DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist

The manual seems easy when you read it, but when you go to put what you think you understood into practice it doesn't happen. Stick with it! At first you think how can something so easy I want to do be so difficult? Then once you've mastered it you think how didn't I understand something that's so easy! I have read some user comments about setting patch levels. Hey this is so simple my pet cat Liddy does it for me now. All of the factory patches are set at to 100% so high gain patches are louder. Just set this type of patch to 50% then adjust the others to equalize the output volume. How? Press the levels button ( Doh! ) turn the 4 knob to set the output % then compare your patches and adjust till you get it right. If you want to get a good understanding of whats going on, download a copy of RPEdit by that wonderful fellow bruce james, from harmony central (software section) and all will be revealed. If there is a bad reveiw on the 2120 then it's because the user is too lazy to spend the time getting to know the product. It didn't take you five minutes to become a great guitarist why should you think it will take you five minutes to get a great sound. This unit is not as easy to program as a standard floor effects unit but that's because it has so much more to offer. So make the effort, the rewards are worth it.

I have 2 USA Custom Jackson SL2H's Yellow Bengal/Red Ghostflame (alright stop drewling) a Gibson Les Paul Standard and an Ibanez JS1. I use the 2120 through a Marshall EL34 50/50 Stereo power amp into a Marshall 1960A 4x12. The sound is just amazing. The effects are fantastic and you have so many. There are just endless possibilities if you spend the time. The noise gate is a bit strange. I tried out the Satch 3 patch in my front room at low volume and the noise gate kept cutting in not allowing them fantastic feedback harmonics or sustained notes to ring out. I thought this patch is shit! Then I tried it at a gig at a loud volume and thought I'd gone to heaven, It's enough to give you a woody! So be patient,spend time and you can achieve any sound you want. Iv'e got to give this product a 10 because any lower would mean that I am incapable of programming the unit because it is so comprehensive any sound is achievable with effort.

I have only had the unit for a couple of weeks. I have reprogrammed, renamed, tweaked and have had no problems. Hey and I have firmware version 2.02. I have kept my Zoom GFX8 floor effects unit as standby but have not taken this to a gig yet. I feel very confident with the reliability of the unit. I may submit another review in a couple of months once Iv'e had more experience.

Well, this is where Digitech excell. As mentioned above I have at present firmware 2.02. I e mailed digitech on a Saturday from the UK to ask about a UK firmware upgrade supplier. On Monday they emailed me back with the information. On Tuesday I rang the distributer and they sent out the upgrade free of charge on that day. I sent a further email to there technical department requesting information on the best pre amp valves for the unit as many user comments recommended these to be changed. The following day I received an informative helpful reply. Living in the UK I have never experienced customer service of this standard. You just have to log onto their website and go to the "contact us" section. You can guarantee a prompt reply (In my experience).

I play in a rock covers band. We do everthing from U2, Bryan Adams,
Thin Lizzy, Def Leppard, Metallica and so on. This requires some great crunch rythm sounds, screaming leads and clean chorus sounds. This unit does it all. Iv'e been playing now for some 30 years and have had numerous effects modules over the years from stand alone stomp boxes to good quailty floor effects systems (Boss, Zoom)and this unit is quite frankly the best unit I have ever owned. The features I like about the 2120 in conjuction with the control one foot pedal is the great "solo" setting for boosting a great sound so you can use it for lead (6DB boost) and the built in chromatic tuner which can be veiwed either on the 2120 screen or the foot pedal display and the fact that you can name the banks as well as the patches. So instead of U1 or U2 you can name the bank for instance Bon Jovi then name the patches RS Lead, rythm dirty, rythm chorus etc,
This makes it simple not to get lost changing banks and flaging which patches are in that bank. My only one moan (maybe it's because I haven't sussed it out yet) is high gain/lead patches played at low volume(rehearsing at home) do have a tendency to be cut off by the noise gate too early. Perhaps at this volume I should turn the noisegate off (this is easy to do)This unit is just great if your thinking of getting a 2120 and are not sure, stop thinking, put your hand in your pocket and go out and buy it. Be prepared to spend time understanding what it can do.

