TC Electronic Nova System

**FIRST OF ALL** Do not be dismayed by some of the rather spiteful and negative reviews here. Any FX Processor that offers what this system can provide will come with a certain degree of complexity and with it, a measure of patience and dedication is required. You cannot ask for the paragon of multi-faceted technology at the cusp of your finger-tips and desire the simplicity of operating a seat belt at the same time. You SHOULD have bought this because you needed a simple, floor based effects solution for your guitar needs. With that in mind, in order to accommodate YOUR NEEDS, invest the proper amount of time tailoring it to your own needs. So with that, I give this a 9.

If you've invested this much money into a system you better damned well be willing to put in a strong degree of research and trial and error based effort into the thing. One size does not fit all, and with that said this is a unit that requires a good deal of personalization, so invest some time into it. Incessant repetition, I know, but its a point worth reiterating. You wont be disappointed though, the results are astounding.

There are certain features that are bothersome (Like no On/Off switch or switch to option a full bypass) and will require you to adjust. Little issues such as these don't kill your rig/setup, but will require you to make some changes. In the end, No Big Deal.

Not even debatable, 10.

I'm playing an Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci 6 with this, the EB Wah, Volume Pedal, and with a vast array of different amps. I travel and play a lot, which is another particular shining point of this amp. More on that later.

TC Quality has their reputation precede them, particularly the modulation effects and delay. Every amp and user responds to this unit differently, so as I mentioned before you will need to invest time into getting the perfect nuances of your tone the way you like them.

I imagine anyone considering this unit has researched and obtained some sound clips or video clips of this unit in action. My words here do not compete with real exposure to the quality of this device. GO FIND SOME CLIPS TO LISTEN TO.

The casing makes me feel like I can blast it with some double-aught buck and it'd still work fine. Ok, so a little hyperbole.... but maybe not.....

There has been a LONG TIME since the first units dispatched, you should have NO TROUBLE or ISSUES with the bad chips. All units that were affected were recalled. If you're buying used, check with TC Electronics to make sure the unit falls unit a safe range of serial numbers. Common sense stuff here.

This thing is built to last. It doesn't feel frail or plastic like. It's built like a tank, and with the malfunctioning issues long gone in the past, this is a no brainer 10.

They will do their best to ensure that your product functions and that you get what was exactly advertised. They being HQ'd over seas makes for some headaches when you have some severe issues, but with the initial malfunctions and issues resolved, this should be a non-issue.

What you get in proportion to the money you spent. If you own this, it's a 10. No question. In front of the amp or in the loop this unit covers well more than what you'd pay to isolate each effect and quality with individual pedals.

Like I stated earlier, I travel a lot. Not all of us are professionally endorsed musicians with sponsors paying for shipping and hauling costs. I can't afford to move a big 100W Head and an array of 4x12's overseas and back again. The particular advantage of this Nova System is that the venues or places that I go to play, I just require a simple high quality tube amp that I can run this in front of. Small amp? No problem, just run it with a mic through the house speakers. This unit has its own Distortion and OD circuit (all analog btw, simply the parameters are controlled digitally!) so as long as you're not playing super heavy distortion, this unit will cover your needs and keep your costs to a minimum like you wouldn't believe. I just have to take my guitar and my pedal board with me, and I'm done. No amps or cabinets to worry about. The small price you pay in compromising your unique sound for this load of convenience is something worth mentioning.

Overall, just try it. Research it. If this is not for you, No Problem. Most of the people here giving poor reviews are because they did not thoroughly research this unit and realized it was not for them. That is not responsible reviewing at all. However, if this unit, based on your research, is what you are looking for, you will not be disappointed, rather the quite opposite.

The sounds are actually pretty great. The Overdrive leaves something to be desired, but the chorus, reverb, delay stuff is great. Editing patchs is pretty easy after you learn how. The manual SUCKS!!!! There is a new firmware that I don't have yet. I hear it makes the tap temo work a little better.

I play strat and gibson es330 through a vibrolux or a mesa stileto deuce. The sounds are all good.

yes seems reliable. I did gig without backup.

They actually respond pretty quickly.

