DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist

Some factory presets are OK, or at least provide the basis from which you can edit until you've gotten what you like. The manual SUCKS BIGTIME, no excuses Digitech, its a pretty lame document for a four figure pricetag unit. I'd guess one half of the manual describes features, but does little to tell you how to program them. The unit itself is a dream to program, with everything laid out in pages, but there is a lot of processing power here, and the manual is of little help. I'd give a 9 with a better manual.

Lone Star Strat, Customized Tele, Mesa 50/50 stereo amp, two Marshall 2x12 1922 cabs. The distortions are a little noisy, but thats to be expected. Has a multi featured noise gate, which can be placed in a number of places in the signal route. There are about 60 different basic preamp sounds, both tube and SS to choose from, and you can tweak to your hearts delight from there. ( 6 and 10 band graphic and parametric EQ's ). If you can't find the basic sound you're looking for in this box, you're not looking hard enough. So so compressor. A full offering of basic preamp sounds from clean to high gain, with total tweaking anywhere. On to the digital effects ( heaven ) portion of the review. You really need to try any of the stereo chorii, detuners, reverbs, leslie speakers sims, delays, flangers, phasers, auto-panners through a stereo power amp and two cabs to experience a heaven like state of sonic bliss, no BS. You are offered quite a number ( dozens ) of basic effects, and then the ability to customize from there. Considering the number and variety of effects offered, I'm amazed at the quality, but then this baby sells for a grand, so its no stompbox. You can emulate just about any sound or artist you want, if you have the time to work with the unit. Mine I have for only three months, so I've much to learn yet. This learning curve could be cut considerably by providing a decent manual.

I don't gig, and usually jam with a few buddies, so its not getting heavy use, so I don't know how it would stand up in a gig or touring situation.

I emailed a question to them before on a RP3 box, and they answered right away, so I think the're OK for support. There are a number of user groups on the web, and you're gonna need 'em, because the MANUAL SUCKS. ( have I mentioned this before? )

Wide variety, mostly blues, and some solo jazz type stuff. I would replace it if it were stolen. I love the sound, its fantastic, but I hate trying to program the unit with the poorly written manual. I rate the unit itself a 10, and the overall experience a 7, would be a 9 except for the (you guessed it!) suckky manual.

hmmmmmmmmmmmm...... i would have to say right out of the box you feel like a moron thats trying to defuse a nuclear weapon. but the ease of it kind of comes in stages, with every stage you conquer everything becomes more and more simple. it doesnt take very long to get the hang of it, but once you do its pretty easy. but everyones different, im 16 and grew up on electronic stuff, my parents, on the other hand still havent figured out how to work the cable box and tv. but basically you can get any sound out of it you want once figured out. i gave it an 8 because it takes a while to master

Okey dey. first things first. my set up includes an American Std. Fender Strat with a lace censor pickups. for an amp i use a Marshall JCM 2000 DSL 100 <-------great amp!! i also have a digitech xp-100. so pretty nice stuff. this thing sounds really really great. noisy? NOISY?!?! YOU REALLY WANNA KNOW IF ITS NOISY, I THINK IM GOING DEF, BECAUSE EVERY TIME I PROGRAM A DISTORTION I HEAR ABSOLUTELY NO SOUND WHAT SO EVER THEN WHEN I SMACK A CHORD I GET MY EARS BLOWN OUT! FUCK NO THIS THING ISNT NOISY. most of the noise gates are set a bit too high, but very easily fixable. the effects sound GREAT so do the distortions. lets put it this way you can use either or both tube and solid state distortion, both of which have 10 band GEQ's plus you can add 8 band EQ's in the effects (which can be routed ANY way you want up to 8 effects simultanious NOT including wah compression distortion!) so if you want you can have up to 28 bands of adjustable EQ! you can recreate sounds ALL you want. i especially like the reverse reverb, the LFO programming, and the octave effects. but all of them are beyond awesome. I've only had this thing for about a week and a half, but im already inlove with it. but at first its kinda like, i love it, i hate it, i love it, i hate it. but once you've got the bugs out you'll love it. the xp-100 sounds so SO much better out of the effects loop of the 2120 than in my amp. i'd have to say my favorite band is the smashing pumpkins and i can recreate a lot of their great sounds (which, my friends, is not an easy thing to do) I've been playing guitar for 8 years and it feels great to finally have a great new guitar, amp, and now this thing that makes my setup and sound just wonderful. i havent had a chance to show it off at a rehersal yet but i cant wait.

well seeing how i bought it used, it better not fucking break on my or im screwed. however, ive had NO problems with it yet, and it looks great!

