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Cort purchases DigiTech and DOD with plans to invest in “new features and products”
Neither DigiTech nor the South Korean guitar manufacturer has commented on the purported acquisition.
Image (Right): DigiTech
UPDATE (23 April 2022, 2:00pm GMT): Cort has confirmed its acquisition of DigiTech and DOD, along with all its intellectual property and assets.
Jun Park, President of Cortek, said in a statement to Guitar.com: “Since 1973, DigiTech/DOD guitar effect pedals have been iconic in the guitar industry, and we have a deep admiration for the heritage and legacy of the DigiTech/DOD products [sic]. We look forward to continuing the manufacturing of and selling of the iconic products as well as investing in new features and products.”
DigiTech and DOD have found a new owner in Cort (Cortek), the South Korean manufacturer of electric and acoustic guitars, basses and ukuleles. The acquisition follows news from earlier this year that Harman dropped DigiTech from its list of brands.
The privacy policy section of the DigiTech website now describes the brand as a “division of Cortek Corporation” while also listing its address as the Cortek headquarters in the Gangseo district of Seoul, South Korea.
At press time, no announcement – from either DigiTech nor Cortek – has been made about the supposed acquisition. However, that hasn’t stopped guitarists online from sharing their thoughts on the matter; most seem to be in favour of the alleged acquisition.
“Cort likely wouldn’t buy the brand unless they intended to do something with it,” wrote one user of The Gear Page. “I imagine we will see continued production of steady selling classics but also a good possibility of some new product development.”
“Only thing I’m worried about is that Cort only bought the name and none of the designs,” opined a user of the SevenString forum. “Worst case scenario is we just get a bunch of generic pedals under the Digitech brand if this is legit.”
Another said: “It might be a long shot but if they could somehow get some of the old R&D guys back, that would be pretty amazing.”
Many of DigiTech and DOD’s greatest innovations – from the Whammy 5 and Ricochet to the Rubberneck Analog Delay and Carcosa Fuzz – happened while Tom Cram led product development.
Cram, who now is working full-time with Spiral Electric FX, took to Facebook to state that he wasn’t and hasn’t been in the loop with DigiTech’s latest developments.
“I’m getting a lot of DM’s with questions about DigiTech/DOD. I don’t know what is going on, I haven’t spoken to anyone at Samsung since 2018,” he said. “However, I will say to those predicting a good outcome, you need to push those rosy thoughts right out of your heads.”