DigiTech HM2 Harmonyman

This pedal takes a little while to learn how to use properly. It also helps to have some decent understanding of music theory. This is not a good pedal for beginners. Once you get going however, this pedal has endless possibilities all available at the turn of a few knobs.

I absolutely love this pedal, and my only complaints are with usability.

First, since this is a digital pedal, I???m at a loss to why it???s not MIDI controllable. Four presets for an instrument as advanced as this is not nearly enough.

Second, there should really be more volume options. The pedal only has one blend control (mixing the wet harmonies with the original dry tone). They should really create an option which allows you to mix and match the volumes of all three, similar to what the EHX POG does. Then again, that would impact the compactness of the pedal.

At the very least, it frustrates me that they don???t have an expression pedal jack to control the current blend pot. It would be awesome to blend sounds in and out, to achieve this sound, I bought a Morley FX blender and turned the HarmonyMan blend knob full right so as to only get the wet signal. The FX blender loop then allowed me to do what an expression pedal would do. It was an expensive fix to a minor problem. This would all be fixed with MIDI controllability, because many midi control boards have expression pedals you can program.

Third, I wish there was a way to switch keys more easily. The ???auto??? harmony setting is not very effective if you only are using one guitar, and pausing mid-performance to change keys is not an option. Again, with only 4 presets that must be cycled linearly it???s not very easy to use. It would be nice if they made a separate pedal you could insert into the rhythm guitar input that had a keyboard layout to select keys with your foot. Again, all of this would be fixed if they just bothered to make this MIDI controllable.

I give the pedal a 6 for usability because of the lack of midi control, which would have fixed every single one of these ease of use problems. I feel as if Digitech held back just so they could come out with a newer version in a year or two.

Again, however, this is my new favorite pedal, and I???m writing all of this with the hopes someone at Digitech takes notice.

This is by leaps and bounds the best sounding pitch shifter on the market. It beats the POG up and down the sidewalk in too many ways to count. It tracks better, and it has more options.

Using this pedal you can get some very unique tones. It???s the reason I use it.

One of the previous users complained about using this pedal with distortion, especially with his tiny terror amp. I suspect this reviewer hasn???t experimented enough.

First, you can use Amp distortion. In fact, this is a great way to get Brian May type tones. You just have to toy around with the settings. Using a distortion after the effect takes some creativity. The problem with the Tiny Terror (which I own) is that it lacks any EQ settings. Getting a good tone with post-effect distortion with this pedal takes some playing with the EQ to get what you want to hear. I found that on my guitar the bridge pickup is a lot better for using distortion after the effect. Maybe that will help.

The distortion loop is a great feature.. You can quickly notice a fuzz pedal within the chain sounds a lot different than after the harmony man. I???ve toyed around with it to find the best combinations.

I've had it for 8 months. No trouble. I give it a 9 because it hasn't been long enough to see if it will hold up. It's made very solidly. I'd be surprised if it broke.

Never dealt with them.

This is by far the best and most unique pedal I own.

What I love about it are the "happy accidents" that occur while playing with the harmony settings. I've achieved some great new sounds with dissidence I could never have dreamed o on my own.. Now I have sounds which are uniquely mine. I've been playing for ten years now, and I'm very excited to have come across this pedal.

I compared this pedal with the POG when looking for a pitch-shifter and it killed it hands down. (more features! better tracking) I also considered the Whammy but opted for this because of the ability to play scales and because everyone and their grandmother has a Whammy.

There are some serious "ease of use" issues which could all be repaired if they made this thing MIDI. I give it an overall 9 for that reason.

One of the great things about this product is "Ease of Use". I also own a Boss PS-5 Super Shifter (for harmonies) and it is far, far more cumbersome to work with. The HarmonyMan was designed to make guitar harmonies easier to accomplish and DigiTech succeeded in doing that. The manual is straightforward and easy to understand. You don't need to understand music theory to enjoy using this product. The HarmonyMan does the thinking for you. Don't let the list of features intimidate you, this pedal is super easy to use.

I placed the HarmonyMan next to last in my pedal chain. I use an SKB PS-55 board with my effects in this order Boss TU-2, MXR M-108, Maxon ROD-881, Boss CH-1, BBE Sonic Stomp, Boss DD-20, HarmonyMan, Boss RC20-XL.

After placing the HarmonyMan in my effects chain, I tried out my setup on my practice amp (Peavey Bandit) and the HarmonyMan sounded fantastic. I immediately fell in love with it. The harmonies sounded great as did detune and octave settings.

The HarmonyMan has a distortion send/return loop that you connect your distortion stompbox through. As noted above, I have a Maxon ROD-881 in my chain, but I don't use it. Therefore I did not use this feature. When testing everything through my Peavey Bandit, I used the amps drive channel and it did not interfere with the HarmonyMan's ability to function. However, that was not the case when I played live through my gigging amp.

I own a number of amplifiers, but I've grown very fond of my Orange Tiny Terror through two Orange 1x12 cabinets. I love the class A tone this little tube amp gets. Now, the HarmonyMan can experience chord recognition problems if overdrive or distortion is used. When connecting to an amplifier, you have to use the amps effects loop and the HarmonyMan's Distortion send/return. I didn't know this when I purchased the HarmonyMan. I thought it was only in conjunction with stompboxes. If you are familiar with the Tiny Terror, you know that it is a no frills amp and does not have an effects loop. I have amplifiers that have effects loops, but I'm playing in small rooms and the Tiny Terror is better suited than my more powerful amplifiers. I wrote to DigiTech Tech support and never received a response back. I was hoping for some suggestions for a work-around.

It is worth mentioning that the HarmonyMan did not add any hiss, hum or noise whatsoever to my signal. I am extremely particular about keeping hum, hissing and buzzing from my signal. Plus, I like to keep my tone intact. This pedal did not cause any issues when off or on, other than the chord recognition problem.

Since I couldn't get the HarmonyMan to work with my primary amplifier, I'm rating this category a 7.

This is my first DigiTech product. The HarmonyMan seems very well built. With the way I take care of things, I seriously doubt I will have any reliability issues.

I'm disappointed that DigiTech did not contact me back. I spent half an hour putting a well thought out email together and made sure all of my contact info was correct. A simple response would have been nice.

I play all styles of music and this pedal will make a nice addition to my pedalboard, except for the issue mentioned. I'm still going to keep it though and use it with my other amps. If you use stompbox overdrive or distrortion, I think you will love this pedal. If you are like me and just like the natural breakup of an overdriven tube amplifier, you will need to run this pedal through your loop to get it to fully work. I haven't tried it yet through a different tube amp with effects loop, but I wouldn't expect any issues. I'm a little bummed, but I still think very highly of this product. There is no other harmonizer out there that can do what this pedal can do. Not that I am aware of anyway and I've spent many hours researching it.