Zoom 506 anyone?

HAs anyone here used a Zoom 506 pedal? I've got a bid in on ebay for one, but I'm not sure if I should keep bidding once I'm out. I've never ran my bass through any effects, mainly because I play in a country/classic rock band and the sounds I need I can get straight from the amp. But, it would be nice to have a few tricks in the bag if I ever had call for them.

So basically, I'm wondering if the unit is worth the hassle and cost?

Thanks!

I USED A 506 BRIEFLY when i didn't have an actual bass amp. i used it as the pre going straight into a power amp and it worked pretty good. i liked the compressor function. there's a lot of "silly" noise effects and such but it's a fun toy yo experiment with.

IME - multi effectors are a waste of time. Same deal as with guitar - the sounds aren't great and they tend to be noisy. YMMV

The best I've heard for bass are from Korg. Partly it is because their Filter and Octaver are better than the others I've heard. Hey - Korg is pretty big in the Synth Filter thing so it makes sense. I could generalize and say that ALL the preset's suck, but I can't as most were so bad I couldn't listen to all of them ... Once tweaked the one I had was capable of some decent synthy kinds of sounds. It took some doing through. In the end - for my uses - separates are the way to go - but it is a much more expensive approach. ... and you tend to use them very, very infrequently through the night... and they are a PITA on stage - they take up room, get un-plugged, run out of battery...

My pedal board these days is Korg DT-10 floor tuner, Radial Bassbone and Demeter Compulator. It's tidy and tiny - everything is tied down, tucks in among the tripod legs on my mic stand. Mostly it's set & forget except for the tuner ... it is about 1/4th the size of my old pedal board ... The Korg tuner is the cat's meow BTW - I have them in my bass rig and guitar rig. Sturdy & reliable, easy to read, will do low B or high C and they seem to be more stable than a lot of the rack tuners I've met. It will also power up additional pedals if necessary. That is a really darned useful pedal. If I could only pick one I'd be hard pressed between that and the Radial ...

I used to have a Zoom 505II (same product line as the 506, just the guitar version). I thought it was good at the time. After I upgraded to better stuff and came back to the 505II, I realized that the low quality A/D/A converters (I think they were 16 bit) and low sampling rate really did make a noticeable effect on my tone. Honestly, a Zoom B2 or B1 would be a lot better than a 506 and in the $50-100 price range (that's new, not used).

Thanks for the input!

I have one, I dont use it anymore. It makes some nice sounds, but in the end, it's a toy. I wouldn't base a whole rig around it.

I used to have a Zoom 505II (same product line as the 506, just the guitar version). I thought it was good at the time. After I upgraded to better stuff and came back to the 505II, I realized that the low quality A/D/A converters (I think they were 16 bit) and low sampling rate really did make a noticeable effect on my tone. Honestly, a Zoom B2 or B1 would be a lot better than a 506 and in the $50-100 price range (that's new, not used).

+1 on the 505. I got one too, seemed all right at the time, but turned out to be absolutely unusable on stage because of tone loss, no full bypass, and a hissing that I didn't notice that much when playing at home.

I also had a 505 (the guitar version) which I used for recording for a while, but the one time i tried it onstage, it was unusable for all the same issues.. tone, hum, etc... I ended up scrapping the effects rig and running straight to the amp, using only the amp's overdrive -- which actually sounded much cleaner and more powerful.