DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist

If you gained already some experience with multifx gears you'll have no big problems with the 2120 VGS. The preset sounds can be used as a guideline but they are mostly overloaded by effects. (It's every time the same).The tube distortion sounds are great, dirty tube sounds like Marshall and saturated tube is something between Boogie and Engl, I like both.The clean tube sounds are not crispy, even with high gain settings and a Strat and EQ you can use them for Jazz only. The edit mode is a little bit strange, you need to read the manual i.e. for assining effects to the foot controller. In any case the manual is very helpful. What I really don't like is the management of the effect chains, i.e. it's impossible to use a harmony together with delay and reverb because of the s-disc settings. Maybe I can solve this sometime.

I use an Ibanez RG570 and a strat copy with a Seymour Duncan Hot Rails pickup at the bridge position, Cry Baby Wah, 2120 VGS in parallel with a Roland GP 100 for clean sounds and an ENGL 930/60 poweramp. Noise is no problem if you set the right noise gate configuration, but the GP 100 is more silent. The tube distortions are very powerful as I mentioned before and by tweaking the Gain and EQ settings you can nearly get every sound you're looking for. Solid state distortion is acceptable.
- Wah: is weak I bought a cry baby instead
- Compressor: could be better
- chorus, flanger, phaser are fairly good
- pitch shifter, harmonizer are good
- delay is really great
- reverb is great if you can you use a full s-disc processor otherwise it sounds like a hit on sheet metal in a church
- the AutoWah you cannot use (I don't know what Digitech was doing there)
- rotary and lesley sounds seems to be OK I normally don't use them.
My favourite artists are Gary Moore, Eddy van Halen, Kirk Hammet, Steve Lukather and so on and I'm able to get sounds not too far from them with the 2120 VGS.

no problems yet

never dealed with them

At the moment I play cover trough a lot of styles and the 2120 VGS is a good match. I'm impressed by the tube distortions they cover all I need and they are sounding really great. For clean sounds I use my GP-100 and it's effects. I'm playing since 20 years very different styles of music and I'm happy with my setup.What I really don't like are the effect chains, I think about buying an additional FX Processor for Delay and Reverb. If the 2120 would be stolen I think I would buy another one because of the preamp tube sound.

It is very easy to get a good sound out of the 2120, and to edit patches, although not as easy as its predecessor the 2101. The 2120 only scrolls at one speed, so if you want to go from a 2 second delay to a 1 millisecond delay, it will take some time. There are ways to get around this, like the tap button, or selecting the preset parameters until something comes up that is close to what you want, or to use the RPEdit computer application. The 2120's built in interface was a lot better than the 2120 in my opinion, but you always have planned obsolescence, and change just for the sake of flash. Another thing that was neat about the 2101 was that you could pull up a new algorithm with random settings and get some cool sounds. The manual is okay, but some things are left out, like how to adjust individual patch levels. Mine is version 2.1.

I am using my 2120 basically as an effects-only device in conjunction with a Hughes and Kettner Triamp head. I use a Digital Music Ground Control pedal for live program changes. I also use a Real McCoy 3 wah pedal because the one built into the 2120 just plain reeks. This is something I don't understand, it's supposed to be a analog wah but it sure as hell doesn't sound like one. My guitar is a Carvin DC135T. I like the sound of a single coil neck pickup and a humbucker in the bridge position, which this guitar has. This gives me the ability to achieve a vast array of tones. The 2120 seems to be very quiet when you use the noise gate OR you use it as an effects-only device without the distortion. The noise gate is stupid in my opinion because it cuts off notes if you try to let them ring, that's why I don't use it. All of the effects sound great to me, the wah being the only exception. The 2120 is not as transparent as I would like it to be for an effects only box, but it doesn't change my tone enough to make it sound bad, so I can live with it. Incidently, I sold an Eventide GTR-4000 for the 2120, I'm a lot happier and also claimed a tidy profit. The 2120 is a lot better than the GTR in many ways, which I will explain. First of all, the 2120 has an analog section which is great when you are using it with a analog guitar head. The digital EQ's in the GTR just didn't cut it. I think the 2120's pitch shifter is a lot better. Why? Because when you play chords, they actually come out decent. Even dissonant chords come out ok. If you try that with an Eventide it sounds like hell. I can put together/edit a patch a lot faster and easier from right within the 2120, unlike the GTR which requires you to connect to a PC for satisfactory editing. Something that sealed the deal was the 2120's seamless patch changing. The GTR didn't even have this, except when using pedalboard mode, which I had no use for. I can get the sounds of my favorite artists with the 2120. I have some patches that emulate Frank Zappa's sounds, and Joe Satriani. The only 2120 distortion that I have found usable is the solid state fuzz. I created an octave box patch using this which sounds pretty damn good, better than the GTR's octave box patch. I wouldn't buy the 2120 for the distortion, I have had bad luck with rack distortion, that is why I went for a tube head. I've always liked Digitech reverb, I think it is better than Eventide reverb, but it might just be because I am so used to it since I had a 2101 for a long time.

