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Very Impressed with the Zoom Driver 5000


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I have to say i've been quite dissappointed with almost all distortion, overdrive pedals that have been hyped to death. Most of the overhyped ones that i've tried are definitely good pedals, but so hyped that you expect a miracle pedal.

 

I've learned that there are a few different distortion sounds, and a couple different overdrive sounds. ALmost all pedals fall into one of thse catagories, and sound similar. And that there is no miracle pedal.

 

Well this Zoom Driver 5000 really caught me off guard. I really liked the Zoom Tri Metal but its nothing like this, between 1-10 i'd say the tri metal would be a 7 (which in my rating system is actually pretty damn high), the Zoom 5000 is (for a pedal) definitely a 9 or 10. And i've played around with the Tonebone classic, Hot British, zakk wylde o/d, Dime dist, dist +, all the little and big dano distortions, all the Boss (including the old HM-2/HM-3 etc.) distortions and o/d, all the ibanez and Maxon pedals (except for the SM9, haven't tried it yet), all the line 6 tone core pedals, all the digitech and DOD pedals etc.

and tons more and this is by far my favorite dist pedal so far and by a HUGE margin IMO. I'd say the Hot british is #2, but it sounds nothing like the 5000.

 

The thing is HUGE, its about the size of 2 Boss pedals. Its dead quiet THe adjustable pot noise gate is GREAT. The quietest pedal i've owned really. It works with a regular Boss power adapter too.

 

I have to say the dynamics and raw sound makes it sound like a tube amp in a pedal, and i don't mean preamp tube sound, i mean power amp distortion. , one of the only pedals i've heard that sounds better the louder you turn it up, it stays SO nice and clear at extremely loud volumes. AND AND its my only distortion that i am satisfied with at VERY LOW volumes, it has great dynamics at teh lowest volumes where my other pedals are just boring. It doesn't have as much saturation as say my MT-2, more like the hot british territory gain, maybe a bit more. I hate the Zoom Box setting though (yuck) Although it may be good for leads who knows.

 

Now i do use a very full sounding 4x12 cab, as well as a 10-band EQ and I've always been pretty good at getting full potential out of tuning whether it be home audio, car audio, guitar. So just so you know what i'm working with.

 

if you see one on ebay GET IT.

 

:thu:

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A Zoom Driver 5000 'not as much gain as an MT-2'? :eek:

 

If we were both black, I'd say "n*gga WHAT?!" :rolleyes:

 

Either yours is faulty, or you haven't fully explored the Stack 2 and Combo 112 models.

 

My Driver 5000 shits circles around the MT-2 (owned one for 8 years and luckily got rid of it), with its eyes closed!

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Hmmm its got tons of gain, but not as much as a tri metal or mt-2 sorry :confused: YOu can tell when you are palm muting power chords etc. In drop D and C

Although i much prefer this thing for standard tuning and my MT-2 for drop tunings. MT-2 sounds like ass at standard tuning.

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Yep; I'm on my 2nd one and only sold the first one I had when I thought I was going to keep the 5150 amp I had for a long time. The thing sounds awesome through a tube amp, but I've yet to try it through a SS amp, which I'm going to do soon just to see what it sounds like. If it's good, I may end up getting another Roland JC amp to run it through.

 

And I don't really know which pedal has more distortion, the MT-2 or the Zoom Driver; I can only say I can't stand the sound that comes from the MT-2 but love the Zoom Driver -- just my opinion. :cool:

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Originally posted by RoboPimp

any clips of this beast?

 

I have an EMU 0404 cheap recording card and a cheap Behringer Eurorack board but am computer-ignorant and need to figure out how to put it together and set up properly so I can put up clips of my Peavey Ultra Plus amp, Behringer V-Ampire head, and this Zoom Driver. :)

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BTW, my wife prefers the distortion of the Zoom Driver's Stack 2 setting through the clean channel of my Ultra Plus amp (along with my Boss eq pedal in the loop boosting some frequencies) over the distortion of the Ultra Plus, itself, though I'm not sure that setting will stick out enough in a band context vs. the Ultra Plus distortion and mids.

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I don't run my distortions through my tube amps. I run them through a Peavey Rockmaster tube preamp into the clean channel into a 200w SS

power amp. I personally think it sounds MUCH MUCH better through this than any of my tube amps. Personally i'm not a big fan of distortion pedals with tube power amps though, too loose on the bottom end and change the character of the distortion too much.

 

I too LOVE the stack models the most. And the way i have it set up it would most certainly cut through :eek:

 

As for the MT-2 i don't like it at all with standard tuning, mainly for C tuning it sounds COMPLETELY different at C, it sounds really thick and rich. Where at standard tuning it sounds buzzy and thin.

The MT-2 is made for major downtuning, thats probably why most people don't like it cause they run it in standard or drop D where its just buzzy.

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