DigiTech DBM Bad Monkey Tube-Overdrive Analog-Distortion Pedal

I had a Digitech Grunge pedal for a while when I first started playing, and swore anything Digitech off my effects loop afterwards. 3 years of playing later, I was looking for a nice warm sounding overdrive and ended up reading some reviews of this pedal. Not wanting to spend much money on a boutique pedal, I decided to give this baby a try. I was very surprised. This pedal is pure analog, and gives you a nice warm tone. I like to play it with the neck pickup to get a very Stevie-Ray Vaughn sound. When I play on amps with no overdrive channel, I run this with a mxr distortion pedal (light distortion) to get a good distorted overdrive tone, good for hard rock or metal riffs and solos. The Bad Monkey won't give you rock and roll gain, rather it boosts your tone quite a bit. If you're running clean and hit it, you will get a good tube amp sound, driving those tubes nicely. If you're playing with some decent gain and hit this, you'll get a boosted tone with a rise in gain, but your sound won't break up. As always, this pedal sounds better according to how nice your amp is. It WILL work fine with a solid state amp too though. In fact, that's what I'm running mine into at home. Let me say though, if you play this thing into a nice tube amp with the volume cranked, your guitar will sing. The bass response is pretty damn fine on the Bad Monkey. There is always a nice low-end presence even while playing on the high frets. If you're looking for a pedal to start out with though, this probably isn't a good choice, unless you know you want this sound. This pedal isn't extremely versatile, but does what it does very well. It handles a nice Texas blues/SRV type of sound to some pop rock like blink-182, green day, ect. Make sure this is what you're looking for before you buy it though. As long as you aren't expecting a pedal capable of creating high gain or distortion, you will more than likely be very pleased with your choice.

I had never even heard of this pedal before trying it on another guitarist's pedal board. Afterwards, I had it stuck in my head. I mean, a pedal named "bad monkey"? How awesome does that sound namewise? The guitarist that I had tried it on had his running right after a TS9, so I set it up the same way on my board. I use only single coil guitars (strat, tele, and a prs with p90's) and I run my board as follows (fender tu10 tuner, crybaby original wah, ts9, bad monkey, cs9). My amp is a Peavey Transtube Bandit 112 (80W solid state). So, after all the techno-babble, how does the Bad Monkey sound? If you're looking for a distortion pedal, this is obviously not it. It is similar to the TS9 in how it works, but its nice to have the high and the low frequency boosts. It definitely helps sculpt the tone a little more. And having two tube overdrive pedals side by side is helpful if you're really looking for a natural sounding gain/grit/distorted tone. For me, I use the TS9 for more of a grittier rougher distortion/drive and the monkey for the lighter grit, and an extra boost when I'm taking solos. The Bad Monkey pedal is great on its own too, and when you're using tube overdrive pedals like these, it puts the "distortion" knob on your guitar when you set them right. If you want a grittier sound? Just turn up your guitar's volume control. I love the versitility of sounds that I can dial in, and it keeps my tone cleaner as a whole, rather than any sort of super muddy distortion, like my amp's second channel. Again, if you're expecting distortion, this isn't your pedal, but if you want a good gain and controllable grit? This is exactly what you want to go for. Its not a tube screamer, it won't ever be one, but next to one, it could be your new best friend.

I am new to playing the Guitar so I am not going to be able to say wonderful things about the sound. I can tell the difference with the Bad Monkey on and I like the way it sounds but beyond that I am not able to comment. The book for setting the BadMonkey illustrates 4 settings to use. The 4 are Punchy Drive, Warm Rhythm, Lead Boost, and Texas Tone. The pedal is well built and comes with a 9 volt batter. However, it does not come with a power adaptor. The adaptor will probably cost you around $20 once shipping and handling is figured in. This is something you need to figure in when comparing with the BOSS DS-1 Distortion Pedal . That pedal comes with an adaptor. Were I to do it again, I would buy the BOSS DS-1 and that is probably what I would recommend to any beginning guitar player looking for a distortion pedal. The BOSS DS-1 has been around for ages and many musicians have started with it. Pros -Well Made -Sounds Good Cons -Missing the power adaptor which will cost you ~$20 After I wrote this review I contacted the seller advertising the DS-1 with an adaptor. Their description was incorrect. However, both the Bad Monkey and DS-1 have gone up to the point that if you are looking for a distortion pedal I would recommend the Boss Mega Distortion as you can get it for only $10 more.

