DigiTech 2120 VGS Artist

How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

To all you metal heads complaining about this unit not being able to put out a decent metal sound you must be doing something wrong or have no idea about tone. i changed the tubes and started from scratch and now i have a tone to rival any Mesa/Marshall and some Engls


How about Editing patches?
Editing takes a lil patience and trial and error. What sounds good at bed room volume may not sound good at the band room so my advice is to double check your work.

How is the manual for it (if there is one)?

You can download the manual off the web and i highly recommend it.


Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded?

I know i have the latest ver. and i dont think there has been a upgrade as of yet.

ok so my setup involves 2 Custom Monson guitars, one with Bill Lawrence XL500's and one with Dimarzio Evolutions. Each guitar has its own sound so naturally i am going to get a slightly different sound out of both of em. I run the unit thru a Carvin power amp (a sin i know but im broke) and i use Vader cabinets. I can get any sound i want, a nice clean acoustic sound or straight up death metal and between. The effect section is very broad so have fun. I can make any sound i please. My only complaint is the Compresser.. its a lil weak but i use a out board one. The distortion is all on how you use your gain structure.. Remember even EQ adds to your gain structure

i had the unit hickup once but it wasnt the unit after all it was a faulty power amp

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Over all i think this unit is over looked in the metal scene and i hope to see more ppl using em

if u have questions about how to get a good metal sound email me @ cradleofmine@gmail.com

I've got the latest software version(2:10, the 2:11 is identicall except it allows for computer based editing) I've seen some people complain about how hard it is to use...the thing has massive numbers of defaults if your too lazy to program it and most sound GREAT! AND once you find that perfect pre-amp(or ANY other effect) you can save it in a USER default.And I mean ANY effect; not just one for all the choruses but a bank for chorus, another for quad, yeat anothe for stereo,ect. Frankly I don't see how someone who can't quickly figure the unit out can know enough about the computer to post negetive stuff here!

I have found that the sounds are EXCELLENT. About the only thing I'd criticise is the wah, however, if you link the expression pedal to a paremeter of the parametric E.Q., you can get a really good wah.I use it through a Carvin P.A. head and speakers 'cause I'm also running a guitar synth and I need the full range for the synth so I rely heavily on the amp simulation wich I think sounds nice and warm...a real cab sound!Hint-try linking the pre and post niose gate and dist on/ off to the SAME switch on the footpedal...I prefer one for nice soft fades and the other to quite down the over driveand it's often overlooked that each switch can control multiple paremeters!Look: simply put, lots of control = great sound and this unit gives you lots of control!

I find it (so far ) to be reliable.Once the foot pedal wouldn't return to zero so I opened up the Control one foot controler NEVER,EVER DO THIS!!!!!!!!the pedal is controled with a light-emitting-diode and a reciever with a little cardboard box around it that is almost impossible to reassemble.BUT, after talking to the nice techs at Digitech, I discovered that the pedal AUTOMATICALLY re-calibrates every time you power it up! simply turn it on, pedal down... pedal up and your set!!! SWEET! And the techs are easy to get on the phone; most are guitar players themselves so are helpfull cause they love music, not because thier pay checks ride on it!

way way way way way cool and if they don't know or don't do some thing they will point you in the right direction like web-sites that they know of... all in all I have been VERY happy with all my dealings with this company

look the is a good piece; if it were stolen I might go to the 2101 but the deal is I MUST use the cab simulations and the 2101 only has them thru the xlr outs. I've been playing 33 years and this is my effects unit. period.I like it better than the boss gt9 and 8... I played them; they do alot but when I tried to get alot going all at once the chip would wierd out and clip or make some wierd noises. and the others just can't compare to a lush 8 voicechorus!

This thing has pretty much ever effect under the sun (minus an arpeggiotor.. that would have been nice)

this can be a good thing and a bad thing..

If i want chorus for example.. i gotta scroll thru chorus, dual chorus, quad chorus, chorus/delay, etc etc..

I can imagine this unit is good for cover bands since you can emulate pretty much any effect you need. You can chain them up in any order and control any parameter via the footswitch/expression pedal. This is great becuase almost every other effects unit ever made will have one parameter you can control via an expression pedal.

you can control multiple paramaters at the same time too.. (I had a wah and delay feedback set to the pedal so whn it would raise, it would do a open wah that delays till infinity). You can even hook up 2 other exp pedals for a total of 3.


I'm voting 9 since the features are plenty.. but a bit frustatating to navigate through..

2 12ax7s on this unit control tube distortion and compressor.

i was pretty happy with these tones.

sound quality was pretty adequate on this thing.. well for a multi effects unit. Never noticed noise. Its gotta gates and noise suppressors etc..

Id probably rate it the best multi-effects unit sound that I've heard.. I know theres the $2000 ones out there.. but those dont count

I play experimental rock. I used the unit for recording. For live, Id plug it straight to a fender twin reverb. Pretty straight forward. Good stuff..

Ok here's where my problems come in..

The last post below mentioned the glitchy knobs. I had to sell this unit becuase of the knob issue!!! it was becoming to hard for me to program effects on the fly since the knobs wouldnt respond properly. This killer it for me. I tryed RPedit but it never worked out for me.

I switched to a boss pedal board (7 boss pedals chained up) and Im more happy with it. WAAAAAAAAY easier for me to edit and experiment on the fly.. course I miss the infinite possibilities that the 2120 could give me but sometimes simple is better!

Never dealt with...

This unit matches well with pretty much any style id imagine.

I used it for nearly 5 years before I had to part with it.

I wouldnt have a clue about effeects if it wasnt for this unit.

If you are into multi effects.. save yourself some hassle and get this unit. Anything else is a toy. This is the real deal. Just make sure it works properly.

If you are all about doing things on the fly and randomly.. this unit isn;t the best way to go about it..

I'd give it an 8 overall

It is actually quite easy to get a good sound out of this thing, but do NOT expect the factory presets to be any help.

Random knob turning will get you nowhere, but if you know what sort of sound you're trying to get, approach things in a logical manner, and are willing to spend some time tweaking, this thing can sound amazing.

A few things are hidden in seemingly illogical places, but after you get used to where everything is, editing is not bad.

The manual is not the best, I find it inadequate in many areas, but you still need to read to get started.

All of the FACTORY distortion presets are TOTALLY USLESS GARBAGE. Really not sure what they were thinking..... They're not even good starting points for building your own sounds. I get much better results starting with a flat eq and all of the effects off.

Several of the clean factory presets are very good, and usable with little or no modification.

For distortion, the pre-amp on this thing sounds pretty bad on its own, but when used with the cab sim and parametric eq things start sounding really good. Another thing that I've noticed is that the parametric eq's always seem to sound better than graphic eq's, even when I attempt to boost or cut the same frequencies.

As far as distortion goes, I basically go for 4 sounds: A smooth lead sound with a tight bottom end (kinda 80's metal/YJM inspired). A tight snappy sort of slightly overdriven blues crunch. Heavy thrash type rhythm and a warm fat sustaining overdrive. This box nails all 4 perfectly.

The clean pre-amp is great. Everything from Jazz to funk to county to clean rock sounds. Works very well with the compressor.

The digital effects are (for the most part) really good... You can get some cool subtle chorus effects and the standard delay, reverb, flange etc.

The wammy effect has more lag than I can live with (pretty much useless). The rotary speaker sim is a bit odd... a fast flanger sounds much more convincing.

Also the wah aint no Cry-Baby, not enough boost to get that sound. I can get closer by boosting the highs using an eq, but then the slow tracking of the foot controller becomes obvious... so no shaft theme song.

That being said, this thing does everything that I actually need (or use) beautifully.

Guitars:

American series strat(with Dimarzio HS2/Virtual2/Virtual vintage solo pro)

Godin LGX (With Seymour Duncans)

Amp/Cab:

Marshall 9005 (50 watt per side all tube stereo power amp)
Marshall 1912

It has failed on me once... though I suspect this may have been due to tampering (I left it alone at a small bar gig and when I returned all of the midi settings were messed up and the foot control one was non functional, I was forced to do a factory reset and loost all of my patches)

The knobs on the font of the unit have gotten quite glitchy since I've owned this unit. Quite often the numbers on the screen go in the opposite diretion to the knobs, but I'm still gettng by... and at least there is rpedit.

The build quality of the Control One FC is not good and mine is not aging very well. The buttons are made of flimsy plastic and the small plastic switces under them are prone to sticking due dust build up (a few squirts of contact cleaner helps).

Occasional glitches occur where the volume drops out. Switching between patches corrects this.

Get a backup!

Have not used them yet.

Musical styles: Rock, Metal, Blues, Funk, Pop, Reggae.

Been playing about 10 years. Had this box for about 3.

If it were lost or stolen I probably either try to find a good amp with MIDI switching and a dedicated multieffects box, or give the Rocktron stuff a try (Voodu or Prophesy).

At the moment I'm pretty dependent on the 2120.

At first this unit can seem very complex but after a day or two of fiddling you find its very logical and staight forward to set up great tones, used rpedit for a while, seeing everything layed out in order on a computer monitor kinda helps you get your head around how this thing ticks, manual is really rather good also.

my setup - Ibanez RG1570 - 2120 vgs Artist - peavey classic 50/50 - two 2x12 celestion loaded cabs - behringer FCB1010 midi foot controller. I run this setup in stereo

previous to this preamp I was using a line6 podxt which i was fairly happy with for the most part, the first time i played through the 2120 it was like the cotton wool had been pulled out of my ears, if i a/b both preamps its like there is a big thick blanket over the speakers when playing through the podxt, there is no comparison for sound quality, the 2120 is what the podxt is trying and failing to be.

Like most preamps, the factory presets are not very good, way to wet for my taste but some of them are useful as a starting point for a good tweeking session. I have used this unit for about 6 months now and i have set up 20 of my own patches ranging from beutiful glassy cleans to absolute filth and everything inbetween, I have set up the fbc1010 foot controller to turn on and off effects via control changes for each patch, the 2 expression pedals control gain and volume for each patch. Just with these 20 patches and this amount of control over parameters the range of sounds at my disposal is awesome and I'm not even scratching the surface of what this thing is capable of.

The effects for the most part are very high quality, I find the whammy doesn't work that great and the wah is not to bad on clean patches but gets completely lost on dirty ones

put 2 new JJ 12AX7's in it when I got it, only owned it six months, gigged every week, so far so good

I emailed Digitech support and asked them if there was an easy way to convert the input from US voltage to UK to avoid the need for a stepdown converter and within 12 hours this was their response -
__________________________________________________________________
Dave

Inside the 2120, there is a small circuit board near the transformer. On this circuit board is a small resister. Remove the resister, and solder it to the position with the voltage required for the UK. Along with a new power cable, that's all you need to do.

Cheers,

Digitech Support
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Excellent!!!!

I've been playing guitar for 26 years.Our band plays Metal, Rock, Blues and this preamp covers all those styles beutifully. Over the years I have owned a LOT of equipment, the 2120 vgs Artist along with the peavey classic 50/50 is without a doubt the most versitile, awsome sounding setup I have ever heard, couldn't be happier:-)

Read the manual after that it's easy. I've been gigging with mine for 8 years. I can tweak it onstage in seconds. Right out of the box assuming you get a new one or one that has had the factory presets resored. Dial down the sensitivity on the noise gate and start tweeking that 10 band tube EQ.

If you can't get this unit to sound like a million bucks after some tweeking you have it set up wrong. Never use it in front of an amp. If you do you may as well go buy some cheap ass floor unit cause rack gear is not for you.

Here's the deal...buy a stereo power amp and a good midi controller and run it in to a cab that is best suited for your power needs...stereo 50/50 watt amp run this thing into 50 to 75 watt speakers...tone for days. I can pretty much get about any sound my ears want out of this thing. I LOVE the fact it's not some piece of shit moddeling pre-amp...they all suck and lack the luster of a TUBE

It's not noisey and is just an all around dependable unit. Considering that it's evoled from the 2101 to the 2112 to the now 2120 it's been around a while they've worked out the bugs.

Never had a problem and this thing has been in some smokey nasty beer rat traps. I called them to get an Eprom upgrade and had it in 5 days and got it for FREE.

I play all types of music from METAL to JAM to Jazz to Blues and this thing delivers. Played in many bands doing covers, originals, Instamentals you name it. It does what I want the effects are good. It's not an Eventide effects unit or a super high end T.C. Electonic piece, but the effects sound pretty aweseome for what it is.

I use a Peavey Wolfgang > Digitech Whammy > Zakk Wylde Wah > Zakk overdrive > Boss-TU2 Tuner > MXR Van halen Phaser > Digitech Synth wah > Digitech 2120 > T.C. Electronic G-Major > Peavey Classic 50/50 Power amp > Ear Candy Buzzbomb 212 with a 50 watt and a 75 watt Eminance speakers
Digital Music Corp Ground Control Midi Controler

Bardzo przyjazna obsloga! Latwa i przemyslana dokladnie. Szybki dostep do wszystkich parametrow! Latwe przypisywanie kontrolerow i generatorow do DOWOLNYCH parametrow efektow!!!
System jest po prostu genialny!!

PREAMP.
Zastosowane lampy 12AX7 Sovtek daja ladne lampowe brzmienie czystej gitary. Jako przester pracuje tzw. "hybryda", czyli uklad lampowo-tranzystorowy. Wymiana lamp na modele innych marek przynosi czesto bardzo dobre efekty brzmieniowe. Jesli ktos sie zna na elektronice, to latwo moze przerobic modul przesterowujacy sygnal, co tez uczynilem.

EFEKTY.
Bardzo przydatne, zwlaszcza do homerecordingu okazuje sie dorobienie wyjscia S/PDIF! Projektanci z Digitecha chyba sobie o nim zapomnieli.. Zrobilem taki uklad i dziala wysmienicie! W takiej klasie sprzetu po prostu musi byc S/PDIF ;-)
Efekty sa bardzo wysokiej jakosci, nie wprowadzaja dodatkowych szumow, a mozliwosci ich regulacji sa ogromne! Do tego celu polecam tez edytor na PC RPedit do edycji wszelkich parametrow procesora. To swietne uzupelnienie do sprzetu! Dzieki niemu np. moglem sobie przeniesc moje wlasne presety preampow z 2112 do 2120, po wymianie EEPROM-u.
Symulator kolumn glosnikowych jest rewelacyjny!! Mozna za jego pomoca wpiac procesor bezposrednio do wejscia karty komputerowej, lub mixera. Nie ma wowczas zadnego piachu i zgrzytania w dzwieku z gitary przesterowanej.
Takim jedynym slabszym punktem procesora jest kaczka, ktora nie dorownuje kultowej Crybaby Dunlopa. Ale to nie znaczy wcale ze jest zla. Po prostu kwestia gustu...
Sterownik Control One dziala z procesorem bez zastrzezen. Latwy w obsludze i dowolnie konfigurowalny.

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Nigdy nie korzystalem z servisu Digitecha.

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This thing is extremely easy to get good sounds from. If you can't, either it or you ain't running on all cylinders! Many of the factory presets are really tasty, which seems to be a rarity with many preamps out there. Tweaking is necessary for optimum results (when is it not?). Editing patches was a little complicated at first (I had the manual in front of me for awhile, sometimes I felt like a member of "DENSA-for the rest of us") but, like most things, it gets easier with time and practice. I have a Studio Quad V2, and it is very similar, so this helped a bit to make a smoother learning curve. The manual is informative and...well...NECESSARY, especially at first. RTFM! The firmware is the latest available, I believe.

I use it with at least 12 different guitars. It is not noisy. The noise gate was a PITA at first, and a bloody nuisance at band practice volume levels, now it's dialed in and works fine. The effects are just about what I wanted. I have a few little niggles here and there, but it isn't worth dwelling on. Overall, I really like them, for the most part. I use it with any one of several power amps (it breathes heavily-like a woman in heat, if you'll pardon the simile-thru a Peavey 50/50 with EL84's, sounds great thru a Carvin, close enough to great thru a Valvestate 8004, where it sounds better with the "valvestate" switch off, unlike with where this particular power amp is now, very acceptable D.I.'ed, quite passable thru an older Yamaha-ha-ha-ha S-S reference monitor amp, ok with headphones thru the mixer too) and I've used it to drive two combos thru the effects return (bypassing the preamp stage) with really good results. This "Barney Box" (it's poiple! I luv it! Although I wouldn't mind punting the actual insipid Purple Dinosaur off a tall building or using him as backfill for a Title 5 septic install---j/k, I'm too nice for that---kids love him for some bizarre reason, he's just so sickeningly adorable I guess, but I digress...) contains every guitarist in the world I've ever been inspired to unabashedly pilfer licks from at my fingertips! The pitch effects don't track like an Eventide (no, I can't justify the expense just yet, but when I do...), or even the good version of the Digitech Whammy pedal, the octave is grainier than a Chinese Boss OC-2 (Japanese version BETTER!) and the wah sucks compared to the ones I use, but I will not dare to complain for the price! Dedicating the full DSP to processing pitch effects helps a bit. What I really like, along with the ability to assign different chains to each channel, is the seamless "blending" transitions using the pedal. That just plain rocks! In fact, I was previously thinking of making an A/B crossfade/pan/selectable swell type thingummy out of an old Cry Baby body-now I don't really have to!

The tube pre section sounded MUCH BETTER (Oh, Jebus, did it ever!) after ripping out the cheesy Sovtek WA's (Ptooey!) and throwing in JJ 12AX7's. Big difference! Like going from eating cardboard to your favorite meal! The layering of effects is almost as good as in my Studio Quad v2, and just about all I'd ever want in a Swiss Army knife like this! My favorite artists...oboy...got a week or two?

So far it's dependable. I gigged with it once. I use another rack setup for my main work-horse. I mostly practice and record with this thing. I would not even think about using it without a backup. That's just asking for it to break! Murphy was an optimist!

I haven't subjected this thing to much road use, and I baby the bejeezus out of it, so I won't rate it yet, but I will say "so far, so good".

Had a problem with a piece of Digitech gear once. It was repaired and returned in timely fashion, and they didn't bend me over and shag me for my wallet. Had some spare parts sent from them too. The rep I spoke with was courteous, professional, and personable. Sorry, I don't remember his name. But he was a good guy, and he took care of me. I haven't had a problem with the "Barney Box" yet. I hope I don't anytime soon. I sometimes hook it up to my computer and use RPEdit-works ok for me!

I won't give their support a 10 yet...until I have to deal with them again, then my rating will reflect my overall experience, which (fortunately-it sucks when stuff breaks!)has not been all that extensive.