Easy to use if you've got tin ears and enjoy the presets (I liked 3 of the 140, but the potential was obvious). Programming is another ballgame, and it's a given that you'll be doing some. Personally, it doesn't scare me as a music technology major, but that's cause anything with a graphical user interface is relatively user-friendly, and I quite enjoy that you have so much control of everything. Tweakers will revel but others might not enjoy themselves so much. In addition, the manual is near-worthless and it's worth your while to upgrade to firmware 2.11.

I use a home-made hot,hot,HOT guitar as well a much warmer, richer, friendlier '78 Ibanez musician. I tend to program banks of patches SPECIFICALLY for each guitar because they are so different and because I am quite literally an obsessive compulsive. I have the 2120 mounted in 3 rack-space case/floorboard with all my analog non-true-bypass stompboxes in the 2120 effects loop (which I program to be footswitchable in each patch), a Fulltone Clyde deluxe wah in front, and the outputs hooked up to an Alesis NanoCompresser, followed by a hum-elimator/impedence shifter (mostly to take care of the analog stompboxes when I have the effects loop switched on), THEN to a small patch-bay built into the floorboard (so that I have patching options for either a studio (stereo) or into my guitar amp (mono)), AND FINALLY into my all-tube combo. *Phew* That describes the more fundamental parts of my setup at any rate, but it changes, evolves, and becomes more complex by the day. And now to the POINT: it can please even the most discerning ear (built-in wah not included), impress your friends, astound audiences, make you the center of attention, and boost your reputation, all with only x-amount of tweaking (x depends on the programmer) and a little performing skill and/or personality on your part.

Firmware below 2.11 has freaked me out a little (intermittent crashes and the like). DO NOT...I repeat...DO NOT use your baby on a burning hot day on a stage above a roaring mosh-pit (or "skank-pit"? as was my case) that is kicking up swelling clouds of dust all over your suit, your wonderful guitar, and your God-awful expensive gear. It's the kind of stress you really don't need in your life and it takes some mad patience and compressed air to clean everything up. Would I gig without a backup?...well, I can just repatch my board in about 2 seconds to use just my stompboxes and not the 2120, but the need hasn't arisen thus far.

They've been good to me...got the upgrade free of charge and shipping within a week of asking for it by email. But I work at a Digitech dealership too, so lets hope that doesn't make them less responsive to the needs of others.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd keep my eyes on the preliminary NAMM show reports to make sure nothing was up-and-coming and THEN I'd buy it again. But I rest assured, the thief would be noticed running away with a hulking floorboard case that strains your back and hardly fits through most doors. Although there's a lot of nice stuff out there, at this point I'm convinced there's nothing quite like the 2120 as far as multi-effect guitar processors are concerned. If you can afford some of the other multi-effects processors out there, for not much more you can have one of these and be better off. Get one.

There are so many ways to tweek your sound on this thing it's insane. It took a little while to understand how to use, but I'm doing OK with it now. It's not as simple as other processors that I have used, such as the Boss GT-5. There are still things that pop up here and there, though. The manual isn't the greatest either. It doesn't clearly explain certain options too well. You have to have a lot of time and pacience. One thing I find hard is programming foot pedal FX: wah, pitch shifter, morphing, etc. I can't figure it out for the life of me and the manual doesn't really help. Getting the various FX to have the same volume is like pulling teeth.

Setup: Dean EVO Phantoms w/EMGs, Samson Wireless, 800 Watt Mackie Power Amp, Marshall 1960A 4 X 12.

One thing for sure it's silent. The noise suppression is great. Not even a little "hum". I love the gate as well. It sounds pretty decent I must say. The preset effects have no use to me, though. There are over 100, but a lot of them sound the same. There's really no variation. You really have to mess with them a bit and create your own effects. Once you create your own effects, you're set. If you're looking for distortion with power to it, you'll be fine. Just have to make your own. The wah doesn't have much of a range to it.

