Digitech Grunge – Teenage Dreams and Distorted Realities

I’ve been on a bit of a nostalgia kick lately with the old Digitech pedals — it all started when I plugged in the Screamin’ Blues. I’ve covered the Bad Monkey before (I was a fan before the wild frenzy our Josh Scott whipped up), but I’ve always had a soft spot for this entire series. They might have been marketed as budget-friendly stompboxes, but the two-band EQ they all share makes them far more useful than a lot of the single-tone-knob pedals they were clearly inspired by.

After revisiting the Screamin’ Blues and then the Hot Head, I realised I was slowly rebuilding the collection I had in my younger years — and honestly, it felt great. Even though I didn’t rate the Hot Head quite as highly as the others, I still found it an improvement over the pedal that clearly inspired it. So, I decided to complete the set and track down the two I’d never properly owned: the Grunge and the Death Metal.

The Hunt for the Forgotten One

Now, I’ve never been a fan of Reverb (the site, not the effect). I know myself too well — I’ve got an addictive personality and a weakness for a bargain — so I stick to eBay. It’s a little more of a free-for-all, but that usually means better deals if you’re patient.

I started my search not long after uploading my last video, with some gentle encouragement from the premiere chat (you lot are a bad influence). Straight away, I noticed something odd: the Death Metal had suddenly become weirdly expensive. £60 and up, routinely. I vaguely remembered Ola Englund doing a video on it, and let’s face it — he probably has about as much sway in the metal community as Josh Scott does in the rest of the pedal world.

The Grunge, though? Totally forgotten. No hype, no inflated prices. Just sitting there, gathering digital dust, waiting for a nostalgic fool like me to come along. I found one boxed, at a good price, and pulled the trigger.

Loud, Grunge, and… Confused

The Grunge follows the same format as the rest of the Digitech budget-yet-refined-classics line — four knobs, solid enclosure, familiar layout. But instead of the usual Level, Gain, Low, and High, we’ve got Loud and Grunge. How very late-’90s.

I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of déjà vu when I saw those control names. They reminded me of the BB Blaster, one of those cheap, plasticky practice amps that haunted bedrooms everywhere back in the day. The ones with “edgy” control labels like Beef, Tweak, and Enjoy. The controls were names were a perfect metaphor for the amp itself; confusing and difficult to work, with no real payoff. Those amps littered bedrooms across the nation and were often the perfect partner to a not-quite-branded Strat copy. Those amps were probably responsible for putting more people off realising their rock and roll dreams than any other piece of musical equipment out there. Now this reminiscence might seem like an odd tangent, but dear reader let me tell you, this is what we call foreshadowing....

When I Was a Teenage Dirtbag…

I actually remember this pedal vividly from my early gig-going years. There was a local band of Nirvana-wannabes — flannel shirts, unwashed hair in their eyes, the whole lot — and their singer/guitarist had one of these lilac Digitech Grunge boxes strewn haphazardly on the stage in front of him (pedalboards weren't rock and roll, clearly - Kurt didn't have one). Back then, my ear wasn’t exactly refined; louder and angrier was better. I remember seeing him stomp on that thing and feeling like the heavens had opened.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and I plug mine in for the first time…

Well. Let’s just say nostalgia can be a liar.

Tone? What Tone?

I'm not going to sugar coat things here, this pedal sucks. It’s absolutely drenched in compression from the word go, with a wall of noise that only gets worse as you push the gain. The EQ section — normally the saving grace of this series — does its best to help, but there’s only so much it can do.

Pulling the Highs back cuts the clarity completely, leaving you with a nasal, almost transistor-radio tone. Pushing it up doesn't yield harsh, fizzy tones but it doesn't exactly fix it either. The Lows are equally unruly: dial them back, and the sound collapses into thin, cardboard mush; push them up, and you get this overblown thump that sounds like your speakers are about to file for early retirement. It is the first pedal I have demo'd that has actually pushed hard against the limiter I use. I have it in the chain exactly for this reason as not to experience horrible digital distortion when recording, but the bass on this almost managed that even with the limiter on. Yes, the bass control is entirely too much!

The Grunge doesn’t really have sweet spots — it has less awful spots. The other Digitech drives, like the Screamin’ Blues and Bad Monkey, feel responsive and musical. The Grunge feels like the controls are clinging on for dear life, trying (and failing) to rein in chaos.

But… I Don’t Regret It

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t regret picking it up for a second. It might be a sonic disaster, but it’s my sonic disaster. It reminds me of those early years discovering local bands, figuring out tones, and getting properly obsessed with guitar gear for the first time.

It’s not a pedal I’ll be plugging in again any time soon — unless I’m doing a demo on “how not to EQ a distortion pedal” — but it’s found a permanent place in my collection as a little nostalgic relic. A reminder of how far I’ve come since those early days of chasing noise for noise’s sake.