I play just about anything and everything. This thing is, as I mentioned earlier, a Swiss Army knife! Please don't make me list everything else I own! I shudder to think about how long it may take, and I type PDQ! If it were stolen I think I would start drinking excessively, and I would go on a S+D mission, and inflict mortal disaster upon the soon-to-be-toast perp! If I lost it, I would lose it! Not quite completely, but if you see a fairly large and crazy blond dude with glasses walking in circles babbling in tongues outside some mid Cape Cod area local package store, chances are it's me, I lost it, and am on my way to losing it some more! I would likely rip out the rest of my hair in anguish, which has already started its progress into congenital middle-aged recession! I really like it with the JJ tubes! Bob Pletka (Eurotubes) is a really decent guy. I cannot begin to describe what a world of difference JJ tubes have made for my sound! I have other preamps, but this is my favorite. It nails practically everything I throw at it, and I don't want to be deprived of it! That's why I baby it so much.

I will say this, though: the footswitch sucks bricks thru a straw! A little more than golf balls through a garden hose, and a bit less than cinderblocks thru a capillary! I practically need pointy cockroach-in-the-corner-killer shoes or moccasins to tapdance on it, you can forget about using boots! Ain't happenin', and I'm a size ten, not a barefoot waterskiing Sasquatch! The expression pedal is..."meh", and I wish I had the Johnson Millennium foot controller instead, which is much more gig-friendly. In fact, I am dropping a point just because Digitech didn't use the Johnson pedal design across the board! I wish it had a better tuner, besides the wah (which is not all that great but still useable with tweaking). But I never use the tuner, I have a much better one already. I am a little leery of the tone knobs. I could see one good whack taking a pot shaft right out of the picture, and me getting a parts order and firing up the soldering iron. Nonetheless, they are right where I want them to be for E-Z tweezing, and the pots are detented, which I can't help but like.

If it got in the way (besides the damn footcontroller, which was probably designed in the Dark Ages of Foot-Binding), it would have been sent down the River Styx on a leaky inflatable pool float. Overall, I really am fond of this thing, especially after the tube swap.

I have had a Boss GT-3 and Yamaha DG-Stomp effects preamp/processors prior to acquiring two of these. After gaining some experience programming, the 2120 is fairly easy. Like one guy said below, you would have to actually read the manual if this is your first preamp/processor. It's not like my DG-Stomp to which you just turn knobs and push a few buttons then hit store and you're good to go.

Just to address some issues below this post, this preamp WILL suck if used between a guitar and FRONT END of an amp. If you have to use it that way, make sure that you plug the unit in to the effects return of your amp. Set the return level to 100% (if parallel). Then, turn the cabinet simulator off if you're using regular guitar speakers. If you're using full range speakers, say P.A. speakers, turn the cab sim on. Guys, most of the gears out there sound good no matter the price only if used (or misused) PROPERLY!

=> The sounds are amazing. Most presets are good right of the bat. I have my own heavy rhythm sound and lead sound that I programmed in (be prepared to tweak! it's worth it!). Everything else that I use are presets. I have a variety of guitars from a Washburn Dimebag Southern Cross to an old Yamaha RGX312. All of them work pretty well with the 2120. The only thing I don't like is the noise get is set kind of high from the factory. I have to adjust all of them down to less sensitivity. I use it with a Mesa 50/50 power amp, or sometimes I plug it in to my dual rectifier's effects return. From there it sounds really awesome.

I have not gigged with it. But it haven't crashed on me.

I don't like it not because of my 2120, but because of a whammy pedal I sent in for repairs. I had to send it back twice and it took them about half a year to finally give it back to me. They said that they changed their system and that they kind of lost track of it. They should have prepared better for that system change.

I have been playing close to 10 years now. I own enough gear to make NASA proud. I play metal most of the time. I also play blues, HipHop RnB, top 40, alternative, almost all kinds of music occasionally. This can cover almost all of them.

If you have a nice set of power amp and speakers and are looking for a nice preamp with effects at a great value, I recommend getting this preamp. They are fairly cheap in EBAY.

before i even start, im sure this unit is great. but i bought it and ran it on my marshall jcm2000, and it sounded like sonic ass.
as far as tone goes, its very easy to get a good sound out of it. editing the patches takes a little experience to learn your way around it. the manual leaves alot out, but most of the unit is self explanitory. i bought mine as a 2112 v1.02 and upgraded it to the 2120. not a huge difference but the sound quality was the problem i was having. speaking of...

this thing hisses so bad that it made me want to throw the unit at a small child. like i said i ran it into my marshall amp, not the best setup to have this thing on. perhaps if i were running it through a poweramp it would sound better, but godda**it if this thing doesnt sound like crap through a regular amp. the effects are great on it and the tone is great, but its all drined out by the hiss. first off. its gonna cut nearly half of your volume so that the unit doesnt constantly clip, then when you turn the output past 12oclock, its just gonna aggitate the hell out of you with the hissing, even moreso when you kick it in the distortion channel of your amp.
this unit sucks with a normal amp.

im about to get rid of this thing, i have my amp and it has a great tone, all i wanted the unit for was the effects, instead i got the entire preamp. the 2101 was great because it had the option to completely bypass the preamp. i wish they had put that on here.
im not about to take this thing to a gig. it looks and feels like you could throw it down a staircase so i guess its pretty reliable. but ill stick to the tried and true stompbox setup.

didnt have to deal with them.

overall, im sure this unit is great with a poweramp, but not for a traditional amp setup
i play sort of rock/jazz/metal, its an odd mix (go listen to it at http://www.myspace.com/thisnameistemporary) so all all i really needed were a few simple effects, this unit was probably overkill anyways.
if it were stolen, i would hunt the bastard down and make him pay for it so i could buy something that better suits my setup.
i love the ammount of effects and the expandability/customization of the algorithims, its pretty cool, but the effects themselves could be a little more managable.
i wish you could bypass the preamp completely, if you turn it off it cuts your sound all together.
it seems to just get in the way of the creative process. because the hissing pisses you off.
a few of my friends own this unit, and on a rack. its phenomenal, id suggest it if your looking for a PREAMP, but if your just looking for effects and your running a standard tube amp, stompboxes are the way to go...

If this were your first preamp/effects unit your in for a steep learning curve but once you give up trying to figure it out by pushing random buttons and you actually READ the manual, it's a piece of cake. As for editing effects it's as easy or hard as you make it. The presets aren't all practical but theres a few nice ones there that you can just tweak to your tastes then copy them to where you want them, or just turn everything off and build your sounds from scratch. It's great to be able to assign each effect to a pedal aswell so you can have your ideal sound and then add mod,delays,pitchshifts and all sorts while you are performing.

I've had this unit for ages...it's been used with Patrick Eggle ProV, Ibanez rt650, Ibanez s470dxqm, Jackson Dinky,Charvel 375dx and a few i've forgotten. For some time I was lucky enough to own a top end Laney 100w head going through twin 140w cabs and during that time it was only used for the effects section as the preamping on the head was better but these days it's running stereo through the return jacks of a couple of Laney 50 combo's. The only stick bits in terms of the units effects are in my opinion the wah and noise gate. Extenious noise simply doesn't exist and the output is crystal clear. I haven't found a unit that really lets the tonality of the guitar come through (regardless of how many effects) like this. The guitar's "voice" still comes through. It gets really interesting when you start assembling effect chains so that you get one chain to the left and one to the right.

7 years ago....my dog got caught up in my cables and puled the unit from the top of a 5ft stack of gear. The rack mount on one side is bent about 1.5cm back but the unit STILL lives! It has never let me down....
Verdict:
WELL SOLID

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I've had this thing longer than i can remember and now i'm thinking about changing....but in all honesty I can't find anything like the quality and versatility. Others, including so called "cutting edge" floor mounted flagship units sound muddy and synthetic by comparison.
It's versatility is endless and this is both a blessing and a curse....beware...you may find yourself spending more time mucking about with finding the illusive "perfect sound" that we all crave than actually playing your guitar.

I'll begin by stating that I've no newcomer when it comes to preamps. I've owned the 2112 since it originally came out and I've just recently updated the units firmware to the 2120's. I've played out of just about every preamp out there including the MesaBoogie Triaxis, and for all the flexability the 2120 allows, it's going to take time with the unit to fully understand what it's capabale of.

The 2120's preset patches are not to my liking, but they give the user a framework to begin from. The 2120 is capabale of MUCH better sounds than what is preprogammed.

I'm going to rate ease of use an 8 because although it's not instantly gratifying, you can't expect a unit that is capable of so much to be extremely easy to get what you want from it instantly. It's worth the time invested because if you take your time, this unit is capable of just about any sound.

I currently use an Ibanez UV777 Jem 7 string and an Ibanez S-series Prestige 6 string. I run the 2120 through a MesaBoogie 20/20 tube poweramp, BBE sonic maximizer, out to a 4X12 CRATE cabinet.

PREAMP:

I've struggled with this unit for years because I've been on the verge of the tone I wanted but I always felt the unit's preamp section was simply lacking the gain I expected. I'm writing this review because I want anyone reading this to learn from my mistake. For years, I've replaced the tubes in the preamp with 12AX7 Groove Tubes from my local music store. I'm usually lucky if they even have them. After purchasing the MesaBoogie poweramp, I looked into replacing the tubes with some of the best quality tubes I could find. I ended up purchasing JJ/TESLA 12ax7 tubes for both the 2120 and the Mesa Boogie poweramp. Now learn from my mistake...

THE SOUND IS COMPLETLY RELIANT ON THE TYPE OF TUBE YOU USE!!!

Needless to say, I have all the gain and tone I could ever want now! And I did not think it was possible for the 2120 to achieve THAT much gain! I had patches that rivaled Mesa Dual Rectifiers before the tube change and now I think I'll need to back it off. Pateniently tweaking the compressor, gain, and tube EQ, you can attain just about any tube distortion sound imaginable.

EFFECTS:

As for the effects in the 2120, they are top notch. I have NO complaints with the digital effects whatsoever. I owned an Eventide H3000 and sold it because I ended up using the 2120's effects instead since everything is integrated. Just make sure to use the full S disk/s and appropriate effect whenever possible. The flexability of the digital effects is amazing because you can choose to use more or less processing power for a more complex effect or keep it simple to allow more effects. I have a difficult time deciding to use a detue, dual detune, quad detune, flanger, dual flanger, quad flanger, chorus, dual chorus, octal chorus to achieve the desired chorus effect! Getting the idea here? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS!!!

For you harmony guys, here's a hint. If you're running stereo, you'll want to use a full S disk with the harmony effect, and send your dry signal panned to 1 speaker and the digital effect to the opposite speaker. Normally I need to reduce the harmonized note's volume A LOT! If tweaked correclty, you'll be amazed at the sound the harmonizer can attain. Always shift down unless you're from mars.

Get yourself a Crybaby because you won't be using the internal wah, but I very rarely use my Crybaby anyway, and how many units include a wha?

I've had the unit for a really long time and I've had the unit freak out on me and I've had to reset the unit. Since that one time, the unit's been perfect. I've traveled to from NY to Florida and back with it in an SKB case and the unit was perfect when it got home.

The only time I've needed help was when the unit freaked out on me. I called technical support and they walked me through the factory recall and everything was great again!

PERFECT!

Comparitively, this unit is easier to use than the previous 2101 model, but in many ways, the 2101 could do more (e.g., you could have more than two parallel paths) but those added options probably made people complain to the company of the complexity. Ease of use is not my main concern for this reason, as I prefer to have the extra options. One could say, the easier something like this is to use, the less one can experiment in making new sounds. The manual is decently written, and I haven't had any major problems doing anything as described in the manual. Therefore, for all the complexity this unit still does have, it is pretty darned easy to use.

I'm running this as a preamp into the power amp section of my Fender Twin combo. I have not used this direct, as I prefer to mike the amp. The main guitars I use this with are a Gretsch Duo Jet, an Epiphone WildKat with P90s and a Danelectro U2 with lipstick pickups. Overall, I would list most of the effects on this unit as excellent. The weaker ones would be the analog wah (which is still far better than the digital one on the 2101) which has been corrected to be in front of the distortion, and the phaser, which is not as good as an analog one. The main problems with the wah, are: 1) the lack of dramatic sweep (making the "wah" sound) as the band pass goes from the low mids to high, which is somewhat satisfactorily remedied by a wide and high midrange eq boost (but still no Crybaby), and 2) that when the digital controls are customized, the pedal does not work within the range set for the whole sweep of the pedal, but is only engaged to change when the pedal itself moves through the customized range. The preamp section is pretty good, and I do have some complaints/suggestions that will follow. First, I've read a lot of stupid comments from goth and thrash players that this unit is fine for "Fender players," but not heavy enough for their kind of music. First, I do find that the "saturated" tube setting does have a lot of gain, perhaps not quite as much as a rectifier, but probably as much as most tube amps, including Marshalls. The solid state "grunge" setting actually has more gain, if one does not demand a tube setting. The solid state gain may actually be better for the quick stops in thrash because of the mechanical resonance that tubes have. Then again, thrash players usually use so much noise gating, that it probably wouldn't be an issue. Usually, these goth/thrash whiners use so much gain and just scoop out the mids so much that one can no longer hear the sound of the guitar, per se, as the sound has been so saturated with effects (gain). This sound of course, has its uses, but is it really criteria that should be used to judge a unit? Anyway, my problems with the preamp section are these: 1) there are three (4 if you include the bypass setting, which still uses the tubes, but gives you no distortion) tube settings, for different degrees of distortion. This, I imagine is to maintain a decent amount of volume through all the disparate amounts of gain, but there seems to be a gap of missing gain levels between the three main distortion settings that one would normally find on an amp as one would raise the gain knob from 1 to 10; almost as if the first distortion setting would be 1-3, then 4 is missing, 5-7 would be the second, 8 would be missing and 9-10 would be the last distortion option. Second, I wish there was the option (as on the 2101) to have a dry analog signal stay analog, to be mixed with a wet/digital. Everything on this unit goes through the A/D and D/A converters, which is a shame, though the tone is pretty good for digital on this unit. Third, I wish the parametric EQ was before the gain circuit like a real amp's as EQ does sound different when before the gain. Also, it would be better if that parametric EQ could have the Q and frequency center changed so one could model different,real amps. Or, to be even more realistic (like the Fender Cyber series), have the parametric EQs' zero settings have no output like a real amp, rather than start with a flat signal. My last complaint about the unit is that the output is kind of low compared to a regular amp's preamp section. My volume is much lower with this unit than using the combo amp's own preamp. One has to keep in mind that the volume is controlled in so many places on this unit, in order to maintain a decent level (trim, preamp analog section, digital section, master, digital pedal volume and at least one level control in each effect module). The best effects in the unit are the reverbs (one

I've had my unit for about 4 years and the LCD went out on my once and the parametric EQ knobs' pots had to be replaced, but so far, that has been the only issue. For 4 years of use, perhaps this is acceptable for any complicated electronic equipment. Have you had any computers go 4 years without any work needed?

Only support I ever needed was locating an authorized repair shop which was easily done online.

I play all styles of music (even stupid Goth and Thrash) and I can use this unit for all of those styles, except acoustic classical, obviously. I have been playing for 20 years. I would buy an improved similar unit from Digitech, if they made improvements (hopefully mine) but in the current market, everything appears to be digital modeling and footpedals, so it is not likely. I've tried the VOX Valvestate emulators and I think the Fender sounds are not quite right (esp. the Bassman), though they've modeled their own sounds quite well. But VOXes don't have that wonderful Fender 2.5kHz ring, do they? The Fender Cyber Twin sounds pretty good, but the effects are not as good as on this unit. Anyway, this unit is overall, as good as anything else out there, and better than most, if you learn about effects and learn how to use the thing.

This is an update of my previous review, just to show one of 2120 hidden features.
I found one interesting feature which I believe worth enough to share with 2120 owners.
I really don?t like to push another footswitch just to activate the wah pedal, which means I have to move my foot twice, first the dedicated footswitch and then to the pedal. What a pain in the ****, especialy if I want to go from non wah licks to wah licks seamlessly. I?ve tried to find some information on the net about this, but no luck. The information I found is only about assigning a dedicated footswitch to activate the wah pedal.
After doing some experiments I found a way to solve this problem. Now I can turn on the wah just by rocking the pedal, no need to push dedicated footswitch, of course I still need a dedicated footswitch to turn it off but it?s ok for me.
Wow, this is very helpful, I can quickly turn on the wah pedal without having to find the dedicated footswitch first and then push it, just rock the pedal, so I can concentrate on my licks, instead of looking for a footswitch.
Here is how :
1. Activate the patch you want to add wah fx,
2. If the pedal on that patch is assigned to function(s) other than wah (if it?s already assigned as wah go to step 4), disable it by pushing assign button twice and then with page knob scroll until the display show pedal function and turn the 1st knob to deactivate the pedal.
3. push the preamp button, scroll to wah menu, and put the cursor on wah position parameter by turning the 2nd knob, then push the assign button once, the display should read select a contrl footswitch. Rock the pedal until the display change.
4. Push the ?Preamp? button, and scroll to wah menu, and put the cursor on ?byp/on? parameter.
5. Push the ?Assign? button once and rock the pedal, then on the 2120 display change the ?min? parameter to ?on? (by turning the 3rd knob) so both min and max parameter have ?on? value. And then go to the next page by turning the page knob, the display should read ?available link for wah?.
6. Push a footswitch on controll one where you want to assign the on/off function for wah. And on the 2120 display make sure the min parameter is ?byp? and max parameter is ?on?. Push the footswitch again to bypass the wah and then save your patch.
7. That?s it, every time you call the patch, the wah status is bypassed, and when you rock the pedal the wah will be activated automatically. If you want to turn it off just push the dedicated footswitch.

Mine is not new, 2.10 version software. yes, it's very easy to get good sounds, i can get good sound just from the default preamp. editing patches is very easy, and the RPEdit make it easier. I'm using the RPedit to back up all my settings, just in case the program crashed. Once you understand how the program works you will rarely use the RPEdit.
no manual included, download it from digitech website. the manual is not very helpful, but can prevent you from getting lost.

My setup : Ibanez Jem7vwh---shure wireless--2120 with JMP1 and G Major in the fx Loop---return in jack of two solid state heads---two 4x12 celestion cabs.
noisy? it has very versatile noise gate, you can put it before or after the preamp section. I prefer after preamp, because that way I can still produce smooth volume swell.
First class fx, but g major has better tracking for pitch shifting and whammy fx.
I can get any kind of sound I can think of. petrucci, satriani, vai, eric johnson, brian may, and of course my sound. but for marshall sound I use the JMP1.
imagine this, with my setup I can closed the loop, activate the tube preamp, tube Eq, and delay, shut the chorus off just by pushing one button. so i can go from marshall clean from my jmp with some chorus from 2120 to saturated tube sound from 2120 with delay and without chorus.
you know what.. you can use 8 pitch fx in a row if you want to....

it only crashed when I edit it with RPEdit, especialy when making patch with config 16. dont have enough money to buy back up equipment.

