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aidan.04
Published on 04/28/08 at 09:18
The Crossroads pedal from Digitech is like 7 distinct tones in one package. It offers a model of the following distictive Eric Clapton tones: "Sunshine of Your Love", "Crossroads", "Badge", "Layla", "Lay Down Sally", "Layla" (Acoustic), and "Reptile". The controls include a mode selector knob, 2 control knobs that allow you to tweak selected paremeters of the mode presets (like effect intensity or gain), and a level knob.
UTILIZATION
One interesting feature is the seperate amp and mixer outputs.
One frustrating thing is that the preset volumes of the different "modes" vary so much. It seems like they could have balanced them better, so you don't have to re-adjust them when you switch modes.
SOUND QUALITY
Not all of the 7 modes on this pedal are even usable in my opinion, let alone "good". There are a couple that are decent but it seems like Digitech bit off a little more than they could chew. The clean tones are impressive, the distorted tones are a bit bland, and the acoustic mode is just terrible. They should have gone without it. Overall, it lacked a warmth and depth to my ears.
Some effects are quite nice to have; like the rotary effect on the "Badge" model. Some effects are just cheesy, like the chorus effect on "reptile".
OVERALL OPINION
For 100 bucks, this pedal is cool to have for the rotary effect, and some of the clean models if you tweak 'em a bit but its not an increble value. Don't expect to sound like Eric Clapton's during his Cream or Bluesbreakers days- this pedal just doesn't deliver that. I was a bit disapointed. It seemed like Digitech tried to go for quantity on this one, and the quality of sound suffered.
You might come closer to nailing part of Claton's sound with a good strat and a BOSS Fender Bassman amp modeler, but will set you back 150 or so. Ouch.
UTILIZATION
One interesting feature is the seperate amp and mixer outputs.
One frustrating thing is that the preset volumes of the different "modes" vary so much. It seems like they could have balanced them better, so you don't have to re-adjust them when you switch modes.
SOUND QUALITY
Not all of the 7 modes on this pedal are even usable in my opinion, let alone "good". There are a couple that are decent but it seems like Digitech bit off a little more than they could chew. The clean tones are impressive, the distorted tones are a bit bland, and the acoustic mode is just terrible. They should have gone without it. Overall, it lacked a warmth and depth to my ears.
Some effects are quite nice to have; like the rotary effect on the "Badge" model. Some effects are just cheesy, like the chorus effect on "reptile".
OVERALL OPINION
For 100 bucks, this pedal is cool to have for the rotary effect, and some of the clean models if you tweak 'em a bit but its not an increble value. Don't expect to sound like Eric Clapton's during his Cream or Bluesbreakers days- this pedal just doesn't deliver that. I was a bit disapointed. It seemed like Digitech tried to go for quantity on this one, and the quality of sound suffered.
You might come closer to nailing part of Claton's sound with a good strat and a BOSS Fender Bassman amp modeler, but will set you back 150 or so. Ouch.