Digitech GSP 2101
Review ©2001 Alex GRANVAUD

0 - Introduction - Presentation

Most of the information contained in this document was taken from various GSP users’ sites. Please consult these sites’ URLs in the links section.

The Digitech GSP 2101 was first released in 1994 and created the sensation : It is a 2 units rack module with a Guitar Tube Preamp and a true stereo multi-effects ! The look is very professional and the user interface quite simple.

1 - First touch

The first time I heard a gsp 2101, I was at a local retailer’s shop and a guy who had just bought it couldn’t manage to use it (he was about 50 years old). After that the retailer began to play with it and the first sound really blowed me ! It was, I knew this months later, the patch called « Dry Saturated Tube ». The distortion was really loud for me ! Then he turned a little the round pot and came on the patch called « String Volume Swell » : An impressive synth sound emulation ! But when I asked for the price I’ve been very disapointed and couldn’t buy it… Some months after, I finally bought an used GSP 2101 LE (for Limited Edition) at about $1000.

2 - The POWER : its internal structure

Back to home, I rapidly found the factory presets boring and decided to create some patches. Then I discovered the real power of the GSP : the user algorithms !

The GSP 2101 works like a multi-pedal simulator : It’s like if you had many fx-pedals and many connectors and you can connect what you want with other pedals in any order ! You can even route the output of a pedal to its input and make very impressive effects !
The pedal linking and ordering is called an Algorithm. There are about 30 factory algorithms preset and you can, depending on your gsp’s version and on the complexity of your algorithms, create from 15 to 40 user algorithms.
The settings of each individual pedal is called a patch : different patches can uses the same algorithm or different algorithms.
The process of user-algorithm creation is not very simple : you have to first choose the different effects (like pedals) composing your algorithm, then make links between them. This second thing is the most hard, due to a non-graphical display of the routing : You just say « pedal A output is linked with pedal F second input »…
I would recommend to first put your algorithm idea on paper, then start to enter the data. Then comes the more funny stuff, the patch creation.

3 - Sounding !

The patch creation is quite simple : you scroll between the different effects parameters and modify them, hearing the result. A lot of different effects are available (about 100) : you have delays, choruses, pitch shifters, flangers, phasers, silencers, nois gates, ducker, wahwah, eq, whammy! , mixers, samplers !, reverbs, tremolos and auto-panners. For each type of effect, a lot a version is provided : mono or stereo effects, from low to high quality reverbs, from 200ms to 5 sec delays !, simple or dual pictshifters or choruses or flangers…
The preamp section is also interesting : you have 3 solid state distortions and 3 tube distortion. I would recommend the « Clean Tube » distortion for clean sounds. The « Grunge » distortion has an extremly high gain for those, like me, who have never enough.
The sound of the preamp section doesn’t compare to a mesa or a pod but is quite good for most styles and guitars.
The digital section (effects) is excellent and can be used without the preamp, in studio or with another preamp. Many GSP users still use it with a POP preamp section combined with the digital section of the GSP.

4 - GSP 2101 Versions

There are 3 major versions :

• The original (version 1.xx) : the basic unit.
• The Limited Edition (comes from 1995, version 2.xx) : different color on the front panel and fitted with the PPC-210 extension card.
• The Artist (from 1996, version 2.06 to 3.xx) : doesn’t have the ppc-210 extension but new effects and artist factory patches.