DigiTech GNX2

GNX2, version 1.3. This pedal can be a pain to get a good sound. All the factory presets vary in level. You have to make sure you set the output for what you are running it through (direct, 1x12, 2x12, 4x12) if you leave it on direct it will sound like total CRAP! To get a good sound, get a good idea of what you are looking for in a sound, then take a channel and completely strip it down and start from the bottom up. The manual is lengthy because it explains all the different effects. All in all it's a very complicated unit. Eventually you will get use to it and then it will be less frustrating.

I run a strat through a crybaby 535, boss oc-2, boss fbm-1, dod supra dist, GNX2, then to my boss rc2 looper, then finally to my Marshall MG100HDFX clean channel. Not hardly at all noisy, and when it is(high gain or high compression) the noise gate takes care of it. Effects have lots of parameters so you can set them however you please. It has a pitch shifter and you can create octave up octavia sounding fuzz tone. Pretty rad. Right now, I'd say that the best part of this machine is that it has a built in freakin digitech whammy, which totally makes up for the previous low rating. Kind of. The delays suck, they sound really dry. Everything else is pretty decent. Anyway, if you dig Rage Against The Machine or envy Tom Morello's playing but can't afford a slew of pedals, this is THE machine for you.

Rely on this? Yeah, it's built like a tank, in the US no doubt. It's the power supply that I'd need a backup for. My first on crapped out, and I found out that it's common for this pedal. Something wrong with it, and it costs 40 bucks to replace. Dang. Don't leave it plugged in while you're not using it or you'll destroy the life of the power supply.

Don't know, can't say

Overall this pedal is very usable, but eventually I will have completely replaced it with good, mostly analog stompboxes. They just sound better. I'm tellin ya though, the whammy on this thing is rad. I'd say buy this first and have EVERYTHING, then slowly build up your stompboxes around it and eventually retire it.

*HOW EASY IS IT TO GET A GOOD SOUND OUT OF IT?
I've used it with a Fender Mexican Strat(with a Kinman pickup in the bridge), a Hagrstrom FP-200, and an Epiphone Joe Pass. I would say its much easier to get a good sound out of the first two since they are not as good sounding by themselves. I really like the way the Joe Pass sounds clean so its much more annoying/hassle-inducing to get a good sound going with that. There's also the placement. Direct it sounds the best probably. In front of an amp that sounds good by itself its a lot pickier to get a good sound.

*HOW ABOUT EDITING PATCHES?
I did my 'research' for this purchase so when I decided I wanted this pedal I read most of the manual to make sure it did what I thought it did, so when I got it, it was pretty simple. The only thing I don't like too much is that everything has a level. This is fine by itself, except that by the time you finish a patch and switch to another one, the levels are totally messed. Usually I just do a 'save as' type deal to get a new effect with a similar sound.

*HOW IS THE MANUAL FOR IT?
The manual is good. They pump up the hypermodeling thing a lot when all it does is really mix two settings.

*DO YOU KNOW THE FIRMWARE REVISION NUMBER?
nah yo. I haven't upgraded it.

*CAN YOU GET THE SOUND OF YOU FAVORITE ARTISTS? WHO ARE THEY?
I don't care about this part too much. If it's any perspective I like Hella, Braid, Yes, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Zappa. Getting their sound wasn't really that important to me.

*ARE CERTAIN EFFECTS VERY GOOD?
I would say the best is probably the pitch shifter and harmonizer. I guess this was probably one of the selling points for me. Everything else does what it has to do pretty much. The thing that I like about this pedal that is maybe slightly less sound-related is that you can adjust most of the parameters the way you want them in terms of what you really want. For example the treble isn't 1-10, it tells you the Hz amounts you are changing.

*ARE CERTAIN EFFECTS VERY BAD?
The only thing I wish there was a ring modulator that is missing, but its not like I would use that all the time. One thing that sucks, but is a bit nitpicky is with the delay, is that if you change the amount of delay it clicks and then switches to the new level instead of actually changing how much delay there is (for example a boss dd-5 does this).

*WHAT SETUP ARE YOU USING IT WITH? WHAT AMP ARE YOU USING IT WITH?
Currently recording direct with an Epiphone Joe Pass and Hagstrom FP200, I want to use it live with the above-mentioned Roland amp, but mainly for effects and to get a bit more distortion. The only effect that is sometimes in the chain is an RC-20 loop station.

