Digitech Whammy 5 Reviews

Perfect

I've wanted a Whammy pedal for years. Very glad I've finally got one. This is obviously perfect for Tom Morello style playing but with the harmony setting you can get some weird shoegazey textures too.

I like the sound of the effect but playing through it sounds too processed and digital, similar to the autotune vocal effect. It's ok hearing as a listener in a full mix with a band, but I couldn't connect with it when playing live. I ended up selling mine, it really is a pedal that you have to own for a while to know if you will like it or not...

Its better than the old ones

I actually perfer this to my original whammy. It seems more durable and I doubt it will need as much maintaince.

To me this one sounds better as well. Does pretty much everything the older ones do.

Clasic!

Its my third whammy, everything fine except some "quick assembly" details that i have noticed. Such as the footswitch knob being a little out of place instead of dead center. Thats chip chinese assembly.

THE THING

That is it - THE Whammy. If you like Morello, Gilmour or Edge sounds then you will get it. I used it with ambience reverb+delay sounds and gets even crazier! Great pedal!

Awesome tones

Great tones from this thing. The processor really has no latency masking this a pedal easy to use for chords. The newer setting can be used and you can still hear all the notes in the chord. The pedal part work well and I so no real need for the bigger one.

Recommended

Great Pedal with true bypass

This is a great pedal to add textures to your guitar playing. So many Octaves and harmonies to choose from. I love that the 5th generation model has true bypass so it does mess with the signal further down your pedalboard. Its awesome that you can control it with the whammy pedal gives you a lot of options to mess around with.

Great solid casing too.

Good pedal, but keeps you stuck to a genre

This is one robust pedal, however, the sound it produces must be handled with care. Lots of musicians use it these days, and the sound can become quite redundant.

Very well made pedal

I rarely use this for the sole purpose that I've been focusing on my playing more so that I can use this effect properly. It's well made, very sturdy and will take any impact that you can give. I've dropped this numerous times and there are very few scratches.

There are many options to harmonize your playing. The pitch bender can go up 2 octaves and down 2 octaves as well as a dive bomb option.

A very useful tool for anyone who wishes to multiply their fretboard.

The best thing ever?

I use this pedal on a cello, coming from a Schertler YELLOW blender. I wanted a pedal that would allow me to sweep through octaves as well as just act as an octave pedal. This does everything I asked for and more!

I can leave the pedal in the down position and simply use the foot switch to kick on the octave or whatever other setting I have. You can also leave the pedal on and have none of the effect coming through until you push down on the expression pedal. It's absolutely fantastic.

The only, tiny tiny, thing that I can point out that would be wrong is that there is a slight change in the sound from when the pedal is off and when the pedal is on even when there is no effect going through the pedal. However, I completely recommend this pedal for anyone looking for a top-of-the-line octave. The mobility of moving between octaves as well as the versatility that this pedal offers makes me prefer it heavily over other octave pedals, such as the BOSS OC-3 or the TC Electronic "Sub n' Up" pedals.

The fact that this pedal also goes to the sub-octave is something that drew me to it.

Tom Morello Wannabe!

Ever since I first hear Rage Against the Machine I wanted to get one of these. Ten years later and I've finally done it. It's a great pedal and it really unlocks new ways of playing the guitar. The sound isn't quite as good an octave up/down than when you play it manually but for an effect I think it works really well. Glad I bought this product.

The effect everyone should have in its pedalboard

My first contact with this pedal was when I first listen to Radiohead's OK Computer and U2's Achtung Baby - I instantly got curious about that mesmerizing pitch-shifting effect that made guitars scream in the mix of the album. Curiously the effect sounded really crude (when I first heard it alone), due to the phase shifting latency, like a guitar trough a broken chorus pedal - but thats the nature of the effect.

