fx pedal - help please

Excuse my ignorance please - i bought my son an FX pedal (zoom 505) for his electric guitar, but whatever he seems to do there is too much noise/interference coming from his 8W amp to enjoy the fx pedal. Would a more powerful amp stop this problem, or does this have nothing to do with it?!

Thanks in advance for any help offered.

A thought occurs to me.....Does he have the amp set to it's clean setting?.....I have spent many long nights, banging my head off the wall trying to convince the guitarist in our old band that he needs his amp set to a clean chanel if he wants to run effects.....Otherwise the clean sounds won't sound clean.....He genuinely thought the effects would remove the amps own overdrive from the sound .....

Hmm... this could be due to a few things...

Presuming it's not the fault of the amp, a more powerful one wouldn't help - it'd just give him the opportunity to play louder (with louder interference). The possibilities are...

1. Is he playing close to his computer screen or hard drive? Or a strip light? These are problems for all guitars, but even worse if you have single coil pickups.

2. Does the Zoom have noise reduction? I know the more recent Zoom units have 'ZNR' settings, but I'm not sure about the 505 (is it the original or the Mk2?)

If it does have noise reduction, just turn up the threshold control until the noise goes away - it'll still be there when he plays, but it'll be drowned out by the guitar sound.

3. Dodgy lead? Cheap cables are a notorious source of noise.

I'm certain the 505 would have ZNR Adrian.....I know for a fact the 3030 had it, and it's a considerably older model.....Been around since the mid 90's I

I have an older zoom 1010, and some patches can be very noisy. There is a setting called ZNR (Zoom Noise Reduction) That may help control the hiss.

Yeah, you're right - it must have come out around 96-ish...