Whether it’s the Whammy pedal or the GNX 3000, Digitech has a long history of designing quality floor pedals and boards, particularly ones that help take a guitarist’s sound to unforeseen levels (think Tom Morello). And while Digitech’s invention, the HarmonyMan carries over certain characteristics of Whammy pedals of old, this bright red box is a whole other beast.
Features
The HarmonyMan has four different types of pitch-shifting effects, all of which can be seen through alphanumeric displays above the “Voice 1” and “Voice 2” knobs: triad-centered (for three-part harmonies), scale-based (key harmonies), chromatic (or "fixed"), and detune. The last of these four effects is a group of four distinct “detuned” chorus-like effects found at the end of the “Voice 1” or “Voice 2” knobs, which are used to select all harmonies. The four detuned/chorus choices are labeled “D1,” “D2,” “D3,” and “D4.”
It also contains a built-in guitar tuner (via holding down the left black footswitch, which doubles as the HM's on/off switch). The tuner uses seven LEDs at the pedal’s center and the “Voice 1” note display window above the “Voice 1” knob for accurate tuning. The pedal features four memory locations (by the pressing the black footswitch on its right side), viewed via four LEDS, and a “store” button to store your harmony presets to these memory locations. In all, there are 42 different voicings/effects in the pedal's Voice knobs, including 24 semitones.
Other features include the “musIQ” button (for key recognition), a “Mix” knob (which controls the mix between lead guitar and harmony effects), “Distortion Send/Return” loop (for stompboxes), “Harmony Key” display, and “Sidechain Input/thru” jacks (for a rhythm guitarist to be the chord recognition source).
Setup
Before trying out the HarmonyMan, I needed three quality instrument cables to connect my guitar to it, another floor pedal (for distortion, reverb) and an amplifier. Therefore, I plugged my Fender Stratocaster into the HM’s guitar “input” slot, then connected the “Left (mono)” output of the HM to the guitar input of my Digitech GNX3000 Multi Effects Pedal, then cabled the GNX’s “Left” balanced 1/4'' slot to one of the “Line In” channels on my Behringer KX1200 Keyboard/PA system. Of course, if you want just a clean signal, you can always plug the HM straight into an amp, using the “Left (Mono)” or “Right” outputs. On occasion, I connected my pedal to an old Marshall amp.
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