Es wird ja viel gutes und viel schlechtes über das Bad Monkey gesagt, ich denke für gut 30€ ist das Teil der Hammer. Besonders der Low-Regler ist sehr sinnvoll (sollte es meiner Meinung nach an jedem Pedal geben :-) , damit kann man in jeder Einstellung ordentlich Druck dazu bringen. Von leicht angeknuspert bis recht ordentlich verzerrt lässt sich alles gut regeln und schnell wiederfinden. Lässt sich auch schön zum Boosten oder verfeinern/einstellen des schon vorhandenen Sounds nutzen, auch wenn man Gain mal beiseite lässt und nur Lows und Highs reindreht. Das Bad Monkey hat leider keinen True Bypass, mich stört das in diesem Fall aber eher weniger. Den zweiten Ausgang habe ich noch nicht getestet. Ich habe gesehen, dass Amazon alle paar Wochen mal ein paar von den Bad Monkeys verkauft, war mir bisher immer nicht ganz sicher, bin nun aber froh mir eins bestellt zu haben. (Samstag bestellt, Montag bekommen) Die Dinger werden wohl nicht mehr hergestellt und gehen auch bei ebay noch für 30 bis 40€ weg. Wer eins haben möchte sollte also immer mal bei Amazon reinschauen. Für 31€ lohnt sich der Kauf allemal und mindestens ein Overdrive Pedal brauchen doch die meisten :-)

I think this is the third one of these I've owned. I've sold them and eventually come full circle and bought another, so this one's a keeper! It is, without doubt, the best value overdrive pedal on the market and at the price they are, new, there's no excuse not to get one! It is a transparent overdrive, which means you still hear your guitar's tone and it can be used as a boost, a full overdrive and all points in between. I also have the Digitech Hardwire CM2, which is sort of the Bad Monkey's big brother. A brilliant pedal but considerably more expensive. I use the Bad Monkey as a standalone overdrive on my board and as a boost to drive the CM2 for a fuller sound. The only thing against the Bad Monkey (apart from the colour, possibly) is that it's not true bypass, which seems to be a big deal for some people. It's not an issue for me, though and if you're looking for a Tube Screamer type overdrive then I cannot recommend it highly enough!!!

Sounded rough through my Fender Deluxe, no matter what the settings. Compared to the Wampler pedal I traded it on, it's definitely not worth worrying about. Both the Wampler & Fulltone overdrives run rings around it.

A ce prix là, faut pas s en priver : cette pédale a un très bon son d' overdrive léger, sans dénaturer le son de la guitare , les potards grave aigu sont archi efficaces et utiles, et le level a un haut niveau de sortie maxi. Idéal en crunch blues country rock, ou comme boost. bonne qualité de fabrication, accès à la pile facile. Le super plus, pas encre testé : une sortie indépendante supplémentaire avec simulation de HP pour attaquer direct une table de mix. C'est incroyable pour ce prix. Bref : ce genre de pédale sert toujours et vaut le modique investissement.

Cab sim is great on this, quite surprisingly so. Its a bit of a one dimensional pedal but then again I'm using it to warm up a solid state combo; I imagine you'll get extra scope when using with a decent tube amp setup. I run both the amp and mixer outputs into the 2x power amp section on the back of my Peavey Stereo chorus and it sounds quite lush once all has been dialed in correctly. I do find myself generally cranking High and Low all the way up, very fat and creamy. A little bit noisy when the gain is increased but that's to be expected from a gain pedal that cost £20!