DigiTech RP250 Modeling Guitar Processor

[mikews99]

Overall my impression of the unit is good sounding .... clarity not foggy but the high gain sounds mainly are terrible or at least the presets are. very usable clean and slightly overdriven sounds good reverbs and chorus some of the amp models and cabs are ok too.

 

I just got my RP250 today. After an initial listen, I have to agree with your assessment: the clean channels are quite good -- musical, open, and very clean. The moderate overdrives are good, better IMHO than Line6 units, although the cabinets aren't as well defined. And yes, the high gain patches are kind of flat sounding, not as full bodied as Line6. The one thing where this unit shines is the extremely neutral A/D D/A converters. Most other pods skimp on this part (I'm looking at you Line6 -- you and your grungy converters) and you can tell the difference in quality with this Digitech processor.

 

I'll have some more opinions as I start to use this unit in depth. One thing I noticed right away is that the factory overdrive patches don't really invite me to play with them. When I go to a music store and plug into an amp, the really good amps make me want to play them more and experiment with sounds. There aren't any current guitar processors that urge me to play them, and the only VST plugin I ever felt that way about is the FreeAmp2 VST, but it really only has one type of overdrive sound despite the multitude of patches. This Digitech sounds nice, is rather musical, and the clean patches make me want to mess around with sounds and try new tunes, the moderate overdrives not so much, and the heavy overdrives not at all.

 

I bought this unit based on the review here, and especially because of rsowden's MP3 (thanks bro!). I think this is the best choice for me based on what I want to do (recording). Since I wanted to get away from having to hook up my guitar to my computer, fiddle around with various plugins to get a certain sound, then deal with the latency (and pops and clicks as the track count increased), this unit represented the best compromise. And yes, this processor, like all guitar processors, is a compromise. Fortunately it has enough features and sound quality for me to feel it was a good purchase. Even the built in drum machine, which I thought would be too rinky-dink, actually has some feel to it and does help with practicing, so it's a useful feature.

 

One final note: I bought this from American Musical Supply because of the free shipping (from Nevada to California, only 2 days). The Digitech box, which is about 14x9x3, came wrapped in two layers of bubble wrap and was dropped (and I use that word intentionally) inside a box of 16x16x16 proportions with no other padding!, not even peanuts. Fortunately the Digitech box is rather sturdy and my unit survived in spite of one crushed corner. Needless to say I won't be ordering from them next time!

[mikews99]

Is anyone hearing low level clicks coming out of their RP250 when playing nothing?

 

I thought it might be from the processing, but listening over headphones with everything disconnected except for power and headphones AND turning off all effects and processing, I could still hear clicks happening at random times. I even changed the power adapter to a different household circuit in hopes that it was just power line noise coming through. Is my unit defective or is anyone else experiencing this? BTW, I'm at firmware version 1.7.

 

03/30/2007: See message below.

[jqworle]

I get the odd click coming through it and i am inclined to believe it is mains related as my amp when plugged in on its own has done the same thing.

[mikews99]

Okay, I put together a DIY power line conditioner (two back-to-back isolation transformers with a 12dB 60 Hz filter in between) and the clicks almost completely went away -- just a tiny, rare click here and there. Looks line I'll have to get a line conditioner for my studio.

**********

03/29/2007: An update -- even with a big fat power line conditioner providing power for just the RP250, I'm still getting random low level clicks. This unit is going back for an exchange. Hopefully this is not something endemic to the units.

**********

03/30/2007: My Bad. I just couldn't believe that Digitech would cost-cut something as essential as an RF filter on the unit, so I tried one more time before sending it back. I left the unit on for hours with no input. After a while I noticed that when I was still, the clicks would disappear, and when I'd move or shift in my chair they'd come back. After trying out a few things, I discovered that static buildup was causing the random clicks when the unit was on the floor, even though I'm on a static mat. Keeping the RP250 off the floor stopped the clicks entirely!

So I'm keeping the unit, but now I have to find a way to suppress static buildup in my studio/office.

