NPD Digitech Trio

erky32

Haven't tried O/D, but one thing for sure is its easy as anything to confuse it!! .....which retaliates in confusing you!

I run my guitar straight into it, then split a) to effects & guitar amp, and b) to mixer suitably EQ'd for best drum sound. That config works fine, also I have the additional floor pedal FS3X. Latter is not essential but I think as me and the pedal get to know each other, it will be more versatile with the "style" options at your feet. I had an electro-acoustic rehearsal last night ready for a gig on Saturday, and so as not to make a complete pratt of myself, I'll be limiting its use to drums only. It easily picks up a straight 12 bar shuffle even by learning off one or two bars of shuffle, but I daren't risk any slow ballad/ bluz types yet, because it can conjure up the most bizzare rhythms. With that risk in mind I have put a Big Ernie Ball vol pedal in the mixer feed so I can instantly kill the drums if they go loopy!

It has worked fine, including the bass, on slow 3 chord tunes but more complex arrangements can generate some wierd bass notes so I still need to develop that category.

Like I say , its going to be a long learning curve, but I'll stick with it - even as a drum machine it is the best sounding/performing that I've ever used! .....which leads me to the commercial.....

.........anybody want to buy a KORG RHYTHM KR MINI pocket drum machine with mini speakers ....as new, boxed £40 ??

HarmanCanadaEng

entee said:

@HarmanCanadaEng - thinking of getting one of these (well my finger is poised above the BUY button actually)  Quick question; when in learn mode can the Trio learn from an overdriven guitar, or distorted at least, or is it best to play 'clean', and up the effects on playback?

Finger still poised awaiting advice 

You definitely want to keep the signal going into the Trio as clean as possible during the learn phase so you have a couple of options. If you are using both outputs, you can just put your pedals down stream from the Trio because only the guitar signal is sent to the AMP out. If you are only using one output, then downstream isn't an option unless you want those effects on the bass and drums as well! So in that case, put your pedals before the TRIO, but just turn them off when learning. Once it's playing back and you're ready to jam, you can turn them on however you'd like. Hope that helps.

HarmanCanadaEng

Here's another tip for those getting unexpected rhythms - keep in mind that the Trio has to figure out a lot of stuff (key, chords, number of bars, swing/straight/, timing, etc) from very little information. So it is critical that you give it everything you can to help. Two important pieces of information are the start and stop times. We've seen folks on videos be a bit lax about hitting the footswitch to end the loop, but that can be a very important bit of information for the Trio. You will actually get your best results if you strum the first beat of the loop again as you press the footswitch - this will give the Trio a good marker as to where you think the end should be. The more accurate you are with this, the better the result.

Also, keep in mind that as the number of bars goes up, the possibilities for where the bar boundaries are grow incredibly fast! So try to break the song up into say two 16 bar parts rather than a 32 bar part if you are having trouble.

Another tip is that the Trio wants to find bar starts, and so if you play in a syncopated style that misses down strums on the first beat, that could confuse it. 

I hope these tips help - we've noticed consistently as that users play around with teaching, they become much better at laying down the bed track on the Trio.

entee

thank you for the tips @HarmanCanadaEng - I will endeavour to remember all that 

erky32

Yes good tips @HarmanCanadaEng ....i've taken it all onboard! ...and I am realising that the timing here is just as precise as on a looper!! The biggest prob i get with timing is the learning on a slow song, it always interprets a faster tempo, maybe i'm putting too many accessory strums which are confusing the basic timing?

HarmanCanadaEng

erky32 said:

Yes good tips @HarmanCanadaEng ....i've taken it all onboard! ...and I am realising that the timing here is just as precise as on a looper!! The biggest prob i get with timing is the learning on a slow song, it always interprets a faster tempo, maybe i'm putting too many accessory strums which are confusing the basic timing?

Hmm... can you tell me the roughly the BPM that you are trying to get? I assume it's getting 2x what you want? If you hit the ALT TEMPO button do you get the tempo you were hoping for, or is it even faster?

Getting the tempo multiplier (2x or 1/2x) is actually a very difficult problem, and so when there is doubt we often lean towards tempos that are more in the common range (e.g around 100  BPM or so). Most times the ALT-TIME button fixes the problem and that's one of the main reasons we put it there.  

Of course if you are trying to get a very very slow song, say 50 BPM, you might be ending up with choices of 100 BPM and 200 BPM which is not what you want.  If that's the case, maybe try playing a bit faster and then use the tempo knob to adjust it down?

Hope this isn't too much information - we are really paying attention to how people are using the Trio in order to continue to improve the technology.

erky32

@HarmanCanadaEng ...hi, tried what you said, ...worked to a certain extent, certainly will try further, BUT, now the TRIO has crashed! After the "learn" mode it goes back into stand-by, toggle again , and it goes back to learn, but it would only go into play on one or two occasions. I tried turning it off, disconnecting , retrying repeatedly, but it wont go into play mode now. Any ideas?

HarmanCanadaEng

erky32

@HarmanCanadaEng ...contacted Digitech Support ....SORTED ...they said (maybe you??) ...."make sure i/p vol to pedal is high" , ....my fault - I'd put a vol pedal between guitar & Trio and starved it of signal. Removed it and it works fine ....all part of the new learning curve!

