Sometimes, you just know an effect is going to be rad based solely on its name, and today’s pedal proves that once again. The Dirty Robot from DigiTech is a mini-synth pedal, turning your guitar or bass into a close-to-full-blown synthesizer, without having to worry about a second pickup or interface to haul around. A powerful effect indeed, there’s lots to learn about it, so let’s dive right in!
There are a bunch of controls on the Dirty Robot, three of which are concentric potentiometers, giving you a total of 7 tweakable parameters in just 4 switches, to maximize productivity in a small enclosure. First, there’s a small toggle near the top, which lets you select from a straight envelope-style synthesis (V1) or a vocal formant synthesis with variable range (V2). Next up is the Mix/Mod combo: Mix blends the wet and dry signals, while Mod adds some chorus modulation in, producing some classic synth sounds. The next set are Start and Stop knobs, which allow you to set the time for the synth’s sweep when in V1 Mode; when in V2, the vocal formant range is the one that gets adjusted.
Sens/Time is the combo that comes next, with the former setting the trigger sensitivity for the synth sweep, and the latter setting the time of the sweep that you set with the Start/Stop controls. Finally, the Drift knob adds texture to the overall sound, rotating a full 360 degrees to control morphing between Sub, Octave and Square waveforms. The smoothness of this dial really lets you do some nice blending work between these settings, opening up the sounds the Dirty Robot is able to produce.
You can also run this guy in Stereo via both the Ins and Outs, really adding more and more sonic layers to a stereo amp setup. Able to conjure up synth sounds from Rush to Bon Jovi to classic Moog tones and more, the Dirty Robot is a one-stop shop for all things synth, even if you’re not a synth player. So much fun to explore this guy, and can be used subtly or over-the-top, or just somewhere in the middle if you like. There have been some great effects coming out of the DigiTech workshop over the last couple of years, and we are excited to review and demo some more of them in the near future, so check back soon!
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