tc electronic Plethora X5

I bought the Plethora X5 primarily because I love the individual Tone Print pedals. Especially the Sub 'n Up octaver, Corona virus...eh, chorus, the Flashback delay, and...the Helix phaser. I needed more space on my pedal board so I reckoned I could buy the X5 which would replace all my pedals.

Well...that was a nice thought but a premature one.

Without much further thinking I ordered the X5 and sold off most of my TC pedal. I kept only the Sub 'n Up. After two days the Plethora X5 arrived at my house and I was...rather disappointed!

It turned out that the Helix phaser wasn't included! I just assumed it would be! Darn! I had already sold that pedal while I loved it to death.

The next big annoyance was that the X5 only has THREE knobs for editing and effect instead of the 4 knobs of the pedals. So actually the X5 behaves like the mini versions of the TC pedals. Eventually I found out that you can edit all parameters through the app with a bluetooth connection, but it is definitely not the same experience as having 4 seperate knobs. That's a bloody shame! For example, I cannot find the exact same tone I have on my Sub 'n Up pedal. So I cannot sell that pedal until I find it.

Fortunately the unit sounds fantastic and coming up with great sounds is rather easy. The unit is sturdy and the footswitches are very responsive and switch very lightly.

TC emailed m,e that version 1.2 of the firmware will include the Helix, so I highly anticipate that update. I just wish they would have added one more edit knob. Oh, and the unit is running on 600mA so you need the included adapter. My beefy pedal powerboard just won't power this pedal.

All in all a great unit with one major flaw: the lack of a fourth edit knob. I can get over the rest, of course if they truly deliver the Helix.

By the way, I am a bass player. For bass I will only be using delay, compressor, reverb, chorus, octaver, perhaps some flanger and tremolo and (eventually) a phaser. The harmonizer, pitch shifter, noise gate and doubler are as good as useless for my bass playing.

This is a new product as of now, and some of the issues I have will hopefully be dealt with before long. But as of mid-May 2020:

Love having all these pedals in one box, a great way of making my pedalboard more compact. Everything that is hinted at coming in the future updates will presumably make it better still. However I am having some issues with the app. I keep getting massages about toneprints not being compatible. Yes, I have updated the firmware, and is spesifically searching for Plethora X5 toneprints in the app menu. But there seem to be neither rhyme nor reason to which toneprints I can load onto my P-X5. Some will and some won't. There is also very little information I could find about this on the TC-E webpage.
Apart from this it is a very good device, all the features that were preloaded are easy to use. Making custom boards is a quite satisfactory experience. The videos from TC-E on youtube makes it easy to comprehend the process of setting up the P-X5, and understanding the scope and limitations.

In conclusion: I will probably not regret this purchase.