tc electronic Brainwaves Pitch Shifter

I own several pitch shift units (from pedals to studio grade units) and is easy to see how technology had been advancing during the last couple of years. TC did it again here. I must say with confidence that this is one of the very best floor units I ever tried (to my ears only surpassed by the EH Pitch Fork and Eventide Pitch Factor, being the latter a grossly unfair statement, taking into consideration the difference in prices of both units).

Almost no latency, laser sharp tracking and the addition of the smash feature (which I found unimpressive, but again such is highly subjective) makes the brainwaves a no-brainer choice for anyone in the market for a pitch shifter. There are a million of youtube videos, soundcloud clips and online reviews, so you will have a very clear idea about how this sounds, looks and operates anyway well ahead of eventual purchase.

Features abound for a pedal with very small footprint (single pressure-sensitive foot switch (the smash thing), many pitch shifting algorithms including everything you might need or desire, from polyphonic pitch shifting, aggressive whammy, subtle detune, independent dual voice pitch shifting up to 2 (two!) octaves up or down...). And all of them sound fantastic. Obviously, as you go down or up extremely it gets unnatural, but never overly cheesy or fizzy. This thing works.

In addition, you will get USB connectivity and from there the ability to create (or download from TC?s site) pitch effects and customize mash functionality with free editor (all platforms) or even to "beam" personal or signature tones into your pedal straight from your guitar. Extremely fast. And for sure cool.

For those who care, this is a true bypass unit which also offers buffered bypass mode, so something for everyone. No noise with a reasonable clean power supply either connected in front of the amp or through the loop.

The switching of the unit is very soft (makes sense since it should double as a smash controller and is pressure sensitive) but keeping it side to side with other units in the board made this distracting and erratic to disengage for me. Hard press, still on (if not going into smash mode!). Long press, still on. Fast soft press... finally off. It sounds silly from my part, granted, but in a rocknroll type of situation gets distracting.

The pedal is sturdy and obviously well-made. Aesthetics of the pedal are a matter of taste. Bubble gum pink with white knobs' anyone? Is a love/hate type of thing, but this one will no pass unnoticed on the board for sure.

In brief, this is an excellent unit that will take care of most (if not all) pitch shifting needs of enthusiast and professionals alike. Adequate price point, professional sound. What else?

Compré este pedal porque estaba convencido de que haría lo mismo que mi digitech whammy, pero ocupando mucho menos espacio y con un abanico más amplio de configuraciones.

Estoy, en general, muy contento con el pedal. Llevo un par de semanas peleándome con el Tone Print y, finalmente, ha acabado reemplazando al whammy. No obstante, y aunque la sensibilidad del mash es MUY parecida a la de un pedal, no es lo mismo.

I used to own a Boss OC-2 Octave thinking it was a pretty decent tool for adding a bit of low octaves to guitar leads. Then I played the Brainwaves Pitch Shifter. Wow. This thing is superior in every possible way.

Pro:
very responsive
handles chords extremely well
loads of config options
toneprint programming
3 custom presets
low price

cons
nothing!