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I've been thinking about changing out my current delay pedal for a more versatile one. So today I stopped in at a music store on my way home from a dentist appointment to check out and see if they had any of the TC electronics Toneprint Flashback delays. They had one so I grabbed it. Here's an online review...
Initial impressions are its a really nice delay pedal. It's not perfect but it's pretty good and I'll keep it. My only beef is I was looking for a pedal that does ducking delay but this one (TC calls it 'dynamic' delay) doesn't do sound wise what other ducking delays I have tried do. Instead of always delaying and fading out as you play louder, it seems not to do any delay until everything is almost silent and then it does weird pitchy stuff to the signal before it starts repeats. I'll mostly be keeping mine in 2290 mode (modeled after their 2290 rack delay) with a set delay (500-700ms usually) and a very low effect level setting.
Another weakness is TC doesn't have a tap tempo on the pedal. They do have a "play tempo" feature where you hold the pedal down and then strum muted quarter notes to set the tempo. This works well but obviously would need some handy footwork to pull of mid song tempo changes, as it mutes the output as you set the tempo.
Cool features would be the versatility of delay styles, built in 40 second looper (20 seconds if used in stereo), and of course the toneprint software. The toneprint/USB functionality is the coolest thing about this pedal. You can update the pedal software/firmware via USB port. This allows you to upload artist created delay settings (model, delay time, feedback, effect level) and tweak them from there. They also have just released a really cool iphone app that lets you upload the toneprints by holding your iphone by your guitar pickup while the phone pretends to be an old school modem/fax machine.
Another -1 to TC electronics for not releasing the software for creating your own toneprints. There are a ton of hidden tweakable settings in this thing if you watch the videos where they sit down with the artists to create their prints. It would be nice to be able to access them and store them for later use. In the iphone app would be ideal but a PC/USB app would be fine too. Anyways, there is a large variety of artist tones, some usable and some wacky.
Here is a video of the session with Doug Aldrich...
On to the next pedal...
On the way to the checkout I happened to look at the pedal rack to see what else was there and I spotted a pedal I've been wanting since I first saw this video...
I won't say much about the pedal other than it's a killer flanger on its own and has a cool "Stunt" button on it. Only negatives are that it's friggin' GIANT and it could use a switch for the stunt mode where you could switch it between down only, up only, and oscilate. IMO they should try and squeeze it into a smaller package and add that 3 way switch for takeoff mode and then it would get my award as best flanger ever.
Initial impressions are its a really nice delay pedal. It's not perfect but it's pretty good and I'll keep it. My only beef is I was looking for a pedal that does ducking delay but this one (TC calls it 'dynamic' delay) doesn't do sound wise what other ducking delays I have tried do. Instead of always delaying and fading out as you play louder, it seems not to do any delay until everything is almost silent and then it does weird pitchy stuff to the signal before it starts repeats. I'll mostly be keeping mine in 2290 mode (modeled after their 2290 rack delay) with a set delay (500-700ms usually) and a very low effect level setting.
Another weakness is TC doesn't have a tap tempo on the pedal. They do have a "play tempo" feature where you hold the pedal down and then strum muted quarter notes to set the tempo. This works well but obviously would need some handy footwork to pull of mid song tempo changes, as it mutes the output as you set the tempo.
Cool features would be the versatility of delay styles, built in 40 second looper (20 seconds if used in stereo), and of course the toneprint software. The toneprint/USB functionality is the coolest thing about this pedal. You can update the pedal software/firmware via USB port. This allows you to upload artist created delay settings (model, delay time, feedback, effect level) and tweak them from there. They also have just released a really cool iphone app that lets you upload the toneprints by holding your iphone by your guitar pickup while the phone pretends to be an old school modem/fax machine.
Another -1 to TC electronics for not releasing the software for creating your own toneprints. There are a ton of hidden tweakable settings in this thing if you watch the videos where they sit down with the artists to create their prints. It would be nice to be able to access them and store them for later use. In the iphone app would be ideal but a PC/USB app would be fine too. Anyways, there is a large variety of artist tones, some usable and some wacky.
Here is a video of the session with Doug Aldrich...
On to the next pedal...
On the way to the checkout I happened to look at the pedal rack to see what else was there and I spotted a pedal I've been wanting since I first saw this video...
I won't say much about the pedal other than it's a killer flanger on its own and has a cool "Stunt" button on it. Only negatives are that it's friggin' GIANT and it could use a switch for the stunt mode where you could switch it between down only, up only, and oscilate. IMO they should try and squeeze it into a smaller package and add that 3 way switch for takeoff mode and then it would get my award as best flanger ever.
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