i hope they're nice to used buyers :)

I play everything from really aggressive hard rock to very mellow trippy space stuff. this thing offers everything and more for ANY style of music. i have been playing for 8 years and own a nice selectons of gear, and this thing just improved everything by like 100%. if it were stolen or lost, i'd be so devastated i would SO buy it again. I really love the versatility of this thing, it just sounds great and is so flexible, i'd say the only thing that kind of bugs me about it is volume control can sometimes be tricky, it can be a bitch to change, but no big deal. My favorite feature is that on the foot switch you can switch patches like a normal effect processor on the bottom buttons but on the top you can assign effects with in your patch to a certain button so it kind of gives the effect of using stomp boxes but with the versatility of patches. the only other processor i've owned was a Zoom 3000s and i think it goes without saying it blows the shit out of it. i dont theres really anything i could wish that it had because i still havent really found many boundaries yet, and theres so much left to be discovered. this thing has endless possibilities. this thing DEFINITELY helps me to have a unique sound in my ways of writing, its definitely changed the faces of many of my songs already, and all for the better. I LIKE IT! :)

Firmware 2.02, out of the box. Sound is basically good. One complaint: I think all the factory patches should have comparable volume levels, and they don't.
Patch editing is delightfully easy; this is *much* nicer than their previous units.
The manual is mediocre to awful. It really looks like it was the manual for an earlier unit, and they just cut-and-paste. That said, it covers what I needed to know.

Cheap old strat, direct into mixer. Not particularly loud, although it's possible to get a hum out of it. Effects are pretty good; you can make them not work, but you have to try. Haven't tried with an amp.
I really like the quality of the distortions, although I occasionally wish I could run them in serial. This has a lot of room for crunch, though. All the effects are basically good. Pitch shift is a little weak, but that's been true on everything I've ever tried, and there's mathematical reasons for it to always be true on real-time effects.
A lot of variety of sound available here; I'm not scratching the surface, and I think the variety is incredible.

Haven't used it long enough to be sure, but it seems fine so far. I have managed to crash it by scrolling through the wrong parameters.

I play mostly crap with lots of effects. The guitar is more a way for me to get a feel for a piece before sequencing than a primary instrument, but I really love effects.
I've been playing very sporadically for about 10 years, but in practice, I might as well have been playing about six months.
I would replace this very quickly.
Big wins are the flexibility of the digital effects section, and the wonderful way it handles presets - you can save the preamp settings from a preset and use them with another preset.
The knobs are great.
I mostly compared this to my old GSP 21 Pro, and the win for this was dramatically improved flexibility and feature variety. (And sound quality.)
I wish it were a little more flexible, but I'll say that until they give me a compiler and a keyboard. :)

Is the 2120 easy to use? That depends on how you feel about the factory patches. The 100 presets cover a wide range of use, and I think any player would find several patches they would be pleased with. If you want to understand the unit in depth, you must have some patience, since the manual seems to be a slapped together update of the 2112 manual with errors and omissions. That said, I do not feel this unit has any competition right now. The dual distortion pathes allow both solid state and tube distortion, simultaneously if you like, or "morphing" between the two. A very cool feature. The large, custom display is also a work of art, and I love the user interface, five active knobs on the front that make editing very, very easy. You still have to deal with page, page, page, or menu, menu, menu sometimes, but compared to anything else I've seen, this unit is a real gem. You'll be spoiled if you have to go back to a standard effects unit with just one knob and some page up and down buttons. I got my unit with the FC-1 floor pedal, and it's very cool too, giving the user options of using the foot swithces as either effects on/off switches, or to change programs. Unfortunately, to really maximize this, you need to mess around for a while, again due to the short comings of the manual. But I really like the 2120, it has inspired me to play more guitar, to play better, and has clearly made my music sound better.

The 2120 seems to do the impossible, combining both analog and digital elements in one box. So you have analog tubes, compression, and wah, along side digital parametric eq, cabinet emulations, reverb and more. It's a tough challenge, but the 2120 really makes it work. I have not found another single box in any price range that can do what the 2120 does. The people at the factory were apparently very concerned about the unit sounding noisy, so the noise gate has been set at a level unuseable for making music. Might seem impressive at a NAMM demo, but I always have to lower this parameter to get any sustain out of the box.I know people have their own preferences with regard to distortion quality, reverb accuracy, but I like this box. Its effects have their own character. For example, I can't say that the wah sounds like my CryBaby Wah, or sounds better, it just sounds different. And given the extensive control over EQ in the box, you can endlessly tweak it to come up with your own, personalized sound. I might add that most presets seem like they were written on the single s-disc, early 2112 version of this unit, meaning that the unit has twice the digital processing power the presets represent.

