DigiTech EX-7 Expression Factory

Although some have complained about the ease of use, I really don't know what their issues are. Toe down - heel down. Pretty simple form most. Maybe a little tougher for some (if you are struggling with this procedure, I advise to get off the herbal enhancements).

The editing makes a great difference and would like to see digitech find a way to "save" patches. Without this option, your use of this pedal might be limited.

Manual was pretty simple.

Every setting starts with dials set at 12 noon. The expression pedal does give you some control. The sounds were really good. I didn't see this thing sucking any tone from my sound.

Pretty quiet pedal with no popping between channels. I purchased the optional FS3X control pedal and it keeps me from stage diving while preforming.

I liked ALL of the settings. I was especially impressed with the tone I got from the Leslie rotovibe. However, I am not really familiar with the space swell or whammy, so I really don't have anything to compare on these two channels.

The wahs sounded really good. I bought this pedal mainly as an option of having an adjustable wah and thought the other modeling options woudl be a bonus. I am not disappointed. Great wah and two usable chorus like effects, not to mention a great flange!!

I have never had trouble with Digitech and this thing looks really solid.

Never had to call them.

Although the sound quality is great, I was pretty disappointed that saving presets was not an option. Come on Digitech, hear our cries!! Because of this I can only give it an 8.

I would probably NOT buy another if this were lost in hopes that the next model would have a save option. THAT WOULD BE THE PEDAL TO HAVE.

Until then, I will have to make this one work.

this is a preliminary review, will post a thorough one after longer period of usage. i just think this pedal is getting savaged and wanted to chime in with some more positive feedback. keep in mind i've only had the thing a few days, but my initial tryouts of this thing have been great. as far as ease of use, there are a few aspects to consider: people complaining about how hard the switches are to use are...probably slow, if you know what i mean. there is nothing the least bit difficult about the switching, unless you have poor control of your appendages. being an expression pedal with tons of settings and adjustable parameters, this pedal is not easy to make full use of, as patches can't be stored, etc. that is worth griping about and hopefully will be upgraded if they keep making the pedal. it would be more useful as a live tool to be able to cycle through the settings more, but at the same time i can't imagine an interface that would make that easy to do either...i plan on getting the extra optional footswitch, but i still imagine it will be tough to tell which setting you've switched to until you start playing. so, that will be an adventure!

this pedal is kinda cumbersome to use, its true, but i had a Boss v-wah for a while and it was way, way worse in every way. shorter sweep, worse tone, harder to program and tweak, worse disortions, wahs nasal with barely any sweet spot even after extensive adjustment, etc. i really like this pedal, but maybe i'll hate it in two months, we'll see.

i have used the pedal once through my tiny epiphone 5 watt tube practice amp, and once through my main rig at decent volume. i can't say i experienced the tone sucking that's been mentioned, but usually i think that is mostly in people's heads anyways, or there are some people who just can hear beyond the normal range of human hearing. either way, the wahs do sound good, and not at all digital. i had been using a dearmond weeper up until recently, which is a f-in' sweeet wah pedal, but it died on me, wahhahah. the sweep of this pedal is certainly lacking by comparison, but its ajustability makes up for it in some important ways. the dearmond boosted my signal so much that it was hard to maintain even levels when playing live, i could kick it in and suddenly be dominating a whole show, which is not what you want, usually. i've already figured out how to not have that problem with this pedal, so that's cool by me! both of the wahs sounded pretty similar to me so far, will have to tweak more to find the differences.

i've never used a space station, and so can't make a comparison with that, but i think the effect sounds great! i will definitely find some uses for this, its a really nice thing to have on hand.

the whammy sounds cool, if a bit processed. but, i don't care about that too much, i'm not a "tone purist" in many ways, i do like to have some pure sounds here and there, but I like junk and %$#@^& up noises too, a lot, really a lot, so this device for me is really much more useful than just a plain wah pedal. so far i can't say I've achieved what could really be called a 'dive bomb' with this whammy, but its possible that its in there and i just havne't tweaked it right yet. didn't spend that much time using the whammy, just got a sense of it by playing a few wankish harmonized solos, and i think its cool.

also never used a real univibe, so i can't compare that either, but I have used a dunlop rotovibe, which i ended up selling due to the loud 'pop' it made when being engaged with the toe switch, and i missed having that controllable warbly effect. now I have it back, yay! i'll make use of this for sure, but i doubt that it exactly mimics vintage analog equipment...but again to me that's not the most important thing.