This thing is pretty much useless to me. The reason is that if you use it in stomp box mode, the effect only turns on when you lift your foot off the pedal. This would be fine in the studio or at home, but on the gig it really sucks. Let's say the song you are playing goes to crunch on the chorus and you are singing, the thing will give you a delay when switching on the downbeat unless you time it to switch when u pick up your foot. This might be doable if I was't singing or trying to put on a show, or I hadn't been using stomp boxes for the last 25 years. I contacted support and there is no way around this.

Furthermore, I paid $600 plus for this thing and now you can get one on ebay for less than $400. I'll be lucky to get $350 for my used piece.

Plug and play ease of use. It's very simple to get to various parameters for effects, and easy to store them in user locations.

Ok, this is why I wanted to write a review. The Nova System in my opinion is a BARGAIN for what you get. Forget pedal boards and 108 different pedals. You don't need them. For the great delays, reverbs, modulations, OD and Distortion you get in one heavy duty PROGRAMMABLE PACKAGE you cannot go wrong. You have flexibility, all the effects you can use, and no WALL WARTS, or 3rd party power supplies and pedalboards!

I have not gigged with it yet, but it's nicely put together and looks to be very heavy duty. Also, I've only had it a few weeks so that's just too soon to form an opinion.

Don't know. It's still new. Everything has worked great.

I play a wide range of musical styles and the Nova System seems to have enough options to cover most needs. I rely on the smooth compression, reverb and delays primarily. Oh, and the programmable 3 band Parametric EQ comes in very handy for clean and OD tones. I really, really like this unit and I'm picky. It seems well thought out, easy to use, and very high quality. I was not disappointed.

Right out of the box, this unit sounds outstanding with very little tweaking. There are so many options as far as editing goes but really you can plug in and get a great sound without changing much.

I was editing patches without even looking at the manual. The easiest way is to find a patch you like, edit, and then save to one of the user slots. I had a clean, rhythm, and solo setup in a matter of minutes. Very easy.

I'll be honest, the manual sucks. I thought people were exaggerating but it just is not intuitive at all. It is like trying to solve a riddle or something. Instead of saying "click edit, then change. This will give you a hard rock tone", the manual will say something like "you might want to try editing a patch sometime" without telling you how the heck you are going to do it.

They obviously explain some things but there are some key things they left out. For instance, right out of the box, you cannot just plug the system into an effects loop and start playing. You'll get no sound like I did. You have to change the input from "drive" to "line" which takes you from a front of amp to effects loop setup. Secondly, you have to turn up the volume in the edit menu. There is a volume setting turned way down and until you turn it up, you'll get no sound and think the system is broke. Why don't they mention this in the manual??!!!?!?!?

My firmware is 1.11 and 1.13 is out now. I thought I would have gotten a newer unit. Oh well. I'm giving this section a "5" because half of the unit is super easy and half is super hard.

I plugged my Gibson Les Paul Standard (with Suhr Aldrich bridge pickup) into both of my amps, a Splawn-modded Marshall 1959SLP and Peavey JSX. Both heads went into a Marshall JCM 900 Lead 1960 4x12. This unit is not as noisy and some pedals and units I'v owned in the past. I was pleasantly surprised at how low the noise was.

The effects sound outstanding, especially the delays and reverbs. I even like the compressor. The "boost" is great. I'm going to use that alot for solos obviously. Gets nice and loud. The flanger and phaser didn't impress me much but I'm sure with some tweaking I could get a better tone than the factory presets.

I got a great Edge/U2 sound in a few minutes just messing around with the clean delay. It was great!! I'm mostly play classic to hard rock and I really like how the Nova System beefed up my sound. Really impressive.

As with any piece of gear with computer chips in them, it is easy to get nervous. This unit is very solid. The buttons remind me of Dunlop straplocks. It is just a little button that you click rather than a huge pedal. I really like it! Definitely does not feel like a toy. Feels really solid and like it will last a long time.

I haven't dealt with TC Electronic but at least they have a webpage where you can get help. They have a users forum, great videos, etc. They don't keep you completely in the dark like some other companies. They just need to work on a new manual. :)

I gotta say that so far this is one of the best purchases I'v ever made. I bought this pedal to replace the clutter of a bunch of footpedals, cords, etc. The reverb and delay on this thing blows away my Digitech pedals which I used to think were outstanding. When comparing the two, I realized that there is a big difference.