I have had no problems at all at this point, owning the unit for about two months.

Digitech customer support has been very helpful. Sometimes it is tough to get someone on the line, but when I did leave a message, I got a call back in the afternoon, on Digitech's dime! While the manual is definitely substandard, the guys in Utah know what they are talking about. I would recommend downloading the pdf version of the manual from their website. It will allow you to search for key words and topics, since there is no index in the printed manual.

Well, I hope I have made it clear that I like this unit, and would recommend it to any guitar players, or studio owners wanting to add some extra zing to their rack. Ignoring the guitar aspect of the 2120, I think it would make a very cool processor for those people doing sound design and industrial/cutting edge music. I used the 2120 to process vocals for two source cues for a film project, and the producers loved it! I would like to mention that with the help of Markus Pfaff, I have added a digital output to the unit. On the back of my box is a warranty busting, digital coaxial 44.1 kHz SP/DIF output, letting me record my guitar directly into ProTools without going through more D/A and A/D convertors and smearing the quality of the sound. I recommend this modification, though it is not for the faint of heart, you can contact Markus at pfaff@riic.at or check out his webpage at http://www.mes.uni-linz.ac.at/staff/pfaff/guitar/2120spdif.html. I think there is also a link to his page from harmony-central. Very cool. Also, if you are gigging a lot, Digitech makes a custom gig bag just for the foot pedal, priced at $30. No one ever mentions this in their catalogs, but I poked around at the Digitech site and discovered this nice accessory. Seems to be a special order item at most stores.

Version 2.02
First off, all of my comments are based on using the unit DI into a tascam 564 digital deck. That being said, most of the distortion (and some of the clean) presets were not useful at all. Too much gain, noise gating, and not the correct compression. With these settings tweaked properly things started getting better. I also need the cabinet emulation ON for all of my patches. The owners manual is very cryptic on how to access the fine tuning parameters of most of the real juicy options. It took way too long to completely figure this puppy out because the manual was weak. Digitech, are you listening? BTW, I'm not a beginner to rack systems having owned units by ART, Alesis, Rocktron, and a previous digitech unit. Once you get used to the format, the unit is EXTREMELY easy to navigate. Lots of buttons make for easy access to particular functions and the LCD display is laid out very cleanly for such a powerful system. The rating here is split. 4 for first impressions, 10 once I figured things out (without much help from the manual). Average = 7.

I am mainly using an Ibanez S470, H-S-H with a 5 position selector. Again you have to take some time with the unit to be sold. You are not going to emulate a Les Paul into a Marshall with a tube screamer or a good Strat into a Tweed with the dripping reverb but...... neither of those setups would give you anywhere near the amazing array of sounds the 2120 has to offer. My preference so far is to take a few very cool patches and make my own subtle variations of them. For example, (all using copies of patch #80 - fusion solo) I have one preset for neck pickup, deep stereo delay, slight chorus, and ballsy tone. Another is for bridge pickup, less gain, hall reverb. Another is for bridge pickup, medium gain, wide chorus, and a slight tap back delay (ala Ty Tabor). I've also done this with some cool clean patches. Proper setup of the noise gate and compression (as well as their position in the chain) will keep things super quiet. All in all, this unit is very gratifying if you are willing to work a little.

To Soon to tell. I am not gigging with the unit so my expectations are high.

Not applicable yet.

This unit is the balls and perfect for my needs. I've been playing for over 20 years and play rock, fusion, shread, blues, classical, etc. etc. You can even cop a very useful acoustic vibe with the 2120 when using a coil tapped position on an electric. Probably the coolest thing is plugging in, spending a few minutes to create a new variation of a patch, then being inspired by the new vibe. (kinda like switching guitars and amps can do to you) Again, I'm using the unit for home jamming thru my deck and then thru a home stereo system with a sub-woofer or for home recording DI along side a Boss DR5 for drum, bass, ect. sounds. I am completely satisfied and would replace the unit ASAP. I do wish Digitech would have put an input jack on the rear face, a means to back up your custom patches, and the ability to make compression and noise gate settings globally. Make sure to spend some time with this unit before making judgement. An in-store demo just won't cut it IMHO.

