When the DigiTech TRIO was unveiled at Winter NAMM 2015, I was about as skeptical as possible. While the concept behind the pedal appealed to me, I just didn't believe there was any chance it would be any good). It took months of researching the pedal and reading amateur reviews from other people online to recognize that the TRIO is actually an amazing product. Yes, it is overly ambitious, and yes, it does have flaws. But the takeaway from my early experience with the pedal is that DigiTech put an amazing amount of thought into how their customers would actually use the pedal, and the end result is a terrific practice aid for jamming at home and simply learning to play better guitar.The interesting thing about reviewing the TRIO is that there is a kernel of truth to many of the "bad" reviews you find on this site and others. The basic function of the TRIO is to "learn" a bass line and drum beat simply by playing the simple chord progression of a song (or, more accurately, one part of a song). The process isn't always perfect. The TRIO will create a loop based on the progression you train it with, but the timing and some of the bass notes will invariably be off a bit. I think some of the bad reviews really expected the TRIO to understand what you are trying to do and to nail the perfect accompaniment for your guitar part every time. If that's your expectation for this device, then yes, you may be disappointed.But the reason the TRIO works for me is that DigiTech gives you a large amount of flexibility to tweak the band accompaniment parts AFTER you play your training phrase. You can select from a number of musical genres (rock, alt rock, pop, country, etc.). Each of those can be tweaked further using a style selector knob with about 12 different options. There is even an alternative time button to double or half the timing based on the same beats per minute. It's very true that TRIO comes up with bass/drum parts that don't quite fit your idea. It's also true that with all of these different style options, you're almost certain to find something very close to what you intended, or something that works anyway.The flexibility of this pedal extends to the output choices you have for playing the bass/drum backing track. You can run a single instrument cable into a single guitar amp. Or, you can run a TS (unbalanced) cable into a mixer or studio monitor so that you have a separate speaker playing the band part along with the guitar output going to your guitar amp. Big credit to DigiTech for providing volume knobs for the bass and drum tracks separately.There is even a third option, which allows you to monitor using a headphone jack on top of the device, and hear the bass/drum track along with your guitar playing all through your headphones! The Guitar FX button on the top left engages a preamp and cabinet simulation so that you get a genre-appropriate guitar tone without having an actual amp anywhere in the signal chain. For example, "Rock" setting will give you a distorted tone through a large cabinet, while "Country" gives you a cleaner, jangly tone with some slapback echo. The tones aren't elite quality, but it's addition nonetheless, which allows the TRIO to be an all-in-one practice tool. (There is even a headphone volume knob, which can be used in conjunction with the Bass and Drums knobs to control the levels of all three instruments through headphones).Oh, and the implementation of the tempo knob is brilliant. The "1x" tempo is based on how fast you play the learning phrase. But if the resulting product is too fast or two slow, you can easily adjust with the Tempo knob, and tracks will loop at that new speed.I've read some people describe the TRIO as a "glorified metronome". The truth is probably somewhere between that description and DigiTech's own claim of "Band in a Box". The one feature missing that surprised me a bit was that the TRIO does not include a looper for your guitar parts. In fact, it has no memory storage options beyond the three song parts that you program at that time. But now that I have owned and played around with the TRIO a bit, there might have been the issue of just "too much going on" if they tried to jam a looper into this device, also. It should be possible to run the guitar output into a separate looper pedal, and then you would have a rhythm guitar part to go with the bass and drums, but I have not tried this yet.All in all, this was an extremely ambitious project that DigiTech put a lot of love and detail into - for the most part, I think they got it right. It will be interesting to see if they continue to improve on the pedal with firmware updates through the mini-USB port.I love this thing. It is not perfect, but for a lone, home player like me, it is way better than regular looper; it makes playing much more interesting/fun, changing tempo and feel on the fly. I also own the regular, cheaper trio. The trio+ is a HUGE improvement--tunes are saved to sd card; can