Digitech The Drop update: perfectly OK

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:00 am

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.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Sun Apr 25, 2021 11:04 am

I suppose it couldn't hurt to contact Digitech, too?

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Sun Apr 25, 2021 1:41 pm

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.

Post by **dots** » Mon Apr 26, 2021 4:46 pm

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.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Tue Apr 27, 2021 10:30 pm

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.

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:19 am

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.

Thom · Post by **Thom** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:29 am

at least itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s resolved!

BearBoy · Post by **BearBoy** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:31 am

Ah

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?

plopswagon · Post by **plopswagon** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 12:22 pm

WasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t that kinda what Freddy was saying in the chat just without applying it to the current situation?

Freddy V-C · Post by **Freddy V-C** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 1:51 pm

The implication is clear: I am a genius.

plopswagon · Post by **plopswagon** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 2:00 pm

[youtube][/youtube]

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 3:19 pm

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!

plopswagon · Post by **plopswagon** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 5:57 pm

the mic could hear it better than your ears

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:42 pm

NickS · Post by **NickS** » Thu Apr 29, 2021 10:37 pm

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.

ekwatts · Post by **ekwatts** » Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:09 am

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?