DigiTech X-Series Digital Reverb

Tweaked it, played with my drummer, re-tweaked it - done. Manual is concise.

I have used a Fender Reissue Reverb Unit with all the mods, a Holy Grail, a Boss Digital Delay/Reverb, a Little Lanelai spring reverb pedal and one or two others. Skip all the cheesy reverse-flange gated hoohah stuff. The Plate is nice and clean, but the Spring setting is UNBELIEVEABLE. I'm guessing that the people complaining about the "burp" and "glitch" or whatever are youngun's.. that is the EXACT sound of a surf-approved Fender Reverb Unit, present on all the great surf recordings, and is the essentail ingredient missing from other reverb pedals. Of course, Dick Dale will tell you anything else except the Fender tank is unacceptable, but this thing on the Spring setting nails the authentic surf sound 100%!!! ON this pedal I run the tone full up, and the other two (attack? decay? it's not in front of me right now) at about 12 or 1 o'clock. I use a Fender Jazzmaster or a Strat thru a pair of modded Classic 30's with JJ EL84's & Weber speakers. I'm no rock star, but Steve V signed our band. And I'm old enough to have gone through a BUNCH of reverbs looking for the surf sound without lugging around a Fender Unit. If you play surf/spy/twang go buy this NOW.

Heavy duty construction. Apparently sucks batteries, man up and get a pedalboard.

Haven't called 'em, no need yet.

IF YOU PLAY SURF BUY THIS RIGHT NOW!! I play roots-type stuff - rockabilly, surf, cowpunk, swing, jump blues etc. Again, the Spring setting NAILS the Fender tank vibe, right down to the splashy, spitty sound. Been playing 30 years. I'd buy another immediately. My band, The Dillengers, has a record coming out on Favored Nations in Feb '04. Please buy it. Thanks.

http://www.thedillengers.com

Very easy to use and get a good sound from it. I only had mine for about 24 hours before returning it to Guitar Center but it wasn't due to difficulty getting good sounds from it.

I was using this pedal in the effects loop of My Marshall 6100LM half stack (no on-board reverb). It sounded very good. It didn't add any noticeable noise even at high volumes and produced very good reverb sounds in every mode. The only negative thing I noticed was an odd sound on the pick attack in the spring reverb. I think this what another reviewer refered to as a "burp". Overall it was very good though.

As long as you don't use batteries this thing is built to perform. The casing is nice and sturdy. The footswitch seems to be solid as well. The knobs could be a little sturdier. The real downfall of this pedal is the rate at which it consumes batteries. When others say they only last about 30 minutes they are not exagurating! These things are best described as 'the fat man at the battery buffet'. At first I thought it was defective but after checking the discussion board on the digitech web site I found that this is a common problem and more of a design flaw than a defect. This isn't the only pedal that does this either. The whole line suffers from this to varying degrees. Supposedly the digital delay is even worse. Appearently the battery compartment was included only as a selling point and never really intended to be used.

N/A

This is a good pedal and except for the battery consumption I would have kept it. I have never been a big fan of Digitech equipment so the sound quality if this pedal took me by suprise.

Simple to use. Different reverb types are named by number, written right on the pedal.
Level, EQ, Decay are straightforward.

Spring reverb sounds particularly convincing to my ears. The others are not greatly dissimiliar tonally, but I did not play with them a great deal since I only kept the pedal for a day.

Horrible from a power standpoint. I have NEVER seen a pedal drain power like this before. This thing went through 2 new 9 volt batteries inside of 30 minutes. Totally unacceptable.

Otherwise it seems build fairly sturdy.

N/A

The sound quality is fine, but this pedal can only be reccomended if you use a board with it's own power supply, or don't mind lugging around an AC adapter.

It's battery drainage makes it completely useless to me as it was purchased to work with a portable setup.

The controls for this unit are pretty straightforward. There's a knob to select the type of reverb, another to set the length of decay, another to set the balance of original signal to reverb volume, and... can't remember... Was it an eq of some kind? Right, eq for treble to bass. Step on, step off.

You can adjust these pretty easily for a variety of sounds. As for myself, I just wanted a ton of thick, springy reverb.

If I was just looking at these features, the unit would rate highly for ease of use, but when I factor in battery life things start to slide. The battery that came with the unit was dead after 30 minutes. The box wasn't very easy to use after that. ; ) A power supply should be included. My dealer didn't have one.

I'd read the negative comments about the "burp" of the spring sound, but I thought I'd take a chance. It is kind of annoying. I'd describe it as more of a snap, which kicks off the first attack. After that, as long as the reverb is still decaying from the previous notes, you don't hear it. I could see working with or around this and using at for percussive effect, but it stands out too much for me. I tried the "plate" setting, like another reviewer is using instead of the "spring", but it isn't an adequate substitute for "spring" in my book.

