TC Helicon Critical Mass pedal: Vocal FX you can stomp on
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The new TC-Helicon Critical Mass pedal is designed for live use and comes in a handy guitar pedal format which is easy to use when you are busy performing. But this pedal might not be for everyone…
Gang Vocals
You want to sound like your horde is behind you in the chorus? Kick in Gang Vocals mode and you’ll sound like the band behind you is massive! It also includes a reverb, with three ‘studio grade’ algorithms to choose from. When combined with ‘Gang Vocals’ mode you could either sound huge – or just look really stupid. You’d want to think twice about using it playing down the ‘Dog & Ferret’ on a Friday night at open mic night…
Specs
The Critical Mass pedal can be run off of either a 9V power supply (not included) or a couple of AA batteries. You can use it with inbuilt setting for a few specific microphones including TC-Helicon MP-75, MP-76 and Sennheiser e835 FX mics. The inbuilt mic preamp is a low noise design (that’s handy, no really it is…ahem) and it seems to be ruggedly built with its metal chassis.
Apart from four ‘Gang Vocal’ settings you also get another four melodic choir settings as well as those aforementioned three reverbs. The tone stack is called Adaptive Tone, with which TC apparently mean that it “intelligently adapts to your voice, making your tone crisp, clean and full”.
It’s an interesting take on vocal effects, I’ll give them that. But I’m not exactly the target audience for this unit, and I think you’ll be in danger of looking like a right tit using one at a small gig! Just watch the official demo video below to see exactly how ridiculous you might look using this pedal. Use with caution…
RRP €149
TC Helicon Critical Mass product page
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Update: An earlier version of this article didn’t include the bit about “intelligently adapts to your voice, making your tone crisp, clean and full”.
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4 responses to “TC Helicon Critical Mass pedal: Vocal FX you can stomp on”
Please note that the TC Critical Mass cannot be run off of phantom power as the article says. Guitar guys would do well to understand that phantom power is a small (9-48) volt power to supply a condenser microphone. It does not power the unit.
Cheers fella, updated. Was given poor information when it was released. I get Phantom power and was a little concerned when it was originally claimed back when I wrote this. The now state you need an external 9v power supply, which is not included.
NEVERMIND, THE DARNED THING DRAWS 670 mA!!! “..Does anyone have a clue how much current this thing draws? I can’t seem to find it anywhere. It would be nice to know, I’m trying to make sure I’ve got some headroom on the 9V power supply. Hopefully it’s not over a couple of hundred milliamps. TIAs.” MOD, YOU CAN DELETE THIS or leave it here for general information.
TC HELICON CRITICAL MASS 300mA Current Draw. It said on the back battery cover of the unit