*IS IT NOISY?
Only with the p-90's in the Hagstrom, but when its loud enough it doesn't really matter and there is a noise gate anyway.

*ARE THE EFFECTS WEAK OR DO THEY ALWAYS SOUND GREAT?
They sound good to me, I guess I can't really judge how close they are to the originals but that seems kind of subjective to begin with. The pitch shifters and delays are awesome.

*ARE THEY EFFECTS WEAK

*CAN YOU DEPEND ON IT?
No, this is the only bad part about the GNX2. The unit itself is pretty sturdy, I'm pretty sure I've dropped it a couple times. The problem is with the adapter. I used the first one for gigging a bunch of times and then part of the insulation near the transformer block thing got and I couldn't use it anymore. If it happened now I might have tried to solder it, but I got a new one which you can only use their adapter which is like...40 bucks. Kind of a rip off in that department. I found that it works with a boston acoustics adapter, but messing with that kind of stuff is scary enough in itself. The reason you need to get their adapter is that the plug is a really specific size. It would be totally cool if they made it a more 'standard' size. For example I lost my Boss power adapter and then used a generic one I had laying around for my RC-20 and it worked fine. It seems like they've changed this (I recently ordered YET ANOTHER, and it seems that its only for the GNX2). I don't think they even sell this one anymore since they are trying to prostitute the whole MP3 recorder/flash card thing and maybe because of this problem.

*WOULD YOU USE IT ON A GIG WITHOUT A BACKUP?
yes actually, but only if you had a pedal board for this to rest on, or you don't move like an ass like I do.

haven't dealt with them.

*WHAT STYLE OF MUSIC DO YOU PLAY? IS IT A GOOD MATCH?
My band I guess is considered 'screamo' though our newer stuff is metal-ish in the sense that its more technical. Its a good match for this except for this except for that I usually move around too much. I want to use it like a pod for my personal recordings and control the effects with MIDI(the selling point for me, My friend had a flextone head and the weird connection to the floorboard really turned me off to it eventhough I think it might be compatible with MIDI).

*HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PLAYING? WHAT OTHER GEAR DO YOU OWN?
I've been playing about 8 or 9 years if you include highschool lol. I mentioned most of this stuff before.

*IF IT WERE STOLEN OR LOST, WOULD YOU BUY IT AGAIN OR GET SOMETHING ELSE?
If my computer was good enough and I had the cash I would get Guitar Rig 2 or a newer version of the GNX2 pedals. I might try another pedal, but I'm pretty partial to the pitch shifter.

*WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT IT?
The pitch shifter, the tuner was a nice little bonus. The amount of control.

*WHAT DO YOU HATE?
The aforementioned delay thing. Too many volumes lol. But mostly the adapter thing.

*WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE FEATURE?
The little things. SPDIF, the direct stereo out. the tuner. midi control.

It's easy to get a good sound using genedit software, but if you are on the stage and have to do some corrections, it's pain in the ass.Any korg
unit is a way easier to do with. warp option is usefull but i would like that i could turn it off so it would be a good start.

I can get excellent sounds on this for recording directly to computer. when i go onstage, plug into my amp the sound is not so good. even when select in the utility menu my kind of amp, it's not quite optimized. you should crank your amp with digitech connected and using software set it right. i'm using marshall 2*12, and efects sound excellent, distortion if not carefully set sounds unnatural. i wanted more power, better control, whammy wah and all that in a single unit. it's verry good. biggest problem - IT KILLS A LOT OF A
TONE THAT AMP PRODUCES EVEN WHEN SET TO BYPASS

it seams reliable, but there is one big problem there also: TOO SLOW PATCH CHANGE FOR A STAGE. switch to solo and you'll first hear like bump maybe for 0.25 , 0.5 sec, and then a patch. not for pro's

i play heavy and prog, sounds are great, but it takes a lot of time to get a good one, on my ax1500g from korg i just turn a knob and there it is, sounds great all the time, and reacts on controlls way better then this pinball mashine.
if they invested more in speed of procesor when changing patches and put out the stupid rhytam machine, it would be like wow
oh, and i LOVE V-switch- wish that my korg had it. it's so fucking great. like having a morley bad horsie wah. and it do sounds great. any time press pedal bit over end and you have it. blessing for all styles
and also a great thing. if you press a button of a patch you are already in, you'll be in bypass mode.

