Good morning and good afternoon Stick friends! Here is the latest FHF for October - the Zoom Stomp box in review!

This session focused on the 4 different models of Zoom Stomp pedals, including the ZM60B (for bass), the ZM50G (for guitar), the MS-70CDR and their latest offering, the Bluetooth compatible MS-100bt. We were fortunate in that Rob Marich and Boaz each had one of the Bluetooth versions and Vic had both the 60B and the 50G - a nice dedicated Zoom Stick rig indeed!



The 50G and and 60B models have mono inputs, so these are not single pedal solutions. However, we did discover that they can be controlled using a Disaster Area DMC-3xl gen 2 (which I have and love and am currently using to scroll through presets independently on my SY-300 and Big Sky. Boaz, Rob, Steve, Vic, Dean and I were all in on the action. What a joy it was having my northern California counterpart Dean Kobayashi over for dinner, an FHF session! We were pouring Stone's Arrogant Bastard during the show and then stepped out later that evening. A light Russian Kolsch was our go to beverage thereafter - khorosho!

So, the Zoom Stomp, where to start? There are a few different models and each has it's own tight blend of multi-effects. The panel had an excellent amount of knowledge on each pedal, so if you are planning on buying one, I would encourage a quick view so you can make an informed decision should you decide to go with one of these lightweight multi-effects options.

The big selling point for the BT100 was the option to audit and purchase new effects from Zoom's online catalog of sounds. This is similar in design to TC Electronics' Tone Print with the exception of being able to modify the parameters of the effect. The effect, which can be audited for 15 minutes prior to purchase, can then be downloaded and configured with the controls on the pedal. The TC Electronics mini pedals only have a level knob, so it makes sense for them to do this way. Both options are good.

We did not have one of the CDR70 pedals, which would be a nice single pedal for the melody side if you did not want to bring the full pedal board. This has stereo ins and outs.

I might let Boaz chime in on separation for left and right hands when using the pedal in mono mode. He's done some testing and will have that information in a follow up post I am sure.

To clarify, the TonePrints for TC Electronic's pedals are free.

Correct. All part of the service, especially since their mini pedals have a single knob. If you need a pedal to set and forget (in my case, reverb and compression, it can work. Dialing in new tones via a phone is rad, but do you really want to be doing that mid set?

So hey, with the disaster area ghost converter one could easily control two of those Zoom 100BT via USB to midi conversion? Can you get your Zoom to do patch changes in this way? I just wanna verify before I order...

I think only one can be controlled because there is only one USB out. Although, this would not be the first time I was wrong. Not even close...

This guy will know for sure - drew@disasterareadesigns.com

Yeah, looks like only one. Bad, bad zoom. Midi is useful, they should have it on their pedals... (In my opinion!)

Then again, maybe I am just too attached to "two signal paths" lol

The ms-100BT can't be controlled with midi device since it doesn't have any USB/midi connections

I found that it was not the best pedal. Noisy yes a bit. I wasn't really impressed with it. (bt100s) I returned it and bought a timeline. My timeline is great. Sounds amazing and most importantly for me it has midi capabilities so I can control everything and more with my soft step 2.