the leslie simulator sounds fine to me, and again, its adjustable on the fly with the treadle, which is really handy for weird effects.

the a/da flanger - i have a guyatone fl-3 flanger already, which is seriously so kickass that i would be its better than an original a/da anyways in several ways. but, I like this again simply because of being able to effect it with the treadle. makes cool weird noises. I combined this with metal distortion (not from the ex-7, elsewhere) and the 'reverse' and 'twist' modes of my boss dd-20 - sonic mayhem!!! i'm really excited to play a show with this and disorient some people, hehe.

i can't at all rate or describe the distortions or cab. models, as I really don't expect to use this pedal for the disortions. maybe for practice sessions where i don't want to carry my whole pedalboard to the practice space, which this little guy will be great for, by the way, cause my gear all together weighs a friggin ton by now...anyways, i think its handy to have the distortion on hand to further boost a solo on the spot if i want to and if i run out of other effects to engage, etc., so whatever. its worth the price of the pedal to me just to have the above described effects. hopefully i'll figure out the 'divebomb', cause i really want to be able to do that. but overall, to my ears, it sounds great, really, really cool, if not entirely 'pure'.

seems really solidly made, i don't know what people are complaining about. jeeez this thing costs almost $200!! take decent care of it people! why would you treat something so expensive like crap enough for it to break? this thing is solid, somewhat heavy.

??? hopefully won't have to find out. or, hopefully they'll listen to the complaints about patch memory, add the feature, let me mail mine back in and get it installed. a guy can dream, can't he?

this pedal was used once before i got it on eBay. as I said, i'll use it for a few months, play a few shows, then do an in depth review. but, out of the box, it seems really promising to me as a noise making tool. i just really like to be able to make a wide variety of weird noises, but also wanted a decent wah to replace my beloved dearmond. i am completely satisfied thus far. i'm excited to get the extra footswitch so that i can at least attempt to switch modes live and see how it goes. i think this pedal is a great idea, if not flawlessly executed, its still really cool. price should come down a bit, to say $130 - 40 or so. But still I feel like I'm getting my $165 worth and more. Who knows, I may feel differently in a while. Will be back!

Hard to use on stage, sounded pretty lame, can't save patches... ARRRGH!

Using with PRS guitars and Dr.Z amps... THis thing is a tone thief! sucked a heck of a lot of mojo from my rig. THe wahs were kinda thin sounding, not as good as my crybaby (with Fasel) The flange was bad, and the leslie effect was passable at best.

As to the distortions/amp models? fake. I have use most of the distortions that they are modeling and they are way off. I was hoping this would really let me have a little fun on stage tone wise, but it is heading back to the dealer.

Wou;dn't gig without a backup, wouldn't gig with it... those hard to press switches are just waiting to fail.

Digitech.... THey forget about you pretty quick from my experience.

Overall... a failure. I figured I'd give Digitech another chance, but this thing sounds terrible, works wierd and will not be a part of my rig. I had hoped for something cool. Not here.

This is almost a loaded question.
It is really easy to plug in, select a model, work the treadle, and get really compelling results on all each of the 7 modes. It's very easy, intuitive and fun on the showroom floor.
hit the toe switch, it's an expression effect. Hit the heel switch, it's that expression effect with some distortion.

However, when you try to edit the pedal, things get frustrating.
First of all, you HAVE to consult the manual to figure out what the knobs adjust. Every model "opens up" with it's knobs at "noon", so tweaking the knobs may get wild jumps in settings. There's only three, so it's pretty easy to just follow your ears, if you take it slow.
The unit also ahs 7 distrion-and-amp-model settings, which you can individually adjust, and drop into a given experssion slot.
you'll then read in the manual about how to change distortion-amp models, change their settings, etc. It's not hard, but you have to take it slow and kinda already know what you're after.
The frustration sets in when you realize;
Second of all, unfortunately, digiteach provided NO WAY TO SAVE USER SETTINGS ON THE EXPRESSION MODELS. If you want anything but the "demo-floor-model-knobs-at-noon" preset, you have to dial it in EVERY TIME you bring up that expression model. The distortion you set up will be right there, waiting for you.
I just don't get it, they built in the parameter technology to adjust the expression settings, they built in the MEMORY technology to SAVE the distortions onto given spots (1-7) on the model-select knob, but they just failed to "put 2 and 2 together" .