The other sounds are fine, if a bit colorless.

Considering the short battery life and lack of power supply (this is a sales/marketing/engineering problem that Digitech didn't adequately address), I have to downgrade the unit for reliability.

A lot of times we think about customer support in terms of back-end service. "Do they help you when you have a broken product?" I look at front-end service. "Did they advise the customer of the products limitations (i.e. short battery life)?" "Did they provide the dealer and end-customer with solutions for limitations (i.e. making sure power supplies are readily available, etc.)? "Did they work with end-users on design (i.e. the "burp" or "snap")?

I'm not sure Digitech did well in these categories.

Short battery life and "snap" bring the overall rating down. Slip a $2 power supply in the box or send a few for free to any dealer ordering ten or more units.

Very easy to use. Takes a bit of time to dial in the sounds you want, but once you've done so it's a breeze. Settings in the manual are quite over the top.

I have been playing guitar for about 30 years, currently using a couple of Tele's and a Strat through a Blues Jr. and my old Deluxe Reverb. The new Blues Jr. is what prompted this purchase as the Blues Jr.'s reverb is horrid. I play blues, 50's, 60's, rockabilly etc. I really like the plate and spring settings, again, toned down quite a bit from the manual's suggestions. This is excellent for the price and convenience. At this point, I see no use for the other settings for myself. As many other reviewers have pointed out, THIS THING EATS BATTERIES!!! I have used an analog delay and a tube screamer for many, many years, and this effect was my initiation to current hungry digital effects. What a shock! It shots through new Duracells within 45 min! For kicks, I put a new cheapie zinc oxide battery in it...it was dead in about 5 min! An adaptor is a must with this effect, but well worth the trouble for the excellent reverb.

Seems to be built well. I would gig without a backup no matter what because I do not have backups for my other effects, and could pull off most anything I need to with no effects at all.

I know this company's stuff is geared more towards people playing much wilder music than I do, but I'm able to get a couple of nice, traditional reverb sounds from it that suit my music. I studied the reviews on this site for all the various reverbs, and purchased this one based on the reviews without having played through one. I made and excellent choice.

easy to use, knobs effective and reverb selection a breeze even if you can't read on the pedal(more on this later). Knobs feels strange in that they stick as you first move them, after they go conventionally. Manual useful to find how to open the battery case(!) and, very important, how to enable the speaker emulator.
Looks good, battery use is 2B seen as emergency backup if your PSU fails on stage(it happens, mostly because of the tiny cord they come with). In this case you have 3-4 hours at max to shut up your axe/or find another PSU...

Oh it sounds pretty good,and I'm no kid! I play electric and acoustic and the unit works perfectly, you have many ways to obtain an appropriated reverb. Its settings are very characteristic so you won't take one for another: spring sounds very funny, almost grotesque which is fine, reverse is very interesting for soloing, church is the best around for your acoustic, plate sounds fresh, hall is not overdone... Remember you can add or remove highs, decay and the level of processed signal in the mix. One should be unfair to say it's a bad unit. It is absolutely a good one. If you are a snob get a tc thing and spent all your free time tweaking it...
Andy Timmons, not the badest around, said the spring reverb on his amp was fine live because you wouldn't hear the difference with a high end device. I totally agree with him:-)

Yes yes yes, since it's a reverb you still can live without it on stage.It's well built too.But I don't own this for a long time,maybe 4 months so who knows

Here my currently setup: ibanez sabre 7strings-sans amp classic-tech21 gt-2(set as a clean twin)-digiverb(with speaker emulator on)-stereo power amp-jbl control one. It's the best guitar sound without amp so far and it still is simpler than any modeler.
I chose this 'verb very carefully and I am very pleased with it. It's the only compact one with speaker emulator(and a good one to top that!) anyway. Not to mention the very affordable price. Get one!

This is not hard to work at all. The knobs are clearly labelled, the modes self explanatory (hall, church, reverse). Very simple indeed.

I was never a big fan of reverb until I realised how often I was hearing it on my favorite songs, on albums etc. The reverb channel on my amp is pretty poor and that put me off. But I was looking for another effect and I'd read good things on the effects forum here, so I decided to try one out in the shop.

First of all I was very impressed at the variety of reverbs I could have, from slight subtle ROOM reverb to the overkill of CHURCH. It added space and atmosphere to my playing. The addition of a tone knob for the reverb is very helpful too, I have mine around 10/11 o'clock.

What sold it to me was the reverse reverb mode. When you mix the original signal out and have only the reverb, you can create very spooky, otherworldly sounds. I sat in the shop for ten minutes playing in this mode alone. One drawback with this is, because it's all reverb, there is a volume drop when you mix the original signal out, because all you get is the effect. This is sensible and that's what reverb is supposed to be like. But I would like that backwards only effect at a volume comparable to the original signal. That's my only tiny gripe.

