DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist

For those who never used multieffect units its painfull to use and handle. Even those hardened guitar-guys will find this one a blocker in creativity. Making music started being a science for me and not so much fun at all. The manual is a joke, my firware is 2.10 (Stable one) and I've upgraded it from 2.02 (yeak, instable as hell).

My setup is a selfmade Stratocaster with a singlecoil in the neck (bassy full sound, selwounded) and a EMG81 in the bridge-position. A EL34-Powered Marshall Series 9000 Amp with 2x50 Watt blowing trough a Engl 412 S Cabinet.
The device doesn't sound very noisy, the noisegate can easily cut down everything you don't want while not playing.
The digital effects aren't that bad. Presets are made to show of in a shop but not made for playing. They need all lots of tweaiking.
The digital part would be perfect to refine the sound of a really good sounding preamp section. But the preamp is so weaksounding that you only need the digital section for limitation of damage.
Both, tube and the transistor - distortion sound very harsh and lack dynamics you would expect from a good amp. Its impossible to create a sparkeling clean sound which has a slight overdriven sound. In every setting you choose there is no definition, its just distorted like a cheap MFX-Pedalboard like the Korg-Ax300G produces. Its impossible to recreate sounds 'real amps' (Triaxis, Rectivier, Marshalls, Fender) do. Even putting another preamp in the FX-Loops, or a simple Stompbox doesn't sound as fresh as without the digitech. You loose lowend and punch. For this price you should expect more....

The older firmeware was lousy. Several lookups. The 2.10 is stable. Inside looks like made in germany *gg*. I would take a few stompboxes with me just in case...

Here its Roland or Korg, they deliever updates really fast, never talked to them.... so no opinion

I play mostly rock and clean stuff. This one should be the only box I ever needed ( I dreamed at least ), but it turned out to be a waste of money.
I would not buy it again. I'm not shure what to use for replacement.
I hate the preamp sound and the tonesucking input and fx-loop. I expected more from this pricy box.
I choosed as I thought it would be the best device with all features I ever need.
It would work better if the Compressor, Wah and of Corse the Preamp section would be much better. Not those fake-dist-tubes with mosfet but a real tube preamp (Messa Quad for example)
It really kills my fun playing...
Digitech, I hate your 2120 !

For all the menus, effects, and parameters, the 2120 could be extremely painful to use. However, the knobs below the screen make modifying parameters much less painful than most other multi effects guitar processors.

Regarding the tone, there are various preamp settings that aren't bad. The EQ must be used to get a decent tone. Unfortunately, the preamp was not versatile enough to get a tone that was pleasing to my ear.

I used various guitars through the 2120: ESP Custom, Ibanez RG550, Fender Stratocaster, and Heartfield EX. Sometimes used the 2120 through a Lee Jackson power amp into Celestions. Also, tried to record direct using the "speaker simulator." I further tried to use the 2120 without the preamp just for the effects with my Boogie Quad.

For my tastes, the preamp is poor and the effects colored my Boogie's tone. You can get a decent sound, but not one for my taste. Also, you can pan each of two preamps hard left and hard right to get a killer full sound. That being said, the tone did not fit my tastes when compared to my Boogie, my Sans Amp GT2, and even my Peavey Bravo.

I like a good raw tone, and the 2120 did not have it. The effects were pretty clean and decent quality, but seemed to color my Boogie too much. If I want the processed Queensrychish sound, I'll use my ART SGX2000, which is much cheaper than the 2120.

No problems over 2+ years, but it rarely left my studio.

Never dealt with the company aside from misplacing the manual. They had them online in .pdf format. Excellent plus!

I play various styles, but mainly focus on heavy rock. The 2120 didn't give me a good basic tone, which is essential in a preamp.

I traded it straight for an ESP M-III yesterday.

If you want one, you can get them on e-bay for around $500.

If you have ever worked with digital effects it should be no problem programming this unit. The programs are a little thicker (more to edit) than other multi-effect units, but that's the fun of it. The manual points you in the general direction and leaves you to figure out a lot. It just takes exploring. I hear RPEdit makes it easier to edit patches. I'm going to try that soon. I had to upgrade my unit from 2.02 to 2.10. As I'm in Canada, the Digitech rep put me in touch with the Canadian supplier of the upgrade (see below for details).

