Review of the Digitech RP500 Multi Effects Unit

If you are into hard rock and heavy metal you probably are aware that there are a variety of different amplifiers, cabinet, and effect combinations that help to create an artists sound. For the average musician on a budget this is not at all affordable to buy three or four different amp head, another four cabinets, and ten or twelve stomp boxes to get your sound. Digitech has come through with a pedal that combines the best amplifiers, cabinets, and effects in a one piece unit for under $300.

The RP500 is made from in America. I know that is pretty rare these days. It has an all metal case and foot switches. The Digitech RP500 comes with 100 factory patches that you can use and play with to find a sound that you like. You also can store 100 of your own patches that you design yourself or download from the internet. There are five separate foot switches on the pedal that are used to control the effects and your sound. You have two modes that you can use these in. one mode allows you to change patches. A patch in a combination of an amp, cabinet, and effects used all at once. You can switch between five of them without any adjustment. You also can switch from patch mode to pedal board mode. This allows you to turn individual effects in a patch off or on. You also have six knobs that are used to set various parameters on your amplifier models and effects.

What is really neat is that the pedal actually models, or tries to sound like various guitar amps. As I mentioned this means you can sound like you are using different amplifiers just with this pedal. You can even hook this right into a soundboard and not used an amplifier if you choose. There are 30 amplifier models based off some of the best sounding and most famous amps in history. You also get 20 models based exclusively on Digitech modified amplifiers, two acoustic simulator models and can bypass the amp model and go directly to your own amplifier or sound system. Some of the amp models that you can chose from are the Marshall JCM2000, Randall RG100es, Mesa-Boogie Dual Rectifier.

Once you get your amplifier picked you can use the cabinet modeler to select the cabinet sound that you would like to play through. There are thirteen popular cabinet models, and nine Digitech original cabinet models plus a direct model if you want to use your own cabinet. Some of my favorites include the Fender 2x12 Twin Reverb, 1969 Marshall 4x12 cabinet stack, and the Mesa-Boogie 4x12 cabinet stack.

Next you can set some effects up that you would like. Fist off you get a highly accurate built in tuner. I have used several multi effect pedals and have found this to be the most accurate tuner in this price range, a five band equalizer, and a noise gate. You also get eighteen distortion stomp box modes to choose from including the Ibanez Tube Screamer and Boss DS-1. Three Wah pedal effects that can be controlled via the built in expression pedal, four types of compressors, five types of flangers, three phasers, five pitch modulation effects. The unit also includes five chorus stomp box models including Boss and TC Electronics. You also get eight delay effects from named like Boss and the classic Echoplex.

I thought I would also share a setting that I really like to use for anyone that buys one of these or gets the chance to jam one. I use the Boss DS-1 distortion model with a Soldano amplifier mod through a ALT 4x12 cabinet. I set the DS-1 with the overdrive at 0, the tone at 50 and crank the level to 99. I find this gives the amp a real extra punch. I set the Soldano EQ with the bass at 10, mids at 5 and treble at 6. The RP500 EQ is as fallows. The low level is at 0, the mid low is at 2000mhz, mids are at -12, high mid is at 4000mhz, and treble is at 12. I find this gives it an awesome heavy crunch sound. Typically I will use a digital delay with 500ms of delay, 25 repeats and my delay level at 25. I use the Hall reverb model with my pre-delay set at 2, decay 50, liveliness at 35 and reverb level at 35. I have used this both live and at home and it always sounds pretty good. I would say it should remind you of a late Dokken George Lynch type sound.

There really are not many disadvantages to this pedal. There is the old adage that a multi effect will never sound as good as every individual stomp box, amp, and cabinet. This is very true but to buy everything modeled by the RP500 would cost you easily over $10,000 conservatively. The distortions are a bit weaker than the pedal counterparts, but if you use some gain from one of the amp models like I do you will compensate for that. I also would have liked to be able to use more than one modulation effect at once like run a chorus with a flanger. You are not able to do this. This is not a biggie, but the Digitech RP500 does not come with a drum machine so you will need one of those if you like them. The reality is there are plenty of free ones on the internet you can play along with. Also if you buy one make sure to check out the Digitech sound community. You can find patches from other players that you can download from your computer to your RP500.

I will say that for the money this is the best multi effect unit on the market today. You get lots of versatility and can even record with free computer software that comes with your unit. If you have thousands of dollars you could buy a fancy rack unit, but I don't like rack gear and really did not want to spend that kind of money. If Motley Crue or Kiss come calling and want me to play guitar for them I might just buy a more expensive unit, but right now this is the effect pedal for me.

Resources

www.digitech.com

www.musiciansfriend.com

www.guitarcenter.com