Product Review: Digitech PR100 Guitar Effects Pedal

I am cheap. I can squeeze a penny 'till the zinc oozes from the middle. I guess my skinflint ways pay off about fifty percent of the time, anyway. When I spent $99.99 (plus tax) on the Digitech RP100 Guitar Effects Pedal, I could definitely say it was indeed a 50/50 payoff!

This eighty channel unit, which runs off of either 6 AA batteries or a 9 volt/130mA optional power supply ($29.95), is small and light, but surprisingly durable. It can be used in stereo, mono, or through headphones so as not to disturb your square-ass neighbors and/or housemates!

It has a drum machine, digital tuner, pickup simulator, compressor, wah-filter (both automatic and manual controlled with an optional "expression pedal"), reverb and delay in both analog and digital, amp modeler, cabinet simulator, noise gate, phaser, chorus, and flanger. The RP100 has 40 factory preset channels and 40 user-programmable channels that can be changed by stepping on the either of the two main buttons to go up or down in channel selection.

It has many good qualities. The chorus, wah, phase, flange, delay and reverb sound awesome, as one would expect from Digitech. The Amp modeler does a great job of imitating the sound of a dozen vintage amps, the most realistic ones being the Marshall JCM900, '65 Fender Twin Reverb, '57 Fender Tweed Deluxe, Mesa Boogie Mark II C, and that great old British Invasion amp, the Vox AC30 top boost.

The Cabinet simulator, used to simulate an openly-miked amp when plugging straight into the mixing board, is very realistic. It simulates 4 different kinds of cabilnets combined with four different microphone-placement schemes. The modeler and simulator used together while running the guitar through a PA channel makes a sound virtually indistinguishable from a vintage amp!

Other nifty features that impressed me were the rotating speaker simulator (to achieve the sound of the old '60's "Leslie" cabinets), the panner (swithcehs the sound from left to right when used in a stereo setup), Auto "Yah" (a unique Digitech effect that makes an almost vowel-like sound), and a detuner (copies the signal just slightly out of tune to simulate two guitars playing an identical part simultaneously).

The RP100 also contains the world-famous (and most excelent) Digitech Whammy control (popularized by Tom Morello of "Rage Against the Machine"). By itself, you can drop the pitch of your instrument digitally, so you can play detuned without having to physically slack you strings. With the optional expression pedal, you can bend notes up or down (like Mr. Morello), or, used in harmonizer mode, can manually shift the pitch of the harmonizing note to make more natural sounding harmonies when playing in Minor Thirds and Sevenths.

The digital tuner (accesible when in Bypass mode), vibrato, tremolo, noise gate (used to control feedback), pickup simulator, and compressor are all decent, although not exceptional. The old phrase "They're good enough for government work" could apply to these features.

Because you get what you pay for, the RP100 does have some negatives to it, though, the biggest one being its inability to switch quietly between channels. There is an noisy and extremely irritating lag of almost a full second when switching channels or going to or form bypass mode; a BIG deal-breaker if the intended purpose of the unit is live performance.

And then there's the tone. The three-band EQ has no tone whatsoever. You would be better off bypassing it completely and using your amp's tone control. Despite its lightweight durability, it isn't very road-worthy, because it was designed more for the jam-room than for the rigours of playing clubs.

Overall, the Digitech RP100 is good for the money; I have used it very successfully in home recording. However, it has its limitations. If you're after a good workhorse for live performance, I suggest saving another $200-$300 and buying a good floorboard-type unit from Digitech. The RP100 does make a killer "first" effects unit for the beginner, and a good amp simulator for the budget-minded (i.e., CHEAP) home recording enthusiast.