I play bass ; Ernie ball Fretted, Fretless 5 strings and a Chris Squire Rickenbacker into Trace Elliot and the new Ernie Ball 500 watt head. I've tried a lot of effects. I've never been happy with effect units (especially multi-effects), but the 2120 has the most amazing sound quality. All the effect settings are way too loud using bass (I had to turn them all down from 100% to 15%) in order to match the bypass volume. If you have the money, I would highly recommend this unit.

I had a problem with the volume control. It wouldn't save any setting changes. I opened up the foot controller and found that the photo-electric sensor that sees the light from the LED, was bent over. Every time the foot controller recalibrated, it reset my changed settings. I bent it back up straight and it works fine. I would gig with a backup distortion pedal (EH- Big Muff Pi).

I thought the previously mentioned volume control problem was due to the software being out of date (I had 2.02 and the latest was 2.10). I contacted Digitech who answered emails in real time. They gave me clear, personalized customer service. The problem came when I had to deal with the Canadian supplier for the upgrade chip. I phoned a total of 3 times and each time they promised to get right back to me. 14 days later, I was told that my eprom hadn't shipped yet and they didn't know why. I sent a very nasty email to Digitech and they got back to me instantly. The Digitech Customer Service person (Darrin, you're too cool) had the eprom to me in less than 24 hours! These guys are great.

I've been playing for 25 years. I play a lot of 70's progressive rock, effects are important to my sound. After searching forever, I finally have effects in a simple setup, that are easy to use, sound great. If it were stolen, I'd hire a mercenary to hunt down the fool and torture him slowly and painfully. My favorite feature would have to be the versatility. Previous reviewers are right, if you can't get a sound out of this unit, you aren't trying, cuz it's in there. Do your homework, but check this baby out.

It's very easy to get basic sounds with this unit. The manual is pretty useless though and that's why I'm subtracting 4 points. I've been an aerospace engineer for 15 years and I've seen easier to understand manuals for rocket engines. No love was put into that manual. None whatsoever. And no examples either! What's up with that Digitech? Hope you're listening.

If you don't posses a large cerebrum you'll probably have problems learning how to do routine asks such as assigning patches to the controller or even changing the name of a patch. What really helped me is downloading and using RPEdit http://www.voyager.co.nz/~bjames/RPEdit.html . I hooked up my computer to the 2120 and using RPEdit I was able to upload and download patches lickety split. You can even download patches off the internet. You can store an infinite number of patches on your computer's hard drive. Even if you don't have MIDI capability you should just download the program so you can visualize the the way patches are created. DO IT NOW. See what I'm talking about? It treats the different effects and preamps like different pedals. It completely de-mistified the 2120 for me the first time I played with RPEdit.

But I really recommend physically hooking up the 2120 to your computer. All you need is the game port of your sound card and a game port to midi adapter you can get from the Guitar Center.

For example, to change a patch name from "Alex Lifeson" to "By-Tor and the Snowdog" would be a complete hassle using the 2120 interface because you have to go to each letter, cycle through all available characters until you find the letter you're looking for and then move over to the right. This kind of stuff is frustrating especially if you've just smoked. With the software, all you do is change the "Alex Lifeson" field to "By-Tor and the Snowdog" by using the computer keyboard! It can't be any simpler. You can do 50 bong hits and still handle that. Well maybe not 50 but at least 10. Another example... You know how difficult it is to just set your bedtime alarm clock? Well imagine every parameter within the 2120 being that difficult to set. Now imagine being able to just type 12:30pm instead? You get what I'm talking about?

So if you're hooking it up to RPEdit then change my "ease of use" rating to a 10 otherwise, it's a 6.

Sound quality is 100% pristine. Extraordinary tone. I play a Ernie Ball Music Man Axis straight into the 2120 and out, in stereo, into...get this... a non tube amp... the Roland DC-120. I know, I know but screw you, it sounds awesome because of the stereo. As far as the Ernie Ball guitar: I also have other guitars but you've never heard amazing tone until you play the Axis. Stays in tune after an entire night of playing even though it's got a whammy!

Back to the 2120: The only thing I can complain about is ....... you guessed it.. the wah. It really blows. I didn't think so at first but then I compared it to my VOX 847 and was amazed at the difference. Other than that small complaint, the preamp and effects are all high quality. The patches are seamless and you can morph between tube distortion and solid state distortion.

