Digitech Whammy DT. Wild/subtle whammy, harmony, drop tuning
Jul 13, 2019 16:30:22 GMT
JAC and tarn like this
Post by DefJef on Jul 13, 2019 16:30:22 GMT
This arrived overnight.
No time for buyer remorse when it gets sent using next day by 1pm delivery!
I bought it second hand for £75 including the power supply and it seems very under used. Not a mark nor a speck of dust on it. It's very solidly steel built and held together with some Allen head screws so getting inside it will be a challenge. One of the LEDs indicating one of the harmonies is not lighting up and two of the six little rubber feet were missing from the bottom. Possibly removed to fit on somebody's pedal board? As a result of them being two corner feet, the pedal rocked a little till I fashioned some replacement ones out of some high density foam. They'll do for now.
So I have had a little play and can hear a lot of creative options that will take an age to use totally automatically. Everything is pretty much self explanatory but it's in how you try to use it that the creativity comes in. I like a pedal like that. It does stuff and lets you decide what to take from it.
The treadle is nice to use. It's optical so no pots to wear out and can be recalibrated using a series of power-on-whilst-holding-this-then-tapping-that instructions but I can't imagine that will ever be necessary. It also has two bypass modes, true bypass or DSP, which can be selected again using that familiar power-on-whilst-holding-this regime. Normally I would be a true bypass player of pedals but I'm not sure with this one. True bypass affects your signal less when the device is off but using that 'momentary' switch is less successful and glitchy sounding. In DSP mode it is as noiseless and unobtrusive as you could want. Maybe I would put it in it's own separate loop so as to be able to truly bypass it or have it on in DSP mode.
Basically this pedal is three pedals which actually do two similar things some of which can be copied with careful use of the treadle. You could, for instance do your drop tuning using the treadle and just letting it rest in position and hope not to accidentally step on it but then you would not be also able to do any whammying. Far better is to use the drop tuning side for that stuff and free up the treadle for the whammy or harmony stuff.
The harmony side of the pedal offers a good range of options which can be adjusted whilst playing using the treadle. For instance you could select the 5th to 7th harmony which which will play a harmony a fifth above your true note and gradually rise to a 7th above as you toe down the treadle. One octave below shifting through to one octave above is of course the most dramatic. There seems to be no adjustment for how much of the harmony you want to mix in but the factory setting seems about right anyway. It feels as though about 80% of the sound is harmony.
Then there's the whammy part itself which will very effectively pitch shift from your original note to anything from a subtle 2nd down through to 2 octaves down or dive bombing to sub bass. There is also the same sort of range upward to 2 octaves up...but no onward to infinity and bleeding dog's ears. I quite liked just leaving it at one particular harmony for a while and it did a sort of imitation of 12 string guitar when left at an octave up. The treadle travel is smooth, though I felt there was a slight audible pitch stepping as the treadle moved through the pitches, particularly in the first little bit of travel. It is virtually gradual though. It's good fun to combine this part with a wah and rock away on both pedals... for a while.
Just below this section there are also a couple of sort of warbling mix options: 'shallow' and 'deep'. These both do a bit of detuning and mix them in with your original signal, in effect being chorus. And rather nicely this can be mixed in as subtly or as drastically as you like using the treadle whilst you are playing. I can see this being very useful live to gradually add chorus.
Then, over on the other side of the pedal we have those 'shift up' and 'shift down' options. These are not affected by the whammy but are set at anywhere from 1 semitone to an octave above or below your guitar's actual true note plus an option to mix in your dry signal with the octave above or below. All very flexible. One way to use this is where you want to do a different tuning live without resorting to a capo or swapping guitars. The sound is pretty authentic when the shift is in the 1-3 semitone region. Beyond that, things start to sound very digital. But it handles chords truly polyphonically without a hitch, although I did sense a slight lag. Not totally sure I would be happy to ditch my capo altogether live though...maybe? Just to make life easy? With some judicious use of the guitar's tone controls, pickup and string selection it is possible to play a passable bass line too, even some baritone sort of stuff but it's not as enjoyable as playing the real thing. Useful on stage though for little bits.
There is also a momentary switch here which I think will be very useful just to drop in the effect. I actually found it could be used to momentarily drop out the effect too, which is also useful. One way that can be used creatively is to set your drop tuning to say a 5th below and then play a descending guitar line in normal tuning right down as low as your E string will let you go and then momentarily hit the detune button to carry on down lower. You could, as suggested before, use the whammy pedal to do this instead. Another shared feature. Or you could hit the switch just for a regular single note below E in a riff or lick. It can also be used to stutter in some detuned notes. This is where that DSP bypass is noticeably a better option. So there's lots on offer to create with here. Imagination is the key.
I gave it a particularly hard time using just a clean signal which sharply magnifies any digital artifacts. I'm sure that with some gain, distortion, fuzz etc. it would be a more seamless affair. Whether you put your gains/distortions before or after the Whammy may give very different results too. All logic says give the Whammy as clean a signal as possible but some really satisfyingly glitchy noises could be indiced from it if you were to put the distortions first. I had satisfactory results with my wah both in front and after the Whammy.
It's very easy to get carried away with a pedal like this and go for maximum madness all of the time but I reckon it would come more into its own as a momentary thing for some unlikely sounds as a highlight somewhere or possibly to set up a riff or an intro/outro. Lots of fun and a bargain at £75. Whether it's essential is anyone's to call but if it stimulates new ways to write and play then it gets a thumbs up from me. I'll give it a week of trials before I decide whether it goes back to Cash Generator. I can do some of this stuff on my Boss ME70 but have never been inclined to because it's a bit of a faff. I'd like to keep it if it justifies itself and doesn't just get on me nips.
