DigiTech GFX-1 TwinTube

The Twin Tube is relatively easy to program compared to some other push button units, but it would be nice to have a couple multi-function knobs on it to make it even quicker. The quicker I can get the sound I'm looking for the better the inspiration is. I bought it new but didn't really use the manual, it's pretty intuitive.

I wish it could get more gain using the clean tube (it's got a "clean" and a "dirty" tube) without distorting, but in general the thing is very quiet and with a surprisingly good tone - even with a solid state amp. All the main effects are there and they have a wide enough range of tweakability.

As far as durability and reliability, this is the amazing part: I was going home from a studio one eve. in 1992, put it on the top of my '78 Honda, got distracted, got in the car and drove away. At about 35mph I drove about 2 miles down Broadway (busy time of day) and heard this bang behind me. My heart sank as I remembered what it was. I pulled the car over and ran back, and there in the middle of a lane was my Twin Tube. I picked it up, the rackmount plate was totally bent over and it got a big road scar on the top corner. When I got home I tried it out and it worked like new. I've been using it for 9 years since without a problem. This thing is a tank-rack. I give it an 11 for dependability.

No experience with cust service never needed a repair. The side cover came unglued from the footswitch but it can be reglued in with contact cement.

I think it's good for the money, especially if you can get ones as cheap as people say. As a matter of fact its' the best one I've used not to say it's the best out there.

I bought this as my first processor. a little difficult at first, but as soon as I figured out the parameters(without a stinkin manual) it kicks a**. I want to buy a brand new one (I bought mine used) so that I have a backup. bought the first for $180, minus the footpedal patch cord which is $18, total--$200!. the bypass led doesn't work, but i'm kinda scared to take this thing apart, and even more scared to send it in(read the other revues).
I run it through a Sovtek 50w head, and it kicks out a creamy tube thump for metal riffs--this is great. It does lack the extreme edges on the effects, but for how much i paid for it, it is awsome.

the noise gate works too well at times, i use a morley distortion wah as a volume pedal for blending. the twin tube is quiet when not in use, and it is pretty versatile.

i bought this less than a week before a gig, used it once in practice and then at the gig. I don't know about reliability--haven't had it long enough--but i have a lot of confidence in it.

i play indie rock and punk-metal, and this is going to be part of both. it is my first processor(stuck to pedals for twelve years) and i will probably buy another digitech when this one bites it. It is simple to use--i might buy the manual, but probably not.

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to use...and if you have a good ear for tweaking tone...it makes an "all the work done for you" Line 6 Flextone or POD preamp section sound like a chump. (real tubes REALLY DO sound better LIVE!!)

This is a pre amp REALLY. It's a preamp with a BONUS option for Chorus, Delay or flange. Focusing on THAT...this is a VERY good sounding, QUIET preamp. It equals and (in my opinion) surpasses preamps costing up to 10 TIMES as much. How it gets the BALLS with only the 2 preamp tubes is beyond me. Guys with Triaxis, bogners, etc. CONSTANTLY come up and ask how I get my tone. I tell em it's my "SOVTEK" power amp. :)

Bought it USED in '92. Only replaced the tubes once. It's been with me ALL AROUND THE WORLD ever since. I really should get another one just incase this one EVER breaks.

Wouldn't know. Never had to send it in!

I play LOUD rock in my band. I LOVE to play JAZZ & Blues too. This thing is a virtual TONE monster. If you have a good ear, and a knack for tweaking..this is the ghetto rig PICK of the CENTURY. I've seen em on e-bay for less then $100!! Put a DOD G7 ($100 or less on EBAY)in the effects loop for reverb and trem/pitch..and you got "THE ghetto rig from HELL"!!! And it WILL scare your friends with "BIG" expensive rigs I PROMISE.

It has always been easy to edit patches.

Factory patches are Ok, you really have to go in and make your own. but that going for just about everything out there! I get good clean sounds & great Distortions.Are there better things on the market ? There will aways be something better because new things come out. I've had mine for 7 year & it still holds it's own!

never had one problem

don't know, never had a problem

I play Rock to Jazz, and if you have a Twin Tube you'll need a effects unit. but for a pre amp its great!

Very easy to use. Good presets on it. Some of the sounds need tweaking though...some a bit harsh, some clip too soon...easy to fix though by changing the parameters.

I use several other pedals (volume, delay, rat pedal) and a Fender amp. Practically noise free. Sounds warm. Very nice. I rely on about 10 of them.

It has worked great for me. I replaced the tubes once. It has been dropped several times, bent, stepped on and it keeps on going. I've had it since 1991 and it has been great.

Never dealt with them. Hopefully, never will.

I plan on keeping this till it dies. Once it does die, who knows. I might just buy another preamp or a bunch more pedals to compensate.

See review below.

Just an addition to my previous review!
I'd like to tell Mr. Rogers, a little further down the page that the 'clean' settings are INDEED supposed to sound dirty! The 'Clean' tube bias setting is meant to mimic the sound of a low-gain amp, whereas the 'Dirty' setting sounds like a high-gain amp. Mr Rogers, if you should set the amp to 'glean', gain 9 and saturation to 0.6, you'll hear a perfectly clean Fender Blackface. Dial up gain 6, saturation 5, you'll hear a Vox AC-15. Push the amp a little to gain 11 saturation 2.6 and you'll have a Marshall running short of breath.
Use the 'Dirty' bias with the same gain settings and you'll hear a Soldano SLO clean channel or a Lab L5.
So if you've never tried, say, gain 11 and saturation 8 on the 'clean' setting, you've never heard the TwinTube in full effect!
Now got that?

See review below.

See review below.

See review below.

It is extremely easy to get a useful sound out of this box. Be sure to put it level with your eyes, because those LCD's might just have you bending over for good vision and bad back problems.

