Yamaha DG Stomp

My second review:

WOW, I got a class a tube amp (Top hat CR) yes a real amp...
Any way the DG stomp just comes to life so much now compared to my Fender new school tube amp. My amp has little drive and using this DG stomp in small amounts really does give me a swiss army knifes amount of classic rock tones. Its a great unit and can sound like SRV style very easy. Trick is dont over do the effects. I actually took off my 1979 TS-808 and opted for just the DG stomp! I love how there is no noise and I get the clean and dirty boost with subtle effects. Great for country blues. The real knobs, I got the Magic stomp but cant stand how there no knobs so **** canned it. Also I find it best to play three patches or three sounds only. Then its like a patch that is SRV sound, then Santana delay thick tone and a few major reverb patches. Just dont even bother with factory patches. Make your own! press save and your done. Don't get into patch surfing and knob tweaking get back to playing and understand this is a pre amp, clean boost with subtle but highly usable modulation effects, chorus, delay, phaser...and best used on a two grand tube amp because you will really be able to turn the amp sim OFF and get back to basics. Not used the cab sim and I use the Pre amp ON setting. Hell its so dead easy I could press the reset command and remove all my settings and be back in a song in 3 minutes.

Features are quite generic, and dealed with in other comments.

Used with '77 Strat, a pair of '79 Fender 75 amps, '68 Hiwatt 4x12 cabinet, and TS-9 for overdrive.

The DG-Stomp is a live, swiss army knife affair. Everybody knows that amp modeling is OK for submitting a pitch for a TV add, but for a real soundtakes there's just no replacing the real thing. I use it with the pre-amp emulator thing off, always, except in reharsal, where I don't carry an amp. The 'emulators' sound is OK for reharsal, and will 'fool' 90 % of the audience, and even the occasional tone challenged bandmate. But I'm the kind of maniac who plays for the 1% that comes up after the show and asks : those are Fane speakers, right ?

The effects cut it live (although the phaser is very brittle and the flanger harsh) but the pseudo-tape delay is actually quite OK, plus, its tap-tempo, wich is a real life-saver. Chorus is usable, but chorus is a cheap-o effect anyway. Nobody in their right mind would use the reverbs on this for a studio take. The high-end resolution sounds like its in the 4 bit range, for god's sake. The tremolo is OK, and choppy as hell if you need it to. I used the rotary speaker effect (sounded OK live) on a studio take once (the leslie didn't fit in the car) and lived to regret it each time I hear the song on the radio.

There's a reason why an actual real effects chain will cost a couple grand, and this costs quite less. There are no miracles. In sound, and in quite a few things for that matter.

The tuner is utterly useless. I can't even believe Yamaha put it in there (their acoustic guitars are quite well intonnated). The compressor is gadget-level, the attack-time is way to slow.

It's not noisy at all, and doesn't really screw up your tone if you EQ it right. The high-low impedance switch can actually heat up your tube amp a little, wich is OK.

It's made of steel, with real switches. End of debate.

It failed to turn on once, right before a show, but never did it again (yeah, the power-bar was on). Yet, kind of makes you nervous.

I got the pdf manual free on the net, so that's OK with me. And you do need the manual, because getting to some of the features is a two-knob at once affair.

I'w been playing for 20 years.

If it were lost, I might try something else, like an actual effects board (I was always to lazy to build a custom one).

I love the fact it's compact, tap-tempo, noiseless, and saves me fifteen minutes in setting up 7 pedals before a show.

I don't really 'hate' anything about it, its just that you have to take it for what it is : a 500$ machine that tries to emulates 80 grand worth of gear.

I had ~ZERO~ luck getting the external Wah pedal to sound good but im submitting this because with a $50 Roland EV-5 used as a volume pedal its great with the DG stomp.

Pros: SMALL compared to the big Boss multi effects rigs.
This wont sterilise your tube amp like Boss digital or POD.
All metal with big metal buttons and knobs.
Delay and Reverb is GOOD!
Volume petal jack is GOOD!
EQ is ok!
There is some magic in this box!

CONS: Built in Wah is CRAP with big tone hit and 20% drop in sound level.
Cant use flanger and chorus at once? Same with rotary, only one at a time. Delay is independent.
Comp is a little lame.

Im using with single coil strat.
This is how I use it. Its on my pedal board in the loop with a bypass switch, although I keep it on 100%.

This is how I got the ~BEST~ results.
1. I programed a BLANK sounding patch with volume pedal program and saved as #11, first program.
2. I have the tone as close to my natural amp as possible and its almost bypass with all effects and EQ at 5.
3. Then I run my effects.
Boss Compressor CS-3 >> TS-808 >> Dunlop Wah >> larger analog multi effects IBANEZ Pie-5 Tube, Loop into the DG stomp.

Its great this way with a little comp/sustain and TS-808 as a booster.

Now the important this is this is not a POD, although it has a "Pre amp" that gives a ton-o gain I never use it ever! Just get a good tube screamer or gain channel amp.

Its very natural sounding and im running this with extremely expensive all hand wired amp, custom strat, 1979 TS-808 and its a keeper. I can get this thing almost transparent! So for a tube purist its even a good deal, your ears wont know its on! Then start to add a touch of reverb, touch of delay.

The PSU got really hot once. Then it quit but the next day it was ok.
On a large pedal board it gets REALLY REALLY HOT! I dont have the feet on it rather I use Velcro. I imagine it needs space under there to dissipate heat. I imagine it might break but ill just get another if it breaks.

talked to a rep once, nice guy knew nothing about the stomp as Yamaha moves so much products in and out they are distached.

If lost id get separate effects but that would cost $300+ and take a lot of room, over $60 in cables to install. Iv had this for sell 3x in Craig's list and it never sold but im keeping it now now that I use it for SUBITLE delay and verb. Not to much or it goes south.

Thing to remember is be sparing with the effects, to much will ruin the sound. Just like I said, make a blank natural patch save as #11 then dabble the effects very slowly in.

I use this as a time based effects unit only and really get my distortion from a tube screamer or high gain amp.

Over all for a guy like me with a hand built amp with ABSOLUTELY NO FEATURES! This little box gives me reverb, delay, some amp Sims.
I cant tell when the amp Sims and drive, lead, lead2 is moved. My big amp 4x12 kind of nutralises that some how. I suppose its a little change in ambiance not anything I spend my time with. Stays on clean setting.

This is my tweak box and im always finding something NEW and useful out of this. Sometimes the sound is down right magical.

Like any effect you use moderation or you get a ball of mud.
I do not like the pre amp or gain as it just adds a ton o grain and dirt. I just crank my tube amp for that.

When I was all digital this device did provide some realistic "Tube" sound.

Lastly, im building a small night club for me and my friends and I will take this off my rig and install on the "House PA" for a guest guitar or second guitar player that might not want to drag his amp accost town.

Its plug and play tube amp simulation;, no wire fuss. Minimal use of effects and its very natural, very warm.

Use a Tube screamer and comp on the front end and its great!
The Rotary effect is good! but the external foot pedal did not change its parameters so I might look for a real Leslie.

Last comment, changing programs is IMPOSSIBLE. They really failed with no UP/DOWN button. I had to pay $50 for a midi up/down but when its about tone you can overlook that.

It's the tone and effect jack and small size that keeps this on my precious over crowded effect board.

Iv seen quite a few guys with $4,000 Tube amps using a DG stomp.
Dont bother with the external pedal jack use it as a volume or swell.
Im very fussy about "Digital" stuff and remember a real analog delay will run $250 alone and this box is around $90 so off you go its ambient to country, to classic rock... Its really old school if you want.

Fetures of this product you can find in earlier reviews. It's very versatile, indeed. Another plus is elegant design. No plastic star trek like crap, solid and simple metal construction. It feels better to be used connected to pa or transistor amplificiation like tech21 engine. The bad thing is you cannot setup effect chain. For example flanger will be always before delay and so one. I found dg-stomp useful for my musical ideas from jazz, ambient and rock.

Used with yamaha erg121 and ibanez af77 ( hollowbody). Stomp gives well textured sound and it reacts diffrent with diffrent guitars and pickups congurations. Can be noisy with single coils. You can get smooth modern jazz sound, type o negativ drive and everything between. Cleans channels are great, distortions good. Effects are somewhat basic, but quality is still very good. I found it very useful in recording. Before stomp i used line6 kidney and m-audio black box. Stomp is simplier ( believie it;s good) and sound quality is much better then kidnej and black box. It's very melodic, full of life and precise tool.

never had problems with this tool. Metal, solid and full of quality.

never dealed with them

I've been playing for 7 years, dealed with music school in jazz guitar class for a year. I would buy it again. very usuful, simply and elegant. I wish it had option to setup effect chain. Exept that - it's perfect for my demands.

Well its got a lot of features Im no expert and this is the only pre amp I own. KNOBS! DUDE!

It has all the classic AMP knobs, gain, master, EQ, all that stuff.

In my opinion its got a great tone. Its not suited for heavy metal I think you can stack a tube screamer for that I dont know.

I can get a great sounding realistic "Crying woman" tone.

Very "Classic Rock" metal heads look for something elce.

I tend to think it sounds better then other units like pod and I would like to think my expensive swamp ash guitar retains its tone and individual finger harmonics.

8 for what it is...

Sure its no tube amp.

10, it looks like it belongs in a police squad car in a retro dash board.

ITS LIKE CAST IRON.

If you had to you could kill someone with this and I just might@!

I talked to a rep in the freaking store and I had an issue with the clock running at 48 hrz.. Ok it was my fault I was using the digital out and recording at 44hrz so play back was SCREWED.

This guy was "Hay buddy I really dont know"

On the other hand the manual is online in PDF I hate how roland bangs you for $30 for the instructions.

SCREW that I hate that kind of crap.
Freaking jerks.

playing for 20 years off and on.
If it was stolen Id hunt them down and beat their heads in with the cast iron unit. Then Id buy one from ebay if I could.

What I like is the knobs and the REAL tone.
You can get so many tones from this! You need to be a little smart I admit for years it sounded like hell untill I removed it from my mixer LOOP FX send return. Its pretty complex unit Im guessing to copy 6 or 7 Stomp boxes.

At $100 used ebay alone its worth the value as an EQ and little over drive.

I dont mess with the amp sims or speaker cabs The ability to reach over and add a little compression is worth the $100.

I dont own other guitar FX so I cant compare this twords a pod

(Id never own a POD and dont want to sound like an army of "Crud" or what ever is the latest NEw metal band with a great metallica face.

Sound like Duane Allman or any old school Classic rock BB king.

The pre progroamed patches kind of suck at at first I was a total beginner with amp sims and I wanted to download some banks but NO they dont have online patches you have to dial them in.

You wont be happy with out putting a thinking cap on.
If you put a little work in this thing is a fantastic deal!

O did I mention that I have this installed in CUBASE with Midi and I can go back and it recalls the bank/patch when I load up my song if I choose to redo an audio track.

ALSO the thing is a tad noisy when used to chain together other midi gear and use as a foot controller. its crappy for a floor foot controller unless you can tapdance.

I took it out from my midi chain of gear (I play midi guitar) and the noise went away. (You could hear little BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP when the midi guitar volume or EQ was adjusted)

SUCKS as a flood controller even though it has the foot switches im still unsure what the hell they are used for.

VERY quiet unit when used with the digital out!

The DG Stomp is a floor based guitar preamp\modeler with built in effects. The effects are Compressor, Modulation (chorus, flanger, phaser, rotary, tremolo), Delay (digital or analog), and Reverb (spring, hall and plate). There are eight different "amp types" for the preamp\modeler section, and large adjustment knobs like on a real guitar amp. The Stomp can be used with or without speaker emulation and has a wide variety of cabinet types to choose from. It is also possible to disable the preamp and use the Stomp strictly as an effects unit. You can plug in headphones for silent practice.

Has a digital coax out for direct to computer recording, has MIDI and is fully programmable. Changing user banks is not as easy as it should be and requires a fair bit of tap dancing.

