Ditto X2 Loop Issues

[mikemo6string]

There have been a few posts in the past about these issues. I thought I'd bring this up on the forum again, and see what other folks are experiencing now.

I loop my guitar/vocals, always live with no pre-records. The issues I've had with the looper are basically twofold. The unit makes pops when hitting the footswitch to loop, and occasionally freezes up completely. TC Electronics told me to upgrade the firmware, which I did, but the two issues persist. They've offered no other solutions, and the unit is two years old now.

These problems are intermittent, but make it difficult to use the unit live. I've had some success with the pop issue by hitting the footswitches a few times before using the unit, after power up. Someone had suggested this might be helpful because the voltage can build up in this pedal, and hitting the switches might bleed that voltage build up off. As for the pedal freezing up suddenly, the suggestion was to toggle the little switch on the left of the pedal, and hold it in the up position until the unit resets. It usually works, but sometimes I have to unplug the whole thing.

In any case, this makes it difficult to use the unit live. I made the leap and tried it last night at my gig. It froze up. I did what I normally do... pulled it out and hooked up my JamMan Solo XT. Works every time.

I'd really like to be able to use the Ditto X2. One pedal, and a battery option. The JamMan requires two pedals (the FS3X footswitch), and has no battery option. Anyone out there having these issues, or, more importantly, not having these issues with the Ditto X2?

[tbeltrans]

I don't know about the x2, but TC Electronics in general has a revered named, based on very high quality (and expensive) equipment, especially reverbs and that sort of thing. In recent years, as they have been making products for the lower cost end of the market, there seem to be an endless array of "issues" as reported by numerous posts in various forums, from the foot switches causing mechanical problems to firmware operational glitches. It is sad to see, and maybe they still make decent high end equipment that does not have these kinds of issues. I would simply say that it may be in your best interests to stay with what works for you.

Tony

[MikeBmusic]

I don't use my x2 much, but never had any popping or not-working issues with it.
I do agree that not having a battery option for it limits me - I have it on my pedalboard, but would occasionally like to bring it to an open mic night, but having to plug in would complicate things.

[Irish Pennant]

I've had the same problems with the Ditto 2x that you have but they haven't presented themselves for some time now. I did the firmware upgrade and it seems to have helped. What I've done too is limit the use of the Ditto for home practice. My primary home looper is the older Jamman Solo with the secondary foot pedal.

Anecdotally, my Ditto seems as though it has limited RAM memory in it and if it's used too quickly in succession it will freeze up. It seems as though it needs time to clear the old memory before it will except anything new. During practice, where I record and clear loops again and again until I get it smoothly, is when the Ditto fails.

I now only use the Ditto live when I want a small foot print, battery power and a quick setup, such as open mic or a shared sets gig.

As for the popping, I don't remember how I got past that but it's not doing it anymore.

Another thing I also do, I don't know if it makes any difference, I only put batteries in it when I'm going to use it live otherwise I remove the batteries. RAM needs power to hold memory.

[Petty1818]

The problem with TC seems to be their foot switches. The quality of the effects and the innovative approaches are great but the switches seem to be junk. I really don't know how pros gig with their gear. My only thought process is that a lot of them have midi or looper pedals, which means that the TC pedals are not being clicked on and off as much. I will say this though, the standard TC pedals that simply engage the effect, seem to fair much better than those effects that try to do too much (loopers, strum tempo etc).

I own a Ditto and Ditto x2 and both of them are faulty. The original Ditto stopped working properly after three tries and my Ditto x2 randomly acts up. I would never use it live. Just last night, I recorded a loop and clicked to stop it, which it did. A few seconds later, the loop started randomly playing and I could only stop it by unplugging power to the pedal. My TC HOF mini also has a loud squeal when engaged, which is a very well known issue. I don't find that TC really stand by their products in that regard. At least attempt to correct these issues.

[krisls]

Hmmm... read many a post about the 'switch issues' with these and other TC pedals, hard to say much about that. Been using my Ditto 2 now two to three times a week for 18 months without a glitch. Nary a pop or a missed throw.

Maybe I'm lucky, dunno. Now posting this it will probably blow up mid show on NYE or sumfin annoying. Fingers crossed. Also have a Harmony Singer and no issues there either... shrug....

Kris

[cheetah236]

My Ditto X2 is scary to use live, too. I keep firmware updated but have a problem with the left switch just often enough to be untrustworthy in a live performance.

I'll hit the switch to record a layer, then hit it again which normally plays back the layer. When ready to record the next layer, I hit the switch again. This works nine out of ten times. That other time, though, hitting it to record the next layer just stops the currently playing layer as if I'd hit the right button or double-tapped the left button.

Works beautifully when it works but having it fail in front of a paying audience is too disrespectful, I think.

[Kalani]

Been gigging with my Ditto X2 4-5 days a week now since it first came out (about 2 years?). Only problem I ever had was in the beginning---the loop would distort on playback and play at a low volume. I updated the firmware (only that one time) and it's been fine ever since. I use it quite a bit on every gig too. Definitely got (and still getting) my money's worth!

I also use TC's Polytune, Harmony Singer and Flashback and they have been flawless.

[Hurricane Ramon]

.

I'm getting a Vocal Live 3 Extreme in a week . I had a Digitech GNX4 that was OK as a looper , and great for a one man solo show , it was stolen .

I've been researching these loopers a few years . Was going for the Boss RC300 and then Line 6 JM4 as the choices but the VL3X looks like it going to be my choice .

