REVIEW: TC Electronic Hall Of Fame Reverb
Okay, we all know that TC Electronic makes incredible effects. Their 2290 delay is legendary. Their G System, G Major and G Force: legendary. Their Nova series of pedals: legendary. But the TonePrint series of pedals is a unique opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something that’s going to become legendary. Because TonePrint pedals allow you to dial in your own sounds, sure, but they also give you access to finely tweaked effects designed by some of the best ears in the biz, including Dream Theater’s John Petrucci, Steve Stevens, Paul Gilbert, Bumblefoot and many, many more. The Hall Of Fame Reverb is but one pedal in the series. The others are the FlashBack Delay, Corona Chorus, Shaker Vibrato, Vortex Flanger, and the new John Petrucci signature modulation station, the Dreamscape.
The Hall of Fame Reverb’s controls include rotary pots for FX Type, FX Level, Decay and Tone, as well as a toggle switch for Short or Long pre-delay times. There are stereo inputs and stereo outputs, a handy unscrewable battery compartment, 9vDC power supply jack, True Bypass stomper switch, and the same basic case shape as the company’s instant-classic PolyTune tuner pedal.
TC TC Electronic John Petrucci Signature Pedal – The Dreamscape
Aside from being one of the nicest dudes in guitar (read my interview here), John Petrucci is of course an incredible musician with a great pair of ears. He’s been rocking TC Electronic gear for as long as I can remember, and now the company is honouring him with his own signature pedal, the Dreamscape. It’s a combined vibrato, flanger and chorus with effects based on the TonePrints he designed last year for the Corona Chorus, Shaker Vibrato and Vortex Flanger. Here’s the press release:
TC Electronic Announces John Petrucci Signature Pedal – The Dreamscape
(Risskov, Denmark, 1 February 2012) Long-time TC guitar effects user John Petrucci has joined forces with TC, taking their collaboration to a whole new level.
John Petrucci was one of the first artists to join TC’s revolutionary TonePrint concept. In total, John created 5 personal TonePrints in early 2011 – two for Corona Chorus, two for Shaker Vibrato and one for the Vortex Flanger. John loved having access to all effect parameters so much that he instantly agreed to develop a signature pedal together with TC – one that was based on his own TonePrints. And so The Dreamscape was born.
TC Electronic TonePrint app comes to Android
Great news for Android owners! The TC Electronic TonePrint app is now available for you too! I’ve been using this on iOS with my Hall Of Fame Reverb pedal (review soon!) and it’s an amazing innovation.
Here’s the press release.
TC Electronic’s Revolutionary TonePrint App Now Available for Android
A few months ago TC Electronic launched its truly mind-blowing TonePrint® App for iPhone. Now the magic has been successfully ported for Android devices!
(Risskov, Denmark, 13 January 2012) The new app compiles all TonePrints for TC Electronic’s TonePrint enabled guitar pedals in one place and allows users to ‘beam’ new TonePrints to their pedals in a matter of seconds. The idea behind the technology is as simple as it is ingenious: Each TonePrint has been converted to a unique-sounding magnetic impulse that can be beamed via the phone’s internal speaker, through the pickup of a guitar and directly to a TonePrint pedal! The sound does not carry any data so it doesn’t matter if users are in a raucous arena or a library – no other sounds will interfere with the data being sent from the phone.
REVIEW: Ibanez FRM100 ‘Fireman’ Paul Gilbert signature model
Paul Gilbert’s first Ibanez Fireman was a custom model which he designed by flipping over the beloved Iceman (Fireman, geddit?). It was available in two configurations – rare and super rare – and they were pretty damn pricey guitars. But the fans loved ‘em, and when Paul appeared on the cover of his Fuzz Universe
That day has come! The FRM100 is a Chinese-made version of Paul’s red Fireman. It features a solid mahogany body (if you look close you can see where separate pieces of wood are joined together, but this is pretty much standard practice). The three-piece neck is made of two pieces of mahogany flanking a slice of maple, with a rosewood fretboard featuring simple, elegant pearl dot position markers. The neck shape is huge if you’re used to more shred-friendly designs: 22mm at the first fret and 24mm at the 12th. The frets are tall mediums, which works well with the chunky neck profile. The fretboard radius is 305mm. The neck meets the body with an intriguing joint which looks a lot like an Ibanez All-Access Neck Join (AANJ), but minus the bolts.
