Digitech iStomp now only £49 and the models are free

fretmeister

In case anyone missed it in 'Drew's thread - the Digitech iStomp has had £100 knocked off the price and is now £49

And all the pedal models are now free with the exception of the 'Impossible Pedal' designed by some guitarist. So that's about 40 models.

I've already downloaded the Stomp Shop app (iOS) and grabbed all the models.

Just need the pedal itself to arrive now.

guitargeek62

I had a listen to the app demos and didn't find much on there that grabbed me. Might be worth it for modulations as I rarely use them, but I was struggling to justify it even for £49! I'll have another listen later through some better speakers.

Shark_Eyes

It sounded like a great deal until I realised you can only use it with apple products. Ah well.

hugbot

I did some research to try and find out what might spur such an obvious panic move and found this on another forum:

In a nut shell, the DigiTech iStomp pedal will only work on iPad, iPhone and iPodTouch running iOS higher than 4.3 but not higher than iOS 6. Also, it will not work with any iPhone or iPad using a Lightning connector at all. This makes it useless for most users. Digitech has been aware of this issue since at least February 28, 2013 yet allows retailers to continue to advertise the product as fully compatible with " iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad running iOS 4.3 or later". When costumers buy this product and experience issues with it they are fed a string of informationless emails from a service department that doesn't even seem to be reading the emails as they come in. They also allow the Stomp Shop app to be to be posted on the Apple iTunes and App Store with a description claiming that the product "is optimized for iPhone 5." While I can understand that fast evolving tech can cause compatibility issue, there is no excuse for DigiTech to not issue any warning about known problems with this product.

not_the_dj

/\ oh dear

fretmeister

The Lightning connector stuff is out of date - it was patched a little while ago.

handsomerik

Seems like a crappy idea. You can only load one pedal at a time and it takes about 3 mins to install a new pedal sound. The similar zoom ms-50g is only £69. It has over 150 models already installed of which 6 can be used at once. It also has a built in tuner. WAY WAY better value and functionality. This istomp seems like a novelty idea that in reality is a nuisance and time consuming. Not to mention it isn't Bluetooth compatible and needs a cable to install new pedals. That'd be great in the middle of a gig. I have the Zoom ms-50g and the zoom ms-70cdr. Both amazing value and great to use live.

fretmeister

Got mine. It's great fun. The Gonkulator pedal is as mad as I remember it, and the octave pedals track way better than the originals they are modelled on.

dindude

Always thought these were a pretty good idea if they made it that you could store, say three effects, then cycle between them, rather than one at a time.

At £49 though, don't blame fretmeister for giving it a go.

octatonic

Price drop probably means they are dumping current stock in anticipation of a new model, I guess with lightening connector.

Maybe faster?

Maybe wifi/bluetooth?

More models in the box?

Drew_TNBD

I doubt Digitech will be doing any more iPad/iPhone gear. Apple really fucked them over with the OS updates and the connector changes, to the point where they took a lot of shit from The Gear Page people over their iPB-10 pedalboard unit. Wouldn't be surprised if they pulled out completely on that front, and focused on their own hardware again.

ChrisMusic

It's not just the Digitech vs Apple issue, it seriously undermines customer confidence in the whole concept, where you are relying on two tech companies to play the game nicely.

Apple really are turning into the new bad boys on the block, and thats coming from an Apple evangelist.  It is making me ask longer term questions about how to use and rely on kit, and I suspect many others will be too.  Wake up Apple and listen, you are only as good as your customers.  They nearly lost it all in the late nineties, and things do have a habit of coming in cycles.  Provide innovation and flexibility, support it, and be nice to the world.

downbytheriver

Shopped around, got one for £39... arrives tomorrow - fortunately already have the 30 pin to lightning adaptor... probably rubbish but hey ho

guitarcookie1

downbytheriver;78759" said:

Shopped around, got one for £39... arrives tomorrow - fortunately already have the 30 pin to lightning adaptor... probably rubbish but hey ho

Don't you need a lightening to 30 pin adapter (does this even exist)?

digitalscream

hugbot said:

I did some research to try and find out what might spur such an obvious panic move and found this on another forum:

In a nut shell, the DigiTech iStomp pedal will only work on iPad, iPhone and iPodTouch running iOS higher than 4.3 but not higher than iOS 6. Also, it will not work with any iPhone or iPad using a Lightning connector at all. This makes it useless for most users. Digitech has been aware of this issue since at least February 28, 2013 yet allows retailers to continue to advertise the product as fully compatible with " iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad running iOS 4.3 or later". When costumers buy this product and experience issues with it they are fed a string of informationless emails from a service department that doesn't even seem to be reading the emails as they come in. They also allow the Stomp Shop app to be to be posted on the Apple iTunes and App Store with a description claiming that the product "is optimized for iPhone 5." While I can understand that fast evolving tech can cause compatibility issue, there is no excuse for DigiTech to not issue any warning about known problems with this product.

