TC-Helicon Play Acoustic Reviews

Has great features but odd quirks and not so easy to adjust

Having wanted as combined solution for acoustic and voice I thought this was it. Overall the sound is good if you can put up with the channels on the back not actually being separate. No matter what I tried, either using Stereo , Mono , Supposedly Seperate channels the Vox and Guitar elements seems to be somehow overlapping, and coming out of One channel or the other. Neither were ever totally separate!. Annoying. Interface isnt great for live adjustment, although good for general processing, Vocal effects are great and easily useable out of the box. Guitar Sounds leave something to be desired and need adjustment. Settings in general hard to trim to a Desk / Monitoring process easily, and not that easy to do if something is wrong levels wise. Found it a pain in general but usable , have gone to a Headrush Prime in the end as much better adjustability and separate Channels!

Good product

Works well with great sounds

great vocal effect

Great effect with great features. Configuration is slightly more complex, due to the quantity of different parameters, however when one gets used to it, it is very simple. Great tool for single singer bands, or individual performers. I only miss possibility to be mounted on microphone stand, but with switch-6 it is possible to control the device widely.

Can't live without it!

Amazing features, sound in a small box.

Top Level

As a soloist, I can say that I'm extremely happy with my purchase as it caters for much more than I could possibly need.

I'm still getting to grips with most of the features, but have mastered a few basic ones. The vocal harmonies also work well if you feed backing tracks in through the auxiliary jack.

It has greatly enhanced my performances.

TC Helicon

Great quality vocal effect, especially reverbs and compressor, works great with acoustic guitar

If you have budget for only one pedal, it's this one!

I have been using this pedal for few years already. It's incredibly customisable. There are plenty of guitar and vocal effects, probably you won't ever need them but it's nice to have it anyway.

Best thing about it: It replaces about many pedals (delay, reverb etc.) And vocal pedals ( delay, harmoniser, reverb, autotune..) plus tuner and looper.

So if you have budget for only one, this is the one.

Excellent quality, though there few compression options.

It's a very durable, sturdy piece of gear. The sound quality is great and I have no complains whatsoever about this. There is also an incredible amount of parameters to tweak. But the one thing I have to point out is the little control over compression that the user have. I find this very strange as there are so many parameters one can change, but such an important one as compression for the vocals is very poorly managed. There are only a few general options such as "no compression", "normal compression", and "extra compression", and this setting then applies to every preset at once (not individually). I find this strange. As for the rest, really no complains at all!

Good bit of kit but somewhat fiddly

Some of the effects sound good but I think there’s only a couple of the vocal harmonies that are actually useable for many songs. Takes a bit of practice, like the onboard tuner and the basic looper

Solid and well made kit. Will persevere it’s it to get more use of the sounds

absolutely worth the money. It is easy to use and setup. I would definitely buy it again

This is perfect...

This is perfect for Solo Acoustic Singer/Player. Two thumbs up...

More than a box

Love my play acoustic from the day I received it and continues to amaze

Such a great companion for the acoustic singer

This thing is amazing. Spend some time crafting your tones at home, and you are ready to go into a PA, voice and guitar!

Used it for 6 years, love it!

Use it live all the time. Lasted through years of really really hard gigging almost every weekend (I mostly use it as just an vocal pedal for the rock band I'm in... some of the shows we play don't have stages and the crowds get really wild... the pedal gets jumped on, beers spilt on it... all the above) And it still works great!

Sounds great! lots of options for different harmonies ect... Won't do a show without the pedal anymore.

Makes the acoustic guitar shine as well when I do acoustic shows. The looper is just as good as any other one, and the chord tracking works just as promised. There is some eqing that puts the guitar behind the vocals in the mix, so it sounds wayyyyyyyy better than if you were to plug your guitar and vocals into a PA and hope for the best.