REVIEW: TC Electronic Nova System Limited
TC Electronic’s Nova System is one of the company’s most popular offerings and it’s pretty easy to see why. It combines many of the same kinds of high-quality effects, intuitive operation and bulletproof construction that you might find in the venerable G-System, but in a smaller, more backpack-friendly configuration. The original Nova System has found its way onto stages all over the world with artists of the calibre of Chris Cornell guitarist Peter Thorn and solo artist/Guns ‘n’ Roses axeman Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal, and the Nova System Limited pays tribute to these high-profile gentlemen via the inclusion of several of their personal presets. And the ‘Limited’ in the name is quite apt: only 1200 will be produced. So if you want one, get on it!
TC Electronic Dark Matter Distortion
TC Electronic is quite up-front about the sound they’re going for with the new Dark Matter distortion: their website proclaims that it is designed to give you the sound of an early Plexi amp. Sounds good to me! So do they nail it? Let’s have a look.
The Dark Matter is a very robust stomper with a no-nonsense control array consisting of Treble, Bass, Gain and Level pots and a Voice switch (which shifts the bass response). It’s made from high-grade components, and is built into the same basic ‘hammerhead’ rugged die-cast aluminium chassis as TC’s excellent TonePrint pedals and the revolutionary PolyTune tuner. Its pedalboard footprint is pretty minimal so it’s unlikely that the jacks will cause too much of a space problem. There’s an input, an output, a True Bypass switch, a really quite bright red LED to indicate that the effect is on, and a 9v DC supply jack. Battery access is through a handy little turn screw on the bottom which you can easily turn with a guitar pick or a coin. The pedal runs on an 9v battery or a power supply.
COOL GEAR ALERT: TC Electronic TonePrint App
Okay, this is too cool. Self-tying shoes and hover boards? Ha! The future is here thanks to TC Electronic!
Music Company Adds a Touch of Guitar Magic to Apple’s iPhone
New iPhone app provides musical inspiration in a revolutionary way – by ‘beaming’ a bit of magic through the speaker of an iPhone directly into the pickup of a guitar.
TC Electronic, a music equipment manufacturer, has developed a game-changing iPhone app for guitarists using its range of TonePrint® guitar effect pedals. TonePrint pedals feature an amazing technology that allows users to upload custom-made sounds created by some of the best guitar players in the world. Until now, users have downloaded these TonePrints from the company’s website and transferred them to their pedals via USB. Now, the new TonePrint App allows guitarists to simply hold the speaker of their iPhone above one of their guitar pickups to load new TonePrints into their pedals.
“Most guitarists have their pedals in a rehearsal space and their computer at home. Some may have brought a laptop, but the process still needed to be made faster and more intuitive to really take advantage of the great potential that this artist-driven concept has to offer,” says Product Manager at TC Electronic, Tore Lynggaard Mogensen. “We are proud to present a flexible solution that allows all guitarists with TonePrint pedals and an iPhone to truly explore the ever-expanding list of unique TonePrints created by some of the best guitar players in the world. Now great sounds and thereby musical inspiration can be beamed and enjoyed anytime anywhere.”
Magnetic Magic
The idea behind the technology is as simple as it is ingenious: Each TonePrint has been converted to a unique-sounding magnetic impulse, but the sound does not carry any data. So it doesn’t matter if users are in a raucous arena or a library – no other sounds will interfere with the data being sent from the iPhone. The beaming process only takes a few seconds, and all of the TonePrints are stored within the app as mp3 files, which means that no Internet connection is required.
The new TonePrint app is available now on the Apple App Store and it is completely free of charge. The only requirement to take advantage of the app is one or more TonePrint enabled guitar pedals: Flashback Delay, Hall of Fame Reverb, Corona Chorus, Vortex Flanger and Shaker Vibrato.
Currently, the TonePrint App is available for iPhone, but a version for Android phones is under development and will be available in December 2011.
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I write for Gibson.com, Australian Guitar, Australian Musician, Mixdown Magazine (including my instructional column, 'Unleash Your Inner Rock God,' which has been running since 2007), guitarworld.com, Tone Deaf, Beat and The Brag. I started I Heart Guitar in 2008. I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18 (I'm 33 now). I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week) and a setup tech. I live in Melbourne, Australia. You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube.
You can email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com