tc electronic Plethora X3

The displays on the pedal are beautiful and the UI is well designed. Editing patches is quick and intuitive. The build is very sturdy and has plenty of good knobs. Sadly, that's all that I really liked about it.

I didn't like most of the initial patches. When trying to set up my own, I ended up not really liking the sound of the reverb. As the most basic effect I was probably going to use on absolutely everything, that's a big negative. (Clearly, this is 100% subjective.)

The big selling point of the Plethora is the availability of TonePrints which would allow you to go very much in-depth with your patches - many effect options are not available from the pedal itself. I was hoping to maybe create better sounds with the TonePrint editor, but the software turned out to be, let's say, not that great.

TonePrint Editor feels simultaneously oversimplified and overwhelmingly complex. Finding out whether you're connected and where to start editing is very confusing and underdocumented. Creating empty patches is impossible - you always have to start with a copy of an existing patch. When you finally get to the right place, the UI is basically just dozens of dials staring at you without any clear hierarchy or guidance.

This just wasn't an environment I wanted to spend a lot of time in, designing my patches - so I decided to send the pedal back. If you're just planning to work with the features from the pedal itself without software, and like the tone of the effects, this could very well be for you as the pedal looks and handles beautifully. But it definitely wasn't for me.

There are one or two small conceptual leaps that are necessary to get over but once you do, this pedal makes a lot of sense. Basically it is 3 pedals in a box. 3 of any pedal from the TC lineup. Any 3, so it can be 3 noise-gates, if that's what you want. Each pedal is like a single 'mode' from one of the stand-alone pedals, so you could have a Flashback tape delay and a Flashback reverse-delay on the same board, which can be activated independently as if they are standalone pedals. Once you get your head around this concept, you can master most of the thing without ever looking at a USB port.

When you do get round to the USB (or Bluetooth) connectivity, your world of possibility will expand exponentially. Here is where you can tweak pedal configurations, download printouts, modify toneprints, change knob assignments, create midi mappings... so much possibility.

Even is you just use it as a box of pedals and never connect to a computer it is amazing value, but if you go the whole way into the Toneprint world... it becomes an amazingly flexible and unique tone shaper.

I bought this pedal because it has every effect that I need and more in small package, and that was great for me to save space and have small pedalboard, using it as main fx source.
I was mostly interested in delays, reverbs, chorus, and noise gate.
And those effects sound great, but there is a catch.
When changing boards (which is also very slow and laggy) everything goes dry for a few sec. delays and reverbs cut off, and if you are using built in cab sim it disappear, leaving you with raw signal from your preamp during board changes, and it reacts same with MIDI or if you changing boards on pedal itself.
So this is bad news, something I can live with, but it doesn't stop there.
I installed firmware update, which gives you one more effect, and few other things, including freezing during use.
That also wouldn't be so bad if it was just effects that disappears, it leaves you totally mute, no signal passes through it, and it doesn't matter which bypass setting you choose it is always same, happened to me during the solo, this was the drop that spilled the glass, I sold it after that.
So in the end i am giving two stars for idea itself, but software is really bad, laggy leaves you with without effects in one moment, and without complete signal in other. To bad for a brand that used to had top notch products.

I have had little luck with digital multieffects units, and this one is unfortunately no exception.
I found the presets uninspiring, and the effects only passable. It's a box with algorithms in it, and I don't find these algorithms very impressive. I expect others will have different tastes and capabilities and this will be fine.
No headphone or USB into DAW capability. The power supply is awkward on a power strip.
Bottom line, this was not for me. I chose a couple of software options that serve my needs better.