player opinions
DigiTech XP100 Whammy-Wah
Name: Gambit
Band: Myriad/Neon Lights (UK)
-
Model Year: -----
Price Paid: £160
Performance
It is very easy to use, 2 simple pedals for scrolling through user presets or factory listing, and one for bypass. You have the choice of 29 effects with; 5 wahs 6 auto wahs/ envelope filters 8 whammy — 6down :) 2 up/down and everything in between 9 harmony — mixing original signal with 5ths, 3rds, 4ths, octaves up and down etc 1 volume control 1 “detune” — sounds like a chorus. All these are controlled by the expression pedal, the detune effect adjusts depth of detune or chorus, volume is obvious, and all whammy fx are adjusted by the expression pedal for nice fx like U2 song “holdmethrillmekissmekillme.” Slightly down-marked because there’s only one scroll pedal which means holding it down to reverse thru list. It would have been nicer to have two, but again that would just be a luxury.
-
Performance Rating: 10
Sound Quality
This pedal is pretty vital to my mad scooped mega gain distortion sound. Think Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie era.. “tales of a scorched earth”, then add some more gain! I get extra gain going into my amps input because I whack the input signal control on the pedal to maximum (ignoring clipping) because it boosts my signal by a fair bit it adds more distortion in the amp — without the pedal it loses a lot of “my” sound. I’ll mark it down for sound because it can’t really handle playing chords in some octave settings for example. If you listen to the Radiohead song called “my iron lung” he plays a guitar part picking chords on the 3rd fret but with the 1 octave up setting on. It creates this atonal kind of warbling if more than 1 note is ringing out — maybe it’s not polyphonic or something, but this doesn’t detract form its brilliance. I don’t think I would want to use it for doing normal stuff like that... get a capo or something.
-
Sound Quality Rating: 10
Construction
-
Solid, metal chassis, rubber feet that won’t last long, but never really needed anyway. The expression pedal might need adjusting after a while because the screw might loosen making the expression pedal fall to fully up/down position when you want it to be a bit stiffer and stay in a stuck position in the middle somewhere — but again, just tighten a screw a little and adjust to taste. Oh yeah, I got mine signed by Muse in a record shop so it has got nice silver marker in-between the scroll/bypass pedals. The guitarist/singer looked shocked when I put my pedal on the table to sign — his face was a picture! Imagine signing 100 CD’s then a big red whammy pedal leaps at you! HAHA! I have to get my Big Muff signed by Placebo, then I will have to carry on the pedal signings as a hobby.
-
Construction Rating: 10
links
Average Ratings
- Performance: 8
- Sound Quality: 9
- Construction: 7
Ratings Key
- 10: Excellent
- 0: Useless
Company
- DigiTech