TC Electronic DARK MATTER DISTORTION Phenomenal Distortion Pedal with Extreme Dynamic Range, Two-Band EQ and Voicing Switch

I can honestly say that this is one of the greatest pedals I own. Though there may have been a couple of moments where I wrestled with the sound, "there is a particular recording I did where I wasn't very pleased with the tone I got out that made me forget the pedal for a bit," I nevertheless came back to this dirt box and rediscovered what I loved about it in the first place. This pedal sounds more than descent at first glance or try, one will perceive a warm growling rock tone with all the knobs set to 12 and minimal effort "just play a couple of power chords". That is just the beginning though!! This black box of mayhem begins to really shine when you experiment with it: When you Mess with the pedal's knobs "The bass knob in particular", experiment with picking dynamics, use doublestops, alternate between staccato and legato phrasing etc... This pedal, for the price, is like an initial course into guitar tone, meant for those who are more serious about tone than playing a very specific genre. This pedal responds to your dynamics the same way that a tube screamer does but with a more marshall plexi bite, a sound more akin to tube like distortion. So this might not be the right pedal if you're into metal riffs where consistency in every note is required and compression keeps everything smooth. If you are very specific about the style of music you play and predictability is what you seek by all means buy a more expensive pedal that caters to that musical genre in particular. If however you want versatility and a bit of unpredictability in your playing without hurting your bank account, this pedal is perfect!!. TC electronic does describe this pedal as more for tone aficionados, so this a great pedal. My only concerns regarding the Dark Matter are that the pedal is not built as tough as say an MXR pedal or even a BOSS Pedal for the road's wear and tear. and that yeah single coil guitars beware !! this pedal can produce a very annoying hiss when using your strat or tele specially if you have wiring issues in your pedal board. Those things are minor however and they are sins that can be forgiven for a pedal that is so damn cheap. For a distortion that has been used by the likes of Vernon Reed and Andy Summers this little gadget is truly remarkable.

I got the T.C. Electronic Dark Matter pedal because it was listed as one of the top 10 pedals for metal, I love my other T.C. Electronic pedal, and the price point is really affordable. I wanted to replace a giant, old, bulky hughes and kettner warp pedal that sounds amazing for high-gain down-tuned metal, but takes up too much room on my pedalboard. If you haven't seen the warp pedal, it is round and almost as big as a dinner plate - not a good design for a pedalboard. The Dark Matter did NOT cut it for high-gain downtuned metal. BUT... it has super sparkly amazing metal tones for playing Vai or Satriani or even Marty Friedman-like leads, and it can pull off a pretty good Kill 'em All sound with the voice switch. If you are looking for a pedal that has rich harmonics, excellent clarity and sparkly leads, look no further. If you want something with ultra-high gain for djent or death metal, you might be disappointed. Since I play lots of styles i ended up just squeezing it onto my board and keeping the Warp Pedal. I am SUPER happy with this pedal and I think it sounds great! I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a great distortion pedal that doesn't need an insane amount of gain.

I was pretty excited to get this pedal and try it out. The price is great for sure. For 50 dollars you get a well built, solid guitar pedal. TC's switches are noteworthy since they are one of the only companies that uses a quiet plunger style click switch. Having owned many cheaper pedals over the years with the louder and stiffer click switches, the TC switches are effortless. Granted they are not as quiet and smooth as a Boss pedal. The footprint of this pedal is basically the same size as a Boss pedal if you are trying to figure out how much room you need on your pedal board. I was very pleased to see that I did not need to modify my Boss BCB-30 pedal board to accommodate the pedal. The sound is quite nice except that I fear it may have "in store" or "demo" appeal in that it sounds great when practicing by yourself, but it may not cut it in a live situation. I compared it to a Boss drive box through a tube amp at just below performance volume. The TC had a very nice wide and open distortion sound that had a lot of range in the level of distortion. Even with the gain all of the way up, it was still not doomy or metal sounding. The Boss when activated just had more punch and mid growl. I have played enough gear and done live sound enough to know that certain frequencies cut through a mix even though they may not sound high end or boutique on their own. This pedal would probably be great to have as another color if you are the only guitar player in a band or you play in a group with lots of sonic space. It also seemed like having the level knob at 12 o'clock was not really unity gain. That is a bit annoying. I felt like the voice switch did not do anything noticeable to the tone.

LOVE IT!!!! Wonderfully versatile tones, from the deep, moody, and murky, to hard,crisp, and grungy. My set up is a customized Pearl Black Rogue LX200BF Fretless Series III Electric Bass Guitar, (with Seymour Duncan Quarter Pound P-J Pick-up Set, D'Addario Light ECB80 Bass Guitar Strings, and Bourns 500k Pots), A heavily MODed Squire SP10 (set up to function as a head stack), on a 4x10 16ohm Cabinet. I was looking for some nice but affordable pedals to go with my set up, and after doing some searching for a pedal to customize my distortion a bit more, i came across this and decided to go for it. I set it up between a Donner Alchemy Pedal and Behringer NR300, and needless to say I am seriously pleased! My fingers are a little sore as i am typing this after playing with it for a few hours since it arrived. And have found a nice rolling murky sound that i am loving, (not sure the dog appreciates it). The pedal has a wonderful sustain, which is noticeable even when the gain is tuned down to 0, and almost sounds like a grungy feedback loop when the gain is up to the MAX. The level control works as a great signal booster, while the treble and bass controls work nicely to fine tune your sound, I'm keeping mine set to about noon for the Treb, and 3oclock for the Bass). Now add in the tone control on my bass along with the separate bass and treble controls on the amp itself, and I can now customize the sound nicely, scooping out the mids or letting all the murk flow through, then add in a nice Uvib from the Alchemy, and you get the thick moody tone that makes your stomach kind of rumble with and send shivers along your skin!!! As I said I am loving this, it is just what i was looking for. For those questioning on if this works okay on a Bass, do a search on Youtube for TC Electonic Dark Matter Bass

