About a week ago I mentioned I was looking to downsize my rack into a simpler, pedal-baaed setup. Well, a couple new pedals arrived this week, and here are my first impressions...
TC Electronic Nova DelayIf you are a certified delay junkie and only have room/budget for one delay pedal, this is the one... has over 2 seconds of delay (2.290 seconds to be exact--the true TC fans will understand why), ranges from digitally pristine to warm & fuzzy, even includes options like slapback, reverse delay, ping pong, and dynamic (ducked) delay. Plus, it has 9 user presets, stereo ins/outs, and tap tempo. My biggest gripe... it requires a special power supply (won't run off of my Powerall).
The overall assessment... it's a sweet pedal,
but has more delay options than I really need. After spending about an hour playing with it, I had a killer analog-sounding dynamic delay preset for guitar solos. After a bit more tweaking, though, I started to realize how little delay I tend to use in my playing... I'm much more of a modulation person...
Damage Control Glass NexusUm, one word to describe the Glass Nexus... lemme think... oh yeah, it's
genius. All the effects (modulations, delay, chorus) sound great. It's got pure tone, plenty of headroom, no funky digital artifacts, the convenience of a floor-based processor, 8 user presets, stereo ins/outs, etc. Most interesting perhaps is the interface... no menus, no LCD's, just a handful of knobs and a few lights. The lights are intelligent, though... the color indicates whether presets/effects are engaged or bypassed, the brightness indicates the mix level, and the flashing speed indicates either the delay time or modulation rate. At first it struck me as odd to not be able to dial in a precise 300ms delay or 1.2Hz tremolo, but the lights convey instant status of several parameters at once and should be visible from across a stage.
The Glass Nexus is definitely a keeper. Harder to say for sure on the Nova... while it sounds great, the Glass Nexus' delay capabilities should be good enough for my needs. So I've decided to send the TC back and pocket the money, especialy since there is barely enough room on my old pedalboard for both the Nova and Glass Nexus.
The current signal flow is:
Axess BS2 --> Peterson StroboStomp --> Fulltone Clyde Deluxe --> Voodoo Lab Sparkle Drive --> Carl Martin compressor --> Damage Control Glass Nexus --> amp inputAnd here's the current picture:
Still debating whether to add an ISP Decimator or EB volume pedal, though it may be challenging to fit either of those on the board as well. Probably best to keep it as simple as possible for the time being and later add one or both of those pedals in if the need really materializes.
--B
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