DigiTech RP-350
In 2007, I decided to get another modeler to see how far technology has gone in the 5 years since I bought my V-Amp. Plus I wanted with with a sturdy metal expression pedal since the one on my old Korg AX1000G has been a bit flakey. So I ordered a DigiTech RP-350 from Musician's Friend.
The "Just Out of the Box" experience with it was not that great. They do not include a USB cable with the unit so I had to go digging through my big box 'o cables to find a good one. Then I had to download and install drivers and software and do a firmware update. This was a little bit troublesome since the firmware updater didn't want to recognize the unit. Moving the cable to another USB port got it to work. The X-Edit software crashed for some reason the first time it ran but has been OK since. I suspect this was due to me having a lot of .NET software development tools on my system and it got confused by it. Anyway, between the cable search and the software glitches, it took about 2 hours to get it up and running. They seem to think that few people will use the computer interface features and that most folks will just plug it in and use it without connnecting to a computer.
I ran through the 70 presets to see what it was like with my guitars. There are some decent sounds, some a little over the top, and some not that useful, just like you would expect from factory presets. Surprisingly, I found some of the cleaner presets to be the best of the bunch, particularly those built around the Bassman model. Another thing about the presets is that they all use a high level of noise gating. This cut off sustained notes too quickly in some cases.
After the initial trial run I started twiddling with the X-Edit program to see what the unit could do outside of the presets. There are some really wild effects like an Octave, Synth Voice and Whammy pedals. Fun stuff to play with but also way over the top. I've played around with some of the other chorus/fx effects trying to get some more subtle sounds but I'm still working with those.
The wah's are good although I've found controlling it to be a pain. It's too easy to accidentally engage or disengage it. I think there is a way to adjust this though.
The reverbs, which are licensed from Lexicon, are good and the delays are also useful and very tweakable. I don't think the delays are as good as those I heard on an older, discontinued, Yamaha modeler but they're at least as good as the V-Amp's and more adjustable. I'm still playing around with the reverbs but I like what I'm hearing so far except for the Fender Twin Reverb modal which seems lacking to me.
I found the amp and cabinet models a bit limited as compared to the V-Amp in terms of what's available. The Fender '59 Bassman and Tweed Deluxe, Marshall '77 Master Volume, and Soldano models are my favorites so far. The EQ section is better than on the V-Amp, very tweakable with some useful presets. The noise gate works well although, as I mentioned, I've found it annoying at times.
The overdrive/distortions are kind of the highlight of the unit. I particularly liked their 808, Rat, and Big Muff models and the Gonkulator ring modulator/distortion is just bizzare. Their Metal Zone model is spot on which means it sucks as bad as a model as it does in real life.
There is a lot of tweakablity to this unit so it's going to take me a while to work through it and get the tones I want. I've also had some difficulty getting the recorded sounds where I want them. Overall, I like it so far but its kind of hard to move to a new unit after being so comfortable with the V-Amp for several years. The X-Edit software doesn't impress me that much. It has an incomplete feel to it and several user interface things that, as a programmer myself, annoy me. Maybe they'll issue some updates soon that fix it up a little bit better.
