TC Electronic M-One

TC's new machine employs 128‑times oversampling 24‑bit A‑D and D‑A converters, with 24‑bit digital I/O via the S/PDIF interface. The user manual states that the internal processing is also performed to 24‑bit resolution, which seems to imply a lack of DSP headroom — mix two 24‑bit signals together and the result is rather bigger than 24 bits! The analogue and digital input attenuators are, therefore, an essential tool in avoiding internal overloads. Specifications are generally to a high standard, with a quoted distortion figure of better than 0.0025 percent and a dynamic range of greater than 100dB from the analogue I/O.

The M*One is simple to interface, although being a 'budget model' there isn't an XLR in sight. The rear panel carries the common IEC mains inlet, accepting any voltage between 100 and 240V, while a tip‑sleeve quarter‑inch socket allows connection of a momentary‑contact pedal switch. This may be assigned to bypass either or both of the processing engines, or to act as the tap‑tempo input. The familiar three MIDI sockets are also presented for remote MIDI parameter control, data dumps and program changes.

The digital I/O is provided on a pair of phono sockets, with four TRS quarter‑inch sockets catering for the dual‑channel analogue inputs and outputs. These connectors accept both balanced and unbalanced connections, and the left input is normalled to both channels when nothing is plugged into the right input socket.

The front panel is well laid out, although it suffers a little by being very black! The operational controls are grouped into five separate sections with a large "multispectral LCD display" panel just left of centre. This is a combination unit with provision for 280 separate icons and images in the main section, plus a row of 23 alphanumeric characters along the bottom.

The left‑hand side of the front panel carries a power button and three conventional rotary controls providing adjustment for the input level, dry/wet mix, and the relative output level balance between Engines 1 and 2. The LCD panel provides vertical bargraph input‑level meters covering a 40dB range, along with a graphical display showing input source, sample rate, and engine topology. There are also gain‑reduction bargraph meters and a table of algorithm indicators for each engine.

The right‑hand side of the display shows the factory or user preset number, and carries indicators to show when a preset has been edited and when MIDI data is being received. The text line below the main part of the display provides the name of the algorithm and identifies the various parameters and their settings during editing.

The right‑hand side of the machine is mainly taken up with push buttons, all of which have LEDs in the top corner to show when their particular function is active. A rotary encoder allows selected parameters to be adjusted, although winding in high values is a little tedious.

The first group of four buttons is related to the machine's setup, with buttons labelled Routing, I/O, Tap, and Utility — all fairly intuitive stuff! The next group of four controls the effects: Algo/Edit 1 and 2 access the algorithm editing for each engine, and the functionality of Bypass 1 and 2 can be determined in the I/O setup mode (see box). A third grouping of buttons, labelled Program, offers the familiar Store and Recall buttons to access and save memory presets, whilst the final group provides cursor up/down buttons to navigate the menu options, the data control wheel, and the Enter and Exit buttons to confirm or cancel an action.