Editing patches is not very easy, and not comfortable. Have to get use to that but recently I only used software on PC and didn't want to touch the device.

It's hard to find good sound. Something is always missing and sound is moody. Mayby it's good only for Vai fans?

I have had many other guitar processors and it's only one that I have problems with. After few months I had to apply extra force to push buttons and one footswitch even broke. Dial wheel was unpredictable. Once worked in right direction, other time in different.

Ugly. Looks cheap. Sounds cheap. Hard to edit. Hard to push buttons. I'm selling it right now. This is my second and last Digitech.

This is an UPDATE of my earlier review of Genesis 3 and GNX-2

This is an UPDATE of the review I just wrote MOMENTS ago, so Harmony Central People-- USE THIS ONE! Thanks

First, let me state that I have exceptionally great audio equipment here to test-- A Fender Blackface Bassman amp and Fender Champ, both modded by Fat Willy at NBS music in Denver, Colorado- and he is a genius.

My PC is hooked up to an alesis 500W power amp, with KRK passive monitor speakers, and my sound card is a 24/96 Audigy2.

I have discovered that I can get a PERFECT, or nearly so straight guitar sound using the GNX by using the DIRECT OUT option in the Utility area (do not use the other options, which color the sound), and then adding +2 to the Bass EQ, and +2 to the Treble EQ at 6500Khz

I then chose the DIRECT AMP and DIRECT CABINET setting (Green or Red) and selected output of 99, and gain of 99.

I tested this signal using a high grade A/B splitter pedal that would allow me to instantly compare the straight guitar to amp signal against the guitar to GNX-2 to amp signal.

I compared the two sounds BLIND-- that is switched between each, and tried to guess which was which without looking at the splitter pedal. It was impossible to tell the difference, much to my delight and surprise. I got it wrong as many times as I got it right.

I LISTENED VERY VERY CLOSELY.

There was no added noise or hiss using the GNX-2. There was no change in tonal quality at any pitch, or with chords, except possible for the better. Sometimes the GNX-2 sounded slightly richer in tone than the straight signal, possibly because of a very slight boost in this EQ- but it was EXTREMLY CLOSE.

I did not select any effects.

I plugged into a Fender Blackface Bassman amp and a Fender Champ amp as my test, one line going into channel input 1, the other into input 2, and adjusted the output of the GNX-2 to match the straight from guitar output.

It is important to know that when the GNX-2 is properly set up for a straight tone, it does not add any coloration or degrade the sound whatsoever.

Despite what many "purists" might claim, the unit does not alter the pure sound of a guitar if you add just that little touch of Bass and treble EQ, and this was a slight change from my earlier tests- now I have learned to tweak the unit more precisely. Apparently, the "factory flat" EQ setting of the GNX-2 looses a tad of treble and bass as compared to a straight guitar, but once you adjust this, you have a perfect match for a straight guitar.

To my further surpirse, the GNX-2 actually seemed to sound better to my ears on many occassions. I was convinced I was listening to the pure sound, and was greatly surprised that I had it backwards.

Whether or not the GNX-2 effects are equivalent or better or worse than separate analogue pedals-- this is a much more difficult question to answer, a certainly a very subjective area. I have found that I can put all of my pedals in front of the GNX-2 input and use them when I like either alone or in combination with the GNX-2, and then I have the best of both worlds. By using a A/B splitter, one could additionally choose to bypass the GNX-2 or make it part of the signal chain.

The GNX will generate a bit of background hiss on its own when the analog outputs are used, however, when the patch gain and output are maximized, this becomes irrelevant, and any inherent amp noise itself, regardless of volume setting, will be far greater. In the case of using the SPDIF outputs, It should be further noted that using the digital out signal when going into a SPDIF input totally eliminates any hiss or noise from the GNX signal under "microscopic" listening conditions- although there is something to be said for sound eminating from a moving coil and speaker, and miking than for recording will generally introduce elements of "REALNESS" absent from purely digital recording.

