Empress Effects ZOIA Modular Synthesizer and Guitar Multi-Effects Pedal

I liked everything about this pedal! It’s unique , creative, challenging and beautiful. Zoia has a steep learning curve that needs to conquered. This is not even a pedal exactly. It’s a sound box that’s only limitation is the vision of the user. This works with synth, guitar and any other instrument you want to tailor it to fit. The pre programmed sounds are unreal and crisp and it’s by far the most innovative pedal I have come across in a very long time. I retired mine very sadly because Amazon screwed me on my payment plan. Apparently the payment plan option is fake, and just an advertisement for Amazon Visa. So watch out for the fake payment plan! The pedal kicks butt on another level. Just be ready for the learning curve and if your not into making your own sounds, download created patched by the user community.

This little device is a work of genius! In a world of locked-down electronic devices that try to limit you in what you can do, finding a creation like this that's so flexible and open-ended is a huge breath of fresh air. And, in a world where long-term support for tech is lacking, it speaks volumes that Empress offers a four-year warranty and is still releasing powerful new firmware updates years after the ZOIA's release. Even if you never want to create your own effects, the variety of builtin patches along with all the freely available patches online make this worth the money alone. But if you're the type who likes to tinker and program and create new things from scratch, you'll love the ZOIA even more! My first day playing with it, I was away from home and didn't have any instruments or amps available, but I still had a blast just programming the buttons and lights to create cool patterns and visual effects. I mainly bought it to use with my electric cello, but you can even use this as an instrument in its own right, and I'm pretty sure I could spend the rest of my life with just this pedal and still be coming up with creative and interesting new stuff to do with it. Kudos to the Empress Effects team!

Best pedal I've ever owned. Much easier to use than I'd feared, I was able to start creating patches almost immediately after working through the quick intro they put together. Great looking too!

It is best to think of the Zoia as a full programming platform rather than just an effect pedal or synth. Its biggest limitation is your imagination, not its capabilities. If you are willing to put in the time to learn the basics, you can dream up incredible sounds and effects and then make them reality. Be aware that even basic stuff (such as a wah pedal) does take time to build. Zoia gives you the raw materials, and you build from there. It is very much like musical legos: you get a kit of hundreds of building blocks you can fit together in infinite ways, and you end up with your own creations. Or you can go to the rich online community and download patches from others. I am absolutely blown away by this thing and have thoroughly enjoyed programming it.

Amazing. This product surpassed my expectations. Great sound, endless possibilities and fantastic community of users making new patches for the Zoia. The unit is very well made and works flawlessly. The only thing I’d wish it had is a USB MIDI functionality, other than that it’s a perfect product.

Pretty fun if you're interested in getting into modular world. Great selection of pretty good effects and routing options in a box. Multiple pages and a ton of control options in the new 3.5mm MIDI format (adapters included).

Awesome!

This is a very cool pedal. I received it New from Chicago Music Exchange. The build quality is top notch. Packaging is secure enough to protect it in transit with plenty of foam to keep things where they’re supposed to be. The pedal itself is very well built. I didn’t get a chance to handle one before buying it, so I thought the grid might be difficult to press, but I have average size hands and it was very easy to press the buttons without accidentally hitting an adjacent one. The knob is a very solid encoder with a firm detent so you can clearly feel when you’re rotating it. The foot switches are soft touch, so they don’t need a hard click to activate. There’s a lot of attention to detail in the craftsmanship and usability of it. The sounds it’s capable of making seem to be limited only by my imagination. Online reviews seem to favor the modulation effects to the dirt, but both sounded good to my ears. It’s definitely a do-anything pedal. There are some things I would change, though. I wish the micro sd card slot had a cover. As it is, if you have a card in the slot, it sticks out of the back of the unit by a millimeter or two, and I wish it was deeper inside the unit with something you could close over the top of it like on most phones with a memory card or a Nintendo switch. The screen that you use to navigate everything, while very legible, is kind of small. I wish it were a little larger. I also wish it had additional assignable knobs built into the unit. As is, it’s difficult to change parameters on the fly. I also don’t like that the pedal doesn’t automatically revert to your most recent settings when you turn it on. Ultimately, it’s a very cool pedal with limitless possibilities. I recommend it for tweakers and tinkerers that love being able to adjust every parameter in a way that isn’t possible on most other pedals. I think that using it in conjunction with some sort of extra MIDI control surface and switcher would be necessary to quickly recall settings and change parameters in real time, but even by itself the pedal is an incredible value that’s capable of all kinds of sounds.