14 DAY TRIAL // Some 10 years ago I thought that the life of those nice stompbox pedals was drawing to its end; now I rejoice that not only it is not, but the industry is becoming more and more interested in them once more are people have also begun to love (and of course - buy and use) them again. Not that I have sold my former nice guitar processor (a very capable one, as well) and started again from "zero grounds" myself, with two distortion and EQ pedals, later adding some more.. but the Frankfurt Musikmesse really is surprising as it offers the chance to see "old friends" brought back to life again.
[MG=2]It's the case of the legendary Roland echo effect, the Space Echo RE-201 came back from the dead in the shape of the BOSS RE-20 echo station. Based on the successful COSM architecture to be found in most sound processing units recently issued by Boss, the RE-20 features the same types as the old unit, from tape flutter to magnetic head sound saturation, but also brings new stuff such as tap-possibility (with your foot) and longer delay times.
It looks almost vintage, the way they made effect pedals and dual-pedal processing units some 15 year or more ago; too bad that if the price is going to be alluring I'll then have to change my actual echo pedal to such a device. If you feel attracted to this sweet thing, check its own page here and see further details.
The second in line are TC-Helicon who come with a true eye-catcher (remains to see if it's an ear-catcher as well) array of pedals; as a matter of fact they are rather like two small, dedicated floor processors, meant for making your voice sound better.
The first unit, called the VoiceTone CREATE comprises a whole heap of effects just waiting for you to put them to good use: delay, reverb, thickening/microtuning, distortion and telephone/megaphone effects all grouped in 99 presets you can also tweak and go creative.
Second and most interesting one is the VoiceTone CORRECT and is one hell of a tool, at least from what TC-Helicon say and what' audible. The producer's specs claim it uses an adaptive pitch-sensing and correcting algorithm which will make a huge difference on the stage as you play live. Multiband EQ-ing, compression and the super-handy de-esser look like they're gonna be your (or your vocalist's) best friend.
I am really waiting for all this gear to hit the stores (at least the online ones) and more detailed specs to become available, as well as pricing.