someone below said digitech almost got it right. I think they REALLY missed the point. BOSS made their "wah factory", and it allows you to save up to 3 (actually 4) settings, all with their own expression and distortion settings. When it comes time to play live, You can surf through all your presets on THAT unit with just heel and toe. THIS x-7 requires you to bend over and not only change the mode, but probably also tweak your expression stuff. Unless you want to use the "noon" setups, which will bring you THAT MUCH CLOSER TO SOUNDING LIKE EVERYONE ELSE !...

digitech has been getting really smart with their DSP lately.
I have to admit, on the pure "quality" of the sound (input -> output), this thing is has a nice dynamic range, doesn't sound harse and digital, and pretty quiet on changes (no popclicks).
The authenticity of their models, however, is VERY HIT OR MISS.

READ below for sound critiques of the distortion bits. I don't even want to go there.

I DO, however, wish to critique some of the mis-fires of how "expression" models do sound, and how they are controlled.

bear in mind, for all accounts, this treadle is very shallow (not much room to express).

modes 1 and 2 sound good like dunlop and clyde wahs, and they sweep like nice wahs. the shallow treadle makes it easy to get quick movements and wah "barks", but hard to get "pronounce" the subtler stuff.
mode 3; space station... some people say that this re-cap model is what sells the pedal. I've used an original space sation. IT's great that they let you choose different pitch-shift intervals (in case you want dissonant), but again, you can't save em. They really missed out on TWO counts here. FIRST, you could "overswell" the space-station patches, which is half of why they sounded good. SECOND, the original had the treadle control input volume, you you controlled how "swollen" the synth wash got. This ex7 has the treadle control "swell time"... BIG difference. With the expression factory every note you hit will swell all the way, at a steady rate, but never over-sweel. much LESS expressive, if you ask me.

the Univibe actually sounds fine, but I'd much prefer the action on the boss v-wah.

the rotary speakear is also quite convincing, but you really need more sweep room do do much with it. Like the wah's, you're just jumping from fast to slow. Nice that they let you pick your minimum speed.

The flanger; the other big mistake. They should just make the treadle control "speed", and allow "full-back" to make it STOP. that would be much more fun that foot-sweeping the MANUAL delay time at the same time that an LFO sweeps it around. no LFO depth to speak of either. This flanger just doesn't sound right.

Used it at the store. Figured out everything in an hour (much to the salesman's delight)
was not impressed enough to take it home (much to the salesman's irritation). I don't own one, So I don't know.

A carbon fibre finish does nothing but LOOK good. digitech makes their wild dsp with the cheap components, so if anything inside breaks, you have a really nice looking paperweight.

Can't say for this product, but for the other stuff I've owned... digiverb (great pedal) vocal FX 300 (...see below !!!...), turbo-flange (fun), hyper phase (less so)... their support is fine, but not impressive.

I don't mean my review to sound so snotty and negative, but I had really high hopes for this pedal. Their ideas could really blow even line6 out of the water here and there, but their compromised execution keeps them coming in just under boss. I'm really glad I didn't mail order it.

Digitech made a great product for in-store demos. looks nice, fun to demo, and you can figure out all the features right in the store. This product will sell like hotcake for 1 year, until everyone gets tired of it's very painful limitations.
line6's green delay has been lurking on the charts for the past two years, So expect half a dozen radio hits of the 2006-2007 alternative rock charts to feature space-station synth-swell sounds.

It would have cost very little more to make it possible to save expresion paremeters, and even little more again to allow you to choose what parameter the treadle got assigned to.
this is a fun bunch of presets in the size and shape of your wah. It's hardly worth replacing your wah, if you're so worried about pedal-board real-estate.

Along those lines,
If you really want some "expression pedal fun", then, seriously, save your money, free up a little more room, and get the digitech vocal300. it's basically a mashup between a guitar multi effect (comp-gate-disortion-Eq-mod-delay-reverb-level), and a cheesy vocal effector (with vocoders, ring mods, more pitch shifters, breathing effects, etc).
you can set up a full patch, then assign the onboard treadle to up to any 3 of any effect parameters (including the input-volume on reverb and delay blocks). I made "synth-swell" patches on my vocal300 that could out space-staion the original space station. Trust me. and the vocal300 still sells for less than the coveted space stations. HAH. (...and don't buy the vocal400, all you're paying for is poopy usb and poopy recording software bundle).

The manual is OK, but you just need to spend an hour or so with the pedal to get used to how it works.

