TC has done it again....

[micromegas]

 

I need to start saving some money for one of these and maybe a Ditto...

[LaceSensor]

Not gonna lie I know that toneprint stuff isnt new but that video was the first time I saw the editor and also that beaming thing via guitar pickups...wowo thats cool!

Brilliant stuff going on there. These look great for what Im sure will be very cheap.

I doubt ill need one over my 1776 rubadub but never say never.

[aballen]

That does look very cool.  TC is really putting out some innovative stuff.

[kothoma]

I'm truly mpressed. But they aren't available yet?

[hammerheadmusicman]

I have 3 TC toneprint pedals, hall of flame, flashback delay, and corona chorus, and I will say this, although they can sound a little 'digital'. Most of the sounds are excellent, For those gigs when you only have a few pedals, they are phenomenal! With a few tweaks, you can completely change your sound. Yes, one of my pedals may have one great sound, which I prefer, but having 12 almost as good sounds in one box, is great!

[RobA]

I have 3 TC toneprint pedals, hall of flame, flashback delay, and corona chorus, and I will say this, although they can sound a little 'digital'. Most of the sounds are excellent, For those gigs when you only have a few pedals, they are phenomenal! With a few tweaks, you can completely change your sound. Yes, one of my pedals may have one great sound, which I prefer, but having 12 almost as good sounds in one box, is great!

Since I come from the digital side of things, I'm interested in what you mean when you say they sound a little digital. Is it that they lack character? Or is it more like the PT2399 kinda digital where I'd say that they do have character but that character is kinda on the side of bit crushing at long delays/feedback and not always a good thing? Or, is it something else? I haven't played on any of the TC pedals, so I really don't know how they feel. I have used some of their computer stuff. I'm actually still mad at them for killing Spark   .

Have you opened any of the TC pedals up and had a look at the processor/DAC in them?

BTW, I had the tone pot flipped backwards in my prototype board I've promised to send you. It works, but feels wrong. I'll be sending off for a corrected version in the next week or so.

[pickdropper]

I have 3 TC toneprint pedals, hall of flame, flashback delay, and corona chorus, and I will say this, although they can sound a little 'digital'. Most of the sounds are excellent, For those gigs when you only have a few pedals, they are phenomenal! With a few tweaks, you can completely change your sound. Yes, one of my pedals may have one great sound, which I prefer, but having 12 almost as good sounds in one box, is great!

Since I come from the digital side of things, I'm interested in what you mean when you say they sound a little digital. Is it that they lack character? Or is it more like the PT2399 kinda digital where I'd say that they do have character but that character is kinda on the side of bit crushing at long delays/feedback and not always a good thing? Or, is it something else? I haven't played on any of the TC pedals, so I really don't know how they feel. I have used some of their computer stuff. I'm actually still mad at them for killing Spark   .

Have you opened any of the TC pedals up and had a look at the processor/DAC in them?

BTW, I had the tone pot flipped backwards in my prototype board I've promised to send you. It works, but feels wrong. I'll be sending off for a corrected version in the next week or so.

I have a couple of the TC pedals (Flashback and Vortex) and I think they sound good, but there is nothing about them that particularly grabs me.  I don't know if I'd go as far as calling them sterile sounding, but there is something a bit lacking for me compared to the best examples of delays and flangers I've heard.  They do a LOT of different things, and all of it is done decently well.  Sort of a jack of all trades, master of none sort of thing.

[hammerheadmusicman]

Rob - don't waste a good one on me, one of the ones with a backwards pot will do me just fine

I know that 'digital' comment would bite me in the butt, exactly what Dave said 'jack of all trades, master of none' maybe the tiniest bit sterile.. But not nasty, yet sound very good. Like I said, super versatile, and robust too.

TC do put a lot of thought in 'the little things' too. For example the back is held on by one big captive screw, which you can undo with a guitar pick or coin. Genius!

Also, the bypass is changeable, little dip switches inside, to allow you to change between buffered bypass and true bypass, and for the delay tails/no tails etc..

Unfortunately there is a big plate inside, and I don't have any torx tools with me.

[pietro_moog]

if you want my opinion, i think this mini HOF is cool for the size, nothing more. i had a hall of fame and i think is sounds good, but not astonishing. TC pedals are good if you are not a tone slut. digital sounds fake to me, and there's nothing we can do about it. their flanger and their vibrato sounds like a joke. a lexicon pcm80 is way more beautiful than these pedals. btw i have a nice tube reverb in my amp, and that's all i need at home.
for my big rig i bought a lexicon, and half of my modulation pedals are useless now (almost).
TC delays like nova delay and nova repeater are great though.

[culturejam]

I have a couple of the TC pedals (Flashback and Vortex) and I think they sound good, but there is nothing about them that particularly grabs me.

I have the Alter Ego (the PGS branded version of the Flashback) and used to have the Vortex. The flanger didn't really do much for me. But I do like Flashback quite a bit, especially the 2290 mode and the Dynamic mode. For emulating analog delay, the Hardwire DL8 is much better than the TC. The DL8 is a very under-rated prodcut, in my opinion.

[Cortexturizer]

I think that whoever buys TC stuff gets fantastic products from a firm that's guaranteed to get you fast and good support, their pedals are reliable, cheap, and have a plethora of options and tweakability.

