TC-Helicon Play Electric, Manual

Page 1: ...English Manual Play Acoustic...

Page 2: ...oop page 5 7 34 Switch 3 page 6 7 35 Product Info page 7 7 36 Vocal FX button section 37 Harmony page 1 7 39 Harmony Advanced page 40 Double page 2 7 41 Delay page 3 7 42 Delay Advanced page 43 Reverb...

Page 3: ...Important safety instructions Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 1 Important safety instructions...

Page 4: ...cing to qualified service per sonnel Servicing is required when the ap paratus has been damaged in any way such as power supply cord or plug is dam aged liquid has been spilled or objects have fallen...

Page 5: ...y turning the equipment off and on the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures Reorient or relocate the receiving antenna Increase the separation...

Page 6: ...Before you begin Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 4 Before you begin...

Page 7: ...e potential of your TC Helicon product and stay in touch with the latest news tips and tricks VoiceSupport key features include Professionally authored preset libraries Direct access to product manual...

Page 8: ...Introduction Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 6 Introduction...

Page 9: ...ng icons are used in the diagrams in this manual XLR Male XLR Female Combo Jack MIDI Jack 1 4 inch jack Power Input Mini USB 1 8 inch jack GRND Lift USB Type A USB Type B Microphone XLR Male XLR Femal...

Page 10: ...ck panel image 2 Outputs from Play Acoustic will be to the right of the back panel image 3 There are two boxes on the bottom of each diagram The Play Acoustic box shows what you hear from your Play Ac...

Page 11: ...Basics Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 9 Basics...

Page 12: ...you want to use to your Play Acoustic especially that 8 Track from your 1974 Comet When an in put is detected here and no guitar is plugged in Play Acoustic will use the music signal to figure out key...

Page 13: ...ts and update the product s internal soft ware firmware You can download VoiceSupport here tc helicon com products voicesupport Stereo audio input and output via USB is also supported at 16 bit resolu...

Page 14: ...erloading and b you ve got powerful lungs Setting the guitar level The control for your guitar input is on Page 1 of the Setup menu You can access the Setup menu by pressing the SETUP button and then...

Page 15: ...right corner of the display when a loop is running but you are currently not on the Loop mode screen GB Guitar Boost indicator The GB Guitar Boost indicator is shown in the lower left corner of the di...

Page 16: ...a song with a particular effect e g Harmony TALK mode When you press and hold the HIT Hold for TALK footswitch Play Acoustic enters TALK mode In TALK mode all vocal effects are bypassed and the micro...

Page 17: ...There is also an alternative mode where pressing the DOWN and UP footswitches simultaneously will allow you to set key scale You can set this mode on System page 5 under UP DN Function When you have...

Page 18: ...epresent a specific song or portion of a song via multiple effects and settings A good modern analogy for a Preset is a user ac count on a computer Even though each user has access to the same hardwar...

Page 19: ...umbers Press the STORE button again to complete the process Storing a preset to another location To save the current preset to a different preset slot location press the store button once then press t...

Page 20: ...ribed in its own chap ter Guitar FX button section Mix button Press the Mix button to open the Mix menu which allows you to adjust the levels of the sig nals This button is described in its own chapte...

Page 21: ...the BACK button to return to the main win dow where you will see only the presets con tained within the Genre that you have selected Presets can be associated with multiple genres Setup button Press t...

Page 22: ...Connection diagrams Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 20 Connection diagrams...

Page 23: ...d outputs see Inputs and outputs Mixer setup For connection to your mixer or PA check out this Craig s Corner video youtube com watch v qq0AOtafIjs It s very important to follow gain staging instruc t...

Page 24: ...and the other channel right or use a single Stereo channel on your mixer Vocal Guitar level mix is achieved within Play Acoustic In Mono output mode you have control over the vocal and guitar sounds...

Page 25: ...l 2014 07 16 23 Mono vocals and guitar amp This configuration works well when you want to pass your guitar signals to an amplifier and your vocal signals to a mixer or powered PA speaker PLAYACOUSTIC...

Page 26: ...e sending a summed mono signal to a mixer or PA For additional control you can opt to plug a mu sic player into the Aux channel on the FX150 instead of Play Acoustic giving you control of Vocals Guita...

Page 27: ...ustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 25 Mono vocals via FX150 and a guitar amp Here you can send the vocal signals to an FX150 and guitar signals to an amplifier FX150 Setup example Mono vocals via FX150...

