DigiTech Bad Monkey

Very simple, effective, more control than a tube screamer thanks to low and high controls. Dial it in for your guitar and amp, spend some time and you will reap rewards.

Very impressive, and the variety of subtle tonal possibilities makes it a very effective tool for the discriminating ear. Bang for buck, forget that notion. It's just cost effective at $40, enough to piss off the likes of "tonesnob" and other anti-establishmentites who have been duped into spending 4 times this amount for a fricking overdrive pedal built by some pothead and his buddy in their upstairs apartment in uptown. If these buttwipes spent more time learning how to caress the strings (where 99% of your tone comes from, your fingers), they could move on and get a life. But hey, ignorance is a profit-meisters playground.

Michael Moore couldn't break this thing unless he unleashed his breath or passed gas on it, whereby the wires or knobs might melt. Other than that, it's built out of steel.

They are still around after all these years, don't see them disappearing anytime soon. I hear they respond within 24 hours, and give you 5-6 year warranties. I doubt "Z-Vex" will be around in 5 or 6 years to fix your $200 piece of crap overdrive you bought from him.

Wow, bargain, replaces the overpriced TS-9 with a more shapeable and useable eq. It's a fools paradise out there guitar junkies, get off the gear buying train and start playing with simple effective tools like this. You want the ultimate tone, play your guitar. Play it ALOT.

Just like the rest say, four knobs...even a guitar player can figure this thing out.

I've run this pedal through three different setups (Digitech Legend 21 into a Marshall Ministack, straight into a VOX AD50VT, and into my Digitech 2112 w/2120 chip upgrade into a Marshall 9200 Dual Monobloc Power Amp powering a Marshall 1960A Slant Face Cab) and find that this pedal works best into a tube amp. It produces a very smooth, warm overdrive that will work quite well for what I do (rock/blues, and a touch of metal). The addition of the bass and treble knobs are quite effective and will radically alter the tone of the pedal, don't be afraid to experiment with various settings. You'll find a sound to your taste in a matter of minutes. The "Texas Tone" setting in the manual was the perfect starting point to finding mine. I will say that it does not "de-transisterize" a solid state amp, but will fatten up those circuits as well. It does add a bit of noise if your not careful. I found the noise to be worse (substantially) with the solid state setups I tried it through. Noise was not nearly as bad into my Digitech 2112. But then again, if you're not using some form of noise suppression, you'll be ablr to afford one with the money you save by buying this pedal.
I was worried about the bargain basement price tag, but then again Digitech has the means to mass produce these puppies and keep the price as user friendly as the pedal itself.

Let's see, it's built of friggin' steel and could be used in a mob hit for bludgeoning purposes. I may be biased toward Digitech as I've used their gear for 13 years, but I've always been happy with their stuff, even when I've had the occasional snafu (and I've had them, believe me...). This is a sturdy pedal, period. Go physically pick one up and see for yourself.

I've dealt with Digitech support for other products and have always gotten a quick response, usually in less than 24 hours.

No, it's not totally silent in it's operation, but it's $40 new. Some cost cutting measures were probably taken to keep the cost down, but not many. It was designed for and truly does work well with tube amps. It's a big, warm slice of tone nirvana that I'd buy again if I had to. Tone snobs will pass on it for the brand name, the price, and the fact it's a new product that is not painstakingly handwired for 6 hours. That's their loss and our gain, as the lowered demand will help keep prices down (gotta love Economics!!). If you're a kid looking for a pedal to play some "jam" type stuff or classic rock, or want to boost your amps distortion for solos, go check it out. The paper route will pay for it.
Ten years from now they'll be calling it "The Poor Man's Tube Screamer." While that product sells based on it's former glory, this one will sell on the reputation it's building right now.

Its got 4 knobs, Hi, Lo, Gain and Level. Pretty easy to get good sounds out of it.

I use a stock Gibson Explorer into a Marshall MG50DFX soild state combo, good for creating hot bluesy tones but not for what I wanted. It was really easy to get that classic rock smoothness, but cannot get that bitey crunch (i.e. Guns N' Roses) that I so wanted. Its got a really strong sound and will DEFINITELY cut through in a live scenario. Yet again, do not get this for hot hard rock tones, BUY THIS AND YOU WILL BE OOZING THE BLUES!
MY EXPERIECE WITH THIS PEDAL IS THROUGH A $350 SOLID STATE AMP. IT WILL SOUND ALOT BETTER THROUGH TUBE!