Sound quality is great. I'm using it with studio monitor headphones, a 65' reissue Twin Reverb and a 4X10 Fender Blues Deville.

Since it's new I don't know. I would never gig without a backup.

All I know is that Digitech sent me a nice gig bag and a nice 15' cloth covered cable for free when I bought a GNX4. So they have to be somewhat OK.

I wouldn't mind a gig bag for the Expression factory.

Ok, I'm an old 60's rocker. I play almost every day and my basic equipment is listed above.

I really like the carbon fibre finish on this unit.

The only thing that I don't like about it is bending down to tweak those knobs.

This is not a good pedal. It will drain your tone, some of the effects do absolutely nothing, you will be throwing $200 down the drain. I asked for this as a gift because the advertising for this product made it seem amazing but I was played like a Fendar Strotocastyr. Now I have to figure out what to do to return this thing.

Sounds terrible with my Epi Alleykat->crybaby wah-.boss ds1->boss cs-1->pignose G60VR.

Wouldn't want to.

The intructions are well written and can be viewed at the digitech website. It is easy to get some good sounds quiclky thanks to the suggested settings in the instructions. It bit of a pain to us elive because you have to dial in each setting, there are NO presets. I have used the EX-7 several times during gigs. I keep it on either the Wah or Leslie and it did fine for live play. The distortions are fun and sound pretty good through a PA also. The unit seems to like clean amps and PA's. Not real easy to learn the toe/heel deal but you'll have it with a bit of practice.

Considering all the effects it has along with the distortions it has, it is really an amazing unit. You have to do some tweaking for your guitar and amp setup but after you figure that out the rest flows pretty well. The distortions are the weak link in this unit and the effects are the star. I really have had a blast learning them all. I really dig the Leslie, Uni-Vibe and that Flanger is really nice. The Wah's are pretty good and they are very adjustable. The Whammy is a trip in of itself all the octave settings are there. The XP300 Space swells are volume synth driven and just a blast to trip on. I love old Floyd space rock kinda stuff and this works well.

I have been using teh Digiverb and Digidelay on my acoustic rig every week for over a year with no issues and I think this will hol dup fine.

Never needed to .

I play space rock and plenty of other styles. It's a great tool to have in your bag of tricks and really neat in the studio.
Here a clip of it http://www.soundclick.com/util/getplayer.m3u?id=3516349&q=hi
get one if you can!

Very easy to use right out of the box. Digitech has determined the "12:00" position as the default for each model at it's most "normal" function. The truth is, it is actually fairly convincing at this setting and is a greaty starting point.

Very clean. Not digital sounding.
The wah's:
are excellent and I have found myself gravitating towards the Vox wah over the Crybaby and I own a real crybaby that should be called the "Noisy Crybaby". The old typical layer of white noise as you send the pedal through various osolations is not present here. The response is a bit different and the true quack zone at 12:00 position is about mid way from back to front but like others have said, I kind of like it like that. It's a bit more comfortable to hit the quack and you get more of the high end osolation to play with. Very surprisingly nice.
Space Station:
As others have said, this is worth the price of the unit. I use it in conjunction with a stereo delay (old Quadraverb) and it truly sounds amazing. Very orchestral. You can adjust the octaves for various timbres but the 12:00 position does seem to be very sweet to me. The ethreal posiblities are endless.
Whammy:
I have never used a Whammy before. It is a pitch bending device that I have found you can stop at various positions within the heel to toe motion to lock onto some pretty outrageous octave points. You can sort of get the old Yes "Owner of a Lonely Heart" octave thing going. It tracks pretty well but you have to get use to it if you are using it to arrive at that "Audioslave vibe". I have a feeling that the original versions of this pedal had more versatility but it has been some fun to play with.
UniVibe:
I own a Dunlop UniVibe and actually like the model better in this unit. The original pedal tends to get a bit crazy when you are using humbuckers and overdrive. It is hard to keep a good balance between the original note/chord and the effect thus the mix always seemed off balance to me. With this unit you can use the pedal to control the speed where with the Dunlop UV you have to buy an external expression pedal to attain this control. But those of you who own a Univibe, don't dump it just yet. You cannot get the Unvibe chorus effect with the EX-7....and if you own a Dunlop...you know the sound I am talking about.
Leslie:
It's about the most convincing model I have used but it still lacks that choppy sort edge that a real rotating speaker has. It's truly as good as it gets though. I have realy enjoyed playing around with this section.
Flanger:
I have to admit, I don't like this flanger much. I use a EH Deluxe Electric Mistress and really would much rather use the EH. Perhaps it is because I am very particular when it come to attaining that Andy Summers vibe and the EH Mistress nails it spot on.