It is really, really low on noise. The gate hushes it down to silence but on high-gain patches it does tend to cut off long notes, even at the lowest treshold settings. The tube sounds are really good, there's some really effective crunch in the 12AX7's. It's a pity that the Chorus is only single tap-type, I would have liked a true stereo one or a cool leslie or something.

It hasn't failed me. Yet. I have had some kind of a curious problem invonving the speaker sim (a simple and good-sounding bit too) which on a few occasions didn't start up, giving me the unprocessed and quite harsh sound. After powering down for a second an starting up again the problem seemed gone. Occurs about once a month.

None.

Yes, I would buy two of these suckers if I would ever needed another one. I really love the way it gives you a good tube amp sound and not a solid state sound blurred bu 16 effects. It focuses on good sound, not on lots of effects and works wonders warming up my PA amp which I use to drive my two 1x12 H&K cabs. On stage, I enjoy it. Helpful tip: if you see the overload indicator flashing too much for your taste, you can set the speaker sim to a generally lower level. Good!

This unit is VERY easy to use and has a straightforward interface.

Sounds are good, but a bit harsh at times. Many of the pre-sets are too "Metal" for my tastes. A little editing is required to get it to sound right.

This unit has now been back to the shop FOUR TIMES this year alone. The first three were for related problems that Digitech couldn't seem to fix right. It now has a MIDI problem. It wont transmit program change information. This thing is a real LEMON and is costing me a fortune in postage to send it back to DIGITECH.

Digitech's customer support is unnacceptable. They refuse to acknowledge that I have a LEMON. They don't seem to think that a unit having four different problems in a four-month period is really a big deal. This scares me. I wonder if all their products are as bad as this one?

Not only would I NEVER buy this unit again, I wouldn't buy or reccommend any DIGITECH products to even my worst enemy. There is nothing worse than a company that can't fix their own products. There is simply no excuse for Digitech's incompetance. PERIOD!

An idiot could program this unit. Very straightforward operation and programmability.

Overall sound is fairly good... although a little harsh. Delay is clean and the noise gate works fairly well. Sometimes the sound sounds a bit overprocessed though. Clean tube sounds nice.

I had this unit for about a year without problems. Then it started cutting out on me. I sent it back and they worked on it. They fixed the original problem but created a new set of problems. Clean sound isn't clean anymore. Sent it back again. They replaced the tubes. Clean sound is STILL dirty. Now the unit cuts out again. Sent it back for the third time. Digitech claims that the "clean" settings are supposed to be dirty. I think not! It is still sitting at Digitech. They apparently can't figure out how to fix the new problems they created by "fixing it".

Their service department, while prompt, has NO IDEA how to fix a pre-amp. My unit went back THREE TIMES and still is sitting at Digitech. The more they work on it, the more problems it has. They say the problems are "normal". Digitech claims that a clean tube sound should be dirty. Digitech can't explain why my unit worked until they "fixed it". Digitech refuses to replace it with a new unit. They think I should live with it as is. I don't think so.
On the plus side, they are friendly and offer quick turnaround times. Now if they could just learn to actually fix the equipment....

I really like the sound of this pre-amp. It worked great for a year. Digitech needs to learn a little about repoairing pre-amps. Digitech needs to learn that just because a unit is "in-spec", doesn't mean it sounds right. Digitech's service department sucks! I have been without my pre-amp now for THREE MONTHS.

This early entry in menu-driven multieffects processors has the typical awkwardness associated with a two-line display. Much button pushing is required to change a single parameter (especially parameters in the middle of the list--you can move from the from to the back of the list of effects, or you can go from back to front, but the middle is still about 8 button- pushes away). Two software faults: occasionaly one amp stage (a transistor stage) has too high gain when the unit is turned on. Turning the unit off, then on, fixes the problem. The second fault is actually a benefit: According to the manual, 60 patches are for the user (1-60), and 60 are preset (61-120). But I have found that I can edit all the preset patches, so I can sacrifice the 'permanent' presets that I know I'll never use for more room. The unit has two 12AX7's, and the user can replace them with a little effort if needed, but I haven't needed to. It comes with Groove Tubes 7025 (mil-spec 12AX7's). The manual is pretty good. You'll get along okay without it, though. You'll need it if you're resetting MIDI maps for the first time.

Fairly quiet, you'll notice the gate cutting the signal when you have high-gain patches. A slight complaint about digital noise in low-volume passages. The delay cannot do a good reverb--it realy is only a delay. The chorus is single tap only. The speaker simulator is only a second seven-band graphic EQ (post-processor)

So far it hasn't failed on me. Only that odd gain missetting on powerup is the only flaw. It does very well being dropped.

I called once about getting an upgrade, but they wanted me to send it in and I didn't want to part with it for a couple weeks.

Okay, technical details: Parameters: Compression [bypass (on/off), amount, output level], Vacuum tubes [bypass (on/off), bias (dirty/clean), gain, saturation], EQ [seven bands, -12 dB to 12 dB in 1 dB steps], Master volume [-12 dB to 12 dB in 1 dB steps], Noise gate [bypass (on/off), threshold], FX loop [in/out] Digital FX {select ONE and only one of the following}: Delay [time (.5 to 400 msec), feedback (0 - 99%), mix (100% wet to 100% dry)], Chorus [delay (0 to 100 msec), sweep rate (0 to 5 Hz), sweep depth (0 - 100%), wave form (log, sawtooth, sine), mix] Flange [delay (0 - 15 msec), sweep rate (0 - 5 Hz), depth (0 - 100%), wave form (log, sawtooth, sine), feedback(0 - 99%), mix]
The Utility menu allows you to alter the speaker simulator (8 presets, 3 user) the MIDI maps and controller settings, foot controller setup, and LCD contrast.