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Digitech The Drop update: perfectly OK

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:00 am
by NickS
My hardly-used Digitech The Drop transposing pedal went faulty when I switched it on last night. I bought it because it allows me to drop the guitar down a semi tone for all those soul covers in Eb (at the moment, only one really needs it) , do baritone or octave down. It's good enough for live. One option is octave down + dry. The trouble is that last night it started doing dry with everything. A quick search shows one or two other people complaining of the same problem. Digitech offers a one year warranty and although hardly used my pedal is 18 months old. However, I bought it from thomann.de, and it appears they do a 36 month warranty. I've emailed them...watch this space.

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:04 am
by Bacchus
I suppose it couldn't hurt to contact Digitech, too?

Posted: Sun Apr 25, 2021 1:41 pm
by NickS
Bacchus wrote:I suppose it couldn't hurt to contact Digitech, too?
I filled in their contact form but as the digitech.com website's approach on the 1 year warranty is "Approach the retailer first" I'm not expecting a lot. In fact I asked them whether a repair was economically viable.

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:46 pm
by dots
do they offer any way to refresh the firmware or flash it back to factor defaults? if there's not a way to backup your presets, i could understand any hesitation to take that step.

Posted: Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:30 pm
by NickS
dots wrote:do they offer any way to refresh the firmware or flash it back to factor defaults? if there's not a way to backup your presets, i could understand any hesitation to take that step.
No, there's no USB or owt like that as far as I can see.

However, Thomann have asked me to send a video demonstrating the problem.
Digitech haven't responded.

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:19 am
by NickS
While setting up to record the video I discovered that the pedal is not faulty. The un-shifted tone was being picked up acoustically by the vocal microphone and when I turned the mic channel down on the mixer the "problem" went away. :oops: :oops:

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:29 am
by Thom
:lol: at least it’s resolved!

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:31 am
by BearBoy
Ah **happy**

Was watching this thread with interest as I have a Drop and wondered whether there was a common issue with it. I don't generally play too loudly these days and so can often hear the original note coming acoustically from my strings, which can be a bit distracting tbh.

At least you've invented a new harmoniser pedal?

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 12:22 pm
by plopswagon
Wasn’t that kinda what Freddy was saying in the chat just without applying it to the current situation?

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 1:51 pm
by Freddy V-C
The implication is clear: I am a genius.

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:00 pm
by plopswagon
[youtube][/youtube]

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:19 pm
by NickS
Freddy V-C wrote:The implication is clear: I am a genius.
That goes without saying, but I thought Freddy was asking whether I was hearing the strings directly, as that was the issue that he felt would put him off using a pitch shifter; that even in his quiet pieces he's still hitting the strings hard enough to hear significant direct sound; while I was sure that both tones were coming out of the speaker, which they were. So yes, I was hearing the direct sound.... but indirectly!

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 5:57 pm
by plopswagon
the mic could hear it better than your ears

Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:42 pm
by NickS
Eh?

Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:37 pm
by NickS
I got a reply back from Digitech's UK service agents Sound Technology of Letchworth:
Hi Nick,
Unfortunately, it is considered uneconomical to repair by Digitech, and as such no parts are available for it.
Kind regards,
Alastair
So it looks as though they do not do component-level repair in the UK.

Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:09 am
by ekwatts
NickS wrote:I got a reply back from Digitech's UK service agents Sound Technology of Letchworth:
Hi Nick,
Unfortunately, it is considered uneconomical to repair by Digitech, and as such no parts are available for it.
Kind regards,
Alastair
So it looks as though they do not do component-level repair in the UK.
Is that genuinely all you got back from them?

No recommendation for alternatives?