DigiTech Bad Monkey

Easy to use and get a good sound for what it does. This is an overdrive type of pedal for bluesy type distortion. The highs are not scratchy but tend to be smoother than other types of distortion pedals. Turning the highs up will not give you a brittle sound, The tone controls seem to bring or push the tones they control upfront or forward rather than alter them. Turning the bass knob down caused it to sound funky until I also turned the treble down. Both at 10:00 positioned sounded good. The tone controls also work fine at higher positions and I have no problem with the treble all the way up.

I use a Musicman SUB1 and s Epiphone Less Paul and a Pignose G60V tube amp. The Bad Monkey gives me a very similar overdrive that my amp can get without giving me transisterish brittle highs, It does not color the actual signal much, slightly but not that noticable. Theres seem to be a touch of compression. For the price it works great. I have tried Fulltone, Tonebone, Barber Electronics and for the money ($40.00!) this thing is great. I tried the DigiTech Screamin Blues and it was horrible (brittle highs).

Built solid

I have never called them

I play blues, rock and jazz and this is a good match. This thing helps one play better and the sound is musical.

Four knobs(level, bass, treble, gain), one switch. Pretty darn easy. Twist the knobs, step on the switch.

Currently playing a PRS McCarty Standard, Hamer 25th Aniversary, G&L ASAT Special and an Ibanez NDM1 through eother a Champ(at home), or a Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Reissue. I like overdrive & distortion pedals, and use a different one to suit whatever mood I'm in. When I want a TubeScreamer type pedal, I plug into the Bad Monkey...and I own a TS9 TubeScreamer!!!
The seperate treble & bass knobs are quite useful, and make the Monkey more versatile that the TS9. It also has a bit more gain and a clearer, brighter sound when engaged. Great for classic rock, blues, and some harder rock styles.
Does it suck tone when bypassed. Nah. Not too much.
Hint: OD pedals work better with a little volume to 'em. The Bad monkey really opened up at "jamming" levels.

I's use it at a gig without a backup...but I don't have to! I have the Made in China **and** the Made in USA versions. No difference soundwise.
Heavy pedal, feels solid. I dunno how long it'll last. I'm tempted to say I don't care at this price, but the sturdy construction gives me some confidence in it's longevity. I'll go out on a limb...

Never dealt with them. Ever.

I've been playing a long time(19 years!Yeeeeek!!!). I find myself just wanting something to push my Fender amps over the edge, for added sustain & rhythm crunch. I was giving some boo-teek pedals some consideration, when the missus bought me my 1st bad Monkey for my birthday in March. Two months later, and it's still my "go-to" pedal. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat...and did(hmmmmm....2 Monkeys chained together. I really oughta try that). I love the EQ controls, and the cheezy logo on it(really. I do. I don't care if you believe me).
At half the price of an Ibanez TS9, and with more ooomph and tweakability, this pedal is a steal. Try one. But one. Or two.

Very Easy. Called Digi tech. they said to zero out your amp, set the Bad monkey, then bring your amp back in. The manual gives sample settings.

Using with Strat, LP and Ric. I like it with single coil pickups. Princeton 65 and Fender Hotrod Deluxe.

What the Bad Monkey does for me is tune the Princeton into a tube amp. Takes the clean channel right to the edge of breakup. Think scratchy burble, like a tube, but without being distorted. The notes are still clear but that tube punch is there. You can get more distortion turning it up but I don't think that is the purpose.

Does the same on the Hotrod. It is like a favorite third channel setting. Clean, Clean with Bad Monkey and Dirty

I don't gig but the construction and quality appears to be excellant, I would think it to be reliable.

I called once and Digitech was great. I was not using/setting the pedal correctly. Once I did, it is awesome.

I play at home, soft rock, blues stuff. Playing about five years. I would replace it. I only have a Digitech RP50. Buying this though, makes me what to get a couple other digitech pedals to keep it simple.

Speaking from the desire to get a clean overdrive tubey sound from a solid state amp or just make the tube amp sound richerA pedal that actually changes the sound of the amp, not just a neat effect.

When this was demonstrated to me at GC it did nothing because the salesman did not know how to use it. After speaking with Digitech and using it correctly it is an awesome pedal.