I'm presently involved with a Rush Tribute band and the 2120 and a Roland JC-120 is all I need to sound better than Alex Lifeson. The other night, we pulled off Red Barchetta perfectly and I was so amazed at my beautiful yet crunchy sound. I love BOTH the preamp and the effects. It's great because once you have a great sound and want some modifications, all you do is use RPEdit and change little things here and there and then assign the patches to the foot controller.

In my first week of owning the 2120 I had a really descent clean sound as well as a great dirty sound and also found a great flanged sound. The beauty of my setup is in its simplicity. You can be stoned and set it up in a few minutes because the only thing you do is to go out from the left and right sends of the 2120 to the left and right returns on the DC-120. Then you get to hear all the stereo from the DC-120 as if you're listening to headphones. I know that most of you are tube fans, as you should be, but this setup just emulates tubes so nicely AT ANY VOLUME level. In fact it's the only non-tube amp I even like much less love. I also have a Marshall JC-900 and 1960a cabinet and this works out nicely as well but nothing like the 2120 and DC-120 combination. Tube fans, don't knock it until you try it.

I've only owned it for 2 months and so far, so good. I can tell you that I've owned a Digitech RP-7 for over 3 years now with no complaints.

Never dealt with 'em

I know this unit is not cheap but if you want the ultimate in versatility and simplicity without sacrificing what's important, namely TONE, then you really should consider throwing away all of your pedals (except maybe for your wah and the Boss acoustic simulator) and buying this baby.

The only thing that I'd like to stress is that I love it because I use it in conjunction with RPEdit for patch editing. Without the software, tweaking patches and visualizing the big picture is much more difficult. Whoever created RPEdit (I think his name is Bruce) thank you.

I'd also like to say that I love the Control-1 foot controller that came with the unit. I was using the expression pedal as a volume pedal for Xanadu and La Villa the other night and it was awesome, Some have complained about the expression pedal being too small and at first I was taken aback by its length but once you start using it, you'll realize that it's very nice and precise. If you want, you can also plug in one more expression pedal into the controller itself and another one into the 2120 unit.

And finally, for Rush fans, the new version 2.10 2120 ships with 2 Alex Lifeson patches. Need I entice you more?

Very easy programming , if you're not a complete idiot. Although, the whammy was a bit tricky. And the manual did not help at all! But, the salesman who sold it to me didn't even know how to assign the whammy.

The sound rocks....simply because you can emulate anything you want to! Wide selection of all makes of cabs and preamps. I use a Gibson Marauder ('76) powered by a Peavey Classic 50/50. 4x12 cab with Celestion speakers. Awesome!!!! You just have to mess with it if you want to create your own custom sound..

I have a backup for my 2120...another 2120! I have two....in case one gets stolen. I wouldn't be in a band without my 2120.

No upgrade has been needed! Haven't talked to the company.

I have been playing guitar for 14 yrs. I finally found my gear! I play in a band called 'THYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY'. We play all kinds of original music, and it fits everything I do. The only thing that could improve is the whammy; it kinda sounds synthetic (FAKE). But that's why I use an external digitech whammy....

At first it's a bit intimidating, but after several hours, I new exactly where to go to tweak the unit. Kudos to the engineers on the layout of the editing functions.

Superb! (Although the factory presets were about 90% crap and unusable. But the depth of prgrammability more than makes up for it)

Haven't played out with it yety (got it 2 days ago)

Haven't had any problems.

I need a large aural pallette for my band -- I first discovered the 2112 and was blown away. But it is a pricey unit (high end). After several years I finally got the 2120 and totally dig it. I am a gear head with an extensive rack -- the 2120 virtually replaces all of my effects units and preamps. Way cool.

I found the 2120 v2.01 very easy to navigate due to my experience with other units although this one's a helluva lot sweeter. The presets are basically a showcase for what this machine can do. I found that the gates were set incredibly tight and cut off the tail end of most of the patches (typical for a co. to do to pull people in at the stores and at NAMM). The one thing that drove me nuts is that the manual I got with it was for the "2101 Limited Edition". I can't be the only one that knows that these unit's are two totally different monsters.....hell they don't even have the same layout let alone editing capability's. I still managed to get through it unscathed, but am still "lost" in a few area's. I am currently waiting on my upgrade v2.10 and new manual.......more on that below.

