tc electronic Mimiq Doubler

This is the first return I have done to Thomann, this is no reflection to Thomann, who were highly efficient as usual, but the product itself.

I was very excited on receiving the Mimiq and my first use of it was putting in a stereo effects loop to 'expand' the stereo sound. At first it sound OK, but then I started to notice (then once noticed, it seems to be all you hear) some jumping of the signal quite abruptly between the left and right stereo field. I even thought I had some bad cables connected it, so promptly replaced those.

I thought that I was using it incorrectly, so I checked the online manual and say that it works better with the signal directly from the guitar. I tried this and ran into the same issues again. After going online and reading some forums on the subject, it seems that TC is aware of this issue and everyone is awaiting a firmware update to relieve some of these issues.

I am not happy with this and it insults me, in summary this is a box to simulate the sound multi-tracked guitars but there are some major issues. Using the mono input (and I have found this is also true to the 'centre' element of the stereo input), I found, as mentioned above, some very nasty (and they really are very nasty) signal jumping between the extreme right and left in the stereo field and they are very abrupt and obvious. Also some very bad phasing issues where either the signal disappears or the high end is wiped off the signal. I also ran an acoustic (through a booster) into the unit and tried some strumming and again got the same issues.

I understand that you have to be very careful with the setting on the unit and specifically the levels. I have been an engineer in the high-tech product industry for many years and also run a studio as a hobby (so I fully understand technically what these things are supposed to do) and come to two possible conclusions, that I received a rogue bad unit or this was not ready for release. If the forums are correct and a firmware update is required and other people experience the same issues then I am drawn to my second conclusion.

If you are messing around with delays and combining the 'same' signal then you will always run into phasing issues, some can sound very musical, whereas this sounds just plain nasty. I have many TC pedals in my possession and have been very happy with their performance, but if I did not get a rogue unit and this is a general issue then to me it is a piece of junk and should have been properly tested under all scenarios before being released.

So based on the current units being shipped on the current firmware load I cannot recommend it. Wait and see if the product improves. Bad ........ very bad!

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Note: If you are still after a double track sound then I recommend if you have stereo delay pedal, set the delay to almost not noticeable and run the second out through a Digitech Luxe (if you can still get them) ...... together these give a much better sound than this Mimiq pedal.