TC Plethora X5 Advice

That is a fair compromise IMO

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i know you have a credit on azon, so not sure what your price point would be for cash. but they have a bunch on reverb starting at $100 which is pretty good i think. itā€™s a nice pedal.

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They are getting them on Amazon on the 24th, it would be here the 26th.
I liked the factory set reverb on the HOF 1 mini, and I am sure that I would like the HOF 2, I mean, whatā€™s not to like, BUT, I like to try and be sure. With Reverb, I donā€™t have that option
Also, I have 2 reverb pedals coming tomorrow and Wednesday. I am trying them agains the Boss RV-6. If there is a winner, I will keep it. If either of the pedals can even equal the couple settings on the Boss that I like, I will probably be keeping it over the BOSS.
All that said, I still have time to get the HOF2 and test it against the Boss RV-6, or one of the other two that I might keep over the boss.
It is funny, I have already tested, more reverb pedals then any other pedal on my board. and I am still testing more. And the funny part is that, I donā€™t even like much more then a super subtle, ā€œhello, I am here, way way way back in the backā€ reverb. nothing fancy, nothing trippy, nothing much more then a simple Plate / Spring / Hall / Room and maybe a few others. One of the two I ordered has a CAVE setting that I am interested to hear, but I think it will be echo / delay with tails, so hmmm. may not like it at all.

So yeah, all the time spent on an effect that I am not so in love with, but a good reverb can really make your sound, so yeah, I am a little picky.
I am mostly picky about controls. I like something I can read without my glasses, and can turn with my fingers, and has decent control with basic type selection.
Right now, besides the HOF 2 (which will probably, eventually, be the winner) I am thinking this pedal might be a winner. Price is nice. Types are good, controls are good, and one thing that I like is that you can save 7 presets. I actually think this will be very useful for reverb. You get something dialed in just right, and then try to remember the angle of the pointer on the nob, etcā€¦

i actually have a hard time telling reverbs apart, i like reverb but they all sound pretty much alike to me. the reason i like the HOF2 is that it has a bunch of built in reverbs and slots to save 3 more. but so does that amazon pedal you listed. so it might be worth a look too. i also am a fan of the toneprints, as i usually find a couple that i like for each pedal. have to say that for the first time i was not as impressed with the toneprints overall for the subnup, but i did find one or two i liked.

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Exactly. Well, the ones I like all sound alike, just subtle differences, replicating how big a room or space the sound is in and reverberates back on.
The Shimmer, Modulate, etcā€¦ Those are too much, spacey, ocean, moon, stuff like that just does not do a thing for me, I donā€™t think I would play them much, if ever.

Yes, if I am not sure about them, I rather just have them all, that way if I ever LEARN a better way to use it, I am not stuck with a pedal that canā€™t do what I need.
OR
I rather just pay for a cheap SPRING or PLATE or Spring/ Plate / Hall reverb pedal, so if that same thing happens and I learn how to use it, if the cheap pedal doesnā€™t cut it anymore, no problem, $35 bucks. Ehh! $35 that I got use out of, so money was not wasted, and now I will spend $150 for a pedal.
Or something along those lines, if it made any sense at all.
I am kind of getting rushed to take somebody somewhere, so I am typing this out really fast.

That pedal has 7 slots to save PRESETS too, so that you can just save to a slot if you dialed into something you like, that way when you change it all around to do something else, you can just go back to it, and wonā€™t have to fool around with the controls to dial it back in. You just hit the button for the preset you saved it to.
But still, pretty cool.

Me too, and I like to concept and coolness of it so much that just having the option on a pedal I already like is good enough for me. The sub n up, I love that pedal. I love TonePrints. And if there are no good sub n up tone prints, I can deal with it just fine. the pedal is cool AF the way it is

Yeah, I have only played with it a little, THE PEDAL ITSELF is to damn cool, that I can deal with not using them. I mean something would have to be super spectacular in order to make the pedal better.

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agree

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Hi @DaveT Iā€™m a bit confused about what the noise gate in the P5 can and canā€™t do.
On the stand-alone TC Sentry pedal, you have a send and return jacks through which you connect your OD and other high gain pedals etc, in a separate loop to the other pedals you have, which provides as I understand it better control of the gating level and hence the noise control?
Can you do same with the P5, put your separate OD and other noisy pedals in the P5ā€™s send return loop, and use the built in virtual Sentry pedal in the same way? Or does the virtual Sentry only gate off the internal virtual pedals?

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Iā€™m still curious what everyone is doing to the point they feel the need for a noise gate on a bass. I use a lot of distortion and still never turn my noise gate up. Worst case is I remove noise later in the DAW if recording, and live the noise would probably be lost in the mix anyway.

No noise gate releases instantly, so with any youā€™ll probably be losing some note attack. Not quite as big a deal with guitar chord strumming but for lots of discrete notes like bass it seems to me it would be more of a deal. Seems like a last resort option to me for bass.

I feel like I am missing something here.

That said, the Sentry does sound like a very good one, with the parametric gate frequency.

