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Snagged it off TGP the other day for $140 shipped. It's fucking dead mint, even the sticker is (or was, rather) still on the slick paper.

I've dicked around with it for maybe an hour and a half now. Overall, I'll have to say that it's a whole hell of a lot of delay action for what I think is a reasonable price. Built solid, too.

I guess having a fuckload of controls on the El Cap has spoiled me, but the Flashback is still pretty versatile. And every mode has up to 7 seconds (!!) of delay...well, except for Slapback mode. Wouldn't be very slappy at several seconds.

I probably will never really use either Slapback or Reverse modes. And Ping Pong is pretty far fetched for me as well. But they seem to function quite nicely. Dynamic mode is kinda cool, but not something I'd use much, and it's not as responsive as the dynamic mode on the Timebender.

Here are my initial thoughts on the other modes that I can see myself using regularly:

2290 - This is easily the cleanest clean digital delay I've ever heard. I thought the DE7 was the cleanest, but somehow 2290 mode is cleaner. The repeats are clean as a whistle all the way to infinity. I really like it, as I'm much more of a digital delay kind of guy. I generally prefer digital emulating analog to actual analog.

Analog- A pretty good approximation of BBD sound. If you like it dirty and super-dark, try the Lo Fi mode, as the Analog mode has the sound of a nicely tuned up BBD delay. Repeats get darker but never mush out, and there is no BBD "honk". Some may find this setting too tame. I think I may like the DE7's analog mode better, but I'll do a head-to-head to make sure.

Tape - Again, not bad at all. That nice subtle pitch-bend shimmer in the repeats is there, but it's not over the top. Very little warble, but you can hear it a little. The repeats darken up and lose fidelty a bit, but it's on the more subtle (and in my opinion, usable) side of things. It doesn't do the random pitch shift thing that the El Cap does, but considering the cost difference and feature array, I wasn't expecting it to match up to a one-trick dedicated pony.

Lo Fi - This mode actually sounds a lot like a warm analog delay to me. The repeats have medium headroom on lower feedback settings, and they turn to almost overdrive-type hash if the repeats are cranked up. I think a lot of "warm" analog delay fans will get a lot of use out of this mode. Could be great for noise-rock applications.

Modulated - At first I thought the mod was a little over the top. It's definitely more on the flanger tip than the typical chorus or vibrato you get with analog or PT2399-based delays. Also, the repeats don't seem to be low-pass filtered at all, so they retain fidelity. It's kinda like 2290 mode but with a pronounced flanger effect on the repeats. Sounds great with clean guitar hitting and holding big chords. Those who dislike flanger may be disappointed with this one.

Tone Print - The stock Tone Print delay has an interesting sort of "rotary" sound to the repeats. It reminds me a little bit of the Rotary sound on the RRR. Kinda cool, but I'm glad I can swap it out with other stuff. I tried one of the other Tone Prints off the TC web site, and it was also okay. A few others seem interesting, so I'll probably give them all a whirl before too long.

Looper - The looping functionality is pretty limited, but who cares? Nobody is buying this thing as a dedicated looper. You can do unlimited overdubs, but the length of the first loop sets the length of the entire "song". Also, you can't start and stop the loop. Once you stop it, it's gone. So it's good for dicking around, but I doubt any but the most daring (or insane) would use it at a gig. It's more a scratch-loop-pad than a proper looper.


The dotted-8th division is pretty handy. And the multi-tap division really fills up the background. I've got mine set to buffered bypass (for the trails). I like the option, though. Stereo in and out is pretty bad-ass as well.


The downsides are that the modes are really more like presets. What you get is what you get, and there's not much you can change about each mode. You can adjust the mix, delay time, and feedback (repeats), but that's it. No adjustment of modulation speed or depth, no tone control, etc. But for the money, it's not that big of a deal. Another gripe is that the divisions switch is hard to reach because it's a lot shorter than the knobs.


I gots me a Hardwire Delay coming in soon as well, so I'll do a head-to-head between the modes that make sense. And I'll throw the old DE7 in the mix as well. And the El Cap.

I just want to add that I love the way TC has made the backplate on these toneprint pedals. Very minute detail, but the one giant screw is easy as pie to unscrew with a pick and is really solid when tightened.

Looking forward to the comparison

I'd like to know how this compares to something like an m9.

kbithecrowing wrote:I just want to add that I love the way TC has made the backplate on these toneprint pedals. Very minute detail, but the one giant screw is easy as pie to unscrew with a pick and is really solid when tightened.

Agreed.

The amount of engineering in this thing, between the digital shit and the bad-ass construction, is impressive as hell.

Thanks for the awesome review, can't wait for the head to head, pretty much a time bender person at this point but it is so big, if I could do as much with a smaller pedal i would be very stoked!

The Flashback is definitely not a straight replacement for the Timebender. It sounds good, for sure, and has a lot of features, but it's just not nearly as full-fledged as the Timebender.


On a side note, I really wish TC would release their damn Tone Print software so users could create their own custom delay modes.

culturejam wrote:On a side note, I really wish TC would release their damn Tone Print software so users could create their own custom delay modes.

thisssss would be awesome! granted it was relatively easy to create/manipulate

These look pretty cool and that's a good review!

