EDIT: This is now a thread for everyone to use to share and chat about the Zoia! Rather than just another mundane NPD! :-)
Original NPD post:
So last year I had to sell all my gear and was left with my trusty Strat. I had a bunch of pedals which I miss dearly and would love to buy them again one day. However, the thought of rebuilding kind of made me feel sick for about 4-5 months. So much so that I got an Axe FX in the interim and am only now coming around to the idea of putting it back together piece by piece as and when finances allow. So I've been building up a bit of a pot, ready for when the trigger needs to be pulled!
That said, I've been feeling like I want to try some new things and the thought of building what I call a "weird" board kind of excites me more than rehashing the same old pedals I've been collecting and recycling for years in my hunt for THE tone.
So I put together a list of "weird" pedals to try and get hold of that would eventually form part of a satellite board to compliment my main board (yes, bit weird since that main board doesn't exist yet!)
The opportunity arose to get hold of an Empress Zoia the other day, so I jumped on it, at a superb price and a massive saving, so I was excited. It was top of my list.
This tiny, tiny box of goodness arrived yesterday and to say I'm both inspired and over the moon would be a vast understatement. Yes, it's complicated to get your head around, but it's a delightful package and I'm excited to get up and running with it. Already, the controls are becoming second nature.
For such a complex device with seemingly endless possibilities, it's incredibly well thought out and the UI and interaction is impressive.
The sounds are superb, the right blend of weirdness and musicality that will compliment my ambition for the atmospheric side of things. I've not even started to build my own presets, I've only used the factory presets and out of the 50 available, I'd say that 90% of them are usable within a musical context.
I don't even have an amp yet, but I "needed" this!
Here are a few really simple clips, please excuse the playing, these are just example sounds (Fender Broadcaster > Zoia (stereo out) > RME Babyface Pro > Reaper > Amplitube (blackface model):
Comments
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
I haven’t gone for one of these yet, but it’s always been a consideration as an alternative to break my cycle of a indecision over the H9 Max (currently don’t have one). How are the pitch capabilities? Specifically arpeggiation and Micro POG-style octaves up/down?
They sound great but are no substitute for the pedal's you mentioned, mate. Although, I'll need to delve deeper. The cabs, for example sound like they've been put through a bit crusher...it's got a definite lo-fi edge to it.
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
View my feedback at www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/comment/1201922
Having decided quite early on that I was unlikely to buy anything much this year, I glanced at this thread and almost immediately went and bought a Zoia
I've taken a couple of weeks to get my head round just a tiny amount of its complexity, and have narrowed down around 60 patches from the patchstorage site to settle in with and make some music with - before I start trying to make patches of my own.
I've now learned how to balance the volumes so that they're roughly similar in output - as one or two were a bit loud or quiet. The next thing is to learn how to "play" some of the patches by turning parts on and off, starting and stopping loopers etc.
To begin with I was wondering if it was going to be worth the expense, but the more time I've spent with it the more impressed I am, even if it is a bit of a faff to operate
I've not had it long enough to answer that !
I downloaded all of the patches I liked the look of (mostly loopers, delays and glitchy nonsense) and today narrowed them down to 64 (the number the Zoia can store internally).
I've deliberately kept to patches which don't need a lot of fiddling to get working for now, but all parameters can be tweaked on the fly if you want (though you'll need to know how to get to them). I'm not sure you'd want to do it across a lot of patches in one session though.
My current patch list is:
Orbitors
Zoiahuasca
Temporal Anomale
Wolf (all 5 of them, as without touching anything they all seem to make slightly different sounds)
S_lodg3_v
Two Grains
Tether
yaleD
Broken CD
Syntholith
Mr Foxtrot V2
Reverse Thermae
No Memory
Floopers
Halocline
Aliadelaly
Overgrone
Moody Bloopy
Our and Are
Trig Loop
Weathered
Tesla Tower
Tesserae
PLLish 2
Reverseneath
856 Wannabe
Rainbowzzz
Grotto
9n2 Break Enter
Tape_ish
Polyoctavous
Comb Sweep
Lofi Charm
ARF
Grime Space
Pitch Pong
Multi_i_i_i
Memory Boy Tap
Broken Clock
Pensive
Bit Amp
The Houseplant
Shallow Water
Ambient Glitch V2
Lofi Bliss
Parts
Naphtali
Space Frogs
Dual Shift
Rommy
The Monolith
Soft Focus
Candied Pecans
Thru Zero-1
Pretty Years
Melange
Apsidal Looper
Bipedal Delay
Dweller V2
Nice work
Space Frogs was a bit loud compared to the others for me, but otherwise there's lots there I really like.
I will return with questions, I'm sure, but I'm going to enjoy what I have before I start delving deeper.
Thanks, I've just updated Space Frogs to be a little less loud. 1.1 has a filter to take out some of those aggressive spikes. Space Frogs was a bit of a fever dream when I made it
I see you've made some new patches to try too