TC ELECTRONIC VISCIOUS VIBE PEDAL
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TC ELECTRONIC VISCIOUS VIBE PEDAL

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PICKING UP GOOD VIBRATIONS

The Viscous Vibe is inspired by the original Shin-Ei Uni-Vibe – a highly unique, complex and very sought after analog unit. TC says they spent countless hours meticulously comparing the Uni-Vibe against what would become the Viscous Vibe, pushing their “insanely powerful” DSP to its very limits. The Viscous Vibe has three knobs: Speed, Intensity and Volume. Speed is the largest of the three since it’s the one you’ll probably want to change most often, while Intensity and Volume are smaller and a little more ‘set and forget.’ There’s also a three-position mini switch, which selects between Chorus, Vibrato and TonePrint modes.

 

STEP ON THAT AND VIBRATE

With all the advances and evolutions made in flanging over the years, it’s refreshing to hear a pedal that really cops that classic vintage 60s flange sound with all the swooshes and jet-plane doppler effects intact. Most flangers make this claim in their literature, but they don’t quite hold up like the Viscous Vibe does. If you love those swimming, swirling Hendrix vibe textures then you’ll get them from this, no problems. It’s not like a Leslie effect, it’s not like a chorus effect, it’s truly its own thing. This has got to be as close as you can get to the real thing without a time machine or a big stack of money at a vintage guitar show. You can easily cop those classic tones but you can find some new sounds in there too, especially once you start exploring TonePrints and the TonePrint Editor software to get into some deep editing.

 

A KICK IN THE SHIN-EI

For some players only the analogue, super-expensive, super-rare real deal will do, but if you’re open to the possibilities of digital – especially in the very capable hands of the folks at TC Electronic – the Viscous Vibe will get you to those psychedelic swirls and swooshes with an authenticity and faithfulness that are so vivid it feels like it should come with a few mushrooms thrown into the box.