OWEN O'MALLEY: Welcome back! [IN A SINGING TONE] Welcome back to Gearwire.Com and our look at the Digitech EX-7 Expression Factory. I'm Owen O'Malley and this is the third and final video in our series examining this little pedal here. The final three modes are the subject of this video. They cover the modulation effects of this pedal. We've already looked at the two wah effects and the two Digitech effects, the XP-300 Space Station Synth Swell and the Digitech Whammy Pedal Effect. These last three modes are the UniVibe, originally made by Unicord then by Dunlop, also a Leslie rotating speaker emulator that emulates specifically the 147 model, and then finally the ADA Flanger, which was one of the first widely used flanger stompboxes. Let's hook it up.

So the first in this last series of models in bank 5 is the UniVibe, originally made by a company called Unicord then remade by Dunlop as the UniVibe and they basically incorporated it into the RotoVibe, so really this sort of pedal version most closely resembles the Dunlop Rotovibe. Let's just turn it on here.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE UNIVIBE SETTING]

Now in this mode the expression pedal controls the speed of the modulation, so if we want to control the intensity, we use the middle tip here, so we'll turn it up a little bit.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE UNIVIBE SETTING]

Now we got a much deeper sound. The third tip just controls the output volume...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE UNIVIBE SETTING]

...and this first control here switches between the chorus mode and the vibrato mode. As you remember from the Rotovibe, it basically has a chorus mode and a vibrato mode. So [OWEN O'MALLEY STRUMS A CHORD] right now we're in the chorus mode. We switch over to here [OWEN O'MALLEY STRUMS A CHORD], now we're just in the simple, single-note vibrato mode.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE UNIVIBE SETTING]

There's a weird kind of ghost sub-octave note going on in there in that model but anyway let's move on to the next model. This is the Leslie rotating speaker, so this is a pretty legitimate Leslie emulation. Let's just give it a listen here.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE LESLIE SETTING]

Now the controls in this module are as follows: Channel 3 is our output volume again or, you know, tip 3. Control tip 2 controls the minimum speed, so if we bring this down all the way...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE LESLIE SETTING]

...so it's basically controlling the range of the expression pedal which controls the speed. The first tip here is the overdrive.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE LESLIE SETTING]

Okay. So if we have it all the way down, it's almost like a preamp overdrive. If we have it all the way down, [OWEN O'MALLEY STRUMS A CHORD] it's a cleaner effect. If we pump it up [OWEN O'MALLEY STRUMS A CHORD], you really start to get that Hammond B3 overdrive type sound.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE LESLIE SETTING]

So that last model here is the ADA Flanger, one of the first popular flanger stompbox effects. The controls for this last section are as follows: Control 1 is the range of the sweep, the flanger sweep.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING]

Tip 2 is the speed of the effect.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING]

Tip 3 is called enhance, which basically controls the sort of flanger feedback tone...

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING]

...which is that jet-like sound that you hear, and what this expression pedal does is manually controls the sweep of the flanger. You can't really tell when it's in one place. Well here, I'll play it for you and you'll see.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING]

So it kind of controls the range of the sweep cycle but it kind of does this weird little sort of nudges the cycle when you move the expression pedal.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING]

I don't know what you'll use it for but it's something. Now, the distortion model that's built into this is the Boss DS-1, the pedal that started it all for Boss Distortion. Let's listen to that.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING THE ADA FLANGER SETTING WITH DISTORTION]

Very, very '80s sounding effect. Now, when you're in mode 7 and the effect is bypassed, the expression pedal acts as a volume swell.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING IT AS A VOLUME SWELL PEDAL]

There's your volume swell.

[OWEN O'MALLEY PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH A DIGITECH EX-7 EXPRESSION FACTORY USING IT AS A VOLUME SWELL PEDAL]

It only does that when you're in model 7, which is the ADA Flanger mode.

There you go. That completes our comprehensive three-act examination of the Digitech EX-7 Expression Factory. Seven classic effects in one pedal! Costs $200 from most retailers. It's not a bad deal, pretty hard-to-find effects too. Have you ever seen an XP-300 Space Station Synth Swell? Space Station Synth Swell? Space Station Synth Swell? Neither have I. I'm Owen O'Malley. You've been watching Gearwire.Com. See you later.