RP500 First Try

[Beljunmalnwa]

This past weekend I had my first experience with using a Digitech RP500.

A friend of mine who's looking to sell his offered me the chance to try it on a gig with my classic rock cover band.

I had messed with the amp models on one of these before and I wasn't very impressed--the OR120 sounded almost nothing like the real thing or at best, like one losing power and/or going on the fritz.

For the gig I decided to try the RP500 in pedalboard mode, which disabled all the amp/cab simulations. I ran it through the front end of my Dual Terror's Fat channel.

I have to admit, when I used it this way, it wasn't that bad.

On their own, the OD settings compare to the real thing like light beer to the original, but still does the job well enough when pushing an already overdriven amp.

Ditto for the time based effects, which wasn't a bad thing--they came off as more subtle and didn't swallow the tone of the guitars or the DT. I had to set the levels low, but It was the first time I ever felt ok about doing the Zakk Wylde trick of leaving a chorus on all the time (not that I'd want to make a habit out of that but it was pretty cool).

The wah settings, particularly the Clyde, weren't bad at all. It was almost as full sounding as my JH1 and actually cut through a little better in the mix.

My friend let me have it for $120. Granted, it has a bunch of things on it I'll probably never use, but the way I see it, I'm getting it for the the price of a decent OD pedal with extras such as a wah, tuner, noise gate, and if there's a cover song where I absolutely have to have a specific effect, it's in there.

Again, I'd never use it for my primary sound, but as icing on the cake, it doesn't suck.