zoom 4040 from the 90's

[pinkjimiphoton]

picked up one of these suckers on ebay the other day, for the princely sum of 20 bux plus about 8 bux shipping.
they were pricey when they were new!
guy said the bank up, and pedal 2 and 3 didn't work.
so of course, being me, i was like... let me at that sucka!
opened it up, like, a LOT of screws. two circuit boards, one with the brains, the other with the switches, which of course means ya gotta take both out. not that big a deal, pretty straight forward.

get inside? somebody tried to clean the switches with some kinda contact cleaner. they're standard 4 pin little microswitches, i figured i'd have to steal some out of an old laptop keyboard or something. but the switches were all fine, and all still worked.

so i looked at the actuators... they are, for all intents, little push on pedal feet made of rubber, and hollow and dome shaped.

once the contact cleaner hits them tho? they turn to liquid nasty sticky disgusting goo, which, of course was what i found inside. all three of the offending bumpers on the actuators were destroyed.
so i used a dental tool to scrape them out, which didn't work great, but worked.

dug thru the junk drawers, looking for rubber pedal stompbox bumpers of some sort, ripped a couple out of an errant crybaby shell, but too big.
here's the thing... the switches ALWAYS make contact with the rubber things, which is why they're hollow, and why they're supposed to be soft n dimpled. ya step on the big pedal, it barely pushes the tiny switch. easy, right?

yeah, right. nope. tried various things and after testing, screwed it back together, right, and of COURSE it had to @#$%in @#$% up as soon as i thought it was buttoned up. repeatedly. arrgh. what to do?
tried pieces of rubber. too hard.
tried stick on bumpers i had. too high, and too hard.
tried them squish 'em and stuff 'em in your head earplugs, after maceration with razor blades. no good.
i'm like... @#$%.
what to do?

and then i thought to my self, self, ya know what would probably work?
a piece of cigarette filter. that shit is soft, but remembers its shape, has a half life of about 10,000 years, and if ya step-n-crush on it, when ya let off it will re-expand all on its lonesome.

bonus, almost perfect diameter to fit in the actuator holes. win-win. so i cut off three pieces of an ancient cigarette filter that just happened to still be in my shop <i quit tobacco about 4 months ago> and stuffed 'em in the holes, with a tiny bit of duco celluloid cement <removeable, i love that shit> to hold it in place.
after a couple attempts to get the damn leds to all line up, i held it together, plugged it in, and tested it.

all good. screwed that suckah together, and now i've gotta zoom 4040 that works. having fun with it... i doubt i'll keep it, but its got some cool features and who knows... but ANYways, if someone down the road ends up with one of these on the old bench, and the footswitch stompers ain't working, don't spray your can of foaming goo in there...
go steal a nasty cigarette butt somewhere, and give it an actual valid use, so it can redeem its karma, or something.
works great.

now, only prob i have, when i try to re-initialize the factory programs, its doing weird shit... counts down thru all the banks, til it lands on the first patch. so i'm assuming its stuck in some diagnostic mode. very weird. but i'll figure it out eventually...

anyways, hope this crappy info helps some other suckah down the road a spell. finally, a valid use for cigarettes.

happy holidaze from yer bud
pink jimi photon

laterz,taterz

[Digital Larry]

Congrats on quitting cigs!  Don't you jive me with that cozmik debris!  Thanks for the cool tip too!

[DIY Bass]

As I was reading I was thiniking.. foot switches, what foot switvhes.  But I was thinking about the 9001.  My mate had one of them.  Much different beasty as it turns out.

[bluebunny]

Who would have thought there were benefits to cigarettes?   

[pinkjimiphoton]

the only thing that sucks is zoom is tighter than an amoeba's ass for info.
contacted them for a service manual, which of COURSE they don't have, or at least won't give up.
i may just leave it as it is, its a royal pain to unscrew the sob. i am positive its something dumb with it that would be an easy fix... maybe a mis-aligned switch of something. but the documentation in their operator manual is totally ridiculous by comparison to similar era products from roland... which used to on occasion put out some useful info.

it SOUNDS better than the roland stuff of that era, which kinda surprised me. i have a bad habit of buying anything if its 50 bux or less, so have picked up a couple other units from them which frankly sound like a zoom 505 pedal that's been stretched out into a big box. i dunno. i don't generally use fx live anymore anyways, so i guess its all moot.

rock on!

