TC Electronic Flashback Triple delay

[roger bayliss]

This pedal is a multiple delay pedal capable of replicating multi head delay units with algorithms for tape, digital, analogue etc.
The echos can be routed both parallel and series and a single delay can have 2 heads , that's upto six delay times. I believe the tone print editor provides great control of parameters including EQ and drive etc.

If you watch the intro video , it references Hank Marvin and Meazzi and Binson and Roland, so intended to facilitate those echo types.

I'm interested in this pedal and will probably get one in a while , once funds are available. It will do many echo types, such as slapback, ping pong.

This just might be a great find.

We could share custom tone prints amongst us , if we take to it !


https://www.tcelectronic.com/product.html?modelCode=P0DEA

[roger bayliss]

This pedal was discontinued by TC Electronics,, although on their website, but is still around and available both new and used.

I managed to find one on Amazon. Thought I'd get one now as discontinued.

[roger bayliss]

I received the echo unit today and started learning how to use it and the software.

Despite watching videos saying upto 6 delays were possible, as of yet I have only seen templates for single delays, no dual delays though.

This means only 3 single delays can be deployed . The product video mentioned Mezzzi, Binson and Roland multi head echos, but 3 echos will not cover the Binson and Meazzi units. I may have missed something, but as of yet can only produce 3 taps.

The echos however are very good , with modulation and eq to shape the echos.

Will have to play with it some more when I have time to see if it's possible to get the 6 echos , but would not recommend it till that is sorted out.

[shadphil]

Hi Roger, just looked at a video it says you can only use 3 delays one at a time, two at a time or all three together in either series or parallel out of the 16 plus the tap button. phil

[roger bayliss]

Might have found the answer in the sub division switch after playing around a bit !

I used a quarter + an eight division with the delay set to 202ms . I believe this produces a 202ms and a 101ms delay . So that approximately does heads 1 + 2 . So a 280ms on another delay and a 360ms on the 3rd delay should get the Meazzi sounds approx with head 1 slightly faster. Also need to master the toneprint editor , so more twiddling should get me there. The delay lines can be independently adjusted for feedback and mix , so head 4 can be louder than 123 and some modulation and eq will get me closer. Give me time I think this will work.

One of the things that threw me , was I watched a video on Flashback 2 delay using toneprint editor and that delay pedal has a dual delay, but unlike the triple , 2 delays are all it can do from 1 delay engine, the triple has three engines , but no dual delay algorithm.

[leddo]

I might be stating the bleeding obvious here, but my impression of this pedal is that it is basically 3 delay pedals together under the one lid. You can set them all as separate pedals and use the serial or parallel switch to get the sounds you need.
Looks a good pedal but is it any better than the Catalinbread Echorec or the Strymon Volante?
Be interesting to hear your thoughts.

[roger bayliss]

I might be stating the bleeding obvious here, but my impression of this pedal is that it is basically 3 delay pedals together under the one lid. You can set them all as separate pedals and use the serial or parallel switch to get the sounds you need.
Looks a good pedal but is it any better than the Catalinbread Echorec or the Strymon Volante?
Be interesting to hear your thoughts.

In a nutshell , it is 3 separate delays as you say, but with many eq and modulation options to shape the sounds of the repeats. Using the division knob , you can get 2 delays from one delay time on the last 4 settings of that feature. These are called dual delays in the manual. Hence it is possible to produce upto 6 delays using these dual delays. The quarter + eight note dual setting thus would from a 200ms delay , generate a further 100ms delay from one delay section. There are other options for different timings, such as quarter + dotted eight. I have recently found this out

The modulation section is capable of doing chorus and flanging, vibrato etc. The EQ section can shape the repeats to match other echo unit characters and the modulation section can mimic wow and flutter.

Once you design a toneprint , you can save it and use it as the basis of your echo which you save into one of the 3 echo memories. You can adjust feedback and mix to get the right levels .

The way I see it, is another unit capable of doing the Shadows echos, but I will need a few days tinkering to get a good result.

