Adding the missing STOP button to the JamMan Solo XT

The JamMan Solo XT by Digitech is a basic, compact, affordable looper pedal. It does most everything I would need, but after using it a few months, I found the lack of a dedicated stop button really frustrating. Sure, you can stop a loop by quickly double-tapping, but this is actually not very easy to do in the heat of the moment, especially when you’re juggling all the other things you need to remember in this one-pedal setup (long-press is undo, tap once is overdub/start track/start record).

To add a stop button as well as loop advance, you can add an extension pedal that they sell (the FS3X), but it’s a bit bulky for my liking. The connector is a standard Stereo TRS (tip ring sleeve) 1/4 jack, so I guessed that it worked by just momentarily connecting (or “shorting”) either ring or tip to ground (sleeve). For the 3rd button function, it’s probably shorting both simultaneously.

I plugged a spare broken headphone cable in with some bare wires and experimented with touching them together in different combinations until I found the pair of wires that executed the stop function. Then just soldered it to a super-cheap momentary switch button I had in my electronics box. I secured the connection with this clay-like compound called Sugru. This stuff is great because it hardens to a stiff rubber-like material and is very durable.

Finally, I stuck the button on top of the pedal with some poster putty. It holds pretty well, but I may glue it down if I need some more durability. But as is, it’s completely removable and doesn’t modify the unit in any way.

If I really wanted to get a permanent solution in there, I’d probably drill a hole in the top of the housing and wire the button directly to the connector’s pads on the circuit board.

3 thoughts on “Adding the missing STOP button to the JamMan Solo XT”

    1. That would work great. You just need to cut it and connect the two cables to a 1/4″ stereo jack. I don’t recall which leads you connect it to, you’ll just have to experiment until it works.

      I would not recommend taping the wires together. It wont last. If you really don’t want to, at least use wire nut connectors like this: https://www.homedepot.com/c/ab/types-of-wire-connectors/9ba683603be9fa5395fab902cf87a67

      But personally, I think it doesn’t look clean so I do the extra work of soldering.

  1. I Vic,

    I saw your work with the stop function for the Digitech Jamman Solo XT. Having seen this, seems you’ve a deep knowledge of this pedal and I would like to ask you for help.

    I have a unit that gets stuck (frozen) when you store a loop in the memory (both internal or SD card). All functions work fine if you don’t store a loop. Everything makes me think it isn’t hardware related but the firmware.

    The current version is 1.06 and JamManager software can’t connect Digitech servers to update it.
    Do you have any clean firmware files for the Jamman Solo XT? I know there’s a way to update it via the SD card update process.

    Thanks in advance.

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