of things.
Unfortunately, some of that feature richness
ZOOM
G5
After connecting the unit to my iMac with
a USB connection and plugging in an
Ibanez JS-1000, I was able to call up the
first four patches pretty easily, but switch
to different banks required some in-depth
consultation of the manual (not necessarily
a bad thing).
User-friendliness aside, the G5 has some
really neat tones wired into its circuitry.
The clean amp models are great backdrops
for building tones—especially the highly
responsive ’ 63 Vibroverb and ’ 65 Twin
Reverb models. Bloom and decay had a very
real-world feel, and adding overdrive stompboxes had a very natural, sagging quality
that was a blast to play with. However,
digging into the strings harder—no matter
which amp model that I was using—pulled
back the curtain a bit so to speak, inducing
as slightly cold-sounding digital edge on the
high end frequencies. The modulation and
delay effects are quite spacious and detailed,
though the choruses and phasers in particular sounded a little less natural—almost as if
they were stuck on top of the tone and left
to modulate while the dry tone lay unaffected underneath.
The G5’s British amp emulations were
surprisingly accurate—capturing the sag
and upper midrange bite that a lot of
those amps are known for. The Marshall
Super Lead model conjured up some very
convincing ’70s rock rhythm tones—per-
fect for laying down Angus Young-type
pounding riffs with a decidedly bright
and smooth attack. And as I laid back and
let up on my pick attack to play bluesy
leads, the model responded in kind with
a cleaner, more organic tone that retained
great high-end definition. Even higher
gain models with boosted front end signal
chains were nice and tight without being
overly bass-heavy. Still, heavier tones some-
times caused some digital artifacts to show,
mostly in the midrange and highs—and
we’re particularly noticeable when I would
crank the Bogner and Diezel models to
the levels where their real counterparts are
thickest and most dynamic.
The Verdict
The G5 is a nice tool for recording and
working out riff ideas, and has some very
convincing amp emulations to boot. It can
exhibit a digital edge, especially when using
some of the modulation effects or coaxing out very high amounts of distortion.
Regardless, it has the biggest feature set of
the three models presented here, and while
it has a steeper learning curve, its tonal capabilities and applications are impressive.
RATINGS
Pros: Tons of emulations and effects. Great Marshall and
Vox models.
Zoom G5, $299 street, samsontech.com/zoom
Cons: Interface can be a bit cumbersome. Some amps and
effects have cold tonalities.
Tones
Ease of Use
Value