That being said, I personally would never buy their modulation effects. They sound soulless to me, and they are probably completely digital. If my deluxe mistress clone [or someone's original] dies a day before a gig, and I don't have the money to just go and buy a new flanger, it's not a problem, I will open it and debug it, fix the issue and rock it on stage tomorrow. Whereas when a TC pedal dies, or any other digital stuff, you are mostly doomed for a week or more. Maybe indefinitely, depends on the situation.
That's one reason I prefer analog.
The other is the sound. There's no doubt that digital stuff will come close to analog in the future. That moment is just not here yet. For the tone seekers of course. If a pedal is only a mean to an end, then of course someone will jump at the HOF mini and rock it on a gig.
But to us builders and sound experimentators, pedals are so much more. They are instruments that hold on their own. You cannot "instrument" on a HOF mini.
The sound of the big box HOF was particularly unpleasant to me when I was looking a reverb for myself. But that's just me. Ended with a striped down gem, that I got from raulduke, the Subdecay Spring Theory. That pedal is just awesome, it has richness to the sound, and via two knobs and a switch you can dial in worlds of sounds.
Whereas with some of the top contenders, HOF or maybe Source Audio Dimension Reverb, when you are going from one to the other type of reverb it's almost as you could get mode 5 by just turning mode 7 a notch up, or mode 4 by exagerating mode 3 and so on...they are almost all the same type of reverb and the other stuff is just hype.

It all depends what are you gonna use it for I guess. Some of the best reverb sounds that I've heard in a band context came from a Boss RV-5, but when you are alone in the evening, by the fireplace, jammin some ambient stuff, the Boss sounds so brittle and artificial. In a band context - it's awesome, cause it cuts, and when all the other instruments mix together you get an awesome verb sound. Whereas TC pedals sound so distant.
Still, it all comes down to the sound guy, and the producers of albums. Analog or digital you can get awesome tone, as proved by the biggest names in music who all use that stuff.

[hammerheadmusicman]

I think that whoever buys TC stuff gets fantastic products from a firm that's guaranteed to get you fast and good support, their pedals are reliable, cheap, and have a plethora of options and tweakability.

That being said, I personally would never buy their modulation effects. They sound soulless to me, and they are probably completely digital. If my deluxe mistress clone [or someone's original] dies a day before a gig, and I don't have the money to just go and buy a new flanger, it's not a problem, I will open it and debug it, fix the issue and rock it on stage tomorrow. Whereas when a TC pedal dies, or any other digital stuff, you are mostly doomed for a week or more. Maybe indefinitely, depends on the situation.
That's one reason I prefer analog.
The other is the sound. There's no doubt that digital stuff will come close to analog in the future. That moment is just not here yet. For the tone seekers of course. If a pedal is only a mean to an end, then of course someone will jump at the HOF mini and rock it on a gig.
But to us builders and sound experimentators, pedals are so much more. They are instruments that hold on their own. You cannot "instrument" on a HOF mini.
The sound of the big box HOF was particularly unpleasant to me when I was looking a reverb for myself. But that's just me. Ended with a striped down gem, that I got from raulduke, the Subdecay Spring Theory. That pedal is just awesome, it has richness to the sound, and via two knobs and a switch you can dial in worlds of sounds.
Whereas with some of the top contenders, HOF or maybe Source Audio Dimension Reverb, when you are going from one to the other type of reverb it's almost as you could get mode 5 by just turning mode 7 a notch up, or mode 4 by exagerating mode 3 and so on...they are almost all the same type of reverb and the other stuff is just hype.

It all depends what are you gonna use it for I guess. Some of the best reverb sounds that I've heard in a band context came from a Boss RV-5, but when you are alone in the evening, by the fireplace, jammin some ambient stuff, the Boss sounds so brittle and artificial. In a band context - it's awesome, cause it cuts, and when all the other instruments mix together you get an awesome verb sound. Whereas TC pedals sound so distant.
Still, it all comes down to the sound guy, and the producers of albums. Analog or digital you can get awesome tone, as proved by the biggest names in music who all use that stuff.

My Dr Maz, with a 60's mullard valve driving the verb, has the best sounding reverb I've ever played, the hof is just for when I use my spare amp (no verb), or use the amps at rehearsal rooms, particularly old Marshall's, which sound horrendous to my ears, unless they are flat out! But, I'm not malmsteen, and I'd rather not go deaf at 40! I was chatting to Paul Gilbert, and he's deaf as a freakin post!! Cause in his words 'it was the 80's, louder was better, we didn't know'

[ch1naski]

That's funny, I hate the reverb on my Maz 18
Maybe I need a mullard for the driver tube.....
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4

[hammerheadmusicman]

I changed the tank, when I talk about the reverb, I always forget that! The mullards make all the difference, honestly. Early 60's British, transformed the whole amp, everything!

With modern valves, the amp breaks up much earlier, and it's not a nice breakup, and sounds fizzy. With the old valves, it has tons more clean headroom, sounds much fuller, with a lot more touch sensitivity, and the reverb sounds warmer.

I know it all sounds so far fetched, but it's the truth, Mike Zaite said himself, the old mullards are the best valves you can buy, and if they weren't so pricey and rare , they'd go in all his amps.

Also, changing the rectifier valve to a NOS 5V4 changed it all too, it's a little less volume, but it sounds a little spongier and nicer to my ears.

Back to the reverb, I don't like Cavernous reverb or anything, I inly like a touch, so it's not too dry, so it suits my needs.

[kothoma]

[...] I personally would never buy their modulation effects. They sound soulless to me, and they are probably completely digital. [...]

They still make the SCF Stereo Chorus Flanger, it's still analogue (MN3007, NE570) and good enough for Eric Johnson for example...
Many consider this the best chorus pedal ever.