Giving 4 starts for quality just because there is a knob in the center of the pedal that can be broken... Mine went through an unreasonable amount of damage, I'm sure... However, there could have been a more durable option considering how well the rest of the pedal is put together. I've found other consumers of this pedal that had the same central knob break. You can still use the pedal, but you can't create custom effects. You can still download presets from the TC helicon website (which is pretty cool) but, if that knob breaks, the only way to make additional presets is to find a friend who has one of these pedals, create the preset on theirs, save it to your computer and then upload it to your pedal... However, the rest of this pedal can really really take a beating.

But, when it finally breaks, I will buy the exact same product immediately. Really impressed with it!

TC Helicon play accouctic

What a great product , if your voice isn't the best , this unit helps you. ( hardtune /pitch correction )

Plus don't forget the Harmony it sounds so good.

and I had so much fun with the voice altering. making a mans voice sound like a woman. and making your voice sound like an Alien.

When hooking up the unit to your computer , there are hunderts of downloads ( presets) for this unit.

Expected more

I've been using this unit for about two years now as a one man band. I used it in different venues, form big and small, and different systems.

I would definitely say the pros of the product is that it has a lot of options in general in a relatively small unit and it seems very well built.

But, even tough there are a lot of option for a unit small like this, there are also some essential features that should be there but aren't, as for example vocal compression and limiter.

I found the LOOPER totally useless, it has a problem with keeping being in the rhythm, you have to be very very precise to get something usable out of it, and I've been using RC-3 looper for years and now I'm using EHX 22500, so I'm not a beginner in looping.

I'm very disappointed in the VOCAL EFFECTS, especially the reverb. I couldn't get a nice direct normal reverb like you have on every basic available DAV in your laptop or computer, it is like it's always "somewhere in the background", whatever I do with the parameters.

The BODY REZ function doesn't necessarily improve the sound of the guitar that it sounds more natural to me, especially not in the grasp as it is marketed. It is ok to add compression to the guitar but you have to really play with it or it can even make the sound worse.

I think that since this is a digital unit, TC should maybe consider updating some of the effects and their computability, especially vocal reverb, add compression to the vocal because this should be a must on a VOCAL processor unit.

I use the unit as a travelling musician and would much more prefer that TC offers a unit as this in even smaller size, maybe without the looper option.

So in general I'm not very satisfied with the unit. Reason I use it is because I need to have something as a traveling musician when I end up on different gear without any reverb or compression etc. which is better than nothing. But I'm stil considering just buying my own mixer because I don't have compression and good reverb on this unit, but the problem then is switching the effects for different songs or during a song.

The problem is there are not many other alternatives to something that offers at least some effects for acoustic playing in one unit and it is relatively ok for transport.

So I could recommend the unit if you really need it, but in general I think it could be much much more purposeful.

great pedal overall

I wanted something simple to use for solo live shows. There are loads of youtube videos on this model which helped me get it set up. It needs a plug(has no battery option) which is a bit of pain.

I used it for vocal loops, and guitar fx, overall it was versatile and definitely worth buying

An excellent piece of kit

I did a lot of lot of research before purchasing and am wholly satisfied with the Play Acoustic. I am not a tech person but found it easy to navigate my way around. There is an amazing array of choice with all the settings which sound amazing. I have bought specific pedals in the past which are now redundant as this has all I need and more besides. Its well constructed and solidly built. I was able to double the looping time using online firmware . This pedal needs to be plugged into a powered speaker or PA to appreciate the full tone and sound. I haven't been able to gig with it yet due to covid but can't wait, as it gives so much to both the vocals and guitar. My only gripe would be that I wish it was able to run on battery power as well as mains and the addition of an off switch would be useful. Apart from that I can say its well worth the investment .

The outlet did not work until a wire was inserted between the contacts.

Great vocal effects, acoustic sound not so

It is pretty fast in correcting your singing and it is has to work hard when I use it! Harmonies are pretty decent for the price you pay. The acoustic guitar sound could be improved. Using a Boss AD10 for that now, linking it to the TC Helicon to make use of the autotune