I've only had it for about 7 months so I don't know how reliable it is. But thankfully I haven't had any problems so far. The 2120 I had for several years never let me down either.

I called Digitech support and was dissapointed. The tech didn't seem to know much about the 2120. He was telling me about menus that weren't even in it. He had to consult with the manual or another person about 5 times before he got it right.

I think that this is the best multi-effects processor on the market today for my application. I just wish that the wah was at least a little better. When the 2120 first came out and I saw that it had a analog wah, I thought that they they finally got it right, but obviously not. If you are wondering how I got it so cheap, I bought it from a place in PA called J&S Music. They have great deals on equipment. Their address is www.jsmusic.com. I have put together a 2120 site with some of my custom patches on it. It is at mumfutcha.tripod.com.

Takes a little while to get used to if you aren't into the programming thing, but once you get the hang of it it's a piece of cake.

It sounds awesome, the distortions are smooth, but I find that the solid state distortions sound more like tubes than the tube distortions do. The controller pedal really adds to the unit by being able to morph different sounds. The effects are great, I just wish mine still worked....

The thing crashed on me once and showed all kinds of stuff on the display, then it would work again if I turned it on and off about a hundred times. I recently crashed again, seems like for good this time. For almost a $1000 these things should be a little more reliable. When your main source of income comes from performing, you'd like to think the gear would at least work. No more Digitech gear for me.

I've sent digitech some emails and they got back with me with a "here's where you can send it" message. They didn't seem to terribly interested, or surprised for that matter that the unit doesn't work. For $1000 I shouldn't have to send it in, they should come to my house and fix it for free.

I started my guitar playing with metallica, garth brooks, van halen, steve vai, eric johnson, stevie ray vaughn, etc. I've been playing about 8 years and was recently hired as rhythm and acoustic guitarist for a country/top 40 band. If you live in a place where you can get something like this easily repaired, go for it, it'll need to be repaired sooner or later. As for me, the closest repair center is about 120mi. away in Houston. I think I'll look more into Rocktron gear, since that is what our lead guitarist uses (he's been playing decades longer than I have) and they seem to be more reliable, less expensive, and better sounding.

Well, considering that I read the manual about three times over while I was waiting for my unit to ship, it wasn't that bad programming it. :) But really, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't intuitive at first, but once you play around with it a bit, and refer back to the manual a few times, you start getting the hang of it. For starters, finding presets that you like and just tweaking them makes for good practice.

The more I play with the unit, the more I'm led to believe that the unit will sound as good as you can program it. The key is realizing that this is not designed to be an all-in-one-super-preamp-effects-
whatyoumacallit-rack-thing. The clean channels aren't as full as I would like it to be (but then again, it could just be needing more tweaking), the distortions aren't what I was looking for (you can only get so far without power-tube distortion), and the wah is kinda weak (time to stick that crybaby into the effects loop), but the unit does extremely well at providing a amazing array of effects, with enough parameters to tweak with to your heart's content, while offering some nice pre-amp features such as the compression, noisegate, EQs and stuff. Finding the right place in your rig for the 2120, and finding the right settings for it is very important to get the sound you want. Don't go and return the unit after only playing with it for an hour, give it some time. I bought it two weeks ago, and I'm still staying up late playing with it! (And down goes the productivity at work. :P)

Nothing wrong with it yet. Looks quite solid to me. Just don't toss it around without a rack, and you should do fine.

