How times change. To think that once upon a time a guitar multi-effects pedal was the size of a VCR and now this, the Plethora X1, “TonePrint loader” from TC Electronic that offers 14 different effects in a compact stompbox.
And not only is the latest in the Plethora range respectful of pedalboard real estate, it’s also affordable, with a street price of £/$179. This has been the direction of travel for many guitar effects pedal brands, especially as DSP technology grows ever more advanced.
The Plethora X1 looks to do for TC Electronic’s TonePrint eco-system what the Tonex One does for IK Multimedia’s Tonex family of amp modellers, and what the HX One does for Line 6.
It is a little cheaper than the Line 6 HX One but then it doesn’t have amp modelling. It is pricier than the Tonex One. But there is a lot to get stuck into here.
The Plethora X1 can be the shape-shifter your pedalboard is waiting for; the wildcard with 14 user-assignable presets spread across seven TonePrint boards with selectable A and B slots. As such, you can stick it anywhere.
Use it as your reverb pedal at the end of your signal chain. Place it at the start and use TC Electronic’s Hypergravity Compressor pedal to tame your transients.
Think of it as the greatest hits of TC Electronic. Or as TC Electronic puts it: “Think of Plethora X1 as the one pedal that will stand by your side throughout your eternal pedalboard journey, adapting into exactly what you need at any given point.”
All the familiar favourites from TC Electronic are here: there is the Hall of Fame 2 Reverb, Flashback 2 Delay, Helix Phaser, Viscous Vibe, Sub n Up Octaver, Brainwaves Pitch Shifter, Corona Chorus, the aforementioned Hypergravity, Mimiq Doubler, Vortex Flanger, Pipeline Tap Tremolo, Quintessence Harmony, Sentry Noise Gate and Shaker Vibrato.
And with its TonePrint digital architecture, you can download pro player’s settings to the pedal.
The Plethora X1 has a similar chassis to the MusicRadar-approved Hall Of Fame 2 Reverb, with a seven-way rotary dial to cycle through your presets. The three knobs are marked A, B, and C, with their function dependant on whichever effect you have loaded.
This could get confusing but we’ve got a 1” LCD screen to let you know what’s what, and deeper edits can be made via the TonePrint App.
The Plethora X1 is equipped with Bluetooth so you can hook this up to your smartphone/laptop and get busy organising your sounds, creating custom presets, fine-tuning parameters and so forth. Or do it the old-fashioned way via USB.
Last, but but no means least, the Mash footswitch presents players with five different functions. It can be used in the default latching mode, turning the pedal on and off as you would any other.
Or it can be used in momentary mode – only active while you have the footswitch depressed. In A/B mode the footswitch can be used to toggle between two different effects (that could be very handy if this is your designated modulation).
Time-based effects can be controlled by tap-tempo and, as the name, suggests, you can use the Mash footswitch as it was intended, applying different degrees of pressure for more performance-related effects such as delay freezes and pitch-shifting.
The Plethora X1 is out now. See TC Electronic for more details.
