guitar rig part II:: lexicon mpx1,mpx550,mx200 ,digitech s200 ,disaster designs smartclock

guitar rig part II:: lexicon mpx1,mpx550,mx200 ,digitech s200 ,disaster designs smartclock

In my quest for better tone,I had sold all 3 of my digitech s200 processors because they did not sync to midi.I replaced them with the lexicon mpx550,mpx1 and mx200.Slowly, I re-bought 3 digitech s200 processors as I had sold my old ones and regretted it.I suspect that someone is cornering on the market on these as they were very hard to find and expensive.All of  sudden, that really smooth feel and sound was back. I don't know how to describe the digitech delays for instance as they have a pleasing grittiness,but ultra clear sound that sounds so very good and you cant find it in the lexicons or any other delay .

 When you play a processor and it make you smile you know you are on the right track. now , its one fatal flaw,syncing delay times to midi!! now, I researched and researched,even called the companies to try to solve this problem. I then discovered this tiny company called disaster designs who claimed they made a pedal that would take midi clock and convert it to tap tempo which the digitech s200 would sync to. Is this possible?I was So suspicious, but if it could it would be amazing. the pedal itself  is called the smartclock and its really expensive approaching boutique pedal prices a $179.00. I have not tried it yet but the potential of this pedal if it does what it claims to would be amazing .

I also discovered that no digitech pedals from the s100 top the digitech quad and 400 sync to midi, So we will see how the smart clock solves this problem.

More digitech s200
The digitech s200 has just a great sound , the kind that just being plugged into smooths out your guitar sound and even feel. Its the kind of processor that doesn't need to be in a true bypass and can stay in your signal chain all the time. The same cant be said of the lexicon processors except possibly the mpx550.The mpx1 has a great tone,but it has a glassy effect on the tone which doesn't work for distortion all that well and would benefit form a true bypass when not used in your guitar signal.

mpx550

mpx1

 Now, what happens when you combine the power of the lexicon with the finesse of the s200  in one guitar sound. you get heavenly bliss. The kind of tangerine dream gilmore type delays you only find in high end delays like the strymon timeline, tc 2290 and eventides for example.Just a solid delay with an ambient sound complementing it. AMAZING. It seems the lexicons and digitech's together seems to work wonders.

Be back soon with part III.................