There is no major hiss when the pedal is on either. Clear, crisp effects, and pretty versatile for just having one effect.

The other reviews here say bad things... I've had mine for a month and a bit, and it seems alright. But after reading the X-series reviews I'm just waiting for the rubber to come off the bottom, or the switch to stop working, etc.

I have no idea, the shop I bought it from were very friendly, and I chose to buy it from them even though they were more expensive than the people at SOUND CONTROL (who are cliquey and up their own arses).

I'm in a band that plays odd rock/alternative whatever you want to call it, and I'm the only one with any effects except distortion. (Other guitarist - distortion that he bought from me. Bassist - distortion that he bought from me). I wanted to give myself more of an option when it comes to atmosphere and tone, so that's where the reverb came in. It fills my sound out wonderfully and can make some odd sounds when twiddled accordingly. It nicely rounds off my pedal board - distortions - pitch shifter - delay - now reverb too. I didn't know it until I bought it, but I had been missing this pedal. All the songs we used do in the band where i thought 'I wish I could pick things up here, make it bigger' can now be made bigger just by adding this effect. I'm very pleased with it.

This pedal is very easy to use, has multiple reverb settings with level, EQ, and decay knobs. The different EQ settings (1-7) are clearly labeled on the front of the pedal so you do not have to refer to the manual.

The sound quality is really good. The spring reverb actually sounds like real spring reverb. I compared side by side. I detect no additional noise from the pedal. There is virtually no unwanted sound or delay when switching the unit off and on during playing. The reverb has a broad range and can be as dramatic or as slight as you want to set it. I play this through a Fender Bassman 135 head which has no built-in effects. It works very well and sounds like the real thing. I mainly use the "Plate" setting but "Spring" sounds really good too. "Reverse" sounds really odd but cool.

I've had the unit for only a short while and it has functioned properly. The rubber backing on the bottom of the pedal came off which, from the other reviews I've read, seems to be a pretty common problem with this series of pedals. I give this unit a 9 because of the rubber backing problem, otherwise functionality and sound are fine.

Never dealt with Digitech support.

The unit functions great, switching is similar to Boss though not quite as inventive. Much better switching than any DOD pedal. The pedal is solid cast steel construction; should be able to take some road abuse. Battery replacement is not as intuitive or easy as Boss but is not bad. It has a solid plastic 9 volt plug instead of a flimsy 9 volt plug which looks like it would be sturdy and last longer.

It definitely adds that extra sound that I was needing and does it for a good price. Clean tones through this thing sound awesome. If it were stolen I would probably buy another one or I would buy the Boss RV-3 or RV-5 used. I chose this pedal over the Boss RV pedal because I already had a delay and didn't need to buy a reverb pedal with delay built in. The Digitech pedal was cheaper and was reverb only so I bought it. I give this a 9 because it's overall a pretty good pedal despite being a Boss knockoff. (There's only one Boss!) It's exactly what I expected for the money and do not feel ripped off. I would recommend this pedal.

It's a pedal . With as much packaged as a studio reverb I bought in 1985. I wouldn't like to adjust it on a gig , but my eyes and back are probably different nowadays......and wasn't that always why you got a good sound engineer and effects racks anyway ?

Les Paul , EC Strat , various Kramers , and a Squier . Fender Twin , Peterson solid state , and that funny little Electar tube amp. It is quiet , and sounds pretty good to me - infinitely better than miking up an amp , eq'ing ,and fiddling with a studio reverb. Set it up and play.

Ok , it's not that good , but pretty close. It's a bit digital ! And I'm not used to hi-fi sounds at source.

Seems up to most kicks and hurling at the sound man.

Not needed so far , but web site is very good

Playing 35 years , dream situation would be a '59 LP , valve amp with infinite sustain and neighbour friendliness , and playing in the perfect bathroom with no effects. It's like a studio reverb from my early days , but doesn't cost the same as a small cottage anymore . It's fun - and good.

very easy to use as any stomp box should be!

if u know what reverbs in cheap multi-fx sound like u will get the picture.it's just ok if u twick a lot.I've just tried it in a shop in London and I'm not impressed.Yes there are lots of reverb types but just a few are usable and nothing more than that.
It has no warmth,smoothness or whatsoever and some very weird things happen at high settings.
Will not make your sound fly.It's very digital and average sounding

I didn't buy it.

if it was #50 I'd say it's an ok buy but for #100 I think it's well overpriced for the sound quality it delivers.
Sorry Digitech but a nicely build stomp box is not enough!
Don't be fooled guys,it doesn't sound as it looks.
(same as the holly grail)