« Digitech BP 200 Multi-Effect »

I got mine at guiter center for 149.95 plus tax. I had been looking at multi-effect pedals for a while, and at one point had settled on the zoom 607 (I think that's the right number, but anyway...). But then I found an article comparing it with the bp200(possibly at musiciansfriend.com), and my confidence was blown away. The bp200 had a 6-character alphanumeric (that's numbers and letters to you) display, as opposed to the zoom's 2 letter display. The bp200 had 24 bit converters, meaning that your bass tone stays truer after being processed than with the zoom's 16-bit converters. The bp200 came in a metal casing, while the zoom was all-plastic. I wasn't convinced when I heard that the bp200 cost $50 more, but then I read that it came with a power supply. The zoom one doesn't, and to get one, you have to $25, making the price gap only 25 dollars for an obviously superior product. I was then convinced.

Where to start? The effects are mostly great. They are all very tweakable, generally giving you three parameters to fool with, although some have two. The variety of effects is great - there really is only one thing I wish was here, but we'll get to that. The interface seems a little complicated at first, but it's actually quite intuitive. There is so little noise, that I think you might forget it's on when you aren't playing (which could be a problem live). The inclusion of a tuner was actually a really great idea, and it certainly adds to the completeness of this unit. There's an entire whammy pedal's functionality in here! All the whammy settings and all the harmony settings - and a whammy pedal alone costs $70 more than this multi-effect unit! Each effect is really versatile. The delays and reverbs are very good. You may get carried away, putting a little reverb and delay on every preset you create. This makes this little tool great for recording, besides being great live. If you're goal is to get sounds that are somewhat extreme, you can definitely use this box. You can get tones and effects that would cost thousands to duplicate with single effects and the real amps that are modeled in the bp200. If you're a Tool fan, for instance, you can get closer to Justin Chancellor's tone than I could with the 9-band eq on my amp. This thing does virtually anything a bass player could want, and I use some sounds that the average player does not. One thing that strikes me is that this is just so complete - so many effects, so much stuff to tweak, so many great little things. It's like a video game that really lets you go anywhere - this pedal let's you go anywhere, sonically. No matter what your style is, there's rarely a time when you think to yourself, I wish I could do this, because you really can go to far-out textured soundscapes with one little box.

I hate to pick, but I guess that's the point of an honest review. There are a few models of distortion pedals, but they are all fuzz. I like to use a more raw metal distortion for guitar-like solos, and you can't quite get that with the bp200. This makes sense, though, because I know that most bass players don't use this kind of distortion. It takes some practice to bypass the unit, because you have to press both foot pedals at the same time to bypass. This is kind of silly. Couldn't there just be a dedicated bypass pedal? Also, the unit interferes with eq on my amp, so I have to set the eq on my amp and the tone controls on my bass flat in order to bring out the best in the unit. Which is okay, but then I have to set things back when I want a tone that I want to use my amp for. Overall, though, these things have no effect on my opinion of the unit. They are really just afterthoughts. Probably the only thing that really does suck about this thing is that you cannot use certain effects together. There are various modules in the unit, one of which is the "effects" module. Only one of these effects (chorus, flanger, phaser, vibrato, octavider, envelope filter, synthtalk, pitch shifter, detune, and whammy) can be used at once. So, you can have one of these, plus fretless simulator/wah, compressor, amp/stompbox models, equalizer, cabinet modeling, noise gate, auto swell, delay and reverb. Why would they do this? I have no idea, but, rest assured it won't inhibit you too much - I mean, sure, I'd like chorus and whammy together, but you won't miss combinations like that too much. You had to make a trade-off for the price eventually. Promise me, it isn't as big of a deal as I thought it would. You can always get a single pedal if you really need a combo you can't get here.

The design is pretty nice - it's a sexy little thing. Nice curves. The paint's nice. The plastic buttons and pedals seem a little out of place in the overall aluminum landscape, but they are by no means flimsy. It would be nice if the thing could use batteries, but I know that it uses a special adapter because it runs on ac power, which is unusual (and, by the way, caused me quite an annoyance at guitar center because I had to deal with a guy other than my usual guy and this new guy thought he knew a lot more than I, but was, in fact, a total moron. End of spiel.) So I guess batteries would be out of the question.

This is a reaaly great pedal - I've already told you why. Great effects, lots of them, and a great package. I suggest any bass player who plays with more than one effect should buy this - it's about the price of 2 pedals, but with this you get like 20. Great for any recording artist or live performer - it will give you tons of ideas and open up entire new world's of bass playing - even if you don't want any other effects, the reverbs and delays are nearly professional quality, and will make you sound a lot better. If you have the money (I got it, and I'm broke. Do a couple of little crappy jobs - it's not much money), and you can get over not being able to use every effect with every other effect, buy it. You will not regret it

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com