I bought the Stomp used, to use as an effects unit for live work, so I'll review the effects section before I get into the preamp part. As far as the effects go, they are VERY good. The modulation effects are excellent, especially the rotary, although accessing the secondary parameters is a pain. Delays (up to 2 sec) are fine and have tap tempo. Reverb is limited to 'type' and 'level', but good enough for live use. The Compressor works, but does not have any fine adjustments. An expresssion pedal can be used to change FX parameters in real time. As a simple floor unit effects box, the Stomp really shines, even though it does not have any fancy effects like harmonizer, whammy, pitch shift or that other stuff that I would never use anyway.

I just started playing with the preamp part a few weeks ago. I own several tube amps, Fender and Laney, and have my own studio out in the country where I can play as loud I can stand. I dont really have a need for amp modeling. I did buy a Line6 amp once upon a time back when they first came out, and returned it after a few days. Modeling simply cannot capture all the nuances and dynamics of a real tube amp. (We all know this). But I have to say Yamaha has come the closest to doing that of anybody I have heard so far. The other day I decided to do a side by side comparision, so I plugged into my Laney combo amp and adjusted the preamp gain to get a nice, crunchy Strat tone. Then I ran the Stomp direct to my mixer and into the computer, and was able to dial in pretty much the same sound easily using one of the "Crunch" settings. The Laney was, of course, more 3D sounding and responded better to picking dynamics and volume knob changes on the guitar, but the Stomp did a remarkable job of emulating the feel of playing through a real miked tube amp. I was quite impressed. You could certainly use the Stomp to record direct and probably fool most people. I think it's the best modeler I've heard so far, much better than Line 6, Digitech, or even Sansamp. I also tried running the Stomp in front of the Laney and a Roland JC like a stompbox (with speaker sim off, of course). It sounded better using the Stomp to push the tube preamp section of the Laney than the solid state Roland, but it worked fine with both, like a stompbox overdrive with fine EQ adjustments. No, its not analog but doesnt sound overly digital to my ears.

You cannot get "deathmetal" distortion out of the Stomp, but just about anything else, from country clean, Hendrix, SRV blues to Billy Gibbons nastiness is certainly possible. It is a little noisy on high gain settings, but so is a real tube amp (sorry, no noise gate built in). The main thing is to always have the speaker sim turned on if you are going direct, and to try different cabinet types to get the sound you want. You cannot judge the Stomp by the presets, some are OK, but building your own from scratch is more rewarding.

The Stomp would be a perfect backup system if your tube amp went belly up on a gig, you could just run the Stomp direct into the PA and finish the gig, no problem. It's worth picking one up just for that and the effects section. If you find that you love the sound of its modeling then that's even better.

Built like a tank, solid metal. Love the chicken head knobs!

Dont know.

I have been playing for over thirty years and own\have owned Marshall, Fender, Laney and Roland JC amps. Strat through a tube amp is the sound for me. I also play a Godin ACS nylon string with a GR30 guitar synth, and I use the Stomp for effects on the guitar at gigs, with an FC7 expression pedal for volume. It works great for this. My days of carrying around a big pedalboard full of stompboxes are over. I'm into toting the least amount of gear with the smallest stage footprint possible. Previously I was using a Digitech RP200, nice and compact, OK effects, but cheaply built expression pedal and I couldnt handle it anymore. The Stomp does a better job but does require an external expression pedal.

Yamaha discontinued the DG Stomp a few years back. They were expensive when they came out, but are cheap now. Fantastic value for the effects alone, much less the very good preamp\modeling (if you are into that). The Stomp is a veritable "Swiss army knife" box. There's a reason why it won an editors pick award from Guitar Player magazine back when it came out - it's a quality unit.

If you cant afford an all tube amp, dont want to haul one around, need to get good tones at apartment volumes or do direct recording, then get one of these, I dont think you'll regret it.

Easy to use just turn knobs dial in what your looking for and save config and your set. Has a midi-in, can be controlled by midi controller or other midi devices. It also has a on/off power switch which most guitar eff's processors don't. I don't care for the tuner but that why I rate it 9.

The amp modeling sounds fantastic can get Marshall or Mesa & clean Fender sound with the right adjustments. Modulation eff's sound excellent. Compression, chorus Falnger Phaser Rotary Tremolo, Delay & tape-Echo, Spring Hall Plate reverb & Speaker Simulator. and all adjusted & saved.

Never had any issues it's built like a tank.

I've never tlaked to them...

It's too bad Yamaha stopped making these, soon after they intergraded it into there amp's they stop production...The new guitar eff's processor they make sound no where as good as the DG Stomp, sorry Yamaha you lost it. I used Boss pedals Digitech RD's & Pod's which I feel are over rated, Korg ;there better the Digitech! and many others. Come on yamaha go back use the technology from the DG add a few other eff's ring mod for one and a better tuner & lay it out in a full control board like Korg AX1500 Boom!!! your set.

I love the effects in this item. The chorus and phaser are wonderful. The delay has two different settings (tape and digi, so it easy to dial in any kind of delay with a tap function built in!!! That's right, no extra controller required to adjust the delay time! The only reason why I give it a 9 is the deep adjustments require holding a button down (for chorus, rotary speaker, phaser, and flanger). That's a pain in the a** to adjust on the fly

Why spend the money on Line 6 stuff when you can buy this for half the price and get the same tones.

I have used it for many a gig. It is built like a tank!

I have yet to deal with Yamaha on anything (See my review for the UB99 Magic Stomp).

If this item was stolen, I would search all over EBAY to find another one. I originally bought mine from Guitar Center as a refurb for $125.00, and have yet to regret it a year later. I got rid of my Line 6 stuff after this item (and the Magic Stomp). It simply allows the guitar to be the guitar.......

For the benefit of all those who seem to think that this is an effects pedal, try plugging your fuzz box ( ;D ) or whatever effects that you use into a PA or mixing desk and see what sort of applause you receive......It's a preamp, it wont work without a power amp and a power amp section wont give you any sound to speak of without it. Still not convinced, stick your headphones into the output of your tubescreamer and tell me which ear the mono signal is coming through. How many of us are poking it in the guitar input on our combos? I know I do but I have no illusions. The effects are a bonus and are what probably enticed you to buy it. I admit, that's what sold it to me.
Just my opinion of course!

before i bought this, i tried as many guitars through different amps as i could find, in search of MY sound. i finally settled on a les paul through a yam dg combo (#1,000+ worth...hahahaha), but i was already aware of the dg stomp, and figured it'd have SOME of that sound. let me tell you, it sounds amazing! anyone who can sound bad through this unit needs their hands chopping off. the presets are awesome, and a 50 yr old could edit the patches. the manual is brilliant, too, tells you all you need to know!

i use a les paul, a fender tele(previously with stock poickups, now with bare knuckle pickups), and a homemade electric through this unit, i then go into the mac, or through a marshall 15 watter on the clean channel. sounds amazing, it's a touch noisy on the high gain stuff, but it just adds to the 'balls out' fun of it all, and to be honest i don't do that much high gain shit. i think all the sounds, effects, and cabs are great on this box. i've fallen out with gear before, become dissatisfied with the sound, but i won't ever sell this!

i bought this in june 2001, and i've never had a problem. it appears to be built like a tank. i would never gig without some kind of backup, only a damn fool would, but i trust it not to let me down!

haven't had to deal with the company over this, but i did once before over a keyboard....i've dealt with better, but their gear is top class, so it's not that much of an issue.

i play all sorts, but not so much really heavy stuff. i think it could do any style. a touch noisy on the high gain stuff, as i said before, but it just makes it sound more 'real' to me.
been playing 20+ years. i reckon i'd buy another, unless i was loaded, and would buy the combo, but i'd probably have one of these in the house, too. i love the sounds, some people might prefer it with a noise gate, there are better units for switching banks easier, but some of em don't sound as good as this, anyway, you can arrange your patches together, so thats not such a big deal. it's one thing i can just plug in and it does the job, some gear, it takes you ages to set up, and then you don't feel like playing/recording by the time you're set up. i hate that!
frankly, i was amazed to see that there was no feedback for this product already...it f'kin rocks!

Already despribed in other reviews. Just one thing: with the expression-pedal you can change so many parameters per patch that it's like having 6 patches in a bank and not only three. What I really don't like is the tuner and the wah is useless, because there is a hughe drop in volume when the wah is active. I use a Cry Baby for that.

Well, I had used this thing years ago in front of an amp as an effects-unit and sold it 2 years ago and switched back to stomp boxes. But I live in a city and I'm always go by public transport, so I wanted a solution, that I can always carry around with me. So I decided to give the DG-Stomp another try.

Now I go direct into the mixer and I'm very happy with this solution. The sound is really good. The other guitarist in the band is using a Engl Thunder Combo, but it's me who gets the compliments for a good sound. The unit delivers excellent clean and crunch sounds but high gain sounds won't satisfy you, if you're into NuMetal. But for Rocksounds like Van Halen or Stevie Vai it's ok. I play lot's of blues, rock and jazz and therefore the unit is great. The unit reacts like a good valve amp, especially when playing with your guitar's volume poti. Effects are of good quality too.

One important thing: this unit really amlifies the charactaristics of your instrument. So a shitty sounding guitar will sound shitty trough this unit. It does not polish a bad sound. Next is, that you have to do the right ajustments for your playing situation (speaker-sim, imput sensivity) otherwise it won't sound any good. I recommend doing the mod another guy explained here. You can find the link in his review. It's done easily and totally cancels noise.

So far I had no problems in cutting through the monitor on stage. But I'm thinking about purchasing a small active cabinet for situations with bad monitoring.

For me the price-/performance ratio is a clear 10.

Built like a tank.

Didn't have any contact

IMHO still the best modelling-unit out there, also production is discontinued. The new Magic Stomp is no good for live applications and Line6 units don't sound any "tuby" to me. But I have to say, that I didn't try the Voxe Tonelab Series.

If you can get a Stomp, buy it! There are some stores still having some units laying around and in most cases they sell them cheap.

it's very easy to use. the layout is perfect and the turning of knobs as on real effect pedals or amps is very nice. no scrolling through menus and sub-menus. you just have to memorise a view things when it comes to decide if you want to use the dg stomp for recording or for playing through an amp and using the effect section only without the amp/cab simulations. but the manual is very helpful for that.

i mostly used the dg stomp for direct recording with my MAC. it was very silent, almost no noise at all, except when using lots of gain, but that's normal. the dg stomp is ideal for getting "classic rock" sounds. it sounds very warm and real when dialing in some vintage crunch sounds or overdrive. i loved those sounds in combinations with the american or british 4x12 simulation. you can realy record some AC/DC, Led Zepellin, Black Sabbath ecc. with it. i found not that much difference between the various cab simulations, thats why i almost ever only used the american or british 4x12 or 2x12 simulations. i didnt use the "clean" and "distortion" amps a lot, but they were ok.
i absolutely loved the effect section! you simply turn off the amp/cab simulation and you can use the effects as normal stomp pedals by turning them on/off. especially good sounding to my ears are: tremolo, rotary, echo and spring reverb. the other effects are very good as well. i would descirbe 'em all as warm-sounding and not digital at all.
i bought myself the yamaha expression-pedal because i wanted to use it as wah-wah, but it didnt not work out great.

i am writing in the "past" of the dg stomp because ... it's broken. i had it for 3 years and it always worked great. few weeks ago i plugged in and no sound came out. i send it to repair to yamaha and they said that the central procession is gone and it would cost about 150 euro to get it fixed. to much for me. in my opinion it should have lasted a lot more, especially since i never used it outside my bedroom and almost exclusively for recording.

they made me pay 30 euro only for shipping the dg stomp to repair and for telling me it was broken and not worth to fix!!!! who am i? bin laden? i dont have money to burn - that made me angry!

if you are looking for a recording tool to get a great "classic rock" sound with effects this is for you! if you are playing live and need some effects to depend on but dont want to carry around a big pedalboard, this is for you! if you are a metal-head, stay away from this as you want get the sound you need out of it.
my dg stomp is broken now and i won't replace it, although it really fit my needs and i was happy with the music i recorded with it. i will buy a tonelab now as i have tried it out and it beats the dg stomp.

