Ugly Guitar Truth: TC Electronic Eyemaster Metal Distortion

So, today TC Electronics let us see what they were teasing us about recently. They gave us a full frontal view of 8 new pedals they are releasing. For the most part, these are very interesting. There is a push button chorus, fuzz, tremolo, auto swell, and noise gate. I've checked out all the available information about these pedals and they seem much like the affordable pedal that they released a few months ago. Where TC has done a great job so far, there seems to be a rotten egg in the bunch. If you read the title of the post you already know what I'm going to say. Let's take a look at the Eyemaster Metal Distortion.

Just... Wow

Ok, if there is one thing that I've learned about the state of big pedal developers releasing their pedal via social media, it is that they have everything optimized before launch. They show us glamour shots on Instagram and they post well produced demo videos on YouTube. That is what TC Electronic did for each one of their new pedals. Each pedal had a video that did no less that convince me to buy every single one. I probably won't, but when I watch those videos, I absolute knew that I needed to buy whatever it was. The final video that I watched was for the Eyemaster. Why did I watch it last? Because that was the order that YouTube gave it to me. Ok?! Just like the other videos we have "Pedal Jesus" tell us just how great this pedal is, and we have an impressive guitarist giving us a demo. Only, I'm not really understanding what I'm hearing. Everything sounds awful. There is a chugging riff and some talk about brutal death-metal. I enjoy a nice chuggy metal riff, but do not dig the sounds on this video. I checked out the comment section to make sure I wasn't crazy. What had been a sea of praise for the other pedal release along side this one, was now a list of complaints.

Simpler Than-Thou

So, I copy-pasted that from the TC website. This pedal has two knobs. That is completely fine. However, the sounds that were coming out of this pedal is not fine. I know that TC can produce a video with great sounding metal riffs (just check out the Mimiq Doubler pedal they have). So it leads me to believe that this pedal just isn't holding up. It sounds like the intro of a song that uses a lofi filter before restoring the low end frequencies and becoming something worth listening to. The sounds aren't brutal. They are thin, scooped, and fizzy. They are a number of HM-2 comparisons being made, but to me it sounds more like a MXR Prime Distortion. Whatever the actually heritage of this pedal, the video does not do much to make me want the thing. After doing some digging, there is a "sound" that the pedal seems to go for, but it "sounds" like a MT-2 at a horrific setting to me.

Who's To Blame?

Here's the deal. Tore (I think that's the guy's name) is kind of an odd dude. Odd in this case refers to the fact that he doesn't agree with me all the time. I don't particularly like most of the distortion/overdrives from TC. So I think there might be some ideological differences between me and the people making decisions at TC. This is all totally fine, but I don't seem to be the only one finding the Eyemaster a little hard to handle. Why does this pedal sound like this? Seems like the TC guys have a thing for distortions with this particular palate. Or, It could be Behringer/Music Group to blame. Many people accuse TC of reboxing Behringer pedals. So maybe it's due to the designs being out of TC's control and not up to their standards. TC makes top notch pedal in nearly every category. There are even fans of the drive pedals... go figure. Or possibly, The amps they were using just didn't like working with that particular pedal. If Tore is to be believed, it may have been too metal for that poor Bugera amp. According to the videos in this series of demos, the amps used were Bugera. In the video is question, there was a close up of a Marshal Plexi, but that amp wasn't even turned on (note the unilluminated status light). This may indicate the use of the Bugera Plexi clone. 

Conclusion

Does this pedal dish out brutal and raw metal tones inspired by classic Swedish death metal? honestly, it might, I'm not up on my classic Swedish death metal. However, I can really recommend this pedal. Very few people have had a chance to play this pedal since it has only just been announced, but for what I can tell, this one is a swing and a miss. TC Electronics does such a great job on nearly everything it sets out to do, but issuing a two knob metal distortion just seems... limited. Here's hoping that this pedal has some internal controls to tweak.