tc electronic Crescendo Auto Swell

Nice and unique effect to add to your chain

Not only is it very unique, it also can function as a noise gate

Noticeable Volume drop

Great for the price, built like a tank...but has a big volume drop when engaged. Fine for recording, but wouldn’t use it in a live setting.

A servicable entry point

I've gotten some good mileage out of this pedal; it's at a good price point and it does what it needs to do, for the most part. With the settings just right, the pedal is a great tool for getting rich, ambient swells out of your guitar. But that's just it; the 'right' settings can sometimes be quite tricky to find. There's a bit of a learning curve here; removing the attack of the note has quite an impact on the dynamics, which seems obvious to say, but if, like me, you're looking to pair this with a reverb & delay, you may find that those sounds don't 'bloom' as much, or that the final result is a bit quieter than you were expecting. I've also found the controls themselves to be difficult to sit quite right. I'm not sure what other controls a pedal like this would need, but I'm finding it hard to get the sweet spot. I still think the pedal is great, and with some more time invested into it I'll get the great results I've occasionally had with more consistency. But it's worth noting that it may take you some time to get it just right.

Not recommended

Too subtle and one-sided for my taste. Auto swell not being my favourite effect, maybe it's a matter of personal taste - but i sold mine after a few months and bought a more expensive and versatile pedal (Electro-Harmonix Attack Decay).

Build quality seems fine though.

It is probably the fact that it does not have the speed button and maybe dry signal ratio or something like that, making it a dead pedal on my board. I don't use it as much as I would like to.

Existing controls are intuitive and the sound is gratly impacted by the cresendo. But you quickly get fed up with the same ascending level (konstant tweeeh,tweeeh sound) on the sensitive side and the lack of cresendo noticeably activating on the other side of the controls.

But hey, you can still rock it.

It does what it says.

Great for price

This pedal is really good. Better than my mooer s.m.

Only problem is that it's really big and heavy for pretty simple effect