Page 28: ...via FX150 and stereo out to a PA In this setup you can use the Headphone Out from Play Acoustic to send Guitar Vocal and Aux signals to your FX150 and send a stereo mix to the PA via the Play Acoustic...

Page 29: ...PA and TC Helicon Guitar Headphone cable If you own our Guitar Headphone cable sold separately you can use an external monitor send to the Aux in on Play Acoustic to create a headphone IEM mix PLAYAC...

Page 30: ...Setup button section Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 28 Setup button section...

Page 31: ...o give you room sounds with your direct microphone feeds Ambient Auto setting With the Ambient Auto setting RoomSense uses the onboard microphones and passes that signal via the headphone output The o...

Page 32: ...n sing ing and want to keep your levels under control NORM NO GATE setting Removes the Gate function from the NORMAL setting LESS BRIGHT NG setting The LESS BRIGHT NG is the same as the LESS BRIGHT se...

Page 33: ...setting no processing is performed on the Aux input signal On setting With the On setting Play Acoustic will attempt to remove lead vocals from a piece of music This process can create Karaoke style m...

Page 34: ...vocal will be delayed by an amount equal to the latency of the currently enabled effect blocks Using more effect blocks will in crease the latency compensation amount Tune Reference parameter Use the...

Page 35: ...equencies in the room such as bass or kick drum can cause the RoomSense microphones to become muddy sounding The built in high pass filter al lows you to reduce this kind of rumble Guitar Gate paramet...

Page 36: ...onds Off setting Disables undo freeing some memory for addi tional looping In this mode available loop time is doubled to 30 seconds Loop Feedback parameter Use the Loop Feedback parameter to control...

Page 37: ...r Boost Gtr Compressor Gtr Mod Gtr Delay Gtr Reverb Harm Moment and Delay Moment When you have selected the Custom setting two menu items work slightly differently from the oth ers Harm Moment and Del...

Page 38: ...014 07 16 36 Product Info page 7 7 The System Info page contains information about the installed firmware version serial number and manufacture date for your device If you need to contact support plea...

Page 39: ...Vocal FX button section Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 37 Vocal FX button section...

Page 40: ...Control parameter Use the Control parameter to turn an effect block on and off Off setting The effect block is inactive no signal process ing occurs On setting The effect block is active and will proc...

Page 41: ...control the overall level of the harmonies Press the upper right soft button to select this parameter and use the control knob to adjust the level 0 dB is the maximum volume for the effect Key paramet...

Page 42: ...TC helicon products Portamento parameter Use the Portamento parameter to control the amount of slide between notes as you sing The more Portamento you use the more the Harmony voices will slide inste...

Page 43: ...Style parameter Use the Style parameter to set the number of voices and the timing of the double Choose from the following styles 1 Voice Tight 1 Voice Loose 2 Voices Tight 2 Voices Loose Shout 1 Voic...

Page 44: ...Triplet Sixteenth Ping Pong 1 Ping Pong 2 Ping Pong 3 Multitap 1 Multitap 2 Multitap 3 Multitap 4 Multitap 5 Multitap 6 Classic Slap Set Time Level parameter Use the Level parameter to control the ov...

Page 45: ...Cut 3 Low Cut 1 Low Cut 2 Low Cut 3 Some of the delay filter styles are consistent meaning that the sound is affected like mega phone and all subsequent delay taps sound the same Some delay filter ar...

Page 46: ...ate Soft Hall Amsterdam Hall Broadway Hall Snappy Room Library Dark Room Music Club Studio Room Warehouse Bouncy Room Cozy Corner Bright Chamber Wooden Chamber St Joseph Church Dome Chapel Hockey Aren...

Page 47: ...meter Use the Style parameter to determine the accu racy speed and aggressiveness of the tuning effect Choose from the following styles Pop Country Gliss Robot Correct Natural Correct Chromatic not sc...

Page 48: ...e from the following styles Megaphone Radio On The Phone Overdrive Buzz Cut Stack Tweed Combo Drive parameter Use the Drive parameter to control the amount of overdrive applied to the signal More driv...

Page 49: ...effect For example if you are using a delay no effect will be applied to the ini tial tap of the delay but subsequent taps will have the Transducer effect applied Gate Threshold parameter Transducer...

