REVIEWS

TC Electronic 8210 DT Classic Reverb

Published 4 years ago on January 9, 2020

By Guitar Interactive Magazine

 

TC Electronic 8210 DT Classic Reverb

Guitar Interactive star rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐1/2

MSRP (UK) £90 (US) $149

PROS

TC Electronic classic sounds in a modern platform.

Plenty of reverb types to choose from.

Realistic organic effects

 

CONS

Would have been nice to see some reverse and gated reverb options.

 

 

SPECS

Compatibility: VST, AU, AAX

USB bus powered


Jamie Humphries reviews the 8210 DT Classic Reverb from TC Electronics. The Danish brand once again deliver another impressive hybrid plugin/hardware DAW based effects unit, incorporating their award winning reverb technology for the modern studio.

TC Electronic have long been the leaders in high quality, natural-sounding reverbs for either live or studio application. From their early “Powercore” systems, to the flagship “Reverb 6000” system, a producers favourite, which can be heard on countless albums and movie soundtracks. And lets not forget their acclaimed “Hall of Fame” stomp boxes. TC Reverb’sare pristine, with very natural diffusion and tails and realistic room impressions that are ideal for many applications.

The 8210 DT is a newly designed reverb system based on many of TC’s tried and tests reverb philosophy aiming to give you a vast selection of reverb environments, as well as retaining the natural quality of your sound source. The 8210 DT is part of TC’s new hybrid range of effects that fuses plugin technology with a hardware control surface giving you hands on interaction with the parameters of the reverb for a very tactile experience.As the effect is plugin based you can open as many instances as your CPU will allow, all operational off ofthe single hardware controller. The 8210 DT supports VST 2, VST 3, AAX-native andAU 32/64bit plugin formats, making it compatible with Cubase,Nuendo, Logic, Pro Tools and more. The 8210 DT can be run in both mono and stereo configurations, either on an insert or on an auxiliarysend.

The primary hardwarecontroller,is a sleek metal desktop unit that connects to your Mac or PC using a micro USB cable. On the top of the unit, in keeping with the 2290 DT and the 1210 DT, we have the input and output meters. I should mention that all of the controls in this range are the same depth, so they group together nicely as a control surface, although they can’t be linked, which is a slight shame; Once USB in would be much more appealing than four if you run all of the DT units in your studio.We have two sections on the front of the controller, “sound” and “main”.The “sound” section has six up and down arrow buttons to control “low colour”effectingthe low frequencies; increasing the value will result in a thicker/darker reverb, best for producing a more natural reverb. The “colour” arrows adjust the higher frequencies in the reverb, creating a brighter less organic sound. The “mod”arrows addssome modulation to the reverb and is a good way of adding some animation to the reverb decay. The “select” button is used to call up the desired type of reverb, whichareas follows;

 

  • TC Hall
  • Box
  • Ambient
  • Room
  • Club
  • Live
  • Plate
  • Spring

 

All of the reverb types include TC’s classic reverb algorithms.

​The main section included up and down arrow controls for decay, which controls the length of the reverb and how long the reverb takes to defuse. We have a “select button that allows us to choose four operations, which re controlled by the “value” arrows. These include “pre delay”, the starting point of the reverbs reflections and decay tail, “dry/wet” which is a mix control when using the 8210 DT as an insert. We also have control over the “early/rev” function, which is a flexible parameter that enable use to mix the amount of early reflections and the diffused reverb.There is also a “preset” function to scroll through the factory, user and signature preset library.

​The secondary plugin controller also has access to the “input”, “dry/wet” and “output” level controls. There is also a secondary “sound” section. Here we have “early colour” which sets the brightness of the reverb. “Mod rate” sets the speed of the reverbs modulation, controlled by the hardware unit. “Diffuse” parameteradjusts the overall reverb diffusion. As well as these additional parameters, we can recall presets, see the state of the plugin via the “chain” icon, plus name the plugin to match what track/source the reverb is being applied to.

​In use the reverbdeliversas you would expect TC reverb deliver. The reverbs are rich and natural, and with so many different types of reverb to choose fromtherere plenty of applications to employ it to. It’s a shame that there is no reverse or gated reverb options, but that’s not to say that this plugin falls short at any stretch. I’ve been using this as my main reverb for a while, and love the depth and natural sounding ambience I can add to snare drums orguitars. Fromjust smallamountof “air” to addsome dimensiontoguitarsound, or sumptuous ethereal halls, great for those ambient moments.

​The 8210 DT is a fantastic mufti purpose reverb, and the hands on element added with the hardware controller makes mixing with this unit very inspiring. As I mentioned a couple of extra reverbs, gated and reverse would have really made this the all in one solutions, but for realistic rooms this really is hard to beat. Again the option of linking other DT units would have been great, to save on using multiple USB cables and connections. But to sum up this is a fantastic addition to any studio.

 

 


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