Sometimes a bad pedal can still be a good memory.

Final Thoughts

The Digitech Grunge might have been designed to capture the spirit of the ‘90s — loud, brash, and unapologetically messy — but it ends up more “BB Blaster practice amp” than “Bleach-era Nirvana.”

Still, for those of us who grew up during that era, it’s hard not to feel a bit sentimental about it. It’s a product of its time — and that time just happened to be one of experimentation, distortion, and questionable tone decisions.

If you find one cheap and you’re feeling nostalgic, go for it. Just don’t expect to be blown away. Unless, of course, you accidentally leave the Lows turned up too high. 

 Digitech Hot Head – Reunited with an Old Flame

I’ve been on a bit of a Digitech kick lately — probably triggered by the renewed attention Josh Scott gave the Bad Monkey a few years back. That video seemed to single-handedly pull the old Digitech drives out of obscurity, and it reminded me just how much fun those pedals were.

A couple of weeks ago, I revisited the Screamin’ Blues — a pedal that’s often described as a BD-2 with a two-band EQ. Well, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. It nails those classic Blues Driver tones and then goes even further, reaching into territory that even the Boss can’t quite manage. More than that though, it stirred up something even more powerful than great tone: nostalgia.

Back in my formative guitar years, I bought three of these Digitech pedals — the Bad Monkey, Screamin’ Blues, and one more mysterious third pedal. Over time, I convinced myself I’d outgrown them. They got shelved, forgotten and one got traded away in the endless cycle of gear acquisition. But after finishing the Screamin’ Blues demo, I realised how wrong I’d been to underestimate them. I jumped straight onto eBay to see if I could reunite the trio. A few bids later, the orange box — the Hot Head — was on its way to me.

There’s a little twist to that story, but we’ll come back to that later.

Orange Means Distortion

The Hot Head is Digitech’s orange overdrive, and let’s be honest — when we see an orange drive pedal, our minds immediately jump to one thing: the Boss DS-1. Much like green being the official colour of a mid-hump overdrive - It’s the benchmark, the reference point, the orange distortion pedal. Whether the Hot Head is based directly on the DS-1 circuit or not, I can’t say for sure, but it definitely shares some DNA. And, like the Screamin’ Blues compared to the BD-2, it also fixes a few of the shortcomings.

The DS-1 has been the first “real” pedal for countless players. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, and when you stomp on it for the first time, it makes a very noticeable difference to your tone. But by today’s standards, it’s not exactly a refined circuit. The tone control, in particular, is famously limited — turn it one way, and you get mush; turn it the other, and it’s fizzy bees in a tin can. There’s a narrow sweet spot in the middle, and that’s about it.

The Hot Head solves that problem neatly with a two-band EQ. The bass control gives you proper tonal flexibility — roll it back for a nasal, almost megaphone-like drive tone, or crank it up for thick, fuzzy bottom-end saturation. The treble control acts more like a global tone knob, but even when rolled right back, it doesn’t get overly dull or woolly. It’s a massive improvement over the single, uninspiring DS-1 tone control.

Gain for Days

The gain range on the Hot Head is excellent — from a gritty, pushed-clean edge all the way to a full, raging distortion. To be fair, the DS-1 can do this too, and it often gets unfairly dismissed as a one-trick pony. There’s actually a lot of subtlety hiding in that circuit if you take the time to explore it.

Now, I’ll be honest — when I was shooting the demo for this one, I wasn’t quite feeling it at first. I’ve never been a huge distortion guy. I tend to prefer more natural, amp-like overdrive tones. That compressed mid-range of most distortion sounds don’t quite hit the same as they did when I was a spotty teenager, plugged into a practice amp alone in my room. Hey, I call that some personal growth 😂

But when I listened back to the recording… I started to get it. There’s something really satisfying about the tone of this pedal. It’s aggressive without being brittle, and it has a lively, responsive feel that keeps it fun to play. I genuinely think the Hot Head might be one of those hidden classics forgotten to the sands of time.

A Strange Twist of Fate

Right, so about that little behind-the-scenes story I mentioned earlier.

When I first started my channel, I actually had a Hot Head. It was one of the pedals I used to keep the weekly demos flowing, but back then, Digitech pedals were completely out of favour and worth next to nothing. I ended up trading it away to fund something new — which seemed like a great idea at the time.

That old Hot Head had a distinctive little chip in the paint, just above the controls on the top-left corner. Small, barely noticeable, but quite unique in its own way.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, when I jumped on eBay to find the cheapest Hot Head I could. I threw in a few bids without thinking too much about it, and one of them won. After the listing ended, I took a closer look at the photos… and there it was. That exact same chip, in the exact same place.

Surely not?

