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  #1  
Old 03-08-2015, 05:04 PM
Irish Pennant Irish Pennant is offline
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Default TC Helicon Play Acoustic

I just picked up a Play Acoustic by TC Helicon. Does anyone here have any experience with one? any tips or presets that you can recommend?
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  #2  
Old 03-08-2015, 05:15 PM
DGFreeman DGFreeman is offline
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I'm interest in the Play Acoustic as well. Would love to hear what others think of it.


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  #3  
Old 03-08-2015, 06:39 PM
DavidE DavidE is offline
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I heard an Irish musician use one last night in Wisconson. Sounded excellent and seeing that it was smaller than I expected I'm going to look into them myself.
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  #4  
Old 03-08-2015, 08:42 PM
MarvinLee MarvinLee is offline
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Good unit. I've had one since they came out.

My tip is....

Make sure your firmware is up to date. Some people have had issues with the older version.

Love the one I have but I use it basically as a mixer for stereo powered speakers. I really don't use many of the features (looper, chorus, vocal effects) but it's nice that they're there.
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  #5  
Old 03-09-2015, 04:37 AM
dpeurach dpeurach is offline
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I also have a Play Acoustic. I use it in front of a Bose L1 Compact, with an LR Baggs Lyric.

My experience has been that it is a terrific box. I bought it primarily for the guitar features (on this point, you get quite a big bang for the buck). After experimenting quite a bit, I've found that simply using the "BodyRes 1" preset plus a bit of hall reverb does the trick. I also find the "silky detune" chorus to be subtle and quite nice, though I don't use it much.

The tuner works very well for me, as does the looping feature (which I use primarily to check my sound). I also bought the Switch 3 and set it to boost/chorus/reverb, so I can toggle these on-and-off. Not a "must have", by any means, but useful.

I second the point about using the TC Helicon web site to update the firmware. I'd also suggest downloading the PDF of the manual and spending some time with it. There's a lot going on in this box, and the manual was very helpful for getting my head around everything.

As you get some miles under your wheels, I'll be interested to hear the features that you find most useful!

Don
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  #6  
Old 03-10-2015, 09:28 PM
Irish Pennant Irish Pennant is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dpeurach View Post
I also bought the Switch 3 and set it to boost/chorus/reverb, so I can toggle these on-and-off. Not a "must have", by any means, but useful.

I second the point about using the TC Helicon web site to update the firmware. I'd also suggest downloading the PDF of the manual and spending some time with it. There's a lot going on in this box, and the manual was very helpful for getting my head around everything.

As you get some miles under your wheels, I'll be interested to hear the features that you find most useful!

Don
Don,

I've logged onto TC Helicon's web site for the firmware updates. I printed out the 70 some odd page manual. I have a Digitech FS3X foot switch that I was using with a Digitech JamMan Solo looper pedal. It works with the TC unit. I have it setup for the looper functions.

I tried to use the TC pedal straight into a Yamaha DBR 12 powered speaker. One of my guitars hasn't much for volume with it while another one is just fine. When I put it in front of my Zed 10 Fx mixer good things happen. My guitars have never sound so good. When I finally learn this pedal I'm expecting even better things.
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  #7  
Old 03-11-2015, 06:14 PM
dpeurach dpeurach is offline
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Thanks for the report! It's always great to hear that a new piece of gear is meeting (or exceeding) expectations. That's my standing hope for all of the good folks on AGF.

Don
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  #8  
Old 03-11-2015, 09:30 PM
Ghostpicker Ghostpicker is offline
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I've had a Play Acoustic for about a year. Fooling around with the 800 available presets can be loads of fun but I've found the best thing to do is start with a "blank" preset and tweak it to suit your voice. I've also found that "less is more".

I love the BodyRes settings for the guitar. They really clean up the sound. I generally use setting 1 or 2 and don't tweak them any further to get a great acoustic tone.
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  #9  
Old 03-12-2015, 02:55 AM
Michi Michi is offline
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Hi,

I am using the play electric - the difference is that it comes without the Acoustic-modelling, but you can save guitar sound presets whereas the play acoustic only has one guitar sound.
For me, that was more interesting, because I can easily change from picking to strumming in 2 presets, and have a preset for slow songs with larger rooms, and one with a slap-delay and so on.

I do not make use of the Amp-simulations and rarely use the distortion-stuff, but rooms and delays are really nice and are easy to edit.
I use the looper also, and also the vocal-harmonies are much better then I exspected.

From my point of view, all you need for a small live gig, is a Play Electric or Acoustic and 2 active speakers. The only thing I really miss is the possibility to use a volume pedal in the signal chain (after the guitar preamp, because full signal is needed for vocal harmonies) and before the rooms/delays.

As already recommended: don't dial it in to the extremes. Just a bit of compression and reverb, and your guitar really shines. The automatic vocal-enhancing with compression and eq is also really good. I don't use the auto-tune for vocals. It works, and perhaps I should ;-), but I dont like it.

I really love to use the unit as headphone-amp at home. I can easily check my singing and playing without the need of a mixing desk, and recording to my MacBook via USB is also possible.

Michi
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  #10  
Old 03-12-2015, 10:36 AM
brokenpretzel brokenpretzel is offline
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what i want to know about play acoustic or play electric is how easy it is to start looping (if one uses the external switch) can you operate looper while changing patches or just using the effects without having to start the looper from the main unit.
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  #11  
Old 03-16-2015, 07:01 PM
Irish Pennant Irish Pennant is offline
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I ended up returning this pedal. The more I used and learned about it the less enamored I became.

What I learned was:

1) This pedal is instrument specific, if I plug in another guitar from the stable I have to mess with the eq and it's a PITA. It doesn't save guitar presets.

2) This pedal is system specific. If I switch it from amp to mixer to powered speaker I have to eq the pedal and system. It would be a nightmare if I was to take it to an open mic and try to plug into the host system.

This pedal is nice if you are using one guitar and plugging into one system.
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  #12  
Old 03-16-2015, 08:53 PM
Vancebo Vancebo is offline
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So, you can't save settings huh? The more I think about it, there are enough variables that settings are forever in flux depending on venue and system. Being able to recall a preset would still be an expectation in my book in order to have a starting point.
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  #13  
Old 03-17-2015, 07:27 AM
TrinityEB TrinityEB is offline
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The Play Acoustic allows individual vocal presets, but the guitar effects are global (i.e. one global preset). The Acoustic has 5 bodyrez styles.

The Play Electric allows individual guitar effects to be saved within those vocal presets, so in your case, the Electric is probably a better fit for you. The Electric has only one 1 bodyrez style, but it should still do the trick.

- Frank.
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  #14  
Old 03-17-2015, 04:30 PM
brokenpretzel brokenpretzel is offline
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Trinity
can you answer the looper question i had above. thanks
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  #15  
Old 03-17-2015, 04:55 PM
Irish Pennant Irish Pennant is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brokenpretzel View Post
Trinity
can you answer the looper question i had above. thanks
I'm not Trinity but I think I can answer your question.

With the external pedal looping, you can still access the vocal patches as well as the edits/setups. The external pedal was a nice addition and very easy to use. It has some tailoring capabilities, I had set the third button for guitar boost.
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"Sometimes I play a song I never heard before" Thelonious Monk
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