TC Electronic Vortex Flanger Stereo Flanger Pedal

Readers of SweetNotes and Sweetwater's other publications know that I love to get "hands on" with gear of all types. That's why I was so thrilled to be asked to work with TC Electronic to create an exclusive set of Sweetwater TonePrints for TC Electronic's pedals. Talk about hands on -- we were way deep inside those boxes! But let's take a step back here. TC's TonePrint line consists of five pedals: the Flashback delay, the Corona chorus, the Vortex flanger, the Shaker vibrato, and the Hall of Fame reverb. These compact and affordable pedals sound great and offer excellent features and benefits, such as allowing the analog input signal to pass through completely untouched. They're also very versatile, with algorithms drawn from TC's long history of amazing studio and guitar effects processors. That versatility is kicked way up by the TonePrint part of the equation. A TonePrint is a free downloadable preset that can be loaded into one of the five pedals. This preset might be an artist-designed sound or something from TC -- or in this case, special sounds crafted by yours truly. You can get the presets off the TC site and load them in your pedal via USB. Or, even cooler, you can use your iPhone or Android to "beam" a TonePrint into your pedal, instantly, anywhere you might be. Creating a TonePrint isn't as simple as playing with the front-panel knobs on the pedal to find a sound you like. TC uses specialized editing software that allows you to go deep into the pedal to adjust hundreds of parameters. It's an intense process, but also a lot of fun! In my case, I brought in a box of vintage pedals I'm no longer comfortable taking to the gig, and TC's Tore Mogensen and I spent hours re-creating the sounds of those pedals. We ended up with four TonePrints: a BOSS DM-3-style analog delay for the Flashback, a BOSS CE-2-style analog chorus for the Corona, a BOSS Dimension C-style multi-chorus for the Corona, and an original Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress-style flanger/chorus for the Vortex. After hours of work, we were very pleased with the results. Our goal was to capture the spirit of the original pedals, and I think we succeeded! Best of all, you can have these TonePrints for your own TC pedals, completely free of charge, courtesy of TC Electronic and Sweetwater! Simply use your computer to load the TonePrints from tcelectronic.com, or use your iPhone/Android to access them. TC pedals and TonePrints are a staple in my rig, and I hope that you find them just as useful. In the end, what I came away with from this experience was a true appreciation for just how powerful these unassuming little TonePrint pedals are. Check them out!