Emando settings for ancient Digitech RP 200

Years ago, I bought a Digitech RP 200 multi FX pedal to try out with an electric violin. It sounded like caca with a piezo pick up. Later, I started using my iPhone for pedal effects after I bought a solid-body four string Mandostrat. But I just dug out my ancient Digitech out on a whim, in order to try it out. A lot of the effects are cheesy but the pedal lets you save settings for personal adjustments to individual effects - after dialing them on/off or up/down. Does anyone have recommendations for the kind of effects settings on a multi-option digital effects pedal that would work well for the mandolin's pitch and voicing? Here are some sounds I might want to use: western swing (as in Tiny Moore), 70s era classic rock (Eagles, Allman Bros, Pink Floyd), and electric blues (e.g., Albert King or BB King). Someone has asked a similar question recently, but I am posting this as a new question because the answers to that question were based on a shared vocabulary that I lacked, so it was like reading a foreign language. I really have no idea what these various effects options mean. I am an acoustic instrument guy with no background in playing electric guitar... (notwithstaning my purchase of a mini Les Paul on another whim to try to string it lke a mando).

Hello John,

I used to have the Digitech RP80, little brother to your device, for years. Not quite as flexible but I imagine the sounds are pretty similar.

It would help to know what you are using for amplification-are you going through an electric guitar amp, acoustic amp, PA, headphones, etc.?

I did find a link to a PDF of the manual, it does a good job of explaining what is going on at each stage of the unit: https://www.americanmusical.com/item...200_manual.pdf

Knowing what you're playing through will help narrow down suggestions as far as settings go, otherwise I can probably only make very general recommendations.

Best of luck!

Thanks for responding - my amp is a Pignose transistor amp. It might be a reissue but it is the same in size and appearance as the original Pignose.

OK that helps, thank you! Individual settings are going to require some tweaking to taste on your end, but some broad recommendations (referencing the manual here)I would make are:
Slight compression-set the time to fast (probably) with a low ratio, output gain to taste. This will help even out volume differences between your high and low strings.

Clean sounds-I would try the "BLKFAC" "BOUTIQ" or "TWEED" for starters. No cabinet emulation.
70s classic rock-Try the "STACK" setting for starters. No cab emulation.
Electric blues-Try maybe the "HOTROD" or "CLEAN1" settings? This I'm less sure about. no cab emulation.

EQ-Bass probably won't do much, I might even turn it down. Mids and treble are going to have to be a trial and error thing, probably a lot of mids for the clean and classic rock sounds though.

Effects-some tremolo for your clean sounds could be cool, if you are into that, same goes for chorus. Otherwise I would probably skip this section.

Delay-for your clean sounds I would try the "ANLG" setting on a lower number, with the time set pretty short. For your 70s rock tones I would use the same setting with a higher number and a longer time.

Reverb-"SPRING" for your clean tones would probably be nice, especially with some tremolo from earlier. For your more distorted tones I would lean towards the "HALL" setting. I would pretty much always at least have "STUDIO" on when I had the RP80 to keep things from sounding too sterile.

Hopefully this helps get you started! Honestly the best thing is just to play with it, but from what I remember of the RP80 I'm hopeful this will get you going. I would get familiar with the manual too, I leaned on it a lot when I had mine as the RP80 only had a 2 digit LCD screen, so there were a lot of codes to memorize!

Thanks - I wasn't sure which effects to focus on tweaking first. This is very helpful.

I have a Digitech RP250 which I assume is fairly similar to your RP200. I like it even though I’m sure the newer ones are better. I play an EM200 through the 250 into a Peavy Classic 20 and I’m not really getting the classic Tiny Moore sound, but it works well for some other styles. I generally tweek a few of the preprogrammed settings and save them out as one of the 60 custom settings as needed. On the RP250 I start with MrClean, CoolCH, and Acoustic. I then add effects from there but most of the time I like those three.