So far, the customer support has been very responsive and friendly.

I play regularly at Church during services, and on my own time I play classic rock/blues type stuff. The 2120 works out very nicely for me, in that not only do I have a huge array of sounds to choose from, but I now have the ability to switch from different sounds by simply stepping on a bottom. No more crouching down and fiddling with pedals midsong, just moments before I need to switch from rhythm to lead. I'm still looking for ways to improve the tone of my rig, such get a fuller clean tone, or getting some solid power-tube distortions, but the 2120 is a very worthwhile imvestment, and it's something that I won't outplay for a real long while - if ever.

The 2120 Is A very Cool Processor, But Very Hard To Get The Sound Your Looking For Unless You Know All About It. Its Easy To Get to the Patches But Hard to Pragram The Sound You Want. I'm Looking to Get The Same Sound That John Petrucci From Dream Theater Has. I Play A Ibanez RG 470 Guitar And Run The 2120 Through My Carvin Head And Jcm 900 Marshall Cab. If Anyone Has Any Ideals On What I need to set The Processor At Please Email Me The Configurations. I Would Be Thankful For Your Help.

I owned an RP-12 for about 3 years (1997?) and I loved the thing. That machine can kick some ass. The worst thing though by far was the delay between patches and the difficulty of editing the patches (digitally; i.e. pulling the damn thing into your lap and pressing scroll buttons to get through the different menus... pain in the ass.)
The 2120 relieved all this. 2 processors makes for nice patch changes (although not PERFECT... but whatever), and the buttons I had on my RP-12 became a nice digital scroll knob and multiple "page" and editing knobs. The FX are sorted into their own menus with multiple pages for each, so editing the thing becomes a breeze (comparativly... if you're used to stompboxes, you're in for some hell).... This is all without the fact that I no longer have to lie on the ground or something to edit my floor processor... ahhh a rack mountable.
I gave it an 8, however, because Digitech still has not made a perfect machine. The menus take time to get used to, and the options (and abbreviations) can be tricky to get a hold of. Definatly up there though.

As with the RP-12 (and many digital FX processors), this unit rocks. The sound can produce anything from a shimmer to a grumble. The EQ is amazing (one of the most useful tools on the thing), and the combination of tube AND solid state distortions is fantastic (can even use dual distortions - 1 tube +1 solid state)... My RP-12 had only solid state, so this 2120 brings me into a whole new realm of sounds.
The reverbs and delays and choruses and phasers and everything else are all up to Digitech par. They are great.
By the way, I am running the 2120 with a Les Paul DC Standard 98, and patching my RP-12 (even more sounds, yay) through the FX loop. Oh yeah, thats another great thing. It has an effects loop which can be put in at any FX stage after the preamp.
Which brings me to my last sound point. You change change the order of the FX (unlike RP-12), so the sounds become even more unlimited.
Basically, if you want the best tone and the most combinations, choose the 2120. Too many variations for me to even handle.
Really, I find that digital is the only way to go, unless you're playing vintage.

I've never had a problem with it, but my 12 has done a lot of weird stuff before, so I give it a 9. I don't trust it 100% (its digital, ya know). Backup, yes I would.

I upgraded the unit to v2.10 immediatly after I got it (v2.03) and I just emailed Digitech with my address and it was at my door within 3 days. Amazing. Thanks Digitech.
It was actually easy to install too...
Repairs I wouldnt know. Someday it will probably fall off my table or something and then Digitech wont be there (so I've heard). But when that happens maybe I will write another review.

