🍌 I see the Bad Monkey risin' 🐒

Now that it's fallen under the JHS Show spotlight, if you have an old unloved Digitech Bad Monkey kicking about in a drawer somewhere, now might be a good time to put it on Ebay! Me, I've been holding onto mine with the idea that someday I'll upgrade to a 'proper' tube screamer but since I've never really been a TS kind of guy anyway I think maybe I can just be content to carry on making do with what I've got. I've heard say that Digitech pedals may soon rise from the dead once more. It'd be interesting to see whether they revisit this old classic.

https://youtu.be/pFOD6s0IRoM

Digitech is DOD. They never go anywhere. Sometimes they get bought out and the new owners play the name game. When I was a kid both names existed side by side for awhile but after some really goofy genre pedals inspired by the boss hm2 and mt2 culminating in a dirtbox with delay built in that was always on and of course the grunge pedal with butt and face controls they lost a lot if their street cred... oh man, there was the icebox chorus which was an analog bbd chorus intentionally voiced to sound cold and hard... let's Face it, the fx55b while interesting is outright bad by any metric, not a ds1 competitor. But digital was still a really hot marketing term so in comes the digitech sub brand with a different array of goofy pedals like the whammy but in this case people actually liked them. Eventually DoD licenses to exist and the remaining did pedals get a digitech facelift and a boss negative tip adapter. The goofiest stuff gets discontinued and some new stuff like a tubescreamer with 2 bands of tone control comes in. And today tu he name game carries on... DOD made some cool stuff sometimes especially in their early days but they were always a knockoff company despite being american. The old stuff is directly knocked off of MXR, although sometimes improved like the od250 and to my ear the dod 1 knob phasor.

What did all that have to do with the monkey? Nothing? Everything? I still own a bad money to the best of my knowledge but no longer have any other TS apart from the VL sparkle drive knockoff in my TC nova drive (rat section's better). There's hardly any time I wouldn't prefer an od1, sd1 or mxr badass od which is just an sd1 with the green rhino treatment. If there's a need for SRV tone I keep the monkey around. I was really surprised that I couldn't tell the centaur apart from the monkey in that video although it was on phone speakers. I would do my own shootout but I wouldn't pay bill finnigan the asking price for a new unit in the 90s and if I had ponied up my barista tips for one and it actually got made I woulda sold it by now and bought a new car. Or part of a new car.

Digitech seems to produce many unique pedals, then stop producing them for some reason. Anyway, I don't have a "Bad Monkey" for sale, but I do have Digitech's "The Weapon" for sale, a multi-effect pedal that is also out of production now. I bought it mostly for the sitar sound effect, but it's possible to get something resembling a sitar sound on the Zoom MS-70CDR I have, so am selling the Digitech... so far no potential buyers though.

Why not just get a sitar?

... There's hardly any time I wouldn't prefer an od1, sd1 or mxr badass od which is just an sd1 with the green rhino treatment. If there's a need for SRV tone I keep the monkey around. I was really surprised that I couldn't tell the centaur apart from the monkey in that video although it was on phone speakers. I would do my own shootout but I wouldn't pay bill finnigan the asking price for a new unit in the 90s and if I had ponied up my barista tips for one and it actually got made I woulda sold it by now and bought a new car. Or part of a new car.

They all sounded pretty much the same bluetoothed through my sound system but the whole episode was really an exercise in showing that those pedals could all be dialled in to sound like a Bad Monkey, rather than the other way around - like a sonic Venn diagram with the Monkey in the middle where everything overlaps. It's a good lesson Josh has slapped us with. All those sheep chasing rainbows and paying $200 on eBerb will likely be mighty disappointed when they discover its not what it's crocked up to be.

One thing I have learned since is Brian Wampler combined his two favourite overdrives into a mutant SD-1/Monkey chimera; his Triumph overdrive. OMG! 😱It's a hybrid of a pedal I covet with the EQ features of the one I own and 'love' already. I'll edit my wishlist and then make myself move on - I really don't need one, I Don't need one, I do NOT need one... I really should stop following that bloody JHS show.