It is inspiring to play when you have great effects beefing up the sound. I didn't want to stop playing this thing. It was fun tweaking a little and just seeing what sounds are possible. This thing could easily be tweaked at a gig with minimal effort in a few minutes. I like the fact that when in preset mode, you are still able to turn on/off delay, pitch, mod, and boost.

sounds are among the best. editing is easy once you understand the process. very quick editing. manual is good, but could be more helpful. setting levels is of the utmost importants. easiest way is to use the f19 patch. came with 1.1. easy upgrade to 1.3 on line.

use this with, strat,tele,les paul standard thru fender blues deluxe reissue,blues deville, marshall vintage modern. guitar-tc-front of amp.extremely flexible.great drive, great delays, ok reverbs. for a stand alone fx pedal. this is the best so far. have tonelab le. zoom 9.2tt,carl martin quattro and other pedals on a board,very small footprint.

worried about the bad chip sets at first release. waited a year to miss the serial numbers to fade..think i got one anyway..so far no problems. i will use this with out a backup.if it fails, i would take it out of the chain and finish the gig. cant rate this yet..

upgrade is easy..no issues yet..hopefully there will not be any..

play all styles except metal or thrash etc;. been playing over four decades.own or have owned just about everything ever made. i would replace this with no hesitation. if they offer a new model, i would buy it depending on the upgrades.wish it had rotory (leslie) patch,but you can use fast chorus to approximat.(a la peter thorn,youtube) wish it had a ring mod. may not be enough room. the size was of importance for me. do not like giant boards.i'm old and clumsey, trip and fall down on them and all hell breaks loose as i turn on every pedal on the board.

Not really a review here as such. I think this is a great piece of gear and I would buy it today if it had a rotary effect. Why didn't they include rotary? I don't get it. There's a panner instead - who wants a panner? Very dissappointed. Bring out the next version with rotary please!

No prob. The cool thing is after 1 week i dug the temp / tap control.
One can set any tempo on delay and tremolo/vibrato etc... with the tap switch.
Although this is not clear in the manual it is esay to explore.

I never ever had my sound so beautiful till now, tone, space, drive, its all there, anything!

BUT, you have to listen and tweak, and you ll get there. Then slowly you ll get amazed...

No opinion,

I was scared to buy this unit, because of the failures ive read about.

No problems yet, but recommendations for sure.

Not sure yet, i have to find out. I hope not though...

I play rock, and singer songwriter stuff and so on.

If you are looking for sounds that mask your guitar, do not buy this.
If you are looking for sounds that you want to create and make your own and speak your tone, then get this, get a little disappointed until after a week and then you ll know you ve got the right thing!

Muy facil de usar e intuitiva. Si alguna vez manejaste algun multiefecto no vas a necesitar el manual practicamente. Podes usarlo como lo que en otros multiefectos se llama modo MANUAL. O sea, prendiendo y apagando el tremolo, el delay, el pitch shifter, la reverb, el boost, el tap, y los drive, con los pedales, y cambiarias de preset manteniendo presionado un segundo, alguno de los 3 pedales de la linea de abajo. para cambiar de banco, mantenes apretado 1 segundo los dos pedales de la izquierda, el de arriba y el de abajo.
Pero tambien podes usarlo como todas las pedaleras. Es decir, si presionas uno de los 3 pedales de abajo cambias a un preset en forma instantanea sin bache entre preset y preset. Y esta opcion te deja libres los pedales on/off del pitch shifter, delay, modulacion, boost, tap... o sea todo lo que necesitas. Si yo hubiera tenido que dise??ar una pedalera hubiera dise??ado esta (aunque no se me hubiera ocurrido). Es muy comodo y ocupa la mitad de tama??o que cualquier pedalera.

Los over a mi no me gustaron. Prob?? muchos seteos de over pero termin?? poniendo mi blues breaker previo al nova system. Lo bueno de este equipo es que prendes el delay y agrega el delay, no asi muchos otros multiefectos que colorean mucho la se??al tan pronto como le incluis un efecto. Algunos efectos cuando los modificas en tiempo real con un pedal de expresion tiran unos ruidos raros...