The presets are damn impressive, and it's dead easy to change through them. I could gig this without making any new patches. Creating new stuff is dead easy once you get the hang of it (ignore the manual and press buttons until it works) although the parameters in some of the effects are somewhere between complex and arcane. The manual tells you what each parameter does, which is good. It doesn't tell you how to work the thing (well, it does, but it lies), which is bad. If they'd got a guitarist to write it, instead of an engineer....
My firmware is version 2.02

I play an Ibanez into a Marshall, and this thing rocks. Much fuller, louder distortions than my amp. Better than the Rocktron and Marshall rack-mounts I tried in the shop, too. The noise gate is too high on the presets, but it's easy to change, and it makes it incredibly quiet. Other effects (especially reverb, chorus and delay) are gorgeous. The harmonizer sounds a bit processed, but it's still damn good. I can get convincing metal tones out of it, and the thing can make me sound like Dave Gilmour. It'd get 11 if it gave me Dave's phrasing too....

Very well made, excellent action on the controls, looks bullet-proof. One glitch: When you enter a patch with the volume pedal active, it sometimes goes quiet. I think it's "forgotten" where the pedal is and jumped back to half-volume. Solution - tap the pedal when you enter a patch. Or disable it and play at full blast all the time ;-)

No problems with it, so I don't know.

It's great for blues, rock and metal. Easy to do the basics, with more powerful stuff when you get the hang of it. Excellent tones. It's improved my sound no end, and having all the different styles on tap has improved my playing. If it got stolen, I might lie to the insurance company and get a Lexicon, but this is stunning equipment for the money. One warning - you're not using it to its full potential running through a single amp.

I've only had it a day, but these are my initial impressions. The graphic layout for patch setup is nice. I had some problems adding a chorus to some patches, had to modify the layout. It wasn't very intuitive for that.
The manual covers the basics, but totally misses some things like the jam with yourself patches. Those look cool, but in the 24 hours I've had it, I haven't figured out how to use them yet. 8)

Most of the stock patches have the noise gate set REALLY high. I was getting alot of cut offs that were undesirable. I can see why they have them set high, this unit is pretty darned noisy. I was able without too much struggle to edit the noise gate, but it's a per patch thing, not global, which would be nice. Some of the patches really show potential for great sounds. I've yet to find/edit any lower level distortion patches with that biting edge that rips without having in your face square waving like most of the presets.
Now if only I can get that sound of my ProCo Rat at about 10 o'clock with the filter at about 1 o'clock, I'll be happy. And then there's the ProCo almost on full with my old Boss CS-1 Stereo Chorus sound. That ringing, smoothly saturated tone. If I can get that out of it...

Digitech has a decent rep. I've only owned one other Digitech piece of gear. Years ago I bought a swell pedal. The foot switch on it broke in no time. This unit appear much better made, fortunately.

No experience with this, but I've heard good stuff. I usually don't need support, but when you do, it's nice if you don't have to pull teeth to get it.

I'm gonna go positive on my outlook in the hopes that I can tweak more variety than the stock presets have. Using it is setup well for live use and alot of the sounds would work well for studio use. I suppose you gotta expect really high gain stuff to be noisy and most of their presets have ALOT of distortion, at least the distortion patches.
I can say that if I can tweak some more stuff and get what I want, it'll be exactly what I was looking for: great sound, all in one, midi and foot controllable. I'm definitely tired of the stomp box rat's nest.
The stock settings have some nice clean and in your face distortion. Great for Heavy Metal. I'll post an update after I play with it for a while.
I'd be interested in talking with anyone that's used this unit alot about how to get certain sounds out of it.

If you have any experience at all with multieffect units, this should be fairly easy to figure out. The manual is informative but could be laid out in a better way (from very simplistic to complicated/advanced, for example). The interface on the front panel easily tells you which knob controls what for a given screen. Given the depth of editability? of the unit,it is quite easy to use, though not for beginners. I am using version 2.02.

I am using this unit in several different configurations. Primary config is through the effects loop of my Mesa-Boogie Mark IV. I do not use the preamp section of the unit in this config as I prefer the Boogie tube tone. As an effect-only unit, it is quite transparant and does not color the tone much, if at all. I also use this unit by itself directly into the board (utilizing the tube and solid state preamp section) for small gigs and some rehearsals where I don't want to drag out my whole set-up. I like the sound of the preamp, but as I said before, I prefer the sound of the Boogie. I am REALLY impressed with the quality of the reverbs. Generally, units geared towards guitar to not have such high quality verbs as this unit. I'm not real crazy about the compressor (it could be more subtle) but it isn't so bad as to take away the benefits of the unit. As a whole, the unit sounds great.

