[Harp-L] Digitech iStomp

[Richard Hunter <turtlehill@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I took a look this week at the Digitech iStomp, which is a pedal that is designed to be dramatically reconfigured via download.  To put it another way, it's a pedal that's not intrinsically dedicated to any one effect (or even any particular set of FX); it's a blank slate that you load with the effect(s) that you want it to run, and you can overwrite those FX with others anytime you like (via connection to any Apple iOS device, like an iPhone or iPad).

The iStomp runs on wall power, which is a little bit of a drag.  However, used iStomps are now selling in the $50 range, and among the FX on offer is a pitch shifter that will do any simultaneous combination of octave down, two octaves down, 5th up, and octave up.   It appears at this point in time that Digitech is essentially giving all the FX that go with the iStomp away for free; in this specific case, that means that a device that offers nore or less the same functionality as an Electroharmonix POG can be acquired for roughly $50, as opposed to the $300 plus you lay down for a POG.  If we couple the iStomp running this multiphonic pitch shifter with a Digitech RP running a rotary speaker effect, we (theoretically) get a pretty cool organ sound for what amounts to peanuts.   

Or so my thinking goes.  I've always loved the pitch shifter in the Digitech RPs, and I'm looking forward to hearing a shifter from them that does multiphonic shifting.  I've just ordered a used iStomp from quitarcenter.com, and I expect to be testing it with my normal RP setup soon.  I'll advise on what I hear.  

Regards and Happy New Year, Richard Hunter

author, "Jazz Harp" (Oak Publications, NYC)
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