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i have no problem with liking a noise gate, but i kind of feel the same. the noise you hear sitting in front of your amp playing solo is much different than what the crowd would hear 20 feet away with a band playing. and you really wouldnā€™t use a noise gate pedal in recording one would think. i already have a series of effects going in to my effects loop, so i couldnā€™t loop my noisy effects anyways unless thereā€™s some crazy way to have multiple loops at once (which makes my brain hurt thinking about it so forget it).

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It looks like no. The virtual Sentry only has an in and an out as it sits on the chain. It triggers off the IN level. If you have your OD before the Sentry it will gate off that noise, but the threshold will have to be high enough that the noise itself doesnā€™t open the gate. @T_dub likes to use the clean tone to open the gate so he can keep the threshold lower. Otherwise, Iā€™m guessing heā€™s able to play notes soft enough that the gate doesnā€™t open.

My experience is the same as @howard. Iā€™m not using the gate and donā€™t have such high noise issues with the Darkglass VMT circuit.

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My vmt is also pretty quiet

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Umā€¦ why? :thinking:

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Thanks Dave for the confirmation. Given what you say, Iā€™m not really sure the virtual noise gate pedal in the P5 would be (so) useful compared to the real TC Sentry pedal. I could be wrong, I donā€™t have a noise gate so my understanding is purely by reading up on them.

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Happy to help with the research. One idea would be to put the X5 purchase aside for a bit and explore OD/Fuzz/Distortion since that appears to be a strong interest for you. That may influence what else is going to sound good wrapped around it.

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Yikes, I just looked that up on Guitar Centerā€¦ $128.99 for a pedal you may-or-may-not need!

So far I have my compressor and tube screamer in the chain, and only detect a very minor hissing which I have to put my ear next to the amp to hear it.
I have to concur with @howard, I donā€™t think itā€™s necessary.
Time will tell as I add more pedals, but for now Iā€™d rather spend that money on something more functional.

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Yes I think that is good advice, I also want to see where TC go with it generally and if they start charging for future new pedals on it. I feel they have to, otherwise whatā€™s in the business model for them? :thinking:

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Thatā€™s a funny one to second guess. It may just be a multi-effect box with 12 effects and done. The price seems too low for that though. They have to be talking about how much it would cannibalise discrete pedal sales. In my case I would have bought 2 TC pedals anyway, so thereā€™s no way I wasnā€™t going to spend another $150 to get 12. Would I have bought more than 3 if they didnā€™t have the X5? Mmmmm, probably not. I would have mixed it up from there. In my case I donā€™t think they lost any sales. To your point, they have now put a platform in my hands that could have upgrades in the future. That would make sense from a business standpoint since they arenā€™t charging anywhere near Helix prices for the base unit. Iā€™m not sure what they could give me that I would pay for. Bass cab sims? I wonder if it already has enough spare memory to implement a looper. People do some really neat things with combo pedals where they optimize how the multiple effects interact. Maybe that. My request to them is to have a fully parametric EQ module, easy to do in software with a virtual display. Iā€™d pay for that.

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I didnā€™t watch it all, as I didnā€™t have the unit to try it on obviously, and I know itā€™s not a full solution, but there is a video on YT on how to turn the compressor toneprint into just an EQ controllable by the knob(s). I assume it has just low mid and high bands like the compressor.
Canā€™t vouch for if itā€™s worth doing as a stop gap solution.

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The thing is priced really weird. Itā€™s more than the entry level multi-FX boxes like the Zooms and the GT-1B, but less than the next tier. Itā€™s a lot less flexible than either in terms of what it does, but probably higher audio quality than the entry level boxes (assuming the toneprints and hardware are any good.) Basically it looks like a good box to get if you really like TC pedals and plan to get more than (say) two.

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I use the noise gate because I have a loud compressor always on, a low drive sometimes always on, and I do lots of video lessons and exercises thru my computer or iPad thru headphones. I got tired of the constant hiss, or turning on and off pedals while I was listening, rewinding, typing, between lessons, or when I jump over to the forum to type some things for a bit, while leaving my bass around my neck with everything on. it was really really really annoying.
I probably should have added that bit of information, as to why I love it and use it so much, because it is not a needed thing, I just happen to love mine.
And everybody has been talking about getting one, or using one in the P5 or Zoom multiā€™s. So I was just pointing out the ways to set up on the types of noise gates with a loop, and that I would only use one with a loop.

If I didnā€™t play thru headphones always, and didnā€™t have a loud always on compressor, I might not use one the way I do, but since adding it to my set up, I love it and it is great.
I know you also probably use your headphones most of the time too @howard, and I could do things different to where I donā€™e need to use one, like turn the compressor off, and the drives, or cut the volume of my bass, or amp, or computer while not actually playing, but I like my solution. I got it 2nd hand, very cheap, and it works wonders for me. I would never use it in a live situation outside my house, and donā€™t use it when recording.
I have found that I like the Boss NS-2 much better then the Noise Gate built into Garage Band, and I turn it off. I have the threshold set very very low @DaveT, and even putting my fingers on strings opens the gate, so I donā€™t lose anything in the attack with the way I use it.
Again, sorry I didnā€™t explain why I use it better, I was more focused on how to set it up. I do love my NS-2, and would never not have one, I just use it in certain settings, with a very low threshold.

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