Yestergear: Zoom 9002

Back in the 80's, multi effects processors were just coming of age. They were rack units and therefore were not very portable. Sure they had lots of goodies in them but they were always left in the rack.  Then, in the late 80's Zoom released the 9002.  This was a compact multi effect preocessor that could be worn on the guitar strap.

Hind site being what it is the whole guitar strap application doesn't seem to make sense.  But the compact nature and amount of features packed into this little box really revolutionized things.

The 9002 could do six effects at once. Compression, Distortion,Delays, modulation effects like Flange, Phaser, Chorus and reverbs. It even had a  built in tuner, metronome, and an amp simulator in 1989 no less.

These days all of these things are common place but man talk about having it all back then. I think these boxes were almost as famous for their artist endorser Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi.  I still remember the add with him and one of these things on his guitar strap.

I don't know how many of these things are floating around out there but there are two listings on Ebay as of this writing with pricing sitting in the $40-$60 range.