What more could you want? Maybe more individual effects. I may buy another stereo chorus pedal so I can use the (excellent) DG tremolo simultaneously.

I was just playing along with the new Neil Young Greatest collection and was really amazed at how easy it is to jump around (using manual, not patches--I still haven't gotten around to learning patch set-up) different amp sounds from track to track. My new set-up is much better: the DG is plugged into the LINE IN on back of my old orange Cube-60. Previously I had the stereo leads split to instrument inputs on the cube and a Fender Deluxe. That sound was thin, apparently from wrong levels. Using the DG as the preamp for the cube 60 is a revolution baby! At home I could never turn the Deluxe up loud enough to get the tone and harmonics only available between 6 and 10. I do know a little bit about tube tone, been using Fender Deluxe, Deluxe Reverb, and white Twin amp. Back in the early 80s I got the Roland Cube 60 as a booster. Put a JBL in it and have used it as a second, stereo setup. Prior to getting the DG I used Boss stereo chorus and mono delay pedals. I'd always have the Deluxe a little louder than the Cube. Nice fat sound. I sold the Boss pedals after I got the DG but may get another Chorus pedal as that isn't as good on the DG. The delay is very good though. Anyway, I just plugged the DG into the Line in on the Cube for the first time and now I'm not using the Deluxe. In fact I may sell it for a premium and get a Jazz Chorus as a second amp. The DG amp models and preamp/effects sounds are unbelievably great as a direct in to amp. I would guess that an effects loop would be even better. As a direct box for recording this should be swell. Unlimited variety and TONE. I've never heard overtones like I'm getting at "let the neighbors sleep" volume.

Beautifully overbuilt. Yamaha rep is good. Knobs. Lots of knobs!

Would buy another. I sold my 20-year-old Boss DM-2 delay pedal on eBay for more than I paid new for the amazin DG Stomp. I see there's a new Stomp that's designed for computer recording but all the beautiful chickenhead knobs are gone!!!! Fuggedaboudit.

This is a nice well built unit.
It has a lot of good sounds and I was able to clone my rhythm easily.
The speaker sims work well if you know what you are looking for.
It is a great pracice or recording tool.

The sounds range from real good to why bother?
Again good for recording rhythm tracks.
I would NEVER bring this to a gig, or for that matter, plug this into an amp.

it is only good into a mixer where you can eq and add some compression ( And I use the Stomp compressor too!)
Maybe it would sounfd good into an amp with no preamp.

One mistake I think I have been making ( after reading about Holdsworth in GP) is keeping the gain too high. Maybe lowering that will make it better.
Really some days I like this thing. Some days it's too cold.

Obviously it's built like the proverbial tank.
The chicken heads are nice .
The effects are actually top notch,
Tape delay is very good.
The Phaser and rotary are standout.

I'm sure Yamaha has decent Customer ealtions but since their stuff never breaks , who knows?

I've played 41 years. This is a nice toy.
My nephew asked me to play through "Dark side of the Moon" with the CD and The Gilmour tones just melted in right withh the CD. Both thru a mixer.
The most amazing thing about it ios that with major tweaking , it sounds like I always do which is worth a good laugh if nothing else.
Shows it's range tho'.

This pedal is extremely easy to use and edit patches. I find i can get a good sound quickly and easily and the manual is clear and helpful too. The patches are arranged in groups of 3 and the footswitches can be used to switch between the three in a group or to switch effects on and off. The tap delay is also great i only wish the tap delay time would set the time for the mod effects but its not a necessity.

I run my Yamaha EG-112 guitar (like a Pacifica) into the DG-Stomp and the left output into a Kustom Solo 16-R (great sounding amp!!!). Its very quite; no noisier than is reasonable. There is a LOT of gain available when using the lead amp types and along with compression the sustain is crazy. The effects are good although i usually only use chorus. Compared to something like a Boss ME-50 (which a friend of mine has) this is more oriented toward the amp modeling than the boss which is more the effects side of things. I dont have a pedal to plug into the dg-stomp so i haven't been able to try out the wah. Overall the sound of the pedal is awesome. i can get pretty much any sound of distortion/overdrive/crunch/clean with it that i need. And its not so fancy that u feel like ur playing a computer. I had an RP-80 before i got this pedal and i have to say that the effects and especially the amp modelling of the yamaha is far better. It costs a lot but its definitely worth it. I would say all u need is this pedal and a decent amp and ur set with all u need. I am and for the money i spent on my setup I couldnt ask for anything better.

I think i can depend on it. also the stereo output means that if one channel goes i can use the other still (i use it in mono). And its Yamaha. In my experience their stuff lasts well. Its no-nonsense equipment with performance to match.

The original pedal i bought used was only working on the right channel; the left one was completely gone. So the guy at the store phoned customer service and i now have a new pedal, with no problems whatsover. They were very helpful and kind.

Excellent pedal. i just wish, as i said before, that the tap delay would set the Mod effect's speed. Maybe a few more parameters on the effects wouldnt hurt either. And just for kicks a ping pong delay...
I would definitely try to get another pedal like this one if it were stolen. It does what i need it to do and without frustrating me and taking forever. Definitely worth checking out before buying something else.

See below.

I wish the speaker sims were on a rotary knob or at the very least the speaker sim button was closer to the utility button so one-handed changes were easier to execute.

Also, I wish you could still adjust gain and eq settings while the speaker sim utility is engaged.

No rating here because I don't want to add to or subtract from the hype--I'll simply offer my opinion and you can make of it what you wish.

My current set up, which is used for home practice and praise & worship services, is: Mex Strat equipped with two humbuckers--a SD '59 neck and an Anderson HN2+ bridge. From there I either plug into a Barber Direct Drive SS or a Boss LM-2 Limiter. Then into the DG Stomp, which is amplified by a Roland KC-300. Sometimes I run from the KC-300 into the house pa. I've been using this set up regularly for over a year now with little to no complaints. I am very satisfied.

The Roland's compression driver (soon to be replaced) can be very buzzy but I can eq the Stomp to eliminate or at least reduce that. What I found, even recently, is how sensitive every setting can be and how that affects your tone. For example, turning the gain or up or down, even a little, can drastically affect your eq. Thus, you have to compensate. Volume does the same thing, perhaps even more so. Let me get to the point--each amp model in the DG Stomp has a number of sweet spots like a real amp would and only patient tweaking will give you what you are looking for.

I do not think I would be happy with the DG Stomp on its own. The Barber fattens the tone and makes fast playing easier. However, it also makes it tough to get clean or overdrive tones with it on. I know, "so just switch the Barber off". But then you get the somewhat dull DG Stomp tone. So, I have been using the Boss LM-2 to enhance picking dynamics lately. I really like this. I can now get nice, fatter cleans, and mild, warm overdrives. Shred gains are not as good but turning up the gain on the amp model seems to work fine.

All in all, I am very pleased with my set up and have been for quite sometime. In fact, I have made attempts to move on to other set ups but keep coming back to this one. The Roland KC isn't the greatest but I occasionally use it to amplify my voice, drum machines, and bass so it stays. And I actually prefer the KC to the Tech 21 Power Engine I recently bought. The KC's speaker crunches up much more while the Power Engine sounds dull in comparison, probably due to the speaker.

Let me reiterate--harsh and buzzy treble tones can almost always be eq'd out with very minute adjustments of the eq. The same goes for honky mids. Don't be afraid to try bizzare eq-ing, either. I've been surprised at the results I have gotten by turning everything to "0" and moving on from there.

Finally, I have only attempted to direct record with the DG Stomp on a couple of occasions. I was not very pleased and thought micing the KC sounded better.

No problems whatsoever.

They've always answered my emails. Incredible considering the size of the company.

I know there are many modelers out there, many I have yet to try. But I will say this, the DG Stomp has been a great modeler for me. Finding one that works with the sometimes-to-harsh Roland has been a challenge but one the Stomp has lived up to.

I have to give Yamaha credit--for their first generation modeler, they really nailed it. I would like to see them continue to improve the Stomp. The Magic Stomp doesn't count, in my opinion. I thought it was horrible.

It's a feature-laden preamp in stompbox format. Very good sounding digital effects combined with a modelling preamp. Easy to alter the settings as they are (nearly) all accessible by turning the knobs. Only some special effect parameters have to be accessed by pressing a button and simultaniously rotating a knob.
But changing the bank is a bit problematic - just read the manual.

I use a Gibson Gothic SG into a Fender Vibrosonic Reverb and an Engl 4x12" cab. This is my main amplifier, but I tried this thing with an old Dynacord Excellent (PA with 2xEL34), too.
I have to admit that the clean and crunch settings sound decent. And the drive setting is pretty cool - clean is really hard to overdrive, crunch clears up nicely with volume adjustments on the guitar and drive is beefy. But the major drawback is the lead - the only channel usable for palm-muting. There's a really ugly fizzing noise riding on the distorted sound that just sounds fake.
I also used headphones with this device - and the lead-channel sounded like an endless loop of sampled distorted tone. Hard to describe, but just sounded really bad and artificial.

The effects are top notch - but I didn't really get the difference between the two delay types. They both sounded good but the tape delay wasn't really that different. The digital effects are good - phaser is a little bit plain - stand alone phaser just sound better.

Overall it's a nice practice amp for using it with headphones - but the fake sounds it produced are just not acceptable for this price range. I sold mine.

It seemed very solid. Only the 12V~ wall wart was a little flimsy - but I think it can be replaced with any AC 12V wall wart with matching current capability.

Haven't dealt with them.

It's a very well built stompbox; the included four footswitches are a great idea - I wish more effect manufacturers of digital stompboxes would include them instead of an expensive footboard.
But the sound quality was unacceptable bad for me - even though the effects are hifi.

This is a foot-pedal meets Line 6 Pod sort of system. Does everything I want and is mighty quiet. Seems to be discontinued now - which surprised me as all the Yamaha kit seems very solid and professional quality. Edititing patches is easy, but the manual is a bit light on hard info in an understandable format. Needs a bit of studying to get the best out of it. It isn't what you might cal intuitive.

Ecellent and quiet. All the tone of the guitar seems to come through and the effects applied on top. The tremelo is a bit weak if you want heavy and sharp volume cycles. Chorus, Phaser, Compression, Phaser, Flanger all OK and sound great. Rotating speaker is a bit warbly. Reverb, Tape Delay, Digitla Delay all sound good.

Very solidly built and I'd expect nothing to break in normal professional use unless your road crew are animals.

Haven't used this but the guys at Yamaha I've spoken to in the UK are very helpful.

Great - does all I want it to in every situation. Not extreme but nice and professional sounding effects and quiet. I love the headphone out so I can use this as a practice amp with no other equipment needed. (Stereo too)

I need to add a footpedal to this to be able to Wah and use as an effects swell pedal.

Just like a amp.
Editing is just like a amp.
The manual is great if you have experience with them.

Played regularly with strats and two HB guitars with great results.
The effects are awsome and very adjustable in every way with little effect on your real tone.
Used with Old fenders and staight to a keyboard amp and direct to
PC console with great results.
I can cop tones from every catagory with minamal effort, I love the
old stuff as much as the the new stuff.
If you need more add a pedal infront it works great, My favorite is
a Fulltone distortion pro. but whatever. Anything works. A wah? Go for a Teese, it's amazing. I like the DG for modulation.(SPX 90)

I use the DG every week to save my vintage tube amps without fail.
Occasionally My amp stalls and the DG is allways ready with only a
pull and plug in with great results. Now that I know this thing the
band feels secure if I pull it out. So I locked it in on my first
pedalboard ever. Now I can switch effortlessly with it's many outputs. I bang it around with minamal respect and the thing still
is ready when I call apon it. It's a must!