EZ :

HR


.

[Hurricane Ramon]

.

Originally Posted by Kalani

Excerpt :
I also use TC's Polytune, Harmony Singer and Flashback and they have been flawless.

I like my Polytune clip on , it's built to last .

The original battery lasted almost 6 months ,
subsequent batteries seems to die faster than the original .

EZ :

HR


.

[NotValid]

I've had my X2 for over a year without any problems. But if I do have any problems with electrical audio stuff I use Deoxit. If that doesn't fix it then I pull out my hammer. Even new these devices may still contain contaminates from the factory which will cause audio static or switches that are not smooth. The F5 Deoxit is also a lubricant on top of being a contact cleaner. I use it on all my new/vintage audio stuff and the proof is in the pudding, you can hear a difference. As far as the looper freezing that's a firmware issue, but then again I've had deoxit bring things back to life and fix things that it's not supposed to fix. Sometimes a bit of dirt can cause all kinds of other problems. Try this first and see if it helps. It can't hurt. Audiophiles swear by this stuff.

[mjsb1]

I have to agree, feeling a bit happier (somewhat obviously) reading of these issues... I've had a ditto x4 since late last year and I have to say I've only used it a couple a times and been close to selling it lately, mainly because I thought I was at fault.... I moved from my trusty boss to this for the sake of a stereo input to run guitar and vocal loops aside each other, small footprint and long loop time (was specifically for a meditation/ambient music project), the overlap/blend feature too... But I've had nothing but clicks and pops from the footswitches so much so that I can't even get an uninterrupted drone.. I genuinely believed it was just a user problem on my behalf..

[Hurricane Ramon]

I dealt with this issue a lot when I worked at a factory authorized audio service center for 7 years .

You have to plug it in ( what eve it is ) and walk away , maybe it's in five minutes , or five days ,
what ever it takes to get it to fail is the issue . If it's not failing you can not identify what is going down simply put .

I recently had to go through 2 Mackie FreePlay units till the third one held up .

I always turn a unit on and see if it works when it arrives home and then leave it on all night .

It's called a " burn in period " or a shake down cruise so's to speak on new units or on factory prototype units .

It's also what service and repair centers do to get to the bottom of the failure and find a solution to
fix it so it doesn't fail again in the same way after it's fixed .

Good luck man . I have been there - done that and ......

I am doing it to a T.C. Helicon Voice Live 3 X now as I type , I'll be more confident if I see it on tomorrow working properly .

I just downloaded the latest firmware update too .

> So far so good ... We will see in 24 hours <

EZ :

HR

[AcouStickistNS]

My X4 failed during a live performance got it back a few weeks ago under warranty and so far everything is working well. Had the X2 before that, never had any issues. I've not had any issues with the foot switches, seems they did a better job with the loopers than a previous multi effect I once had years back, where the foot switches had enough slop in them to bind up in the fully depressed position.

I've heard locally there's been a few bad X2's when TC first released them. My X4 I traded up to the moment they hit the shelves, but I didn't use it much having to work on a few songs with friends for a performance, then my Chimaera showed up, so the X4 sat on the shelf for a while. Afterwards, it took a while for the failure to show up. Turned out to be a bad board.

Was an intermittent failure to record, and the last effect "hold" would not perform the correct effect.

Awesome idea above about letting the effect run overnight. Bad boards can happen to any manufacturer. What happened to mine was not a design issue, otherwise I would not keep it.

[MusicJohn]

Hello everyone. I just purchased this looper and as I am trying to learn it, I find that the volume while looping jumps up and stays higher until I cancel/erase a loop. When I wrote to TC Support, and they said this:

"First of all, no reason to be worry, your pedal is not faulty. Actually most of time this issue is about impedance miss match. Let me give you some interesting information on the Ditto Looper. The impedance of the Ditto changes according the different bypasses, true bypass and buffered bypass. The dry signal is true bypass and the recorded signal is buffered bypass. Different bypasses = different impedance. Sometimes it works fine but sometimes it is gonna be a problem. In order to record audio, usually all loopers need to have buffered bypass circuit. That is because the signal has to pass through the DSP to be recorded.
The Ditto Looper and Ditto X2 also are really true bypass devices. With Ditto we made the first true bypass looper that works through a super fast relay that switches the pedal from true bypass to buffered bypass once the recording switch is pressed. This way, you get your dry signal true bypassed without any coloration when not recording. You can hear the relay every time you turn the looper 'On' or 'Off' as a little click sound that comes from the relay inside the pedal. It guides the signal in the true bypass circuit when you turn it 'Off' and through buffered bypass when you turn the Ditto 'On'.
Sometimes it does not matter but sometimes it changes the level between the bypassing state of the Ditto X2 and the recording state, resulting in volume changes.
Most of time you can fix the issue using a buffer to the output of the Ditto. You can use a only buffer pedal box as our BonaFide Buffer:
http://www.tcelectronic.com/bonafide-buffer/main/
The other option will be to use a pedal with buffered bypass (like our Flashback Delay, Hall Of Fame Reverb, Corona Chorus, etc) to connect after your Ditto X2. You should be able to solve the impedance issue, so the level should be equal between bypass and recorded level.[/B]

Bottom line: I have to buy another pedal for $70 to make the $170 ditto pedal work!!!!!!!...Are you kidding me???

Any feedback before I ship this out.....