I am running two Hamer USA Custom built guitars w/Seymour Duncan Screamin' Demon's/JB/59/Hotrails, through the 2120 into a Mosvalve 80/80 power amp into two Marshall 1960 Lead "B" 4x12's. I found this unit to be very quiet even after I re-adjusted the noise gates. The distortion tones are amazing I can get anything from "boutique" amps to run of the mill Marshall chunk, anyone who says that the tones are weak isn't trying or just doesn't understand the fundamentals of tone. The clean sounds are second to none although one must tweak and find something they like. The Modulation FX (flange, chorus, phase, detune, whammy, pitch) are full with a lot of sweet little nuances that you have to suss out and experience........I recommend sitting between your cabs (at a lower volume of course), closing your eyes and getting lost in the sonic textures you can create. This also is cool with the presets but again they are just a showcase and need tweaking. The Delays are easy to get lost in (in a good way) and are very rich sounding even as they decay. The only really downside and its not that bad is that the reverbs sound a little tinny, but with some eq'ing they sound decent enough. The wah on the other hand is not so good to brittle and not enough range to really use it.......although this means nothing to me as I am not a big wah fan. As far as emulating tones you can get any tone you like be it John Petrucci to Pete Anderson to Kerry King to Steve Cropper as long as you have patience and the desire to create that tone. I have gotten everything from George Lynch, Steve Stevens, Vernon Reid to Duane Eddy, Joe Pass, and some Bella Fleck banjo type sounds. The only one I haven't been able to get so far is my Dad's but I'll get his secret tone yet. Just trust your ears and take the time and this "magic box" won't let you down.

I feel I could depend on this unit and have on many occasion although I recommend a sturdy rack mount case, I use a custom made shock mounted Clydesdale for my rack gear. I have had my "fridge" fall of 4' stage and none of my gear was damaged.........did I mention I was plying at the time and I never lost my signal, it stayed loud and proud and if ya didn't see it you were none the wiser. I always have my ADA-MP1, Alesis Quadraverb, and dbx 383 dual noise gate for backup. Not that I think the 2120 will fail, it's just better to be safe that sorry........you wouldn't play a show without an extra set of strings or a backup guitar would ya?

The customer support is great. I e-mailed them about an upgrade and manual and they got me in touch with the Canadian distributor the next day. Very, very helpful.

I have been playing for 16yrs and the band I'm in now is an Industrial-Death-Glam unit called Charlie Drown. There is only two of us in the band and we use triggered sounds and Adat's live and there is a lot of sound changes and this unit gives me all I need and MORE. I have played in many bands with many varied styles as well as paid studio work and I wish I had the 2120 for the last 16 yrs. I know it will be used for all of my new studio gigs as well as my side gigs for years to come as long as they keep the upgrades coming. The best thing about the 2120 other than the flexibility is the seamless program changes, how many years did we gear heads have to go with that annoying millisecond gaps between program changes........Bravo DigiTech you finally got it right. I would definatly replace the 2120 if it was stolen, although I doubt that will ever happen as I have my 92 lb German Sheppard that goes wherever I and my gear go........gotta have a road dog! The 2120 helps me create due to the limitless possibilities in sound creation, I'm not one to rely on the standard 1, 2, or 3 Channel amp as they are very linear. Don't get me wrong that's fine for some and they sound great playing through them ( well most do anyway), I just like to go in anyway that my muse takes me and with the DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist I can.

www.charliedrown.com

This unit is not too difficult to operate as long as you're using the conventional features found in any other units like setting the gain , equalizers, delay time, etc. When it comes to using very specific features like morphing and using the pedals for turning on/off specific effects from a patch, then the unit becomes too complicated for my likes. The instruction booklet which is only 70+ pages cannot cover in so few pages the entire versatility of this unit. One thing is for sure, this unit has it all from great sounding effects to total versatility.

The 2120 is the only unit I use between my guitar (although a crappy Yamaha, still delivers the goods) to a Marshall amplifier. The unit is totaly silent. The clean sounds are realy good and the distortions (if tweaked correctly), can sound any way you want it to. I've still not found uses for all of the effects so i'm mainly using the more popular ones only. The auto wah is the crappiest effect i've ever heard (maybe i'm not doing something right because i can't imagine the digitech people putting in something that is totaly useless).
I listen alot to pink floyd, extreme, satriani, vai, Nuno Bettencourt's (ex extreme) band "mourning widows", and others...I mostly don't try to imitate their sounds but rather make up my own. Once I tried imitating Nuno's sound and got very close. I bet I could get his sound exactly if i try harder.
Overall, the sound quality is magnificent.

