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.

I bought this a while back. One of the things that it surprised me with is that if I run it through a mono-channel amp-ing my mouth harp, the mild interference it creates makes sure the mouth harp is a little less dominant. This way it allows for other instruments in the mix to more easily claim their space, while the mouth harp does stay true to its sound.

Recording it in stereo offers an even wider range of options. I now use it in conjunction with the Digitech CabDryVR, which gives me the option of quickly and easily dubbing tracks on two different speaker-cabinets. It won’t be like Guns’n’Roses with two guitars sharing some riffs here and there, but also sticking to their own. It will be just two to four guitars, bass guitars, mouth harps, etc. tru-dubbing, playing the exact same thing with minor variance in terms of attack and pitch.

What I found a bit counter-intuitive is that they labeled the knob that allows you to set the looseness “tightness” instead. As you turn it up, it becomes more loose, but if you read the manual or if you watched the product demo, that won’t catch you off guard.

You do really have to consider how loose or tight you want it to be. With some settings, when it’s extremely loose, I sometimes feel the dubbed track gets sent to the back a bit more. You really have to listen for yourself how you’re going to take it.

The dry track just is as you play it. The one to three dubbed tracks variations to that, in stereo also having their very own spatial distribution, respectively left-right, left-middle-right, and left-left-right-right.

Awesome pedal.

I bought this pedal for use both on stage and as a studio tool.

For this pedal to actually work it must, in my opinion, be used in a stereo setup. The product officially does support a mono signal path, but I don't think many will find that satisfying.

Initial impressions of the product was good. It does provide a significant fattening up of the ton. After a short while the problems started to appear though...

The main issue is that the product is plagued by some serious software bugs, and even though TC has been aware of the issue for about a year it does not appear like they will release a firmware update anytime soon. So be aware of this if you decide to buy!

The actual problems are these; First there a phasing issue.... which appear somewhat random in nature. Sometimes it sounds great, sometimes not. This is perhaps to be expected from an artificial doubler. The second problem is worse; At random one of the voices will move abruptly in the panned spectrum... jumping from one hard-panned side to the middle and back. This made the product unusable for me in a studio environment.

If you're only planning to use this on stage, probably no-one will notice and it WILL fatten up your sound. Useless for studio work, in my opinion.

I use it with my Helix Rack in the FX loop -> mono input, stereo output. I found out this way of usage after couple of hours experimenting, but it was down to my lack of knowledge of my helix back then. After you integrate it to your setup it is worth every cent spent. I would only use this pedal in a stereo setup. In my way of setup the dry signal is panned to the left and the mimiqued signal to the right, just take care to request your dry channel if you have mono monitoring systems.

Build quality is superb, full metal casing, nice footswitch.

Pros:

very good sound if used correctly
excellent build quality

Cons:

do not overuse it.

I heard that the pedal shines for stereo setup but I only used it for the mono amp. Therefore this might be a one-sided review.

When I put the volume of dry output to a minimum and have the effect left only (to hear only the sound that the pedal generates not the original guitar sound), every 1~2 seconds it is shifting a different tone. I believe that they used this trick to create the feeling of "another guitar recording" but to me, it is a quite cheap trick to create the illusion.

It jumps from one random tone to another every 1~2 second which I find quite distracting and not reliable.

It has quite a good build quality with a really useless sound on my side.

I will soon try with a stereo setup, maybe my vote will change after (hopefully).

I mostly bought this for splitting a lead tone out to two separate signal chain with the promise of having a distinctive double-tracked sound when playing live.

In terms of the intended effect... 'double track' is a gross exaggeration. I've tried this with everything from fingerpicked acoustic to heavy overdriven leads. Even with the effect maxed out, at best it can be described as a very underwhelming delay effect... and that's when it actually works.

If you were excited about the stereo options like me, forget about it. That's where this pedal is at its least reliable. Sometimes it works fine, but often the sound is ping-ponging between stereo and mono output for some reason.

An exciting idea but the execution is woeful. If you're willing to run it strictly in mono then it's not entirely useless, but even then you might as well get the cheaper and more space-efficient mini pedal version.