Digitech vx400 review
Million features about this thing. They're not as useful as it looks, all the same. For example, they will tell, "seven Effects At Once!" Well, ya and no. You could have a mic-modelling effect applied and reverb applied, or a chipmunk-voice and delay applied, but not a Robotic Chipmunk. You can have one of each of seven TYPES of effect applied, but you might find that the elusive sound you're searching for might require some different circuitry. Also and this is HUGE to me most effects take the pitch grossly out of tune. This makes the pedal seem like more of a toy than a musical instrument. Why oh why can't it keep the pitch stable? When you read about this product, you learn that you can tweak many of the settings, and this sometimes includes the pitch, but all the effects that take you off-key are useless, and that's about a quarter of the whole package . To make anything that's interesting and still in-key takes ENDLESS fiddling. Most effects are hugely disappointing for me. It just sounds creepy and toy-like. I basically use it as a USB interface and for reverb.
Begetting one of this used is a pretty goodness value, because you can do a few pretty crazy effects. The thing that's really making this pay off for me, though, is the USB interface. I do all my recording through this into GarageBand, and am going to get a MIDI wind controller. Nice thing is that GarageBand will put its signal OUT through the USB interface into the , and the digitech vx400 has balanced XLR outputs (L and R), so I can run as long of cables as I need to to the FOH without worrying about hum.
I use this both as a vocal processor and as a wind instrument processor (e.g., microphone in front of a flute, sax, etc.). The sounds are very clean. It has some interesting drawbacks, though. Very often, because I am the quietest thing in the room by a long shot (except maybe vocals), I have to be turned up to where my mic is pretty hot. One thing that makes the digitech vx400 a bit fiddly is the gain knob at the mic input. It's the thing that sound guys hate the most about it when I show up with this thing. The mic gain knob is EXTREMELY touchy (often causing horrible feedback), and it's hard to remember exactly where I need it for which band, which environment, etc. I notice on the Digitech Vocal 300 (still in production) that there is no gain knob there. Interesting!
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