TC Electronic M-300 Dual Engine Processor

First off this is a review for the M350, I see no category for it, but I am assuming the M300 was similar.

Very easy to use because there are no presets

I bought it over the lexicon of similar price, because it had no wal wart....big mistake no doubt...but Lexicon has been bought by Harmon and gone way downhill.....the Alesis Quadroverb used or the Behringer V-verb would have been much better choices.

This is where the TC electronic dual engine reverb/multi-effects bites the dust. There are only about 3 useable presets on the right channel (reverb), and these are poor at best. Most of them are very "digital" sounding and way over the top. I bought the unit for vocals primarily, so I wanted something subtle, and not cheesy to drive the audience mad....there is very little here that isn't way synthetic sounding and quite annoying. I can't imagine using them for guitar either, for the same reasons.

Delay Settings- these are even worse, there are about 6 options here, and only 1 is even tolerable, the "triplet" setting. All of the others are "echo type" delays, which might be cool for a few measures if you have a psychedelic song, but they are very cheesy and toy-like for standard vocal or instrument effects....whats more, you can fiddle with delay times and feedback all you want, it will never sound un-manufactured. The "triplet" setting is OK, because thank god, you cant hear the "3 repeats" since the delay time is very short.

Phaser- you've got to be kidding, all you get is a high-pitched sin wave sound effect superimposed over the signal, which is itself unaltered other than the gain goes to zero and you can't hear it.

Flanger- another complete joke, nothing like flange whatsoever, should be called "feedbacker".

Chorus- I'm getting tired of writing, completely useless and sounds more like a weak reverb, again interfering with the signal gain.

Unknown- its going back to the retailer ASAP.

Unknown, why bother?

I'm giving it a 3, and not a 1 simply because there may be some weird folks into sampling or synth-music that can find a use for it, even though at least 60% of the settings are unuseable for anyone with eardrums.

Easy peasy. Knob controls a masterpiece - why dont other manufacturers do this?

For the price - brilliant
No noise - correctly designed equipment doesnt make noise.

no problems

Just what i needed - a professional tool for quickly sculpting reverbs and delays.
If you want warm vocal plate reverbs get a lexicon, for everything else this hits the spot.

You will need the manual.You can get it on the website.No menues.Thank God.Just knobs to control it.

Great machine.I just sold my Roland 201 and found this one on a fleemarket.For my use this is a far out machine.Can get Shadows sound now thru my Fender Super 60 and Yamaha B212.Even Knopfler is no problem.Yes,we play covers,lol.

Made of steel(house)and aluminium front.Fits a 19 inch rack.
I do not need backups in what way.

No issue yet.

I play like Shadows,coz i,m an oldtimer.I like it.I do some recordingsessions for friends as a clean Fender Strat Man.I have no distortions etc.Only reverb/echo.
I have mentioned my gear in a above topic.I bought it for 50,00 Euro(60 usd).These machines are hard 2 get here in Europe.Shame.It beats Boss on all fronts.
I hate the tiny words on the front.My glasses ,u see.
I will keep this unit.
Feel free to mail me,tnx and
cheers,
Koos

This is the hard part. You definitly need the manual for this to get a good understanding of how the unit works. Once you understand, it's VERY easy to find the sound you are looking for. It probably took me a good hour to figure out the whole unit, but now its very easy. Would give it a 10 once you figure it out, but getting there takes a little bit of patience..so it gets an 8.

My Rig:

Guitar - Shure SLX Wireless unit - Korg DTR-1000 - Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier. I have the M300 in the effects loop of the Boogie, along with an exciter and a Boss Noise Suppressor. The Noise Gate is essential.