Bought one, brought it home, worked for 5 minutes, died. Brought it back to exchange, the new one has a faulty screen. I guess I can live with it. I would have returned this one if I didn't have to drive another 2 hours each way to exchange it again for something different. The Control One gives me an attitude every once and a while, but it's ok. It turns on so I can't complain too much. I still have a bacup because I'm nervous.

Called for more info on using the foot controller. No answer. Waited for a while before I hung up or was disconnected. Happened several times. Emailed Digitech several times...no response. Poor customer support.

It's good for hard rock music. Like I said you just have to make your on FX. Plus, you should really use active pickups with it. A power amp sounds a lot better too. I feel like I'm going to break the Control One pedal. It seems kind of cheap to me. If it were stolen or lost I would probably buy something else if I had the time to learn a new product and get a good sound out of it. Otherwise I would...knd of reluctantly...get another one of these (if I can find one cheap) because I know the system ok.

I have no problems getting sounds out of this unit, or editing patches. It's painless, especially compared to some other units I've tried.

I just got a firmware upgrade chip, and the manual doesn't include all the newer features, but otherwise, it's pretty good.

I have no issues with the sound quality, and had no problems getting the sounds I wanted. There's more in there than I've been able to play with.

Using a Fender DeVille combo for output stages, on the clean channel.

No major issues in 4 years. I had one minor issue programming a patch, see below.

Why I wrote the review. I had a minor glitch programming a patch on the original 2.01 firmware chip. I wanted a patch to load with a certain effect off, and it kept saving the effect on. So I emailed their customer support guys, who said it was probably fixed in the newer firmware chips, and that they'd send me one.

First chip - lost in the mail... so they sent another
Second chip - bad chip, static problems of something... they sent another

These guys never questioned me, and kept trying until they got me an upgrade that worked, and had extra effects that I didn't even expect.
Very nice to work with people who go to such lengths to make the customer happy.

I love this unit. Chances are, if I think of something to try, I can do it, and quickly. Been playing for 10+ years, I had an earlier digitech unit which is why I chose this one, never had issues with quality - I would certainly replace it.

Only wish: Stereo external effect loop. I use this alongside a Roland synth unit, and i'd love to be able to patch the roland's stereo outputs through the external effect loop so that the synth tones could take advantage of the digital effects too.

It's not that obvious to edit. You need to know how the effects work because there's a lot of parameters to adjust for each effect. I find easy to use. But i recommend to use RPedit to edit patches. It's easier to understand and use. I recommend changing the tube.

Sounds awesome. I had difficulty finding my sound but now.....WOW.
The distortion is what i'm looking for. The effects are great. (hey it's Digitech). I play ibanez and washburn guitars. I play through my 2120, through a marshall 20/20 tube amp (that is the difference in my sound) and through a peavey CAB 4x12 350W RMS. Not noisy when you know how to work with the noise gate. Only down side is the WAh who sounds bad. I will add a BBE to my sound to thicken it and then...
Playing through a tube amp changes everything. The clean is more warm and the distortion is more present.

No problem yet with it. Has bugged a few times (one time when i was on stage) but was due to my midi plug where the control one floorboard was connected. (due to connect and de-connect, re-connect)
Just reset the software and youre good to go. That's why you need a backup writen of your preset or saved on your computer with RPedit if something bad appens.

Dealt with them once and had a fast response.

It's a great unit. Also if you don't have the money to equip your guitar gear with mesa, or you want to put your money in your sound reinforcement gear like i did, i recommend it. To0 bad everybody is going in sound emulation and all that sort of stuff. The cabinet emulator works great. But you need a lot of patience to achieve your sound. I play in a duo, and played a lot of bars with my 2120 plug right in the console. Everybody was amaze with my sound. So it's all up to you. Your sound : if it's good to you, it can be bad to me. I'ts only a matter of taste.