Did'nt need to deal with them.
It's the SPX effects with amp modeling. NICE

I'm not going to catorgize my style I like music period!!
I've been playing for 30+ years and I don't want catagories I want
good grooves with feeling. Other gear-Matchless. Theres no match.
Start with a great tone and add to it, if you messed it up start
over. I have it.

I sold my FX550 in favor of a newer effects pedal, and I wanted something that had footswitches on it, I'm rather lazy carrying around stuff. Since I loved the 550 Distortions, I searched for some Yamaha products and found this. The preamp knob lets you choose among 8 amps sims, from two leads to 2 cleans, with OD and crunch in between. This little thing also has Chorus, (not a very good one though) Flanger, Compressor, delay, echo, and spring, hall and plate reverbs and speaker sym. No noise gate which I believe is needed and no extreme effects like pitch transposer or harmonizers. Very basic and ideal if you play straight forward guitar.

I use Strats with Gold Lace Sensors, and although in the beggining it was hard getting that Eric Johnson sound, I achieved after tweaking it a lot. The distortions here are not ver well suited if you're into rather heavy metal music. This feels much more like a 70's and maybe 80's dist pedal than anything. Actually, theres no such thing as distortion, you get distorted sounds via the Amp Sym Knob presets, then tweak them within a limited Bass, Middle, Treble and Presence range, like a real amp, no fancy EQ here. Chorus is very dry and lacks depth and richness, but if you're not playing 80's British Pop, you can get away with this. Delay and echo are great (again, I cloned Eric Johnson's echo) Reverbs ara cool too, and the speaker sym is great for headphone playing, but the DG is really a speaker box, you need to plug it in.

I use it on gigs, and it is great. It's very solidly built, knobs are certainly going to last longer than buttons and are easy to tweak. At first there is a learning curve, but then you can program patches rather easily. I hope the foot switches last some years, there's no indication of the contrary, and also seen easy to fis, if broken.

Where I live (In Mexico City) it certainly is lousy. You can not drop you items in ANY Yamaha store, you ahve to travel to the other side of the city to their service center to drop items for fixing, after paying a 15 dollar fee just for looking into the item and telling you what the problem is. They could improve their service.

I've been playing for 17 years, I like pop and blues, so this little bos works great for me. The distortions are very tube like, and the small design allows me to carry it around. I like the integrated foot switching system, love the design, and dislike the learing curve and the preset patches, they totally suck, you can use one or two of them, and they are supposed to be built by German and UK expert musicians. Right. You are supposed to be able to download patches but so far, haven't found any software for that, you have to get the 350 DLS Yamaha Midi storage system for that. No way Jose!. If it were stolen I think I might buy it again, but, I might look for something else also. Then again, I hope it won't get stolen.

I'm not usually the greatest at getting a nice tone out of an effects unit but this one was simple! The manual takes you through the process of setting up the unit really well and then getting the desired sound from it is as easy as turning a few knobs and pressing a couple of buttons! I picked up all of the features in about half an hour which was mostly spent playing through it rather than studying it! Really impressed with the ease of use. Setting up and storing patches couldn't be simpler.

Playing through a Yamaha SG700 into the effects return on a Marshall VS8080 proved to create some gorgeous clean tones! The chorus sounds fantastic and the other modulation effects are also flawless and have a wide range of adjustment. The compressor works well and the delay/echo effects along with the authentic reverb add to the fine characteristics of the tones produced. The amp selector is maybe a bit restrictive in the high gain department but is simple to use and gives both american and british styles of gain from crystal clear to edgy crunch to screaching amounts of distortion. Sound quality is reasonable in this department although I did manage to recreate the sound of my 8080 with the stomp box very nicely.

Moving on to the speaker simulator - this thing is amazing! When playing with distortion through a guitar amp it probably won't need to be engaged but for plugging straight into recording devices or headphones this thing does wonders! You can recreate the sound of any of 16 famous speaker and cabinet setups from single speakers to a variety of 4x10 and 4x12 options. Sound quality is fantastic at any volume and would be hard to distinguish between the digital and authentic tones.

Can't say too much about reliability because I've only had it about a week but I've been with Yamaha for a long time and haven't been let down yet! Going by the build quality though, the thing is a tank! Heavy duty, all metal construction means it will most likely shake off a good thrashing around.

Never had to deal with them in about 10 years of playing Yamaha products!

Fantastic! If you want to shell out 1000's on seperate equipment for all your different styles feel free but if you want to get all the famous tones you've ever heard played from a guitar, this thing can probably do it for a fraction of the price. It saves a hell of a lot of effort when setting up for a gig and performs magnificently. If I must pick a fault with it, I would suggest that the footswitches (which aren't even featured on many of it's competitors) are slightly close together for big flipper-footed people like myself! Apart from that though it's a fantastic buy and another quality product from the folks at Yamaha.

Pretty easy to use although the manual needs to be absorbed slowly to get the best from it. The manual is rather basic and could have been written with much more expanation adn examples. Editing is easy and just at the press of a button and trirn of a few (or many) knobs.

Brilliant. Creates juts about any amp, speaker and processed sound you would want. This is Yamaha's take on the POD and J Station and it does a pretty good job. Little background noise. Presets are all over the place but that's why they let you set another 90 yourself. Who'd need more than 90? It's got compression, chorus, tremelo, flanger, rotating speaker, overdrive, digital delay, tape echo, hall, plate and spring reverb, and abou a dozen amp simulations and another dozen or so speaker sims as well. Well read the spec. to see if I've missed anything. I don't really know whether these processors get better than this but as a working musician this doaes everything I need and a whole lot more that I'll never get round to. And it does it real quiet which is great. Even came with it's own mains power supply.

Very solid and I would expect no problems. Has lots of chiken head and rotary knobs that you wouldn't want to spet on by mistake, so although it has stomp buttons on it - don't place it anywhere another band memeber is going to accidentally tread all over the knobs.

I've only spoken to the yamaha guys a couple of times but they have seemed very obliging in the past. I guess the suppport on this would be OK - has a year warranty anyway.

I'm a teacher and a player and needed something that would do everything in one box - this is it. I have to play everything from punk to jazz - this box does it.

First off this is an effects unit, as stated before, and not an amp. It's perfect for direct recording and live situations where you go direct into the board. For a list of features see previous posts.

I use a Gibson ES 335 and a Godin LGX-SA W/the duncan pickups. I play a lot of blues, folkrock, Jazz. My group plays mostly acoustic music but lately started adding some caned drums and a little electric guitar for some solos. I was using a fender hot rod (great little amp) but it didn't blend well with everything else (mandolin, guitar, vocal) going direct. Besides the hot rod had a loud hum every time I plugged the Godin into a guitar synth and into the board. Just for the heck of it I plugged the dg stomp that I've had around for a few years direct into Our Mackie board and our mackie powered speakers. After a little tweaking I got some very musical sounds. Nice clean sounds like the Hot rod and good overdrive bluesy sound. Fits nicely in the mix and best of all no noise. The effects section for the unit- modulation and dig delay are quality and the reverb is about what you would expect on a quality amp. Pre amps and tone controls are very well done.

Built like a tank

Been playing for 30 years (ouch). I also own a sansamp box which has great sounds but isn't as versatile as the stomp. I would probably by one used on ebay if it got lost.

All the features are already listed below. This is my up-date after owning this unit for a year. I was using it with the DS60-112 powered speakers and it wasn't quite doing it for me after a while. The sound from the speakers were muddy. Anyway, I did trade the DS60-112 but kept the DGStomp to give it one last chance. As a personal amp, I found it to be really good and I found the tone that I was excited about from this unit. It is 24 bit sampling rate so it doesn't have that digital decay as some other digital modellers I've tried. I'm glad I kept the unit and got rid of the speaker. I use this to record as well as for practicing late at night when I'm not able to use my tube amp.

The tones are warm. I still haven't found a better digital modeller. I didn't lke the Pod6 because of it's tone, and the PodXT was similar in tone to Pod6 but had a higher learning curve to learn how to use it. I have found that when I use it to drive a speaker, I've tried it with my tube amp, and the tone was muddy. I think it's best used as a personal amp, connecting directly into the mixer or for recording. I can only give it an 8 because of the muddiness when you use it to drive a speaker.

Never had any problems with it. It hasn't even crashed...I can't even say that about my windows based pc!

Never needed them.

It's a great little unit...I prefer it over the Pod6. It's too bad that the tone when I use it to drive speakers is too muddy.

Fender and Fender type guitars.

Bought second hand for #128 "off" ebay because original auction contents had been changed by seller. Unit was D.O.A. Traced fault to dry joint on P.C.B. mounted input 1/4" socket. Warmed up joint and away it went. I was confused at first by the fact that the "wall wart" (sic) showed no output, but it turns out that this psu needs a load to show a voltage. The dry joint had the effect of presenting no load to the psu. Strange really since the psu felt heavy enough to be linear.I like this toy a lot but then I would since I have eschewed effects for 20+ years! No use adding anything to all the foregoing reports but this info may help someone out.

I have dealt with Yamaha and have always found the U.K. setup to be efficient and helpful.

I have been "playing" for 32 years. Early days yet but I think that I would try to replace it if it walked. I love the sounds that I can get at living room volumes. I DO find it a little complicated to use. (my age !!) I wish that there was a straight through sound, maybe there is. I did not compare it to any other products.

Got it just before they discontinued it but after they dropped the price. I play "Music for grownups" in a duo with midi backing and live keys / guitar and vocals - mostly rock but some pop etc. I have to give it an 8 because you can't turn off the preamp modelling for just one patch (both clean sounds are a little too "shaped" for a really good acoustic sound with an electro but I found a decent compromise eventually). Favourite sound has to be Drive 1. Cleans are OK, the compressor is a little odd so I don't use it, the delays and reverbs are very natural, the chorus / fazer / modulation stuff is very good. None of it feels like using pedals though - it's like using an amp, and the chorus makes it sound like you're using lots of amps. Big stereo sound. Speaker simulation is fantastic. I like the way the whole thing does not pretend to be "Brittish afro head" or "California Latino sound" - it does clean, crunch, drive and lead with two useable voicings for each.
The expression pedal inoput is really useful - I use it to adjust the input gain for drive sounds (saves using a TS9 or EQ pedal for solos - just set the sound for solo and set the expression pedal to set the input gain from 5.0 to 10.0), the delay time for the U2 settings, the speed of the tremolo etc etc, but the Wah setting seesm to drop the volume a little ovet the un wah'd sound.

I use a'62 re-issue Tele with standard pickups (but has had Seymour duncan mini '59 in it) and a solid body electro with a P90 fitted (a sort of acoustic Les Paul Jr thing).
I previously used a Korg Pandora, and here lies the BIG difference (and the reason that the DG Stomp *does* belong inthe "amps" section) - the DG is NOT an effects pedal or processor - it is an amplifier simulator. I have used just about everything, from Boogie to Fender via Vox and Marshall; valve, solid state, hybrid, custom built, hotrod, luxury, cheap as chips, old classic and new hot poop, and the DG is *exactly* like using a real amp, only you can do it quiet or through a PA LOUD AS WOTZIT and it still works. The clean settings even break up like a real clean amp would, and the drive settings clean up if you play gentle, just like a real amp would.
The big mistake is to think of it as an effects unit - if that's what you want then get one, and run it through the DG to make it sound like it's amped up.

The only kit I use now - never let me down, I gig 2 or more times a week.

never had a problem.

Superb - I got it becaise it has foot switches, I keep it because it works.