This thing was built like a fucking tank. In fact, I beat a Jehova's Witness down with it and it didn't even ding. This thing is very durable, however I'd never gig without a backup because of a little thing called Murphy's Law; Anything that can go wrong, will. I have been plagued with this last name and gear has taken a shit on me just before I really needed it, so never gig w/o a backup unit.

Never dealt with them, don't think you'd need to.

I play hard rock in the vein of Guns N' Roses, AC/DC, Aerosmith, etc. Unfortunately this pedal is NOT for those types of music. However, if you play the blues with that New Orleans soul or Texas spank, THIS IS YOUR PEDAL! This pedal is very transparent and lets the sound of your guitar shine in all its glory...it just wasn't my thing.

4 knobs gain, low, high, volume, pretty simple.

This absolutely blew me away. I go to Berklee college of Music and we have a tech room with literally thousands of pedals and effects. The second i played on this bad boy I had to get one. It is such a clear overdrive sound, very Santana sounding lead if you like that, which I do. This will not get a hard rock sound so don't try, but if you want a great blues/classic rock sound from a pedal you gotta try this. I would have paid $160 for this but it was 1/4 of that. Unbeleivable. I use a Standard Fender Strat (lefty) into the Bad Monkey into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, and it is not noisy at all.

Built like a tank, I would gig without a backup.

N/A

I play original stuff that ranges from jazzy sounds to full out rock sound, I use the Digitech Hot Head pedal to get a thick distortion, but I use this 75% of the time, I also do a few covers like GnR, Boston, Zeppelin, Handrix, etc. and the combo of these two pedals does it all. However, these ratings are based on using the pedals through a tube amp(Fender Hot Rod Deluxe), the analog pedals really chime through on tubes, but on solid state it still sounds good, but not amazing.

Very easy to get a good sound right out of the box.

This pedal sounds great i can get some really fat punchy od when paired with my peavey delta blues 210,Also works very well with other pedals such as od,distortion and fuzz.What i really like about this pedal is that it lets your true guitar tone shine through.

Seems heavy duty to me plus i take very good care of my equipment.

never dealt with them.

Anyone looking for an excellent od should check the bad monkey out.I play blues and classic rock and it really suits my style,I put the bad monkey first in my pedal chain and it has been there ever since.

Simply, just twist and go.

quote from another review:
"A good amp will show this pedal for the crap it is. I hate all the new digitech pedals they are the worst line of pedals since johnson."

First of all I have a good tube amp AND I AM ALSO a bedroom player. I hated digitech up until I tried their new line of ANALOG PEDALS. They kick ass! This is an analog pedal except for the emulated out jack. You are claiming to be a tube snob, but you don't even realize that analog is king when it comes to add on stomp boxes. You are just a crappy player or something. It's amazing how 98% of the posters love this pedal. ALSO, PLEASE DO NOT recommend Arion Pedals. They are junk. I guess you'd suggest rocktek too. LOL buddy.

Built to survive even the harshest fake tubesnobs

Emails answered within 24 hours

As long as you like it that's all that matters.

overdrive-o-riffic

TS-9s Utah sibling
really close
in fact i liked the low and high EQ

Digitech makes tough gear
and this is another

I have e-mailed digitech and their support dept. has ALWAYS came back with a response within 24 hrs.

I was demonstrating these new digitech distortion pedals for a customer at Bob's Music in Lima ohio.
ythey loved all the pedals and purchased the BAD MONKEY
for their son.
bad news I wanted one tooo and it was the LAST ONE !!!!
Kim ,the store manager said she was ordering more so i have to wait ( sigh)
But now i don't have to worry about my TS( getting broken I've found a close sounding CLONE!!!

It is easy to use, but why would you want to use the Bad Monkey, one of the worst overdrives ever made.

I was going to give it a 3 but I sobered up after reading Tonesnob's review. I can only suspect that a lot of guitar players are going tone deaf after reading these overblown reviews. Digitech makes some very nice gear,but this ain't it. The Screamin Blues in that pedal series did sound better than the Monkey. The Bad Monkey made sounds that were in every way inferior to the natural amp sound. They should have named it the Tone Turd. If you get one of these stinkers for Christmas you have my sympathy. Just exchange it for something good.
In fairness to Digitech they have other gear that is excellent.