[dwerlin]

So, I ended up getting the RP350 today instead of the Floor POD (I was totally put off by the Floor POD's "feature" where when you exit the tuner no matter if you have the expression pedal heel down, it will output the current patch at full volume...I'll learn to deal with the bypass/tuner mode in the RP350), incase anyone's interested, here's a little clip I put together mic'ing my Fender Blues Junior (tube amp) playing through the neck pickup of my Fender Standard Strat.

I merged 3 recordings into this clip, one with just the guitar straight into the amp, one with the guitar into the RP350 in "Bypass" mode into the amp, and one with the guitar into the RP350 not in bypass mode, but with everything turned off (no EQ, Amp, Cab, etc.) into the amp.

Can you tell where the splits are? (though I think it might be pretty obvious, not sure if it's an effect of the Normalize feature in Audacity, or the fact that I played the tune 3 different times to record each segment so there's some human variance in there...it didn't sound quite as obvious when I was playing them though)

Clip

This was recorded using a Marhall MXL2001 condenser mic into an M-Audio MobilePre USB using Audacity.

The MP3 is 128kbps 44 kHz mono

[Jon Chappell]

Hey, dwerlin, pretty funky rhythm playing there! I like it!

I couldn't tell where the splits were, and certainly wouldn't notice if you hadn't told me to watch out for them. I listened for breaks in the obvious musical places, and upon repeated listenings, maybe it sounds a little different, but like you say, that could be chalked up to human variance.

Now, are you going to tell me there are no splits -- like one of those optical illusions where both lines are really the same length?

So I'm guessing you're pretty happy with the RP350's bypass mode(s)?

[dwerlin]

Jon,

Thanks for the comments I'm actually glad you couldn't really tell where the splits were...since I put the clip together I'm totally biased and know exactly where to listen for the changes.

I'm not going to tell you there are no splits...I was honest from the get go There's 3 different recordings (of the same rhythm part).

I am very pleased with the RP350's bypass mode, and even more pleased with the unit not in the actual bypass mode, but just with no sims/effects on (so I guess that would be analog to digital to analog in the signal path).

I also started playing with the drum machine tonight through headphones. whoa boy is that fun to play with!

I'll put up some clips of the RP350 using the amp/cab sims both through the Fender Blues Junior, and also direct through USB in the next day or so.

I have some older clips (unforutnately they're recorded with a Les Paul which I no longer have, not the Strat which I currently have) recorded via USB with a Line 6 PodXT Live that I'll throw up there too so people can make some tone quality comparisons.

With that said, I feel that the RP350 (to my ears so far) is just as good as the Line 6 PodXT Live that I used to have. And considering the RP350 is 1/2 the cost of the XT Live, I think that's saying something!

[Jon Chappell]

I am very pleased with the RP350's bypass mode, and even more pleased with the unit not in the actual bypass mode, but just with no sims/effects on (so I guess that would be analog to digital to analog in the signal path). ... With that said, I feel that the RP350 (to my ears so far) is just as good as the Line 6 PodXT Live that I used to have. And considering the RP350 is 1/2 the cost of the XT Live, I think that's saying something!

The neutrality of a unit's analog/digital/analog path seems to be an important issue, as you know, dwerlin, from other other posts in multi-effects discussions. It's almost more of a testament to a processor's quality when the "neutral" setting is so good. (I mean, anybody can do a transparent hardwire bypass, right?)

Glad that the RP350 measures up in that regard. Since this is an RP250 forum, I'll point out that the 250 and 350 are similar, but that the 350 offers additional models, as well as XLR outs. Here's the chart comparing the 150, 250, and 350.

[santos]

Hey dwerlin, nice playing - I listened several times, couldn't hear the difference. I've got an RP350 on the way from MF (couldn't get it locally), so I'll post my first impressions sometime next week.

