TC Electronic Viscous Vibe review

Overall impression:

TC Electronic’s digital take on the classic Shin-ei Uni-Vibe made famous by Jimi Hendrix. Same knobs and adjustment possibilities the original had plus plenty more available via TC’s toneprint technology.

On the confusingly named chorus setting the pedal will deliver a mixture of dry and wet signals with a nice phaser-esque effect that was originally intended to mimick the effect of a rotating leslie speaker. On lower speed and intensity settings this can be used as a nice subtle effect to drop on top of your basic sound. Maxing out these settings on the other hand will take you to proper space jam territory quite easily. If I’ve understood correctly the vibrato setting is kind of the same but with no dry signal what so ever.

The toneprint option can be found as a 3rd position on a tiny toggle switch on the pedal front alongside chorus and vibrato effect settings. Toneprints can be uploaded to the pedal from a smartphone via guitar pickups or from a computer via usb. Toneprints made by TC or famous artists are readily available but a proper tinkerer will resort to an editor to make one’s own. My simplest take on the toneprint editor is to set the signal completely dry (unaffected by the pedal) and setting the big speed knob to control boost to the signal. This way I’ll have a clean boost available first in my chain if I may need that to compensate for a lower signal level when dealing with a single coil guitar instead of a humbucking one. Granted I won’t have the actual vibe effect available in that scenario.

The pedal has stereo in and stereo out capabilities.

Sounds and features:

To be honest I’ve never seen or touched the original so comparisons between that and Viscous Vibe can’t really be done. The basic effect the pedal delivers is pretty much what I expected. I’ve yet to see how much use this pedal will see but so far I’m exited. The effect is somewhat similar to that of a phaser so I can see myself balancing between the two when choosing effects for my guitar parts in the future.

Build quality and reliability:

I would assume that this thing is built to last. That what it feels like anyways.