Line 6 Tonecore issue

[Grrrg]

:

Hi, I got the tonecore tap tremolo and the space chorus. Then I bought an Echo Park and a Verbzilla module at the official German supplier. The issue I have is that all four modules work in the space chorus dock but when I put the Verbzilla and the Echo Park module in the Tap Tremolo dock there is only noise. Both docks are stereo. So far I cleaned the contacts which didn't help (I did not think it would) Has anyone run into this problem as well? Thanks in advance Grrrg

[Steve L]

The attached document should help you figure out what is going on.
Steve

Line 6 Tone Dock Program Manual.pdf

[Grrrg]

Thanks. But to be honest that doesn't help me. I already got this, but it doesn't say anything about different versions of modules or docks. At least I didn't see it. But rather that they are all compatible.

[Grrrg]

Well, I might be on to sth. Since it's only affecting reverb and delay the SRAM could have gone bad. And they are still available.

[Grrrg]

Yes,that was the problem. I had an old docking station where the DSP had been destroyed by a previous owner somehow which shorted the supply voltage. I took out the SRAM and put it in and now everything is working again.

[Mark Hammer]

I'm impressed. I was confused at first, because the modules were designed to work with either stereo or mono docks. Indeed, Jeorge Tripps (now at Dunlop/MXR), who was project manager for the Tonecores,told me about an "easter egg" in the Otto Filter. The Otto was sold with a mono dock. One of its settings was the "Talking filter" that was two counterswept bandpass filters. If the module was installed into a stereo dock, the two filters were fed to separate outputs. As they swept in opposite directions (one up, one downwards), if you listened using two separate amps, the effect seemed to move across the stereo field, generally to the amp receiving the up-swept filter section.

One trick you should try involves using the Echo Park in a stereo dock. Angelo Mazzocco was the DSP programmer at LIne 6 for the Tonecores, but is now at Meris. We exchanged a few e-mails (I was blessed to be a beta tester for the Tonecores), and he let me in on some inside (literal and figurative) things. Where a pedal can be operated with a 9V battery, music stores would prefer to have demonstrator pedals equipped with a battery inside, so the salesclerk doesn't have to hunt around for a suitable power supply and a free outlet to plug the supply into. It's just easier to hand the customer the pedal and a pair of patch cables. When the Echo Park was being operated in "true" stereo, they found that it required so many clock cycles that a fresh alkaline 98V wouldn't last more than an hour or so, and certainly not long enough for a set at a club. The solution was to have the dry signal fed through, take a "pooled" input, process it, and distribute it to the two outputs for mixing with the dry. So, if you only plug into one input, but feed the two outputs to separate amps, you'll find the two outputs sound a little different.

Knowing this led me to experiment with what I like to call "reprocessing". One takes the output of the channel/side you plugged into, and feed it to the input of the "other" side. The output of that side will now be your mono output, but with some interesting quirks. The most interesting is reverse delay. What do you get when you reverse reverse-delay? Why forwards delay, of course. But wait a second. If you plug into A, B's output will have a slightly different version of what A just did, as Angelo & Co intended., If you take A's output and use it as B's input, though, it will reverse what A just did. The end result is that your mono output from B will have a fascinating combination of both forward AND backward delay repeats. Make the mix wet-only, extend the delay time, and add a bit of feedback, and it can get crazy. Add even more feedback/repeats, with max delay time, and it just goes on and on and on, constantly changing.

The Echo Park permits such reprocessing with all of the various delay programs. Some some remarkable, and some more mundane, but all worth trying out. I have NOT tried out the Otto filter like that, using a stereo dock, but I have tried using the Liqui Flange and Echo Park together. Fuzz goers into the flanger, flanger to one Echo Park channel, Echo Park to 2nd flanger input, and finally flanger to 2nd delay input. If anyone is curious about such an experiment, I counsel them to call in sick to work that day, because all you have to do is hit one power chord, and the psychedelic consequences go on for quite a while, in mesmerizing fashion!!

Many stereo digital pedals can accommodate such reprocessing. They don't all sound amazing, but some do. When Steve Bragg came over to my home to demo the Empress Zoia for me, shortly after it had debiuted at NAMM in early 2018, I asked him if he had ever tried reprocessing. He hadn't, so I pulled out a TC Alter Ego pedal a friend had loaned me, did the appropriate patching, and demonstrated it, intriguing him immensely. He whipped out his little notebook, sketched madly for a minute or so, to figure out how to do it on the Zoia, and after a brief flurry of button-pressing, nailed it to both our great pleasure.

I have only "repaired" a Tonecore pedal once. As you likely know, they use a pair of staggered height micro-switches for separate functions. The higher one responds to light touch for adjusting tap-tempo or switching between fast/slow speeds. The lower one requires a harder press and audible "click" to actuate, and is used for the bypass function. One of the pedals I got from Line 6 simply would not bypass. Press as hard as you could, and there was no click, so no bypass. I took it apart to identify the problem, and it was a cute one. The "click" was from a concave sheet-metal disc, placed above the microswitch. The disc was some sort of spring steel material that could deform when pushed, and then return to shape. They were clearly manufactured with a punch press, pushing them out of a spool of sheet metal and forming them into a shallow cup. I worked one season operating a quartet of such machines, punching out thousands of snaps and fasteners every day. Such machines generally spray the material to be processed with a lubricant mixture to keep the punches sharp and prevent things from overheating. I gather that two such sheet metal cups had stuck together and been installed as such. When I discovered this, I pulled them apart, replaced one of them, and reassembled the pedal. Worked like a charm thereafter. Just one of those things.

[Grrrg]

Thanks Mark. That reprocessing sounds like a lot of fun. I don't have the liqua flange nor any stereo flanger at all, but the space Chorus might do as well.
For anybody who doesn't want to cough up the ridiculous prices asked for the echo park or verbzilla: at least in Germany modules and docking stations are sold separately from at least one of the official suppliers. So you can get a new one for 120 Euros. Though it won't have a serial number.