switch genres within a single song; 3 possible bass lines for whatever is currently playing (via simple button push); can program the sequence of song parts. On the sequence, each song has a max of 5 parts, but sequencing can repeat parts. So say i have a three part song, A B C. It can be sequenced in any order, with repeats, for example, A A A B A C C B A. Next, Having the looper function as part of the trio+ is the only way to effectively integrate overdubs. I tried using the regular trio with a seperate looper, but it proved impossible to get the parts perfectly synchronized. The cheaper trio can't do any of what i just listed.My biggest complaint about the cheaper trio is the inability to save songs. It can sometmes take an hour or more to teach trio a song and have it interpret as i want. Not being able to save that work when moving to a new song is what motivated me to buy the expensive trio+.What I don't like on trio+:--The timbre of drums is inferior compared to the cheaper trio. On the trio+, they much more digital and sterile, more casio-toy-like.--on the trio+, the style selector knob's detentes do not exacly match the led and actual selection of a style. Thus, very often, I turn the knob and miss the selection i am looking for, as the actual selection jumps/skips. This is especially annoying when making a selection on the fly, while "jamming". I suspect this might be a quality control issue and specific to the unit i have.--i wish i could switch songs on the fly, without latency. Parts within a song switch instantly, on the beat, without latency. However, switching songs requires stopping the play to load the new song. The switch of songs takes about 2 seconds. This makes medleys impossible--cannot connect one song to the next.All in all, the trio+ is great fun and reinvigorated my playing. Even with a couple of flaws, i love it. It is far superior to the regular trio, but it is also way more expensive.Lovely piece of kit! Metal case, good quality buttons and switch. Very simple to set upl. I was using it within a couple of minutes of getting it out of the box. Great for accompanying as it even makes a mediocre guitarist (like me!) sound better. Also I'm starting to write my own songs and I can see this fundamentally changing my workflow. I can't play bass or drums so I often use GarageBand to develop the drum and bass lines. This is OK but the bass especially is difficult for me to get correct, never mind actually good! Using the Trio pedal to look after the bass and drums I can concentrate on the chords rather than getting everything to synchronise. These days most guitar multi-effect pedals have built-in drum machines which are better than nothing, but as other reviewers have said the phrasing is soooooo much better than anything else. 150% recommended!!!Mine came with a quick start guide but no manual (Good idea to save weight+the planet!). You can download a 31 page user guide at the Digitech website.This is a clever piece of kit. Well worth the money and a pleasure to use. I was up and running within minutes. Both bass line and drums are clever and in no way sounds canned or repetitious. Mine is set up with bass and drums going straight into the mixer and guitar diverted via some pedals into the mixer. Sounds great. I won't go into all the details of what it does and how to use it because others have covered that adequately and you can download the manual from digitech.com but let me just say that I am a very happy puppy with my new toy. This might just make bass players and drummers redundant. Think of all the money and beer you'll save :)Well here is a nice little thing. I am a bit of a novice but this little box has given me the chance to create my own backing tracks to lay over. I recommend adding the foot-switch, as that really simplifies things . The tones are good (they sound OK to me) & the styles seem to have a nice variance. For the price you really can't go wrong.I wondered about the Plus model, but for the extra money I don't think it was worth it, if you are a good player then perhaps that would be a different storyI've had this little baby for six months now. I've had a lot of fun with it. Yes it is a little mechanical, but what can you expect from something at this price. I've set it up using the mixer output so I can put the signal through a processor to get a nice "club" sound, and then through to my big hi-fi as a PA, or laptop to record. Lots of fun.The only downside I could say about this is that you are unable to store the riffs you have created. It would be nice if you could simply store your riffs onto a laptop, for example.Otherwise, a nice little toy.I was trying to find something to make learning scales less boring and I did! It is VERY simple to use and makes playing practice amazing. You just stomp on it, play some notes or chords, stomp again and start playing! When I practice a scale I just play one note (eg open A) and then I play the scale (Am).