DigiTech JamMan

This rating says more about me that it does about the jamman. I am not good with buttons and knobs, I prefer menu driven stuff. But, for the price there is no way a gadget such as this could do that, or do it well. It is not too hard to get used to though. I am not sure I would find getting into the deeper uses of jamman that easy. The instruction manual is very well thought out though.

Great. I am a play at home only guitarist. I have been playing for a few years and my aim was simply to have something to help improve my practice. Now I can record my own little jams and lesson and noodle along to my heart's content. I use the following, relatively basic setup:

American standard strat -> seymour duncan pickup driver ->wah -> chandler tube driver/rat -> holy grail reverb -> jamman -> Laney LC15

I am no setup/tone snob. I think there is too much rubbish talked about tone these days. (I know guys who sound like the mutt's nuts with a ts-9 and giys who stink with ts-808's). However, I am not an all in one box multi-effect fan, which is what digitech are famous for. So I was sceptical about the jamman.I think that the jamman does a bloody good job of not tainting sound too much. That might be because I use a pickup booster. Whatever, diminution there is to the sound is nothing that you would not expect if you were jamming anyway.

I have not had it long so I can't say, but it feels like a tank. I am careful with gear anyway. So I will give it full marks on build quality alone.

Again not applicable. I have had no need to get in touch. Will give them the benefit of the doubt on the basis that their website is really helful.

I play (or try to play) along the lines of Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Billy Gibbons and Santana. If it were stolen I would buy it again.

For once I really like the presets. They are great to practice with. It really helps me to make music, as I am not in a band I can now have the sense of being in a band.

All in all a great bit of kit. I would recommend it for any stay at home guitar player like myself. Two things that stand out for me, are the metronome/tempo facility and the separate volumes for loop, instrument and rythm, means I can go for it at low volumes.

I read ovner's manuel of this machine before buy.Not problem very very easy.

really good.not noisy.I tried my all guitars (yamaha sa2200, fender american strat,yamaha apx9na, cort lcs1) without effects.Sound quality enough for me.

I dont know.It's very new now.

I don't seen any good customer before.

I play fingerstyle jazz.This baby like medicine for me.composition and practise very easy.there is one problem,this machine is mono.WHY digitech?

All my friends and audiences agree - this is the best-sounding device I ever looped with. That's because I know how to use it easily.
I don't use a patch.
I don't read manuals, but this one has lots of fine graphics. My tech set it up before sound check and I was good to go.
My unit doesn't need upgrading

Yes! Ivor Stavinski, Bananarama, Jello Bifra, Beastie Boys (Pre Rubin), Kaki King, Air Supply, RockBitch. All these sounds can be faithfully reproduced on this little blue pup.
The Jimi Hendrix effect is weak.
I'm currently utilizing: Benedetto Venesia, A-4 Gibson mandolin repro., Squier Telecasters.
Noisy as f*ck. And I like it that way.
Weak effects if played through the laptop.
Using a Pignose Battery-Operated Amp., Mic'd for the larger arenas.

N/A
I have several. ALL TRAVEL WITH ME.

The nice man who answered the phone told me to press certain buttons, depending on which option I wanted. He was soo cool, sounded almost like a robot.
No upgrade, these little blue pups are going straight vintage!!!!

Excellent match for my styles; Christian Rock, Psychograss, Dub, Hip Hop, Electronica, Classical Baroque, Jazz, Death Metal, and Children's songs.
I've been playing since 1978. I own guitars, keyboards, and an oboe.
I wish the unit had an on-board PC.
This sucka' is seamless - never gets in the way.

To plug and play normal looping this thing is pretty intuitive. To use the more advanced features and move loops on board it takes a little bit of fiddling (not a lot, mind you). The sound is great! Absolutely transparent and the loops are seamless in tone. It would be nice to be able to adjust the loop and instrument volume a little easier with your feet (knobs are small and hard to manipulate cleanly with your feet). The miracle of this thing comes once you've laid down a loop and start playing over it. I can play the way I've always wanted to in my living room all by myself!

Great, clear, transparent sound. Faithful reproduction of loops. Everything I put in comes right back out.
- Quality LP clone into loopmaster 4 loop, Behringer eq, Sabine Fuzzstortion, ts9 (mod), ds-1, Fab distortion, Black Cat Moan Wah, Zoom G2, Digitech Delay, Ernie Ball volume, Jamman -- ABY'd into a Fender Ultimate Chorus, and portable PA.

Built like a well-built brick. Solid case, sturdy feeling dials, and great feel to the pedals (enough give for the sometimes necessary acrobatic tap, yet a solid feeling stomp with a clear feel at the switch point). I have, and would gig w/o backup. I don't see this thing breaking.

