“this entire range of pedals is superbly constructed. they feel sturdy and are perfectly finished in every regard”

62 Bass Guitar MaGazine

“this entire range of pedals is superbly “this entire range of pedals is superbly

this range of pedals offers something a bit different to your usual stompboxes. Ben Cooper investigates these unique beauties.

FeaturesTh is entire range of pedals is superbly constructed. Th ey feel sturdy and are perfectly fi nished in every regard. Each pedal is surprisingly compact, and yet not one control feels cramped or squashed; they have been carefully designed from the groundup, as is to be expected from a company like TC Electronic.

Access to the battery is via a large thumb screw in the bass plate, which can be undone with a plectrum or a penny that happens to be lying around, or even your thumbnail if the screw isn’t tightened too far. Inside there are two small DIP switches. Th e fi rst of which lets you select if you want the bypass to be true or buff ered. In every pedal except the Shaker the second switch serves as a kill-dry, which means you

can mute the direct analogue signal. Th e analogue signal removes any latency which is A lot of players have an

obsession with fi nding out exactly which pedals their heroes use,

and what their settings are, so that they can pursue that tone they love so much. Now while it’s easy to say, “make your own tone”, sometimes the big shots have such a great sound that you really want to capture it for yourself, perhaps not as your standard tone, but maybe to get as close as you can on cover songs in your band. Well, TC Electronic has come up with a rather unique way of letting you do this: give big name players unparalleled access to the inner workings of their pedals to get the sound they want, then allow you to download those settings into the pedals. But are these pedals able to stand on their own merit or is this just a gimmick?

TC Electronictoneprint Pedals

common in purely digital FX, and by being able to bypass this you can use the pedals in a parallel eff ects loop.

All the pedals, barring the Shaker, can be run in stereo mode with both stereo inputs and outputs, which is not that common a feature on a single stompbox unit.

Th e controls all feel top quality, with all the knobs having a silky smooth turning action, and they allow you to access and control the various functions of each pedal. On the Flashback (a delay and looper) and the Hall of Fame (a reverb) one of these allows you to select between diff erent presets as

TC ElECTroniC TONEPRINT PEDALS HALL OF FAME PriCE: £130 AND FLASHBACK PriCE: £150

The Vortex off ers all the usual fl anging tones

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The Shaker’s latch setting makes it only on when the footswitch is pressedThe Flashback offers lots of choice from its great delay options and its looper function

Bass Guitar MaGazine 63

TC ElECTroniC CORONA PriCE: £130 AND SHAKER PriCE: £130 AND VORTEX PriCE: £130

well as access the Toneprint setting. Each pedal also has a microswitch, which feels tight and strong in action. For the Corona (chorus), Vortex (flanger) and Shaker (vibrato) the switch lets you select different modes, and the Toneprint.

At the head of each pedal is a socket for a 9v DC adaptor, and also a mini USB port which allows you to hook up your pedal to your PC or Mac and download one of the Toneprint settings to it. So what is all this Toneprint stuff then? Essentially, each artist has sat down with the folks over at TC and tweaked and tinkered with all the different presets inside the pedal until it sounds exactly the way they want. Now this might sound just like any old “musician” preset, such as you might get in a pedal’s manual for approximating the tones of a famous player. In fact it’s far from it as the Toneprint changes the inherent heart of the pedal. With most pedals the characteristics of the pedal are locked and the user is allowed to play within certain boundaries. The Toneprint goes beyond this and unlocks the core of the pedal offering up wildly different variations on each effect’s basic characteristic. With Toneprints from players such as Mark King, Gail Ann Dorsey, Nathan East and our own Janek Gwizdala already there for you to play with the Toneprints on offer are already expanding.

Sounds

Hall Of FameThis reverb pedal offers up an enormous array of tones. Leaving the decay, FX and tone set to 12, and flicking through the different modes reveals

tons of workable options. If you find you have a spot for a bass solo, then a bit of reverb could end up making things much more expressive. You can get enormous reverb from the Church setting, and with judicious tweaks of the tone knob it’s possible to get some warm room and hall reverb.

Because you have an analogue dry path, it means that the effect gets layered on top of your original tone. This helps everything sound very natural and organic as opposed to overly processed.

Uriah Duffy’s ‘After Shock’

tone print is worth a look, as it activates when you dig in. Play softly and you get a regular tone, but start to hit those strings hard, or introduce a bit of slap and the reverb kicks in.

CoronaThis chorus effect offers up two modes (aside from the Toneprint): standard chorus and tri-chorus. The standard chorus is actually quite subtle. It sounds great, and if you want to just add some body to your sound a la Guns N Roses era Duff McKagan then you can easily achieve this, just dial in as much of the effect as you want using the FX knob, which blends in the effect with your dry signal. Of course by tweaking the speed and depth you can also get some wonderful sounds for ballad playing, where those longer notes can sing out.

The tri-chorus setting is

incredibly lush, with three separate chorus effects working in unison. It’s a doddle to get that traditional singing chorus effect, which will really lift some solo playing. It was also absolutely perfect for getting that watery chorus sound, akin to the guitar sound on Nirvana’s ‘Come As You Are’.

We’d recommend checking out Nathan East’s ‘Magic Chorus’ Toneprint for something subtle and lyrical, or Jon Thorne’s ‘Joanna’ if you’re after something to bulk out your existing tone.

