DigiTech RP350 Effects Pedal

I'm finally getting around to writing my review for the DigiTech RP350 Effects pedal. I intentionally held off reviewing this until I had a little time to learn the pedal's layout, play with the software, try out the presets, and listen to how each effect sounded with my guitar and amp. I'm playing with an Epiphone Les Paul guitar and a Crate Voodoo amp.

I need to start off saying this pedal is a great bang for the buck. It lists for about $200 (though I paid less). For that money you can buy two or three individual pedals, or get yourself a single do-it-all effects pedal. I'm not a professional musician, so for me the choice was a no-brainer. It's got a metal case and expression pedal; the up, down and channel selector pedals are plastic, but that hasn't caused me any issues.

The pedal comes with 70 factory-preset configurations, and there's room for an additional 70 user-created configurations. No matter what style of music you play, there's a setting for you. At first, I was a little intimidated by the configuration process, but after reading the manual a couple of times, and playing with the PC software interface, I figured stuff out and now think the interface is fairly intuitive.

Professional musicians say that an all-in-one pedal will never replace a bank of individual pedals. I certainly won't disagree with them, accepting that they have a more discriminating ear than I possess. With that said though, there are a couple of effects on this pedal that I do not like. The whammy effect and the octave effect both sound completely digital... as if they were coming from a vintage computer MIDI program, not a state-of-the art effects pedal. If you simply jump up a fifth, or if you use the chorus effects though, it sounds fine. Since the octave effect was specifically something I was looking for, I was a little disappointed, but it's still fine for practicing and is better than nothing.

I really like the pickup emulator. It did a great job of making my humbuckers sound like single-coil pickups. I also ran my humbuckers through the "single-to-humbucker" emulator, and the sound was incredibly warm. I am not going to talk about how well the specific amplifier emulators work, because I do not have enough of a discerning ear to recognize various amps.

Overall, I am incredibly pleased with this pedal, and I would highly recommend it, though I would make sure to point out the crappy-sounding octave and whammy effects.