But seriously, what they should do is release an editing program that includes all the effects from that line, then a pedal that saves like 10 of your custom sounds. I would buy one of those IMMEDIATELY.

Nice review! I've been looking at the Flashback and am definitely interested in the head-to-head.

Got the Hardwire today. I only had a chance to dick with it for about 15 minutes, but I did a quick run through of each mode. Some interesting things I did not suspect...

Okay, so I'm going to start setting up some ideas for the head-to-head (clips) of digital delays. Here's what I'm thinking:

• Compare the Flashback and DL8 mostly, but then throw in the DE-7 and El Capistan as appropriate.

• I don't really think there's a need to audibly compare the pure digital delay modes of the Flashback, DL8, and DE-7. I'll make notes, but not a clip for that.

• For Analog Delay emulation: Flashback, DL8, and DE-7

• For Tape Delay emulation : Flashback, DL8, and El Cap

• For "Lo Fi" mode: Flashback, DL8, and I'll set the El Cap dirty (even though it's not a "mode")

• For Modulated Delay: Flashback, DL8, and El Cap (even though it's gonna be tape-y sounding no matter what)

• I don't give a toss about Slap Back, Ping Pong, or Reverse modes, so I'm skipping them.

• Maybe I'll do a "see how wacky you can make it sound" thing for the Flashback and DL8

• I'll talk about the looper modes and how they are different

• I can't do a demo video, and this is complicated anyway, so I'll do it all audio. Or maybe I can do a "slideshow" sort of video that shows the settings on each pedal as it is being played. That might be cool.

Any other thoughts?

I'm looking forward to the clips and hearing your thoughts on how they all compare. I have recently been really interested in the Flashback for a small, relatively simple delay that has clean digital as well as tape delay.

Just did some noodling around with the DL8, Flashback, and DE7 (in "Echo" mode, which is their name for analogish delay). Had them chained together in series with buffers off, and delay times, repeats, and mix levels set as close as I could get.

Here are my initial observations:

General Notes
DL8:
• The repeats knob gets really "repeaty" really early on. Past about 10 o'clock, you get a lot of repeats. It will repeat almost infinitely, but it never gets above a certain volume (e.g. - it doesn't do the "runaway" thing).

• Changing the delay time while there are notes being repeated gives a pitch shift effect, but it doesn't sound anything like an analog delay. It's weird.

• I found it odd that the "plain" digital delay modes, which on every other pedal are really clean, don't really have all that much headroom. You can make it gritty in the four plain time-bracketed delay modes. Not sure why they would do this.

Flashback:
• There's too much fucking delay time. Seriously. When all the modes go up to 7 seconds, that makes the Time knob really sensitive.

• It will repeat almost infinitely, but doesn't do the super-runaway oscillation thing.

• Changing the delay time while there are notes being repeated does *not* give a pitch bend.

Analog Mode
• DL8 sounds the most "real" to me in terms of the repeats (which are a a little honky like most analogs I've tried). But it also has the highest headroom out of the three, so if you like a little clipping in the repeats on really hard-hit notes, you might have trouble getting it with this pedal.
• Flashback doesn't really sound all that analogish to me, but it does do some dirty up and low-pass filtering, so it's in the ballpark. Some folks might really dig this, but I think the DL8 is better here
• DE7 had really low headroom and got really dirty with a neck humbucker and medium strumming. The filtering is nice, but it's not as analog sounding as the DL8

For me, the DL8 is the winner in this mode.

Tape Mode
• DL8 is less modulated and has moderately low headroom. It will clip if you hit a big chord (at least with humbuckers).
• Flashback is very shimmery and modulated and also very, very clean. I could not get it to clip at all.

For me, the Flashback wins here because the DL8 is too subtle. YMMV, of course, and I think a lot of people will think the Flashback is too much in terms of modulation, and not enough in terms of dirtyness. They both sound like crap compared to the El Cap, though.

Modulated Delay Mode
• DL8 has a nice clean chorusy sound. No clipping at all, no matter how hard I tried. I'd say the modulation is kinda medium, in terms of intensity/depth.
• Flashback has a nice clean flangery sound. No clipping at all, no matter how hard I tried. I'd say the modulation is wicked deep, and a lot of people aren't going to like it.

For me, they are a tie. I like them both, and could find uses for both sounds.

Lo-Fi Mode
• DL8 has a really nice breakup to it and the filtering is great. It's like a truly progressive low-pass that shaves highs off on each go-round. I think they should've called this "Analog 2" or maybe "Analog Dark" or something. Definitely usable. And really not all that lo-fi in my opinion.
• Flashback is dirtier but not as much filtering. It actually sounds almost like the repeats are being run through an overdrive, and it's fairly sensitive to picking dynamics.
• DE7 sounds like Flashback in terms of dirt, but it does more low-pass filtering. It's kinda in between the DL8 and Flashback in that respect.
• With the repeats and mix level cranked up, the Lo-Fi modes offer some cool sound-on-sound layering possibilities, especially since the layers start to melt into each other as the drone on seemingly forever.




Okay, that's it for now.

doesn't change the fact that i REALLY want an el capistan

I love my El Capistan....

Get one, dude. I'm sure you won't be disappointed. I'm not.

< SMMH