VortexThe flanger offers a wide variety of tones. There are two settings, and the standard flanger can offer everything from subtle chorus-like tones, right up to jet-flanging effects. I was able to

easily dial in a tone akin to Phil Lynott on ‘Waiting For An Alibi’ and began happily riffing away. Of course if you really want to crazy things up it’s pretty easy to get some real space cadet tones going on. Whether you want some metallic zing, or big sweeps you can easily get it from the Vortex. The feedback knob can offer positive and negative feedback and it’s great for unlocking some unusual sounds.

The second mode is tape, and offers up through zero flanging, which emulates the old tape echo effects. When playing around in this mode it’s possible to get some tremolo-like sounds going on.

If you want something subtle then check out Mark King’s brilliantly named ‘Sweet Minger’ Toneprint, but if you want something wild and crazy

“the tri-chorus setting [of the Corona] is incredibly lush...it’s a doddle to get that traditional singing chorus effect”

Toneprint Pedals 3pp_BC.indd 63 30/01/2012 16:02

TC ElECTroniC TONEPRINT PEDALS

64 Bass Guitar MaGazine

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

soundscape or Janek Gwizdala’s and Divinity Roxx’s off erings. All the Toneprints are diff erent and show off just what you can achieve with this fantastic pedal.

ShakerTh is is the only pedal in the range that has no direct signal, instead being wholly processed. Vibrato is an eff ect that can really lift your playing, adding character and expression particularly to melodic lines or solos. Th e Shaker can let you get something very subtle, right through to a synth like tone that took me back to my childhood waiting for a game to load on my Commodore 64. Across the range of sounds the vibrato is smooth. Th e tone knob is particularly useful as it lets you adjust the emphasis on the low and high frequencies. You can also eff ect when the vibrato reaches its depth using the Rise Time knob.

Th e latch setting allows the pedal to be switched on only when your foot is depressing the footswitch. As soon as you release the pressure the pedal turns off and your original tone is back. Th is would be of great

use to apply some vibrato to a solo or exposed break or fi ll in a ballad.

Michael Shuman of Queens of Th e Stone Age has created a wonderful Toneprint named ‘March Of Th e Bees’ which is very synth like, with wild modulations.

ConclusionTh e Toneprint range is a great set of pedals. Everything about them oozes quality, from the construction to the incredible sounds on off er. When you couple this to the ability to access exactly how top players want their units to sound these are genuinely exciting pedals. But you know what would be absolutely amazing? Access to the software to unlock the pedals and tinker away as the pros have been allowed to; now that would be something. And as for the price? It’s hard to think of many pedals out there that give you as much for such a modest price. TC should be rightly proud of these units, and if you’re on the lookout for a new pedal then these should be at the top of your list to try.Ben Cooper

TC Group InternationalTel: 0800 917 8926www.tcgroup-international.com

WHAT WE THINK

CONTACT DETAILS

Made In: DenmarkPower: 9V DC or batteryDimensions: 7.2cm x 12.2cm x 5cm

HALL OF FAMEPRICE: £130Eff ect: ReverbFeatures: FX level, decay, tone, mode, Toneprint

FLASHBACKPRICE: £150Eff ect: DelayFeatures: FX level, delay, feedback mode, Toneprint

CORONAPRICE: £130Eff ect: ChorusFeatures: FX level, speed, depth, tone, tri-chorus, Toneprint

SHAKERPRICE: £130Eff ect: VibratoFeatures: Speed, depth, rise time, latch, Toneprint

VORTEXPRICE: £130Eff ect: FlangerFeatures: Speed, depth, feedback, tape mode, Toneprint

Plus: All the pedals are fantastically well-made, unique, outstanding value for money.Minus: At these prices nothing.Overall: A truly great series of pedals.

then our own Janek Gwizdala’s ‘Family Of Rats’ setting will give you an aggressive and experimental sound.

FlashbackTh is delay and looping pedal is much like the Hall of Fame, in that just playing with the presets is enjoyable enough. Th e analogue and tape presets are warm and authentic, and there are also ping pong, reverse delay and many others to play with. You can get everything from a little slapback to seconds long delay. Th e 2290 preset off ers absolutely pristine digital delay. You can tap in your own tempo, but instead of using the footswitch as on most pedals, you hold down the footswitch for two seconds which mutes the output. Th en you can play a muted quarter note on any string to enter your tempo. Release the footswitch and the delay is in time. You can set the tempo to have three diff erent subdivisions using the microswitch on the pedal: quarter notes, eighth notes or quarter and dotted eighth.

Th e looper function of this pedal lets you lay down 40 seconds of playing, so you can get into all kinds of experiments, whether that’s soloing over some changes, or building up layers of sonic textures.

Th e versatility of this pedal is evidenced by the huge variety of Toneprints on off er, Nathan East’s lyrical solo delay (which also features elements of his chorus Toneprint), Justin Meldal-Johnsen’s deep,

BUILD QUALITY

VALUE FOR MONEYSOUND QUALITY

BGM RATING OUT OF FIVE

“the shaker can let you get something subtle, right through to a synth-like tone”

The Tri Chorus setting on the Corona off ers lush and fl exible chorus tones

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