Very easy...plug and play....I use it as a boost on my 5150's crunch channel.

Although it is great for the price....I waited to review this after a few months and many many recording tests. It is tight and clean sounding which is good, but it does sound just a nuthair digital, and sucks a little tone outta my amp? Just a little. I have found the best setting for me is the low/high at 11:00 and get a nice recorded Lamb of God type tone. Sounds good!

Built really sturdy! I heard it eats batteries, but I use a 9v adapter.

For the price, it is a 10, but for sound an 8.7
I bought a Maxon OD808 at the same time and compared the 2. The maxon made my head sing....The playability was awesome, but added some grainy sounds. Cool too. I returned the Maxon cause the recordings I did were so similar and not worth the $90 price difference....but the Maxon sounded more organic...it did! I liked both, and The Bad mokey is nice cause I can eq some of the highs and lows out. For $30 it is awesome and only slightly different than the spendy guys. I do like the Maxon better, but it wasn't worth it for me? I wish I had both, but oh well...Bad is Bad! haha

It was fairly easy to get a good sound. It's really just a TS9 with a low control. The manual was to the point ("This is the Level control. It controls level.") I have the 2nd generation Made in China version (1st generation was Made in USA). Speaker emulated output, I won't be using that.

I was hesitating to write a review right away. I've had it for 24 hours here and I really like the thing. It's about as noisy as a TS9. I have a TS9DX modified to TS808 specs by Analog Mike. I was easily able to emulate the TS9 sound with the Bad Monkey. But I wanted more low end than TS9 can do, so I boost the low a bit on the BM. I am using the BM only to boost already distorted sounds. Not into a clean amp. I have a Marshall Artist 3203 & have been searching for a boost for the Boost channel. Because though the channel has a lot of gain it dosn't quite have enough touch reaction for right hand fretting (EVH). When I hit my right hand finger on the fret I want it to sing. I was using my old 80's RAT, but it is sooo honky. Then I picked up a Zoom PD-01 Power Drive. Which is nice as a clean boost, but clean boosts weren't working the way i wanted (tried a Boss GE7 for that too). Boss CS-2 Compressor, too noisy & soft. Then the TS9DX, set to TS9. Works but thins out the sound quite a bit. The BM though seems to be my answer. I was about to try the Fulltone OCD but the price was scaring me. The BM price did not however.

The battery door/foot pedal? I can see that getting lost. Otherwise is as sturdy as anything else out there, Boss, Ibanez.

Playing 26 years. Ibanez RG 550's into Marshall, Peavey, Randall. Marshall 1960 cabs. Great value, come on. $30. I can't speak for stand alone sounds but for boosting a gain channel during solos I dig it.

quite easy, use the bass and trebble knobs against each other like i do. no need for a manual, although i don like where the batery is located.

my current setup is an
Epiphone Les Paul Custom flametop with a Duncan SH-1 '59 humbucker in the bridge--->Snarling Dogs Wonder-Wah 2(pick one up)---> this Moe-Foe (the bad Monkey)---> Ibanez Smash-Box Distortion (also a really nice pedal)---> Fender Princeton 65 112 (ss).
as you can see i use this along side a quite heavy distortion pedal. i rarely use them together, mostly by themselves. this OD provides as a boost for playing hard rock/blues/any damn thing you throw at it.
it dosent put out enough gain for me and my band (just an alternative/hard rock band) to use as my main distortion, but like i said it provides a fine boost to a clean or distorted signal.

wow, i wish every effect i owned were built the exact same way this is. built like a brick house. the only setback is the way it drains a battery.
solid, allways works, just need a fresh battery before every gig.

never had to deal.

i play hard rock alternative and blues. perfect for that style.
honestly if it were stolen or lost i would shop arround, but if the boss OD thats in this price range wont cut the mustard, i know i can depend on this.
i do wish it had more gain, i bought this wanting to use this as my primary distortion, didnt work out that way.
i don't like how the battery compartment is a little to complicated then it should be.

level, two band e.q.( big plus), gain. very easy to dial in desired tone.