I did a basic setting early today and played a few tunes based on echonatic 2 and Atlantis and Footapper sounded quite good, before I had used any EQ or modulation, so I think it will be another echo option for the music.

I have the Volante and it does a brilliant job, but the control of heads volume is limited without MIDI and timings are close but not perfect. It still sounds good though and several have got these units. The catlin echorec again is a great pedal, but based on a Binson echorec which has equidistant head spacings that are not matching the Meazzi and no control over head levels. It does a decent job overall, but not accurate.

I feel the Triple, can offer echos that can be timed and levelled correctly to match a Meazzi , whereas the Volante and Catlin are less accurate.

On top of that, it is capable of doing Brian May style, The Edge U2 styles and David Gilmore echos, etc, so very good all around echo unit. See this video for examples of those sort of sounds

https://youtu.be/jcBvnZg_a2M?si=5f-bE9G9tsNmlk34

HTH

[roger bayliss]

More experiments today to see what I could get.

I manually set up 3 delays based on the tube echo template with appropriate timings and levels and repeats and used the subdivision of quarter note + eighth note on delay 1. I was not able to edit modulation and EQ as that is something that deep editing is what Toneprint is for,

Playing muted, you could hear the echos were like the EM2 pattern. I adjusted the levels and repeats to get it as near as I could.

Played Wonderful land, Peace Pipe , Perfida, Fandango, Spring is nearly here, Foot Tapper, Atlantis, Savage and got very good results. The damped notes sounded right. I found that I could just vary the mix and repeats on echo 3 for reasonably accurate live use of the unit for various tunes. I would be happy to use it like that for live playing.

The Toneprint app however is proving problematic at the moment, in that after you save a user template and then load it back in , it does not appear to retain some of the settings. You also cannot delete user templates and editing and overwriting does not seem to work properly.

I am planning on saving user templates for each head of the EM2 and later similar for the EM1 Meazzi. As I said , upto 6 echo s can be used utilising the subdivision switch last 4 settings (dual delays).

The Toneprint Windows software does allow deleting of user templates. I will have a go at using that software to design a user template of the Meazzi echos and see how it goes. The phone app does work well at 'beaming ' templates ' , it's basically okay except tne aforementioned user template issues.

I have only had this echo a little over 30hrs and have nanaged to get the EM2 sounds on it. I would like to get the templates working so I can use the modulation and EQ on the echos , but overall I am pleased with results so far.

I will try the Windows software out over next day or two and see if any better and report back.

[roger bayliss]

Right, I tried the Windows software version of the Toneprint software and happy to report that it works well. Managed to create 3 Toneprints to represent the Meazzi EM 2 heads 123&4 and loaded them into the Triple Delay. Heads 1+2 are in one toneprint that you use the subdivision switch set to quarter note + eighth note.

Got the echo sounding very good and played some EM2 tunes with very good results. So no issues using the Windows version of Toneprint software on a Windows 10 Laptop. One advantage of the Windows version is that it saves the templates in a file on disk that you could pass on to others to use your Templates.

As far as the Toneprint phone app goes, it is not any good for creating your own user templates and I do not have any fixes for that. Reading readers reviews on Google play , it would seem to be problematic amongst others too , so guess it's no good for user template. It's does seem to work with regard to beaming artist delays into the pedal , but just no good at user templates.

Maybe it's okay on the Apple version of the app ? I do not have any Apple products to try.

To set up a delay manually by ear,, maybe using an existing echo unit with correct taps to judge it by is also possible, like maybe you would on the Volante.

Apart from the Android app issue, overall I am quite pleased with the results. I have yet to figure out the modulation section , but without it is good.

My next step will be a try at the Echomatic 1 settings for Apache , Stranger , Mustang, frightened city etc, that's just 3 heads, so will be straight forward. Will report back when I get time to have a go at that.

[leddo]

Will there be any Youtube videos of you playing this pedal in the near future?