Crescendo Auto Swell Pedal Review

Not too Swell

I bought this pedal from Sweetwater some months back after preordering and waiting on it for a while. If you're looking for that nice swell effect for single hit chords, this pedal will not get it. The sensitivity knob pots are a value that won't allow but for a very small attenuation. When you set the sensitivity so that you can't hear the gate fluttering open and closed on the… read more sustain of the note or chord, it kills the swell effect too. Look at a real slow gear and the sensitivity knob is effective throughout the range. There is audibly no difference between the knob from 50 to 100 percent on the tc crescendo. I kept it thinking I would mod it to make it work properly, but I don't have the time or inclination for it.

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Looks cool, but don't suggest

First of all, this pedal looks cool and has a great feel to it. This line of pedals is a little deeper than your normal Boss pedal footprint, so beware. The switches on TC pedals are excellent in that they are mostly quiet and easy to activate. I have never owned the Boss Slow Gear this pedal emulates, but I have owned a Boss Noise Gate Mod to slow gear, and it seems pretty similar.… read more For the TC, I couldn't quite find the right balance of getting a nice slow swell. It always seemed too fast. Also, this pedal seems to gate off your decaying signal whereas I would have expected that it would allow the signal to just fade out naturally. For instance, you can play a chord to swell in, but as the chord starts to naturally decay, you can hear the pedal opening and closing the gate. This really does not sound good. I have a mini pedal version of a swell pedal made by another manufacturer that does not have this feature.

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EXCELLENT!

Works exactly like my Boss Slow Gear. Thinking about selling my Boss now. These pedals are very particular and you'll need to figure out how to work with them.

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It often doesn't work when you need it to. Unpredictable

This pedal has a bit of a learning curve. It takes some practice and getting used to. You have to adapt your playing style to make it work. After a few weeks the results seem somewhat unpredictable. Get a volume pedal instead.

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Crescendo’s and Crescendon’ts

I got this pedal as a birthday gift. It's great with a delay. I'd recommend putting it first in your chain for the best results. The effect is less noticeable after a drive pedal or when using a guitar with hotter pickups. The more you play around with it, you'll discover weirder sounds. You can get it to sound different just by how you're picking the notes. Cool pedal.

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