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.
NEWS: Win a complete TC Electronic TonePrint pedalboard
Whoa! Check out this contest! TC Electronic is giving away a huge pedalboard loaded with every TonePrint pedal and autographed by, well, everyone. But don’t take my word for it (well, you can if you want. I mean, I’m trustworthy and everything) – check out this video.
To enter, hit up the TC Electronic Facebook page.
Hi! I'm Peter Hodgson. 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 (including their weekly hard rock/metal column Crunch) and The Brag. And I'm Assistant Social Coordinator with Seymour Duncan.
I've been playing guitar since I was 8 years old, and I've been writing for magazines since I was 18. I've also worked as a guitar teacher (up to 50 students a week), a setup tech, a newspaper editor, and I've also dabbled in radio a little bit. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and my hobbies include drinking way too much coffee, and eating way too much Mexican food.
You can check out my guitar playing at Reverbnation or on YouTube, and feel free to email me at iheartguitarblog@gmail.com