At first I was having trouble with background hiss. I originally had the M300 in the direct chain to the amp with the noise gate still in the FX loop, but once I put the M300 in the loop the noise went away. I was able to get more control over the tone and over the reverb than before. I re-fell in love with this unit (ya..i said re-fell...). The delays are brilliant...very warm and lush and you have great control over the timing. Tremolo is cool, but I only with they would have the Tap Tempo feature for the tremolo as well. Phasers are cool if used properly...and the reverbs at first were a bit noisy, but once again, once I moved the unit into the FX loop, I regained control over the reverb.

I play Alternative Metal music, and only use certain effects for songs...I dont use it a lot. This unit is perfect for that. I control the unit with a Boss MIDI selector. There is a bit of delay when switching between patches, but I dont care because in our music I never change effects during a song, so it doesnt bother me.

Very good. It's made of plastic, but mine is secured in a rack so its all good. I do gig without a back up.

Never had a problem.

Overall...a great unit. I think i've already gone into enough detail...haha

This unit is incredibly easy to use. I use it almost exclusively in my home hobby studio. The manual is small, wire-bound so it lays flat, and concise, yet thorough. Editing is a breeze with lots of knobs instead of menus, sub-menus, and sub-sub-menus (ala Lexicon et al.).

I find the sound quality to be the highlight of this unit. I especially like the dual-engine capability, which gives the user plenty of flexibility. I also find the "color" adjustment for the reverb engine to be very useful for dialing in the just the right tone. And, yes, this unit is very quiet, especially when you pay attention to all of the individual levels in your signal path.

Before buying this unit, I compared it side-by-side with several other units in the $180-400 price range from Lexicon, Alesis, and Digitech. I chose the M300 primarily for its sound quality in vocal applications and for its ease of use. I actually thought the comparable Lexicon model had some slightly nicer sounding reverb presets, but the stupid wall wart put it out of contention immediately.

Since buying it, I have a-b'ed it with my Behringer Virtulaizer Pro that I use with some of my synth modules and, of course, the M300 blows the Behringer away in terms of sound quality and noise. No surprise there.

I have not had this unit very long, but it certainly seems to be built solidly. If I still gigged, I would certainly use it without a backup. It seems to be more solid than the old ART and Digitech units that I spent 15 years or so gigging with.

I have not had a reason to contact a person at TC Electronic; however, I did download the user's manual from their website with no problem. The website contains a lot of useful information and everything I was looking for was easily found. I give them a 10 for letting me get what I need quickly online without having to call, be put on hold for 2 hours, talk to someone with no knowledge of the product or ability to speak English, etc. If you've ever tried to get an owner's manual from Roland's website or called Yamaha to order a replacement part, then you know exactly what I'm talking about, right?

I think the M300 is an outstanding effects unit, especially for the price. It is extremely easy to use thanks to knobs rather than menus, it sounds great and is very quiet, is very flexible due to the dual engines, and best of all - an INTERNAL POWER SUPPLY! All this for under $200. If it were stolen or lost, I'd have no problem affording a new one.

First of all i didnt read all the comments on this page. but i do own this thing so i thought i have to write some of my opinions.

In my view, This unit is very easy to use. Just turning the fx selectors (knobs) will select what type of fx u want. The parameters are then edited via other smaller knobs.
Saving and recalling presets r easy too.
"fx balance" and "dry&wet" at the left side lets u adjust the density of the fx but i found it less useful than having separate dry&wet adjustment. But however this is fine too...

I think the first fx engine (delays, chorus, etc.) is kinda same among the units of this price range. Different delay modes are cool to have. Compressor and deesser react well to exceeding freq. but i rearely use them.

The reverb engine is average for me. I am comparing the effects with vst reverbs and my behringer ub2222 mixer which has fx built-in...
Even behringer's own reverb settings r better than this one i think... There is something lacking with the m300 reverb i dont know what... It does not inspire me while i am playing guitar.
However some users may disagree with me, i think the reverbs are ok for most of the users...

