Digitech Whammy Pedal comparisons?

[toejam]

Anybody know how the different Whammy pedals compare? What's the difference between the original red Whammy, the black Whammy II, the red Reissue Whammy? I've got the multi-fx XP100 Whammy/Wah, but it's a tone sucker, so I don't use it that much any more. I've tried it in my amp's effects loop, but most of the presets sound better in front of the amp. Should I perhaps look into one of the other versions?

[Boxcar Willie 84]

Re: Digitech Whammy Pedal comparisons?

I think the reissue red Whammy is the same as the original one, except that it has different cosmetics and has MIDI capabilities.

[toejam]

Re: Digitech Whammy Pedal comparisons?

Thanks, Box! I forgot about the MIDI capabilities of the new one. I did a little research and found this on Analogman.com:
"Whammy pedals
Why does everybody seem to prefer the old Whammy over the new one?
The original whammy had redesigned "improvements" made when the Whammy II was released. The biggest mistake was putting the input gain control in there - if you don't get the adjustment "just right" then it will not track the input pitch properly and, even if you do get it right, as the input decays the pitch tracking will eventually lose its "lock" on the signal.

The red Whammy had a special circuit that the Whammy II does not (thus no "input level" control), allowing almost any input signal level to be dynamically scaled so that the pitch tracking can "lock on" faultlessly. This also meant that as the signal level decayed, the pitch would remain locked due to the scaling action. The Whammy II loses lock on the signal as it decays, resulting in a highly unpleasant "warbling" sound which you may have noticed if you've used one.

Why was the whammy modified?

The old red Whammy was probably changed because it was quite expensive and not selling as well as it could be. On most newer mass-marketed pedals, the price/cost is the main feature. In reality, the Whammy-II ended up costing almost as much (and even more in some areas) and people didn't like it nearly as much. It had some cool features (you didn't have to bend down to change modes, and it had the "toggle" feature to switch between your two favorites) but it did not SOUND the same, and it was a little less robust than the original version.

How about the riessue whammy?

It seems that they did not use the exact same algorithms as the original so they still don't sound quite as good."