The first unit I took home had a glitch during boot up but I found I could get it to work. The drawback is that I had to reset every time I turned it on so my custom patches would get erased. I got a replacement and have had no problems. The foot controller is made of steel (good)and is very sturdy. Aside from my problem with the first unit I have had no problems.

When I had my first unit problem I immediately called Digitech. I was patched right through to a LIVE engineer who was friendly and gave concise, useful information. I don't know what problems Digitech might have had in the past but I was impressed that I got right to a live human being so quickly in this day and age of voice mail.

This unit is exactly what I have been looking for. Something with pristine High quality effects, and can be used for home recording/direct PA interface, with the tube and solid state preamps and not sound "fake". All at a reasonable price (considering alternatives to getting the same features). The ONLY thing I would want different is the output to be muted when in tuner mode, so that live I can kick on the tuner and not be heard by the whole crowd.

This thing has about every sound you could ever want to hear and a few that you probably won't ever hear. If you can imagine it you can (with a little work) do it with this.
Editing patches can be a little tough at first, but with a practice anyone can do it.
The manual isn't that bad, but it isn't that good.
Mine is version 2.02
Overall, the total amount of different effects are as good or better than anything I have ever seen. It just takes some time to learn how to use it well.

I mostly use it with my Fender Hot Rod Deville 410 and my '93 PRS Custom 24. I can get any tone I want with this setup.
Some of the presets will never be able to be used in any practicle sense. But, most of the effects are good, and if you don't really like them they aren't hard to change.
The artist (I've never heard of a couple of the people) are OK with the Korn, Steve Morse , and Joe Satriani being the best. I can sound like anybody with a little tweaking.
All of the effects are good, but without separate cabs some are a little weak. The expression pedal slide preset is a lot of fun.

I have never had a problem with it.

Never had to deal with them.

I have been playing for 6 years now and this is the best effects equipment I have ever used. I play everything, from death metal to bluegrass, and this can handle it all.
I also have a Les Paul Custom, a Takamine acoustic, a Jackson USA soloist, and a Schecter Avenger-7 (great guitar for the money).
I would definately buy it again.
I like everything about this machine, except the presets and the manual could have been a little better.
You will not find anything better for this price.

Well, I'll put it this way, its definately going to take some effort. This is no kiddie-$50 floor pedal, this thing is huge and extremely varied; the level of detail you can go into with effects is sooo deep. The interface for creating patches is wonderful, totally graphical. But you're going to have to take the time to make some good patches if you want some sounds. Everyone says the manual sucks, but actually Its much better than I thought it'd be. Then again, I've been around computers and electronics since I was 8, but still, its really a pretty good manual.

Half the time, I am running direct balanced into an ADB multi!wav analong pro 24, which is in my pc, for ADAC, for Hard Drive recording, and when not doing that I'm running into a 60W Crate combo amp to jam with. My guitar is a Gibson Les Paul Studio. The unit itself isn't noisy at all.. even by itself its extremely quiet.. then of course switch on a noise gate (pre/post fx and/or preamp/etc/etc/etc, wherever you want it of course) and you can hear a pin drop; no residual noise whatsoever, studio quality. The effects on the unit are AMAZING!! I can go from the most absolutely ENORMOUS distortions in the world to cranked sounds to beautiful lush clean tones to incredible sounding synth patches (harder to make, but worth it. Pads are the most common, but I've even gotten WEIRD sounds like people conversing, alien sounds, etc), etc etc etc. I myself make expirimental/industrial/soundtrack kinda stuff, and occasionally more alternative stuff, and even less occasionally some acid jazz. This unit can do EVERYTHING. I can go from Rage Against the Machine, or Nine Inch Nails, to jazz sounds to whatever. It's all possible (just learn to make the patches!).

I've only owned mine a week or two, but so far it seems totally dependable; rugged construction.. the control one foot controller (included) seems very sturdy as well (also its very nice, shows the patch name on its screen, etc). All knobs, connectors, etc, seem fine. Cant say much for gigs, as I'm more of a studio musician.

Haven't had to deal with them yet. I've heard both success stories and horror stories. Dunno. Hear they are pretty good now though.

I've been playing 6 years, and recording for 4. I have a lot of variety in my writing, so I figured I'd get a unit to match. As far as guitar sounds go, this seems to pretty much be the ultimate. Pretty much everything is possible with it, you just have to take the time to master it (or try anyway). If it were stolen or lost, I'd buy another one, that is, if I had enough money. I've compared it to a whole lot of products.. in fact at first I was going to buy an RP7, then an RP20, then finally I figured "hey why not" and got the best. It's definately a great unit. Technology IS a good thing, see? ehehe.