Check previous submission below for my thought son this product. This is an update. The day after reading this forum and submitting my review, I ordered 2 Electro-Harmonix 12ax7 tubes from the Tube Store. I can't even begin to tell you the difference they have made. I read in here that someone believed the stock tubes in the unit were Sovtek 12ax7. They are, and they SUCK! After replacing those stinky tubes, the unit was transformed into the best sounding piece of equipment I have ever heard. Nearly all noise associated with the unit is gone because of the exceptional performance of the EH tubes in regard to microphonics. Next, my tone went from bassy muddy (What I call poop tone) unless I had a BBE and other effects to help out to full spectrum tonal quality. I have highs, I have Lows, I have mids. I can play chords and hear every note or I can play screaming leads without the annoying overtones and bassed out reflex. I tell you, the $30.00 I spent on the EH tubes was the absolute best investment I have made in years outside of the 2120 itself.

Same

Same

High 9

Pretty easy as far as rack multi-effects processors go. But there is still room for improvement...

Setup: Ibanez RG7620 (seven string) >>> Morley Bad Horsie >>> Digitech 2120 >>> Mesa/Boogie 50/50 Stereo Power Amp >>> Mesa/Boogie 4x12 Recto cab.

It's the quitest unit ever! I don't have any problems with feedback, etc.

Many reviewers here have criticised the tube distortion. I actually think it's excellent straight out of the box. I can get the chunkiest distortion tones to most sparkling clean tones. Bu you'll have to invest some time in getting the sound just right.

Here are a couple of pointers to getting a good distortion sound: (1) Don't crank the distortion to the max - dial it up to about 60 max. (2) Don't plug the 2120 into the input jack of your amp. If you do, you'll be running a pre-amp (the 2120) into another pre-amp, and it'll sound like shit. Instead, plug your 2120 into the Send / Return inputs. Better yet, use a stereo power amp, like the Mesa/Boogie 50/50 (or the Mesa/Boogie Simul Class 2:90 if you've got cash to burn).

The effects are first class... well, except for the Wah, which is pathetic. I would have given Sound Quality a rating of 10 if not for the Wah.

I've never had any problems with it.

I haven't had to deal with them.

It's a fantastic unit. Buy it!

It is the easiest effects unit / Preamp I have ever seen. It still takes time, patience, and lots of tinkering to get a great sound, but even the factroy patches are a lot better sounding than a lot of what I hear out there. Wasn't too impressed with the manual, it could have been a little more user friendly. My unit was originally 2.01 and I upgraded with the free firmware to 2.10.

I currently use an Ibanez RG Series Custom with Dimarzio Tone Zone dropped in the bridge or a Schecter Omen 6 with stock pickups. Rack from top to bottom is Stereo out of 2120 into Alesis 3630 compressor into Alesis Midiverb 4 sidechained into Alesis Midiverb III into BBE Sonic Maximizer powered by Mesa Boogie Stereo 50/50. I had some problems with noise until I moved audio cables away from power and plugged one of the units into a three prong to two prong adapter. Most of the noise is gone. Effects nearly always sound great and if they don't, it's probably my fault for being lazy and not spending more time programming. I have no problem capturing sounds I want from Deep blues to George Lynch sounding Leads. The unit has never let me down on sound. Distortions are the best I've seen outside of a TriAxis. Hey it's not a Boogie, but it still rocks. Im not too thrilled with the wah (not enough changeables). The unit however can achieve anything you spend the time to make it achieve. Very programmable.

The only problem I have had with the unit has been a periodic snafu where my volume all of the sudden drops significantly. I have called Diitech who say they have never heard of such a thing. I would buy that except that I had two units and they both done the same thing on occasion. I have used it in a gig without a backup. I am confident in it's performance, but prefer having a backup just in case.

Very friendly. They sent me the free firmware upgrade for my older unit within 1 week of ordering it. I have not had any maintenance or repair done on the units as of yet.

