Roland Forums

OK. I have a Behringer Pitch Shifter which gives me the ability to press the pedal and drop two semitones to play a couple of songs in our set. (Bass Guitar).
I figured it would be better to have a Boss one, to get a clearer and better tone. How wrong I was. The first pedal from the shop had clearly had a bang which knackered the left hand mix knob. The option for pitch shift did not produce a clear shifted tone, but a mix of original signal and pitch shift - horrible at 2 semitones. I took the pedal back to the shop, as I thought it was broken. I also emailed Roland support, getting an email from Oliver Davis stating
"I will get a new one from stock and check the signal.
I suspect it could be the characteristics of the pedal, but I will confirm it for you by tomorrow.
Regards,
Oliver Davis
Roland UK Ltd".

(How can anyone say that a characteristic of a product is that it does not work!!!)

Needless to say I got no reply. However, the shop agreed to take my pedal back and get me a new one. I picked this up yesterday - 2 months after initial purchase - only to find exactly the same problem It is not possible to get a clean pitch shift of 2 semitones, whereas a Behringer unit of half the price works really quite well. What an absolute waste of money - unless someone can tell me otherwise.

By the way - I am sure that I have it set on pitch shift and not harmoniser or flutter etc. I am also sure that I have the mix knob all the way to the right.

Will I buy Roland/Boss again - I doubt it!

It sounds like you have not set the pedal up correctly. You need for the tone you suggest you want, the right hand knob set to Pitch Shift and the inner (top) knob on the left turned clockwise as far as it goes to EFX. I suspect you have not had the left hand knob set like this, because I have just tried to replicate you "fault" and only found the pedal doing this when the left knob (mix) has the dry signal coming through too.

The pedal is deigned to do this to produce a different type of effect. We have a harmonist mode on the pedal which allows you to get a harmony based on the key you are playing in. However, when using pitch shift as the effect, you can get a 'hard' shift to the desired number of semitones up or down from the dry signal. This pays no attention to the key you are playing in, and is a desirable effect for some people.

it should be able to do drop tuning, have you set the balance control all the way round to EFX ? or you will have a dry mix with the knob towards DIR

I have done all of the above. I have a sound file (mp3 - quite small) that illustrates the problem - is there a way to post this?

As I thought - no one actually gives a care! I have sent a sample file to Mr Sweeney, giving the audio problem but no response at all. As I said, £160 wasted and a total loss of respect.