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Digitech RP100 Review

by Tony Thomas

If you are like me, you are constantly looking for the ultimate guitar sound. You buy pedals and rack effects units with total abandon in search of that perfect sound. If only you could find a single box that would give you the full range of sounds -- clean, distorted, echo, reverb, delay, phased, flanged, etc. How about the ability to chain 10 effects together. All with pristine 24-bit quality. And priced at $99--the price of many single-function analog stomp boxes. Impossible? I thought so until I picked up the Digitech RP100 to supplant my DOD TEC8 Grunge. While the TEC8 is a great unit, it is much more one-dimensional than the RP100 and it cost me over 2X as much when I picked it up a few years ago.

How does the RP 100 compare to the TEC 8? Well, the TEC8 is great for metal, grunge (of course!), face ripping lead sounds and wah wah. However, there is a lack of high-end frequency response. By comparison, the RP100 can do it all. It has some great clean chorus sounds (which sound phenomenal with single coil pickups), raunchy blues, metal and even the very retro-cool envelope follower sound (think 70s era Todd Rundgren's Utopia) and more. You'll run out of ideas long before you run out of sonic permutations.

Aside from the complete array of standard effects, the RP100 also provides very realistic amp, pickup, cabinet and mic placement modeling which seems to be the latest trend. Just about all the major "amps to die for" are represented making it a great box to plug directly into your board and DAW (or PA). To my ears, they sound very faithful to the amps represented. That is a very subjective thing, so your mileage may vary. The sound quality is excellent.

There are 40 presets which run the gamut and are well thought out. You can modify them and create 40 user presets. Connectivity consists of a single 1/4" TRS stereo output, a 1/4" mono input for your axe, a 1/8" stereo TRS headphone output and a CV pedal input for wah, volume or assignable parameters. You'll need an 1/4" stereo TRS to dual RCA cable plus some adapters to make it work

Programming the RP100 is a breeze thanks to a three knob matrix and a button to select the parameters. Once you get the hang of it, you can tweak a sound to taste and store it in a manner of seconds. It would be nice to have computer editing and MIDI sysex capability, but what do you expect for $99. The RP100 also has a preset drum machine with a good assortment of long patterns (albeit, not programmable) and a decent tuner to boot. I think that the RP100 is a incredible value. Some single effects pedals cost as much or even more! Given its sonic flexibility and programmability, it may be the only pedal that you'll ever need.

Update: Since I bought my RP100, Digitech has released their new RP200 which features a larger display and an expression pedal. The RP100 works with any passive volume pedal for expression control.

For More Information Contact:

Digitech
www.digitech.com