When you order ZIM, it comes with a pair of ZIMcards already installed. The current default ZIMcards are: 

Channel A: VT Vintage Tube
A super clean overdrive with soft clipping and mild compression as the gain knob is increased. Perfect for fattening up a thin clean tone or pushing another Overdrive for added gain and sustain. Voiced to make a strat sound more "stratty".. The gain knob and/or your guitar's volume knob will take you from a very warm clean tone to moderate saturation, never masking the sound of your pickups. A mild tube-like compression is always there making VT perfect for warming up your clean tone, especially if you use a solid state amp. 

Channel B: H9 Hot 9
A very high-fidelity and high-gain version of the TS circuit. Full bass, even mids, smooth top end. At low gain it's a great overdrive and at high gain it's in distortion territory. Double diode configuration in the clipping section enhances sonic clarity and low mids. 

Basically H9 delivers the gain of a distortion with the voicing of an overdrive. 


ZIM is like two separate pedals joined at the hip. The two channels can be configured a number of different ways depending on what ZIMcards are installed. The easy and convenient CardSWAP arrangement makes it easy for you to customize your ZIM to suit your needs. Unless you specify otherwise, you get your ZIM with the default Overdrive cards 

ZIM - it's not the same as other overdrives. Instead of a bypass switch and a boost switch, ZIM has two individual channels which can be used individually or together in series (cascaded). Each has it's own true bypass (3pdt) switch w/ LED. This gives you three differenet sounds (A, B, or A + B). With the option of having two gain stages in series, you'll never be starved for gain. 

Instead of a treble control, ZIM has a unique voicing circuit that gives you almost limitless control over your overdriven tone. In addition, each channel has it's own bass/treble trimmer which can be set internally. 

ZIM is 2 independent true-bypass effects in one pedal. 

Channel A has it's own Drive and Volume knobs, and an internal tone trimmer. It also has it's own Input and Output jacks. 

Channel B has all of the same features, with the addition of a special voicing circuit that offers 8 selectable stages of non-sweeping phase shift with the ability to boost or cut the selected range of frequencies. This adds up to a total of 16 different distinct voices from Ch B (17 if you include Ch B with the voicing off). 

Switching jacks are used to provide a normal connection from Channel A's out jack to Channel B's input jack, making it so you don't have to manually patch the two overdrives together. 

ZIM's drive circuitry is all located on a pair of plug-in circuit boards called ZIMcards. These cards are installed on the back of the main circuit board and can be swapped and modified without doing invasive surgery on ZIM. This also opens the doors to other circuitry being installed in ZIM. Clean boost, treble boost, distortion, fuzz, you name it... ZIM's modular design allows all kinds of possibilities for the future. 

ZIM runs on 9 Volts DC, either from a 9 V battery or from pedalboard power supply. The rear DC connector is the standard Center pin-Negative, 2.1mm Barrel plug configuration. Current draw is about 35 mA with both drives engaged. There's a lot of circuitry in ZIM, which means it will go through cheap 9V batteries fast. 

Features 

Linear taper volume pots: Instead of using traditional "Audio" or "Log" taper pots for the Volume controls, ZIM uses "Linear" taper pots. What's the difference you ask? In most cases audio taper pots allow a very small range of use. Usually, any setting outside of the 12:00 to 3:00 range is unusable. With Linear pots, the usable range is spread out to more of the pot's rotation. This takes a little getting used to, but it makes much more sense and makes it easier to dial in the right setting. Due to this different taper, the normal setting for ZIM's volume pots will occur at a lower setting, more around the 11:00 area. 

Detented pots: To take it a step further, ZIM uses detented pots. The Drive and Volume pots each have 11 detents, little bumps that you feel as you turn the pot. The detents make it easier to find settings and stick with them. It's easy to set the pots between detents if it's needed. And on the DEPTH pot there is a center detent. When that pot is in the center, the voicing section is essentially off, so a center detent works nicely. 

9 VDC: 9 Volts, DC, 35mA current draw. 9V battery or power adaptor. Connector - Center pin Negative. 2.1mm barrel. Can be run up to +18VDC. 

Ch A Input jack: Acts as main input. Battery switching done at ring connection. 

Ch A Output jack: Available for patching between A and B. When in use, connection to Drive B is broken. 

Ch B Input jack: Available as independent B input, or as a return from whatever A output was patched to. A wah wah pedal works great between Ch A and Ch B! 

Ch B Output jack: Acts as main output. 

Ch A Drive: Controls the amount of overdrive on channel A. 

Ch A Volume: Controls the amount of volume on channel A 

Ch B Drive: Controls the amount of drive on channel B 

Ch B Volume: Controls the amount of volume for channel B 

Voice: 8 positions. Selects 1 through 8 filter stages for the desired voicing effect. This works in conjunction with the DEPTH control. When DEPTH is in the center, VOICE settings will make no difference. Selection #1 works well for basic bass/treble adjustments. 

Depth: Takes the filter stage selected by the Voice knob and sums it with the drive B signal either positive or negative. CUT - cuts the selected frequency range for a hollow type of sound. BOOST - boosts the selected frequency range for a fat sound. 

Center detent disables the Voice feature. On any given Voice setting, Boost and Cut have drastically different sounds. This adds up to a total of 16 available voices. Extreme depth settings (full cw or ccw) can sound very "boxy", only useful under special circumstances.d 

Bypass A: True bypass for overdrive A. When A is active, green LED is lit up. 

Bypass B: True bypass for overdrive B. When B is active, red LED is lit up. 

Size: Width = 5 1/2 inches Depth = 5 inches Height = 3 inches 

Weight: 2.7 Lbs.