Ugly Truth: Digitech Dirty Robot Synthesizer Emulation Pedal

It is undeniable that in the last few years, electronic music has grown from an odd niche to something that has permeated its way into nearly every genre of music. EDM artist are among the highest paid artist and it has never been easier to join the ranks of DJs and artist creating new and more progressive sounds. So it has been for guitarist. Recently there has been a surge in tools to make your guitar not sound like a guitar. We emulate organs, keyboard, and rainbow... We delay, loop and shimmer to make pads and swells. We've come a long way from 'Cranking It Up To 11'... Recently we got news from Digitech about a new pedal to give us yet another tool to make crazy noises with.

It's A Filter

Yes, another filter. BOSS just gave us a Vocorder and EHX released the Cocked Wah. Auto-wah pedals have been around a long time. Talk Boxes are nearly a relic of the past now. So now we have a vocal filter that seems a little late to the game. What makes this relevant now? Most notably, the controls are expressive and functional. Turn any of the 7 knobs and change to sound dramatically. Mix, Mod, Start, Stop, Sens, Time, and Drift (not to mention the toggle to change the voice) help you wrangle your desired sound out of this box. Yes, it is another filter, but one of the best I've seen shoved into a compact pedal. This pedal easily fits in with the Polara, and Obscrua. In that it is pretty and shiny, but compared to its sister pedals, this one seems to be the first one on the scene.

It's Late

This pedal seems to be in a series of pedal that Digitech have been developing. It seemed that they are rebooting some of their core effects (delay, reverb), but this pedal is something that would fit it with more edgy builders. The sounds are unique and controllable. The pedal seems we developed. This almost excuses the wide gap in time that it took for Digitech to come to market with this pedal. The Polara and Obscrua both seem like they had to keep up with other pedal manufactures putting out similar pedals, but the Dirty Robot is a offering that doesn't seem 'directly influenced' by another pedal. This is a good thing.

It's Familiar

Guess what!? I've heard this effect before. It was in a very unlikely place. An RP series pedal. The Robot Voice effect has been around for a while. While this effect seems to be refined and very usable, this pedal has history in the pedal series that occupy the bargain bin of nearly every music store. It might have been wrong timing, or maybe the fact that they stuck it a pedal that next to useless, but it's not Digitech first attempt to make some weird robot noises.

Conclusion

This pedal is a breath of freash air. I actually like it a lot, despite the fact that I think it would basically useless for me personally. It expected more form the Delay and Reverb in this series, but they have average features, decent sound quality, but nothing groundbreaking. This pedal however exceeds expectations. So it took three tries, but Digitech did it...