Predictably monkey prices are up and Josh made a fake (I think) reverb listing for a pile of overpriced BMs. I always thought it was a fine pedal with characteristically unreliable dod/digitech switch. It looks like a boss housing but the switch is a soundtank style tack switch, not up to frequent hard stomps. Fine for me as I rarely use overdrives.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I worked for a guy who called ALL pedals 'talent boxes' and I agree... in the sense that having those toys in line often gives the talent confidence and a confident performance always sounds better than a timid one. As a performer I'm always helped by pants flapping volume, even if I'm in the control room... horses for courses.

Too expensive lol, the pedal is far cheaper and takes less space, especially for an instrument I won't be using too much... I do have an Arabic oud which I use quite a bit though! But am low on both cash and space in my apartment for more instruments at the moment

No sitar.. denied!

The joke here is that sitar us one of the more irritating instruments to mic up. Hard to capture all the weird overtones. And the sound is irritating to boot.

Edit: And now I made a waynes world reference l.

Yeah I can imagine it is difficult to mic up, even with the oud I use a condenser mic and lose some of the overtones, with sitar it's likely more difficult to mic up... do you have one?

You need to use 2 microphones as a non coincident pair for mono. I'm assuming an oud would be similar. Try a dynamic with solid bass response and no midrange hype like an md421 or even an re20/pl10 or just maybe a ribbon on the body... then you can pickup overtones with a pencil condenser like an 81 overhead (find the focal point of the other microphone's diaphragm and measure the distance, then place the OH the same distance ar approximately 45 degrees to minimize phasing... oan together or group them blended together to taste on your mixer and record that so you don'thave to stress panning)... if you dont mind some room on the source you can also try recording it in stereo with a blumlein pair assuming you own matched mics with figure 8. Of you could do mid side side... but blumlein can work for sitar if you Jimmy it enough to get a good center to your stereo image because the overtones will be drawn from the room by the backs of the mics as it reflects off the surfaces of the room. It requires 2 ribbons or 2 multipattern condensers.

Okay. Done advising for awhile. Gotta get my kid to school

Thanks :D yeah that makes sense, for the oud what I do for the moment is double track it through a condenser mic... I don't have all the gear yet for what you suggested, I do have both condenser and dynamic mics of course, and a clip-on mic for acoustic guitars so will try out what you suggested using what I have!

Hey, why not just wind your own oudbucker and ROCK!

(;-p

Hey, why not just wind your own oudbucker and ROCK!

Same issue, itll only pickup the harmonics generated closest to the pickup. Maybe 2 oud-singles in parallel rwrp well spaced. He probably doesn't have a drill press anyway.

;-p

Oh. That was a joke

Edit: now that I know what oud is I bet you could stick a piezo in the bridge if you're into that kind of sound

Okay. I had to look up what sn oud was because hell if I could remember. It's like a lute. Not a full sound hole so a lot of body and neck overtones.

Don't mic it like a sitar, dude i was way off base! I thought it was a bigger necked instrument you play like a cello for some reason. You just want to try pointing your condenser straight at the neck joint. If you have a figure 8 pattern you could try that too. More proximity effect but itll get some reflections from the room and sound more like what reaches your ears while playing.

Alternately you can do an XY near coincident unmatched pair for stereo. With your dynamic and condenser I would setup the 45 degree pair again centered around the neck joint. The condenser would be pointed towards the neck and the dynamic toward the body, standard 45 degree angle. Really line up the diaphragm as well as you can visually. Record a sample passage. With both tracks panned center flip the phase back and forth on one of them and make sure you don't hear phasing like a phasers pedal. If you hear that adjust one mic to eliminate. When one phase position cancels a good deal of the signal (as in thins the sound substantially, these are 2 different mics though so ymmv) you're optimally positioned for a decent stereo image when hard panned. You can move the panning inward on either side to pan the whole oud one way or the other or oan both sides in to create a natural stereo width when centered but this might damage the center image... a more effective way to treat it is with a stere width plugin with panning. A1 stereo control is a fine free vst option if your daw doesn't have this feature. As with any stereo tricks, mono your control room monitors frequently to check for problems.

Also, experiment with both your mics doing close and distant channels in different positions to hear if there's anything interesting you can capture from the oud that way.