When i first plugged it through my setup it was not functionning... I mean the light were on but there were no fx. bypassing the which didnt make any difference. Then i took a look to the manual and a section was mentioning about "reset procedure"
After having done this everything was fine...
If u exceed the input level the two leds go red and sometimes a very unpleasant distortion kicks in which is a digital dist. So i have to adjust well my outputs and inputs. when using it live take care of this issue.

I dont have any idea.

I am using m300 after focusrite trakmaster preamp and the sound coming from the preamp is very good indeed. I add a little chorus and reverb with m300 and sound becomes more open.
However i suspect, m300 changes the sound badly even when fx are off.
I think the dry sound directly from preamp is better than it. Just my opinion.

Protocol for writing / saving patches is a little confusing from manual but a few minutes and you can figure it out.

First thing.. There are no default written patches as other processors have. If you are using midi to control, it will not respond to changes until you write & save a corresponding patch. They say 300 and some factory settings / 99 user. The factory settings are how many combinations from the two effect engines. The 99 users are void of any written data.

It does not have a midi through.. You either have to put it at the end of the chain, get a midi patch bay or make your own midi cable solution as I did. Certainly I'd a thought they'd consider someone may be using more than just the M300 in their rack.

No power switch, not a big deal if you have it in a rack, that really isn't an issue with me. No static or other problems with it. Very well built for the price, at least externally, I'll wait til warranty is up before I lift the lid.

I use it with several amps, mostly Marshall, 69 small box, 72 Major, SLP an 800 2204, 74 twin, boogie.. etc.. Gibbys - 76 LP, 87/61 Reissue SG, Fender Strats, a Parker.. oh and a few Agiles... I run through various loop processors so I can take all this stuff out of signal path when ever not used.

I haven't noticed the noise thing yet, I'm not running at line level. I purchased to use for the reverb mostly. Delays are fine, better than many I've heard. The reverbs are awesome.

Off topic.. I use analog tape delays, I use an EP-3, EP-4 and I have a prototype Mike Battle's TubePlex which I just can't get over. That being said, I did like the analog tape simulation, it is close and a nice maintenance free alternative. I also have two Akai Headrushes E1 and E2, they do the best analog simulation I've tried yet, and you get 35 secs of looping on the E2.

Here is the biggest beef about this box I have. I sometimes like to do volume swells with a little delay and reverb. Well this device regulates the effects output with input level. In other words if you bring your guitar v pot all the way down, the delay / reverb decays just cut out. This is not cool. If you have even a little signal it won't gate so just don't back off all the way. I've never seen a processor react like this.... what were they thinking?

Also, in any real time adjusts, dropouts.

So far ok.

Their web site answers most questions no covered by manual. The no patch change midi thing tripped me up for a bit til I went on line to find out why.

Other than the effects drop out with input level changes I do like this unit. The dropouts between patches is not too cool, but I have other effects in use so it's not a big issue with me. For $199 it's hard to beat.

Ease of use is there, it is much easier to run in a live rack than the menu-driven units from Lex, etc. I can tweek a patch during rehearsal, and that is nice. Knobs you can grab are the main reasons I chose this unit.

Sound is very good. No noise level addition to my rack running it in the effects loop on my realtube preamp, then a BBE and into a Mesa 50/50 power amp. The phaser effects are really cheesy. But the reverbs are outstanding and so are the delay, chorus, and even the compressor and de-ess can be useful occasionally. Run it mostly for the reverbs, though!

