Sunday, November 05, 2006

Digitech JamMan



The JamMan is aptly named. Setup is intuitive and quick, and within moments of plugging my Strat into it, I was jamming along to the included rhythms and bands in various styles.

The basic functions built into this 2-pedal box are easy to figure out quickly. While some of the more technical functions like tempo and sample length changes require cracking open the manual, I found that I was able to entertain myself for a couple hours before actually needing to read anything beyond the words screen-printed on the dark blue case.



The JamMan is a lot of fun, and really beneficial. While soloing over a 12-bar blues song, I found myself wishing I'd had one of these when I was learning to solo over 20 years ago. All those hours spent simply playing scales to a metronome could have been a lot more productive and entertaining with a JamMan.

Even now as an experienced gigger and songwriter, the JamMan drew more than a few new chord progressions and licks out of me as the looping function stimulated new creativity. I started out with some basic chords, and as the loops continued I experimented with combining various voicings and guitar tones layered on top of each other. Melody lines came next, with harmonies progressively building on top.



Not only is the JamMan great for the practice studio, but I’ve seen loopers used to create entire songs in concert by various solo guitar players like Phil Keaggy. These performances are often the ones crowds talk about for days afterwards.

Whether you plan to use it in concert, my opinion is that the Digitech JamMan is a must-have for any guitar student or lead guitarist in a band. It will help make you a better player.

If you want to get one or find out more about it, give me a call at 1-800-222-4700, ext. 1233.