DigiTech Bad Monkey

It was easy to get a SUPERB sound out of this lil Green thang. x

Well ive been playin for 12 years now (im 26) & ive ownd tons of 'Overdrive' pedals such as: TS-9's/SD-1's/WYLDE's MXR & THE VOX BIG BEN.
I playd them all thru my Marshall 100watt Valvestate with 5x12" Celestion speakers in a cab!!
Out of all the pedals that shone the brightest it was the Digitech Bad Monkey EVERY TIME!!
ITS THE BEST 'TUBE-EMULATION' PEDAL THERE IS OUT THERE!!
With incredible sustain and its amazing depth in tone = PERFECT!
Add it to your amps overdrive & you will get BLACK SABBATH/ SLASH/ZAKK WYLDE/S.T.P. & JERRY CANTREL of A.I.C.(RIP)
(it even does that Nirvana Raarrhhhh too!)
And with the superb controlled feedback that would put a smile on Hendrix's & Page's face any day... \m/(-_-)\m/
This pedal (IMHO!) is the Holy grail of Overdrive boxes!!
Forget all the 'vintage' hype'n'stuff - BUY THIS BAD MONKEY NOW...
For Blues,Grunge & Heavy Rock this pedal's got your ass coverd!!
And for #29 you cant go wrong. Peace out man. :)
(id give it a 10 but nothing in life is a 10!)

As strong as an OX,
Cos its made out of steel dudes!
LOL :)

Never delt with'em & I hope i dont have to...

Man i love so much music but its mostly Grungy Rock,and this pedal just does nothing but inspire me to play even more so from my soul.
Peter Greens sound is to die for in my books & this lil monkey helps me get into 'The Zone' lol...
I cant see how someone could NOT LIKE this Bad boy - Full Stop!!
Let there be rock my friends.... ROCK!!! \m/(-_-)\m/

Easy as you would expect.

My setup :

Ibanez RGT42, ESP LTD MH201, Ibanez RG770 -> Morley Wah -> Bad Monkey -> B-52 AT100 -> Effects out -> Danelectro Fab Chorus -> Dan Echo -> Effects in -> Avatar 2x12 Texas Heats.

I love what this pedal does for my sound. I set the level at about 7 and the Gain at about 5. I set the gain on my amp at about 5 also. This is the best tone that I've ever had. It also sounds very good by itself on my clean channel. It doesn't get very heavy on it's own but it has a very good bluesy rock sound. I use it to boost my signal going into my preamp so that I can have multiple gain stages for my dirty channels. This pedal does exactly what I hoped it would do and the price ain't half bad either.

Seems to be built well.

Digitech has been good to me in the past.

Overall this is a very good pedal. It is built well and it has great tone. If you're in the market for an affordable overdrive, you can't go wrong with this one.

very easy to follow instructions 4 knobs, simple.

Excellent very very nice sound on my blues junior, makes the sound thicker and has more power.

very good looks ruggedly built

excellent pedal, very good value.

This is a very easy to use pedal. It's got gain, level, low and high controls. There's really not much to it. A good feature- you just need guitar cables to acces the battery compartment not a screwdriver. The manual is very short but covers everything you'd need to know. It has two outputs - one for an amp and one for recording.

My setup is: Esp ltd ec 50 ---- Bad Monkey ---- (sometimes rp80)---- Epiphone Valve junior.

The bad monkey gets a really nice blues/rock tone (similar to a tubescreamer) through this setup with the gain turned up to 10 (using a clean amp), but it can sound pretty bad when the gain is turned down past halfway. I don't have a decent guitar with single coils to try with the bad monkey, but I think a single coil guitar would sound better on low gain settings.

This pedal is good for getting sounds of 1970's blues/rock and my setup can get a good Led Zeppelin sound. It's also good for stuff like Pink Floyd (when combined with a few more effects!)and modern indie stuff like Franz Ferdinand. After I bought it I looked at the sound samples on the digitech website and they're pretty accurate but not 100%. Sounds good with 'Low' at 12 o'clock and 'High' at 3 o'clock but obviously adjust those settings to personal taste. Turning up the amp gain gives this pedal more boost and still sounds great.

