TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2 Review

Hey guys, I'm gonna be taking a look at the TC Electronic Hall of Fame 2. I was super excited when Amazon accidentally leaked this a while back. They were finally going to be adding shimmer and multiple TonePrint settings! I was already a fan of the original Hall of Fame, having used it for about the past 3 years, so these were updates I was really looking forward to. I ordered one off of amazon as soon as they popped online and two days later it was at my doorstep. If you're looking for a quick rundown of what I think and the new features then #scrollharder down to the bottom and there will be one. But now we're gonna dive in.

Algorithms

The new Hall of Fame looks like it has less algorithms, but that's not the case. Some of the less commonly used ones were removed from the front (such as the gated reverb) but are still accessible from the TonePrint editor. The original algorithms, such as Spring and Room, are mostly the same. They have subtle differences from the original due to incorporating the MASH technology. Also, they all seem to have a slightly longer decay than the original which I personally like since I get a bit more range to work with.

Let's talk about the shimmer algorithm. This is one I definitely wanted and wished the original had and now it's here. You can't say anything cliche about it because there's nothing "natural" about a shimmer reverb. Overall, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Other shimmer reverbs I've played take too long to build into that sound and it feels uncomfortable to me, but this does not have that issue. The octaves bounce back into the signal fairly quickly and builds that nice choral sound you expect from a great shimmer. You do occasionally get a bit of modulation if you do some super complex chord voicing but it disappears in the mix when playing live. I will say that it still falls a bit short of the Strymon Shimmer that made this setting popular, but only just. That being said, I can get into that shimmer setting in the editor and tweak the small things that I want to change, but I can't really do that on the Strymon stuff (at least not that I know of). In the end, I think it's a great shimmer and easily the best at this price range.

MASH

So this is the new big thing from TC and...it's actually really cool. I was worried at first that this would be super gimmicky and not actually very useful. It turns out that it's really easy to work with and easy to operate, effectively, in a live setting. By holding down the footswitch and varying the pressure you use, it acts as an expression pedal. There's a little rubber grommet underneath the pad of the footswitch that helps you feel how hard your pressing and it's quite easy to operate. The parameters it controls also changed based on which setting your using. In the shimmer mode, it controls just how much shimmer is in your signal and the decay time of the reverb.

I know TC gets a bad wrap on their footswitches, but that's really just from one bad batch they had. This one feels really sturdy and I don't have any concerns about it going bad on me.

But the real magic of the MASH function comes into play with my favorite thing about this pedal. The...

TonePrint Editor

The editor got a fantastic upgrade in this version. In the original, you could control parameters for the modulation, the reverb, and what the decay and tone knobs controlled (up to two parameters for each). In the new version, you can assign up to three parameters to each control knob (that's one more knob guys!), and you have additional access to a bunch of parameters for the octaver. Lastly, you get to dial in how you want your MASH to work. That part is really cool because you can set it to fade things in and out depending on the pressure for cool crossover effects. It's also really simple to set up the mapping for your mash. You can pick a parameter from a drop down menu (up to three) and then scale it on a little graph to decide how it changes as you press down.

Summary

TC has made another great reverb for the money. The algorithms are really well designed and deliver where it counts in the mix. Having multiple TonePrint options makes the pedal incredibly versatile and customizable with the editor (which has gotten a nice upgrade). The shimmer setting doesn't quite get you the "chorus of angels" sound that folks like Strymon are known for, but it's still very good. Lastly, MASH function is well thought out and easy to use, rather than gimmicky, and the footswitch is very sturdy and holds up well in live use.