[mikews99]

Since I've been trying to come up with a recording configuration that works between my current sound card and the RP250, I've done some latency measurements on the RP250 to try to correctly configure it with my sequencer. The Centrance utility wouldn't work on the RP250, so I created a single pulse output WAV file to measure with. I'm running an AMD Opteron 170 system at stock speeds, an nVidia 7900GT, using Sonar with all visual indicators (meters, popups, etc.) turned off, recording at 24 bits, 44.1KHz stereo.

First off, latency of the RP250 itself, input to output, no effects, NOT in bypass mode, between a Y-split input, one to the RP250, the other direct in (this is the A/D-D/A conversion latency):

0.72 ms

Next, the latency round trip between USB input to output using the Digitech ASIO drivers at 100 samples and Sonar set to 0 compensation for the sound card:

27 ms (round trip)

Whoa, that was pretty excessive! I next tried the ASIO4All driver which wraps the Digitech USB WDM driver in an ASIO shell and sets the buffer to 104 samples (the closest I could set it without going under the 100 samples of the Digitech ASIO driver), and 0 compensation:

14 ms (round trip)

Somewhat better, but still too much. I did uninstall the Digitech drivers and reinstalled the generic Microsoft USB WDM sound drivers to try with ASIO4All, however when opening any ASIO app the output port became disabled, so I couldn't test it.

Just to give you an idea of how bad this latency is, my ancient Aardvark Aark 20/20 with the 7.13 drivers can be set to 128 samples in the ASIO driver and get 6 ms round trip latency. And using the wave accelerated driver (essentially they wrap their kernel driver with a standard Windows wave driver) set to 88 samples, I get 3 ms round trip latency!

In conclusion, to effectively record with the RP250, I have to either record a take directly from the RP250 to my sound card, or route my guitar through my mixer and into my sound card to get a clean signal, then do a send to the RP250 and a return back into the mixer for the processed signal. If I record through the RP250's ASIO drivers, I have to change the drivers in Sonar, restart, turn off the track patch-thru in my sequencer and also set the monitor knob in Digitech's X-Edit 2 program to 50% (note: the knob is backwards in the current version, 2.1.9.0. -- turning to USB increases the RP250 output and turning to RP increases the USB output), then try to calculate the output latency and set it in the Sonar sound card settings, THEN switch everything back when I'm done. That's way too much effort just to record a guitar track.

[sos]

 

Here is one thing you can try if you want to use your RP during practice with an amp. Instead of plugging your RP into your amp's input, plug it directly in to the amp's effects loop "return" jack. There will be nothing plugged into your amp's input or effects loop "send" jack. The signal chain is guitar->effects loop "return". Set the switch on the back of the RP to "amp" mode, set the amp model to any amplifier you want and set the cabinet to "direct". When I do this with my amp it sounds great. I don't like the sound when I plug the RP directly into the amp's "input" jack. The downpoint with this method is that you are bypassing your amp's preamp section and only using the power amp. The preamp is resposible for shaping/filtering your sound and for adding overdrive. When you use the setup I've described above, you are using the preamp model in the RP to shape the sound instead of your amp's preamp. The problem with this is that you probably bought your amp because you like the way it colors your sound. This isn't the ideal setup, but it's probably the best way to set up this type of multi-fx pedal with an amp to keep all of the effects sounding their best.

 

 

 

 

Anyone try it with the "return" method as stated above by gorno. If so, how were the results?

[santos]

SOS: my RP350 came on Saturday (thanks Fedex), and I didn't have an amp at home to try it through, but that will be one of my first tests.

My initial impressions of the unit after about 3 hrs of play over the weekend - as you can see from above, through headphones only - are very positive. I have a Korg Pandora Px4D - granted, a mfx with a very different agenda, but it's my only point of reference. The overall quality of the sounds is much better on the RP350 - more lively and "realistic", for lack of a better term. Not surprising, but I thought I'd mention it. I still love my Pandora, though.

Once you become familiar with the basic editing process, it's a pretty simple matter to make adjustments and tweaks. I can see where, on the fly at a gig, making a small change to a patch might not be as easy as twisting knobs on a stompbox, but it's really not too much more complicated. With familiarity it should be almost as quick to make changes.