As far as I can tell it's got a true bypass but i'm not 100% sure.

One fairly big problem with this pedal is that it can sound quite different on differnt amps. On my (very old) peavey amp it sounded really wierd and fuzzy (hard to describe) but on my new valve junior it sounds great. I have tried it on a few solid state amps and it sounded good but for some reason it sounded real bad through my old peavey. So if you have a cheap amp you might want to try out a friends monkey before you buy your own. The 8 refers to how it sounds on my current setup. With my old amp it would be a 4.

Solid (and as heavy) as brick. I would deffinately gig it without a backup but would bring a power supply for it as it begins to sound pretty awful when the battery starts to run out. I've found the batteries last about 1-2 months (about 4 hours per week use)

Never dealt with them.

Overall this is a great pedal, especially at half the price of a Boss Blues Driver (in Australia). I play bluesy rock, 70's style rock and art/experimental rock (did I say a play rock :P) and this pedal is great for that. This pedal is not perfect (the different amp thing is a problem) but works great for me.

If this was stolen (and I got insurance money) I would go out again and buy another. Depending on your budget I would also check out a Boss Blues driver and Ibanez Tubescreamer. The Bad Monkey does the same thing as these and is a lot cheaper. The Bad Monkey will not suit everybody's taste (and amps) so use your common sense and try before you buy. This is an overdrive, not distortion pedal and sounds a lot differnt from a Boss Ds-1.

One last thing, unlike a lot of Digitech products, the Bad Monkey is analogue not digital so this pedal shouldn't be dismissed because it's a Digitech.

This is a really easy pedal to use.

It has four nobs (level, low, high, gain). the nobs are very solid feeling and sturdy. the pedal itself feels very strong as well.


The manual is really cool, it shows a bunch of different examples to get a good sound out of it.

Heres my setup:

Fender Telecaster with Hot Rails in the bridge > Boss ME50 > Digitech Bad Monkey > Peavey Classic 50 4x10.

I also use a Limited Edition Epiphone Les Paul Standard. The reason I bought this pedal was to drive my amp harder so I dont have to use as much gain. I play indie rock/ambient/experimental stuff.

I usually dont use it with the telecaster because the hot rails are high output, but its great with the lp.

its very warm and responsive. it sounds amazing. its pretty quiet through my setup.

Its tough. All metal, very well designed. I would like to get a backup just in case. I mean, at $40 why not grab an extra one?

This pedal does exactly what I need. It sounds great with my rig, and it was cheap. Im very happy with how sturdy it is and the weight. The controls are great and work well, the sound is awesome, and its cheaper than a tubescreamer. i used to own a ts9, but i like this alot better. the only problem is that it doesnt clean up totally. it works as a great clean boost, but the boost isnt completley clean. which is fine, because i never play totally clean anyhow.

also, its all analog!!! no digital crap at all!!! i was shocked when i read this, but its true. i was skeptical at first to try any of digitech products because ive read so many times that their stuff is crap. but it all comes down to your ears, if it sounds and works good for you, then there you go.

if i lost it or had it stolen, id buy a new one for sure.


if you want a good overdrive and dont want to pay out your ears, pick one of these all analog beauties up. you wont regret it.

This pedal is definitely easier to use than most pedals. Instead of having a Tone knob, it has a Hi and a Low knob. I find it really easy to get the EQ I want with that as opposed to using a Tone knob.

My setup: B.C. Rich Bronze Warlock with a Bill Lawrence L-500XL bridge pickup (that made my cheap guitar sound more like a $400-$500 priced guitar) through this Bad Monkey pedal straight into my Marshall JCM 2000 DSL100 with a 4x12 straight Park cab.

As you probably guessed, I play metal. This OD pedal was exactly what I needed for my rig. I bought it simply for boosting my signal going into my preamp. It does this very well. It really tighted up my amp and it lets me back off the gain and get that power tube tone I like.

I'm still not crazy about how it sounds when I switch over to my clean channel. It's cool because it throws a little dirt in there (I think it's just making the tubes break up a little, hence it has nothing to do with how the pedal sounds, but more to do with how strong the output signal is). The other guitarist in my band really likes how it does that, but I need to experiment with it more to see what I can do with it.