I once emailed them asking how to change the voltage, they replied my email in a second, and now I can use mine without a stepdown.

overall this is the best gear I've ever owned, this is a dream come true. no regret at all. don't like the preamp? bypass them and put it on the loop of your favourite amp, or put your favorite preamp rack in 2120 loop and you'll be in heaven.

Being a complete gear freak, I found that this unit is pretty easy to program. However, as extensive as the editing capabilities are -- there are a huge amount of parameters to access. With that said, it can be pretty sticky when trying to quickly dial up a sound.

My rig consists of: US custom Strats, DBX compressor, BBE, Shure wireless, Mesa Boogie V-Twin rack tube preamp, and a handful of external f/x rack units (Yamaha SPX-90, Korg A3, TC Electronics 2290 Delay) -- powered by a MesaBoogie 2:90 Tube Power Amp, into a stereo Marshall 4x12.
First off -- the noise gate is set to "crapola" iin all the factory settings, but with some tweaking is manageable if only slightly applied. The Wah is unusable (in my opinion) -- I prefer my modified Vox Wah. The compressor is usable, however, I prefer my DBX. The distortions are decent emulations, but that's exactly what they are --> Emulations. I prefer a true tube amp.
As for the palette of sounds this unit is capable, I'm still stunned. I actually bought this unit to use a particular sound (The volume swell, keyboard-ish pad) -- but quickly found myself in a sea of aural colors. This unit is incredible. With only a few days with the unit, I bypassed my SPX-90 and A3 and use the 2120 exclusively for my effects (sans compression). This unit is extremely quiet and powerful.
Two things I like the most about the unit are: 1) The ability to use my Boogie Preamp by inputting it in the F/X loop in fron to of the signal processing -- allowing me to control my Boogie Pre with the 2120. This allows me to mute for tuning, use the volume pedal on the Control One, and 2) Utilize the "SOLO" function! This absolutely makes the investment completely worthwhile.

I've had several small issues, but nothing severe enough to have it repaired ... yet. But it does seem a bit more fragile than my other rack gear. I've had it reset during shows -- but that was, in the end, due to the cadmium battery getting low.

N/A -- haven't dealt with them yet.

Even with my minor complaints, I'd highly recommend this unit to any musician who wants Grade-A signal processing. I agree with others listed here about changes that could be made -- and sincerely hope that Digitech continues to upgrage this model.

The First day i got this unit I started dialing in sounds.. and as a gear and tweaking fanatic.. it was pretty easy to me.
the possibilities are really endless, but the basic interface and tweaking system can be easily figured out after a few hours of use for expirienced digital FX users, or for sound engineers (as myself).
though it will be hell for stomp-box users who buys their first rack.

My current setup is an Ibanez PGM300 Prototype, and a Fender USA Standart Stratocaster >>> Nady 201VHF True Diversity Wireless system >>> 2120 (FX loop send to DOD YJM308 to Marshall JCM800 Halfstack) >>>> Peavey EQ31 Graphic Equalizer Rack >>>> BBE 462 Sonic Maximizer >>>> Alto BK2.0 Comp/limiter/gate >>>> Another 2 Marshall JCM800 Halfstacks.
The unit Sounds AMAZING! The Dual Distortion Path Routing is the best feature in the preamp section, switched the stock tubes with JJ Teslas - sounds much better with them (recommended!), The compressor is quite good - though I use an external one too, The Noise gate is great, very versatile, giving you a complete control with all it's parameters, the wah is so-so, but I'm not a heavy Wah user so it doesn't bother me much, The digital effects sounds awesome!
20Hz-20Khz range.. just great.. if you haven't tried it in stereo you don't know what you are missing..

I was using a Boss GT-5 before the 2120 and it sounds like someone have removed the earplugs that have been stuck in my ears from all the years of using the Boss.

The very first distortion patch that I jhave programmed sounds JUST like the Rhythm sound in Megadeth's Youthanasia! which is a difficullt sound to get.
The Korn Patch is also awesome if you tweak it right - but great as basis.

assigning parameters to the control1 is very easy and useful - working very good.
Clear LED displays in both 2120 and It's Control Board - it also enables the feature of real-time effects morphing which is really really cool. the harmonizer sounds pretty good when on full disc - It's not an Eventide but really does the job for that price range.

I play mostly Metal in the neoclassic. power and progressive vein - and it delivers the goods just Perfectly for me.

I am actually running 2 preamps in serial - the 2120 to the low input of the Marshalls - sounds fantastic if configured propertly.

The noise factor of the unit is quite low compared to the others i have used. the sonic maximizer complements the 2120 tone even more! I highly recommend getting one

no problems so far.

haven't dealt with them yet.

Great for Metal, and for everything else too I guess..
you can get about any sound you want if you try hard enough.
I have been playing for 6 years now.
Currently I own a Boss GT-5 too, but It's for sale now.
the other active gear is listed above.
If it was stolen i would definately get one again if i'd find one (here in Israel this kind of stuff is pretty hard to find)
as stated in other reviews, It's very musical and i have found it very inspiring for me.

if you had hesistants and you're out for a pro-level tool - go get one!

pre sets arent usable other than a few although they are great foundations to build on and in a few mins you can have some fantastic sounds

using either my limited fender squire, the original not the cheessy mexican strat look alikes, this oen is all custom with emg's and schallers lockers etc.. or my 93 les paul studio.
i run a mesa 2:90 stereo power amo, a furman power conditioner, a 482 i think, sonic maximizer and two 1960 b 300 watt 4x12 marshall cabs, the sound is awesome!
my buddy brought his 2112 and his mesa stack over which he powers with a cheaper power amp and there wast much difference, in deep shunk he had me a little bit, but still even he admitted my setup sounds unreal.

had one issue turned out to be a cable, i want to get another one for backup in case the worst ever happens, but so far i dont even take a backup to the gigs and ive been ok.

simply the best ive ever seen.

i bought my unit on ebay used for 500$ with the control one.
i had a bad midi foot controller cable but to be safe i sent the whole unit and foot board into digitech for a once over, they advised me of the flat rate to look at and or fix the 2120 artist and the foot controller so i sent them the approriate amount of money for updating, and servicing both units.

my concern was the turn around becasue it was 7 days to get it there, (Utah) and if they kept it more than 5 days i would not get it back in time for a performance.
well i stressed this point with Rick on the phone from harmony music group digitech service section.
they recieved my unit on a monday, i was told originaly that they would have it for 7 days before sending it out.

on tuesday i got a pone call from there tech, told me he replaced a footswitch, a jack updated the unit and tested everything, saved all my presets and told me that i sent to much money.

they do not do refunds and i made out money orders to them, so i said well then apply the money to the return shipping and get it here asap then.
the next day, weds, it arrived at my house, this was a 350$ shipping rate when i checked 3 times, they got it all back, included a new cable, and a digitech t-shirt!!
having it back and knowing it was up to date and running properly were my concerns and digitech treated me like i was a famous rock star without ever thinking twice about it, simply awesome, i would do a commercial for them after this.

i love it, i compared it to many other pre amps and combos and nothing sounds as good to me as this set up, i have been playing for 20 years and currently i am the guitarist in an original/cover modern metal style band.

It's hard to believe I've had this for 5 years now. This is the first multi-fx/pre-amp unit I ever owned, so I was lost for a long time. It was very much like going from a Yugo to a Mercedes for me. A LOT of trial and error for the first 6 months or so. I'm not an idiot, but with 2 babies in diapers, 60 hour work weeks and a busy church schedule (where the unit is used), it was hard to find time for experimentation. Internet user group through Digitech website was very helpful. The book was useless, and still pretty much is, even after understanding the workings. RPEdit totally helped me, especially with backing everything up. It's pretty easy to edit, make, and save programs now. I got the upgrade chip free from Digitech 3 years ago and put it in myself. SAVE YOUR STUFF BEFORE YOU DO THIS! I saved everything to RPEdit first. That is a beautiful thing. Whoever created that software should be knighted.
The unit is not friendly, however, with volume levels. I've seen other comments similar to this, especially with the volume pedal on the control one tied to the program. Frequently, switching between programs the volume would drop off severely or even totally go away! And if I switched back and forth, it would come back! Gave up on that right away. I disconnected the volume assignment for all programs. I just use a boss stereo vol pedal now. It is still not easy to set equal volume levels for all programs. You set the volume, save the program, go to another program and come back, and it's not the same! So it's a lot of fooling around with a db meter and all the different instruments I use. Overall, it's better than having a bunch of stomp boxes and all that mess and setup. One box that does it all.

I play in a church worship setting. Large sanctuary, small group of musicians, like 6 on a good day, which means VERSATILITY. I have 2 JEMs, a 7D black, and the 7VBSL (for me the greatest instrument ever made). I frequently play an older Yamaha nylon with an LR baggs pickup, an Ovation 6751 12 string, a mid-grade Fender acoustic/electric, and a Fender FM-62 mando. I sometimes play a Fender fretless jazz bass with EMG pickups, but I haven't made a program for that yet (next on the list of things to do). I also blow the didgeridoo but that doesn't go through the unit. This one box really does it all.
I used to put the unit through a GK 2100SEL, and was satisfied with it. Well, that went up in smoke 2 years ago and I got a Peavey Classic 50/50 all tube head. Had to change everything! But I was blown away by the difference. I hadn't had a tube head before, just the 12ax7s in the 2120. AWESOME! I wish I had gone to tubes long ago. Now (past 6 months) we've gone to ear-monitors and no on-stage volume except drums behind a shield, so goodbye power amp, hello direct box. In-ear sound is great, but doesn't come close to reflecting what's going on in the room, so I have had to re-eq everything again and work with the sound tech real close.
As well documented, the wah is not good. I use a Crybaby and a Bad Horsie 2 (not a crybaby at all, but I love it). I run them through the FX loop and I'm satisfied. I also don't use the tuner. It's not easy to turn on and, more importantly, I get volume changes when I use it and go back to the program. I just keep a Boss TU-12 in my chain; after the 2120 but before my Boss FV-50 vol pedal. The stock noise reduction settings are also garbage, also well documented. They all got changed right away. After that however, it's beautiful. I've not had a lot of amps in the past but I am completely satisfied with what this unit does.

I currently play 3 and sometimes 4 times per week. It's never failed catastrophically. It's only locked up once that I remember, when I was MIDI connected and did something wrong or too fast. Just the issues with volume and tuner and I just avoid them. I keep saying that I should get another 2120 used, or a cheap POD or multi-pedal, but the funds and time aren't there now. Hope I don't eat my words.

They were good. Quick response to emails, like the same afternoon, but not always able to answer a question. The sponsered user group was much more helpful for simple stuff and operating questions. I got the upgrade chip free about 3 years ago. Did it myself, easy. It's never had to see warranty work, or any work.

It is definately the perfect unit for me. With all that I have to do, it does it with me.
I have been playing since '86. Power metal and thrash back then. In a worship/church setting since about '94.
I got this new at guitar center with the control one in early '99. I would certainly buy another one used if this one were to go away. At the time, the only comparable units were the ART SGE which went away, and the G force, too expensive, so this was the logical choice.
I absolutely love the versatility in this unit. There is nothing I've asked the unit to do for sounds that it cannot do. I can learn to play a song, and nail down the sound perfectly. That helps a lot when people recognize certain sounds from certain songs that get radio play and we play them in the church. It sounds like what they know and remember and they can enjoy the music and not be distracted. Ultimately, making spontaneous musical perfect moments in worship is the highest for me personally, and I can do that without worrying or even really thinking about equipment.

The day I plug it in and fired it up, I found it to be pretty easy to get the sound I needed but without a control pedal you kind have to maually turn the knob change sounds.
Editing patches are easy and clear to use but if your not into scrolling through menus or such you will have a frustrating experience. I bought mine used so i actually modified some of the previous owners sounds just to get me started. The factory presents suck big time! after you have your working patches edited and saved you will find the more time you spend tweaking with tube saturations, eq's and effects the more satisfied you will be.
You can go to the digitech website and down load the manual but to be honest, just taking the time going through menus, parameters and such will help more. The good thing about having the manual is that you can almost any possible output chains on your effects, otherwise this may confuse a person. The manual may also be helpful to those who need to program an expression pedal or midi programming. I don't know if my unit has been upgraded I have only had it for a couple of months.

I use a Gibson ES137 with a 500T pick up in the treble position and 535q wah before the 2120, I did briefly use a strat prior to the Gibson but it did not sound as rich, with a strat it was more of a softer tone-good maybe for blues or funk/R&B. I use a Peavey 50/50 tube power amp, I have found that the peavey is a good combo with 2120. the resonance knobs add to the bottom end.I output my amp into a stereo 4x12 cab with celestion 90 speakers, the crunch and bottom end is pretty good. I have used Mesa, Marshall,Fender, and Line 6 amps, the versatility of the 2120 is pretty good and I think this has a very good range of sounds and tones.It has the Marshall, Fender, Line 6 sounds down pat and it can pretty closely replicate a Mesa (but not a rectifier). My favorite sound is the old school punk sound-Sex Pistols, Ramones,GenX Etc.. but I do also enjoy Much of the etheral effected laced guitar sounds found in bands like :(shoegazer styles of the mid 90's) Slowdive, Cockteau twins Etc.. but also enjoy much of the detuned bottom end guitar sounds such as bands like: perfect circle,system of a down, Korn Etc..
Most the effects included are pretty decent: Chorus,Delay,Reverb,phaser,reverse and sampler are really good but the really sucky ones are Tremelo,Leslie, gate and compressor. I usally use a line 6 mod for tremelo and leslie and very carefully use the sucky compressor on the 2120.

I have zero problems with this unit going from rehearsal to gigs and have no issues. At this point and time this is my main amp and do have a vox just in case.

No contact with customer service at this time

I play mostly harder edge style in Bands but also do play in a Worship team at church. So i need super big time versatility switching from clean to dirty to solo sounds, to effects and this preamp is an excellent match. I had the opportunity to buy one of these new a few years ago but waited too long and it became discontinued. I have been playing guitar for 16 years and have had a lot of amps good and bad along with various effects but I really like this unit. My favorite thing about the 2120 is the versatile authentic tube sounds and choices of effects.What I really don't like is the lack of effect upgrade to the Leslie and tremelo portion and that it is discountinued- it would be nice to see an upgrade model from digitech(i hope you digitech R&D dept. are reading this). I came really close to buying a line 6 amp but it just was missing some thing in the distortion/overdrive section. I have a friend who had an upgrade chip in his line6 amp and found my 2120 with the peavey tube power amp sounded better and had an authentic overdrive tone. As for standard guitar amps like Mesa, marshall and fender, this reproduces 90% of those sounds. I think if I had a Mesa Rectifier/tube power amp would my life would be complete, along with an effects upgrade.This really helps me to find the right sound in a quick flash and dial in the exact sound that is in my head. I bought this unit( on ebay of course) based on Harmony Central reviews and every one's input was valuable. Even the guys complaing about the programming and that the sound was bad, made me think that they really like the unit and are just trying to keep this unit a secret. I believe this is undiscovered gem and affordable, perfect for the guitarist who does not want to haul around a huge rack and amps.I was very skeptical about this unit ability to deliver "real tube" tone but I really enjoy it.As long you have a good tube power amp this will satisfy the "tube tone" people. To this very date, still finding very interesting tones and sounds to experiment with.

If you know other DIGITECH products like GSP 2101, VALVE FX, STUDIO QUAD a.s.o. - you know how to use it without learning.

No comments! The quality of the sounds is extremly high.

Reliability is much better than VALVE FX (hanging like hell!)

I asked DIGITECH factory some questins about their offer but when I asked them to explain me the reasons for some stupid mistakes they made in this 2120 and they did not give me the answers.

Taking into consideration that it is the highest model of DIGITECH rack mounted processors it is for sure not perfect one! It has some general mistakes.

First of all the fundamental mistake is inserting the loop for external effects before distortion section!!! What a genius brain did think it out?!!! Can you imagine that you insert some other processor which has a noise gate programed in a swell mode, than the pitch shifter adding a little strings sound, then some phaser adding a space sound and some smooth delay and then after these effects you switch on the distotion section of GSP 2120. All those swell, harmonics and delayed and repeated sounds are distorting the preamp!!! It must be fantastic. It is not acceptable and not logical! In GSP 21 and in GSP 2101 the loop is inserted AFTER the preamp!!! It is so easy to make it again! What for "to improve" something what is working properly?

Another big mistake is mono fx return in fx loop! Who is still using mono processors? Obviously mono loop is better than lack of the loop (like in VALVE FX) but one more jack socket would not ruin DIGITECH factory.

Another mistake - only jack outputs! In GSP 2101 there were two alternative outputs, so why not in this one?

Another mistake - lack of ARPPEGIATOR. Big mistake - it is very usefull effect and it was inclued in the previous version of GSP 2101 and in VALVE FX, so why not in GSP 2120?

Another mistake - the digital section does not include the effect TIME WARP which is included in STUDIO QUAD4. Why not in this one?

So, if DIGITECH made so good - as concerns the quality of sounds - processor, why they made so stupid mistakes? Without these mistakes it would be a prefect processor.

I have lot of DIGITECH products (3 GSP 21, 3 STUDIO QUAD, 2 STUDIO QUAD4, 2 FALVE FX, 1 GSP 2101, 2 SPACE STATIONS). I play modern jazz with some space and industrial sounds generated from GSPs. I hope one day DIGITECH mill make a GSP which will include:

- tube preamp
- stereo loop inserted AFTER the distortion section
- digital section including ARPEGIATORS and TIME WARP
- at least two stereo outputs

OK so this is not easy enogh for a child to program. So what! Have you ever tried working with an Eventide Harmonizer. Professional studio quality sound gear is hard to set up period. That is why professional sound personel can make a career out of it. The most important thing to remember is read the freakin manual and understand what the settings of the desired effect would be before you set it. In other words start subtle and then build from there.

As far as the sound goes I have never heard a rig yet as good as mine. I'm not meaning to sound like an egomaniac but I've had more amps and processors than you can imagine. I've owned Marshall DSL & TSL amps in both Head & Combo form. I've owned a Mesa Mark IV head & currently own a Rectoverb combo. I've owned a Boss GT-3 & GT-6, also a Digitech Legend, GeNetx2, and some older rack mount RP unit. Plus too many solid state combos to mention along with some cheaper tube amps. The key to the sound quality is what its running through. This is basically a computer designed for guitar processing. As with any computer garbage in = garbage out. I run the 2120 stereo to a Mesa Boogie 50/50 stereo power amp, and then stereo into a Mesa Boogie 4x12 Recto Cab (the shorter recto cab) loaded with Celestion Vintage 30s. Everybody who has heard this set up just about goes nuts over the sound quality. There is no noise period just set the gate to your desired setting. The only problem is for various guitars you need to set different patches with various amounts of noise gate, for example single coils need the gate opened up or else the gate will cut all of your signal after the initial pick attack. But this is normal operation for noise gates. From twangy to death metal this preamp/signal processor will cover it.

