Digitech Whammy Pedal Review

In this post, I will go over the Digitech Whammy Pedal.  This pedal is widely used by a variety of big named artist - Tom Morrello, Herman Li, Steve Vai, etc.  This Whammy Pedal is a pitch-shifting pedal designed by Digitech.  Not only is it a pitch shifter, but it also can do harmonies (though most are cheesey and artificial sounding) Like most pedals, the original Whammy (DigiTech WH-1) is the most sought after.  In this post, I will give you my take on this classic pedal and hopefully you will agree with my opinion.  If you do, feel free to chime in and add information to the comments section and if you disagree, please feel free to let me know why.

The Digitech Whammy pedal is easy to use, it has a knob that will let you select whether or not you want harmonies or to shift pitch.  This happens by selecting what harmonies you want (3rds, 4ths, 5ths, etc.) or you can select the Detune or Dive Bomb options which really can be used for some cool effects.  One you have picked out whether or not you want to shift the pitch up or down an octave - or you just wanna do some cool harmonies - you simply rock the pedal back and forth to change the sounds... much like a Wah Wah pedal.  Very simple to use and creates a great effect!

Some of the harmonies sound completely fake (digital) and boring. After all, you can buy expensive harmonizers that sound amazing, so I tend to think that pitch shifting is the only real value of the Whammy pedal. Like I said earlier, it does have some cool features like detune and dive bomb which can give you some nice Van Halen sounds. I have played every type and style guitar through this pedal and it sounds just as good with all of them. Again, be aware that some pedals aren’t correctly positioned out of the box and might need to be adjusted to sound in key!

This pedal is a real beast!  I have had my pedal for several years and it works still works wonderfully! It took some beatings and has lots of scratches, but the pedal still works perfectly fine.

Overall, I would say the pedal is great for pitch shifting. If you don’t mind the digital sound, then this pedal is absolutely perfect.  If you prefer more realistic sounds, I would go with more of its more expensive competitors.  Good pedal, but not great. I would give the Digitech Whammy Pedal 4 out of 5 stars, if I were to rate it.  If you are on a budget for a harmonizer, or you just want one of the best pitch shifters around, check out the Digitech Whammy Pedal.