The various amp and cab models are fun to play around with. This thing has excellent clean sounds, IMO. The mild to mid-dirty sounds seem very good, as well, but I'll wait until I hear them at volume through an amp to judge.

I'm very impressed by the effects. The stompbox models are fun, and very very useful. The compressors, reverbs and delays are great, and the rest of the effects (which I use much less) are highly tweakable and sound as good as I would expect.

The wah sounds are good, but lack the depth and vocal quality of a real pedal - they're maybe 70% there. Good enough for percussive rhythm work, but they lack a bit of oomph for soloing. The feel of the expression pedal is excellent, and the mechanism for activating the wah feels very much like stepping on a real wah. It's useable, but not as good as a dedicated wah pedal. It would be good enough to gig with, for me, because I don't use a wah for much more than funk rhythm stuff.

Overall I'm very happy with the RP350. It feels very solid all around, and it seems like it has limitless possibilities. I'm looking forward to using it at a rehearsal to see how it sounds through an amp at volume.

[Eric Jimi]

Has anyone had any luck (or tried) offline installation of the editor? I'm not really that phobic, but I don't have (or desire) an internet connection on my "studio" PC. Among other things, I don't run any antivirus or other background junk on that machine. I could disconnect everything & haul it up to the house, I suppose, and hook up just long enough to install the software but what a pain. Digitech wasn't any help on this...

[dwerlin]

hey all, here's the [long overdue] clips of just amp sims through my Fender Blues Junior and direct via USB.

like before, I did 3 takes for each amp, changing something each time. the first take is with the amp model and cab sim only (EQ, noisgate, etc. all turned off), with the default settings mic'd through the Blues Junior. the second take is with the amp model only (no cab sim this time), with the default settings mic'd through the Blues Junior. the third take is with the amp model and cab sim only, with default settings...but this time recorded direct via USB.

the two amp models i used for this were the AC30 and the 68 Plexi.

AC30

68 Plexi

quite evident is an entirely different tone when going direct. this might be caused by the voicing of the amp (i had all the eq knobs on the blues junior set to 7, which is essentially "noon" on this amp). however, i don't actually know what each model is supposed to sound like, so i don't know if through the blues junior sounds more like the actual amps the models are of, or if the direct via USB recordings are more accurate.

here's a picture of the waveforms of each separate track. there are a few variations due to varrying attack for each take (sorry about that), but you can certainly see that the direct via USB (bottom track) looks to have a much smaller dynamic range than the mic'd recordings through the blues junior.

track 1 is the mic'd blues junior with the amp and cab model, track 2 is the mic'd blues junior with the amp model only, and track 3 is the direct USB recording.

all recordings were done using the neck pickup of my fender standard strat.



i would certainly need to do some major tweaking to get either the direct USB recorded sound to match the mic'd amp sound, or vice-versa.

with all that said, i do like the tone of the mic'd amp the best...and i'm having a hard time deciding if i like the amp + cab or just the amp model through the blues junior (which i guess is a good thing).

[dwerlin]

Has anyone had any luck (or tried) offline installation of the editor? I'm not really that phobic, but I don't have (or desire) an internet connection on my "studio" PC. Among other things, I don't run any antivirus or other background junk on that machine. I could disconnect everything & haul it up to the house, I suppose, and hook up just long enough to install the software but what a pain. Digitech wasn't any help on this...

 

 

there's 3 files (unless you already have v1.1 of the firmware...in which case there'd be 2 files) that you download from digitech.com and install on the target computer.

 

there's a little walkthrough while you're connected to the web with instructions.

 

you could download the files to a computer you don't mind connected to the internet, then burn the files to CD and install them from there on your studio pc to avoid connecting it to the internet. if you wanted, you could also print out the directions (you'd have to step through all of them and print each page at a time).