First of all, why is this unit listed in the "amp" section? It's not an amp, it's an effects pedal! OK, now down to business.......I love this little thing. So easy to use! It has KNOBS!!! Can you believe it? KNOBS!! Just like an amp! SO easy to use! It's very versatile because all you have to do is tweak the KNOBS. No "programming" knowledge is needed...just turn the damn KNOBS until you hear something you like and then you can save it. I also run it thru a compressor pedal because I think that gives everything a little better sound and feel. Sustain, ya know? Also, it is a foot pedal type of unit but I don't use it that way. I bought a nice wooden music stand and I set it on there. That way I can tweak the KNOBS, yes it has KNOBS, without bending down all the time. It's a lot easier to use that way. It doesn't have a whammy/wha wha pedal mounted on it but that's OK. Wha-whas usually suck on these kinds of pedals anyway (it does on my RP-7) and I have a Dunlop Crybaby for that. Also, I don't Whammy so.... Nice echo's, reverbs, rotary, chorus and even the tremelo is pretty good. All adjustable with......KNOBS!!!! NOT BUTTONS!! None of digital crap. Ya gotta love that!

Very nice sounds that are easy to tweak because it has KNOBS!! I play my Strat and my SG through it into a Carvin Belair 2x12 amp on one side and a Peavey 50 watt bass combo on the other side and it sound very nice. It can get noisy at times but, then again, so can I! Did I mention it has KNOBS? Oh, I guess I did... Sounds good thru headphones too. Haven't recorded with it yet but it does have cabinet simulation which sounds decent thru the headphones.

So far so good! I've had it about eight months and it's made of metal so.....I don't play outside the house much anymore but the occasional jam does happen now and then. Nice old fashioned metal buttons to step on so they should last. Oh yeah, it has KNOBS to turn just like an amp!

No problems, so I wouldn't know.

I've been playing for oh, about 40 years. Wow, am I old? Anyway, I also own a Digitech RP-7 that I've had a couple of years. I bought it because I fell for the fact that it has a tube in it and would create sounds like an overdriven tube amp......WRONG!!! It's sucks compared to the Stomp! The only thing that's crappy about the Stomp is the tuner. Maybe it's just me but I have a hard time reading it. The RP-7 has a much better tuner setup. I would buy another one if it was lost or stolen, that's for sure. Maybe I'll keep the RP-7 as a tuner since they sure don't sell for much anymore.

this is the most user friendly multi effects i have ever used. the manual is helpful at letting you know the short cuts and other little nuances. the effect tweeking is plain as day.

i play a fernandes vertigo through an ampeg r50 head into it's 4x12 cab. some of the presets on the DG stomp are a little loud,but you can tweek them to your liking and save them that way.the effects are great. i love the rotary speaker.very analog sounding for a digital unit. the amp and speaker sims are cool.

i usually don't gig with lots of effects ,but i have used this on stage twice and it never failed. i would say you could trust this item, but like anything if you treat it like crap it will do the same right back.

i've never had to deal with Yamaha directly. but they are a company who has been around for a while. so...

i play alot of experimental, heavy, fast power rock music there are infinite possibilities with this unit. the only thing i wish it had was an octaver effect. however the optional expression pedal really opens this unit up allowing you to change modulation depth,speed and delay speed all at once.

I left a review here about 2 years ago, just wanted to add a little. I still own my Stomp. Almost sold it recently as I had just been using it as an effects processor for the last year and a half. I was buying a new amp and wanted the cash. But then I gave it another chance as a modeling pre-amp that I could use with headphones, I did a little extra tweaking and found it quite useable for that. I do even run it into the power amp section of my new amp sometimes, it sounds better a really low volumes than my Boogie...my Boogie just sounds best when it's louder. Not ear-splitting loud, but generally louder than my sleeping baby will tolerate!! The DG Stomp works great for this, and it was definitely worth keeping, considering the paltry sum it would fetch on the used market these days! One thing I found that made a great difference for me was the orginial amps that were used for the different models. That was my biggest complaint about this unit, for those of us who have never owned all those amps, it makes it easier to find a tone remniscent of our favorite artists when we know what the basic building blocks for the different models are. I don't know if I'll remember everything here or not, but for those interested who have not seen this before, I'll try.

Lead 2 - Based on Marshall Silver Jubilee Stack
Lead 1 - Based on vintage Marshall
Drive 2 - Based on a hybrid of a Hiwatt and Matchless (my favorite model)
Drive 1 - Based on a Vox, I almost think it was an AC-15
Crunch 2 - Based on a Boogie Mark II (I think, one of the Marks, anyway)
Crunch 1 - Based on a Fender Bassman
Clean 1 - Based on Fender Silverface (I think, it was some Fender and I don't think it was a Blackface and I know it wasn't a Tweed)
Clean 2 - Based on Fender Twin Reverb

Anyway, knowing that helped me to zero in on some of the tones of my favorite artists, and I'm real happy with the unit now.

Had the thing for almost 3 years, no problems with it. I did replace the battery a few months ago, but that was easy enough.

I've had this gizmo for just over a year - you probably already have the low down on the features. Here's the pros & cons (from this player's point of view anyway...)

Pros: First, the tone on this is really nice. Not so with the other multi-effects I've owned in the past. I've heard lots of players say the POD & J Station & others sounded dull once the excitement faded... Reviews on the DG Stomp consistently gave good reviews for tone. That's why I picked one up on eBay and I agree! Second, I really like the fact that it has at least some footswitching capabilities. Third, I like that it feels more like an amp than a computer when you start tweaking the knobs... Last but not least I like that it sounds very good direct to PA - which means I don't have to haul amps into my little church gigs.

The Cons: First, it does sound kind of harsh and dull on some settings - mostly the more extreme distortions and the ultra-clean sounds. Everything else in between is nice though! And even though I was attracted to the footswitches (POD has NONE!) it is too complicated to go past the three settings in front of you in one song. I rarely use more than 3 settings per song let alone 3 setting per set so not a big deal for me.

I use my Carvin "Strat" with Seymour Duncan Vintage Rails & Little 59 in bridge and My Epi Dot with Duncan Jazz neck and Duncan 59 in bridge. Oh yeah - I even use my bass with it too. I play at church so I use it for contemporary/rock/blues/gospel etc...

It gives very nice clean, semi-clean & drive sounds. Again, tone is nice & it's very musical. Sounds best direct - effects work just fine in the effects loop of my Trademark 60 amp but the drives sound considerably weaker. Of course I use the drive from my amp and other pedals in this situation. The chorus is my favorite effect - fat & warm! The rotary sim is a close second. I have the Expression Pedal and unlike some of the other reviewers I'm pretty happy with it. You can adjust the settings to fix the range of motion so that it's comfortable for you. Wah not crybaby quality but it works fine and can become a volume/paramater control if you want. Sounds great with headphones for practice - best headphone amp I've ever had.

Stay away from this if you're a metal-head or if you want ultra clean funk tone. Everything else in between is very useful for me.

This thing took a dive out of the back of my truck when I was unloading one night. Hit hard enough to knock the battery loose. I lost all presets, but other than that all is well! Pretty tough for a computer I would say!

Great tool for players who want good tone and convenience. If it were stolen I probably would pick one up again if I could find one. I can't think of another multi-FX unit with tone that I like.

Hi, all. Another follow-up to my 06/06/02 & 06/07/02 posts (below). I now use a Dunlop Mr. Crybaby ahead of the stomp for wah; expression pedal set to global, post pre-amp volume control. Also am using the Vibrato ("bright") channel of my DRRI amp. MUCH better sounds. I tweak treble and bass on the amp when I switch between my Strat and ESP H-202. The thing rocks! Armon's anti-hum mod is still holding up very well.
Prices have sure dropped to the basement, so now's a particularly good time to pick up a Stomp.

You by now probably know all the features, if not read othr people's reviews or go to yamaha site and find them, 'cause I ain't gonna write them..Loaded with a variety of different sounds, pretty straight-forward, versatile, easy to dial in sounds, even tho it's my first multieffect unit. I like the metal chasis, really, really well constructed, footswitches are metal instead of plastic, like on some other multi-units. User-friendly interface. Wall-wart is the only feature that maybe bugs me a bit..but no biggy

I'll give this unit a 10 just not to affect the average score because sounds are excellent, but for me, sound isn't what I want. I've been playing for about 7 years and use a Gibson SG Special (my baby), and a Roland Cube-60 Chorus amp. All sounds found in this unit are very very good and usable, the unit itself isn't noisy at all, effects are natural sounding as if you are having a line-up of stomp-boxes, reverbs are really deep and smooth, but it lacks the most important sound to me: a big fat distortion. It simply doesn't have enough gain for metalheads (I am one so I probably know). The clean sounds are awesome, can get an excellent SRV crunch, even drive is rather good, but lead preamp is not so good. Not good for palm muting (Metallica, Pantera, Slayer, SOAD or Tool) or shredding solos. I really like the voicing of the drive "channel", and I think that for me it would be great just if it had more gain, so I could achieve bad-ass metal palm-muted rhythm sounds...but unfortunenatelly, it doesn't.. also, lead channel sounds rather digital and fake, unlike all other sounds in this unit. But: speaker simulators are great, effects are great (especially flanger, chorus, reverb), all sounds but lead are great, and I think that any blues, jazz or rock player will be very pleased with the DG stomp. I tried it through a 4*10 all-tube Fender combo (don't know what model), Marshall Valvestate 102R and various other amps and it still didn't give that high-gain sound, just if you might thought that the problem was in my 60-watt bluesy SS amp...It sounds good even through headphones, and good for direct-to-computer recording...In my opinion, Yamaha knew that it doesn't have enough gain, so high-gain factory presets all have a rather big amount of delay or some other effect as if they were trying to mask this fact. Unfortunatelly, I'll sell it, and my amp too, so I should have enough money to buy a Marshall AVT-50, which is an awesome sounding little(but loud) amp, has great distortion, check out the reviews if you don't believe me.

Had it for only a couple of months, and seems very reliable. The wall-wart gets really hot. Tank-solid metal chasis. Built better and stronger than boss pedals. It would survive the apocalypse.

Really good if you're NOT into metal and high-gain rhythm sounds, not good for palm muting..but besides that, I think it's an awesome tool for any studio-stage-bedroom jazz-blues-pop-rock player. It's unbelieveable that all this warm&cozy sounds are coming from a couple of microchips and transistors. I opened it up, it looks like a computer motherboard, amazing! I wish high gain sounds didn't mean so much to me, then I wouldn't have to sell it.

I've had this pre-amp/modeller for about 6 months now. I believe the features has been described to death by previous reviews so I won't go there. I play mostly classic rock, contemporary, jazz and blues style and the stomp seems to be versatile enough for my useage. I don't like the pre-set patches, they seem to be on the extreme side, but I will call some of them up and then tweak out the settings to get the tone I am looking for. The chorus feature is a nice touch and the amp sim is nice for direct digital recording uses. Thou I do wish that there was something similar to a channel switch that I can access the dirty sounds quickly rather than to pre-program the groups/banks/etc. I read from an earlier review about the Yamaha FC-7 expression pedal and I agree, I took a look at it in the store and the play was way too much! The travel of the FC-7 is so long that it was uncomfortable for me...I bought an older Yamaha piano volume pedal (which the FC-7 basically is) with less travel and that felt closer to my old cry baby wah. The sound of the wah isn't like the cry baby, but it's useable. I haven't tried to turn off the pre-amp and use the stomp strickly as a effects box looping throu the effects loop of an amp but it's nice to know that that option is there. I use it mostly for recording and it shines in that arena. In running it with an amp it does a good job as well. I haven't gigged with it live so I can't comment about that. I have found it to be somewhat easier to use as compared to other pre-amp/modellers out there. The midi option is something useless for me since it would make its use more complicated. I've tried hooking up a left and right speaker to it and you can get some nice stereo feel from them.

I play a '67 Gibby Les Paul with the original hber's, I also have a Fender American Fat Strat with Fender Fat 50's single coil and Gibby PAF's and I also have run my Guild DC50 accoustic electric with the fishman active pick-ups and they all can get great sound from the stomp. As far as digital modeller goes, it is the warmest sounding digital I have found at the price range. Let's face it, it's a digital processor so comparing it to a tube amp is like comparing apples to oranges. It is quiet, with a large range of sounds. On the digital recording, it produces great sounds which I have been very pleased about. Don't judge the stomp by it's pre-set patches, use the pre-sets as a base and tweak them out, you can get some really nice tones that way.

not sure, since I've had it for 6 months I've had no problems and would expect it to be solid. feels like it was built like a tank.

haven't needed them yet.