No problems, although an earlier example of a GNX2 and RP2000, the knobs got a little squirrely after a time.

Got them when I needed a spring and pedal cap once, no problem.

Can you beat it for the money? Especially used? No way.

See my web site for more music and recording info
www.NeilSlade.com
The Amazing Brain Music Adventure

This is an UPDATE of my earlier review of Genesis 3 and GNX-2

I have discovered that I can get a PERFECT, or nearly so straight guitar sound using the GNX by using the DIRECT OUT option in the Utility area, and then adding +2 to the Bass EQ, and +2 to the Treble EQ at 6500Khz

I then chose the DIRECT AMP and DIRECT CABINET setting (Green or Red) and selected output of 99, and gain of 99.

I tested this signal using a high grade A/B splitter pedal that would allow me to instantly compare the straight guitar to amp signal against the guitar to GNX-2 to amp signal.

I compared the two sounds BLIND-- that is switched between each, and tried to guess which was which without looking at the splitter pedal. It was impossible to tell the difference, much to my delight and surprise. I got it wrong as many times as I got it right.

I LISTENED VERY VERY CLOSELY.

There was no added noise or hiss using the GNX-2. There was no change in tonal quality at any pitch, or with chords, except possible for the better. Sometimes the GNX-2 sounded slightly richer in tone than the straight signal, possibly because of a very slight boost in this EQ- but it was EXTREMLY CLOSE.

I did not select any effects.

I plugged into a Fender Blackface Bassman amp and a Fender Champ amp as my test, one line going into channel input 1, the other into input 2, and adjusted the output of the GNX-2 to match the straight from guitar output.

It is important to know that when the GNX-2 is properly set up for a straight tone, it does not add any coloration or degrade the sound whatsoever.

Despite what many "purists" might claim, the unit does not alter the pure sound of a guitar if you add just that little touch of Bass and treble EQ, and this was a slight change from my earlier tests- now I have learned to tweak the unit more precisely. Apparently, the "factory flat" EQ setting of the GNX-2 looses a tad of treble and bass as compared to a straight guitar, but once you adjust this, you have a perfect match for a straight guitar.

To my further surpirse, the GNX-2 actually seemed to sound better to my ears on many occassions. I was convinced I was listening to the pure sound, and was greatly surprised that I had it backwards.

Whether or not the GNX-2 effects are equivalent or better or worse than separate analogue pedals-- this is a much more difficult question to answer, a certainly a very subjective area. I have found that I can put all of my pedals in front of the GNX-2 input and use them when I like either alone or in combination with the GNX-2, and then I have the best of both worlds. By using a A/B splitter, one could additionally choose to bypass the GNX-2 or make it part of the signal chain.

No problems, although an earlier example of a GNX2 and RP2000, the knobs got a little squirrely after a time.

Got them when I needed a spring and pedal cap once, no problem.

Can you beat it for the money? Especially used? No way.

See my web site for more music and recording info
www.NeilSlade.com
The Amazing Brain Music Adventure

The unit could be designed to be more user friendly, but if you pay attention to what the knobs are doing you will figure it out. Turning the knobs slower than you want to will get you where you want to be, and listen to what they are doing. Working from the factory preset sounds and dialing in from there should get you close, but I found some of the crappy sounding presets to make some of the meanest guitar tones I;ve ever played when tweeked to my liking. Be patient the sound is in the unit.I never looked at the manual, and I never upgraded any software, just opened the box and cranked that muthar up!!

My set up is simple and I recommend yours to be the same for the best sound from this unit. I run the pedal directly into a 400w per channel Yamaha stereo power amp model CP2000 that runs its outputs into a Randall stereo 4x12 cab and my guitar is a strat with Duncan Distortion bridge pickup and 1 volume knob,,,like I said simple!! Let the GNX2 do the work ,it has more juicy crunch available than you need. The distortion can vary from smoother tube styles to rip yur rectum metal! The pedal and effects are very good quality and is quiet. The amp and cabinet modeling is not a reason to own this but the ability to match an artist sound is easier with a pedal like this. The clean sounds are excellent with a wide range of variety from country , blues , or modern rock clean sounds. Is it perfect,,no it is not but in this price range I can play next to $1500 amps and impress there owners as I have already a few times.

