Help me with The Whammy

[Caesar]

I'm starting ot realize that I've been using my HOG mostly for octave bends. I was thinking I could sell it, get a Whammy, and have some cash left over. Why is the Whammy WH-1 so sought after? The newer Whammy seems more full featured. Then there's the Digitech XP-100 Whammy?

I'm all confused.

[Toonster]

I am not really a Whammy-expert, but I heard somewhere that that one is so expensive, because The Edge uses it on some U2 songs and Tom Morello Uses it in Rage Against The Machine..

But I don't know if that is the truth..^^

[bigchiefbc]

The WH-1 price explosion is such a ridiculous boondoggle. When the TGP'ers go nuts over it, they keep saying crap like "it sounds smoother and more analog", "it tracks better" blah blah blah.

The truth of the matter is that the sound is not appreciably different between ANY of the Whammy models. The algorithm they use is basically unchanged through all of the models. The complaint about tracking is KINDA valid, but only because people didn't set it up properly. The only thing that changed from the WH-1 to the WH-2 is they went from an automatic input gain control to an external input level trimmer, so you could manually control the signal level going into the pitch detection circuitry. If people would take 5 freaking minutes to tweak the input gain trimmer properly, it tracks just as good. The only one I will give them is that the WH-1 was substantially smaller in footprint than the later models.

Long story short, save your monies and get any of the later models. The intervals used for the whammy and harmony modes were slightly different on a couple of the models. I like my XP-100, because it has the most modes and all of the whammy and harmony intervals from all of the other models. It also has a volume pedal mode, which is sweet. But the wah modes suck.

[D.o.S.]

The XP-100, like the rest of the XP series, suffers from a questionable bypass. Of course, you can XP-1000 the shit out of it, which is worth the sucky signal.