I've owned mine for a few years now and it is by far the best most reliable equipment I've ever owned. I've also owned several used processors from Digitech stuff thats like 15 years old and it works like new. I'm giving it a 9 just because digital units are tempermental and you cannot abuse the crap out of them. For example if you have the Control One midi controller that Digitech used to sell with this DO NOT DISCONNECT from the 2120 while it is turned on. This will erase all of your settings. I have gigged with this but I primarily play for my own enjoyment at home.

Never had to deal with any support issues. But I would highly recommend to Digitech they start making this unit again because their GeNet series sucks compared to this. This is professional quality and every thing they make now is geared to a much lower end market. I have never used my GeNetx2 through my Rectoverb combo as I've just acquired it but I'm going to give it a try. Still though nothing else I've tried in any modeling amp or floor effects processor even comes close. PLEASE DIGITECH BRING THE 2120 VALVE GUITAR SYSTEM BACK!!!

Overall rating is a 9 because nothing is perfect even though this is as close as you will ever get. Remember I was so impressed with this sound I gave up my Mesa Boogie Mark IV head to go solo with the 2120 VGS as my preamp and I've never regretted that decision. My Mark IV at the time and still today is probably the nicest amp I'd ever owned. But when I hooked this up through it I was blown away.

Out of the box the gate threshold is set too high on nearly every patch, so it cuts off the sound. Even Digitech customer support told me this! Editing patches is not difficult, however there are so many settings that you can spend all day at it. I probably spent over a week getting all my favorite sounds. Get rpedit software. Use it to back up your patches in case you get a system crash, then you fix the unit by doing a system reset, which erases all your patches. Also, any midi sequencer can record all your patches via sysex.

The manual was ok but the system is so deep it can crush you. There are still sections in the manual where I couldn't give you a clue what they are talking about.

Over time, you can get quite fast at improving your patches. Eventually I go for MONTHS not touching the unit. The only real thing to be aware of is that for live playing, it needs to be set up extensively prior to the gig, playing THOSE TUNES, with THAT BAND. Minimally, set up the Solo button and volume pedal on EVERY patch, or you will be running to your amp without the right range of volume available. (EVERY GUITAR AMP NEEDS A SOLO BUTTON ON A FOOTSWITCH LIKE THE 2120!). Also one must understand that, for example, if you want chorus on a patch, or even reverb, you have to add it to the configuration for every single patch you plan to use, or it ain't there. Not like a boss chorus pedal where you just hit the same button every time and get chorus. On the other hand, the digitech chorus has about 2000 possible sounds...

I like to open up rpedit and play with some patches now and then to see what I come up with, as tastes change. For fast tweaks the front panel is fine. However, this unit is not for the faint of heart, it will take time to learn what it does.

I had the unit for 2 years before I realized there were more factory patch numbers (and patches) available from turning the big front panel knob, than there are available from the foot switch! Hidden joys.

So, ease of use, PRIOR to setup, is a 1, since it is completely useless out of the box. AFTER setup, it is a 9.

The sound quality is superb. I like taking it into studios where the engineers suspiciously hook it up to see how noisy it is... THERE IS NONE. (after the gate shuts...). The unit used direct is possibly the best guitar sound you can get, some would argue a speaker miked is better in some situations.

I use it with a gibson es347, which is sort of an odd guitar, I get a lot of great tones with it. I think it works better with "standard" guitars like ibanez, fender and gibson, when I let others use it. I also set up a patch for my Yamaha nylon and Carvin steel string acoustics and it is AWESOME for direct recording, none of my guitar friends can believe my direct acoustic sounds.

THE EFX ARE AWESOME. Too many to list. Especially the stereo effects and choruses are cool.

I go direct, I've never used it with an amp. Usually I am listening to it on studio monitors. Even live I just feed it to the board and listen out the vocal monitors, I don't use an amp any more.

If you can't get the sound you want from this unit, you haven't spent enough time on it, period. It's there, waiting for you.

The effect that sucks the most is the wah wah, it is utterly useless. The amp simulations are pretty useless as well. It took me a long time to get distortions I liked, that's me. REPLACE THE TUBES, THE STOCK ONES ARE JUNK. I liked the unit much more after I did this.

I have heard people play this unit plugged into a power amp, then into 4X12 cabinet, and it blew away any guitar setup I have ever heard. And you can just scroll through awesome setting after awesome setting, once it is set up.

Every one who has ever heard me demo my setup is completely amazed.

I had a few seizeups early on... this was due to my clumsy editing with the pedal, which will let you program things that will then crash the system. A quick reboot would normally solve any problem a person had, but I haven't had any for a long time.

I have a strange bug with mine; after the unit is powered on, in about 2 minutes it will produce no volume. This is caused by the volume pedal somehow, and working the pedal once cures it until you shut it off. Customer support couldn't do anything with this problem, I had to figure it out the fix by trial and error. It still does it though.

There also is nothing in the manual about how to get the looping functions to work, and customer support promised to send me something on it and never did. I don't think it was actually finished. Otherwise they were very helpful.

No problem with needing a backup. I actually have had years of useful service out of this unit and can rely on it to produce awesome tone at will now. Also realize that ONCE YOU FIND YOUR DREAM TONE, IT IS SAVED FOREVER. Think about this. So this is much more reliable and useful than pedal boxes and guitar amps.

I play smooth jazz, fusion, new age, occasionally classic rock. I get what I want from the unit. I have been playing for over 30 years. I have a lot of equipment, I mainly play in my own studio these days. I would replace it immediately. It doesn't have amp modeling, but 95% of all amp models sound like crap to me, I can nearly always tell if a sound is modeled, it sounds flanged and is not accurately responsive to touch. I think modeling will eventually improve and overtake the features of this unit, but it hasn't happened yet. The tc electronic g force is probably a slightly better unit but also costs $1450. I notice Frank Gambale, who helped develop the 2120 and used it on at least one Chick Corea album, uses the g force live, however he told me he thought the 2120 was a really great unit.

I wish the wah wah and the looping worked.

Once you actually take some time to familiarize yourself with everything and mess around with all the controls, everything becomes pretty easy to use without even thinking about it.

guitars: St. Louis Music (SLM) 60th Anniv. guitar, Jackson KE3, Jackson DX7, Jackson Warrior, all with DiMarzio pickups.
This unit has never been noisy. The effects are top quality, except maybe the wah, but I don't remember DigiTech being praised for their wah effects. I use this primarily for clean channel as it's clean presets are excellent, but I use my own settings. I run it stereo through a QSC power amp and a Genz-Benz 212 enclosure and it's crystal clear and beautiful. The distortions aren't the greatest, but if you tweak around with the tube distortion, it can be pretty ballsy. I use distortion sparingly.

The compressor and limiter are both excellent as they do what they're supposed to. It does have an FX loop but I don't ever use it because I personally don't think it's all that great.

Running this unit through a power amp or just the FX return on a head will have the unit sounding exactly like it's supposed to, running through the instrument input on ANYTHING will make it sound like sh**
Other than that, the sound quality is EXCELLENT.

Never had any problems because I've taken very good care of it. When I first got it, used, the sound dropped out but I had the tubes replaced and it hasn't screwed up on me since.

never had to deal with them

Overall I think this unit is very versatile with whatever you want.

This thing can really make you crazy,innumerable and useless parameters,useless because the sound really sucks even if you are a sound techician and you know how to use them all.The manual is totally useless,it misses all important things and makes you know just bullshit or things that you already know.I've got 2.10 version,i hope they will never upgrade such a piece of shit.

I've got 6 guitars,all of them are professional instruments.2120 kills them all.The preamp section is awful,almost all effects' quality is very bad,lots of senseless parameters and effects.In particular wahs,whammy are totally unusable.

The first 2120 i owned lasted 1 night,i had to replace it with another one,thanks to warranty.The control one original pedalboard lasted two months:all the most important and utilized parts are in cheap plastic.

I will never deal with Digitech any more

The biggest mistake i did as guitarist.

So much easier to use then then the digitech 2101. Pretty easy. If you take 45 mins to read the instructions and 45 mins to dink around with controls, youll be set for the rest of your life with this thing! Digitech made it alot easier to EQ and change the gain on the fly incase you want to tweak some tone.

Lot better then any other multi effects proccesor i've used. I play with a gibson paul and SG thru a rack into a Sovtek mig-100 tube and a marshall 4X12. I used the BOSS GT-3 for over a year and i liked it and got used to it. As soon as i got the 2120, i noticed the Boss effects 'colored' the tone unlike the digitech. The digitech digital effects is very close to stomp pedals... which i love! I would get stomp pedals but i hate carrying a huge board and have multiple pedals for different effects. As far as the distortion...I LOVE IT! it took me a month to tweek with it but FINALLY i found the perfect distortion i was looking for. The Digitech has two Tubes which allows you to run real tube distortion which sounds amazing! i almost cryed when i dialed it in. Perfect crunch, sustain...man...it also has solidsate distortion if your into that sort of thing.

If you need a great rack multi-effects processor, this is your guy. If you can find one of course.I play emo/indie/experemtal and it suit me well. It has everything you need to play the nessecities an also some experemental stuff. Let me tell you tho...the pre-sets BLOW! they suck hard. You will have to find all the right tone yourself. Once you find tones you like, you will be in love. Dual S-disc proccesing allows fast switches between banks which is key as well. One thing i wish it had tho was a input in the back...but thats not a huge deal. Good luck to all those that can find one!

This kind of toys are not easy to use. You have a lot of places to visit and you have to take lots of important decisions. Naming a patch "Creamy lead" is a whole different philosofy than naming it "Solo - 3rd tune". You really have to put yourself into learning to use this thing. But I think that once you spend a couple of days with the manual, everything comes pretty easy.

I play modern jazz. Basically clean, clean sounds; I like to focus on the music on not get hooked with the classic "nerd with tons of equipment that has a great sound but plays shit". Both things are important, but sound is just a way to say something. The important thing, at least to me, is what you are saying.
Gibson 335 or Gibson SG -> (Several effects) -> 2120 -> Fender Twin Reverb (reissue (no effect loop)).
The 2120 has a lot of fantastic sounds, and none of them are listenable in the factory patches. Specially if your not into heavy stuff. You must really take your time exploring, playing with EQ and thinking "how can I tell this thing the sound I have in my head...?".
Digital effects are incredible; try them in stereo. The preamp is just good, but nothing other-worldly. If you really want to use the preamp, dont even think about not using your effect loop.

Its good for recording direct. But when I record direct is because I'm trying to find a different sound that the one I get with my amp. If you want to hear an amp, look for an amp. All emulations are just that: emulations.

Changing the stock tubes is an excellent idea.

The knobs are not at all well made. They feel loose right out from the box. Like all this kind of equipment, extra care is needed. Also, its basically a computer, and not an old Ford that you can open the hood and fix everything with your hands. I always keep my old pedals around.

Great, great, great thing for clean sounds. Used in stereo its incredible. Once you understand the lousy and incomplete manual, you can make patches without using your mind.

I truly dont recommend getting used to your computer for programming; the idea is being able to be in a jam and change things on the fly. And the RPEdit does not have all the parameters you can find when you edit patches directly.

After a few months of daily "sound searching", you can get a ridiculous amount of great sounds from it; but dont get lost in there, the real things are out theeeeere.

Getting a good sound from the 2120 is not a 5 minute affair! Don't get me wrong it has some totally awesome sounds in there you just have to play around a bit to find them, which can be difficult has you cant really get the volume at home to do it and when rehearsing no one like you messing around. But I have built up some great sounding pre amp modules that I use as a basis all my sounds.

The foot controller is great you can put any parameter on to a footswitch or the continuous controller. One of my favourites is to set the tube gain onto the controller and also the level but set it so that the volume decreases as the gain rises, you can move from a clean sound to full on overdrive just by rocking the footswitch!

You can even set parameters to change depending on how hard you hit the guitar I have done this with the gain and volume again so that when I play gently I get a great clean sound, but as I play harder the 2120 cranks up the gain into overdrive awesome!!! I even have it rolling the chorus effect off as the overdrive comes in. All from the level of my playing.!

Anyone who tells you these units don't sound great is talking rubbish! You can get almost any sound you want out of the preamp. I switch all the effects, gate and compressors out so that I am just left with the tube preamp and eq module then I spend time getting a great flat tone from the pre amp. I have been using a Marshall DSL for a few years and can easily get just as good sounds from my 2120. In fact I just run the output of the 2120 straight into the effects return of the Marshall so I can use its valve power amp!

The digital effects are awesome... takes a bit of understanding to figure out which ones you can use together full s disc half s disc quarter etc... but once you have figured that out thee effects available are awesome... the chorus flange and phase are brilliant again you need an understanding of how to set these effects up as you would with anyone! in fact every effect is great even the harmoniser! with a bit of fiddling you can get a 12 string sound using the pitch shifter! cant recommended this unit highly enough!

Been using and heavily gigging with Digitech gear since 1990 never had a problem with it even when drop or trodden on!

I recently upgraded my old GSP 21 Pro to legend spec with a chip from the Digitech factor, I emailed them asking if it was still available , they promptly replied said yes they had one chip left. I gave them my address and it arrived a few days later complete with fitting instructions and new user manual, and guess what... no charge! it doesn't get any better than that!!!! these guys are great!

I play in both a function band and an original material band. With the original material, the digitech stays at home, its just me my Marshall, rickenbacker and lead... but for functions the Digitech is invaluable I have different sounds and setups for every song sometimes 3 or 4 sounds per song! Couldn't be without it!

Initial use is bonehead simple -- you plug it into your amp or power amp of choice, spin the wheel to pick a sound, and rock. Unfortunately, the stock patches ALL SUCK. Horribly. Too much noise gate, too overboard on the effects. If the 120+ factory presets, I would say that about ten of them are usable in a live situation. Learning to edit patches, if you've never used one of this family of Digitech units, is a little slow at first, but once you get the hang of it (a few days in my case) you can fly. The manual is pretty good.

I use this with a Peavey Classic 120 (not the 120/120), into a Marshall 2x12. My main guitar is a 1999 Les Paul Custom loaded with Seymour Duncans (Custom 5 bridge, Pearly Gates neck). This unit really does sound great. The distortions get a bad rap from some people, but I've found the tube distortions in particular to be quite good. Put it this way -- before this rig, my last two amps were a Mesa Dual Rectifier and a Mesa Mark IV, and I don't particularly miss either of them. It did take a while to get them sounding good, but the good sounds are there. As far as the effects go, the delays and reverbs are excellent, especially for the price of the unit. The choruses, flangers, and phasers are also very good. The Leslie simulator doesn't sound anything like a real rotary speaker, but it's a nice subtle effect as well. The wah is laughably bad, and the pitch shifter and harmony patches are bad as well. All in all, this unit does a lot of things well, and it gives you incredible control over every little detail.

I can and do gig without a backup. The knobs aren't very confidence inspiring, but the unit itself has been bulletproof.

I downloaded a manual from their website. I've never had to contact them -- I live 5 miles from their factory, though. Cool, huh?

I love this thing. It gives me the versatility I need, in a compact, easy to use package. I can and do play virtually any style of music on my current rig, and I don't have to tote a fleet of amps or a pedalboard the size of an aircraft carrier to do so.

It's very easy to manage this unit. Just read the manual.

I have a Ibanez RG with V1 S1 V2 pickups, Marshall MG100HDFX Head, 2 Straight 1960 Marshall Cabinets. This thing is really quiet, the noise gates are great if you learn how to teak it. Clean Sounds are amazing. The dirty sounds are good but you need some hours, days or weeks to get a desired one. I play Satriani, Dream Theater, Metal. Dream Theater Sound was very difficult to get, maybe you can get that sound if you buy a triaxis, boogie and some Lexicon PCM 80 with a price of $ 6000 or more. I think this unit is great for Metal, Hard Rock, Jazz. The wah is really bad, buy a Cry Baby 535 Q. The Whammy is good. The best thing of this unit is the configurations of effects you can use. You can have a tube dist paralel with a Solid Sate Dist, or maybe you can bypass both and put the Fx loop with your favorite amp or preamp, then in the digital section you can combine up to 8 digital effects (you can get really weird cool new sounds). The foot controller is really great yo can control-activate/deactivate every effect parameter. You can also add and buy 2 more expression pedals to obtain more control. (example: you can put a volume control pedal, a whammy pedal and change delay time with another pedal ). You can also program a footswitch with solo boost (from now on your solos would always be heared).
Remember you can have a really good State of the art equipment or some pedals and Multi effecs processors but the most important is how you play guitar. Joe Satriani get his distorted sounds from a Boss Distortion Pedal. http://www.guitargeek.com

I haven't had any problem with the unit.
I have a furman PL PLUS to protect it against hi voltages and noise.

Never need in any of my digitech products.

I would definitely buy it again. This units work greater if you combine it with other stuff like other preamps, BBE Maximizers.

This is the DigiTech 2120 rackmount effects processor. If you don't know it, it's a very versatile little beast. It's a 2-space rackmount with a tube and solid-state preamp and a ridiculously versatile digital effects section. Seriously, check out the manual in the Discontinued Products section of www.digitech.com to see all of its capabilities.

Getting a good sound out of the 2120 is not difficult, but requires some serious time investment. In particular, you'll have to experiment with different preamp/EQ/effects combinations to arrive at exactly the tone you want. If you aren't scared to experiment and technology doesn't befuddle you, then this is one of the better one-stop guitar effects machines around. You can replace every stompbox you own with this, unless you're a ridiculous tone freak, in which case the 2120 will very nicely complement your other effects.

Editing patches is very easy. The whole display is broken down into a flowchart showing the path from input to output, so you know exactly which effect is feeding into what. Editing patches is done by turning various knobs on the front panel which can be a pain sometimes, because one or two of my knobs is a little flaky and sometimes jumps around when changing parameter values. Overall, though, if you know which values change your sound in what way, you should have absolutely no problem getting however much nuance you want in your tone.

