tc electronic Brainwaves Pitch Shifter

Used it live as a simple whammy replacer. It's small, requires only a fraction of power that whammy draws - very convenient. You can get even more if you figure out the toneprint editor.

The inconvenient part is that the editor doesn't have any tooltips/hints on how to use it; the "help" section in editor sends you to an "under construction" page. The software IS powerful, but very not user friendly. There are some videos on internet from users(!) on how to create some toneprints. Would be great if the manufacturer did that job, not the users, and more thoroughly. Also you can't share created custom toneprints, which would save time.

The pedal is rather good for the price.

I've only been using this pedal for about an hour and I won't be using it live but here's my first impression: Does everything I wanted it to do based on reviews and video demonstrations.

I've already dialled in a really cool Whammy-esque patch that does a nice glissando down 5 steps (think Cello) and the Octave up sounds shimmery without being too ice-pick-on-ears. Octave down is super fun! And I really like the detune with Mash, that'll sound really cool when I do some ambient guitar tracks.

My only criticism so far is that you have no control over the volume of each octave on the pedal. It's probably adjustable (somehow?) in the editor but I haven't got that far yet. I knocked off a star for sound because it's not 100% flexible in that manner.

I bought this for the sole purpose of making weird noises with, rather than the pitch option, although it tracks really well. It's as good as the EHX pitch tracking (and that's legit amazing).

I thought I'd immediately regret this purchase but I've ignored my other new toys in favour of playing with this one instead. Get one.

This pedal is a very versatile pitch-shifter that will satisfy the needs of a lot of guitarists. It has many advantages over other pitch shifters but also some flaws.

The Good
- Very compact and doesn't require a separate power supply, unlike the DigiTech Whammy
- Wet/dry mix knob
- Two independent voices
- Custom intervals (using the free TonePrint editor, you can get any interval from -2 oct to +2oct)

The Meh
- Using Mash for the Whammy can be hard to get used to, especially if you had an actually Whammy pedal before. You get used to it but an expression pedal still gives you better control.
- The tracking is pretty good but the pitch shifted notes don't sound as good as some other pitch shifters I've tried
- The built-in delay engine is a nice addition ... except that the max delay time is only around 260 ms, which limits what you can do with this a lot
- TonePrint does indeed give you a LOT of control over the pedal's parameters. However, I find it quite user-unfriendly and I think it could definitely use some improvement.

The Bad
- Volume drop when using it at 100% wet. This is very much noticeable. Makes it much less usable to lower the tuning of your guitar/bass.
- The build quality on mine was a bit flimsy. The metal casing didn't fit the bottom plate perfectly and some of the printed text was off center compared to promo pics. Kinda weird considering that my other TC pedals have much better quality, maybe I just got a bad one.
- Appearance : in promo pics, the brain illustration looks vibrant pink, in reality, it's quite a dull and almost grey/brown-ish pink.

After considering The Good, the Bad and the Meh, I decided to remove my Brainwaves from my board. It's still a pretty good pedal and a great way to start messing around with pitch-shifting. The ability to have custom intervals is particularly super useful. But in the end, I was disappointed by the volume drop and the limitations of the delay engine.