Digitech Trio Plus Review

Overview

For many solo performers and guitarists out there, a looper pedal is one of the greatest tools when it comes to whipping up complex and full-sounding tracks with only a single guitar. They allow you to record a track, which you can then loop and play or solo over, or continue to layer multiple recordings over each other to make it sound like you're playing with an entire band.

Looper pedals have since gotten a boost in popularity because of jaw-dropping solo performances of artists like Ed Sheeran, FKJ, and Tom Misch showing off the full capabilities and potential of a loop pedal. If you want to be a one-man-band and have the will to practice and perfect the techniques involved, a looper is a great tool to take your performances to the next level.

DigiTech has produced some of the most popular digital effects pedals, some of which even match high-end analog effects. With the TRIOplus (stylized as TRIO+), guitarists and musicians will now be able to maximize their creativity and musicality with an excellent looping device with an integrated band creator feature.

With the analog look and more intuitive layout in the TRIO plus, DigiTech has created a contender to their bestseller and most popular guitar loop pedal used by many professional artists, the JamMan. It is also a step up from its previous iteration, the DigiTech TRIO Band Creator, which has no looper features. If you're interested in an advanced looper with a digital band, keep reading this DigiTech TRIO plus review.

Should You Get It?

If you want to get into solo performances with looping, the DigiTech TRIOplus is a great guitar pedal. It has a band creator feature that lets you add bass and drum tracks to your loops, or simply use them as a backing track to jam with. Getting used to the looper may take some time if you haven't used one before, but the effort you put into it will reward you with the ability to stun your audience the next time you perform.

If you are currently using the TRIO band creator, upgrading to the TRIO plus is a great idea for its looping capabilities. This way, you can have virtual bass and drums and a looper in one pedal - something that the previous DigiTech TRIO does not feature. This lets you save space on your pedalboard and even allows you to go on solo performances with only the TRIO plus in hand.

Features

The DigiTech TRIOplus can be overwhelming for beginners; but after some time practicing with it and getting the timing of the looper down, it is a powerful device that will transform your solo performances from great to jaw-dropping. As you start using the pedal and figuring out how to incorporate the parameters and settings into your playing, you'll realize that the seemingly confusing knobs are very practical and necessary. Not to mention that it looks way more user-friendly than the more popular DigiTech JamMan.

The pedal has a virtual band creator that allows you to select from 12 different genres including Blues, R&B, Rock, Alternative Rock, Metal, Pop, e-Pop, Hip-Hop, Country, Folk, Latin, and Jazz. This is an upgrade from the previous TRIO which had fewer genres. This is a very useful parameter for setting the vibe and tone of the drum machine and bass line to fit your songs. They can be changed anytime, regardless of whether you have a loop stored already or not. It also has 12 styles to choose from that tries to fit the band tracks to the loops stored and the genre selected. The LED indicators can even indicate whether or not the loop tracks and band tracks have the same feel and tempo.

The pedal can also be set to have 5 song parts as opposed to the 3 song parts allowed by the older TRIO version. This allows you to add changes to the chord progression in your song without hassle. The tempo can also be set very easily with its dedicated knob. It features FX loop Send and Return ports and separate amplifier, mixer, and headphones outputs. The control jack allows you to connect an external footswitch in case you need it. It also has a USB port and micro SD card port to store loops. As the cherry on top, the pedal features smooth knobs that are satisfying to turn all on a very durable tank of an encasing. Loaded with all the features you could ever want from a single pedal, this is a major upgrade from the previous DigiTech TRIO Band Creator pedal.

Controls

The DigiTech TRIOplus features a total of 6 control knobs for Tempo, Genre, Style, Loop, Bass, and Drums. These knobs allow you to change up the feel and vibe of the virtual band and your loops. They may be overwhelming to look at, but taking some time with the manual and experimenting with the pedal will help you ease up to it in no time.

The Tempo button sets the general rhythm or tempo of the song, Genre lets you select from 12 different choices, and Style allows you to try out the different virtual band tracks for a better fit to your loops. Below these are level control knobs for the loops or overdubs, drum, and bass tracks. You can even set up a simpler bass track with the Simple Bass button, a feature that the older TRIO does not have.

There are also buttons on the very top of the pedal. You can use the Sequence button to customize the different parts of the song and the numbered part buttons allow you to select one of them. You can also add some various effects with the Guitar FX button, or even change up your tempo by double or half your setting using the Alt Time button.

The left footswitch allows for the recording of loops and the right footswitch allows you to start and stop the band, as well as other features such as loop playback and clearing. Like I mentioned, mastering the TRIOplus will take some time with all these controls and functions - it took me about 2 weeks to use this smoothly and I haven't even maximized its potential. However, putting in the time and patience to learn the TRIOplus will be very worth it especially for solo performers. Using the TRIO Band Creator guitar pedal may also come in handy and save you some time as the virtual band controls are very similar.

Sounds

The TRIOplus does not offer much sound alteration due to it being more of a jamming-style device like the DigiTech TRIO. However, it provides some decent effects using the Guitar FX button, which is still inferior to using other dedicated effects pedals. Its features, however, allow artists to come up with intricate and complex musical pieces. It can allow for some very experimental sounding jam tracks, or full-sounding performances to stun your audience. You may take your time to fully explore and maximize the sounds you can come up with using the DigiTech to make some fantastic sounding tracks and rest assured the loops maintain the same quality of sound for a series of high-fidelity overdubs.

For a demonstration of the DigiTech TRIOplus, you may refer to this video:

Before purchasing any guitar effects, it is always worthwhile to check out some of the online reviews of the users of the product under consideration. This will let you get the feel, whether this pedal will fulfill the requirements you had in mind and is fit for the intended purpose. Let us have a look at some of the select reviews for Digitech Trio+.

The review writer is an acoustic guitar player and a singer, who purchased Digitech Trio + as his first ever looper pedal. He expects to create more complex songs with the band creator and his practice sessions to be more productive.

In this fairly detailed review of Trio Plus, the user has aimed to list down his likes / dislikes about the pedal and useful suggestions for others. Some of the major positive factors are - Suitable for live work, guitar and bass / drums signals can be routed together or separately, SD card editing software while the negative ones include - availability of digital tempo display, limited suggested styles and price.

This reviewer is a songwriter, who finds features like backing band and drums with bass, choice among twelve genres and twelve styles, ability to record parts of the song have substantially enhanced his ability to craft songs.