La tengo hace una semana o algo... pero parece bien construida.

Ni idea...

Tuve, desde la zoom 2020, hasta la GT5, pasando por triaxis, replifex, mpx1 de lexicon, muchos pedales sueltos y 10 a??os tocando... creo haber encontrado la herramienta mas comoda, que mejor suena y mas peque??a que se hizo hasta hoy. por eso me vi obligado a publicar este comentario para aquellos que no hablamos ingles...

Firmware Ver 1.11 - Came new that way.<p>

A unit with this much power is going to take some fiddling. It's about the same other menu driven, digitally controlled multi effectors.<p>
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Its to bad that the rookies get an equal vote on these forums. I avoided this pedal for months due to the first few reviews. With regard to the delay on switching patches: It has two modes, pedal and preset. In pedal mode hitting the switches toggles each effect, holding it down for .5 seconds will switch the preset. In this mode you could say there is a delay. When you put the unit in preset mode via the menu (not foot controllable), THERE IS NO PRESET SELECT DELAY.
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It's not that hard to use - just takes a little time and its fun.

Its a bummer that its not true bypass. What this means to me is I have to put it in a true bypass loop or else I get more noise than I'd otherwise have on my dirty channels. No noise probs when using clean channels and it makes a good stereo source for using two amps.
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The overdrive is very good and transparent. It sounds to me like they are blending the original signal back in to the effected one which I'm used to from my Takky Drive. It's not noisy at all - very useful.
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The distortion is as good as I've heard from a pedal. I've tried a ton of them including high end Tube stuff like the Tone Bone. This is the best so far even against the units with tubes. Great meaty Mesa-esque sounds that are dymanic and retain the guitars character. Again very useful.
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I'm impressed with the effects. They are super quiet and can be subtle or dramatic. Great verbs and delays of course. I haven't quite figured out the Phaser yet. Compressor is good. Noise gate is awesome - as good as I've heard.

I've had bad luck with my Voice Live and had to send it back twice. They fixed it for free both times and so far its holding up. I felt the quality is superior enough to justify giving them another try on this unit.

They are a little difficult to communicate with but very good about fixing problems. High marks for being knowledgeable and helpful.

This is the best multi effects unit I've ever owned. I've had the early Ibanez units (which sound as good/better but are no where near as versatile), Boss, Yamaha (Magic Stomps do a single effect as well as any of them but not multi).
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You only have immediate access to three presets at once - you have to select another bank to get to the fourth. I wish they would have made all 6 buttons preset selectors in preset mode.
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Overall though I love its transparency and versatility. Very cool switch lights and nice size. All I need to gig is an amp, this unit and a wah - I don't think there is any music I can't cover with that combo. The distortions are so good that this makes a great all in one for a vintage amp guy (I gig with Mesa's).

It's not hard to use but neither it is easy. The NS is not what one calls intuitive. I found the user manual to be nothing really useful.TC explains there how the sound is created (by splitting the signal and raising its pitch for e.g.) which is nice but cannot be on the expense of other useful information on how to operate the system. Moreover, the parameters for the effects are dully explained.
Another issue is that it doesn't have a On/Off button... so you need to plug it out or buy an electrical outlet with an On/Off switch.

I run it in front of the amp and the sound quality is awesome, I love every minute of using it.
in terms of sound quality I'm sure I made the right choice by not buying the M13. The drive section is really nice though I would eventually buy another separate Drive pedal to add to this one

I have it for 3 weeks now and I didn't encounter any reliability issues. As someone else said, it's built like a tank. I hope it would survive the high humidity found in my country. I'll give it a 10 though be aware it's only based on 3 weeks of experience

I bought it with version 1.11 on it. I need to buy a MIDI device to upgrade it... which is quite annoying. The latest software, 1.13, is free and I read it's easy to install. Moreover, I wish TC would post cool patches. On the user to user forum a user built a spreadsheet for adding new patches but up until now only one user uploaded his settings.

It's not perfect, but the 10 states "Fantastic Value" which I think that 500$ for this machine answers this term. If it was stolen I would most definitely buy another one.