Not necessary yet.

I play rock, blues, classical, pop, a little of everything else mixed in. For blues and rock it is a great practice tool and a greater tool for the solo musician like myself to take solos and orchestrate good textures live. For classical hybrids it is great to lay down the counterpoint and build on it or input an accompaniment and play full solo pieces at a tap of a toe (yes your expression is quite limited when playing with a machine, even if you recorded the accomp., but it's pretty good anyway).
I've been playing for 14 years, am a classical bassist, play quite a few other instruments, and this is, by far, the coolest musical toy I own (yes it's a powerful tool, but only toys can be this fun). I would definatly buy another if broken or stolen.
I have a Akai Headrush which turned me on to loopers, and it is fantastic in its own niche (the best delay I've ever played, a great feature that Digitech should adopt that allows you to erase all overdubs and return to the first loop at a stomp) but the loop time is way too small (around 24 secs). The Jamman is great for lots of time for loops and upgradeable memory. The $300 price tag is a bargain and worthwhile investment.

Digitech Jamman. Ease of use - it dpends what you intend to use it for.
Sampling is at 44.1 16k CD quality. What goes in is what comes out.

Editing patches using just the Jamman is limited to tempo change. That is it. You can 'undo' a recording or overdub but actual editing - none to speak of.
Third party developers have already created a basic looper editing software program but it doesn't edit tempo within the Jamman, it just alters the metronome. Talking of the Jamman's internal metronome, it leaves a lot to be desired. It does have a flashing light, Red for on beat and green for the others and an audible, volume changable metronome with several different sounds to choose from. When it comes to actually use the metronome you will find it very limited. There is NO READOUT so you virtually guess what the tempo should be. You can tap a tempo in but this is very hit and miss. If you mess up a sample recording and need to do it again, deleting the flawed sample also deleted the tempo so you have to start all over again tapping in the tempo time after time until you think it's right. This is both time consuming and frustrating.
The user manual is adequate. I'll say no more on this subject.
Saving a sample to the internal card memory is a simple matter of pressing the 'store' button. Once stored, you can not accidentally lose your sample when using the foot pedals - the pressing of buttons is required. This is a good feature 'cause we all make mistakes and it would be hell to accidentally erase a sample on stage.

Despite that fact that I can suggest some additional functions, the unit appears to be steady, reliable and reasonably easy to use. It's a matter of getting used to it ansd working around the few limitations.

If I could have found a small sampler with a simple foot pedal trigger mechanism, that would hold 20 minutes or more of samples I would gone for that instead but there simply 'Ain't no such beast'

This unit is the same size as two stomp boxes stuck together. It's quite heavy and feels robust. It should be easy to carry around.
It comes with the mains adaptor and has no battery facility.
I believe the actual switch mechanism arte connected direct to a printed circuit board and this worries me. If one breaks, it may be cheaper to buy another than try to sort out a repair or replacement part. Fingers crossed on this and I hope I've been misinformed (but I don't think so)

The Digitech Jamman is meant to be a guitarists tool for creating and playing loops. With this in mind, the fact that the samples are mono only should not be a major problem, however it would have been nice to have a stereo option to increase the range of use.

Sampling is at 44.1 16k CD quality. What goes in is what comes out.
No perceptible noise added during recording. Once the tempo is sorted out, recording is fairly simple and will loop easily providing that you press the 'stop' pedal on the beat. The start (when you use the 'record' left footswitch) allows a brief 1,2,3,4 count-in before recording starts - this allows you time to stomp the switch then get ready. The record light comes on to show that it is in fact recording. You can have the metronome turned up or turned off, using the flashing tempo lights for recording
This unit carries no internal effects - think of it as a mono sampler in a pedal - that's it.

My intended use it as a pseudo second guitarist because I just could not find a suitable second guitar player for my band.
I will not be recording loops in live play, simply recording my own guitar parts before hand (one or two at most in a song) and triggering them via a seperate amplifier. The tricky bit is ensuring the track is in tempo with the sample without the drummer having to use an earpiece, but practise should make perfect on this. With this useage in mind, it would have been very nice to have an earpiece 'out' feed for the metronome so that, if needed, an earpiece could be used.

What amp or guitar I use has no relevance here - except to say that what you record into the Jamman is what comes out. If you record an overdriven sample, it's no good playing it back through an overdriven channel as it will be overdriven twice and sound like an old fuzz box. You need to record the samples in the sound you want to hear, then trigger them back through a clean amp. However if you are using it as a looper in a live situation, the sound you use on your amp is what will come back because you are plugged into your amp via the Jamman. In this situation, the Jamman is recording your guitar signal, not the amp signal.