The manual is so-so in quality. It explains how to do the basics and gives some valuable diagrams as to how much of an S-DISC each effect takes up. (If you don't understand that, download the manual - it explains the concept well.) It even explains what each parameter in each effect does. Then it patronizes you by telling you when you'd want to use each effect. If I didn't know what a chorus does to my sound and when I should use it, I don't deserve to use this piece of equipment. Other than that minor gripe, the manual gives you a good overall look at the 2120 and provides a useful springboard for your own experimentation, which will be absolutely necessary to make the 2120 achieve its full potential. One thing the manual really drops the ball on is explaining the Assign section of the 2120. This lets you assign different parameters to foot controls on the Control One foot controller. So, for example, you could assign one of the five parameter switches on the Control One to boost the volume and turn on a slapback delay for a juiced-up solo sound. Then, when you press that button again, they would both turn off. This is much faster than switching patches, which incurs a momentary but noticable delay. The manual doesn't even really get into this ridiculously useful utility of the 2120, which I think is a shame. It took me a fair amount of poking around before I discovered that.

Oh yeah, firmware is 2.10. I'm not sure if it's the most recent version, but it does what I need it to.

I play an Ibanez S470 and an Epiphone Les Paul, both stock. (Yeah, I know they're not great, but it's the most this college student can afford for guitars, and they do the job for me.) This unit isn't particularly noisy, especially if you use the noise gate (an average piece of equipment at best).

The digital effects are, by and large, very good. The unit as a whole tends to have a bit too much treble, but that can be balanced out one way or another. The big thing about this unit is: YOU MUST EXPERIMENT. Just taking the stock presets for effects, plugging them in, and expecting to sound like Satch or Vai will result in a very dissatisfied customer. You need to play around with ALL the parameters to make this sound good. I've had my 2120 for over a year, and I'm still discovering new things it can do. If you have the patience, the time, and even a minor amount of technical ability, you can do ANYTHING with this. I mean, it's not a G-Force, but for a third of the price, it comes pretty close. The 2120 allows you to choose the flow of your effects path, so you have control over which effect feeds in to what. So, you can have Chorus -> Delay -> Reverb or Reverb -> Chorus -> Delay if you wanted. The possiblities are limitless.

I've been running it into a Marshall 1x12 combo amp, but that'll change once I can buy a cab, because I just bought a TriAxis and a Simul 2:90. This brings me to my next point - the preamp. Honestly, the tube preamp probably could've satisfied me for another few years. It's a pretty damn good distortion section. You can get some singing highs and crunchy lows with the same settings if you use the tube distortion, and if you back off the gain and/or change distortion modes, you can get a decent bluesy sound too. I never tried changing to better tubes in it, but it probably would've gotten even better. It's not a TriAxis by a long shot, but for an all-in-one package, it's probably the best for your money. The solid-state distortion is very hissy, with a lot of high end noise. If that's the kind of hard/metal sound you're going for, then the 2120 can deliver. Otherwise, stick with the tube section.

Most of the digital effects have enough versatility for anything you could want to do. The 2120 has something in the neighborhood of 35 effects, so it can do pretty much anything. It's got your standard chorus, delay, flanger, modulation, reverb, and even some more far-out stuff like Reverse, Leslie and Sampler. Overall, the 2120 has a somewhat digital sound, so that's something to be very careful of when crafting patches. You can compensate for it pretty well, but it definitely will color your tone. One of the bigger selling points of this thing is that it's a mono in/stereo out system, so you could conceivably connect it to two amps on opposite ends of the stage and get stereo effects. Almost every effect has a stereo version of it (i.e. Reverb, Dual Reverb, Stereo Reverb) which is cool if you have the resources for stereo separation, especially for something like PingPong Delay. Some of the preamp section effects are weak, most notably the wah. It's a piece of crap, even an entry-level Crybaby is ten times better than the built-in wah. In any event, the expression pedal on the Control One foot controller is much better suited for realtime expression and MIDI continuous control signals, which will be explained later. The noise gate can be very heavyhanded, too. I'd probably buy a better noise gate as my next equipment purchase, since this one's sweet spot is real hard to find. It does okay, though, especially if you turn it off for solos and turn it on for silence in between riffs.

One of the neat things of the 2120's preamp section is that is already has an 8-band EQ for each of the distortions (tube and solid-state), so you don't have to take up precious S-DISC space with an EQ effect. If this sounds confusing or overkill, it's only a testament to how much function

I've had this 2120 for about a year and a half now, and it's pretty reliable. Some of the knobs are a little flaky and they're all pretty flimsy, so I'd be real careful about letting something hit the front panel of the 2120. The knobs are plastic, and I could see them shattering or snapping off pretty easily if you're not careful.

I use it without a backup because I don't have enough money for a backup, but it'd probably be good to have. The 2120 occasionally reboots, but only when I'm playing with patches, and it's never done that to me in performance. It also went a little weird on me a few weeks ago when I was integrating it into the TriAxis/Simul rack, and I had to reset the memory. I lost all my patches, but that's the first time that's happened and it hasn't happened since, so it's pretty reliable.

Never dealt with them, so I can't say.

I'm a hard rock/ska player, so the 2120 has the ability to do whatever I need it to. All I need to do is spend some time playing with patches before rehearsal, and I can have any sound I need. I've been playing for 8 years, and this thing was my first real piece of rack equipment (I'd owned stompboxes before that). I don't see that changing for a long time. I'd absolutely get another one if it was stolen, because it's a discontinued product and 2120s are real cheap on eBay. ;) I love the MIDI capability of it, you can control anything you need to with the 2120 in a mid-sized rig. The only thing that really bothers me is that the input gain on the front panel is a pot, not a controllable parameter, so I have to go back to my rack and play with the volume pot a bit if I change guitars. That's a pain in the ass, and they would've been so much smarter to make that an electronic control. Otherwise, I could just have different sets of patches for each guitar and let the software balance between them. The tube distortion section really makes this a great deal, but at some point you're going to want more. That's why I got the TriAxis. The TriAxis/2120 combination is unbeatable for my price range and demands. The only thing I really wish the 2120 had was an input on the back of the unit. The only input is in the front, and so every time I set my rack up, I have to run a 3 foot cable from the back of the rack to the front input on the 2120. A minor gripe, but for aesthetic and practical sakes, a rear input would be a great idea.

This thing will make you sound great, if you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn its nuances and advanced features. It's like having all the different stompboxes you see at Guitar Center and Sam Ash in one machine, and infinitely more controllable than if you chained five boxes together. Because of that functionality, you get what you pay for. You aren't going to get the best chorus, the best distortion, and the best reverb in one package. But, for a moderately skilled hobby guitar player, the 2120 is a great piece of equipment at a great price.

when i bought this unit i had never had a processer. the 2120 was surprisingly easy to use and has knobs on the front for quick global eqing of all patches for room changes. the manual was pretty easy to understand. it took a while for me to get my tone cause i didn't like the distortions at first but after some time eqing i got it right. very flexable is can get a lot of different tones. patches are easy to edit even for newbees. you can get lost a little at first because everything!! is adjustable from the 15 band distortion eq to learning to attach effects to the volume pedal and move effects on the fly. i bought mine in march 98 version 2.01. i later upgraded to version 2.10.

awesome!!!!my set up is an ibanez 2027v violin. killer axe!! 7 string with piezo pickup, tone zone 7 (bridge), air norton 7 (neck). vgs2120,aphex parmertic eq, bbe sonic maximizer,pevey classic 120/120,and a randall 4-12 with jags. i play progressive math/death metal. meshugga,opeth,tool. the cleans are pretty good out of the box but the distortion needed help. i switched to goove tubes found a distortion patch that was close and started tweeking. boy did i find it! killer ripping clear tone. that dream theater tone with no boogie. thats also cause i use some toys to help out. (parametric eq,bbe,and a good sterio poweramp)....and get a bad horse if you want wah. the effects are good and very flexable. the pitch bending (whammy)is a little slow(if you use that sort of thing)but the harmonies are tight. synths are good, verb is bad ass,all fully programable. endless possibilites all seamless!!! please use all tube power amp!! the only solid state amp that can do it is the ampeg vh 140-c it sounds good but plug it into the back. using the ampeg preamp will sound pretty bad

yes!!!!! i've been giging for years and once the fuse blew. i just popped a new one in and it was fine. one time it took a head first dive off my amp at a show and it did stop working.(my life passed before my eyes) nothing broke later i found out that the input jack had bent so it wasn't making contact. i repaired it and its still kicking. i'm surprised it works.. that was an ugly fall

good! nothing to complain about...i asked if they had an upgrade and they sent me it for free... 1 easy to install microchip

this thing is sick! i can go from clean to distortion with a the volume pedal, all effects fading out while distortion is slowly being applyed. it a live studio trick. everthing is seamless (effects overlap the switch) so theres no pause. i've had it for years and still don't use it's true potental. if it got ripped off i would be pissed! lol.. it's damn fun to play. you could get lost in one tone and write a whole song! its so flexable you can do alot with it. one thing i hate is only one of the dual procressors can be assigned to the tubes at a time. so to have the killer tone you need the tubes for distortion, so when you morph back to clean your not using the tubes. which isn't so bad cause you can switch to your main clean with tubes. morphing is killer sounding cause of the crossfade between the processors. if it had 2 12ax7s for each procressor it would be a better product. its not quite the best but unbeatable for the price. as i said before this was my first and only processor. i've always been analog.i think digital will only work with tubes tubes tubes. this is perfect for me. i can't afford john petrucci's rig!!

Ive dealt with a TON of multi effects processors in my day, old and new. This isn't hard to edit, or get started. The factory presets are next to worthless however, so reading the manual has its benefits. The knobs are convenient, but mine seemd to malfunction slightly, make it very frustrating to add values to certain parameters.

At the time, i used a Jackson RR1 with an EMG. Got sick of looking like a metal freak and got a decent Ibanez, and added an EMG-81. I ran that into the 2120, into a Mesa Boogie 2:90, into either a Marshall JCM 900, or my Mesa Boogie Recto Cab, both have vintage 30's. To get a decent sound, you REALLY have to tweak. I was never a fan of Digitech multi processors, the distortions were always lousy (the Grundge? gimme a break). The so called Tube distortion waws a step up, but with 2 tubes....i had a feeling they were installed for the looks, as it still wasnt a straight up analog distortion. The effects were usable....kept best using a clean sound. The wah was ridiculous. I dont know if the fellas at Digitech have heard a wah, or steped on one, but thats not it. The Whammy was the most disappointing. I owned the Digitech Whammy II years back and loved it. I dont think the proccessor speed can really handle its work load, as there was a noticable signal delay when using this effect. The pedalboard i got with it, the control one, had its plus' and minus'. I like how its set up, but the CC pedal was lousy. Sometimes it didnt pick up every movement....i was told it uses light sensory....Another thing i HATED...I upgraded to the Mesa Boogie tri axis, and the pedal board, which retails for about $250 alone, is NOT a midi controller, only to be used with the digitech, which made it worthless to use with the tri axis.

Back to the effects/distortions/sound quality. For the money they want, its really not worth it. I dont rate this as a high end proffesional multi effects, and after this, ive learned to go back to stomp boxes. I have been buyin em up, running them into a GCX switcher, controlling with a Ground Control, and couldnt be happier. I like this unit a LOT more than the Line 6 products however. I like this unit a LOT more than the Line 6 products however. I give this a low score because i still do not see mutli effects processors as the way to go, and this one isnt changing my mind.

The knobs were shakey, the controller's switches would sometimes not work, snap off, and like I mentioned, the CC needs some work. It never shut down on me, but i only gigged it a few times before giving it the boot.

Never dealt with them, ive heard good things about them though. I imagine they have their work cut out for them, ive heard nothing but bad things about thier lousy products.

I like to play a bit of everything, i play in a couple metal/hardcore bands. It did all it could for me, i wasnt all together happy with it. If it were lost or stolen, id find the person and demand full payment, and buy something worthwhile. I did love how easy it was to use....but i get the same thing out of my new set up, with better tone and effects. Like i said, i have compared it to all the Line 6 products....the only thing i like about them is their delay modulator....they need some work on thier amp modeling, computers dont sound like a tube amp. Digitech has them beat. I wish it had 6 distortion tubes, and some better tone. It did help me write some interesting stuff, with all the wierd effects and stuff, kept those ideas for my new set up, and they are doing a lot better these days.

In my experience, if you have that much money to spend on the 2120....look into the ground control system on Ebay, along with a Boss Delay, their Phase Shifter is a fun one, a Crybaby Wah, and any other effects you wish to add...

1. i think its easy to use and get unbelivable sounds
editing patches are easy
the manual gets to the point
this unit has not been upgraded
from what i've read, its not worth it to me
like i said, the unit was very logocal for me
people complained its difficult to use
i don't think so. you have a bunch of effects chained together
you can pick 1 of 24 effect configurations
i think the tuff part is just tweaking, with all the parameters.
but, hey thats wuts fun !

i've had many effect unit, i mean many many to infinity and beyond !
then i got this unit, man o man wut a difference.
one of the main things that impresses me about this unit is how quiet it is. The tube overdrives you get are very very impressive.
i would say, how quiet and the tube OD are the key seller on this unit, besides all the paramaters you can adjust on all effects.
The EQ's for the solid state channel and the EQ for the Tube OD channel is also impressive, and provide any tone desired.
i use a fender hot rod 4-10 with the unit
i'm currently trying to achieve the david gilmore tone
of coarse, i've been trying this for years

no problems
yes, i wood gig with the unit

they seem to be pretty good
i called on a upgrade kit, $20
they got right back with me

i like the unit very much
it sounds very good and provides many tones
the stock sounds that come with it are not that great
i think they're meant as a starting point for tweaking
so, if your looking for a very quiet, great tube tone unit with many effect options, then this is a great choice !!!!

takes a while to figure out, but you begin to find your way around.

very versatile. ive been trying to nail a good pantera tone forever. the clean and the crunch. it took a while, but i got it dead on. i use a washburn dime 3 and a 60's strat with fralin blues specials. works great for metal or blues. i run the 2120 through a furman pq-4 parametric eq, then an aphex 104 aural exciter, to a rocktron guitar silencer. i didnt like the way the built in noise gate clipped alot of the harmonics and i couldnt do any fine adjustments. problem solved with the rocktron. with a little tweaking you can get virtually any sound. but i wouldnt have the low end or screaming harmonics without the aural exciter. 10 times better than when i used the 2120 alone. i also changed the tubes to jan phillips. made a big difference in warmth from the groove tubes. perfect setup, wouldnt change shit.

it crashed once while editing a patch and i had to do a system restore and reprogram the patches. write down the parameters just in case!! now its working fine again.

i play metal and a little blues. with the way the whole rack is set up now i wouldnt change a thing. its made shitty peavey/crate amps sound badass! its worked excellent for blues through a '73 fender champ, and excellent for metal pantera tones. ive been using a crap peavey half stack and im amazed with the sound, but just bought a marshall dsl 50. with a good set of pickups and the eq, exciter, and noise gate i can get any sound out there, and it always sounds great. i would recommend this setup to anybody looking to add great versatility to the 2120. ive been playing off and on for about 8 years and really seriously for the past year and a half. i dont think ill be changing anything with my preamp for a long time. before the additions to the 2120 i would give it a 5. but now a definate 9.

It passed my "Plug and Play" test with flying colors. however, it takes a long time to find a good sound. i don't mind that at all, as that's the trade-off for incredible versatility.

first i must make something VERY clear. DO NOT USE THIS UNIT AS A PREAMP INTO AN AMP. you must use a dedicated poweramp or else shit will result.

i am using it with a TubeWorks ProValve stereo tube poweramp (with 4 6L6's) and a 4x12 cab. at first it sounded overly clean, overly eq'd, and not very dynamic. after fiddling, this preamp turns into a gain-spitting monster with the most versatile EQ i have ever seen in a preamp. of course, i am talking about the tube distortion. the solid state section i have found to be worthless. clean, the preamp can be very warm and tubey, or light and twangy. i have found a perfect dark jazz tone, and on a RG 7620 no less!

the effects are so numerous and feature-laden that i don't think i could find a use for them all. the reverb is particularly good, especially for a subtle stereo ambient reverb. also good is the delay and chorus, which range from subtle thickening to Edge-style washes of atmosphere.

i can hear the "digital" sound, and boy do i love it. even under heavy distortion, the notes retain crispness. my power amp seems to make everything a little bouncy too.

It has gone out on me a couple times when i was practicing, but never in public. i think the tubes may be going. otherwise, the 2120, combined with the power amp, are as hot as a blast furnace. i really think i am going to need a fan soon.

i e-mailed digitech, after they discontinued the 2120, and told them i needed the new firmware revision. the sent it out to me free of charge, within 3 days.

I play mostly very dark thrash and death metal like Nevermore, Opeth, and Soilwork. the 2120 is actually classic death metal gear, mostly because of the stunning precision it has, as well as the great effects. the unit is great for me, as it is very versatile, from metal to jazz to classic rock.

I am VERY happy with it, but i am still keeping my ears open for perhaps a tube preamp. if i get the money, i will audition the mesa triaxis or the VHT valvulator GP3. but i am so content, the thought of spending that much for only a marginal improvement is distasteful.

to sum up: "A 2120? for 300? sold!"

Hello all, I've owned the Digitech 2120 for over a year now and figured it was time to submit my two cents.

Ease of use... hmmm, well let's just say there is a steep learning curve with this unit. You might find yourself quite frustrated for a while until you get a handle of all the options. I would say I have experienced "option-overload" on many occasions (sometimes you just want to plug and play.) Of course, once you grasp all the options, it's pretty mubh a no-brainer. But, I'm not kidding. Be prepared to spend time on this thing (it's not the interface, it's just the tons of options it offers.)

If you don't like to program patches, this may not be for you.

By the way, the manual offers very little insight. I've read it several times and ultimately had to learn on my own.

The more I use the 2120, the more I appreciate the sound. It is basically split into two sections, the preamp and the effects. I love the effects. Great reverb (use it in stereo!), delay, etc. You will find lot's of pleasure here. There is no shortage of quality. The only ones I have been really disappointed in are the auto wah and envelope filter. But overall, Digitech gives you tremendous control over the quality effects. I also like being able to program the control-one foot pedal, turning effects on and off at will.

The preamp side is what shapes your tone and is what I consider the hard part. Let me begin with some background information (forgive me if I sound preachy.)

First, if you are recording direct with the 2120, it sounds fantastic. You can easily manipulate the tone and it will sound great. I would venture a bet that digitech created the unit in a studio, making it optimal for direct recording. Run it stereo, you'll be happy. (note - the 2120 offers an amp simulater which is supposed to shape the overall sound for direct recording. To my ears, it's nothing more than a low-pass filter of some kind. But it does help.)

Now, playing through your amp is an entire different story. Get to know your amp first. I recommend running your guitar directly into your amp and set the tone (duh!). I mention this because before you spend hours programming the 2120 (and you will), you have to be confident in your amp settings. Ultimately, your amp is going change the tone of your signal. Therefore, spend days getting to know the nuances of your amp and guitar! Then, once you are totally satisfied with your amp settings, you can add your 2120 in the chain and begin the process of finding your tone again! You will notice a change is sound immediately. Frankly, getting back to the natural sound of your guitar/amp is not easy, even if you bypass the 2120. Because it is a preamp, it changes the tone of your guitar and you must go through the process of building your sound.