It seems to be rock solid after 3 years of on and off jammin but it is a delicate electronic item and should be treated like one. I would'nt hesitate to play in front of 1000 people all nite with this but as anything goes a backup unit would be wise.

Never needed them.

I play alot of hard stuff from classic rock to new metal, mostly I play anything that sounds cool. If it were stolen I'd buy another unit with the same abilities as this has if I could'nt find one of these. Also if you use this unit and come up with something you can't live without write down what the settings are in case you accidently erase it!!! Building it again could be tough.

This isn't really brain surgery. This was my first time ever being able to completely tweak my settings. The RP 200 i had is cool and all but this has much more to it. For basic operation it's rather easy to deal with. For more in depth 'tweaking' you'll have to really read into it and understand this unit. All in all it's not a very challenging piece of equipment to run.

I am using an Ibanez Rg 220 with an EMG 85 in the bridge, an Ibanez acoustic (for use on clean settings only!!), and my main guitar being used is an Epiphone Goth Explorer with an EMG 81 in the bridge and an 85 in the neck. this goes through the GNX 2 into a Crate 212 amp.

I've used noisy guitars with this unit before just to test it and the noise compressor works perfectly. Due to using EMG's there is little to no noise. Even on high distortion or high fuzz settings you can pretty much turn down the noise level.

The Chorus and Flange effects are my favorite... Although not THE best they are do their job quite well. The Whammy effect is okay but the actual pedal is MUCH better. The pitch effect is kinda useless for me. The Talker is interesting but is kinda hard to use. The wah is alright but rather weak but is suitable until you can get the cash to buy a dunlop crybaby.

I can the sound that I really want. I play metal stuff like Metallica and Ozzy and even heavier stuff like Slayer etc. but I also play a lot of Pink Floyd music. So you can most certainly get the sound you need from this product.

There are only a few complaints I have...
I wish the wah had more of a range.
It would have been nice for the Whammy effect to have more thought placed in it.
And my adapter kicked the bucket after about a year of semi touring, but hey nothing is perfect.

Overall the sound I get running through my equipment is just what I am looking for at this stage in my life.

The reliability besides the adapter dying on me is absolutely wonderful. I'm in marching band and I played guitar in it for two years using this pedal. We went all over the place and mind you this is outdoors so it put up with 100 degree weather into cooler weather and has traveled into 4 different states with me and never failed.

I'm not the easiest person on my equipment but i don't totally thrash it either. This puts up with some heavy beatings. Only one thing use it with a semi-reliable power source. I used an un-reliable source one time and it shut off on me but no harm done to the pedal.

I've never dealt with them. but i'm sure they would be reliable due to their good products.

My main style of music is Hard Rock and Heavy Metal, but I do play EVERYTHING. This pedal, for the price, is probably as good as it is going to get for you. I've been playing for only 4 years but I really do know what I'm talking about 'cuz I've done my research and have played on many pieces of equipment (thank you guitar center lol).

If it were stolen I would be so damn pissed, but I'd prolly just buy one used off of ebay since I know they can take the abuse and it will probably work just as good as my old one if not better.

I chose this over the Boss basically because it had more features in it's price range I loved digitech ever since I used their RP 200A.
I love this pedal, anyone who is looking for a pedal should seriously check this one out. You most likely won't be displeased.

Some of the factory patches are decent, but most of them range from kind of bad to just plain awful. Getting a good sound out of it requires sitting down with the manual and figuring out what each effect can do and how you should set it up. The vast amount of options in this processor can definitely be overwhelming at first. Spending a day or two just fiddling with everything makes it a lot easier later to create good patches because you know where everything is. I've found that I can make good sounding patches fairly quickly now just by knowing the kind of sound I'm looking to make.

I'm running on firmware version 1.3 and haven't tried upgrading it yet.

My current rig is: Fender American Strat -> Digitech GNX2 -> Crate VFX5212 -> Aphex Guitar Xciter (FX Loop)

As seems to be the general consensus with most multi-effect pedals, the wah is pretty weak. I'm considering buying a separate wah so I can just use the main pedal as volume and for other expression purposes. The pitch shifting effects block is also kind of nasty sometimes. One of the things I was looking forward to doing with this pedal was playing downtuned songs without having to retune my guitar. Neither the whammy nor the pitch shifter work for this the way I want; there seems to be a slight delay between what's being played and what's produced through the amp. The volume also seems to drop when using these effects.