Had it less than one week. No problems so far.
I will gig with it IF and WHEN I'm satisfied it will do the job intended. As for a back up - what, at this price? I don't think so....

I have so say that there appears to be nothing else around currently that performs this task. The datacard that comers with the Jamman will hold 24 minutes worth of CD sampling. This is certainly enough for my needs.
Sample editing can be done by connecting the card to a computer and importing the WAV files. The Jamman has a USB connection - this is one of the reaosns I chose this unit. Samples/loopes can be saved and edited in your PC so back up cards can be made too.

Never dealt with them. I have owned other Digitech products and had no problems. (Touch wood)

Style of music does not matter.
I've been playing for 36 years, part as a pro. Still spending too much of my hard earned cash on 'gear' Sigh!!!
If it does what I want it to do, it will be invaluable to me. If it doesn't I will sell it on - probably at a substantial loss, as with almost all technology gear.

Very easy to use. Take a glance at the manual and away you go.
Nice if there was some kind of simple loop editing here, like that available on the Roland sp 404.

Using this with an acoustic guitar going to a Fisman Loudbox. All sounds very sweet.

Only had it a couple of weeks. So far all OK. It weighs a ton and seems to be built like a tank.

Play all types of music and this box has been inspirering so far. Easy connection with the computer e.t.c.
I do, however, wish you could record in stereo, especially if you intend to use backing tracks of other instruments. Also I can't understand why there is no BPM read out when setting tempos. This makes things more difficult when trying to match tempos between memory locations. If you want to record a whole song using different locations for verse, chorus e.t.c make sure you copy the blank (no recording but tempo set)
patch to all the locations you want to record at before doing any playing.
Even with this slight annoyance this is still a good piece of gear and is great fun to use

The first one I received didn't work. Average rating here. I've seen better written manuals.

The first unit I received didn't work. Very good reproduction of what I layed down on the loops with the replacement unit.

The first one I received didn't work at all. What a disappointment waiting with anticipation for a week only to find out it didn't work. It wasn't an operator error either. I tried this unit at the music store for an hour and the demo worked. The second unit took 2 weeks to get to me. What's up with DigiTech's quality control? Will I purchase another Digitech product? I'll let you figure out the answer.This is my first experience with DigiTech. I've had Line 6 stuff for years and their quality is far superior. Line 6 manuals are excellent too.

It took 2 weeks to get a replacecment unit. You would think they would send another one quickly for the inconvenience.

I give a 5 rating because the 2nd unit works. So far...

Man, where do I start with this...well, THING you call a JamMan? It is not user friendly. Not that you can't ever master it, but it has some really bad design quirks. 1. If you happen to buy one that works correctly, I have had 3, you will see what I mean. It is very hard to obtain a correct, full loop effects unless you can hit the pedal at just the right beat. 2. The ones I had that worked only half the time, were hard to record and save tracks so you can overdub to them. 3. Editing is difficult at best. 4. The manual says one thing and the unit responds different. 5. The compact flash cards that come with this, this, this...beast, don't work half the time, so don't count on 'em. The reason I gave this.....thing.....a rating of 3 is because I purchased 3 of them and to this day, I have not purchased one that worked for over a week or two. This catagory is not worth a 3 but I am being nice. I am a 30 year veteran guitar player a I am fed up with sorry electronic equipment. What has happened to DigiTech, they use to produce very good equipment.

The sound quality, while the unit was working, sounds fantastic. It's CD quality recording and playback. I was very impressed with the low, mid and high frequency response of this unit. The JamMan seems to sound fantastic with most all electronic and acoustic instruments. I am a guitar player using a 1959 American Fender Stratocaster and a Ibanez Artstar semi-hollowbody (like Gibson ES-335's except better sounding), a 1965 Fender Blackface 50 watt Bassman Amp Head, a Peavey Classic 50 Amp Head, and a Mesa Boogie extension speaker cabinet with an ElectroVoice 12" speaker, A Boss DD-20 Giga Delay pedal, a DigiTech XDD DigiVerb Reverb pedal (which is a fantastic reverb pedal), and a Line 6 Pod for effects. I also use a Lexicon Digital reverb/delay pedal when playing clean. Honestly, I don't play other artists songs, I am a songwriter and like to play my own thing. And I only have two favorite artists and they are Terjie Rypdal. Man, what a fantastic guitarist, check him out, and Paul Motian.