I've been playing for 23 years and have owned a few gears along the way which were mostly tubes. this is the first digital gear I've ventured into and I have to admit that I have been pleased with it. the only thing I wasn't impressed with is the pre-set patches. I think Yamaha could learn a little from Tech 21's Tradmark 60's. The midi option is basically useless for me, midi controllers seem to just complicate the use of the stomp. Sometimes I think there are way too many features on it then I need but I've found myself in situations where I was glad that Yamaha had put them in there like the phaser. If stolen , ya I would pick up another one.

NOt sure what year it was made.
Very versatile for what I play (garage rock)
I play it wit hmy band and for home recording.

Using Gibson SG-I with this amp. I also have a dano and a LP copy but the sg sounds best with this unit.

It suits my style well which is 60's garage and 70's punk. I love the fact that you can pick a clean amp and with the right speaker sim, you can force it to over drive. You can get a nice early Stones/Who sound, better than an OD pedal. It can be noisy at hi settings.

I recorded some stuff with this an also with my tube amp, then I neglected to mark which was which on my tapes. Listening to the tapes I can't distinguish which was my tube amps and which was the DG stomp.

The amp can make country sounds all the way to heavy metal sounds.

I'm not sure if I'd bring this without an amp to a gig. I like having an amp up there as a monitor.

n/a

been playing 20 years, own a traynor ycv-40 and an old ampeg reverberocket.

I did not compare this to any other multi-effect units. This is the only one I have ever owned. I chose this one after playing it in the store and I loved the sound.

I wish it was easier to navigate to different banks.

As I said before I love the fact that you can overdrive the clean amps.

I owned one once before but returned it to buy my tube amp. So this is the second one I've had. And this time it was used oneBay and cheaper!

I've had the DG Stomp for about 6 months now. I am really pleased with it. It may not have as many features as the Digitech GNX series, but I find the sounds (and the price) to be much better. Without using names of the amps it tries to emulate, it calls the different amp selection ?Clean, Drive, Crunch, Lead, etc.? This highlights the fact that it does not matter whether you sound like this or that amp as long as you can get the sound you want. The foot switches make it convenient to select up to three patches which is enough for most songs. The difficulty comes when switching between banks and groups, which is normally required between songs. I personally find that ?tap dancing? a bit ridiculous and error prone; for example, I once switched from user area (user programmed sounds) to preset area (original presets from Yamaha) by mistake and it took me a few seconds to realize that my sounds were wrong. You do not want that hassle when in front of a crowd. For that reason, I am thinking of buying a midi foot controller to switch patch sets on the DGStomp.

Speaking of sound... This is what I like most about this unit. I have been reading these reviews before making the ?right? choice. I found the DGStomp to be generally the best in that category and sound quality WAS my number one criteria. Some people give a very low rating, many give a high rating. Others say that speaker simulation is too subtle or useless. The way the DGStomp is plugged in the system is VERY important. This is a preamplifier, which means you should bypass the pre-amp of your amp by connecting to the effect return (if you have one). Speaker simulation has almost no effect otherwise. On the other hand when connected properly, speaker simulation will remove that annoying ?buzzy and fake? sound some have been commenting on. Connecting directly to a computer or PA (with speaker simulation on) also produces a very good sound. I play a Strat. I recorded a small jam over a boring bass and drum line directly into the computer; I wanted the distortion to be proportional to volume in this specific case. For those wondering what the DGStomp sounds like, you can hear this mp3 sample (1.72 MB) at http://pages.infinit.net/jremi/GuitarTest.html

No problem so far. Yamaha is normally reliable.

N/A

I have been playing mostly rock, progressive rock, blues (no heavy metal) for more than 30 years and this is my first such device. I would buy it again without hesitation. I can get any sound I want for the type of music I play. Again, to whoever is thinking about buying one, please ensure that your current setup will allow the DGStomp to shine before investing in one; otherwise you may become one of those reviewers giving a low sound quality rating and using adjectives such as ?buzzy?, ?fake? or whatever else.

I've had the DG Stomp since its inception (really bought into that nonesense in Guitar Player) and as with all similar devices it has too many features; too many options. Instead of doing one or two things well. On the plus side, this unit achieves a level of quiet that Roland and Digitech can only dream about.

What can I say...in the Yamaha tradition its a high fidelity device. So the sounds that call for lots of processing are impressive. Lots of nice chorus, delay and so on. But a simple distorion--the kind you can get from a $200 tube amp? No way in hell. Its just shrill, buzzy and fake. Like the J-Station and the Pod.

After a year (when it was never out of the house) the thing died. Being Yamaha and so clean sounding I always felt like I was taking a stereo receiver, placing it on the floor and stepping on it. Seems I was right.

I didn't have to wait on hold and I didn't have to listen carefully as their menu options had NOT changed. Bravo!

If it matters I've been playing since 1966. And if anyone should love the DG Stomp its me since I'm not interested in sounding like Megadeath or Blue Cheer or whatever. But aside from its breaking down, the lack of any decent overdrive, the worthless manual, the too-subtle speaker simulations and the unneccesary complexity have made me appreciate the advantages of using a tube amp and high-quality, individual pedals. A lesson learned.

It's been pretty much covered.Anything you might ever REALLY need it has got it. A bit spastic to use it live but I've found the cure:I have created 9 groups of sounds and just change the banks with the foot switches.Forget about trying to change the groups live via the foot switches,except if you are an expert tap dancer!

I am an analog stompbox fanatic and I used to own a POD that I sold cause it did not sound very good to me.This small unit REALLY surprised me.VERY warm and un-digital sounding especially through a tube amp (I am using a VOX AC30) but also very realistic sounding through a soundsystem.Having the speaker sim ALWAYS on is the key to a great sound.I am very impressed by this little thing,especially the killer overdrive sounds

built like a tank

a very nice sounding effects/preamp especially when I can't carry my huge pedalboard.VERY good sounding effects w/ the exception of the compressor that sounds bad.I always use a MARSHALL ED1 comp in front of the unit that enchances the tone dramatically

I needed a floor unit for rehearsals & small gigs so I wouldn't have to lug around my Rocktron Prophesy or Rocktron Chameleon 2000, both of which I love very much. At $150.00, this unit is an outstanding value given the fine versatility and usability of the amp tones, the quality of the effects, a well-thought-out user interface that's pretty easy to follow and access.

The metal chasis seems to be contructed very well. I do prefer that the knobs used on the unit are continuous rotary encoders where adjustments can be made on the fly instead of having to turn the knob in the direction of the current parameter before the unit recognizes that a change is being made.

MIDI implementation seems complete relative to how I would have a sequencer control the unit. However, some MacOS X software interface would be very welcome.

The provision of S/PDIF I/O allows for direct digital recording but a switchable sampling rate between 44.1 and 48 KHz instead of just 48KHz would have been nice as I mostly record using the 44.1KHz.

This is a great little tone box that I have been using as my live front end. As much as I still love my Rocktron Chameleon 2000 and Rocktron Prophesy, they have not seen the light of day for a long time now (six months) since I started using the DG Stomp.

While I'm not too familiar with the sounds of the variety of amps that most modelers mimic. I am exposed to and play a wide variety of commercial and fine arts music so I have an awareness of what kind of sounds complement whatever style. And playing with the unit on these varying styles, I find that it fits in very well with all them except for ones that need ridiculously high gain.

The amps I revolve around are as follows:
- Lead 2, having less mids & being bassier is perfect for ballsy muted power 5ths and shred stuff.
- Lead 1, being more prominent in mids, sounds sweet & is typical for melodic playing in fusion music
- Drive 2 I use for that tube-saturated glassy texas blues type sound
- Clean 2 I use for chordal/rhythm work on pop/rock styles
- Clean 1 for jazz
- Crunch 2 for country

The effects are great sounding despite being of the bread & butter kind. The delay helps me emulate a Holdsworth type swell and the chorus is quite rich.

What I may not be completely satisfied with are the speaker simulations, as they tend to retain some edginess that I end up having to EQ out. I tend to go with the Y412 and Y212 simulations which have a good balance for me.

The unit has been very reliable in 6 months of weekly use. Then again, I do my best to take care of my stuff.

No experience with Yamaha in this area.

I've been a musician for 15 years now, but playing guitar for 10 of those years, the last 5 with some competency. And of course, I am maintaining progress with the craft. I originally intended to use this unit as an alternative to my rack stuff for small gigs & rehearals but I am very pleased with the quality of the sounds I get that I will continue to use it as the primpary front end for quite a long time. It's sound and simplicity is what attracted me but there is quite a bit of power to the unit and it serves my musical purposes well. With technology going at the rate of progress that it is, I'm sure that time will bring us with much finer units. Yet knowing that fact, I find no need to make meaningless comparisons between GNX, PODs, and the like nor dream of what the future lies in store. I wish to reinforce that I am thoroughly satisfied with the DG Stomp.

I have read the manual twice and am still a bit confused. I'm not the type who has problems programming a VCR either...I'm a PC tech by day. Any help would be appreciated. I keep getting fustrated and am considering offing it because of this.

Distortion seems very "tinny" and "thin" I play a Gibson SG Special through a Fender Blues Jr. It sounds great plain, but the Fender has no gain channel, and I was thinking this box may add some dimension and distortion to my sound, therefore I bought it. Maybe I could have done better with a Boss DS1 for $30? I have to admit there is no line noise. Very quiet operation. If the sounds can be "thickened" up, I would be happy to give it a 10.

I bought it used, and it seems sturdy and fine. No line noise, quiet pots, etc.

Discontinued item...manual and patches available online. I have no MIDI knowledge, so it is pretty useless at this time for me.

I play blues, rock, folk, & jam. Even though I've been an on again-off again player for 18 years and am still a beginner. I am just beginning to take this more seriously. The other effects I have are a Crybaby & tube screamer (TS7). I tried a Digitech RP200 and took it back to the store. it was a pain in the a$$ to program (but easy to figure out) and was built cheaply. This also has compression, delay, modulation, a built in tuner, and reverb settings ---but finding the right sound is a challenge. I would really appreciate any help so I can have a more positive review on this product. I would not replace it if it were stolen. I would just buy single stomp boxes. (I want to spend my time playing guitar, not endlessly tweaking knobs and buttons for effects)

I prefer clean sounds and I get them with this. I have used it on tape and digitally.

Only the wall wart bugs me. I know it would add to the cost but if I were sitting in thqat meeting I would have insisted on getting rid of it.

This is a great product and no one was more skeptical than I was when a guy I work with lent me his for a weekend. I was basically a straight in the amp kinda guy for 32 years with some expermentation with effects. But the amp modeling is what I have been looking for.There are a lot of obnoxiuosly opinionated people who say they hear this and they say they hear that, you know the same ones who claimed CDs would never take over. Get a life. This product proves two things, science is still wonderful and this is the new century. If you want to be one of those 60 year old geezes in some dusty guitar shop go ahead and be my guest but I am moving on.

Purchased off Ebay, price included the expression pedal.

For what it is, it has great features. The only thing I wish it did was tune my guitar for me! Seriously, I don't get what some of these reviewers want from this unit. No noise gate??!! A noise gate does not belong on this. It should be some consolation that you get a compressor because a compressor doesn't belong on this type of unit either. You're not gonna buy this unit for the compressor any more than you'd buy it for the noise gate it doesn't have. You might, however, buy it JUST for the quality and ease of setting up and using the effects, regardless of the amp and speaker models.

I find the tuner quite easy to use. But I am comparing that to my IntelliTouch tuner. They're very similar.

Well, I guess it "only" has 8 amp types, so it's not as versatile as the Pod. I'll put it this way - 8 is already one more than I can keep track of. It also costs about half the price of the Pod.

