the first randy rhoads prototype pedal

In August 2006 while in Las Vegas, I was asked by ex Quiet Riot bass player Kelly Garni to participate in an exiting project involving DigiTech and Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist from the early 80's Randy Rhoads. At this time the DigiTech company were expanding their products in the signature series of effects pedals. They already had the Jimi Hendrix, Brian May and Eric Clapton pedals amongst others and they wanted to produce a Randy Rhoads signature series pedal.
I was asked to test the Rhoads prototype pedal.
Kelly and Kevin DuBrow put my name forward and I was asked to test the Rhoads prototype pedal.
I received the first prototype at the end of 2006. It sounded OK but I felt it had been rushed due to the January NAMM show in LA and there where several things missing from what I considered to be the ultimate Rhoads pedal. It was meant to reproduce the sound Randy had on the live Ozzy album 'Tribute'.

To me it had some of that characteristics but it needed some work. I made some notes and got back to the signature series artist relations manager at DigiTech and was asked to email the guy who was developing the pedal and tell him what I thought the pedal needed. I did so and later received the second prototype which was made without the pressure of a NAMM deadline and was absolutely amazed at what I heard.
They had TOTALLY nailed the sound Randy had on that Tribute album.
The tone, the reverb and all the nuances of that sound on the Tribute album was replicated to perfection.
Click here to hear me playing a segment of Randy's spotlight solo from the Tribute album using this second prototype.
I sent this recording to the Rhoads family hoping they could see how close the sound was to the original. I was told the Delores Rhoads didn't want to go ahead with the pedal beacause Randy didn't use DigiTech equipment. Some time later the engineer that worked on the pedal left DigiTech and they stopped production of the artist series of pedals after that. So the pedal never came to fruition which is such a shame.