Typically, I run a strat into a Blues Driver into a Blues Jr. OR a Katana, on the Clean channel, set to sound like a Blues Jr. I keep my amps clean, and use the Blues Driver to give me just a bit of grit for when our set goes from clean funk to a bit of blues. I needed a pedal to hit for some killer lead tones. THIS THING DELIVERS. Now normally, I would put that lead-tone pedal before the Blues Driver in the chain, to preserve some of the tonal quality of the Blues Driver. A DS-1 works well here. I've played that for a while. I've also just stacked another Blues Driver, one with higher gain. But the Dark Matter didn't work there for me. I ended up putting it AFTER the Blues Driver, and I really like it there. I think with a pedal like the DS-1, it's got pretty transparent gain, so using it as a boost to an overdrive like a Blues Driver makes sense. But the Dark Matter is a very different beast from the DS-1. It's creamier. It's breakup sounds more organic, less mechanical. If I strum a chord with both the Blues Driver and Dark Matter on, you can still hear the individual notes. This thing doesn't do the cranked-up fuzz tones of a Big Muff or even an OCD. It's not a RAT. It's its own thing, for sure. But for <$50, it's a steal. I'm sure I could set the gain low and use this, instead of a Blues Driver, to color my tone into a clean amp. It's a neat little pedal for sure.

I was looking for something to add a little warmth and thickness to leads and also to give me a some new sounds to play around with. I watched a lot of videos of this pedal that made it sound pretty great for the price but I just don't care for it at all with any of my guitars or amps. So for kicks, I ran my Moog Sub Phatty synthesizer through it and WOW! It makes my synth sound downright mean so I'll keep it for that.

I've been a fan of the Mojo Mojo OD for a number of years. I read somewhere that this was similarly versatile, and not simply a "Rat clone" as I'd previously thought. How true that is. This pedal has a different flavor of dirt than the Mojo, but you get a lot of tonal variety with the bass/treble controls, and it will do anything from a clean boost to pretty raunchy hard rock distortion that will clean up - but not totally - with your guitar's volume knob. Really impressive, and an insane value. I've never had an issue with a TCE pedal. If this broke I'd buy another. Really much, much better than I expected. I think I like it better than the Mojo.

I have a couple of other OD pedals on my board that are more "Dumblesque" and wanted something a bit different. Great for bluesy tones or killer in your face distortion. The circuitry allows for great response to the volume control on the guitar...i.e., cleans up real nice. The tone controls actually work very well and very quiet. Extremely responsive to the amount of level of I use when picking. I have this in front of a Fender Vibrolux and Rivera Pubster. Monster pedal for anyone who wants OD or distortion that sounds just like an amp. Works great with TC's Spark Booster. A+

Es una buena distorción llena de graves y tono clásico, no es una distorción con súper ganancia, diría que se asemeja más a un overdrive, amenos que tengas pastillas con mucha salida podrás hacerlo sonar algo más heavy. El switch Voice agrega un poco de agudos, sin embargo con algunas configuraciones es difícil notar la diferencia al mover tal switch. La calidad del pedal en general es buenísima.

I bought this pedal to use in front of a Bugera g5 with a 1x12 celestion-V semi-open-back. Putting it through the clean channel, it was ok. It's got a decent middle of the road rock tone on its own and if you're putting it through a transparent tone to emulate an old plexi, it should do the job for relatively little $. But I didn't buy it for mid-road rock. I bought it for metal. When I gain stacked it with the overdrive channel of my g5, the whole setup came alive. It stacks easily and beautifully with the g5 preamp and gives me anything from a classic metal tone, to tight thrashy tones, to death metal liquid saturation. I'm not sure its the right pedal to play djent with, my Mojomojo might be better for that. It might do djent if I dial just the right gains and EQ in, but even if it doesn't do djent perfectly, its a great addition to my collection and I don't regret the purchase. This pedal also has some great options that give you alot of flexibility in tone sculpting. I find its just enough, combined with my amp tone stack, to give me plenty of flexibility, without getting frustrated at having too many options. My only complaint is that it doesn't sound nearly as good as my amps overdrive channel when compared on their own. But honestly, how can I really call that a downside that a $70 pedal doesn't sound as good as a $400 tube amp. Honestly, I'm in love with TC right now because whether you're on a budget, or just looking for something to spice up an old tube rig, they have some very solid, very versatile, great sounding stuff.

What I exactly need

Für mich hat das Ding den Sound nach dem ich immer gesucht habe. Schon etwas aggressiv, wenn man möchte , aber dabei höchst tranparent . Wenn ich das Ding als erstes in die Effektkette nehme , habe ich unendliche kombi Möglichkeiten mit anderen Verzerrern. Und es kling immer gut !

Sounds great Good build quality and fairly cheap You get a lot for your money I use a power supply so can’t comment on battery life but definitely great pedal 👍