:o
I need to start saving some money for one of these and maybe a Ditto...
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.
That does look very cool. TC is really putting out some innovative stuff.
I'm truly mpressed. But they aren't available yet?
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!
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 08:03:24 AM
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 >:( :D.
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.
Quote from: RobA on October 02, 2013, 11:50:32 AM
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 08:03:24 AM
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 >:( :D.
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.
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.
(http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/10/02/9ada7atu.jpg)
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.
Quote from: pickdropper on October 02, 2013, 12:48:52 PM
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.
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.
Quote from: Cortexturizer on October 02, 2013, 02:38:42 PM
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'
That's funny, I hate the reverb on my Maz 18
Maybe I need a mullard for the driver tube.....:P
Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk 4
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.
Quote from: Cortexturizer on October 02, 2013, 02:38:42 PM
[...] 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.
Quote from: kothoma on October 02, 2013, 04:02:15 PM
Quote from: Cortexturizer on October 02, 2013, 02:38:42 PM
[...] 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.
I read an interview with EJ, and he was claiming to be able to her the difference in tone between different brands of 9v battery.
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 04:04:58 PM
Quote from: kothoma on October 02, 2013, 04:02:15 PM
Quote from: Cortexturizer on October 02, 2013, 02:38:42 PM
[...] 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.
I read an interview with EJ, and he was claiming to be able to her the difference in tone between different brands of 9v battery.
;D
(BTW The SCF is running on mains and 15V internally.)
I wasn't talking about that specific pedal, I just thought that battery brand thing is a bold statement to make! A weird one too!
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 04:12:17 PM
I wasn't talking about that specific pedal, I just thought that battery brand thing is a bold statement to make! A weird one too!
Didn't assume anything else. Just wanted to put in some trivia.
Yes, strong claim. Did he pass a double-blind experiment? ;)
Edit: I bet he even hears which guitar tech put it in. ;D
Quote from: kothoma on October 02, 2013, 04:23:43 PM
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 04:12:17 PM
I wasn't talking about that specific pedal, I just thought that battery brand thing is a bold statement to make! A weird one too!
Didn't assume anything else. Just wanted to put in some trivia.
Yes, strong claim. Did he pass a double-blind experiment? ;)
What I've heard is he is deaf as a really, really deaf thing as well, from standing in front of amps on 11 in the studio, finding that elusive 'golden tone' ...... So good luck to him picking out the Duracells ;D
Paul
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 01:45:45 PM
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.
If you want me to send you the "bad" one, PM me your address and I'll send it. If you aren't going to be able to do anything with it for a couple of weeks, you may as well wait for the new layout. It actually does just feel wrong to me to have it backwards. Of course, it is possible to just wire the pot the right way and ignore my numbers, but still, it's the kinda thing that should be right.
It figures they'd cover up the internals, bastards. Actually, it makes sense and I like what they've done there.
So, what you don't like about the pedal is a lack of character? I can understand that.
Quote from: pietro_moog on October 02, 2013, 01:46:53 PM
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.
I'm a bit confused. As far as I know, the Lexicon PCM80 is digital and it doesn't have particularly good specs in the CODEC and DSP processor departments either. Make take on the Lexicon stuff is that it's all in their programmers. They write really good algorithms.
Quote from: culturejam on October 02, 2013, 02:09:38 PM
[...]
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.
And speaking of Lexicon, I've read that the DL-8 uses Lexicon algorithms. I've got one and find it quite good.
Quote from: kothoma on October 02, 2013, 04:23:43 PM
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 04:12:17 PM
I wasn't talking about that specific pedal, I just thought that battery brand thing is a bold statement to make! A weird one too!
Didn't assume anything else. Just wanted to put in some trivia.
Yes, strong claim. Did he pass a double-blind experiment? ;)
Edit: I bet he even hears which guitar tech put it in. ;D
Haha! "This fuzz sounds shit today, I bet john put the batteries in!"
Quote from: RobA on October 02, 2013, 04:29:28 PM
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 01:45:45 PM
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.
It figures they'd cover up the internals, bastards. Actually, it makes sense and I like what they've done there.
So, what you don't like about the pedal is a lack of character? I can understand that.
It's better than them gooping it up, cause you can take the plate off I think, with torx screwdrivers, which average joe probably doesn't have.
Maybe 'lack of character', but Dave said it best with 'jack of all trades/master of none'.
I can actually believe that in certain effects, you could probably hear the difference between a lithium battery and an alkaline battery. But, I'd say that was a problem with the design of the power supply section of the effect.
One little dig at analog from me here, in a certain way BBD based effects are really just very bad digital. Technically, they are discrete-time analog. But, the discrete-time is really bad and their frequency response is crap because of it. On top of that, using 32bit CODEC's pretty much renders the difference between the the analog voltage levels in the BBD's and the samples in the DSP meaningless. Interestingly, that may be where much of the characterless feel of digital comes from. Much of what we like about analog devices comes from the slop, the imprecision in the LFO's timing and wave shapes and the character induced by the filtering required by the BBD. On the good side, all of that can be modeled in DSP and some of the really good digital effects do that.
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 04:51:44 PM
[...]
Maybe 'lack of character', but Dave said it best with 'jack of all trades/master of none'.