So...in a nutshell, everything that people predicted when this stuff (and things like the Gibson F*X etc) has come to pass, albeit in a rather condensed timescale.

There aren't many guitar gear companies who are really set up to support their products in conjunction with rapidly-changing technology over more than about a year. Even the ones who are in the tech world struggle with it (Avid, I'm looking at you).

Drew_TNBD

ChrisMusic said:

It's not just the Digitech vs Apple issue, it seriously undermines customer confidence in the whole concept, where you are relying on two tech companies to play the game nicely.

Apple really are turning into the new bad boys on the block, and thats coming from an Apple evangelist.  It is making me ask longer term questions about how to use and rely on kit, and I suspect many others will be too.  Wake up Apple and listen, you are only as good as your customers.  They nearly lost it all in the late nineties, and things do have a habit of coming in cycles.  Provide innovation and flexibility, support it, and be nice to the world.

You wanna see what they're doing in the world of AudioUnits mate. It's all going tits up.

digitalscream

Drew_fx said:

You wanna see what they're doing in the world of AudioUnits mate. It's all going tits up.

It's really a consequence of the entire Apple approach, which is best summarised as "You'll do things our way or not at all, because we know best. When we introduce breaking changes, it's also because we know best and you should forget the way we knew best last week."

They rely far too much on their rabid customer base, and the tolerance of all their other customers for the requirement to constantly pay for upgraded versions of third party software whenever a point release of their operating system comes out, or you want to upgrade your phone to fix the bugs that were there.

It ain't gonna last forever.

the_twin

The only real reason for the Apple connection was so Digitech could sell the e pedals through iTunes. Since they're now all free, they should come up with a Windows or Android app and a USB cable to connect to the iStomp.

BTW some of the modulation effects are very good, perhaps because the DSP chip is only doing one thing at a time. The demo sound you get on your phone bears no relation to reality.

fretmeister

digitalscream said:

hugbot said:

I did some research to try and find out what might spur such an obvious panic move and found this on another forum:

In a nut shell, the DigiTech iStomp pedal will only work on iPad, iPhone and iPodTouch running iOS higher than 4.3 but not higher than iOS 6. Also, it will not work with any iPhone or iPad using a Lightning connector at all. This makes it useless for most users. Digitech has been aware of this issue since at least February 28, 2013 yet allows retailers to continue to advertise the product as fully compatible with " iPod touch, iPhone, and iPad running iOS 4.3 or later". When costumers buy this product and experience issues with it they are fed a string of informationless emails from a service department that doesn't even seem to be reading the emails as they come in. They also allow the Stomp Shop app to be to be posted on the Apple iTunes and App Store with a description claiming that the product "is optimized for iPhone 5." While I can understand that fast evolving tech can cause compatibility issue, there is no excuse for DigiTech to not issue any warning about known problems with this product.

So...in a nutshell, everything that people predicted when this stuff (and things like the Gibson F*X etc) has come to pass, albeit in a rather condensed timescale.

There aren't many guitar gear companies who are really set up to support their products in conjunction with rapidly-changing technology over more than about a year. Even the ones who are in the tech world struggle with it (Avid, I'm looking at you).

And all of those things have been fixed for the iStomp.

no doubt it is end of line, but the mods and verbs are stunning. And there is an awsome octave fuzz too.

guitarcookie1

.

digitalscream

fretmeister said:

And all of those things have been fixed for the iStomp.

But for how long? The next iOS release? The one after that?

The argument still stands, unfortunately - once Digitech have determined that it's no longer economically viable to fix the bits that Apple breaks with every release, you'll have to keep a £500 iDevice locked in place and never update it again just to make its main selling point work.

I'm not having a go at Digitech (although their choice of partners leaves a lot to be desired) - it's Apple's business model at fault here, and the iStomp is going to be a repeat casualty until Digitech give up.