I play all styles of music and this unit fits just about every one of them. I have been playing for 25 years and have played nearly every style of music there is. I have owned combo amps, Head and cabinet setups, stomp boxes, and just about every other setup you can think of. I only play preamp/poweramp setup now. I enjoy the flexibility of a good preamp without all of the different components it would take to get the same sound with other setups. I thoroughly enjoy my 2120 and would replace them if ever stolen, etc. I have downloaded all of my presets with the RPEdit software, so I could simply load them all back into a new unit if I had to. Love it all and haven't found too much to complain about yet. I compared it to other products when I bought it and continue to compare it to new products and the only thing that even comes close are the Johnson products which use the same SDISK technology. I have had better sound with thousands of dollars worth of equipment, but this one unit nearly replaces all of them.

The factory sounds in the 2120 are OK. Out of the 100 and something presets I've found only about 30-45% that dont need some tweeks. Editing patches is very easy in comparison to many synths. The manual for the 2120 is fairly compatent but could be better.

Most of the time I use the 2120 directly into a PC DAW setup, with a Les Paul or Strat and a RT 66 pedal (for compression). At first I found the unit to be quite free of microphonics but I wasn't pleased with the sound. After reading some of the previous post I decided to try changing the tubes to the Tesla jj ECC83's. For my setup that was a mistake. While the jj ECC83 does have the higher quality sound I was looking for, the weakness of the tubes were in the microphonic area. The tubes seem to amplify overall noise characteristics caused by the PC monitor. MAJOR drawback ..... but not the 2120's fault.
For tube upgrades I would not recommend these tubes. Please if you are serious about changing the tubes follow this link.

http://www.thetubestore.com/12ax7review.html

Very reliable for a studio.

never tried it.

Overall I'm sitting the fence. I am planning the change the tubes again to the Electro Harmonix 12ax7 due to the very low noise floor and excellent performance in terms of microphonics. Plus they sound good.

This is my 3rd review and I have had the unit for quite some time. I have recently upgraded the tubes to JAN PHILLIPS 12AX7WA. This is the reason for the re-submit.

The features are well covered below in many other reviews. It isn't a beginners toy. If you don't know what you are doing in effects, this unit will likely be much more than you can handle or will want to bother with. If you are a tweaker, tone freak, ect. It may be just the thing. The RP edit program makes it much easier to use, but it still requires expertiece.

I have 2 American Strats. One with standard pickups, the other with Kinman's.

Everyone universally agrees that the effects and seamless patch switching is first rate, it is the pre-amp that is brought into the spot light.

After replacing the tubes (again, this is my second try. I have been using EIC's for the last 8 months) with JAN PHILLIPS, the tube distortion has been transformed. The tubes literally sing with harmonics. Playing leads with the saturated tube pushing the upper limits is really musical now where before it was pretty sterile.

I am still working on death metal and crunch. I have a decent crunch, but the death metal is still eluding me.

I play side by side with a Legacy 4x12 stack. I push through a Fender HRD on the clean channel, so I don't have the air moving capability of the stack, but the tone is pretty good.

For those of you out there that are disappointed with the pre-amp on this unit, the investment in the 2 new tubes is well worth it. I don't know if these tubes are a match for NOS EEC88's, but they are certianly cheeper to purchase (around $30.00 for 2). It has brought new life to my guitar. I spend hours playing old licks now just to see how the rig responds and listening to the harmonic distortion overtones...... Simply delicious.

I would rate the old tone a 7 on the pre amp before the tube upgrade. It is easily an 9 now. If it was fatter, I would give it a 10, but I haven't been able to get that fat death metal tone just yet .... but I am not giving up :)

I play WAY too many different types of music to NOT have a multiFX pedal. I have worked hard on maintaining volume levels from patch to patch and having the ability to turn specific features of a patch (like reverb) on or off with the Control 1.

I may well ditch my ole faithful HRD amp some day in favor of a nice stack, but I am not dissin this rig yet. It holds a candle to MUCH more expensive rigs and I can still carry it easily.