You can not depend on it. Three strikes DigiTech, and your out in my book. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT TAKE THIS THING ON A GIG, period. I had 2 brand new ones, and during 2 recording sessions they both quit working. I took the 2nd one back to the music store and tried another one out at the store. I tried saving loops and sure enough, it quit recording after 3.5 minutes of recording and would never record past that point. The owner of the store was there and said he purchased on for himself, tried it on a gig and the memory locked up in it too. It's just a bad design and need some engineering revamping.

There is no customer support to amount to anything. I have emailed the company that handles the DigiTech JamMan and never got a response from them. They are worthless in my book. Give up and get something else or call Robert Fripp (aka: King Crimson), maybe he's got an old Fripp-a-tronics-looper-machine he will sell you real real cheap.

* I play mostly jazz, progressive rock, and my own mix of free style jazz and new age progressive music * I have been playing for 30 years * If I still had the JamMan, and it were stolen, I would be very glad that someone has the problem now * I hate everything about the JamMan except the sound quality, it is outstanding when the JamMan is actually working * I compaired other products and finally decided on a Boss RC-20XL Loop Station and it is easy to use, has never broken down, and the sound quality is recordable quality for use a background effects loops, but not for front effects where you would use it to replace a band member. But it sounds good and has not failed me yet.

Really quick and easy to understand. At the time I am writing this I will say that the online / downloadable manual is much more detailed then what comes in the box. If you need more info i'd download it.

Very easy to use. WAVs can be created on your PC with your favorite software and simply copied to this unit as if it were a usb ramdisk. No software required. Just a USB cable (not included)

I use this as a phrase sampler to play audio clips between songs and as intros to a live set. I have no need to loop instrument parts but ive tried it for fun and the sound quality is superb. I purchased the optional 3 button switch ($50) and you really really need this to make it useful. Otherwise you have to bend over and manually scroll through the samples and then press the start button with your foot to get it going. Easy to do but fairly unrealistic to be flexible in a live setting

Pick up a short 1/4" cable and a DI as well if you plan to run this direct to the PA as I do.

the unit itself seems very durable. Made with heavy grade aluminum.

It uses a seperate AC adaptor similar to a guitar pedal adaptor (included) so if you play live gigs on a regular basis I could see the AC adaptor cable eventually wearing out easily and shorting out unless you have it mounted to a permanent pedal board.

digitech only makes high quality gear from my experience. This item does what it advertises t odo easily and even better then I expected. In a world with so much junk glutting the market this is a superior product and I expect it to hold its value and stick around for a long time.

I'd buy it again if it was stolen. I did a lot of research after my last sampler was stolen and this thing is best at what it does so far. The ability to store vast amounts of loops on the included card and huge expandibility is great. The ability to dump WAVs from my PC is fantastic. Sound quality is excellent

I just acquired the jamman and so far it seems to be pretty easy to use. I've used a boomerang for years and while the jamman is not as simple and straight forward as the 'rang, it is still fairly intuitive. The manuel spells everything out clearly and the device itself has instructions printed on the bottom of it. I'm not a rocket scientist or a computer geek but I had no problems using the jamman right away.

As I said earlier, I've used the 'rang for some years now and have had to deal with the 'rangs predisposition to being noisy. The jamman on the other hand produces very high quality loops (16bit). It doesn't seem (at least at the time of my writing this review)to be predisposed to being finiky (ie.-noisy).

Ah yes. Well, it seems to be sturdy; but only time and lots of live playing with it under varying conditions will tell. If it does crap out, I've still got my 'rang as a back up. One of the things that experience has taught me is that no matter how good a piece of gear is, it will break down at some point and probably at a bad time. Always have a back up...

I don't know yet...and hopefully I won't need to find out very soon.

I've been playing for 36 years. I play for a living and depend on my equipment. The lions share of my work over the past several years has been corporate gigs as a solo guitarist playing fingerstyle arrangments of jazz, pop and classical tunes. I use a phrase looper as a suppliment to my straight chord/melody arrangments. The jamman is faily easy to use and seems solid. It has outstanding sound quality You have to push firmly to engage the pedel which, if you're used toand is capable of holding large pieces of music. It's comparitively small and costs less than a 'rang. It's one major weak point, at least for me, is the absurdly stiff pedels on the thing; they require some getting used to. It does compensate for this (to a degree) by having an 'auto record' function; but I think this seems a little much in live situations. Over all, I'd have to say that my 'rang will be getting retired to a back up looper status from now on. The strengths of the jamman far out weigh it's weaknesses for me. Is it perfect? no; but, it does seem to be a better mouse trap for the money. If not for the unreasonably stiff pedels, I'd give it a 10.