'74 tele custom w/dimarzio fast track in bridge, 80's japanese tele and 60's rosewood reissue with fralins. doobtone micro buffer>boss tu-2>mxr microamp>bad monkey>boss dd-20>boss rv-5.
the bad monkey seems to be the answer to the eternal o.d. question. i put it in my fx chain and has not left since. i am still trying to equate how a low rung pedal company can make a such tone machine. i want it to be like 250$ so i can sleep at night. that would make sense. no it's 39 bucks.

it has only been a month, but i will buy a second before the next tour.

i play indie/new wave/blah, blah, blah. the B.M. has been a godsend. i been through the fulldrive, ts9, ts10, dod250 just to name a few. i also do alot of mods. all these have been very good or sometimes great, but the B.M. is the it pedal for now. i am thankful to have found these reviews. so do yourself a favor. If you are not quite set in the OD category, buy a B.M. you can't lose. i just wish it wasn't so ugly.

This pedal is very reliable and simple. It only has level, low, high and gain knobs. Very easy to get a beatiful sound. It is very easy to change the battery.

I have a Les Paul Westfield, Marshall G50RCD (clean channel) and the Bad Monkey. The sound is near what I am looking for (tube-vintage-warm overdrive). The low and high knobs let you a lot of sounds. The "mixer" output (a very rare option on this price range) works fine.

It is very reliable, hard as a stone.

I have not use it yet.

I like to play rock (Grand Funk, Uriah Heep, Led Zeppelin, etc) and Blues, and this pedal is perfect for both stiles. With a high gain pickup it also can be used for hard rock.
I am very very happy with my BAD MONKEY!
And don't forget the price, it is very cheap.
Perhaps it is hard to find in Spain, but you can buy it on the web.

4 knobs cant get much easier

my setup:gibson les paul studio>wah>bad monkey>digitech rp300>marshall mg50dfx.
this pedal has a lovely warm overdrive that lets all notes on chords ring through with impressive definition.i bought this because i wasnt getting a convincing enough tube sound, and this just was perfect. it sounds at its best when used direct into an amp, but with a bit of tweaking sounds great with multi effects pedals. this sounds good with bluesy solos and also sounds really good with another overdrive on for fast show-off solos.

this is built like a tank

if you are looking for a tube sound but are on a tight budget i recomend you try this pedal.also if you are into blues or want to boost another overdrive for lead playing check this pedal out

4 knobs, , one input, two outputs, all labeled, if it's not easy to use, there's something wrong with your brain and/or eyes. The manual is a nice tidy padding in the bottom of the box. So, YES, it's easy to use.

WOW! Ok sure, it's only a 29.99 version of what some call the "best" (Tube Screamer). I am using this in front of my THD univalve. And HOLY CRAP! let me rephrase that because that would imply it completely was a shock. The bad monkey doesn't do a whole lot for the Univalve-the univalve pretty much rocks all by itself. The HOLY CRAP comment was more because i couldn't believe i finally got something that did exactly what I (personally) wanted. I wanted a gentle push up and over without ANY coloring whatsoever...why would i want to reshape a Univalve anyway. Well this does it. The gentle push without losing the voice of the guitar or the amp. Yes i can boost the lows a bit or the highs which is also cool...with that flexibility, i can take the 6l6gt i usually run in the univalve to new ground. So the sound quality rating, because it didn't CHANGE my sound, it just buffed it up a bit, is high.

It's new but it's a brick. I'll gig, practice, play fetch with my pet griz with it, drag it behind my truck down a gravel road and let a 2 y/o play with it. if the two y/o can't figure out how to break it, it's RELIABLE!

Hmmmm...the age old question...if you build a good product, you don't have to have good customer support do you? Well, digitech does both!

Awesome. If you have a univalve, old fender or any tube amp that doesn't have enough front end push, try this. It's not for everyone (metalheads for instance will say it's not enough gain)..but it is the coolest overdrive/distortian pedal i've encountered.

Look at it this way, it's only 29.99 at GC and sounds like a 300.00 (ebay price) hotrodded OLD tubescreamer. What a DEAL!

Thanks digitech, i see now that you actually make something that isn't crap!