[pinkjimiphoton]

figured out the issue. there's a screw hole on the pcb right next to the power input jack. i had stuck a screw in there, not really paying attention, which is why photos are good when taking stuff apart.
anyways, with the screw in, it shorts a couple connections together, and prevents the unit from being able to reset to the ROM patches on board. removing that stupid screw, the unit now works perfectly. near as i can figure, its probably there to protect the unit until its all assembled, then removed.  i took a really crappy phone pic. its just to the side of where the power jack is soldered into it.

i have a similar problem with one of my venerable boss me 5's, and i suspect its gonna be the same issue, as the two units were doing almost the exact same weird shit.

but anyways, this is the pic


so if someone encounters this down the road, check to be sure that screw is removed. it appears its only function is to temporarily short the rom memory reset, and put it into some bizarre and arcane diagnostic mode.

peas!

[mac]

sound like a zoom 505 pedal

I sold a 505 last year to a young kid.
A friend gave it to me 20-25 years ago 
I made home recordings plugging it to an old Powermac 7300 
Too much hiss to use it with my amps.

mac

[Radical CJ]

This info is helpful and timely. I recently pulled out my old ZOOM 707 to use the very convenient record and loop function but the (A/B) button is busted!

I can understand why these digital multi-effects don't inspire the same cult of appreciation as old analogue effects. But some of them have a pretty amazing range of functions. My only complaint about the 707 would be that it had too many presets, customising functions, and a complicated effect "librarying" (archiving?) system that took more time and patience (and manual reading) to learn how to use than my 14YO brain could dedicate to it.

In particular, the expression pedal that can be set to control 1 of 6 different functions for every effect is cool, and it can take a memory card so you can record, keep, and play back a lot of riffs.

         

[teemuk]

I have the "606" and I can't really say much bad about it.

Sure, it looks incredibly flimsy with its plastic casing and PC board mounted jacks, and is to large extent totally unserviceable today, but so far it has hold up extremely well, zero issues. For about 20 years!
(I admit though adding a couple of foam "cushions" as a pre emptive measure to secure the jacks more tightly against vibration and stress).

Time-based effects are bulk, preset EQs limited and unintuitive, no control to turn effects on and off individually is provided (you can only change patches), and the "ring mod" is totally useless to me. But, with little tweaking, the various distortion tones have nothing to shame for. I likewise think they were better than in some more expensive Roland/Boss units of the era (and yes, I do have e.g. ME-70 for comparison). So, even today I use the 606. Tone wise it still withstands time and can replace a bunch of individual fuzz, OD or distortion pedals. I think it was an extremely good unit in its (very, very cheap) price range.

Sorry for offtopic ranting.   

[bluebunny]

This thread inspired me to dig out my Zoom 9000.  I used to gig with this in the 90s, DIed into the PA.  I was hesitant, since there have been batteries in it for 20+ years, but miraculously no leaks!

[pinkjimiphoton]

this one is fairly advanced as zoom pedals went. analog comp/dirt/eq that sounds as good or better than the boss multi's <i've had most of them pass thru here over the years> and some really nice digital effects. the pitch shifting is even IN TUNE, unlike boss ones that always got a bit of a "ring" to them rubbing against the dry pitch.
there's a manual mode where you can use it as a 5 pedal pedalboard like the venerable boss me5.
dual vol/exp controllers,  tap tempo for the delay <in edit/manual mode> will even change your amp patches for ya... like, you can control amp channel/reverb on/off and store it as a patch which is really kinda hip. and a loop function so ya can do the "4 cable" thing i championed 30 years ago and wire your preamp into the unit. for the time, it did it all, and sounded good... way better than any line 6 stuff.

and these days? ya can buy 'em used for less than 50 bux. its a win-win, if it works, if even only for practicing.
i am considering using it with my guitar synth rig and seeing how it works. it would make a nifty processor for my gr300 for sure, or if i need a compact guitar rig to process my guitar with.

i have no hatred or animosity for these weird things. they sound alot better than the earlier models did, and have some decent programability. it IS a piece of crap by many's standards, but to me the only thing that matters is if i can get something musical out of it.

anyways... onwards n upwards

[bluebunny]

Seems I spoke to soon.     Having dug it out, and now having fed it new batteries and powered it up, it may have died in its sleep.      It's visually OK and the tuner is responding to the guitar input, but alas, no fuzzy goodness.  Or chorussy goodness, or anything much else.  Either silence or a high-pitched buzz sound (a high-E string pitch).  I should have kept it fed and watered... 

[pinkjimiphoton]

change out the electros?

[bluebunny]

A quick Google search tells me the internal lithium memory backup is long-since toast.  I might have a rummage inside...

[dschwartz]

I used to have one of those in the late 90s.
The distortions were horrid, but it had the sweetest chorus and pretty good reverbs and delays. And the extra foot control was a bless when playing live to control the reverb mix.  I used it in the fx loop of my bandit and got really good tones out of it..

Then i switched to korg multifx and, while the drives were much better, i could not get the same lushness in ambient and mod fx out of it..
I still miss it.