Lately I think I've decreased in playing ability. I dont want to get into the FX/noFX debate or anything, but I truly think I would be a better player if I had little or no FX.
This has little to do with the system though, which is nontheless great. There are a few things I wish it had, like truly SEAMLESS patch shifting, and the ability to use more effects at once. 8.

This unit requires time and dedication to operate well but the reward is WELL WORTH IT. That is the downside to the ultimate flexibility, you can't just plug in, turn a few dials (although the controls are easy and amp-like) and have a Marshall/Mesa sound, but it's in there.
Editing patches is very easy, compared to similar units due to the amp-like controls. I give it a 9 for ease of use in comparison to similar preamps

EXCELLENT. The presets are mostly garbage, made to show off the effects capabilites in a low volume setting (like a store). However if you play with it you can get any sound. One important thing to know is that most of the presets are set with the digital leve (the percentage of the signal which is routed through the digital effects section) at 100%. Roll that off to 10-20 percent for your distorted rhythms, put in some reverb (you ever whished you could have a high-reverb sound without it taking over your signal...this is it) and you'll swear you're playing a Tube head...except when you switch to a clean setting...in which case it will blow away ANY tube head's clean channel (which usually suck). I am using this with a Tubeworks Mosvalve 962 80/80 power amp into a peavey sheffield 4xq12, and 2x12 celsetion cab. I wouldn't recomment using a total solid state power amp, unless maybe it is high enough wattage to ensure that all the sound is coming from the preamp. The preamp comes with several presets created by artists like Joe Satriani (his lead preset is great, I use it myself), Frank Gambale, Steve Morse, Korn, Reeves Gabrels, etc. There are alot of cool reverbs for going direct to tape like room echos, studio room echos, cathedarls etc. which sound excellent and very realistic (i play with the headphones on and I keep thinking they're not because the reverb sounds so real.) The direct sound of the cleans is AMAZING especially utilizing ttwo tracks panned righ/left. The distorted sounds are ok direct, but much better in stereo. the phaser could be alittle warmer, but then again my power amp is not the warmest (I got it for heavy sounds)

have used without backup several times, never had any mechanical problems with it so far.

haven't had problems but I have dealt with digetch before (I am in UT and they are located a couple miles from me) they have always been excellent

It opens up many avenues creatively instead of being just locked into that tube-half stack sound. I love rack and I love this preamp. It has one really cool sound that I created which sounds just like a keyboard and has a volume swell. we have used this alot because we are a prog-metal band (profane oath) to obtain ambient and eerie whale-ghost type sounds. Visit our site at www.profaneoath.com

Ok to use, basically the same as the 2112. You will get used to it after a little while. I recommend talking with someone else who has one. that can be a big help. Just keep experimenting with all the tools in there and you will be amazed at the quality of sound!

The sound quality is absolutly awesome! I have NEVER heard its equal. It will do everything. Just name it and it will sound like it. I Use it with 7 Jackson USA various models. I then go into a Marshall 50/50 EL34 tube power amp. then to a Marshall 4x12 and a Laney 4x12. The outcome is unbelievable. Just terrific tone. I can get any sound I want with this. Works great for 80's metal.

I am rating a 7 because of my 2112. Maybe that isnt fair but that Is why I have the 2120 now. My 2112 went down. I just sent it in to be repaired. So far the 2120 is OK. I would not gig without a backup. I plan to use my 2112 as aback up when I get it back.

So far very good. I will give them a 8.

Very good. I highly recommend it. Even though I have had problems with my 2112 I bought a 2120 Instantly. There is nothing else out there that sounds like this. I would buy another one. I bought it from AMS. I recommend them over Musician's Friend anyday of the week. I have had problems with Musicians Friend.

Well, I'm a system programmer and network administrator, so it's easy for me to program the unit to obtain the effects I need. The manual is clear, but I had to read some chapters few times to understand the topics explained.
It's useful to consult http://www.egroups.com/list/2112-users/ forum.