The overdrive and distortion on the 2120 give you a wide spectrum of tone and sound quite good. However, they go hand and hand with the EQ. That means, you will be spending a lot of time adjusting the EQ settings to get that tone you like. (Some have recommended changing the tubes in the 2120 for better tone, something I am considering doing.) It has take me a while to get comfortable with the distortion/eq options but I am finally enjoying the fruits of my labor. You might find the overdrive/distortion a little dis-tasteful at first, but keep in mind that you must program the EQ. I have come to really enjoy the sound of the preamp.

Following the distortion/EQ settings, the 2120 has a solid noise gate that comes quite handy for controling noise and buzz. You'll like this.

Remember, the 2120 is basically a digital unit. The sound can have that plinky digital quality to it if you're not carefull. But you can work through it with eq settings, etc.

Final thought - One reason I bought the 2120 was so I could change patches without a drop-out in sound. This a little deceiving on digitech's end. Basically, the way it works is that the effects from the first patch will hold-over (overlap) with the next patch. For some patch changes it works great. Others, not so great. There is still a little delay time in the change... but maybe I'm being unreasonable.

I bought the 2120 used and I did have problems with reliability. What I discovered was that the foot-controller was broken (thanks dude!), which was causing the system to crash! It was ugly for a while. I had to buy a new foot-controler and it has been very reliable ever since. I also replaced the battery inside the 2120 (bought from radio shack) while it it was down.

There is a person on the internet who offers a great free software download for backing up your patches onto your computer. This person is a God-send. He deserves to be given lots and lots of money. I highly recommend this download. (note - when backing up your patches to a computer, unplug all of your cords from 2120 except your midi cables.)

I've called digitech like three times. They were very helpful. No issues here. But keep in mind they no longer make the 2120 (as far as I know)... therefore, they may not offer much support for it in the future.

Overall, I love the unit. It lives up to its billing. The price is reasonable and you have a ton of effects, features, and options. Just keep in mind you will be spending a lot of time programming with this one. You have to work for your sound. It will take time. Are you on the fence? Go ahead and buy it. You'll like it, with time.

This one is hard to master. I haven't been playing for long but I do have some sound engineering knowledge and I kinda know what I'm doing. The rpedit is a great help but you must consider the fact that once you program an effect it won't sound the same if you run it directly into the soundcard (way too bright) or into another amp that isn't yours (it totally changes your sound. The manual is great explaining what effects do and how they work, but they don't seem to give you precise examples of what each one of them would do ( not that I needed them to tell me). definitively not a begginer's choice

I use an ibanez rg 7620 thru the 2120 straight to a peavey studio pro 112 combo amp. I've managed to get my rig going and I've kinda reached the sound I was looking for , but now I'm playing on a cover band and the band guys say I'm too much of a metal head. no can do I've been listening to metal all my life and that's the way it's going to sound. we play everything from dream theater to venezuelan rock bands covers. it sounds awesome on the clean tones and the time based effects are unbelievable, but just don't get me started about the distortions. I had been thinking of getting new tubes and see what that would do for my sound, but it's not going to happen anymore, I'm going for the tech21 psa-1, a bbe sonic maximizer and a boss ns-2 noise suppresor ( the noise gate on this unit sucks big time, either it cuts your notes or the feedback will kill you and believe me I've tried every setting you could possibly imagine, specially if you turn on the wah). For a cover band is great, not much to tweak if you really know the sound you're looking for.

I've had it for six months, the screen didn't light up at first, so I opened it and I connected since the plug was loose (if this ever happens to you don't panic, just open the unit find the cable and find the four pinned connector that will be it). So far I've had no problems other than with the tubes I would be replacing if I wasn't going for the psa-1. I live in caracas venezuela and it's not easy to find the tubes or the psa, so I guess ebay it is again!!!

Never dealt with them, and for what I've heard not easy to do it either, specially when you're in a third world country that sucks big time.

like I've said we play everything and our list keeps growing, we play many covers from bands from Venezuela, but we also play stuff like ozzy, papa roach, system of a down, faith no more, alice in chains and most of the time I've gotte the sound I wanted, but you need to work very hard to figure that one out

This is a RE-Review. I have had the unit for over a year now, and have just bought a VHT 50ST amplifier. I was expecting to get rid of the 2120 thinking that the VHT would blow it away. It didn't. What it did do was make the 2120 sound better than I could have emagined. On to the review:

If you don't know effects and how they work, this unit can be overwhealming. I am an EE and use the computer with the RPEdit program. This makes it easy enough that anyone familiar with the various settings of various effects can easily achieve their sound. The unit can be changed real time, so you can hear the tone change as you click on your computer to change settings until you get it JUST RIGHT.

Out of the box the patches are pretty lame. I found about 4 or 5 out of over 100 that I wanted to keep and modify. I have downloaded several others that I have tweaked and now use. I have a total of around 15 that I actually use in any given night.

The manual is adequate if only barely. The front panel controlls are passible, but I never use them since I have the RPEdit to edit the patches with.

This unit has revision 2.1 firmware which was something I was looking for on e-bay when I bought it.

The control1 foot controller is fine. The unit has the ability to send a MIDI patch change to other devices if you want to syncronize your patch changes with a single controller. This is very useful if you have many effects.

The LCD on both the foot controller and the unit are easily viewable in direct sunlight which is a plus if you are giging outside :)

The bottom line is it isn't a beginners toy.... but at the price these go for, I doubt many beginners will own them. It is a professional product.

This is the reason for the re-review. I have just purchased a VHT 50ST head and have both a 2x12 and 4x12 bottom to play with. I had honestly thought I would get rid of this unit when my VHT came in. VHT is after all a renouned boutique amplifier. Why would anyone use effects with it?

My setup:
Fender American Strat(s). 1 with Lindy Fralin pickups, the other with Kinman pickups. VHT 50ST amplifier. Sennheiser 421d microphone. PA with 2 way crossover into Cerwin Vega folded horn subs and Klipsch FOH speakers through a QSC 2400 stereo amplifier and a QSC 3000 bridge mono for the sub amp.

If you know gear, then you will quickly realize that mine is all top notch. I am serious about tone.

The unit is dead quiet. This was not the case with the VHT drive channel. The VHT was quite quiet compared to many other high gain amps, but not the dead silence of the 2120. The noise gate is set too high out of the box on all the patches. Adjust it when you get it.

The WAH sucks. Don't use it. (My lead player has a Dunlop 535Q which is very nice). Everything else is above average to outstanding. It doesn't have the reverb of a Lexicon PCM91, but then it doesn't cost $3000.00 either. What it does have is every effect you will ever need in any combination you choose to use them in.

I won't say that the 2120 blows away high gain amplifiers, but it can do what they do so well that the difference being good or bad would be up to the listners taste.

I have been playing through a Fender HRD for the last 3 years. The 2120 sounded great with only that little amp; however, there was an entier world of tone I was missing.

The VHT amp has SOOOOOO much tight bottom end that the 2120 has come alive. I played at volume with my PA and rig until my head and fingers hurt. The tone is to die for. The HRD had been eating up the bottom and distorting some of the tone of the 2120. I am inclined to believe that the quality of the tone you get out of the 2120 is limited by the quality of the amp you put it into. I knew that other guitar players had better tone than me, but had assumed it was mostly that I was using an effects processor for leads and rythm crunch. WRONG. I would stand behind the 2120 for tone over ANY amp I have ever heard. It is incredible.

It has been very solid. I have giged it for a year. I have been in the blistering heat, the smoke filled bars, and even a thunder storm. I had to wipe the mud off of the control 1, but that is the only upkeep I have had to do.

Never had to call them on this unit. I have e-mailed them on other products and received good e-mail support.

I play in a cover band. I have done songs from Godsmack, SRV, STP, Nickelback, Grand Funk RR (LOL), and even Air Supply (if you can remember them). I find a multi-effects pedal is an absolute necessity to get all the tones in all the songs I play. I love the solo boost feature in particular. If you play covers and need a multi-effects unit, this one can match any tone you care to get.

I have been playing for around 30 years now. I am not a novice. The other gear I own is listed above. I play side by side with a Carvin Legacy head and 4x12 cab. The 2120 doesn't miss a beat.

If it were lost or stolen, or distroyed by the next thunderstorm (We had just done a request for "House of the Rising Sun" and God was listening .... he didn't approve evidentally), I would buy another one. If that one got lost, I would buy another. I have yet to hear its equal. I will never sell it as I am of the opinion that high end gear such as the 2120 is falling out of favor in the market and is being replaced by digital modeling without tubes. No thank you. I will keep my 2120.

If you are in the market for one of these and were wondering if it was worth the money, don't worry. You have found the holy grail of tone. If you already have one and are getting hammered by a better rig, it isn't your 2120, it is something else. Get a better amp/cab/microphone to use with it.

Oh, if you are still using the stock Sovtek 12AX7WA/WB's that come standard in this unit FOR GOD'S SAKE REPLACE THEM. If you can afford a pair of Mullards I suspect this would be the best. The JAN Phillips tubes can be had for $30.00 for the pair at www.thetubestore.com as well as other places. They really make a world of difference in the drive and tone of the heavy patches.

Lets face it. Even used, this unit is 2 times as expensive as most effects pedals on the market today (including Digitech's other offerings). It is what it is. The best guitar effects pedal money can buy (I haven't tried TC Electroncs high end stuff though). You won't touch the tone of the 2120 with 2 effects that cost $300.00, so $600.00 is a bargin.

If you have questions e-mail me. I would be happy to answer your questions.

When you first plug in dont expect too much from the presets cause they all (almost) suck like a Hoover.I used an Ibanez RG470 W/pgm pu's, a Kramer neck thru w/EMG's.Like I said the preset sound pretty much stink, I finally spent a whole night just messing with it to get a sound that wasnt too dark/bright or over processed w/ effects. But the EVH 78' preset ROCKS as well as the panning dano-wak and the naked power tones. When it comesto effect this thing is all world class but be carful not to over do it because a little goes a long way here. Also has true STEREO outputs which can be rare as well as wonderful because it really lets you FEEL the sound and the effects.
It has (2)12ax7's as well as a seperate solid state preamp path which can be used at the same time or seperate.several EQ's and a noisegate (which I hated because right as you started to develope a beautiful wall of spleen tingling feedback it shuts you down to total quiet mode. I geuss I dont know what a "thresh-hold" is, but I alway turned it off. Sooooo much stuff. The only thing that I HATED was that if your at a live gig and you crank your stuff and find out that you rythem is louder than your lead than you gotta go back and tweak it all again and screw with all the digital storing and function trash!!
OH YEH one more thing that burns my bootom is that the friggin foot controller is too big with too many switches that Ill never use and it costs $300. If they made a 5 or 6 function controller for it, that would rock. It also has all that digital MIDI stuff that I dont understand. I like to plug in and play. A 7 due to the hassle but it sounds sooooo good

I think that this pre amp was made in early 98',cause thats when they stopped making them.It DEFINITLY LOOKS KILLER due to the all aluminum chassis and bright green lighted display LED screen, yes this thing is sure to intimidate the other bands when playing at the gig .....even before you start to play!! The styles of music that I play vary from Death/thrash-metal to brown and blusey rock to light contemporary christian worship. Even though I play such a wide variety of music styles this amp had no prob keeping up with me at all times and all genres. With 100 factory presets and 141 user re-writable preset along with just about any effect you could think of this amp has more than enough versatility for ANY playing situation.
A definite "10" for features.

Its all digital and that stuff dont last real long, but I only had it for three weeks due to the fact that I couldnt afford the controller and NEEDED channel switching so I traded it. Ill say no opinion ...but maybe a 7?

N/A

I been playing five, years which seems like nothing compared to a guitar veteran that has 20-30 years under their strap,but I know GOOD TONE when I have it(the perfect tone still eludes me). More than enough features and effects. good sound. overall

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.

This is an update to my previous review. After spending about 4 more hours of solid tinkering with EQ and voicings, I finally got an acceptable tone! My 5150II still sounds better on big chords, but it is muddier with intricate riffs, which my band tends to play more than chords. The 2120 is definitely more articulate now--still has a bit of that funky nasal voicing that Digitech products exhibit, but I can live with it! I paired it with a Mosvalve 1160 and it sounds pretty good now.

One preset recently "forgot" that the volume pedal is on in the Control One, so it no longer responds. I saved it to another patch number and all is well--a minor annoyance, but it shouldn't happen. Had the same problem with a Digitech Valve FX.

Overall, it's a decent unit. Most big tube amps are too muddy for my taste, but I sometimes like their overall more organic tone. It's a trade off between fatness and articulation--articulation wins for me! I hear that the original 2101 actually has more brutal distortion, but I already have this and the 2101 is no longer in production. If I had it to do over, I'd hunt down a 2101.

Not easy if you are a novice! The 82 page (!) owner's manual could be more clearly written. It takes a LOT of patience....

I have a BC Rich USA 7 string Beast, Peavey 5150 II, and Randall Warhead cabs. The clean sounds are great, but the distortion is poor. Try as I might, I could not get a truly brutal sound that doesn't have this nasty pinched/nasal quality. It seems to be all EQ and no true tone. So, I now use it in the effects loop of my 5150 II with the distortion turned off...adds some needed EQ and body, not to mention the awesome effects--definitely the best part of the 2120. The absolutely seamless switching is nice.

So far so good.

They responded quickly in the past to inquiries and a fast repair of an old Valve FX.

AS an effects unit, it's great. As a pre-amp, not so great for my style of music (technical death metal). Most of the factory presets are a joke--do they think anyone would actually use the "Death Scoop" tone? I don't like scooped mids, and nothing I could do to that or any other setting gave a satisfactory tone. I doubt that I would purchase it again.

After 8 months, I'm pretty used to setting the 2120 up but I've met many stupid people in my life that are really excellent musicians. I wonder if their type could ever understand all of this. Some of the concepts are very advanced probably for the average dude.

Great if you remove the tubes and get the jj ECC83 S. I got mine at www.thetubestorecom . They made such a difference. Before, my sound was more brittle and my highs were lost in all chords. Now my sound kicks ass. I'm in a New York Rush tribute band called 2112, www.geocities.com/rushtributeband2112 so I've gotta cover Alex Lifeson's tones on all 16 albums from the dirty to the ultra clean. I've been able to do it with my Ernie Ball Axis going into the 2120 going into a Mesa 50/50 into 2 4x12" Marshalls using Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.

So I'm giving it a 9 but I'd give the sound rating a 7 if I hadn't changed the tubes. It's very much like changing old strings on a really decent guitar. I'm taking only 1 point off for the cleans. They're really great but I've heard better.

THIS IS WHY I CHOSE TO WRITE A REVIEW. 2 nights before a semi-important gig I dropped it and my Mesa 50/50 amp off of my Marshall 1960 cabinet. Guess what, neither unit was affected in any way! Enough said. I love both companies in addition to SKB who makes the rack!

Never dealt with them

I'll also add that I replaced the control 1 with the johnson j-12 controller. Once I did that, I was very satisfied with my setup. The control 1 is a piece of shit. The plastic buttons are inaccurate. The j-12 saved me from selling the 2120 because I had been making so many patch change errors during live performances.

I like some of the factory presets, but for the most part a true
professional sound is still evading me. Editing patches to suit my ear
are also hard to do. The manual is not user friendly, but it could be
I don't haven't extensively dove deep into it yet.I would hope though
that if digitech wanted to keep customers they would make it a little
easier, and already have true beautiful sustaining distortions set at a flick of a switch or button.

I use a 9200 marshall power amp, 100 watts per side and play stereo through two 1960A marshall cabs.I play a 1970 black custom Les Paul
with original humbucker in neck position and a dimarzzio evolution
in bridge position. The 2120 is very quiet but as most have said the noise gate is set way to high.Efects in my book are second to none. The delays ,reverb chorus are pro quality. The only problem I'm having is at high volume levels the 2120 doesn't produce the great
smooth distortion and sustain you'd expect from an expensive unit such as this. The pick attack drops off considerably and you literally
have to work twice as hard as usual, just the opposite is what I would expect with great equipment. Iv'e been playing for over 25 years
and thought I had the best set up I could ever want. But what I got
was low volume ear candy and got it home and cranked it up and got
high volume crap.I'm not saying there aren't some fabulous sounds in this unit and maybe in acouple of years I'll find the sounds everybody says are "deep' within the unit, but frankly I don't have the time.I'm through with the fake sounds and emulations I want the real thing!

So far so good

Haven't dealt with them yet

I play many styles of music, Gary Moore, SRV Satriani,etc;
I guess if it was stolen I'd miss the effects, but would definately not miss the high volume chaos it can create, I'd hate to get rid of my 9200 without first trying other preamps, but it looks like I might have to get a 6100 marshall head rated at probably the best sounding head of all time and forget rack gear altogether. Come on Digitech
I want a professional high volume sound without having to be a rocket
scientist. Ever listen to the G3 concerts, now that's quality sound.
I have an open mind however and if anybody out there in cyber space
can convince me to keep this, with helpful information I would greatly appreciate it!

It takes some time to get used to this unit, like any unit. It is very, very deep. You can control practially every possible paramter of everything that affects the signal. The nice thing is: if you don't want to select a wave form, and depth, rate, resonance, feedback etc. for your flanger - there are a dozen or so presets for every effect to help get you close. You can save your own presets for each effect as well, which is handy. The manual is written in a dry style but is worth careful perusal. The presets, as usual, are pretty lame.

I use many different guitars and basses with this unit. I should note I use for direct recording exclusively. I do not use it in conjunction with any other gear (other than a mixer and a recording device).

As a standalone Guitar Preamp (ignoring effects)I would give it a B. It sounds pretty good, you can get some useful tones from it without using any FX. The FX portion I would rate an A-. I would give it an A or A+ if you could build your own FX algorithms but you have to use the 30-some-odd prebuilt 'skeletons'. Put the two together and you have a pretty powerful tool if you are willing to take the time and tweak it. This is not an instant gratification device, IMO.

One thing I should stress: the stock tubes suck. They are Ruby or Sovtek 12AX7WA and are horrible. Replace them *immediately* with something like a pair of Sovtek 12AX7LPS or some JJ ECC83s. This makes an *enormous* difference in how the tube preamp patches sound.

I haven't had any problems with mine and I have had it apart, changing tubes mostly, many times.

I understand Digitech is discontinuing these. Oh well. The market has gone digital modeling crazy. So be it.

