bobmeyrick Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 While I have a good selection of quality pedals to choose from, occasionally I've used a Korg AX1500 multi FX instead of the pedal board, which has some decent sounds but is a bit limited. The convenience of a single unit is something not to be ignored though, and as a result I've just bought a TC Electronic Nova System. In one box you have Drive (overdrive / distortion - analog not digital) Compressor EQ Modulation (chorus / flanger / vibrato / phaser / tremolo / panner) Pitch (Shifter / octave / whammy / detune / intelligent shift) Delay (clean / analog / tape / dynamic / dual / ping pong) Reverb (spring / hall / room / plate) Lots of control of the various parameters in the menu. There are footswitches for each of these (except EQ) plus a Boost function and Tap for setting delay times. Two inputs - Drive for plugging the guitar straight in or Line for use in the amp's FX loop, which bypasses the Drive. Stereo outputs (use Left for mono) and a jack for connecting an expression pedal - I use an old Schaller volume pedal. 30 factory presets and 60 user presets, about half of which have something already in them but which can be changed. Some interesting ones - "Allan's Fatigue" gives that Holdsworth "Metal Fatigue" major-2nd-with-distortion sound. The presets are in banks of 3, and there's MIDI control available so something like a Rolls MP80 (I think I have one of them somewhere...) would enable you to have a bank of eight presets. However you can operate the Nova system in "Pedal" mode. This enables you to switch the effects within the the preset on and off. You can access one of the presets within a bank by pressing and holding the appropriate footswitch. It's a bit like having three separate pedal boards. I've set up one bank of three presets with a different type of modulation in each - one has the chorus giving a fast Leslie-type effect, one has a tremolo and the third has a more normal chorus. One preset has Pitch set to octave while the other two have it set to detune. To some extent this overcomes the disadvantage of not being able to change settings on the fly by turning a knob, but I find I rarely do that anyway. I'll need to spend a bit of time to get the best out the Nova System, but I've already got it to the point where I'd be happy to gig with it. The sounds are great and it's sturdily built. This video gives you an idea of what it can do...
knopfler74 Posted September 7, 2015 Posted September 7, 2015 I had one of these a while back and wish I never sold it. It may be on my list of things to get this fall! Congrats, and let us know how it works out on stage!
212Mavguy Posted September 15, 2015 Posted September 15, 2015 $.02 Have had and used one of those for a few years. I don't ever use presets, I just set each knob for a given effect, adjust each chosen for the amp rig it is currently playing through before the gig, and use/combine on the fly. I like mine set to series/paralell routing, that lets the tap tempo set the tremmy-chorusy-swirlywhirly tempos as well as length of decay/repeat with the timed based effects. When I went to Europe I plugged it straight into the 220 volt wall outlet just like the 120 at home, it's designed to do that. Just change out the plug cable and you're good to go. Am mostly quite pleased with mine, especially the quality of the sounds it allows, provides, and enhances. Watch the jack nuts and foot switch retaining nuts, they tend to work loose. It's a PITA to find the switch nut after it falls off onto the floor, hold the unit upside down and shake the top of the switch to fall out the hole, grab onto it, seat it, and then attempt to screw on the switch nut from an upside down positioned situation. That's the easy way if you got lucky. If not you get to undo at least a dozen very small Allen screws to get the cover off and repair/reassemble...
tbonesullivan Posted September 15, 2015 Posted September 15, 2015 Setups like these are a BIG help if you use a lot of effects during live playing. Not having to mess with a bunch of cables, adapters, etc makes things a lot easier. There are other similar solutions from Boss, Zoom, and digitech, and it really depends on the level of control you want. The days of nasty sounding modeled overdrive are long gone.
JeffB Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Cool unit. Been a couple of days, have you mastered it yet?
bobmeyrick Posted September 17, 2015 Author Posted September 17, 2015 Cool unit. Been a couple of days, have you mastered it yet? I'm definitely getting the hang of it. There's a lot to it, but for the moment I'll be using it in Play mode rather than Preset mode. I've modified the first bank of three user presets to my own taste. For 00-1 I have modulation set to a Leslie-like fast chorus, pitch set to a slight detune, short delay (which can be changed with the tap tempo switch) and a little bit of reverb. 00-2 is similar but with modulation set to a soft tremolo, while 00-3 has modulation set to chorus and pitch set to octave below. These are stored in the preset but crucially can be switched on and off independently. I have boost set to +6dB and I don't use the compressor. I've been using it in the effects loop so the overdrive is inactive. If I were to use it in front of the amp I'd have access to the overdrive. I have the expression pedal as an overall volume pedal, though it can be programmed for other parameters, e.g. pitch change. It's not possible to modify the settings of the individual effects (apart from the tap tempo) on the fly as you would with individual pedals, but then I usually stick to the same settings for a particular effect. It would be feasible to have presets 01-1, 01-2 and 01-3 with a different bunch of settings, though to get to that bank you'd have to get out of Play mode, go into Preset mode, move up to the next bank and then back into Play mode. I suppose it might be possible to use MIDI to do this... This guy gives a good explanation.
bobmeyrick Posted October 3, 2015 Author Posted October 3, 2015 I had one of these a while back and wish I never sold it. It may be on my list of things to get this fall! Congrats, and let us know how it works out on stage! Used it in a gig situation for the first time last night, set up as described above. The only modification was to set the reverb the same on each patch (Room, 1s decay, 15% mix) and save the patches with just the reverb on so that changing patches gave basically the same sound. The Nova was in the effects loop of my Mesa Maverick 1x12. In front of the amp was a Cry Baby and an EH Soul Food for a little bit of crunch. Guitars were the Paulman Paragon and Paulman Tele. The effects were fine and the Boost was useful for clean soloing. Good sounds in a compact package.
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