Page 50: ...us Medium Chorus Wide Chorus Mono Chorus Fast Rotor Panner Flanger Flange Feedback Flange Negative Mono Flange Soft Flange Tube Up Tube Down Tube Down Up Tube Rise and Fall Auto Wah Underwater Cylon M...

Page 51: ...Guitar FX button section Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 49 Guitar FX button section...

Page 52: ...ed to adjust them once As you change presets your guitar sound will re main the same Please note that several pages described in this chapter will only be visible when you have set the BodyRez Editing...

Page 53: ...g Jazz Plate Quick Plate Soft Hall Amsterdam Hall Broadway Hall Snappy Room Library Dark Room Music Club Studio Room Bouncy Room Cozy Corner Bright Chamber Wooden Chamber St Joseph Church Dome Chapel...

Page 54: ...ffect Choose from the following styles Corona 12 00 based on the Corona Chorus from TC Electronic Corona Fast Corona Slow Silky Detune Medium Detune Mono Chorus Level parameter Use the Mix parameter t...

Page 55: ...BodyRez 3 BodyRez 4 BodyRez 5 Amount parameter Use the Amount parameter to control how much BodyRez processing should be applied to your guitar signal Amount settings lower than 10 will limit the ran...

Page 56: ...access it en ter the Setup menu and change the BodyRez Editing parameter from Basic to Advanced Use the Compressor effect block to control the dynamic range of your guitar signal enhancing attack sus...

Page 57: ...ly jumps to 6 dB it is 4 dB above the Threshold 10 dB and the compressor kicks in The Compressor will compress those 4 extra decibels to 1 dB this is the compression ratio Accordingly the level of the...

Page 58: ...quencies If you are unsure which frequency is causing the feedback it can be useful to use positive values 8 for example to boost the feedback you are hearing This allows you to highlight problematic...

Page 59: ...Mix button section Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 57 Mix button section...

Page 60: ...ay Reverb effects across all pre sets This control is useful if you find yourself in a performance environment that has a lot or very little natural reverb and you d like to tune your sound to that ro...

Page 61: ...has no effect if Input is set to USB and you are post processing the received signal via a DAW The track controls within the DAW it self will determine the output level and therefore the Play Acoustic...

Page 62: ...The Looper Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 60 The Looper...

Page 63: ...nd and then re enter Loop mode to add a new overdub to the loop Recording your first loop Press the footswitch assigned to REC PLAY ODUB to start a recording Press the footswitch again to finish recor...

Page 64: ...Undo You can use Undo when you have made a mis take just remove the overdub that went wrong and do it again You can also use Undo and Redo creatively for a part track that you would like to come and...

Page 65: ...c Play Odub Stop Erase Hold for Erase Undo The benefit of having the Undo feature assigned to a separate footswitch is the ability to perfectly time your undo instead of waiting a moment for a hold to...

Page 66: ...Troubleshooting Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 64 Troubleshooting...

Page 67: ...Guitar Piano etc If you are using an MP3 player to sing along with tracks set the AUX IN TYPE parameter in the Setup Menu to TRACKS Some tracks will work better for NaturalPlay than others based on t...

Page 68: ...Appendix Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 66 Appendix...

Page 69: ...D D Maj 2 5th Higher Low G nc A nc C C nc E nc E F F Maj 3 3rd High Lower E nc F nc G A nc Bb nc C D D Maj 3 5th Higher Low G nc A nc Bb C nc D nc E F F Min 1 3rd High Lower Eb nc F G nc Ab nc Bb C nc...

Page 70: ...Links Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 68 Links...

Page 71: ...icon com support TC Helicon user forum support tc helicon com categories 20073491 User Forum TC Helicon Play Series forum support tc helicon com forums 21577876 Play Series TC Helicon warranty informa...

Page 72: ...Technical specifications Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 70 Technical specifications...

Page 73: ...it buttons Dedicated Effect Block On Off buttons Design Size and weight Height 1 8 inches 45 mm Width 7 9 inches 200 mm Depth 6 1 inches 156 mm Weight 2 1 lb 0 95 kg Construction Dual die cast clamshe...

Page 74: ...B 20 Hz to 20 kHz Headphone Out 1 8 Mini stereo jack Control USB USB B Firmware Updates Preset Management audio I O Pedal TRS phone jack Details Power External Power Supply Mains Voltage Input 100 to...

Page 75: ...Technical specifications Play Acoustic Reference manual 2014 07 16 73...