For the record I have never owned a sitar and don't even like the sound they produce usually... however, in a past life I had to record one when tracking some Indian classical music at work.

Oh ok thanks! Yeah that's what I have been doing so far (pointing the condenser at the neck joint, much in the same way as I would for an acoustic guitar). It captures the overtones, but not perfectly, if I want it to sound perfect I often need to double-track. However, I could try what you suggested, using both a dynamic and condenser. I could also try the stereo width VST you mentioned, I have a very basic free one that came with Ableton which I sometimes use.

Haha I love the sitar sound, but love the oud sound even more! It's pretty hard to play though, having string pairs (like a 12 string guitar) and being fretless at the same time

Oh ok thanks! Yeah that's what I have been doing so far (pointing the condenser at the neck joint, much in the same way as I would for an acoustic guitar). It captures the overtones, but not perfectly, if I want it to sound perfect I often need to double-track. However, I could try what you suggested, using both a dynamic and condenser. I could also try the stereo width VST you mentioned, I have a very basic free one that came with Ableton which I sometimes use.

Just remember you need a true stereo recording of 2 mics with 1 source to get anything useful from a mid side type stereo width processor. On a mono signal or a double tracked pair of mono performances you won't get anything. XY near coincident is a classic stereo recording technique for an instrument like this and while its usually done with a matched pair of condensers there are no rules, it's just harder to check phase with unmatched mics. I've definitely done it with 2 disparate mics for creative reasons... lack of mics is another good reason to mix it up. You could also invest in a couple pencil mics. I'm an sm81 guy... dead flat response, dead flat off axis rejection, 2 pad setting and 2 high pass filter frequencies. Relatively inexpensive compared to a c451 and more versatile. There are some cheap Chinese made 451 clones out there too. I think you can get a pair of golden age project pencils for the price of one sm81 now, but I cant speak to its quality, it looks like a modded MXL to me and that basic mic was so mediocre they used to give it away. The rode nt5 is also excellent bang for buck in pairs, got great results from them for many years, but no bells and whistles and the internal amp is low enough on headroom that the lack of pad can be an issue.

So back to the bad monkey, I've had some friends show me some highly speculative pricing (up to a grand asking price!) But no one is buying at those prices so I expect the clown show will be ending soon... we should do over under bets on highest completed bad monkey sale price!

Same issue, itll only pickup the harmonics generated closest to the pickup. Maybe 2 oud-singles in parallel rwrp well spaced. He probably doesn't have a drill press anyway.

;-p

Oh. That was a joke

Well, yes and no; maybe - but thanks for your patience, as always I learned something from your reply and I'm grateful for that.

Edit: now that I know what oud is I bet you could stick a piezo in the bridge if you're into that kind of sound.

I hugely regret letting myself be talked into a piezo pickup & EQ for an octave mandolin I had made in consolation after a painful breakup. It's a lovely instrument, with a medievally sounding jangle reminiscent of a lute or oud. I still slap myself over the electronics though; I didn't need it, it sounded pants and the nasty looking control panel ruins its beautiful lines - lesson learned.

I've been to too many folk festivals where the sound of piezo'd singer songwriters pinging through the PA never fails to drive me away to the beer tent!

I hugely regret letting myself be talked into a piezo pickup & EQ for an octave mandolin I had made in consolation after a painful breakup. It's a lovely instrument, with a medievally sounding jangle reminiscent of a lute or oud. I still slap myself over the electronics though; I didn't need it, it sounded pants and the nasty looking control panel ruins its beautiful lines - lesson learned.

I've been to too many folk festivals where the sound of piezo'd singer songwriters pinging through the PA never fails to drive me away to the beer tent!

I'm not a big fan of piezos for conventional uses like that though I have been known to use contact mics to key analog drum gates/expanders plus they make fine dampers on ringy heads. The best use of piezoelectric material is in electret condensers, which are highly underrated. In fact, almost every shure condenser uses piezo in the backplate, unless it says true condenser in the documentation it's an electret and they sound great.

Thanks, I've been looking up about the pencil mics too... they're not too expensive either, I saw some Behringer ones going for quite cheap. Of course I'll try with the two mics I have first, but will definitely consider the pencil mics