When it arrived, I pulled it out of the box and inspected it. Now, I can’t say with absolute certainty that it’s the same pedal — but it looks identical. I’m pretty convinced I’ve been reunited with my original Hot Head after all these years. A proper full-circle moment.

Now, of course, I’m on the lookout for the rest of the series. I have no real logical reason to for this, but who doesn't like a collection, eh?

Final Thoughts

I’m not going to tell you the Hot Head is a forgotten masterpiece that deserves a place alongside a Klon or a King of Tone. But it is a solid, versatile drive pedal and a very worthy alternative to the DS-1 for anyone chasing those classic distortion tones.

If I had to rank the Digitech drives I’ve covered so far, it would probably go:

Screamin’ Blues > Bad Monkey > Hot Head.

That’s not to say the Hot Head is bad — not at all. The other two just edge it for me personally. But who knows? Maybe you’ll plug one in and find your own bit of 2000s magic inside that bright orange box.

 Digitech Screamin’ Blues – An Overlooked Late ‘90s Gem

Ain’t nothing more late-90s/early-2000s ‘tude than spelling a pedal name Screamin’ instead of Screaming.  From the name, to the whacky, cartoonish font, this thing just oozes 90's nostalgia. Today we’re diving into one of the often-overlooked pedals from exactly that era: the Digitech Screamin’ Blues.

The one I demoed recently is actually my original unit from back in the day. True to form, I picked it up at the tail end of its production run when the prices had dropped — always on the hunt for those budget bargains. At the time, I really bought into this run of Digitech pedals. Over the years I owned both the Bad Monkey and the Hot Head, and they always felt sturdier than the Behringer offerings of the time while costing less than the Boss alternatives. What I didn’t realise back then was that many of these weren’t just cheaper — in some ways, they were improvements on the circuits they were inspired by.

The secret weapon? That extra Low control.

The EQ Advantage

At a glance, the Screamin’ Blues looks like it’s ditched the traditional tone knob in favour of a simple two-band EQ. But this is where the magic lies.

The High control (in the way I see it, at least) acts much like a standard tone knob, letting you tame brightness or push it forward. The Low knob, however, is a “fatness” control that gives the pedal a ton of flexibility. Many classic circuits — including the ones these pedals were clearly based on — shave off some low end by default. That makes sense if you’re running chunky humbuckers and need to tighten up your sound for clarity, but it’s not always what you want with bright, jangly single coils.

With the Screamin’ Blues, you can dial that low end right back in, giving single-coil guitars more chunk and girth. Push it to extremes and you get a big, woofy bloom of bass, even that small-combo-speaker-struggling kind of sound if that’s your flavour. The EQ here makes the pedal far more versatile than many of the drives it was competing with at the time.

Two Runs, Subtle Differences

Here’s a fun bit of trivia: the Digitech line actually came in two distinct runs. On the surface they look identical, but there’s one key difference: weight.

The early versions feel like you’re trying to lift Mjolnir itself, while the later run is closer to the weight of a typical guitar pedal. Is there any tonal difference between the two? Hard to say without a proper A/B test — maybe that’s something I’ll do in a future video if enough people are interested. But it’s one of those quirks collectors and long-time users love to point out.

The Shadow of the Bad Monkey

Of course, we can’t talk about the Screamin’ Blues without mentioning its more famous sibling: the Bad Monkey. That pedal got a massive second life when Josh Scott of JHS Pedals did a video showing just how good it was. In that video, the Bad Monkey held its own against a whole range of drives, including — somewhat shockingly — an original Klon. The takeaway? Its powerful EQ made it ridiculously versatile.

The other pedals in the series got passing mentions, but the spotlight was firmly on the Bad Monkey. And if you’ve been paying attention to the gear market over the past decade, you’ll know what happens when Josh Scott shines a light on a forgotten pedal. Prices shoot up overnight, sometimes tenfold, and what was once a £10 bargain suddenly becomes a collector’s item.

We saw it happen with the plastic-housed Behringer pedals, we saw it with the Bad Monkey, and part of me is really hoping Josh never decides to do a feature on the Screamin’ Blues or the Hot Head. Some pedals are better left as affordable hidden gems rather than skyrocketing into “vintage collectible” territory. If he decides to, however, I may be sitting on a gold-mine...

Gone but not forgotten

The Screamin’ Blues might not have the meme-level fame of the Bad Monkey, but it has a lot going for it. With its two-band EQ, solid build, and late-‘90s charm, it’s one of those pedals that quietly punches above its weight. Whether you’re using it to add girth to single coils, tighten up humbuckers, or just push your amp into crunchy territory, it’s got more flexibility than most people give it credit for. With the recent leaks of the Badder Monkey, I'm quietly hoping to see a resurgence of this line - but for that, I guess only time will tell.

So my advice is, if you stumble across one in the wild at a decent price, grab it. Just don’t tell Josh Scott.