Other than those problems, I really like the sounds this unit can produce. Sure, the effects and amps/cabinets don't sound exactly like what they're trying to model, but that's only important for complete tone purists. If you're just looking for a good sound, I think you can get it.

Some of my more musically inclined friends have told me that I sound almost exactly like some of the artists I'm trying to emulate when I use this pedal. For me, that's a great endorsement.

I feel comfortable using this thing for gigs; I've done so a couple of times without damaging the unit. The plastic knobs and pedal buttons worry me a little bit, but I'm not planning on using it as a shot put or a discus anytime soon. I'd honestly be surprised if it just stopped working on me.

I've never had to contact Digitech for support.

My music styles are mostly classic, modern, and pop rock. Even if I didn't play this style of music, I'd wager I could use it fairly well to get the tones I wanted.

Overall, I think this is a great option for people who want to experiment with a bunch of different effects but don't want to buy a ton of individual stompboxes or rack units. I've never been disappointed with it and don't expect to be in the future.

If I lost this processor or had it stolen from me, I wouldn't replace it with another copy...that's more a problem with Digitech having discontinued this product in favor of the bigger processors though. I'd definitely consider buying another GNX product from Digitech again if this happened.

Just submitting another newer review for this pedal. Ease of use is all relative but as a software and elect eng. I find it pretty easy to use both for manual edits and with Genedit s/w.

Mainly a Yamaha Pac1412 SSH w/ Dimarzio EVO bridge and SD Hot rails neck pup. Also use Acoustic (Yam CPX15W), Gibson ES350T jazzbox and Charvel 650XL. The sound quality is very difficult to quantify because now that I have used the pedal in many situations over the last couple of years I have learned how to make it sound much better in all situtations. I liked the models + stompbox from the beginning but certain setups can be a pain - like straight thru a 1x12 combo. But now I use it primarily running through a preamp (Art SGX2000 just running straight 5 band EQ) driving the PA and a stereo TUBE power amp into a 2x12 cab for stage. This setup kicks major ass and the flexibility of the modelling is great. The biggest detractor to sound here is that I don't feel that a lot of the effects are up to par with the modelling but they have proven good enough for decent quality live effects (delays/revs/flange/phaser). Not all that psyched with the Wah - so I always run a separate Wah in front of the GNX2. The biggest mistake I think people make is treating this like a regular pedal - you should really think of it like a preamp meant to be run straight into a PA or good linear power amp. Also my rig really benefits from having a separate preamp with a 5 way EQ - so last seconds tone tweaks are easily attainable as with a normal amp, and since this preamp also drives the PA the entire sound is easily tweaked live.

Never broken on me yet. No digitech pedal has given me a problem (this is my 3rd one).

Dealt with them on the Talker trying to get a setup that would work with the GNX2 running in "effects" or "stompbox" mode. The support guy was really trying to help - so points there - but he didn't seem to know the unit all that well so I'm only rating them a 7.

I wanted to write another review because I now have over two years of experience using this thing and I've got a better idea what it does well and not so well and also how to get the best sounds out of it in different situations. When people write reviews that say these (or almost any of the modern modelling pedals suck) I think they are simply uneducated about what a modelling pedal is supposed to do and how they work best. Some of the best situations I've had are when I take nothing to a gig except the pedal and the guitar. Now I do miss the preamp setup I mentioned but I know what user patches I have that work great without any tweaking through the PA and stick mostly to those 4 or 5 and I'm always happy.

I will probably cough up the dough for a GNX3000 in the next year as I am so happy overall with the pedal, the durability and most of all the modelling quality - especially the addit. stompbox models and warping feature. These together give me a lot of flexibility and LIVE tweaking with the pedal in the "effects" mode. The lack of ability to select the V-Switch control binding is a major bummer IMO. I would like to be able to select the V-Switch to activate more than just the Wah, i.e. activate Whammy/IPS or Talker functions would be a great enhancement IMO.