[Harp-L] DigiTech Review

["Rich Beaubien" <RichBeau@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

In the continuing story of getting my harp sound amplified....

Remember this is a search for my sound not yours so your mileage may vary.
I'm just reporting on what I found that I liked and disliked. I suggest you
use this only as a basis to go out and test them out for yourself. There's a
good chance that you are looking for something that I did not cover or am
not interested in.

I cruised over to my friendly neighborhood music store yesterday and l
looked at these some of these DigiTech units that we've been discussing.  

They had RP200, RP300, RPx400, Vocal 300 and a Vocal Vx400...

The RPs combine and amp and cabinet modeling processors (its like having a
line of stomp boxes) plus the effects unit. The Vocals are basically preamps
with an effects unit (though the Vx400 has a modeling unit in it).

They're all solidly build.
They all come with a wall wart power supply
All can be connect the stereo output of a tape or CD player via a 1/8"
stereo TRS jack
All have a 1/4" input jack (unbalanced)
All have a 1/8" stereo headphone jack

Additionally...

The RP200 has;
The output is a stereo TRS jack 

The RP300 has;
Left (mono) and right 1/4" jack outputs 

The RPx400 has;
A XLR mic input (I was told it accepts either dynamic or phantom powered
condenser microphones)
1/4" left and right line inputs
1/4" left and right line outputs (unbalanced)
XLR balanced line outputs
A USB jack
There's also a jack for a remote foot switch 

The Vocal 300 has;
A balanced XLR mic input
A balanced XLR mic output
1/4" stereo line output (unbalanced)

The Vx400 has; 
A XLR mic input
1/4" left and right line inputs
1/4" left and right line outputs (unbalanced)
XLR balanced line outputs
A USB jack
There's also a jack for a remote foot switch 

A quick note on I/O:
The RP200 doesn't have the XLRs so the ins and outs are unbalanced so you'll
need to factor that in for this unit. On the 300s, with a hi-z mic you'll
need an impedance match especially if you like to use a hot JT30. The 400
versions have input gain adjustments which eliminate most of these issues.

All have a foot pedal that can be used in various ways (volume control,
wah-wah, etc).   

The RP200 has two foot switches.  All of the others have three foot
switches.  Two of the foot switches allow you to scroll up and down the
presets. The other one can be a bypass or utilized as a A/B switch. They
also have various select buttons and 3-5 knobs depending on the model. Look
at the DigiTech website for the exact options of the various models.

All of the units have a display matrix of LEDs that makes it a bit easier to
tell what effects and settings are in the preset you are using at the
moment. Additionally the RP300 & RPx400 have small displays for a line of
characters (about 8 or 10 long).

Sound-wise...

All of the units had a compressor, EQ, a noise gate, various effects (ex.
Chorus, Flanger, etc) plus delay and reverb.

All three RP units come with built in drum machines. They also had a pickup
simulator, amp modeling and a cabinet and mic placement emulator.

The two vocal units have a preamp and voice characteristics section which
gave you some interesting items like Chipmunk or Grunge. Mic modeling was
also available on the Vx400 (ex. AKG414 , Neumann  U87, Shure SM58 etc).

You can edit all of these items into presets and give them names with the
two 400 units you can save them to your computer via the USB connection.

The palette of sounds that can be generated with these things is wider than
you can get from a single amp. The emulators add another step. It just comes
down to tone and where you want to go.

Richard Hunter uses an RP200. Rob Paparozzi and Randy Singer use the Vocal
300. All of them have positive things to say about their units. Richard has
samples and presets available on his website. Hopefully we can get a set of
basic presets from Ron and Randy for the Vocal 300 on a website soon.

I figured I could only test two without straining the sales guy too much on
a busy Xmas season weekend. Both the RP300 and the Vocal 300 had features so
they won by default. Besides that they are comparable product line wise.

The XLR connectors on the RP300 made hookup easy.  I played through some of
the presets, while they were kind of nifty, for me they would get old pretty
quickly as I like a purer sound. I also had a hard time getting a clean
sound from RP300. It always seemed a bit ahh.fuzzy. Most often I want a
clean sound with a touch of echo or reverb. I had a hard time getting it, at
least easily. The RPs are really for a guitar and it seemed to be a stretch
using it for the harp.

Hooking the Vocal 300 up to the PA was also easy because of the XLRs
(there's 1/4' jacks also so it would plug into an amp pretty easily). It
took me maybe 30 seconds to find a nice tone it got a bit hollow but I
figured I needed to tweak it more.

As Rob pointed out these units require "some initial setup and some homework
in 'sculpting' your desired sound efx." So with more experience with both
models I probably would improve the quality of sound but it seemed real easy
for me to get somewhere fast with the Vocal 300.

The RP200s lack of XLR eliminated that one real quick. The weirdness getting
started with the RP300 and the fuzzy sound turned me off. I don't need the
extra I/O or the USB connections of either 400 (RP or Vocal). So that
eliminated those models. I just use a bit of slapback from my Danecho. I get
that with the Vocal 300 and can grow into the other stuff as I play with it
a bit.  Basically I get more sophisticated without sacrificing too much
simplicity and I have some growing headroom.

Because I'm mostly getting invites (and I might try some open mics in
February) my gig kit can be: a mic, a mic stand, some wire, the DigiTech,
and harps. I betcha I can get this all into one small hard case with wheels.
Occasionally, I can drag the old Fender Pro Jr. along if I really need to.

So the Vocal 300  was an obvious choice.

Thanks to everyone on, and off, the list for sharing your opinions so
freely.
--Rich