No time for buyer remorse when it gets sent using next day by 1pm delivery!
I bought it second hand for £75 including the power supply and it seems very under used. Not a mark nor a speck of dust on it. It's very solidly steel built and held together with some Allen head screws so getting inside it will be a challenge. One of the LEDs indicating one of the harmonies is not lighting up and two of the six little rubber feet were missing from the bottom. Possibly removed to fit on somebody's pedal board? As a result of them being two corner feet, the pedal rocked a little till I fashioned some replacement ones out of some high density foam. They'll do for now.
So I have had a little play and can hear a lot of creative options that will take an age to use totally automatically. Everything is pretty much self explanatory but it's in how you try to use it that the creativity comes in. I like a pedal like that. It does stuff and lets you decide what to take from it.
The treadle is nice to use. It's optical so no pots to wear out and can be recalibrated using a series of power-on-whilst-holding-this-then-tapping-that instructions but I can't imagine that will ever be necessary. It also has two bypass modes, true bypass or DSP, which can be selected again using that familiar power-on-whilst-holding-this regime. Normally I would be a true bypass player of pedals but I'm not sure with this one. True bypass affects your signal less when the device is off but using that 'momentary' switch is less successful and glitchy sounding. In DSP mode it is as noiseless and unobtrusive as you could want. Maybe I would put it in it's own separate loop so as to be able to truly bypass it or have it on in DSP mode.
Basically this pedal is three pedals which actually do two similar things some of which can be copied with careful use of the treadle. You could, for instance do your drop tuning using the treadle and just letting it rest in position and hope not to accidentally step on it but then you would not be also able to do any whammying. Far better is to use the drop tuning side for that stuff and free up the treadle for the whammy or harmony stuff.
The harmony side of the pedal offers a good range of options which can be adjusted whilst playing using the treadle. For instance you could select the 5th to 7th harmony which which will play a harmony a fifth above your true note and gradually rise to a 7th above as you toe down the treadle. One octave below shifting through to one octave above is of course the most dramatic. There seems to be no adjustment for how much of the harmony you want to mix in but the factory setting seems about right anyway. It feels as though about 80% of the sound is harmony.
Then there's the whammy part itself which will very effectively pitch shift from your original note to anything from a subtle 2nd down through to 2 octaves down or dive bombing to sub bass. There is also the same sort of range upward to 2 octaves up...but no onward to infinity and bleeding dog's ears. I quite liked just leaving it at one particular harmony for a while and it did a sort of imitation of 12 string guitar when left at an octave up. The treadle travel is smooth, though I felt there was a slight audible pitch stepping as the treadle moved through the pitches, particularly in the first little bit of travel. It is virtually gradual though. It's good fun to combine this part with a wah and rock away on both pedals... for a while.
Just below this section there are also a couple of sort of warbling mix options: 'shallow' and 'deep'. These both do a bit of detuning and mix them in with your original signal, in effect being chorus. And rather nicely this can be mixed in as subtly or as drastically as you like using the treadle whilst you are playing. I can see this being very useful live to gradually add chorus.
Then, over on the other side of the pedal we have those 'shift up' and 'shift down' options. These are not affected by the whammy but are set at anywhere from 1 semitone to an octave above or below your guitar's actual true note plus an option to mix in your dry signal with the octave above or below. All very flexible. One way to use this is where you want to do a different tuning live without resorting to a capo or swapping guitars. The sound is pretty authentic when the shift is in the 1-3 semitone region. Beyond that, things start to sound very digital. But it handles chords truly polyphonically without a hitch, although I did sense a slight lag. Not totally sure I would be happy to ditch my capo altogether live though...maybe? Just to make life easy? With some judicious use of the guitar's tone controls, pickup and string selection it is possible to play a passable bass line too, even some baritone sort of stuff but it's not as enjoyable as playing the real thing. Useful on stage though for little bits.
There is also a momentary switch here which I think will be very useful just to drop in the effect. I actually found it could be used to momentarily drop out the effect too, which is also useful. One way that can be used creatively is to set your drop tuning to say a 5th below and then play a descending guitar line in normal tuning right down as low as your E string will let you go and then momentarily hit the detune button to carry on down lower. You could, as suggested before, use the whammy pedal to do this instead. Another shared feature. Or you could hit the switch just for a regular single note below E in a riff or lick. It can also be used to stutter in some detuned notes. This is where that DSP bypass is noticeably a better option. So there's lots on offer to create with here. Imagination is the key.
I gave it a particularly hard time using just a clean signal which sharply magnifies any digital artifacts. I'm sure that with some gain, distortion, fuzz etc. it would be a more seamless affair. Whether you put your gains/distortions before or after the Whammy may give very different results too. All logic says give the Whammy as clean a signal as possible but some really satisfyingly glitchy noises could be indiced from it if you were to put the distortions first. I had satisfactory results with my wah both in front and after the Whammy.
It's very easy to get carried away with a pedal like this and go for maximum madness all of the time but I reckon it would come more into its own as a momentary thing for some unlikely sounds as a highlight somewhere or possibly to set up a riff or an intro/outro. Lots of fun and a bargain at £75. Whether it's essential is anyone's to call but if it stimulates new ways to write and play then it gets a thumbs up from me. I'll give it a week of trials before I decide whether it goes back to Cash Generator. I can do some of this stuff on my Boss ME70 but have never been inclined to because it's a bit of a faff. I'd like to keep it if it justifies itself and doesn't just get on me nips.