[Eric Jimi]

Thanks for the reply Dwerlin. I'll check my versions, it's been a few months & maybe something changed. The firmware & driver were no problem: Cubase is happy, but Xedit tries to get to the Microsoft website, I forget what for. It does tell you what it's looking for, and I downloaded & sucessfully installed the target .exe from MS, but Xedit installer still keeps trying to connect...

[Deadite99]

Hello all...I just bought the RP-250 about a month ago and its great.Ive already made quite a few of my own patches and the X.Edit software rocks.My question is ,I want to try to do some recording so can you recomend me some good,cheap,and easy to use recording software.

[dwerlin]

Hello all...I just bought the RP-250 about a month ago and its great.Ive already made quite a few of my own patches and the X.Edit software rocks.My question is ,I want to try to do some recording so can you recomend me some good,cheap,and easy to use recording software.

 

 

try Audacity. it's easy to use and it's free.

[santos]

Hey all,

Just a quick update. I posted my initial impressions of the RP350 yesterday and made some comments about the wah sounds. Well, in fooling around with the unit last night I found that the "wah level" parameter affects not the volume of the wah sound (as I'd assumed), but the depth of the wah sound. The default is zero and it goes up to 12 (it probably goes into the negatives, as well). I found that somewhere between 6 and 8 improved the wah depth tremendously. It still isn't exactly like a real wah, but much, much closer.

[Deadite99]

try Audacity. it's easy to use and it's free.

 

 

Ok...Igot Audasity But Heres my problem...I hookedup my RP-250 and went to my audasity but theres no sound,I hit record to see what would happen and it records so its geting a signal but no sound so I tryed to play some music files and there was no sound at all from my computer.So I unpluged the Rp-250 and I have sound again.What am I doing wrong.

[Deadite99]

Oops!...My bad....I forgot I have to hook up my amp too,everythings cool now.By the way that Audasity Is Pretty nice,You just saved me the $99 I was going to spend on one of those Tascam tape recorders,and Im gueseing this is way better.....Oh and sorry for the double post,dont know what happened there.

[dwerlin]

Deadite99:

glad you like Audacity!

for your audio issue...when you plug the RP250 into your computer via USB, it takes over as the default sound card. so, instead of the sound going through your computer speakers, it now goes through the RP250 (if you hook up headphones to the RP250, you'll hear all the sounds it's generating, plus all of your computer beeps and whatnot).

you can go into a menu in Audacity and change the default playback sound card (you would want to set it to your computer's normal sound card). that way you can record using the RP250 as your input sound card, but use your computer speakers to hear everything by using your regular computer sound card as the output sound card.

if you do that, the only issue you may run in to is latency for monitoring what you're currently recording.

i hope that made sense!

[Deadite99]

Ok... I have one more question about Audacity.when I got it last night it said at the bottom "Disk space remains for recording 20 hours 49 minutes" and earlyer tody I was messing with it and it says "Disk spase remains for recording 10 hours 49 minutes" But I havent saved any thing,so what does it mean.

[dwerlin]

Audacity uses a temp folder, so if you've done a lot of messing around even though you haven't actually saved anything, you could have a huge audacity temp folder that you just need to delete.

Open Audacity, go to Edit, then Preferences, then choose the Directories tab and you'll see where the default temp folder is. You can then go in and delete that folder using windows explorer, and if you want, you can change the location of the temporary folder so that you can delete the stuff you never intended to save more easily.

Hope that helps!

[Deadite99]

Audacity uses a temp folder, so if you've done a lot of messing around even though you haven't actually saved anything, you could have a huge audacity temp folder that you just need to delete. Open Audacity, go to Edit, then Preferences, then choose the Directories tab and you'll see where the default temp folder is. You can then go in and delete that folder using windows explorer, and if you want, you can change the location of the temporary folder so that you can delete the stuff you never intended to save more easily. Hope that helps!

 

 

Well...Im not sure if it helped or not.I went to derectories and found the folder and it s empty,and now the mesage says "Disk spase for recording 10 hours 53 Minutes " so Ill just keep going with it and see what happens.

.