The Hi/Low knobs that I mentioned earlier really help me because my agathis-body guitar with that Bill Lawrence bridge pickup tends to be bright, especially with that Park cab. I can use the pedal to balance my EQ a little better before I come into my amp so I don't have to rely solely on the amp's EQ.

As any metal fan/musician should, I love classic rock. So I figured this pedal could also serve as something for me to mess around on at my house through my Carvin solid state acoustic amp. Yeah, it's not the best amp to use for what I do, but it's just what I happen to have. It's easier to practice on it than lugging my Marshall rig around. Anyway, I'm not really impressed with the overdrive tone. I was hoping I could sound like Skynyrd, but I haven't been able to get very close to that. But I don't really know what I'm doing when it comes to emulating that kind of tone, so you can probably disregard my opinion on this aspect of the pedal.

I don't see any reason to buy a second one just for backup, even though they are very affordable.

I've only had it about a month or two, so I'm not sure how it's going to hold up. But it definitely is built solid, so I would be surprised if it died.

I haven't had to deal with them any.

I am convinced that a good OD pedal is essential for anyone playing metal with a tube/valve amp (which is the only way to do it). Before I had it, I thought my tone was decent. Now that I use it, I'm really cutting through the mix. I'm actually adding a lot to my band's sound. I can hear myself no matter what riff we're playing, and I often think to myself "I sound really good tonight" while we're practicing. It has been my best investment since I bought my Marshall.

This OD pedal is now an essential part of my rig, and if anything happened to it, I would have no problems going out and buying another one. After all, they're only $40. If you're thinking about trying an OD pedal to boost your tube amp, I highly recommend this pedal. It's an affordable way to try it out, and I'm willing to bet that you'll be happy with what it does.

Very easy to get a good sound out of it. Very smooth, very nice! The footswitch could be a little more sensitive. . . . I like to tap my stomp boxes (big feet, small pedalboard -- I need to be delicate), but with this one I've gotta give it a good heave.

EXCELLENT. I don't have, nor have I used a Tubescreamer, but I nearly bought a TS7(808 Mod) and I'm glad I didn't spend the extra $40. It does what I need it to do. Drives my tube amp quite well. It's quiet boost and sweet gain . . . doesn't do zz top.

Seems rock-hard. Digitech throws in a battery, which is great. I have one other digitech pedal and it's just bulletproof.

Haven't needed to.

Overall it's a great tube sim if you are stuck with a SS amp, and it's agreat driver for a tube amp. if you play blues and rock, you need this pedal in your lineup.

Very Easy to get a good sound out of this. Set all knobs at 12:00, and tweak to taste from there.

I'm using this with a Fender Standard Stratocaster with Seymour Duncan Antiquity Texas Hot pups. Not noisy on it's own, but when used in conjunction with the overdrive on Hot Rod Deluxe, need to be quick on your feet turning it on and off in a gig situation. THat nails as close as I've gotten to the SRV Pride and Joy/Rude Mood sound. Also works well as a clean boost. How I use it with the amp's overdrive is to set the amp drive on 4 and the gain on the Monkey at half. Allows me to use the amp for a volume boost (something which the Monkey does due, unless like me you are in a band with three guitar players and may find it is not enough), great some great semi-dirty bluesy sounds out of the Monkey, and killer rock stuff when they are both turned on. The most versatile sounds you could want to come up with with this setup. For what I am playing right now (classic rock, rock and roll, bluesy stuff) best sounds I've gotten out of nearly thirty years of playing and gigging. I can't imgine being happier even with a TS-9, although I've honestly not played through one, however for practicality's sake, this is half the price, and some people here say it sound's better. In my opinion, blows the Boss Sd-1 (which I've owned and turned in to buy one of these) out of the water soundwise. Nothing short of something that automatically turns me into SRV wuld get a ten....others have made Eric Johnson comparisons (the tones out of the pedal, not my playing necessarily).

