by (cassius987) » Sat Sep 08, 2012 10:21 pm
Tried one out today at the GC in Centennial, CO (conveniently located next to IKEA for bored husbands...). It's a great amp, and I'll try to break it down as best I can:
Tuner
On plugging in this is the first thing you notice. The tuner has a very rapid response to your playing and seems pretty accurate--TC have already shown themselves to be pretty adept with tuners so this is no surprise. Technically it's tuned to certain frequencies but it clearly recognized octaves, so tuning drop D would not be a problem, etc.
Volume
Gain and peak LED are bog-standard but function exactly as you'd hope them to, and most importantly, this thing gets loud! It's got a deep voice for such a small, featherweight cab (35 lbs or so). The natural voice seems to favor just a touch of low mids, probably resonance from the porting, so you feel even the lowest notes quite well. This little guy is no wimp. I don't know what the frequency response is but I'm sure it can handle a 5-string just fine.
EQ
I have to say this is the first time I have ever really LOVED an amp's EQ section, and such a simple one at that. I guess the way it works is the cut acts on slightly lower frequencies than the boost for each control, and the result is that the entire EQ is extremely ear-friendly. Typically I find the high EQ to be less than useful on lots of cheaper amps but there was no tweeter hiss whatsoever and even at full treble boost and the sound is actually quite useable (I read the boosted frequency is around 3.5 kHz which is pretty "low"--I think this is why I like the EQ so much). I found a slight boost in bass and treble with a small mid cut made for a great deep rock bass sound. I am having a hard time finding the right words to describe the mid control other than, "It worked great." The dual frequency nature of the boost/cut was especially apparent with this control. To sum up, the EQ was a real standout about this amp for me.
Tubedrive
This is footswitchable, which is the only complaint I have about the one on my TC Classic 450 (it isn't--but shouldn't they always be??). But in this case, I am not sure if the tube simulation is the same or modified, the sound of the drive is not as aggressive or gritty as the one on my Classic 450. It could be a matter of low output or other settings--I don't like to play at concert levels at GC out of politeness--but I also just think the drive was tamed or modified to get it to work well with the cab; makes sense, but I miss some of the fuzz-like aggression at the upper end. For those of you who like a little conservative dirt on your sound, it's likely to be a hit. As for me, I will probably still need my Tall Font Russian and Swollen Pickle for some gigs.
Toneprint
Luckily I had already installed the app for this on my phone and was able to use it a great deal for this demo. The stock chorus sounds pretty awful (I think), but lots of other choruses available on the program did a much better job. You point your phone at your pickup and the resulting frequencies are sent to the amp, which changes over to the new effect in less than 5 seconds. I probably tried upwards of a dozen effects before I was finished. All in all I tried several of the drives, choruses, flangers and octavers but didn't get to any of the compressors or vibratos. In general the effects were very useable and easy to dial in (all you have to worry about is the level after all), but many also tended to be quite subtle in nature. Then there were a few that really "popped" for me like Nathan East's chorus. A lot of the drive effects seemed redundant with the tube simulator and produced very similar sounds. I was actually pretty pleased with several of the flangers (Gail Anny Dorsey's stood out) and octavers (Roscoe Beck's is great). With the likelihood of continued updates to the Toneprints available and a plethora already out there this seems like a strong feature that will continue to get better, but one that also requires a lot of experimenting. My biggest concern is that even when turned up to stage monitor levels many of the effects will remain too "subtle", but even then I give this feature lots of credit for its flexibility.
I really didn't have a chance to play with anything else other than the mute, although speaking of that I will say all the controls (mute included) were dead silent which was nice.
When my "insider" at GC gets back in town in a couple of weeks I'm going to pick one of these up at a cheaper rate, and after a while I'll try to report back and let you all know how it goes in case anyone else might want to acquire one of these. Thanks for reading.