Thank you Digitech Support!

Also tried the "alt" again and it does the job! Thanks

hubobulous

Hi @HarmanCanadaEng

Just wondering about the future of the Trio? I was wondering if there's any chance of you altering some of the workflow so that it can work with the chords being played in real time rather than having to feed the pedal with the chord progression first? Given that the current crop of vocal harmonisers on the market can do this, (we use your Digitech Vocalist Live 4 which is excellent), I was hoping that perhaps this could make its way to the Trio?

Doing this would mean that you could change sections of a song on the fly and the Trio would follow. I guess I'm more aiming this comment at the bass guitar part of the Trio than the drums given that most of my uses wouldn't require a change in drum pattern.

Many thanks for any thoughts you might have on this.....

mardymusic

These are down to £50 most places at the moment. Seems like a good buy.
i was hoping to be able to use the amp/mixer out function with two amps as one has an aux in option. Anybody know if this would work? 

thumpingrug

mardymusic said:

These are down to £50 most places at the moment. Seems like a good buy.
i was hoping to be able to use the amp/mixer out function with two amps as one has an aux in option. Anybody know if this would work? 

Hi Dude,

I have mine set up with the Trio going into one amp with just the base and Drum sounds and I take a separate feed to my PodHD then into a second Amp.  I did this to allow me a bit more control over the overall volume.  No idea if it makes any difference but it sounds ok.  It also uses two amps so Mrs T thinks I need extra amps.

mardymusic

thumpingrug said:

mardymusic said:

These are down to £50 most places at the moment. Seems like a good buy.
i was hoping to be able to use the amp/mixer out function with two amps as one has an aux in option. Anybody know if this would work? 

Hi Dude,

I have mine set up with the Trio going into one amp with just the base and Drum sounds and I take a separate feed to my PodHD then into a second Amp.  I did this to allow me a bit more control over the overall volume.  No idea if it makes any difference but it sounds ok.  It also uses two amps so Mrs T thinks I need extra amps.

Thanks for that mate. Does that separate the guitar from bass and drums? Do you put bass and drums into the guitar input or something else? 
Just trying to get an idea if I’ll be able to use my pedals. Cheers. 

thumpingrug

mardymusic said:

thumpingrug said:

mardymusic said:

These are down to £50 most places at the moment. Seems like a good buy.
i was hoping to be able to use the amp/mixer out function with two amps as one has an aux in option. Anybody know if this would work? 

Hi Dude,

I have mine set up with the Trio going into one amp with just the base and Drum sounds and I take a separate feed to my PodHD then into a second Amp.  I did this to allow me a bit more control over the overall volume.  No idea if it makes any difference but it sounds ok.  It also uses two amps so Mrs T thinks I need extra amps.

Thanks for that mate. Does that separate the guitar from bass and drums? Do you put bass and drums into the guitar input or something else? 
Just trying to get an idea if I’ll be able to use my pedals. Cheers. 

Yes it totally separate the drum and bass from the guitar.  From memory.  Guitar goes into Trio Guitar IN.  One out (AMP) goes to the POD HD  and then into Amp 1, and the second out (Mixer) goes to Amp 2.

For me most of the FX are dealt with by the POD but I do have a Boss DD3 in the loop on the Pod

midiman1962

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

boogieman

midiman1962 said:

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

Original or Plus version? I’ve been thinking of going for a Plus to tinker around with. 

hotpickups

boogieman said:

midiman1962 said:

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

Original or Plus version? I’ve been thinking of going for a Plus to tinker around with. 

Might have to move on my Trio Plus  @boogieman. I'm in two minds about it at the moment but I can let you know first if I decide to sell?

boogieman

hotpickups said:

boogieman said:

midiman1962 said:

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

Original or Plus version? I’ve been thinking of going for a Plus to tinker around with. 

Might have to move on my Trio Plus  @boogieman. I'm in two minds about it at the moment but I can let you know first if I decide to sell?

@hotpickups sure let me know. 

midiman1962

boogieman said:

midiman1962 said:

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

Original or Plus version? I’ve been thinking of going for a Plus to tinker around with. 

Original - great bit of kit for practicing blues solos and general lead guitar stuff. I run off a 9v battery to keep wires all over the place down to a minimum

midiman1962

boogieman said:

midiman1962 said:

got one of these just before the lock down - i updated it to the latest firmware which was pretty easy - what a great tool - you can get lost for hours 

Original or Plus version? I’ve been thinking of going for a Plus to tinker around with. 

The Original Trio - still a great tool and reasonably priced 

Flip

I've owned my Trio+ for some months and found the manual difficult to interpret. The pedal is very powerful which means many options, but it would help if some basics could be explained simply. As the Canadian Harman poster advised, it works best of the sections are kept short. What I find difficult is adding intros and outros - they're typically too short to teach. The only solution appears to be to add them without teaching but that loses much of the pedal's advantages.

The other 'difficulty' I find is teaching/recording backings to songs that don't start on the beat. Any suggestions would be very welcome.

Having said all this it's far and away the best looper/fx pedal I've bought.

Added: I find that the footswitch is vital. I found a circuit online and built one which is a big saving over the list price and not difficult to do, especially if you have an old switch case lying about.