digitech whammy Mk. 4
Created | Updated Mar 30, 2009
The Digitech whammy is an effects processor of sorts. It is not editable, comes with very few presets and you either enjoy listening to what it does or you hate it. It's divisive, let's face it, and there are very few styles of music where it can be applied without sounding completely out of place. But hey, maybe that's what you want, right? It never hurt Captain Beefheart...
Who Stood on The Cat?
The Digitech Whammy is one of the most expressive effects units ever devised, (check out the solo from Rage Against the Machine's Sleep Now in the Fire, or the refrain to Floods by Pantera for examples) but can also issue forth noises that belong only in the deepest depths of hell if abused (check out 'Suicide Note Pt. 2' by Pantera). It allows you variously to add an extra octave (up or down) to your sound, which can lead to beautiful clean tones or thick, funky modern rock sounds, harmonise your notes, or add chorus-style tones and, most ingeniously, the mark four includes a down-tune mode which drops all notes played by up to a tone. This can be extremely useful when you're learning, as it can be hard to match pitch with old records or players who drop their guitars by less than a semitone.
Simple Things...
The Whammy has very little to go wrong with it, at least externally. A tough die cast case, an on/off switch, an expression pedal 1 and a little knob where all the magic happens. Input/output-wise, we find one input for guitar, one for a midi controller2 and on the other side there are two outputs: one labelled 'dry only' and the other 'wet added'. Should you need to tune with the whammy pedal engaged, take a line out from the dry only. Alternatively, you can hook both outputs up to an amp, and listen to the crazy variations possible from such a setup.
Who Cares? I wanna Hear it go: 'rwyleeeeeeeeeegh!!'
Patience, patience, we'll get there. First, it's high time we went through an overview of the features available from this insane piece of equipment. We'll go clockwise from top right. 3
- Split into two tones, shallow and deep. Shallow will add a touch of haunting class to your tone, kind of chorus-sounding stuff. Deep is pretty much the same, except deeper. Ahem.
- We find six different pitch effects here, from 2 octaves higher than normal through to 2 octaves lower then normal. then there is the dive bomb function, which goes a whole three octaves lower, so you can mess about with rumblings of an almost inaudible quality. Also included is the drop tune function i talked of earlier.
- These functions play your normal guitar with an added harmony, pitched anything from a 4th below to a 7th above, and including the nifty octave feature described above. The harmony feature does not track the notes you play however, and you must use the expression pedal to flip between pairs of harmonics to get a true harmony going, which can be disorienting at first.
Detune
Whammy
Harmony
UGH!
Some people will never reconcile themselves with the sounds that come out of a Whammy, and some people will prefer to stick to their Floyd roses, etc. but in truth, the whammy just sounds too damned spooky not to try. It is possible to obtain a close approximation of a Theremin for instance, or something akin to a harp drowning, and it has endeared itself to millions because of this. Having said that, the manufacturing may not be the finest around*and the thing can be reticent to give up it's noisemaking secrets and produce something akin to ear assault in the first stages of use, but persevere and you might just find you fall for it.
Alternatives
there are other products out there that do the same kind of thing*, for example Boss makes the PS5 super shifter, which allows you to set the key you're playing in and takes it upon itself to harmonise everything correctly, with no footpedal in sight.. This means it has an advantage for both lazy people who cannot be bothered to whip their foot to and fro in time to the music, or people who just cannot get comfortable with the Whammy itself. The Boss has other features, such as a detune function, a tremolo* arm emulator (which can produce some very cool sounding sweeps) and 'flutter.'* Digitech recently made a similar contraption.
The MXR Blue box adds both distortion and a two octave below standard tone to your signal, and features a wet-dry knob for blending it into your tone, which seems like it could be more easily adapted to popular music for instance. there are plenty of octave effects available, too numerous to go into here, but it must be stressed that this is the part of the Whammy most people will find themselves using. If so, you might as well buy a standalone octaver, as it would be cheaper.
Why Buy one at All?
Good point. As was previously mentioned, the effects aren't for everyone, and there are more advanced products available.*
But for all that, the unreliability of finding the right pitch on the footpedal is exciting, and hooking it up with a wah, for instance, both looks hilarious and means you can synchronize easing the pedal two octaves up while hitting a funk rrhythm and quacking the wah in the usual manner. You'll all be trying it later! Well, you four weirdos huddled in a corner talking about active pickups and squelch will...
1like a wah2You can hook a midi controller into the thing, meaning that with some careful tap dancing type manouvers, you are able to activate a series of strange, eerie noises.3settings are arranged around the knob, and selected settings will be indicated by a lit l.e.d.