Here is where TC blows IMHO. Maybe the G Major is great, but when a big name quality mfgr breaks into a new low price segment (and what a deal the M300 is) they either do dumb things trying to cut corners (ok, no power switch on the thing should have been a warning!) using an engineering team that is used to designing for quality not price, or outsource to a house that turns out a poorer quality than their "main" line. I am guessing that TC recognizes their quality comes down to their great firmware, and that great quality is running on a really lousy piece of hardware in the M300. Whatever happened with the M300, I have gone through four of them now in two years of weekend only use. And I handle my gear like it's a newborn, never run without a surge protector, all that. I finally had the M300 tucked between my preamp and BBE processor so it never saw a connection outside my rack, because if you connect this unit to any kind of flaky ground, shuffle your feet on a carpet, etc. it will hang. Power down and you -may- get some control back, but eventually all of mine have lost major functions (won't load a preset, won't receive MIDI, won't bypass, etc.) and had to be returned. One new unit I got had the "tempo" LED nonfunctional, and I bet that was the same kind of glitch, because I'm holding one now that has no response to any of the pushbutton controls on the front panel even though the DSP is happily running inside. Particularly delicate are the coaxial SPDIF outputs, if you connect this thing to a USB interface or anything (and it was such a great way to get 24 bit digital recording done, too!) and there is ANYTHING like static electricity or a slight ground difference between the PC and the M300 it will not just lock up, but lock up permanently. Random control functions will just stop responding to the front panel or MIDI inputs.
I'll be sending off tonight for unit #5 (extended warranty thank God) but I will eventually ditch the M300, I get nervous enough on stage without this kind of digital timebomb thing. Bet it would fail an EMI test. BTW, I bet not many long time users are writing these reviews, I raved about this thing too when it was 2 weeks old..

They told me if I really wanted great quality I should buy their G Major. (I also had complained that the reverbs are cut off with patch switches, but I could live with that.) I think they actually are pretty average about support.

Just because it sounds so good and costs so little, it breaks my heart to say I would not buy this one again. Digital stuff is great if it is at least as reliable as a tube amp, this one has not been reliable at all in my hands despite a lot of coddling and careful handling.

Straight Forward. Nice Reverbs and Delays for your guitar rig. I saved 300 bucks not buying the G-Major since I dont beleive i would use all the fancy icing effects on it. Just need good reverbs and delays, and this thing has it for the price. Dual engine as well.

Sound quality is good. Its wanting me to ditch my Valvestate VS265R and go for a good Mesa Boogie Lonestar or Road King now.

You can get the gilmour/U2 sound out but you have to tweek for a bit. Slap back for cool surf sound guitar is there. Just make sure you have a good amp, a good guitar with proper pickups, and pots, good guitar chord, and you should be good to go.

Dunno......only bought it 2 weeks ago.

huhh. not needed , hopefully ever.

good sound engines for the bucks. Dual Engine. Was going to buy the Lexicon 550 unit, but that was an extra 200 bucks. Had XLR's and stuff, but it didnt have dual engines, and not as routable.(serial/parallel, 2 different paths etc..). Good bang for buck.

Simple, straightforward device. The tap-tempo function makes setting delay times on the fly a breeze. The manual is extremely helpful to relative newbies like myself.

I'm using this in a rather unusual application...on the weekends, I work as a guitar tech/roadie for a popular New York-based U2 tribute band. We're not using this for the guitarist, but rather for the lead vocalist (for those Bono-style echoes on stuff like "Elevation" and "I will Follow.") This application in itself is not unusual, but the set up is...We're running it in series, with the Shure wireless mic output (unbalanced High-z out) into the Mono/left input of the M300 (Routing switch "out" for serial mode), out of the left output and into a DI for a balanced signal to the board. This goes squarely against the conventional wisdom of routing FX through a mixer's aux sends.

The reason we're doing it this way? Well, U2's music features many different delay cues...some songs, like "zoo station" require a chorus effect on the vocal. However, most soundmen either miss the cues entirely or don't care, and because you just can't trust soundmen these days, we've taken matters into our own hands. With this unit we now have consistent vocal sound no matter what venue we play - large or small, hole-in-the-wall-last-chance Irish Saloon or large national room.

Noisy? No...in fact the unit is very transparent, and a huge upgrade ove the Digitech Vocal300 unit that we used for the same application. The tape delay and ducking delay settings sound really nice. Again, there is NO COLORATION! Beautiful!!!!! And NO NOISE!!!

Yup!

Overall, a great box!