TC Electronic Spark Mini

APRIL 2019 TOTAL GUITAR
Take your tone to 11 with
these brilliant boosters
107
T
he Steelpark has several modes on off er
– we found that the ‘no preamp’ purple
mode sounds a lot like the Spark, and so
stuck to the ‘mid boost’ orange mode for the
most part. With drive at about four, and
volume around six-and-a-half, this pedal
really rips, especially when its dedicated treble
and bass controls are used to tone-shape
around your amp and guitar. It’s punchy and
thick on the bridge, and with a dirty amp on
the neck was pure Swervedriver. It stacked
well with the other boosts we had to hand,
and was as tight as anything when run into
the distortion channel of our tube amp.
T
he Emissary is an interesting concept, a
parallel boost combining a JFET-based
treble boost circuit and a mid-boost
circuit with a specifi c target frequency, which
can be toggled between 800Hz and 1kHz. For
our taste, we found the bright at noon, mid at
2 o’clock and toggle set to 1kHz was a winning
setting with both single coils and
humbuckers. Into a clean amp, it was sharp,
punchy and compressed, while into a
distorted amp it gives you the kind of thick,
tube drive tones that alt-rockers will love.
That mid-boost is handy to push solos
through a mix, too. All in all, a lot of fun.
Laney Black Country
Customs Steelpark
POCKET LANEY POWER
Walrus Audio
Emissary
PARALLEL PUNCH
BYPASS
More!, Spark, Emissary: True
bypass
Steelpark: Relay bypass
POWER
Spark, Emissary: 9V power
supply
Steelpark: 9V battery, 9V
power supply
More!: 9-18V
CONTACT
Monty’s Guitars
montysguitars.com
TC Electronic
tcelectronic.com
Headstock Distribution
headstockdistribution.com
FACE
face.be
AT A GLANCE
£129
£164
PEDAL ROUND-UP
FEATURES
SOUND QUALITY
VALUE FOR MONEY
BUILD QUALITY
USABILITY
OVERALL RATING
SUMMARY
FEATURES
SOUND QUALITY
VALUE FOR MONEY
BUILD QUALITY
USABILITY
OVERALL RATING
SUMMARY
TGR317.gear_pedals.indd 107 28/02/2019 10:46