Red Witch Factotum jack/stomp switch woes

[solarfly]

Hey everyone,

I recently bought a Red Witch Factotum pedal, which is a combination Octaver and Drive. I love the thing, like the sound it gives me. But I noticed early on the input jack was stubborn when pushing an instrument cable (or pedal board cable) into it. It feels like the tip of the connector is somehow getting jammed on the way in. At the same time this seemed to worsen, I noticed the stomp switch started to pop/crack really loudly -- way more than it did when I first got it. I read all the articles on this being related to the lack of pull-down resistors, capacitors, gnomes and hamsters on wheels running around, etc., but I really think that when the input jack seemed to be resisting inserting the instrument jack into it, something else in there was also screwed up/out of alignment.

Guitar Center took it back and are getting me a replacement, but now my pedal board has a naked spot on it! Has anyone else run into anything similar?

 

[solarfly]

So I returned the first one, and they replaced it. The loud pop with the stomp on the Drive side is better now, but the Octaver is horrible. Almost no sound comes through a lot of the time, and re-stomping on the left switch seems to seat something internally that gives it connectivity. This is a $300 pedal! I'm pretty upset with the quality for what the Factotum is supposed to be.

I'm going to call the company then return it to Guitar Center permanently if they don't straighten it out. Really not happy.

 

[LSMFT6]

Good old GC/MF b-stock. Weird that you'd have bad luck with a high-end builder like that though

 

[jumblemind]

Yes, that stinks. I had a Red Witch Zeus (nearly identical to the Factotum), and it was a very high quality piece of gear. No issues like that at all.