I think the 2120/2112 VGS are a fantastic unit. I love having everything in one box, being able to build a complete & distinct signal chain and saving it whole (rather than remembering that I used this setting on my preamp, and this setting on my EQ, and these settings for my FX etc.) But I'm lazy that way. I like having one box that I can use convincingly for Guitar and Bass. It does great clean, crunch, and lead sounds. Very good Bass sounds. The only 'weak' spot in it's palette might be super-heavy modern "Nu Metal" type sounds. But then again, I haven't really tried to get that kind of sound so take that for what it's worth.

I've tried lots and lots of newer gear: Pod, Pod Pro, the GNX stuff, and I keep coming back to the 2120. Maybe when the next generation all-in-one Rack unit comes along I'll switch. Who knows. This works for me. I know it isn't the best sounding guitar preamp every built, I know certain FX made by other manufacturers sound better (TC Electronics chorus, Lexicon Reverb etc.) - but having practically every guitar effect ever created (very high quality too) in one box, plus the ability to those FX in any order, multiple times! Combined with a workable, if not spectacular guitar preamp - is a very nice thing. If you are a not a tweaker - don't bother with this unit.

This unit was upgraded from my Digitech 2112 and over the years I have become familiar with it's operation. The system is not the easiest to program and requires some patience.

I use the 2120 to push the front end of a Fender "Evil Twin" running in the low power mode thru channel one. I have been playing for over 35 years and go back to the day when an amp was as good as it's ability to distort. Lot's of Fender Twins, Showman's, Super Reverbs, Vibrolux, Marshall's and Ampegs. All of these amps smoked when cranked and the 2120 let's you push a pre amp to it's limit without pushing 50 or 100 watts. Patience is the key to the 2120. Start with a clean sound that has some delay and put in compression. Spend lot's of time on the EQ, then go for some tube distortion. Stand back and let your socks roll up and down. The tones there if you have a good tube amp and lot's of patience.

I have used Digitech products for years and have had little or no problems. I blew this one up at an outside gig when it got wet and have had to replace the foot pedel switches but have had no problem with support or with the 2120 otherwise. I have used it without a backup since they came out with the 2112, although my amp has a second channel for distortion if I need it.

Call them. They act fast and care about your problem.

I play mostly blues and require 4 - 5 different clean and distorted tones. I push this unit into a Fender Twin using a Gibson ES-355, 335, SG and sometimes a Les Paul (Hey, Gary Moore plays Blues). I'ld replace this unit in a heart beat. I love the tone, I like the Control One and the distortion, if you take the time, is right on the money. Maybe it's the Gibson into a Fender thing but this unit will sustain forever at any volume.

This unit was different in using at first--but once I caught on to what the layout of the parameters was, I was OK

The preamp section of this unit SUCKS badly--but the effects are so nice, they cover that FACT up.
The best reverb I have heard on a guitar unit.
I am looking in to what i can do to modify the input so this unit sounds better...I bought this unit 'cause I really like the RP12--I bought this unit thinking the higher line model should be better--I was wrong.

I play for a living and have traveled to 4 countries and 38 US states--I have never used a back up amp.

I started in a new band this year and started with this unit--i feel safe that it won't let me down.

Overall--since this unit has it all in 1 rack space--I can hop a plane to do a gig and have a large part of my gear with me.

I have learned that playing live allows you a tolerance in using top notch gear--as opposed to studio work. I save my great gear for the studio --this new gear with the new band is sounding great. What I get in versatility and great effects, Really does makes up for the preamp section of this unit sounding so poor.

I came to the 2120 from an RP-10, so I knew that you had to work with these things to get the best from them. What surprised me was the poor quality of the factory presets. Digitech usually go OTT on the presets to demo the capabilities of the box, but I was initially disappointed to scroll thru the patches without anything special jumping out. 2120 adds greatly expanded fx library and better routing control over the RP-10, but this obviously comes at the price of simplicity. If you've only ever used stomp boxes, be prepared for an initial shock. If you've used any other programmable multi-fx, it shouldn't take too long to adjust. If you download RPEdit, then it's a breeze. It _is_possible to get superb sounds out of this unit, but careful EQ work is required to get the best results. Rating is for the unit as supplied, add a few points for using RPEdit.

I use an Ibanez RG520QS and Status Shark bass into the 2120 via a Korg tuner (Digitech still can't quite get the tuner right, after all these years, although the wah is a vast improvement) with a Crybaby in the external loop (allowing switchable bypass from the Control One). From the 2120 into a Marshall Valvesate 8008 power amp and 1922 stereo cab. The sound quality is superb. Using the cabinet emulator to DI into a PC for hard disk recording is also quite acceptable. Once you've tweaked the noise gate into submission (Digitech - why the ridiculous gate settings on the factory presents?) then noise isn't an issue. Modulation effects are of the usual Digitech high quality, delays and reverbs v.good. Pitch effects noticeably improved over my old RP-10. Both the valve and solid state preamps have a lot going for them but, again, careful EQ tweaking is necessary to bring out the characteristics you are looking for. Some reviews have criticised the valve preamp for being poor, but it's all down to patience in the setup. Any signature sound is in here somewhere, the best method is to play around with different EQ and fx settings to see what works for you.

Seems as well built as any other rack box, but any electronics can fail so probably best to back-up at a gig with couple of decent pedals. That said, I've had no problems but other reviewers have had lock-ups and worse. I wish they'd spent a bit more money on the 5 mini infinite encoders under the display, though. They feel too light and insubstantial for this type of unit.

No experience with them. My 2120 came with v2.10 firmware so no messing around. The manual seems to be for a previous version, though, with some errors (the method for assigning the Solo function to a footswitch as listed in the manual is incorrect, for example).

I bought this unit to get as close as possible to a one-box solution for preamps and fx. For the price, I think you'd struggle to find an alternative that offers so much. I would definitely replace it if required. Take the time to learn the system properly and it can do pretty much everything. I'd like to see more S-DISC routing options, a guitar input on the back of the box to make my rack look more tidy and the option of direct patch selection from the Control One (by tapping the patch number in, rather than stepping through banks to get there). Other than that, a fine (but not cheap) unit which should suit all styles.

Quick review- I will give a deeper one when I have time.

Get the midi interface- helps a lot- although with a little work programing from the box isn't to hard- just focus.

Golden- much more useful as a creative tool than the Line 6 Pod Pro-which is very overated IMHO- This is a great box if you want to create sounds and sculpt them- the Line 6 is ok as a modeler (the effects section is poor and not very tweakable) but this box allows for creataion of tone- and I find the ability to tweak effects a big part of tone- Also allows for a beautiful clean, clear sound without the digital harshness that the Line 6 creates. I use it through Mackie HR824's in the studio and Mackie 450's on the road-

i always carry a backup rig- the bus driver could back over the rack or a tech could ramp it off the stage- a decent distortion pedal and a delay cost a couple $100 and will save huge headaches.

They are sending me the upgrade eprom for free- we'll see how long it takes.

Great creative tool- I would definitely get the/a foot controller- very programable- allows for easy access to thr 6db boost.

Email me if you have any questions.

Having started from a Digitech RP-12D, I thought that the controlls of the 2120 might be easier to use .... I don't think so. Although it is sufficiently complicated using the front panal LCD, the RPEDIT program (which you can get for free) makes patch editing a breeze. I would give it a 3 without a PC interface and a 10 with the RPEDIT program.

I am going to submit 2 reviews on this. This is my introductory one. I realize that not everyone is willing to work on their equipment and tweak their sound the way I am. With this in mind, this review is for the 2120 out of the box sound.

I use a Fender Roadhouse Strat into the 2120 then into a Fender Hot Rod Delux that has been retro-fitted with a Celestion Vintage 30 speaker. The stock patches and sound are adequate, but anyone that wishes to plug in and play will be dissappointed as some of the other post here suggest.

The unit is VERY quiet as one would expect from a top of the line system like this. The clean sounds are absolutely heavenly. I tweaked my favorite clean patch and put it over the stock patch #2 just to see what the unit COULD sound like with a good patch. It is truely amazing. It is the kind of sparkel and magic that a musician could make the room go dead quiet through the intro of a song while people became captivated by the music!

The seamless patch changes are great. This was one of my key reasons for purchasing the unit (The RP-21D was really getting the job done quite well). I play as the only guitar player in a 3 person band, so it is more important for me to have smooth patch transitions as it is quite noticable when you move from clean to dirty with out this technology.

Another key feature is the "Solo" option that boosts ouput by 6db on any patch. This is great for moving smoothly from rythm to lead on the same patch and then back to rythm without having to worry about how accurately you positioned the expression pedal when you moved it.

Finally, as with my RP 21-D, the Wah SUCKS! Don't use it for anything except a static envelope filter or you will be dissapointed. This brings up my second reason for purchasing the unit. The FX loop. I have a Dunlop 535Q Wah that provides a great Wah sound for even the most picky guitarist out there; however, it does color the tone of the rig even when bypassed since it does not provide a "true" bypass. The FX loop in the 2120 lets me REALLY get the 535Q out of the chain when I am not using a patch that has it in it!

The distortions I have just started to play with, but they seem adequate. I won't mess with the settings TOO much until I replace the Sovtek tubes with EI's or JAN Phillips tubes. I understand Digitec's reasoning that the Sovtek tubes are very robust and resitive to microphonics (keeps their warrenty down), but using bottom of the line tubes in a top of the line processor seems pretty stupid to me. This is paramont to putting a lawn mower engine in a Porche. The tubes will go tonight for sure. I will re-review the sound quality when I have ported all my patches and have a decent set of tubes in the unit.

It seems rock stable so far. I already had it fall 3 feet (kid got his foot wrapped up in the cords and I don't have the rack unit to put it in yet). It seems pretty reliable, but I will withhold judgement until I have giged it for a while.

I have called them in the past and wrote them about several things on other products. They seem pretty responsive.

I play top 40 and some classic rock. This unit is great for its versatility and ability to EXACTLY match the tone and effects found in many songs today. I have been a supporter of high end multiFX units for some time due to the amount of flexibility they provide. Keep in mind that this flexibility comes at the expense of ease of use. If you are not an engineer or hardened effects enthusiast, you may have trouble using this unit. One might argue that only one of the above would shell out the cash for something like the 2120, but many people seem to have more money than brains these days.

I have been playing for around 25 years. If it were lost or stolen I would report it to my insurance and get another one.

The sound the unit can make is inspiring. I played through many of the songs we do several times just to hear myself play. It is truely amazing what CAN be done with some patch tweaking. Unfortunatly, the stock patches are medicore at best.

If you want stage ready sound out of the box, this isn't the best bang for the buck. You will have to work for the truely great tone this unit can provide. If spending time tweaking your sound isn't your thing, I would definately suggest saving your money and getting something else.

If however, you are one of those sick individuals (like myself) that enjoys making just the right sound and is willing (or even likes) to play around with and understand effects, I have yet to see the equal of this unit.

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.

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.

Overall, a fairly easy to use unit, once you get the idea of the signal flow and the way the DSP power is divided up (thanks to the pies in the manual, this is fairly easy). The parameters are all fairly well labelled, and a few things are a bit tricky to find at first (such as the volume pedal assignment), but after a short while it's really easy to use. I am a bit of a tech-head, though, and my band's singer wouldn't look twice at it, but if you're into rack units, it's as good as I've seen, and certainly a lot easier to program than any Lexicon unit I've used.

I'm using it mainly with a couple of Strats, and a Peavey 50/50 rack into stereo Marshall Cabs. The sound is wonderful - really high quality, rather than the lo-fi nonsense I had to put up with beforehand (Zoom 9150). Every sound is inspiring (apart from the Wah which is just workmanlike and a tad flat), although all the presets have stupid gate settings, they have some good programming in there to show you how to achieve things and inspire you to improve on them. My band sound is totally reliant on the 2120 - several songs are based around effects from the unit, and it seems capable of so much, especially given the two dynamic controllers and LFOs. That's all very well until it goes wrong . . .(see next section). The new software I have just received adds more effects (sampling and new 'reverse' mode - very trippy), and another 41 presets, which have reasonable gate settings, so Digitech must read some of our comments...

I have had a couple of odd goings on with the unit - firstly it sometimes resets itself (without loss of memory) when assigning a parameter to a footswitch. This seems to happen with no rhyme nor reason, and I couldn't duplicate it in the shop for them (looked v. silly). However, it never does it on a gig, as you're not programming then. I don't gig too often, but I have done every gig since getting the unit OK with no backup. However... The unit packed up totally once. I was just trying to select a program I had just done, and the C1 said '77777' and then I looked to see the display on the 2120 making no sense. I tried powering up and down, and resetting, all to no avail. So the unit had to be sent to Arbiter (UK distributor) to be repaired. It turned out it was the software (version 2.02, which is no longer current) had crashed terminally, and had to be replaced with the new version (2.10) To say that I was not best pleased about this would be an understatement of biblical proportions. This unit cost me the best part of a grand, and failed after using it for around 300 hours! That is terrible reliability - if it had happened at a gig I would have been really displeased. The new software adds a few new FX, but there is no information on what else it does - it would be good for us to know what other bugs have been fixed.

Rather mixed here - Digitech took over a week to reply to one e-mail I sent them about the occasional reset, and I didn't get a reply to my report of the unit's demise at all - in over a WEEK! I rely on this unit when I play with my band, and they seem not to care. However, Arbiter (UK distributor) despite their very poor reputation (I have had problems with them over other matters) did return the unit in a week, with the new EPROM installed (admittedly only a five-minute job, but it was done FOC). However, during the time I was without the unit I was told nothing, and when the unit was returned, there was no indication of what had been done, apart from 'New software fitted'. I have also found another bug in the new software (which crashes the unit when assigning controllers to FX parameters), but Digitech have not replied to that either! The Digitech site also has an outdated PDF manual for the unit, and this was a necessary download as the original manual (printed that came with the unit) had the same 'screenshot' for every programming example, so you couldn't really tell what was going on from the book - which proofreader (??) missed that one? In fact, overall I'd say their site's lack of precise info reflects how you get treated by the company.

Overall, if the unit stays reliable and crash-free, then it is fantastic. If the service was better, I would unreservedly recommend one - I may just be unlucky, but even if the unit does die, the support should be better than it is. That aside, it is a truly great unit - its sound only became apparent when I tried a make-do replacement of the front end of another famous make, and it sounded flat and terrible, compared just to the DigiTech preamp. If the unit was to fail totally and be unrepairable, I would probably buy another one, because the sounds on it are so fantastic, and it's a joy to program.

It is relatively easy to use. The more you play with it the more you can end up doing. Programming can be done easily. Doing more more advanced things such as linking LFO's to parameters can be a little more confusing.

I use a Marshall 8008 Power Amp in stereo with two marshall 4x12 cabinets. The sounds are incredible. The effects are great as well, and can be modified quite a bit. The solid state distortions and tube distortions sound great and the ability for them to used at the same time is a great feature to increase the different sounds you can use.

I have only had few problems with it locking up, but only while editing programs that usually use a lot of processing, (such as linking LFO's to parameters while using both Distortion and Tube). I've never had any problems with it on the stage, and wouldn't worry about it while doing a gig. I would recommend backing up you own programs. I have played many shows with out a back up and have had no problems.

They were very helpful when I had a problem with a lock up. They told me how to fix it and also sent me an upgrade chip free of charge.

I use this processor for modern rock sounds. There are so many varieties that it is unbelieveable. If it were lost or stolen I would get another in an instant and not even think about getting another. It is defintely worth the money and a processor for life.

The sound of this thing is mind blowing..everything from crystal clear cleans to (my) Death rattle distortion. Editing patches is easy but as all processors go, it takes time to get what you want especially in the case of strange noises and more complicated sounds. The manuel is the first thing you shuld look at when you get this piece of gear, other wise it'll just look like a bunch of buttons and knobs. I never had any upgrades or mods to it, I am completely satisfied with it.

I am running like so= Custom Tele droped down to B with a single Muy Grande pickup in the bridge> Morley bad horsey Wah> Krog DTR-2 tuner> Artist 2120> Marshall JCM 2000/Mesa Boogie Formula and a mesa 2:90> (marshall) 1960 4x12 wiht green backs/ (mesa) Custom 4x12 with Eminence Ev style speakers set up to be in stereo to accomidate the mesa.....The Artist is not noisy at all. The effects are unimaginable, no weak sounds, but I did have to mess with the noise gate on my distoriton to keep it from clipping. I USE MY OWN SOUNDS AND DO NOT TRY TO COPY OTHERS SO I AM NOT IN ANY WAY AT THE POSITION TO SAY IF YOU CAN GET A VIA SOUND OR A BROWN SOUND OR WHAT EVER! Every effect on this thing is the complete thing.

IT is very dependable, no doubt it has never broke down and it has been through some abuse thanks to idiots who like to throw things. The only back up I have are my amps distortion so if this thing fails (which I doubt it ever will) all I have is some killer amp distortion. I ahve been using this piece for a year now and nothing has gone wrong,

I emailed the company and have always got responses to my emails. It has never had to be reapaired.

I play hard core, but i use all types of strange noises and this thing does the job, I owned a voo doo valve made by rocktron and it had good sounds but I couldn't get a pedal board for it thanks to the shitty rep. If it was stolen I would defaintly buy another one right away, its my main sound. I own other effects but I ojnly use them in a side project this thing is used with the main band I'm in but I am most likely gonna incorpirate it into the other project. It has everything and that is no bull.EMAIL ME IF YA NEED ANY HELP OR ADVICE ON THIS THING.

It is not always easy to get a good sound out of it directly, but after spending some time on it, the results are great. Editing is easy and (almost) everything is put out properly in the manual.

I am using it with a Gibson and a Ibanez together with an marshall valvestate amplifier. The noisyness of the sounds depends on the guitar, but you can change the settings if you want to, so that's no problem. One of the difficult things of teh 2120 is to get the volumes of the different effects are not always easy to get even with eachother. It's no problem to get a sound from a specific artist, at least if you know how to handle the processor. The chorusses and distortion but also the delay and whammy effects are very good.

Till now i haven't had any problem with it but a friend of mine had a spontanous reset at one time, so that really sucked. You can store the effects on your PC, but you'll need a softwarepackage to do that. the FC shows some problems to now and then, like a LED that doesn't work anymore or even a whole button. I don't have a backup for it so i use it at gigs without backup.

the company was helpfull with questions and with reparing the little things

I play a lot of musical styles and till now it has been a good match

Considering I had never used a digital multi-fx unit before, I thought
it was very user friendly. My only other experience with multi-fx was a Korg-A5. I know one thing for sure. As soon as I hooked it up I couldn't beleive some of the great sounds that were jumping out of my amp. Though I did download and read (many times) a copy of the manual, while the 2120 was on backorder, it really didn't help much. Editing patches didn't take long for me to get the hang. You just have to keep storing as you go along, or else one wrong push of a button and wham you are back to square one. The main thing to remember with a unit like the 2120 is to have patience! Patience! Patience!

