I'll take this one. After Harman shut down all the Utah based engineering teameffort I decided to start a consulting business (Jim&i) helping various audio companies, and one of my clients was Harman. I was in the middle of a project with Harman and I got the word about
I'll take this one. After Harman shut down the Utah based engineering team I decided to start a consulting business (Jim&i) helping various audio companies with product design and one of my clients was Harman. I was in the middle of a project with Harman and I got the word about DigiTech being sold from Marc Kellom, the VP of Harman Pro Engineering. Marc said, “Jim, your name kept coming up during the due diligence portion of the sale and I hope you are OK with it because I gave them your contact info, they will be calling you”. (I have been involved with DigiTech since the beginning of the brand so my name is on a few patents, DSP code and custom ASIC chip designs) I laughed and said “sure, I would be glad to talk with them.”
A couple of days later I got two different phone calls, one was from Harman asking if they could hire me to help them separate out the engineering intellectual property of the DigiTech/DOD brands from the other brands (Lexicon, dbx, SoundCraft, JBL, etc.) that we also designed for to transfer the IP to Cortek. I said “Sure, I would be glad to help” The next phone call was from Jun Park, the president of Cortek, asking me if they could hire me to help them understand the IP that Harman was going to be transferring to them and help with parts issues with some of the products. I kind of laughed and said “Sure, I would glad to help with that, I’m the one putting that info together for the transfer”.
Also, as soon as the news became public my phone was flooded with texts like: “Did you hear that Harman sold DigiTech/DOD?”, “What do you think Cortec will do with the brands?” “Is there even anything left of the brand to sell?”
Now, to be honest I have always had a deep love for the DigiTech brand and had devoted 30+ years of my life to making DigiTech products but I was very skeptical of what the new owners would want to do with the brand. So, for the next few months I helped them work through parts problems and getting some of the products that Harman had discontinued back up and going again. As time went on they got to know me more and I got to know Jun and the Cortek team better and we started talking about the longer term future of the brand. I have come to see that Jun, and his team are great people to work with and have really showed that they respect the DigiTech brand and want to honor the past and help the brand grow into the future with the same dedication to innovation and excellence. Jun would ask me what I would do and I would simply say “I would love to get the band back together”. There are so many talented audio engineering guys in the Salt Lake City area that have evolved from the original DOD team over the years.
So, fast forward a few months and still working as a consultant I started to reach out to others from the old DigiTech team to see the level of interest. We all still keep in touch with each other and have great memories of the many Digitech designs over the years. As I reached out I mostly got the same skeptical feelings that I initially felt but I would tell them what I was doing and how great it could be if the Cortek team were interested in investing in an operation like that. Roger Johnsen was my first call, he goes way back with the brand and has worked on many of the iconic products over the years. If you ever wondered where the name “Gonkulator Modulator” or labeling control knobs as BUTT and FACE instead of HIGH and LOW it came from Roger’s head. Matt Calder was a clinician for DigiTech for many years doing Vocalist and JamMan demos for the music stores around the USA but he always had a knack for new product ideas. He went on to get an engineering degree and when I caught up with him, he was a professor at the local community college. I got Roger and Matt on as additional consultants working a few hours in the evenings to help me get more products back online. When I first reached out to Tom, we were both skeptical and he left the meeting saying “No, it will never happen” but I let my optimism persuade me to keep pushing forward anyway. Finally, after a few tries and with some encouragement from Jun, Tom jumped on as a consultant to help with their marketing efforts and help brainstorm product ideas for a possible future. The four of us helped put together a product roadmap to present to Jun and the rest of the Cortek team. I also started to put together a pro-forma business plan for starting a “DigiTech USA” division based in Utah and talking with Jun about what it would take to make it successful.
February was a flurry of activity of getting a new US based division started. From finding a building and ordering equipment to working with an HR/finance consultant to put employee benefits packages together and other details, I haven’t slept much. As a last minute bonus we also hired Parker Coons away from Skul Candy, he was the engineer behind the Rubberneck and a few other product and a fantastic hardware/software engineer. I hope you can tell my passion for DigiTech, we are all guitar players and fully committed to making this all successful.
And finally it has all came together and only a week ago (March 1st, 2023) we transitioned from simply being consultants (working in the evenings whenever we could) to full time employees of DigiTech/DOD.
To the future, BRING IT ON !