This unit you see here it's the latest (fifth) version. It has two main effects - Harmony and Whammy - the first one creates a note on the interval that's selected in the pedal along with the original one you're playing. Whammy simply "slides" your note up or down in the interval. You have a detune effect too which is a kind of chorus. You even have a MIDI input if you want to control your effects via and external device. You can choose between chords and classic mode, too. It defines if you sound is pitch-shifted together when playing harmony or solo - I first used it to help me change between tunings at the moment I was pleaying so I choosed chords mode. But it depends the way you want to use it.

The cherry at the top of the cake? True bypass, zero colour to your sound!

One of the most versatile and unique effects out there in the market, this is a must-have top-quality pedal that has some history. The box itself is really surdy, it does seem that you could pass a car on the top of the pedal and it would stay intact.

Great take on a classic

I have only used the original Whammy from Digitech, and this upgrade just rocks! The audio quality is much much better with least amount of artefacts. The preset modes are enough to do any crazy effect you expect from a great whammy pedal! Winner!

My best Whammy yet

Having had the Whammy 4 for a number of years I decided an upgrade was in order. This is a really nice upgrade - better sound, better tracking and being able to power it from my Voodoo Labs Mondo is the best part for me. Now all my pedals are neatly plugged into one power block.

The best whammy ever!

After having worn out a Whammy II and IV, I can say that this is the best Whammy ever made so far.

-The signal to noise ratio is audibly improved

-It runs on a regular 9V DC adapter so you can use it with a One Spot or Voodoo labs power supply for example

-The tracking is excellent without glitches

-With the previous whammy, it would not work in the fx loop of some amps or was too sensitive to certain guitar pickups. This whammy is not as easily influenced.

There is one disadvantage, in glitch mode it still sounds too smooth. Glitch mode should be more like sonic hell, like the orginal first Whammy but you can't get those Tom Morello sounds out of it.

Fantastic pedal. Best version yet?

I'm sure if you're reading this you already know what a Whammy is and what a Whammy does, so I'll spare the details.

This one is built like a tank, just like the Whammy IV, it sounds pretty much exactly like a IV does in classic mode, and sounds a bit cleaner in poly mode, with much less of the Morello/Greenwood glitchy noises that you'd expect from a IV or earlier version.

The Whammy V also now works on a regular Boss-style 9V DC input (albeit needing a fairly high current), which makes it a far better fit for the average pedalboard. I use mine with a Voodoolabs PP2+ and it works perfectly.

Highly recommended.

It's the one

I don't use this thing a whole lot, but it's one of those things that every guitarist needs to have access to. Rage Against the Machine (if you're into that kind of thing), David Gilmour, and Johnny Greenwood have all put this to very good use. This does "My Iron Lung" very well...the "classic" mode is great for replicating the glitchy sounds of the original, and the "chords" mode is good for if you want something more precise or want to play multiple strings together. No lag or tracking issues. Use detune for a super thick chorus sound. I thought about buying the upgraded model, but read some less-than-stellar reviews, so I decided to stick with this. Like I said...I don't use it a whole lot, but I'm very glad to have it.

A very nice effect! Fits perfectly to my sound. Accompanied with a fuzz this makes a perfect riff machine!

+Sound

+The "vintage whammy" option

+the wide range of harmonics

+MIDI

-the transition between harmonics is still a bit "split-level*

-hard to operate with feet due to the knob, to change between effects reliably, MIDI is required

This is going to be a big factor on my pedalboard.

Will there ever be a mix control?

This pedal has no mix control knob, something which is quite unacceptable, since it is a pitch modulating effect. Moreover, i tried connecting it in a mix pedal, but it wouldn't work because the whammy generated great noise when it was connected this way.

Wham it up!

When you buy this pedal, you are pretty much getting several effects in one. A harmonizer, a chorus effect, a detune effect and the main whammy bar pitch effect. The possibilities are endless and the tracking is unbelievably good. EH sells similar effects for several times more and are inferior to this original. The version 5 is the best value and a very usable effect. I have several gimmick effects that are fun to play with and make noise with, but with the Whammy V5, I can write music that does not sound contrived. You can see why so many famous guitarist use it and why it'll be staying on my board for a long time!