Distortion Factory.
I have not really liked any of the models. I am going to play with it some more however, I use a Mesa Boogie TriAxis and have always preferred natural overdrive. I use a ToneBone Loopbone so I can use the boost feature to scorch the font end of the Boogies Recto Section and murder any pedal, any day of the week. Those of you who one a TriAxis already know what I mean.

Seems built very well. Very clean sounding, no pops when you click the switch on and off. I expect this unit to last quite some time.

No idea.

This is an outstanding pedal for the the Wah, Space Echo and the Univibe effects. It is a keeper. I play many styles of music from blues to metal to jazz to fingerstyle. My main set up is either a US Strat w/ vintage noisless pickups, Les Paul Classic (1960), Epiphone Sheraton II, a beefed up old Jap Tele with Fralins and sometimes a my Parker Fly. This goes through my pedal board consisting of EX-7>Keeley Compressor>Input of LoopBone, Loop 1>EH Electric Mistress >Phase 90. Loop2>Fuzzface>Dunlop UniVibe. Output of Loopbone to ISP Decimator (awesome noise gate!). I have an Alesis Quadraverb runnning through the loop of my Boogie and control both units with an old school Digital Music Corp Ground Control. This unit benfits greatly from each guitar I use. The strat is edgy and SRV/Jimiesque. There are many feels and moods available. I would buy another if I lost it. I own an original crybaby and this unit is cleaner and a bit of a nicer "sweet spot" about mid way between heel and toe. Very nice feeling. Some have said that switch is hard to turn on. I have no idea why they would say this. Perhaps they are trying to do it with a hand instead of foot or perhaps they just have dainty little toes. Who knows twinkle toes?!! I have derived some great moments with the pedal. I have just ordered the optional foot switch and am looking forward to using it in conjuction with the unit. Very nice expression pedal. Outstanding value considering the over all offering and performance.

It doesn't take much to get a good sound out of this..but, YOU NEED TO READ THE MANUAL. The manual is great. It has all the information you need. I strongly suggest reading the manual completely before even connecting and trying this pedal out. It not that easy to use so I have to rate it a 7

I run a Togaman Guitar Viol (www.bowedguitar.com) to EX-7 > Boss Tuner > Digitech Bad Monkey (my fav) > Boss Delay > Boss Chorus > Boss Pitch Shifter > to Yamaha T50 amp.

This pedal is quite clean on all settings. It all depends on how u set it. All the effects sound great. My favorites so far are the Vox Wah with DOD 250, Unicord Uni Vibe, Leslie 147 rotary. I am still experimenting with it. I love the Vox Wah/DOD 250 combo for that Michaeln Schenker sound. It just sings.

This unit is built pretty good. Digitech has been making really great products lately. I own a Bad Monkey Tube Overdrive and it is just the best.

Never dealt with them.

I play jazz, new age, blues, rock and latin all put together. This pedal makes my pedalboard a lot cleaner and lighter cause I don't have to have a Uni-Vibe, Flanger etc. This unit does it all. I have been playing for about 10 years now and own plenty of pedals to know what works for me.

My wife gave me this for my birthday, but if it was stolen I would buy it in a sec. I love the amount of effects on this and the quality of them. It is a bit complex to operate, but the manual is really helpfull. The Vox Wah and DOD 250 are my favorite.

This is the real deal.

Hard to plug in to. Nearly impossible to click toe or heel footswitches.

Sounded pretty good while it worked. Distortion models very noisy with single coil pickups.

I received it on a Friday. It died Saturday after I used it for about four hours. Still cannot get it to work... I'm returning it to the dealer.

They have not answered my e-mail yet, but they answered previous e-mails

I would like it if it hadn't died. I'll give a replacement unit a chance. They need to do a couple things...make the footswitches easier to activate and allow storable settings so the unit can be used live. I use the remote footswitch with it (FS3X), but i want to be able to save each model the way I want it, because otherwise you just have to set all knobs at 12:00 O'clock and compromise the sound of each setting. Or you would have to crouch down and tweak it on your pedalboard every time you changed models...not very professional behavior at a gig. I think DigiTech almost got it right.