The 2120 sounds great. I mean, you can simulate every amp you like, from plexi to mesa, or fender. But remember, it is a simulation, if you want the real sound you have to buy the real amp. All the effects are good, except the wha, in fact I use a Dunlop Cry Baby. I use a Gibson Les Paul Classic Premium Plus, a Gibson SG Standard and a Fender Telecaster Am. Std.; a Rocktron Velocity 500 (250 W stereo) through 2 Marshall 1960AV 4x12" Cabs. For acoustic stuff I use a Ibanez through the 2120 directly connected to the P.A. system. All configurations sound good, but you have to carefully set your patches accordingly to the guitar you'll use for every patch (i.e. gate noise, gain, eq and so on).

As backup I use a Fender Blues De luxe, with an Expandora distortion pedal and a Lexicon reverb unit. I have been using the 2120 for a year now and nothing has gone wrong. I updated my unit to version 2.10 by myself without problems.

I live in Italy, and I emailed Digitech to obtain informations about the upgrade. They took one day to reply to my e-mail with all informations I need.

I've been playing guitar for 20 years and now i play in a cover band, sometimes we play our own stuff, so we need a lot spectrum of sounds . I owned several Marshall tube heads, Fender combo, and a lot of pedals, but if you gig a lot, less things you have to setup and transport the better. I compared 2120 against Eventide, Rocktron, but I prefer the 2120. All effects are great (in stereo), except the wah, and if it were stolen I'll buy it again. Don't forget you can always upgrade your unit as soon as Digitech releases a new version! Your unit will rocks in the years!

Personally, I didn't find it all that hard to use. However, I spent a lot of time reading over the manual before I even bought it, so I was familiar with its workings the minute I first got my hands on it. There were a few things that the manual should have gone into greater detail, but overall the instructions were pretty decent. Dialing in different sounds was no problem. My unit was version 2.10. If you download RPEdit (which is a free program, and is small so it doesn't take forever to get off the internet) patch editing is REALLY easy. RPEdit is absolutely amazing. All you have to do is hook up the 2120 to your computer's midi ports, and start editing.

The 2120 sounds veeeeeery nice. I use a Les Paul Custom and a Fender Strat and a Carvin MTS 3212 amp with the 2120. If you really want to get the best sounds out of the 2120, make sure you have an amp with a great clean sound. Carvin amps have clean channels that sparkle. The 2120 is pretty quiet, depending on how you have the noise gate set up. No noise gate = lots of noise. Noise gate = no noise. The effects are only as good as your programming. If you spend time working on your patches, the effects will sound amazing.

Not reliable, none whatsoever. It was broken when I bought it new. I owned the stupid thing for one day. I had to send it to Digitech, because the store I ordered it from, KTJ Music, refused to take it back. So, word of advice: if you're gonna buy this thing, buy it from a local store where you can play it first and make sure it works. I ordered it from halfway across the country because KTJ had a good price. You'll be better off paying more and knowing that your 2120 will be in working condition. The expression pedal on my unit didn't work, and Digitech told me it was either the C1 foot controller, or the 2120. So, I had to send both out, and now I'm out of a lot of cash with no 2120 to show for it.

Well, Digitech was very friendly when I contacted them about getting the thing fixed. I'm just rather ticked off that I have to wait so long to get it back. 5 business days to ship it there, god knows how many days for Digitech to fix it, and 5 business days to get it back to me. Hmmmm... no, I'm not bitter. But they were very nice and helpful, and all of this is could have been expedited if KTJ Music would have exchanged a new working 2120 for my new broken 2120.

This processor rocks, when it works. I think that once you get one that does work, you won't have too many problems with it. That's the challenge... finding a reliable unit. The sounds that can come out of this unit are incredible. Just keep in mind that in order to get the sounds you are looking for, you have to spend the time and effort to create patches properly, instead of just turning a couple of knobs and hoping the tone you've been searching for would magically appear. Good tone is like money: it doesn't grow on trees. You have to get off your rear and work for it. I give this unit an overall low score, but it would be a 9 or 10 if I had a functioning 2120.