Digitech Hot Head Distortion Pedal Review

Digitech Hot Head Distortion Pedal

First things first, this is a distortion pedal. Period. It’s not an OD/Distortion pedal. It will not clean up much with a roll-off of the volume knob or easing off on the picking attack. I find that the ‘dirt’ pretty much stays with you, no matter what. The distortion does moderate somewhat with dynamics, but it’s still always there. That’s not to say that this is a bad thing, though. If you want the distortion to ease off when you ease off, get an OD pedal…that’s what they’re supposed to do.
 

Digitech Hot Head (Cons)

I found also that the Digitech Hot Head pedal is noisy when the gain is turned up above halfway. I suppose this is somewhat normal for distortion pedals, but it seems a little excessive on this one, compared to some. But for my taste, the gain setting at just a tick above halfway gives me just about all the dirt that I want anyway, and without excessive hum/buzz/hiss at that setting. It seems to me that above that gain setting, it doesn’t really become more distorted, only noisier.

OK, we got the negatives out of the way...

Digitech Hot Head (Pros)

The things I like about this unit most are the low/high tone controls. These allow me to dial in a bright, brilliant, cutting distortion tone, or a dark, thick, bottom-heavy one, or anything in between. And if you want some boost in your signal, there’s plenty of headroom to play with.

At my preferred tone & gain settings, I only have the level control up about halfway to match the dry signal’s level. I like to have just a touch of boost with the effect kicked-in, so I end up with the level just a bump above halfway, which leaves a bunch more room to boost the livin’ heck out the signal if I wanted to.

The character of the distortion itself is very much affected by the tone controls, of course, but generally, it’s more ‘tube-ish’ than ‘transistor-ish’. In other words, it sounds more like the way tubes clip than the way solid-state electronics clip. This is hard to quantify in words, but it just doesn’t have that strident, razor-edged clipping like a ‘metal’ pedal (which it isn’t).

It actually sounds a lot like my old Peavey Vintage amp used to sound with its 6L6’s driven hard. I like that, personally, rather than a ‘sizzly’ distortion.

Digitech Hot Head Review Summary)

To sum up, the Digitech Hot Head Distortion Pedal has a couple of tiny drawbacks as discussed above, but for a $40 pedal, it’s not too shabby at all. And it’s built like a tank with a very substantial metal housing and pedal. And I really like the way the pedal comes off to give access to the battery compartment by pushing in a spring-loaded pin where the pedal hinges on the housing. Very slick mechanical design. I think. I’d never hesitate for a second to use this unit on a gig with no backup. It’s very robust and well-made. And for my $40, it’s a good one.

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DigiTech Hot Head Distortion Pedal The DigiTech Hot Head Distortion Pedal is what you want when you need some grit. The multipurpose Hot Head distortion pedal has flexible controls that let you dial in the right tone for your setup. If you want just a little dirt or you need your amp to sound like a raging stack, the DigiTech Hot Head can do it. Low and High tone controls give you the flexibility to boost or cut the bass and treble frequencies, the Level knob boosts the output level of your signal, and the Gain knob dials up mild to wild distortion. The Amp output runs into the input of your amplifier and the dedicated Mixer output has a cabinet emulation circuit that lets you run direct into a mixer or recorder when you don't want to lug your amp along.

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