DigiTech Whammy

The DigiTech Whammy is a red, treadle-operated pitch shifter: you pick an interval on the rotary knob, and rocking the treadle back and forth with your foot bends your note up or down to that interval, in the way a wah pedal moves a filter. It uses digital signal processing to manipulate the original signal, and it has been described as the most popular pitch-shifting pedal of all time¹²³. Since the original WH-1, many versions have followed, and the line now covers drop tuning, bass, chordal shifting and signature models.

What the pedal is best known for is expressive pitch bending: dive a single note down two octaves, sweep it back up, or hold a harmony interval against your dry signal. The fifth generation combines the best bits of the original and the more recent DT across two modes, Classic and Chords, and its harmony side offers dual-guitar lead possibilities, thickened single-note drones, and oddball, dissonant textures¹⁴.

What the Whammy does to your sound

The core effect is foot-controlled pitch shifting: the treadle rocked back and forth controls the pitch effect, so the shift happens in real time under your foot rather than at a fixed rate². On the Whammy side of the fifth generation there are 10 pitch bending intervals, and the harmony side generates a second note at a set interval against your dry signal⁴.

DigiTech positions the family members by use. The Bass Whammy is a pitch shifter for bass that, in DigiTech's words, "transforms the bass players role from strictly rhythmic to melodic," with suggested uses including layering harmonies with guitarists or vocalists, creating synth-like textures, or simulating guitar solos by shifting into higher octaves⁸. The Whammy Ricochet moves the same idea off the treadle: a momentary switch and customizable independent rise and fall time ballistics let you bounce your playing up or down in pitch in controlled or crazy shifts, with a latching mode so you can rise or fall to pitch and stay there⁹. The Whammy DT adds drop tuning, with 18 Drop Tune settings from -7 semitones to +7 semitones, plus Octave Down, Octave Down + Dry, Octave Up, and Octave Up + Dry¹⁰.

One quirk worth knowing: the original WH-1 was technically a pitch shifter, but it had a chorus sound, and JHS Pedals notes it does that chorus very well⁵.

The treadle, switches and modes

Across the line the control scheme is consistent: a rotary selector dial chooses the effect, the built-in treadle bends the pitch, and a footswitch engages or bypasses the effect¹¹. An on/off switch engages and disengages the Whammy effect¹².

The Classic/Chords switch is the important one for how you play. Guitar World describes the two sides as "the old, glitchy monophonic digital weirdness that became an early Whammy trademark, or a more modern and digitally-advanced polyphonic mode with excellent tracking"¹⁵. On the fifth generation, MusicRadar's Simon Bradley found there is a noticeable level of digital flutter when using the Classic setting with chords, on both the Harmony and Whammy sides, which is what the Chords setting exists to fix⁴.

The Whammy DT adds two footswitches, Drop Tune and Momentary, with the momentary switch turning the Drop Tune effect on or off to create hammer-on and pull-off style shifting effects⁶¹⁰.

Power, MIDI and connections

The fifth generation runs on 9V DC power-supply operation, so it can finally run off a standard supply, and includes true-bypass switching¹. That was not always the case: the original WH-1 uses a proprietary power supply offering large amounts of current, which Guitar.com's reviewer notes is a pain when fitting it on a board².

Every current Whammy carries a 5-pin DIN MIDI input for selecting and controlling the effects from an external controller¹⁶⁶. MIDI CC# 11 adjusts the expression pedal position, and the pedal recognizes MIDI program change commands mapped to Whammy effect settings¹³. The stock MIDI receive setting is OMNI, meaning the pedal receives MIDI data on all MIDI channels¹⁷.

To change the MIDI channel:

1. Disconnect the power.
2. Press and hold the Whammy effect footswitch while reconnecting the power.
3. Watch the effect LED, which flashes to indicate the currently selected MIDI channel.
4. Rotate the effect knob to select the desired MIDI channel, using a reference chart¹³.

The Whammy DT's audio specs give a sense of the platform: 24-bit A/D conversion, a 44.1 kHz sample rate, 20 Hz to 20 kHz frequency response, and THD of 0.004% at 1 kHz⁶.

From the original WH-1 to the fifth generation

The original WH-1 arrived in 1989 and is widely regarded as the first mass-market digital pitch shifter³⁵. It was followed by the Whammy II, and a Whammy IV reissue in 2000¹⁶. Later versions added wah, auto-wah, and a bass Whammy¹⁰. The fifth generation, reviewed by MusicRadar as "the fifth generation version of DigiTech's genre-defining red pitch shifter," brought true bypass for the first time, 9V DC operation, and four additional Whammy modes taken from the DT pedal, while scrapping the Whammy IV's drop-tune mode and its dedicated dry-output jack¹⁴.

The original WH-1 is discontinued but commands top dollar on the used market, with many pros still preferring it over later versions³. JHS Pedals sells an internal true bypass modification for the Whammy reissue for players who want the older bypass upgraded¹⁸.

What reviewers said

Reviewers have been consistently positive about the modern versions. Premier Guitar on the fifth generation found a perceptible improvement in the smoothness of the pitch bending, with no hiccups anywhere in the sweep and slick, very precise tracking on low notes¹. Guitar World's review of the same pedal called it "undeniably DigiTech's best Whammy pedal ever"¹⁹. MusicRadar's verdict was blunt:

Premier Guitar on the Whammy DT found it "extremely flexible and easy to use" from a performance perspective¹⁰. Guitar.com's longer view is that "when you need a Whammy, nothing else will do the job, and the majority of guitarists reach for the real thing over any clone," while noting the practical drawbacks: the pedal is quite large and takes up a lot of pedalboard real estate, and pitch-shifting pedals can be quite complex to use, particularly with a range of effects and settings including MIDI².

Who uses it

The Whammy's user list runs from Jimmy Page to Tom Morello⁷. Jack White famously used it in "Seven Nation Army" and several other White Stripes songs, as well as his solo tunes²⁰. Matt Bellamy used a rhythmic pitch sweep trick at early Muse live shows, heard on the Absolution-era B-side "Fury"²¹. Bassist Freekbass, interviewed by DigiTech, said:

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