Recording - January 2010 - 39

The ‘tt’ in the product name means “twin tube”; there are two tube-based gain stages, each with a 12AX7, one (the Accelerator) before the digital processing and one (the Energizer) after it. Each has two knobs, one for tube gain and one for clean boost. This allows you to tailor where in your signal chain you apply the tubes’ harmonics, and how much. The Accelerator includes a solid-state amplification stage that can be mixed with the tube for a greater variety of tones. The G9.2tt has room for 200 patches, organized in Preset and User A and B, further subdivided into banks of five for quick recall. As shipped, the A and B banks have 50 presets each, the A bank for use with a guitar amp and the B bank identical but gain-tweaked for use with recording interfaces; the User banks ship with copies of the A and B patches that can be edited and overwritten. An extensive manual and demo patch sheet explain best settings for using the G9.2tt with several of the most famous guitar amps out there. MIDI I/O lets you switch patches, save and share data between G9.2tt units or to a computer (there’s a free editor/librarian app available for download), control the pedalboard’s parameters remotely from a keyboard or sequencer, or use the G9.2tt as a MIDI controller—all of the footswitches and pedals, plus some of the frontpanel keys, send MIDI Control Change data. The USB port even lets the G9.2tt act as an audio interface at 16-bit resolution and up to 48 kHz sample rate, plug-and-play with no driver installation needed on Windows or Mac OS X computers. From the standpoint of connectivity and versatility, the G9.2tt has few if any challengers in the realm of do-it-all effects pedal systems. Of course, all of this would be in vain if the G9.2tt didn’t sound good. I have a bit of a bias where Zoom guitar products are concerned; I really enjoy the range and programmability of their modulations, delays, and so on, and a Zoom 505 MkII has been an integral part of my performing setup for years now. So it’s not a great surprise that I liked what the G9.2tt had to offer in that regard—lots of possibilities, fun and easy to program, and easy and clear to recall on stage or in the studio. The USB recording interface worked like a charm on my Mac and Windows test computers as well. The one place where I’d want to urge that a prospective buyer do a lot of playing and listening before picking up the G9.2tt is in the realm of its overdrive, distortion, and overall “tube tone.” Anyone who’s played guitar for RECORDING JANUARY 2010 a while knows that changing your amplifier, speakers, miking, and effects chain can make one guitar sound like a thousand. There are many flavors of overdrive, and even with a digitally programmable effects engine in the mix, a real tube imparts a very specific character to a guitar’s sound— and the G9.2tt has two of them, one on either side of the digital processing, and neither can be fully bypassed. That’s not a downcheck, by any means—it’s a word to the wise. We all know that Zoom can make fantastic digital effects systems; they’ve been doing it for years. But the inclusion of a dual tube saturation stage means that like a Fender Bassman or a Marshall head, the G9.2tt is a living, breathing tube-based guitar device that will have its own signature character and range of tones; you wouldn’t buy a tube amp despite its tube tone, and neither should you do so with the G9.2tt. It urges you to play it and play with it, let it stretch its legs and run with you. If you like where its base sound is taking you, then rest assured that all of the flexible digital processing and interfacing that surrounds its tube-driven heart will easily take you the rest of the way to Rock’n’Roll Heaven. Price: $514.99 ($299.99 street) More from: Zoom, www.zoomfx.com.

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Recording - January 2010

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