Digitech Review: BP200 Version 1.1

History:

Purchase: I bought this unit for $150 at my local Guiter Center store. I had been playing bass for many years, and wanted to consolidate my tuner, compresser, and noise gate together, and also wanted to try some mild effects to slightly color the sound. The type of music I play doesn't lend itself to very bizarre effects, and this unit allows me to taylor your effects to sound exactly like I want them to sound.

What I Like About This Digitech BP200 Version 1.1: Has 40 factory-preset effects and 40 user banks to program your own effects. Very versatile. You can create an almost infinite variety of effects. You can copy any of the presets to any user bank to give you a starting point (Factory default is with all the user banks being identical to the factory preset banks). You can also copy any user bank to any other user bank. The user interface is very user-friendly and fairly easy to figure out, even without reading the manual. You should read it, though because while it could be a little more detailed, it is well-written and contains a lot of good information that you may not immediately see from just playing with the unit. The effects are good quality, and most of the factory presets are pretty good as they are without needing to modify them. Of course, this will depend on your own tastes and musical style. At first, I was skeptical about the expression pedal and didn't think I would have any use for it. However, after playing with the unit and programming some of my own effects, I found that the pedal can be programmed for almost any single parameter of an effect, such as delay time, decay, various gains, and the effect level. This makes it very easy to adjust the effect you are using without having to switch to another bank. Another cool feature is the built-in tuner. You just press and hold both foot pedals and you have an instant tuner that displays the notes you are playing, and also mutes the output so the audience doesn't hear you tuning.

What I Do NOT Like About The Digitech BP200 Version 1.1: There is little to complain about except for one thing: the hiss. If you connect it as shown in the manual with your bass plugged into the input and the output connected to your amp's input, the amount of hiss is unacceptable, even with the unit in "bypass" mode. It gave my sound man fits. I ended up plugging my bass directly into my amp and using its effects loop for the Digitech. This gave very good results, with very little noticeable hiss and better sound quality. The hiss without the effects loop was so bad that I would not recommend that anyone buy this unit unless they plan on using it with an effects loop.

Digitech BP200 Version 1.1 Quality Rating: Appears to be fairly rugged. Is made out of metal and plastic. No complaints here.

Review Summary: Even if you aren't into effects for your bass and just use the tuner, the compresser, the noise gate, and the amp modeling feature, it's definitely worth the money. You will probably need to spend time programming and tweaking your own effects to get the sound you want, but it's not at all hard to program. When you play on stage or record, just remember to use your amp's effects loop.

Rating of this Digitech product: 5

This Digitech BP200 Version 1.1 Bass Guitar Effects Review Submitted By: Paul Johnson

Review Date: 2003-04-11