Pray that it breaks or gets stolen. Unfortunately it probably is reliable.

Paid $0 because I wasn't stupid enough to buy one. I have seen them for $36 on the Net - $49.95 At Guitar Center. GCs policy is that they will match or beat competitors ,so if you don't ask for the good price on any of there stuff ,you just flushed some of your money away.
A better pedal IMHO is the Ibanez TS 9 DX Turbo Tube Screamer especially with a clean boost or a TS 10 in front of it. The market price for a used TS 9 DX TTS is about$60 - $80 in good shape , new about $110. Money better spent. Don't let them make a monkey out of you.

i'm not going to get into the technical features because there's nothing more to add to what's already been said. i was in the hunt for an overdrive pedal that wouldn't add a lot of high-end gain/distortion to my tone. i just wanted to drive the tubes a little bit. this pedal does that in spades. i give it a 6 on ease of use, simply because it's easy to get a good sound but takes a lot of time to get a great sound. which i guess is typical of any pedal...

my setup: g&l s-500 strat -> bad monkey -> fender blues jr. tubes

after years of playing acoustic bluegrass, i finally broke down and started picking up some electric equipment again. i like to play/write good old fashioned rock and roll influenced by everything from elvis to johnny cash, the stones and the ramones. all the good stuff, none of the garbage the kids are playing today. i dig a good, solid tube driven amp without a lot of distortion. the bad monkey does a fairly solid job of it. i needed to drive the tubes at lower volume levels in my house for practices, and that's why i got it. it took me several weeks and alot of fiddling with knobs to get the sound i wanted, but finally i think i'm there. this probably isn't the greatest pedal out there, but for the price it's fine by me. the separate bass/treble knobs let you dial in just the right sound for your tastes (and amp setup). separate level and gain knobs allow you to get the right punch and attack.

to early to say, really. but i think digitech builds solid equipment. treat it right, it'll last forever. bash it like pete townshend and it'll last just one day.

can't say much here...

if you're into nu-metal or iron maiden or something, obviously you and your mesa boogie are looking for a different pedal with more drive. but for a good 70s style overdrive (zz top, stones), this gets the job done. i like to use it for just a little extra umph on lead parts and will sometimes keep it on for a dirty rhythm sound.

It's as simple as a stomp box can get.

Controls:
Level
Bass boost/cut
Treble boost/cut
Gain

I really love the treble and bass buttons. They allow you to either boost or cut the sound, and it works great.

I have it working on a 9-volt battery. It's also really easy to switch batteries. No hassle with difficult to open hatches or something, all you need is a guitar cable to click it open. You can switch a battery in less than 10 secs.

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Ibanez RG/Fender Strat USA -> Bad Monkey -> Kustom Quad 100W combo
===================================================================

This pedal sounds great! When playing with a Strat trough it i can really get "Hendrix" sounds out of it. You know the song "The wind cries Mary"? I'm talking about that sound.

Really warm tube overdrive sound. I went to the store to buy an Ibanez Tube Screamer, and the guy at the store said: "You should check that Digitech pedal out, the Bad Monkey, it's cheaper and just as good". I compared them, and acually liked the sound of the Bad Monkey better than the Tube Screamer. When i first tried it i was biased because i've had bad experiences with digital pedals, but this one sounds as natural as it can get.

This pedal is also really quiet. I give it a 9, because a real tube overdrive on a tube amp still sounds a little better. For solid state, this is the best tube-like sound you can get though.

I just got it today, haven't gigged with it yet. It looks like it's built like a rock. It's also heavy as hell, all made out of steel. It looks like it's made for heavy gigging/road abuse.

But, i haven't got it for enough time to be sure, so i'll just put in "no opinion".

Didn't need to call them.

Been playing for about 5 years. I mainly play Blues and Classic rock. This pedal gives me just the sounds i need. I can get a warm blues overdrive, but it also gives me enough boost when playing a solo.

This pedal rules. If it was twice the price i'd still had bought it. For 50 Euro's, this is really a no-brainer. It gives a better sound than the Tubescreamer and any other overdrive pedals i've tried.

If it was stolen, i'd track down the thief and cave his head in with the pedal. If i wouldn't find him, i'd buy it again for sure.

I give it a 10. For the price, it's amazing what you get!