I've had it only two months, so hard to say. Been dependable so far. Probably not an issue. Do use it without a backup, but have an overdrive on the amp that will make it through the night. WOuldn't deliberately gig without one, will likely keep this pedal for many years. Very happy.

Never used them, don't know.

Been playing about thirty years, gigging off an on about twenty. Play classic rock, blues, country, oldies, everything but metal. I also have an on/off again relationship with pedals. I can say unequivocably this is one pedal I would not sell (might trade it for a TS-9 or 808 though, but no cash exchange). I have a delay I use which I also like but this one gets a lot of use during gigs. If someone stole it, I'd be tempted to hunt the guy down and beat him to death with it, but hey, at $40, would definitely buy another - am anticipating the price will go up on these in the future, too good of a steal right now in comparison with the overpriced Tube Screamers.I like the flexibility in the low high and gain knobs, lot more variation in sound there then you would think, but I have my one favortie setting and I stick with it. When used in combination with your amp's gain, lots of flexibility there. Not really a good clean boost, will probably look towards a compressor for that. Great higher gain/tube driven sounds when used in cobination with your amp's gain, think as I said, Stevies's more gain-y stuff, or maybe the solo on Keep Your Hands To Yourself. On it's own, nails quieter bluesy stuff, or alternatively CCR Green River type of sound. If you want some semi-dirty sounds, I.E. Eric Johnson, this can do that well also. If you want Satriani/Vai/iinsert your favorite metal player here, look elsewhere (I'm a big Satriani/Vai fan as well, but don't aspire to that style anymore, ergardless, this pedal doesn't do that). Again, the decision to buy this pedal was due to a lot of research, and largely based on what I have read here. Thanks to those who helped - my opinion, every bit as good as the best reviews I've read here.

Level, bass, treble & gain controls.
Very easy to get great overdrive tones.
Ingenious access to battery
Website has some suggested settings, and sound samples.

The best pedal I've used for this kind of application. Very nice and "tube-like"
Not a 'distortion pedal' for hard rock and metal, if your putting it in front of a clean amp. Sounds absolutely awesome in front of a slightly overdriven valve amp. S.R.V. , Angus Young, Page etc.
I'm using mine with 2 Ibanez' and a Parker Fly into a Laney LC15R or Marshall amps. Thickens tones, adds boost, or whatever you set it for.

Built like a tank, and great battery access (no broken plastic battery covers)

N/A

Look somewhere else if your after a pedal to provide mega gain metal sounds, this won't!
What it will provide is great tube amp like drive, or to boost an already driven amp (preferably valve) in a solid, fantastic value pedal.

This pedal is very simple to get the tone you want. 4 knobs, Level, Low, High, and Gain. Never opened the Manual. Upgrades? I'll let you know in the next Section.

I use a LP Copy and a Lace Huntington and my Pedals are :
Vox Wha>Compressor>Bad Monkey>Tremelo>Traynor TRM40 with (2) 2X12 Cabs. I match the Level with the Clean Level on the Traynor and go from there. Since the Traynor is quite loud, my levels run between 3-4. Low around 10, High around 2, and Gain at 1-2. With the 2X12's I get enough Low's to bring a little Bottom in the Mix. And when I kick it in, the Band knows who walked in thru the door.


Now that I've said all that, here's what you need to do to make this Pedal sing. Have the MOD done by no one else but Mark Humphery. You can get intouch with him through the RigTips Group on Yahoo.
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rigtips) He will make the MOD that will keep you playing until your fingers bleed.


There is no noise on mine. I use it connected to a 1-Spot Power Source. The Pedal/MOD are very transparent. Tell him Loud Bob from The Route66 Band sent you over. You will be amazed at what he can do for you.

I haven't Gigged with it yet, but use it at every Practice we have. It never leaves my chain. Will I use it w/o a backup? You bet!

I haven't had to use Support, but if it needs it, it'll go right to Mark Humphery (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rigtips) for any repairs.

Our Band plays Rock & Roll. And together we've been playing since 1966 (ie; Route66 Band). If it were lost or stolen, I'd be on the horn to Mark for a new one.


Once the MOD is done, you'll love this Pedal. Try one for yourself.