Digitech TRIOPLUS Band Creator and Looper

When the DigiTech TRIO was unveiled at Winter NAMM 2015, I was about as skeptical as possible. While the concept behind the pedal appealed to me, I just didn't believe there was any chance it would be any good). It took months of researching the pedal and reading amateur reviews from other people online to recognize that the TRIO is actually an amazing product. Yes, it is overly ambitious, and yes, it does have flaws. But the takeaway from my early experience with the pedal is that DigiTech put an amazing amount of thought into how their customers would actually use the pedal, and the end result is a terrific practice aid for jamming at home and simply learning to play better guitar.The interesting thing about reviewing the TRIO is that there is a kernel of truth to many of the "bad" reviews you find on this site and others. The basic function of the TRIO is to "learn" a bass line and drum beat simply by playing the simple chord progression of a song (or, more accurately, one part of a song). The process isn't always perfect. The TRIO will create a loop based on the progression you train it with, but the timing and some of the bass notes will invariably be off a bit. I think some of the bad reviews really expected the TRIO to understand what you are trying to do and to nail the perfect accompaniment for your guitar part every time. If that's your expectation for this device, then yes, you may be disappointed.But the reason the TRIO works for me is that DigiTech gives you a large amount of flexibility to tweak the band accompaniment parts AFTER you play your training phrase. You can select from a number of musical genres (rock, alt rock, pop, country, etc.). Each of those can be tweaked further using a style selector knob with about 12 different options. There is even an alternative time button to double or half the timing based on the same beats per minute. It's very true that TRIO comes up with bass/drum parts that don't quite fit your idea. It's also true that with all of these different style options, you're almost certain to find something very close to what you intended, or something that works anyway.The flexibility of this pedal extends to the output choices you have for playing the bass/drum backing track. You can run a single instrument cable into a single guitar amp. Or, you can run a TS (unbalanced) cable into a mixer or studio monitor so that you have a separate speaker playing the band part along with the guitar output going to your guitar amp. Big credit to DigiTech for providing volume knobs for the bass and drum tracks separately.There is even a third option, which allows you to monitor using a headphone jack on top of the device, and hear the bass/drum track along with your guitar playing all through your headphones! The Guitar FX button on the top left engages a preamp and cabinet simulation so that you get a genre-appropriate guitar tone without having an actual amp anywhere in the signal chain. For example, "Rock" setting will give you a distorted tone through a large cabinet, while "Country" gives you a cleaner, jangly tone with some slapback echo. The tones aren't elite quality, but it's addition nonetheless, which allows the TRIO to be an all-in-one practice tool. (There is even a headphone volume knob, which can be used in conjunction with the Bass and Drums knobs to control the levels of all three instruments through headphones).Oh, and the implementation of the tempo knob is brilliant. The "1x" tempo is based on how fast you play the learning phrase. But if the resulting product is too fast or two slow, you can easily adjust with the Tempo knob, and tracks will loop at that new speed.I've read some people describe the TRIO as a "glorified metronome". The truth is probably somewhere between that description and DigiTech's own claim of "Band in a Box". The one feature missing that surprised me a bit was that the TRIO does not include a looper for your guitar parts. In fact, it has no memory storage options beyond the three song parts that you program at that time. But now that I have owned and played around with the TRIO a bit, there might have been the issue of just "too much going on" if they tried to jam a looper into this device, also. It should be possible to run the guitar output into a separate looper pedal, and then you would have a rhythm guitar part to go with the bass and drums, but I have not tried this yet.All in all, this was an extremely ambitious project that DigiTech put a lot of love and detail into - for the most part, I think they got it right. It will be interesting to see if they continue to improve on the pedal with firmware updates through the mini-USB port.

Rather than go through every feature, I’ll just list what I really like/dislike about it, or what other might find useful to know. If you want a detailed explanation, watch some YouTube videos. Nothing beats seeing and hearing it working. 1. It sounds great. I’m not going to record with it, but it’s sounds convincing enough for live work. 2. I like that the guitar and bass/drums signals can be routed together, or separately. This makes it versatile enough for any playing environment. 3. After playing a chord progression (training it), it can be very limited in ‘suggested’ styles. That’s alright, though. The suggested styles are always really good. 4. Even though the firmware doesn’t have any updates yet, I suggest downloading the update software package. It contains an updated manual, with features that aren’t in the manual that comes with it. 5. The SD card editing software is very useful. I just wish that it allowed for more detailed song editing. I hope that they include more features in future versions. 6. I really, really wish that it had a digital tempo display. Without sitting and counting it out, you never know what tempo you’re at. It’s also hard to return to an exact tempo, if you move it around. It’s too late to add it on this version, but I hope that future versions will have it. 7. Buy the footswtich for it! It will allow you to place the unit where you can easily adjust the knobs, but also control it with your foot. It also has one more switch, adding extra control. —- Despite my few minor gripes about it, I’m happy with it and I highly recommend it. It’s a bit pricey, but you do get a lot of features and it sounds great! It can be used for practice, capturing song ideas and playing live. It’s definitely not a toy or gimmick. It’s a powerful tool and you won’t get bored with it. Rock on!

I love this thing. It is not perfect, but for a lone, home player like me, it is way better than regular looper; it makes playing much more interesting/fun, changing tempo and feel on the fly. I also own the regular, cheaper trio. The trio+ is a HUGE improvement--tunes are saved to sd card; can switch genres within a single song; 3 possible bass lines for whatever is currently playing (via simple button push); can program the sequence of song parts. On the sequence, each song has a max of 5 parts, but sequencing can repeat parts. So say i have a three part song, A B C. It can be sequenced in any order, with repeats, for example, A A A B A C C B A. Next, Having the looper function as part of the trio+ is the only way to effectively integrate overdubs. I tried using the regular trio with a seperate looper, but it proved impossible to get the parts perfectly synchronized. The cheaper trio can't do any of what i just listed.My biggest complaint about the cheaper trio is the inability to save songs. It can sometmes take an hour or more to teach trio a song and have it interpret as i want. Not being able to save that work when moving to a new song is what motivated me to buy the expensive trio+.What I don't like on trio+:--The timbre of drums is inferior compared to the cheaper trio. On the trio+, they much more digital and sterile, more casio-toy-like.--on the trio+, the style selector knob's detentes do not exacly match the led and actual selection of a style. Thus, very often, I turn the knob and miss the selection i am looking for, as the actual selection jumps/skips. This is especially annoying when making a selection on the fly, while "jamming". I suspect this might be a quality control issue and specific to the unit i have.--i wish i could switch songs on the fly, without latency. Parts within a song switch instantly, on the beat, without latency. However, switching songs requires stopping the play to load the new song. The switch of songs takes about 2 seconds. This makes medleys impossible--cannot connect one song to the next.All in all, the trio+ is great fun and reinvigorated my playing. Even with a couple of flaws, i love it. It is far superior to the regular trio, but it is also way more expensive.