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.