I've had this unit for two and a half months and nothing wrong yet. Hope it stays this way for many more years...
I'm going to use it in live gigs.

Didn't need them yet....

I've been playing for 10 years, mostly rock.
I'm giving the unit an overall rating of 8. I'd give it a 9 if it were easier to use. I use it alot and everything sounds and operates realy good. As I've said previously, I don't use all the features because I haven't figured out how to use them yet...Eventually i'll get the hang of things...
Since this unit is the first multi effect unit i've ever tried i'm not sure if i did the right thing buying that or maybe i should have gone with seperate pedals, not because of sound quality but because of ease of use. If it were stolen, I'd have to spend some time deciding whether to buy another one or going for seperate pedals...again for the same reason as before.

It's not the easiest to use. It takes a while playing around with it to familiarize yourself. I suggest taking time out to learn the unit to appreciate it.

The Cleanest sounding unit I have ever heard! Great for clean tones. Overdriven tones tend to be a bit to clean.

I had this unit for 3 years and it broke down twice on me. These units tend to be very fragile so be very careful and put them in good strong cases. In my opinion they suit the studio best!

Although my unit broke down on me twice, Digitech were swift to fix the problem and there website is also useful as they sell most of the replacements parts. I find this to be a big plus for them.

In the 12 years that I have been playing I find the 2120 to be a very versatile unit for all types of music and gigs. I have also had the Rocktron Chameleon and the Roland Gp-16. I must say the Roland GP series to be very similar in sound quality to the 2120. I urge any versatile player to buy this unit.

if you have a tweak fetish than this unit will keep you indoors for years on end. If you simply want to plug in and rock, avoid this unit like your Aunt Mary's meatloaf suprise. This sucker is a Fx juggernaut. I could not get a single sound out of this unit that I liked. The presets are just plain awful and even after 2 weeks of tweaking I could not get a usable distorted sound. The clean sounds are great ( esp the Steve Morse presets) but if you want to play metal this unit does not cut it. The manual was very descriptive but it still did not help me attain a usable sound out of the 2120. I hated this unit so much , I took it back and bought an old 2101 that just blows the 2120 out of the water.

I ran the 2120 through a 9100 marshall power amp to two 2x12 mesa boogie open back cabinets. The effects are monstrous on the unit. If you had the time and patience you could get some beautiful clean tones. The effects were all good except the distortions and the wah. I wanted to get a Metallica like sound and could not even come close. The distortion sounds were so bad that I had to return the unit ! You want to play covers and get usable sounds ? If yes, do not buy this unit! Go buy a used 2112 or 2101 for half the price and you'll be all the better for it.

Make sure you play through the unit extensively before you take it home. I played through one unit that died after 20 minutes of use ! Make sure the unit is functional and does not lock up on you. I had enough trouble with this unit when it was working ! Whether or not it is reliable or dependable , I am not qualified to say since I returned mine. But I suggest you spend a few hours with the unit before you shell out $949 for it.

I did have to vall customer support because I needed an upgrade. The unit was outdated when I bought it brand new and I did not even know. I did eventually receive the update......over 2 weeks after 1 returned the unit. The CSR was very short with me and seemed rushed. Maybe he was just having a rough day.........

I love to shred. Be it Malmsteen, Van Halen, Satriani, whatever. I grew up to hair bands and I still love the shredder style. However, I have studied jazz and also enjoy jazz standards in the chord/melody style. I started taking lessons when I was 11 and have been playing for 17 years now. I have played in many different musical scenarios ranging from death metal to a gig with piano great Roger Williams. My sound must diverse to cover these different styles. The 2120 seemed to have all the Fx you could want. However, in my opinion the unit was too complicated and could not produce a good metal/ lead shred sound. I have a Digitech 2101 now that is great. I also have a Digitech Valve Fx unit as a back up and I use a Pod pro for recording. Of all these units, the 2120 was the only one that I could not get a handle on. I don't want to spend hours on end trying to get a good sound. I would rather spend hours on end making music.