I'm running a PRS Custom-22 into a Shure LX-14 wireless, through the 2120 in stereo into a Peavey Classic 50/50 stereo amp into a Peavey 4x12 stereo cab. I found most of the patches to be very, very quiet. Although someone needs to shoot whoever is setting up the noise gates in the patches. Awsome digital effects (those of you who would like an almost acoustic sound out an electric guitar, check out the pre-delay effect. You'll have to do some tweaking but it can really sound great. Kick ass EQ's available. I've been using the 31 band GEQ and although it takes a whole disc it's worth it.

Have had mine for 9 months hauling it back and forth to gigs and practice with no problems.

N/A

In 27 years of playing everything from Patsy Kline to AC/DC I think you can find any sound you want out of the 2120. It's in there you just have to dig it out (remember the 31 band GEQ). I would not hesitate to buy another.

Not reccomended for begeiners.Very flexible,but it takes some time to achive the sound you desire.The munuel only make you finish faster your cigarets.After you get the basic programing,you pretty much notice that it is not that bad.

My set up is fender strat delux plus with seymour duncan pickups in bridge and neck,to the 2120 to crate 160 wat with electro voice ellemet.The distortion sound is very hot,very dynamik,and because i can open like 4 e.q. system,my sound can have all the midds(the frequency from god by the way)and bass i need.reverb and delay are goos,also the compressor and noise gate.I made a sound like gerg howe "introspection" with not much diffucult.

nothing yet.

No need so far.

I work in a guitars shop and i get alots of equipment.This is the most awasome machine i tryed.

Very easy to use. Just installed version 2.10. The interface allows you to get deep within any parameter quickly and is set up similar to an amplifiers controls. I understand some people find it difficult to use but this may be because there are so many options, with multiple pages of parameters for each sound module at your disposal it could seem overwhelming, but i like the idea of all those choices when tweaking sounds. You can get good sounds right out of the box and editing patches is a breeze (Did i mention the really cool display with the little guitar symbol that has a chain of fx modules plainly laid out in front of you, Great Display and gives alot of info) As far as the manual it's not much, it points you in the right direction giving you just enough information to get you playing, which to me is cool because i was able to learn all the basics of usage quickly by going through the manual with the unit in front of me. Besides if you really wanna learn all about it then thats only gonna come from using it anyway, period. I give it a 10 because it is IMHO the most user friendly processor of its caliber that i have ever used.

Deluxe American Strat with an EMG DG-20 (3 SA single coils with active EQ) installed. Right now I'm headphoning it because I havent decided on an amp to use. All the effects sound wonderful even through the headphones!! I can't wait to hear what this sounds like driving a stereo power amp. This unit is very quiet too! My favorite guitar player is a fellow by the name of Jaime West-Oram and I can get something real close to his sounds from the 2120, which is saying alot if youve ever heard him playing, Remember The Fixx? - a great band which always painted awesome studio sounds, particularly with Rupert Hine as producer back in the 80's. The distortion is a cannon primed and ready and the digital sounds are like fine china and crystal, now that sounds like a right good song to me!! All in all creating awesome sounds with the 2120 is no problem, no problem at all. It gets a 9 only because there are better sounding, though more expensive!, racks out there.

Had it a couple of months. No problems and hasn't crashed or acted funny yet. Fingers Crossed. Don't know about a gig without backup, that doesnt seem like a good idea, if you can afford it, whatever you are using. I give it an 8 because it hasn't bugged me yet and i havn't really had it long enough to rate it better.

Good. i e-mailed twice, the first time to ask something and they had an answer to me in three days, the second was for the V2.10 upgrade and they got right back and i had the chip in about 10 days. So far so good and an 8 easily.

What else can i say, you can't find right now more bang for your buck. My only complaints would have to be... no option to place fx loop after the preamp, the wahs a bit weak, no rear input, and no power tube (Why is it that no company that i know of has got a real tube sound from a real power tube, a cabinet emulator that sounds like an overdriven speaker, and multi-effects like the 2120 into a rack yet? - The World May Never Know) This is the closest to it that this player knows of and i give it a 9.

Plug it in, hit the power switch, and Bam, Tone Monster baby! I tweaked the gate down to acceptable levels, twisted the gain, turned down the input to avoid a clip, (Very kool digital clip meter)run it into a pair of M/Mans w EL/34's cranked up clean, and get out of the way! This machine is the cats meow for anyone who knows the sound they want, have enough experience with three thousand foot pedals and know exactly what the pedals do,(and won't do,) Not for the faint at heart. Plan to spend some time with it or else buy a stomp box. At first you will be completely lost, but with some time you will learn that it works alot easier than it initially appears. Like a nice new car, but it doesn't take as much time to wax......

Les Paul-Deluxe-PAF's (3),...Paul Reed Smiths (2) (Custom built for me)with Lindy Fralins (Staggered Noiseless Pickups),Kustom K-200-w/Bill Lawrences, Standard Strats, and Tele's (9), Acoustics w/variety of pickups, Pickup sensitivity is/can be an issue, considering the nature of some pickups.....(Kool digital input clipping meter again) Just as filthy or clean as you want or ever need....Clapton, Hendrix, Vai, Satriani, Johnson, Billy Gibbons, Allen Holdsworth, John Petrucci, Zappa, Lou Reed, Jerry Garcia,(Ahem) Robert Fripp, Andy Summers, Brian May,(No Kidding) Lynch, Korn, On, and On, and On,. I have yet to be stumped. This rig is every bit Triaxis,(S/S) Echh!,(I really do love Mesa) and the new Marshall (Stomp Box) I hear is modeled after some of the sounds in this rig. (Even the big boys can be inspired)
Even the TC Electronics G-Force wasn't worth the extra Bux with this in the running. A few add ons, and your set.


Clean as the driven snow. Amazing--I can record direct to DAT, and my sound guy worships the ground I walk on. Can't be easier to sound good. (this is no small feat for a guitarist)
Effects are coupled with Yamaha FX/SPX processing, and Midi-Link the two so a preset on one, changes the other as well so I've doubled my presets in each bank. Presently adding a SGX -200 for the direct outs, for even more versatility. I couldn't be happier. Alesis/DBX would work good too. I like to take some of the processing tasks and route them to other rigs, It keeps each rig clean, and FAST! I like fast presets.(Frippertronics man!)

Broke down out of the box new. Sent it in, and four, yep (4) days later got it back after sending it in to be repaired.

Perfect.

Unbelievable.

Word to the wise,...Never, ever be without backup, if your serious about your craft. Power is a funny thing, and everywhere you play,(generally clubs have inherently bad power supply's) (Think of all those dorks there playing with the wiring before you) The owners don't have that high on the priorities list either.....Be safe.

Get power conditioning and forget about it becoming your problem.

And get a SKB Case PLEASE>>>>>>>>>! Don't be a turd, and set it on your amp........(Ahem) Are you there Mikey?

I've had it back a year now, and it works flawlessy.

Waiting for the latest (FREE) update of software...Can't get better than that...Free?????? Are they nuts or somethin'....

Did I mention that it broke down?

I've been playing Pro for 20 years, and started in '65, and I've never had so much fun.

Anybody want to sell theirs, I will gladly make them an offer.
I have a studio, and want one for the rack,...jus' cuz.

And It Looks Kool Too. Jimi would be proud.

As with any really high end gear.... Don't spend the dime, if you don't spend the time.

Plus the Digitech users group is there to help you get started. or, dial in a tone your looking for if you can't find it....

E-mail me, and I'll gladly help you out if you have any questions, or need help.

I'm tellin' ya, It's in there.............

I turned it on, and was amazed. I had already had an RP-12, so I was familiar with the type of programing needed to operate the unit. Editing took some getting used to because ther eare SOOO many pages. It totally confirms the rocket science factor in Digitech products.
I have firmware version 2.01. I will be getting 2.04 as soon as they release it.

I'm playing Godin LGX-SA which goes into a GR-30, and the guitar output runs into the 2120 and goes to a Twin Reverb reissue. It's only noisy when the gain is up high, and the Noise gate is before the tube/distortion preamp. the only weak effect I have found it the reverse gated reverb. But knowing Digitech, it'll just taje soem tweaking to get it right.

Never had a problem with it.

N/A. It hasn't broken yet, and my local music guy is excellent about taking care of this stuff.

This unit rocks! I would highly recommend it to any guitar player who likes to mess with his/her sound until it is truly "theirs". The thing I love most is the ability to set your own effects routing. You could have eight flangers going if you wanted! Or a flanger, phaser, two chruses, a reverb, two delays, and a pitch shifter. These all in addtion to the tube and/or solid state preamp and the EQ sections, and a effects loop! Infinite programming capability.

The interface is complicated but logical. It is broken down into sections, i.e. Preamp, EQ, Effects loop, ect. I could see it being difficult for someone to use at first, and especially difficult for someone who has'nt used a multi-effects unit before. But after reading the manual (A MUST) and playing around with the unit for a while, anyone with half a brain should be able to work the unit.
The depth of sound and parameter editing on this thing is almost boundless. I personally have gotten many, many high quality sounds and am still finding more all of the time.
The manual is OK, as it only explains the basics with any clarity, but it gets you introduced to the interface. After that, you're on your own.

Software Version 2.02

I use humbucker equipped guitars exclusively. I use a Paul Reed Smith EG, Hamer Archtop, Epiphone Les Paul, Epiphone G1275 doubleneck. My signal chain is guitar->Shure wireless unit->VSG2120->Mesa/Boogie 50/50 stero tube power amp->Mesa/Boogie 4x12 Recto cab.

I play all original heavy pop/rock in the vien of Foo Fighters/Smashing Pumpkins and this thing delivers the tone. There is some noise on the heavily distorted settings, but the noise gate is very versatile, and you can quiet up the unit nicely. On all other settings, this thing is as quiet as a mouse. No problems here.

The effects in this thing range from the not-too-bad category to totally awesome. For example, the wah on this this is fair at best. When I first got the unit I never used a wah, so it did'nt bother me too much. But I've gotten very wah friendly lateley and ended up getting a Morley Bad Horsie and running it through the effects loop. If you're a casual wah user, it should be fine. The digital effects are excellent! Chorii, reverbs, delays, pitch shifters, harmonizers, all very good to great sounding. If you can't get the sound you're looking for in here, you're not looking hard enough.

I personally have changed my sound a few times, (you know how us guitarists are, NEVER satisfied) and EVERY time I went digging in this box, I found EXACTLY what I was looking for. I like a lot of different artisis, from RUSH to Pink Floyd to Metallica, and I'm sure this thing would get the sounds. Currently my tone could be described as a cross between Hetfield and Lifeson. Heavy but textural.

The distortions are fine if you're not one of those Eric Johnson tone freaks. They are well defined, articulate and very versatile. I play many live shows in the Chicago area and many, many players have complimented me on how good my tone is.

One last point, there is a feature in this unit that no-one has talked about, and I feel that it is one of the most important. This unit has a little feature called "seamless effects morphing". In other words, when you change patches, the effects don't just cut off when the new program loads (like ALL of the other processors that I have tried) the patches "morph" or blend into each other, giving a very professional sounding program change. Your reverbs tail off, your delays finish decaying. Very cool.

I have had it for over a year now and not had a single problem with it. I keep my old Digitec RP-6 around for a backup, just in case. When you gig, the show must go on.

Never talked to them.

I play heavy pop/rock and this thing is a perfect match for my style. Great sounds, and always another trick up it's sleeve. I have been playing for 18 years. If this little guy were lost or stolen, I'd go check the market again (they come up with new shit every day) and do A/B comparisons to this thing. If I could find something better for the same price, I'd get it. But I don't think that new box exists yet.
I compared this thing to the Rolands, the Lexicons, the ARTs, and the ADA's. You can't beat it, in my opinion.

I just wish it had a better wah.

Well, getting a good sound has nothing to do with the processer itself. You must rely fully on your ear, or else you should have stuck to foot pedals. You've got to hear the sound in your head first then get it on the processer. The manual is amazing, it's so descriptive, I can't imagine how there could be so many complaints about it. It's about as easy as spelling the word "a". If you can't understand it then I can't understand how you saved the money. Very easy to use.

I use an Ibanez JS-100 with a Super Distortion in the bridge, and a Fred in the neck. I also made an operational amplifier and put that in the guitars cavity. From there it goes into the 2120, out the
FX-LOOP into a Crybaby 535-Q>>then an XP-100 Whammy Wah and in right before the distortion. That deserves a standing ovation. From there I run in stereo into a BBE sonic maximizer(invaluable for 170 bucks) then into a carvin HT-1000 power amp. Then into a homemade 4X12" with carvin BR-12's. It has a very clean sound I'm impressed.

Well, it has frozen up a few times, but it still works great. I dropped it along with my whole rack from about four feet and its still cranking. Thanks to SKB!!!

I had e-mailed them right after I bought and they took about two and a half weeks to reply. I was very frustrated, and there reply was very vague.

I play mainly Thrash metal, but also slow beautiful music, like ballads, and blues, some jazz, and just crazy stuff thats out there. I have yet to find a truly awesome trhash tone, but like I said, it's all up to your ear. Yes I would replace it if it were stolen, definitely. I love the Reverse Gated reverb and the 10 second delay, and the phasor, and the flanger, and the quad chorus. I love everything about it. Just read the manual to finf out what I love about it. I compared it to an array of old foot pedals, the 2120 is programmable, end of story. I wish could hear whats inside my head, then it would be alot easier. I feel it helps once I have found the sound in my head. I calculated the money you would save by buying the 2120, rather than foot pedals. There 100 presets times 24 FX configurations time over 50 FX times about 100 bucks for each effect. And we basically got this unit for free. Thats 100x100x24x54=12,000,000 dollars now that is amazing.

I have created a ton of patches for this unit. It's very, very easy. I make a new one almost every time I sit down with it, and they all sound completly different.

The preamp section definitely colours your tone - make sure that it has the feel you are looking for. It is versatile and otherwise clean though - I have used it in the most esoteric recording setups with good effect.

For the price, it's very, very quiet and clean.

I've had to hard reset it once, and lost all my patches. I'm not sure what caused this.

I play chapman stick ( www.stick.com ) and have set up one for each side ( bass and treble ) of the intrument. I play with a lot of synthetic sounds that are created entirely in the 2120s. This unit has the power and effects to do everything I need.

My biggest annoyance is that the delays are in ms and seconds and not bpm. This makes synchronizing to loops and the like very, difficult. Basicly, I am stuck with certain 'perfect' tempos - 60, 75, 80, 100, 120, 125, 150 and a few weird ones which are 'close enough' unless I am looping for several minutes or more - 137.14, 139.13 143.07 an the like. This really sucks, since otherwise the unit is as good as it gets. However, if you aren't looping much, this won't be a problem. Still, a second loop, plus four effects, plus preamps in each unit is very, very good.

This unit rocks, especially for creating new sounds and tones. I'd by another one if I lost it right away.

At first editing programs is a bit over whelming. After you play with the processor a while editing becomes easier. It's a good idea to have the manual with you when you first start playing with processor. The manual could have more information than it does, but trial and error is the best way to learn how to use preamps. If it sounds good keep it. If not you can hit the program button and scrap your editing and then start over.

I'm using Hamer and Epiphone guitars. Running through a Laney head and a 4X12 cab. I have to back off on the bass and when I play at loud volumes my Epiphone screetches(nothing that new pickups can't cure). Other than that the effects are great once you dial in your sound. I will try to emulate George Lynch's sound but haven't tried as of yet. I thing the Wah Wah is the weakest effect out if the bunch. Luckely I don't use the Wah, then the chorus would be the next weakest sounding effect. I like rich sounding clean tones when needed and have not been able to produce that kind of sound as of yet.

I've only had the preamp for 2 weeks so we are still getting to know each other. So far so good. We'll see once I start playing out on a regular basis.

I called customer support and they were very nice all though the guy I spoke to didn't sound so sure of him self. I've sent 2 E-Mails to digitech regarding the C1 foot controller and have not heard back from them.

I play anything from Dokken to Melissa Ethridge to alanis Morisett. This product allows me to create programs in all styles of music. I like the built in tuner. We tune to 438 and the 2120 makes this task as easy as pressing a button and turning a knob. I like Digitech products. This preamp seems to be made very well. I'm a bit frustrated with the fact that so far I can only program 5 presets per bank, the other 5 presets are for turning effects on and off. This will suck if I have to bank up to use 5 more presets. I wish the manual was more in depth about using the foot controller the processor came with.

Getting a good sound is practically impossible in my opinion. I've never been so dissatified with a processor. Unless your into nothing but powerchords and metal leads, this is a failure.

I'm using a Rickenbacker 1997 model with a Roland JC120. Effects are extremely weak. No life to any of the efeects. Distortion alright, but honestly you can reproduce that same sound with Boss pedals. All the digital effects are weak.

Can't say.

cAN't say.

Don't buy it. Even used. The value of the effects are about $200 maximum.

You plug it in you turn it on and bam, great sounds. Asided from a minor problem with the noise gate, but I figured that out in about 5 minutes, I think that DigiTech did that on purpose to force you to learn how to use this thing. The manual has lots of useful information, but it is in no particular order. I found that the best thing to do is study the manual ayway from the unit, and then plug in and go, that way when your using the unit and you come to a stumbling block you can refere back to parts you've read instead of standing infront of your dead silent amp bitching about how crappy the manual is.
So to sum it all up study the manual very carefully before you get into operating the unit.

I use a Fender Strat and a Danelectro U2. My amp is a Mesa Boogie Simul 90 into to 2x12 Cabs. None of the effects I have and alot of the ones I've heard don't compare to sounds that come out of this machine, Very flexible, nothing beats this bang for the buck.

Only had it a week and a half

Haven't needed them yet

I play rock, blues, and everything else that squeezes in between, this machine covers all the bases and then some if not for the random layout of the manual I'd give it and 11 if I could.

It is so difficult to get a good sound. It's because there is so much to look at. I was frustrated when I would show up to band practice and I would have to change something because of clipping, digital clipping, or it would just sound bad. I like it now though because it's still surprising me on all its tricks even after 2 years. When you get familiar with it you can manipulate it to what ever u want and it usually can handel it and it sounds great. When they said it was fully programmable, they meant it!

I have it ran stereo through a Mesa 50/50 and a peavey 4x12. The tone is huge(if you know what your doing)!!! It's parallel tube and digital distortion seems to have limitless possibilities. It's not noisy because you can make the noise gate to what ever degree you want. I can get a semi-Petrucci tone(he is too good),and maybe a little Van Halen tone in there. I don't try to replicate so it is more personally me than there's. I has great effects. They are all pretty much all around good. THe pitch shifter isn't that solid but it has it'