That's interesting too. I wonder if any of that is because of they way design them to be kinda reprogrammable -- not reprogrammable really but more reparameterized. It could be that it limits how much they can do to tweak the parameters and models to really get character in specific effects.
Quote from: RobA on October 02, 2013, 04:52:17 PM
Much of what we like about analog devices comes from the slop, the imprecision
I had a lengthy conversation with an amp tech at a massive gig I played at, and we were talking about valve amps vs ss amps. He was saying that the reason valve distortion sounds so nice is that the breakup stacks harmonics in a way that is musically pleasing to the ear, where as solid state stacks up harmonics differently. Not sure how true that is. But it made sense to me, I never heard a solid state amp, with a good overdrive built in!
My personal opinion on this is that it's only a question of how much effort you put into the dsp software.
Add a few more filters and you start sounding surprisingly analogue.
And for me nothing beats convolution for reverb. But I don't know of pedals with this cpu power.
For dirt I still prefer analogue, but mostly because of the massive oversampling requirements in dsp.
Quote from: RobA on October 02, 2013, 04:34:30 PM
Quote from: pietro_moog on October 02, 2013, 01:46:53 PM
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.
I'm a bit confused. As far as I know, the Lexicon PCM80 is digital and it doesn't have particularly good specs in the CODEC and DSP processor departments either. Make take on the Lexicon stuff is that it's all in their programmers. They write really good algorithms.
The Lexicon PCM80 is an old unit from the early 90s. it is digital (old digital) but sounds good because of the algorithms, like you said. i don't find it noisy, and i like it a lot. the big pain is the lack direct access to all the parameters,like you would have on a pedal, but the presets are very good and 90% of the times i don't feel to edit anything. it was not intended to be a guitar processor, it was a studio multi-fx/reverb unit, and its successors nowadays they cost a LOT of money. tons of records have been made with that sound, and when i use it i feel like i'm a rock star. i am very happy with it.
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 05:03:32 PM
[...]
I had a lengthy conversation with an amp tech at a massive gig I played at, and we were talking about valve amps vs ss amps. He was saying that the reason valve distortion sounds so nice is that the breakup stacks harmonics in a way that is musically pleasing to the ear, where as solid state stacks up harmonics differently. Not sure how true that is. But it made sense to me, I never heard a solid state amp, with a good overdrive built in!
I'd agree that the harmonic content is a whole bunch of the sound of tubes versus SS. But, there are other things going on too. How the tubes compress when hit hard and voltage sag come into it too. I agree with you though, I've yet to hear SS or DSP that does what a crap Sears amp from the 50's can do.
Quote from: kothoma on October 02, 2013, 05:03:37 PM
My personal opinion on this is that it's only a question of how much effort you put into the dsp software.
Add a few more filters and you start sounding surprisingly analogue.
And for me nothing beats convolution for reverb. But I don't know of pedals with this cpu power.
For dirt I still prefer analogue, but mostly because of the massive oversampling requirements in dsp.
I agree with everything you say here. In the DSP effects I've done that just include a bit of non-linearity in the filters to get some grit, I've had to go up to 8 times oversampling. I do think we are at the point now where we can do that much in a pedal now though. But, I still think analog distortion is going to be better for some time to come, just because of the way you can't overdrive the front end of a CODEC and get good results. I've yet to find a DSP based distortion device where I can purposefully abuse it and have it sound good.
Here's a classic IEEE article on tubes writted by Eric Barbour, an applications engineer at Svetlana. It's an interesting read:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes (http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes)
Quote from: pickdropper on October 02, 2013, 07:04:11 PM
Here's a classic IEEE article on tubes writted by Eric Barbour, an applications engineer at Svetlana. It's an interesting read:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes (http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes)
That was a interesting. I've read articles before where tubes are analyzed for the sake of modeling them in DSP, but the perspective in this article is very interesting.
Quote from: hammerheadmusicman on October 02, 2013, 05:03:32 PM
I never heard a solid state amp, with a good overdrive built in!
Still have to check it live, but it sounds good to me
Quote from: micromegas on October 01, 2013, 09:45:29 PM
:o
I need to start saving some money for one of these and maybe a Ditto...
Can't comment on the reverb but I just bought the Ditto and I absolutely love it! I just wanted it for jamming alone and it's perfect for that, simple and quick to record/play back, plus its ridiculously small!
I've always thought TC makes good Swiss Army Knife type effects, not always the right tool for the job, but gets the job done when you need it.
Their rackmount stuff, on the other hand, seems to be infested with tone sucking demons. Picked up a G major for my second rack, and while the effects are all right, what it does to my overall tone is just unpleasant. Not to say I probably can't program it out, but my $180 Lexicon MX200 sounds worlds better than it in a plug and play war.
Quote from: RobA on October 02, 2013, 09:23:13 PM
Quote from: pickdropper on October 02, 2013, 07:04:11 PM
Here's a classic IEEE article on tubes writted by Eric Barbour, an applications engineer at Svetlana. It's an interesting read:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes (http://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/the-cool-sound-of-tubes)
That was a interesting. I've read articles before where tubes are analyzed for the sake of modeling them in DSP, but the perspective in this article is very interesting.
Yeah, thanks for this link!