Because it has fewer functions controlled by each knob - and therefore more knobs - it's a lot easier to set up than many similar units. I found it quite easy to store patches. Recalling them, however, is a bit more complicated. But again, not more so than similar units. If you added a midi controller (which sort of undermines the simplicity of the unit) it would be every bit as easy to use as the Line 6 or Johnson amps - which also require a midi foot controller for ease of use.

There is definitely a limitation in that you have basically three presets you can call up per song. Fortunately, this is exactly right for me.

To an aging player suchb as myself, the coolest thing about this DG Stomp is that it sounds good and doesn't weigh 85 pounds. My Boogie Mark III just keeps getting heavier! It'll be 200 pounds by the time I'm .... OK, 50.)

I use the DG Stomp with headphone with speaker model turned on. I also run it into the main amp input of an Eden Traveler bass amp. That's a cool application: I can have a bass plugged into the front of the amp and use all of the preamp controls of the Eden for the bass while keeping a guitar plugged into the DG Stomp and running to the main amp input, which is not affected by the preamp controls. This means that I can just lug my Eden 210 rig for practices and leave the Mark III home. (I play both guitar and bass.)

I play an ES335 and a Strat about equally. I tend toward jazzier sounds. Mainly clean sounds. Gee, there are nice clean sounds available from the DG Stomp too! It's not ALL about distorted sounds. There's a very nice, bloopy jazz preset too.

Did Yamaha make a mistake by not actually NAMING the models "Tweed," or "Twin," or "JCM?" Some reviewers are hung up on the notion that Yamaha didn't actually emulate specific amps. If you ask me, it's quite obvious that they did just that. They just didn't opt to use the trademarked names. The Stomp's Clean 2 sounds as much like a Twin as the "Twin" model in my Roland VS880EX. It's better than the Johnson Millenium I bought and returned. But frankly, I am not looking to sound like someone or something else.

The only real problem with the presets was that they are so maxed that the pick attack seems to glitch digitally. If I back off on the gain I get a responsive "interactive" type of attack "something like" a real tube amp. If I want to get the kind of springy responsiveness of a real tube amp, I play through my Mark III.

I like the chorus better than my Roland CH-1 or the CE-3 (which sucked but it's highly desirable now because it's "vintage" and made in Japan. I sold it for more than I paid for it brand new - nearly 20 years ago. Yeah, I'm a geezer.)

I like the spring reverb in my Mark III better than the spring reverb model in the DG Stomp. The DG Stomp's reverb is still good, though. To be more specific, it's got too long of a decay for the higher reverb mix setting I like to use. I think it's just what I'm used to - It's not really better or worse. It's still a nice, useable reverb sound.

Well, for this price, you can get two of them, if you want a backup. But one of the uses of the DG Stomp could be AS a backup: If your amp goes dead, you CAN run this through the PA.

I have been playing for 35 years. I've owned a lot of gear over the years. For the price, this is a great piece of gear! I probably will actually get another one just because it looks like they don't make them anymore. I love the simplicity and versatility of the DG Stomp. It's perfect for nearly everything I do on guitar. I'd still take my Mark III with me. But that detracts not at all from the DG Stomp's usefulness. My points of comparison are a Johnson Millenium head, which I returned after a week. The models in this little Yamaha are far better than those of the Johnson, which really sucked. My experience with Line 6 has been an early combo amp, which was terrible, and just trying out the Pod. The Pod's nice. And way overpriced. It does MORE than the DG Stomp, but it doesn't do it as well, in my opinion. The other comparison is the effects cards in my Roland VS880EX (digital hard disc recorder.) I assume these effects are like those in the Boss VF-1. The Roland's models do sound better to me than any of the other modeling amps.

on starting up the box, it's easy to use the preset sounds and by just adjusting them a little get very good, personalised sounds. trying to use some of the more complicated functions is more tricky however. the manual helps a lot, but some of the functions, such as the tuner, and the wah wah pedal, are a little complicated. could be better.

i use an epiphone elitist les paul with seymour duncan 59's. i put this through either a modified peavey valve amp (used to be a hammond tr-30 thing) or a marshall 200w solid state power amp and an ashdown 2x12 cab. the only other effects i use are a marshall guv'nor pedal, and a cry baby wah. through both of these the dg stomp sounds excellent, it requires a little tweaking to get the sound right, (as you'd expect) but overall it sounds very good. My only complaint would be with the phaser and flange effects, they themselves are very high quality, but they would be better if they had a mix or volume control, it's hard to get a subtle sound using some phaser and distortion, the phaser is just a bit loud. not that it's a problem though. using it as a preamp works very well as well, the speaker simulator is excellent, and the sounds add that extra realistic warmth. would be nice if it had a dual rectifier style sound though, the lead sounds are verry high gain anyway, but it would be nice to have somthing more mesa boogie esc. maybe that could be an upgrade, who knows?

i've not had anyproblems with this at all, i've had it for about 6 months now, and have gigged with it several times. on all occasions it's performed brilliantly. i'd never hesitate to take it as my only effects. it's built like an absolute tank. there's no risk of it being damaged, yamaha have done an excellent job with the design and layout.i think if i dropped it, the floor would suffer more than this would. a great piece of kit.

i had to contact yamaha to get a new plug when my little brother threw it out the window in a temper (don't ask) and they sent it along within about 3 days no problems at all, very helpful.

overall, an excellent piece of kit, well worth the money and a great alternative to the line6 pod. definatley the best piece of equipment i've ever bought, just wish the foot pedal (the fc-7) was a bit cheaper. i definately reccomend it to anyone looking for some excellent amp sounds and high quality effects.

The DG-Stomp is a pre-amp and effects pedal. The unit is fairly easy to use as far as creating patches. They obviously took their time making the presets and modifying them is simple enough. They have a tri mode button that you have to use to change sound banks and I can't say that I care for it. Not a problem when you're recording but on stage it's slow. The manual is straight forward and simple. A little experience with Yamaha gear helps. It's certainly better than the old manuals that were poorly translanted from the Japanese. As with their other pedals of this type, you have to initialize each function before you can make a change. This means you have to find the setting is it on and move the dial to this point before it will register a change. I thought this odd at first but then realized that it would be the only way for you to know what setting is used for the preset. Not a bad idea at all really. Any and all changes you make including bass, treble, presence, gain, etc are saved when you create a patch. The tuner doesn't seem to be able to "commit" and is largely a waste of time. Although I haven't done so (yet) you can hook up an expression pedal to it to alter sounds. Pedal function is assignable.

I use a variety of guitars with this pedal but all of them use either single coils or P-90's. I believe this to be the best multifunction pedal I've ever owned. I've been using guitar pedals since 1966. They have included all the effects I could want. The inclusion of phaser (think MXR Phase 90) and tremolo are a real bonus to me. The speaker cabinet emulations are great for recording. At first I was amazed that it had no "distortion or overdrive" button. But that function is handled by the "amp select". I believe all the effects are first rate (the "spring" reverb is outstanding). The presets would probably suffice for all but most picky tone monsters. Plenty of crunch, clean, and lead patches They have a few "experimental" patches but only a few. Patches with names like "Santa-Ana" are self explanatory as to what tone they are aiming for. It is not noisy in general but I've had to tweak the compressor on a couple of patches. I've sent the output direct to my computer, to a Mackie P.A. amp, and to my Crate DX-212 amp. The stomp handles all of them very very well.

The box is made of metal and the stomp switches are solid under your feet. There will not be any physical problems with this unit. I will use it without a backup but I haven't sold my RP-1 yet.

I haven't dealt with Yamaha since the old DX-7 days. When I did call them about parts for mine they were friendly and helpful. If they still train their people the same way I'm sure you won't have trouble with them.

I play in several different live situations and I record several styles. This unit will find it's way into all of that. I've been making guitar music for almost 40 years and I think I know the good stuff. Unlike most gear I own, if this were lost or stolen I would try to replace it immediately. As a pre-amp OR as an effects unit, it's more than worth the price I paid. As both, it's the deal of a decade. I hear this pedal has been discontinued. What a pity. One of my bands has 3 guitarists and we all got one after hearing it. It may be the one and only thing we agree on. If you can find one to audition give it a whirl. You'll be leaving the store with it I guarantee.

Ease of use: -3 Ease of using the manual -10
I have been playing with the Stump for 2 years. The best thing about the Stump is that some of the preprogramed Patches (all 90 of them)sound great. With some of them you can virtually play anything and it sounds good. Remember the first time you tried a Fuzz Tone and nobody had any idea what the song was or even cared? The worst thing about the Stump is the manual. It is so confusing and has such little useable information I don't think it makes any difference whether you can read or understand any of the 6 languages it is written in. Once you go through the discription of the controls, the rest of the information is just more confusing.

It is easy to edit the patches but difficult to keep track of what you have done without keeping a note book for each patch number you modify. And Heaven help you if you touch one of the 21 momentary buttons after you have set up what you want, your not in Kansas any more.

That being said, it is relativly easy to get the device working as long as you stick with the preprogramed patches. The Stump is split into 2 identical sections. The factory setting (90 Patches) that can be altered but not saved, and a user section where the settings (same 90 Patches) can be altered and saved.

I use a Carvin SC90T and a Martin D28 with a Gold under bridge pickup.
The Stump is pretty quiet. It sounds like they actually have added noise that would be tipical of the effect.
I play through a Rivera, Fandango and a PV Pacer100.

The good effects always sound good the so so ones always sound so so.

If anything I think they tried to do too much. Included effects are: Compressor, I give it a 5, Chorus-8, Flanger-2, Phaser-2, Rotary-3, Tremolo-9, Delay-7, Tape echo-6, Reverb/spring/plate/hall-7. In addition they offer different outputs of: Lead 1&2, Drive 1/&2, Crunch 1&2, and Clean 1&2. While they give you 1&2 1 would have been enough. There are also 16 different speaker simulations taht all kind of get blurred from one to the next. Four or five distinct cabinets would have been plenty. The Preprogramed patches are various combinations of the effects. With all of these buttons and dials you would think that there would be a way to bypass the Patches and use the effects you want, if you can I haven't figured it out yet.

It is reliable if you can remember what Patch does what. I should put a lable on the bottom and write down the settings I use for the different user stored patches. I do gig with the Stump but don't venture too far out of 2-3 patches I have worked out at home for what I'm playing. And once you turn it on and select the patch don't touch anything!

Customer support was just as confusing as the Manual. You understand real fast who wrote the manual and it took almost a week to get a reply that was not at all helpful. Saddly when I asked what a particular discription in the manual meant, they restated what it said in the manual. I guess I shouldn't have asked such a question.

I play a lot of different music styles from Jazz, to Rock, to Clasical. I have been playing for, "Oye vey, 40 years". If the Stump were stolen or lost I probably would not buy another one. Sadly, I don't love or hate my Stump I am indifferent. The favorite feature is, I have been able to get a feel for several types of effects with one device. That being said I will probably be buying some individual effect boxes.

With all the obvious work that went into building the Stump (none went into the manual), I would have paid more attention to the relation ship of the Gain control knob to the Volume knob. My impression is the designers have never used an amp that really had these features built in. It is very difficult to get a truly clean sound.

I think this is a great idea that got beyond the designer or maybe there were too many desiners, I'm Stumped.

I'm surprised this is classified under 'amps' rather than 'effects' like other amp modelers, but maybe it's a typo. Anyway, I got a recently discontinued DG Stomp from Musician's Friend, and had the chance to play it and compare it to my Johnson J-Station. Other multi-effects I've owned in the past: Behringer V-Amp 2, Digitech RP100, Zoom 505.

Specs are listed in other reviews, I thought I'd just share my general impressions compared to other amp modelers. The DG Stomp has less options as far as amp sims and deep editing goes than the J-Station or V-Amp 2 (or the POD 2.0 for that matter). I think this is both good and bad. Good because it doesn't require as much tweaking to get a good sound - out of the box the sims sound better than my J-Station, which sounds a little muddy/muted for my tastes. You don't need to have a deep knowledge of working effects because they simplified it. For example on the DG there is only knob to adjust compression, whereas on the J-Station (with the J-Edit software) you can modify attack, release, threshold, and gain. The J-Station also has more fine control over things like delay (numerical values) whereas here it is basically a tap delay. They clearly designed this for live users who want to set it up quickly and play, versus the J-Station which is essentially for home studios. Also the J-Station has bass and acoustic amp sims while the DG is strictly guitar only. The downside of course is that if you enjoy having lots of options and tweaking for hours then the DG Stomp is a little simple.

Nonetheless the DG has all the essential sims and effects and allows a wide range of sounds (I noticed this just by cycling through the presets). It has a digital coaxial out with 20-bit/48kHz. The most noticeable omissions are lack of editing software (even though it has MIDI in/outs) and a noise gate (more on that below).

I am using this with an el cheapo Squier Affinity Special. The clean amp sims and time-based effects are superb, very lush-sounding. I would rate them above all other amp modelers I've tried. The gain sounds are a mixed bag, some of the lead sounds are very studio-like but some other distortion sounds have that digital grittiness. I haven't seen a digital unit that can reproduce the smoothness of a Pro Co Rat or a USA-made Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, so I think it's best just to stick with stompboxes for those sounds.

As stated above the unit lacks a noise gate. Even with reduced noise pickups (with 'dummy' coils) set in humbucking positions (Strat 2 and 4), there is still a noticeable hum. On positions 1,3, and 5 the hum is just unbearable. This is compared to the J-Station which has almost no noise on 2-4, and very little on the 1-3-5 positions.

Very solid construction with metal casing. I wouldn't stomp on it too hard in case I might errantly stomp on the display or knobs, but it has a Boss pedal-type construction to it.

Haven't dealt with them yet

Soundwise it is better than all the other amp modelers I've tried, except for the increased noise. It is more dynamic and natural sounding than the J-Station and V-Amp 2. It is not as feature-rich as those two but it is more suitable for live playing in my opinion. If you can find it for under $150 then it's a great deal.

Excellent features for the money although usability can be an issue (switching amp settings for instance).

Having used this and a POD I have to say that the Stomp has far more natural sounding amp tones. Especially good is the way that the Stomp responds to picking dynamics, getting cleaner with less guitar output.

Where the POD wins hands down though is that it reproduce real amplifier tones form Marshall, Fender etc. Given that the presets on the Stomp are pretty useless this is a major shortcoming. Marshall/ Fender settings for the Stomp can be got at http://yamaha.dgstomp.users.btopenworld.com or by side by side matching to a real amplifier (a slow process). These settings turn the Stomp into a wonderful collection of vintage amp sounds and make it truly usable.

I guess it's a 9 for sound quality but only an 7 for actual sound choices.

No problems with reliability.

Other Yamaha spares seem outrageously expensive ($200 for a new grill cloth and baffle, $30 for a push/push pot).

I've been playing for over 30 years, mostly Strats and PRSs. My first real rig was a Marshall Plexi with 2 4x12s. I've been searching for that sound ever since in a more manageable package. The Stomp is the closest thing I've found for recreating valve amp sounds whilst retaining some of the natural warmth. My POD 2.0 got the EQ spot on was just wasn't compelling to listen to for me other than direct.
Overall a 9 (when set up with the Marshall and Fender tones).

I'd like to add a few words to my previous post. The features of the Stomp have been covered in detail by a lot of people on this page, but there's still some confusion as to the quality of the gain on the DGS. After some months of use, I found the following, which may help a few people out there get good/better distorted sounds:
1. on the back panel (where the guitar plugs in) there is low/hi output switch. Always leave it on.
2. ALWAYS leave the amp sim on. That changing the sim has negligible effect on the sound is one of the DGS's shortcomings, but turning it off ensures that you'll sound like Marylin Manson underwater. So leave it on.
3. Likewise, ALWAYS leave on the chorus or preferably phaser from the modulation bank, unless your song demands otherwise. This helps to get a big, tubey sound from the DGS, and if you're careful it doesn't sound too much like the effect is on at all.
4. Having the compressor effect on but turned down all the way seems to work for me.
5. Away from this, look at your guitar: use thicker strings, HB pickups, thicker picks, tune down 1/2 stop; increase amp volume where necessary.

Good luck!

Digital preamp modeler with effects. There is some dispute on this page as to whether this should be called a preamp; since I have run mine directly into the power stage of my amp and am getting at least as much volume as I ever did using the amp's pre, I say it can be safely called a preamp.

There are some truly marvelous features on this box, but it will not get a 10 from me because you can only use one modulation effect at a time, and because there are features that really should have been built into it that were omitted (ie noise gate, clean boost on demand, which you can do with the foot controller but I would have rather had a built in 10 db boost on the fourth ftsw than tap tempo for the delay, or ideally be able to assign either function to it) However, as I will get into in the next section, overall the features are pretty good, with some rising to excellence.

Let's break this down in sections.

AMP SIMS: 2 types each of Clean, Crunch, Drive, and Lead preamp models, all with Gain, Level, and 4 band EQ. I use mostly the Clean 1, Crunch 1 and 2, and Drive 1 (the Lead channels have a very sort of nu-metal sound, which is way not me), and overall I am fairly satisfied. Pick of the litter is definitely Clean 1, it's almost 100% noise free and it's very easy to make it sound good. Speaking of noise, there have been some people who have called this box noisy; I suspect these people are using this preamp into the front side of their amps. If you have a Power Amp In (FX Return on a series loop equipped amp) USE IT!! 90% of the noise disappears. Yeah, the higher gain settings get a little noisy on single coils, just like almost every OD pedal I've ever used does when you crank the gain. A lot of people have also complained that this does not sound like a good tube amp when it distorts. To this I say: no shit sherlock, nothing sounds like a Bogner or a Boogie except a Bogner or a Boogie!! The DG will, however, get you about 80% of the way to that kind of tonal nirvana, for about 4.6% the price. If you absolutely positively will not be happy with anything less than real tube tone you should know better than to buy a digital preamp. If little digital boxes that weigh a pound and sell for under $500 could really make EXACTLY the same tone as a 100 lb, $3000 tube amp, do you really think the big heavy things would still cost $3000??? Do you really think they would still be made at all if that was the case? And would anyone buy one of they were? Come back to reality everyone. If you use the Gain judiciously it's not horrible; if you push the hell out of it it gets kinda harsh.

MODULATION EFFECTS: chorus, flange, tremolo, rotary (vibrato), and phaser. You can only use one at a time, so if there's one you can't live without you might consider getting or retaining a separate pedal for that effect, as I'm doing with the chorus. Some of these effects are tremendous: the other guitar player in my band, for instance, owns a $100+ Voodoo Labs trem and he's jealous. I was never a fan of flanging before, but I am rapidly falling in love with this one. Then there's the others, which for the most part I could take or leave; however there are 4 parameters you can adjust for each effect, so with careful tweaking I may yet find a use for the phase and vibrato.

DELAY: two modes, delay and tape echo. Feedback, level and time controls; peg the time to 10 and you get a little under 2 seconds of delay, which is a lot longer than my old Boss delay that went to like 1.2 I think... What can you really write about delay? It is what it is. I don't hear much diff in Tape Echo mode, personally.

REVERB: Spring, Hall, and Plate modes, Effect Level knob. Hall is great, Spring is a little too bright; I say the plate sucks, but I have yet to find a digital plate reverb I like so take it for what you will.

PATCHES: You get to make 90 patches, and it has 90 (mostly useless ones) preloaded. 10 Groups x 3 Banks x 3 Patches. Editing is intuitive; I've played with the thing a total of about 4 hours this week and have created and idealized about 12 patches. Storing is easy unless you want to store across groups (ie, tweak patch 1-1-3 and store it as 5-2-1), which gets to be a pain. I myself am trying to organize them so that I don't have to change groups during a set; hence I'll have 9 patches at my disposal in any given set, which I can switch to FAIRLY quickly... This depends mostly on how intelligently you use the thing. And on how many patches you feel you need in a given song or set; if you really need more than 9 patches at any given moment you need MIDI I guess.

OTHER FEATURES: Speaker Sim, haven't used it yet. Master Output Volume, without which I wouldn't have bought the thing because I have lived too long without a master volume. Tuner, which will make you want to break your guitar over your

The chassis could be run over with a small car, msot likely. Time will tell if the innards prove to be as durable; I've had it for a week and gigged once with it, so I couldn't say. I intend to baby it as much as possible.

If I had bought this for $400 I would rate it a lot lower, but for the price I paid I feel I got a tremendous value. No it does not sound like a Matchless or Bogner, but then again I will never herniate myself trying to put this in my car or carry it up a flight of stairs, plus it didn't cost more than my mortgage payment. It all comes down to priorities. If I was a millionaire with a road crew I would have gone for a Twin and a bunch of boutique pedals. Being that I am in a barroom band, schlep my own gear around, and am lucky to come home with $100 in my pocket after settling my tab, I am willing to make some compromises.

Even if I had that Twin and never used the amp sims (which are bypassable), at the price I paid it would still be a phenomenal value just for the effects. You couldn't buy the same quality delay and trem, for instance, for twice the price even on the used market. If it was stolen and I could get another for the same money I would buy it again in a heartbeat.

I won't bore you with re-writing the features of the Stomp. Thou, I decided to get the stomp bc of the digital recording. Also, I needed something that I can use without waking up the neighbors.

The sounds are good and for a modeller, it's warmth is closest to a tube compared to others in this price range. I've tried the POD and Pandora, neither of which I was impressed with and found them more difficult to use. What I play mostly is jazz, classic rock, santana and clapton, and for what I use it for, it does the job very well. I use an Amer. Strat with single coil, '67 Les Paul with humbuckers, and a Fender acoustic with diMarzio pick-ups and I get great sounds from all of them. I've paired it with the DS60 "slave" speaker and I find that it's got enough power for most small to mid size venues. I have tried it with a Peavey 258 Transtube and found it too digital sounding...but I believe it was more the Peavey than the stomp. I won't give it a 10 since I don't think any amp is perfect, but it is good for it's purpose.

since I haven't had it over a year yet, I won't rate it for reliability. but it seems to be built well. I do like that it's cased in metal.

haven't needed it yet

I've been playing for 22 years and have Marshall and Peavey amps. I would get another one if I lost this one.

This unit is quite easy to use although a couple of workouts
with the manuel are neccessary to set up your patches (up to 90).
Editing is a snap after you become familiar with it. This unit has
great tone and only needs a plain solid state amp to play through
and even sound great through my Danelectro nifty fifty but ofcourse
nicer through my Pevy keyboard amp. The pre-amp can switched off
allowing only the effects to opperate if you want to run it through
a nice tube amp. The effects can be dialed in to suit any style
of music. It was easy to get a nice clean tone, overdrivin to any
degree, and explosive fat grinding sounds for blues, rock, or
whatever. I had a POD for a year and I never came close to what
can get from this thing and you can edit everything without a
computor and store it in a flash.

I use single and double coil guitars with it and get no noise
except for on the monsterous gain settings that is part of that
style anyway. The effects are very nice and fully editable. I can
cop a SRV thing easy , Santana , Van Halen , Robin Trower , Clapton ,
Metalica , Desturbed , and also sweat fat clean jazz tones. I like the
sound of it through my keyboard amp with all tone controlls set at 0
which is a Pevy KB60 w/1-12" and a tweater. Through head phones it's
not as thrilling.

It's built like a tank and no dought it'l be around
for ever. All metal construction.

N/A

This is the best pedal/preamp i've purchased. I've been
through a POD, H/K Tubeman, and a dozen little pedals and none
of them have been this usefull. Blues music is my fist love
and I'm gettin some great Hendrix , SRV tones. Nothing beats
a cranked up vintage or botique tube amp to me , but now I
don't have to lug my sweathearts out in the cold for every
little jam night.