TC Electronic Shaker

The TC Electronic Shaker is a compact digital vibrato pedal from TC Electronic, the Danish effects maker. Vibrato is a pitch modulation effect: the pitch of your signal rises and falls in a smooth wave, unlike chorus, which mixes the modulated signal with the dry one. MusicRadar's reviewer Trevor Curwen described the Shaker as "delivering smooth undulating pitch fluctuation" with "cool vibrato sounds", and found it "can do a pretty good rotary speaker emulation"¹.

The TC Electronic Shaker is a vibrato pedal that delivers what its reviewer described as "smooth undulating pitch fluctuation", offering "cool vibrato sounds" and the ability to do "a pretty good rotary speaker emulation"¹. Its latch function was singled out as "brilliant for adding vibrato just where and when you want it", particularly effective on a sustained note or chord¹. The pedal runs in a default true bypass switching mode, with a DIP switch to select a high quality buffer instead, and its default setting is an analog dry through signal, where the dry part of the signal isn't converted and passes through the pedal at all times, even when the effect is active¹.

What the Shaker does

The Shaker produces true pitch vibrato, meaning the whole signal is pitch modulated rather than blended with a dry signal. Curwen found it offers a broad tonal range, with plenty of variation available, and noted the effect "is not heard as much as other modulation effects, but deserves to be"¹.

The rotary speaker emulation is worth noting for players chasing that sound. Curwen's verdict was that the Shaker "can do a pretty good rotary speaker emulation", which puts it in the same territory as dedicated vibe pedals such as the Dunlop Rotovibe or the Fulltone MDV3, though it approaches the sound as a digital vibrato rather than an analog photocell circuit¹.

The controls

The pedal has four knobs plus a three-way switch, with selectable effects variations¹.

The Rise Time knob is the unusual one. Rather than the vibrato arriving instantly at full depth when you engage it, the knob sets how long the effect takes to swell in. That makes it possible to mimic the slow spin-up of a rotary speaker or a player easing into vibrato with a finger or whammy bar. When the pedal was announced, TC described these as "intuitive Speed, Depth, Color and Ramp controls" that "let the users make their own 'shakes' on the fly"².

The three-way switch

The three-way switch selects between three behaviors¹:

• Position one: standard operation, vibrato turned on and off with the footswitch.
• Latch position: the vibrato is applied only as long as the footswitch is held down.
• Central position: calls up the selected TonePrint sound.

The latch mode is the feature reviewers highlighted. Premier Guitar's reviewer called it "a cool Latch feature that enables you to hold the footswitch for momentary applications of your vibrato setting"³, and Curwen went further:

MusicRadar's Trevor Curwen, who found it particularly effective on a sustained note or chord¹.

TonePrint and bypass

TonePrint is TC's system for loading custom sounds into the pedal. The Shaker has a USB connection that allows you to import a new sound, a custom "tuning" of the pedal, from a computer. The imported sound is stored in a special onboard memory slot called up by the TonePrint position of the three-way switch¹. Vintage Guitar describes the technology as allowing the user to upload tones created by high-profile artists or create and save their own sounds⁴.

On bypass, the default is true bypass switching, with a DIP switch inside the pedal to select a high quality buffer instead. The default signal setting is analog dry through, where the dry part of the signal is not converted and passes through the pedal at all times, even when the effect is active¹. That means your core tone stays analog in the signal path even though the modulation itself is digital.

The Shaker and the Shaker Mini

TC later released the Shaker Mini, a smaller version announced in May 2014 alongside the Flashback Mini Delay, Corona Mini Chorus and Vortex Mini Flanger⁴. The Mini pedals are built with the same enclosures as the company's PolyTune Mini, Ditto Looper and others, and have a true-bypass/analog-dry-through circuit⁴.

The key differences for a player choosing between them:

The Mini's TonePrint system works differently: you hold your iOS or Android device up to your guitar pickups, select a preset from the TonePrint app, and the sound is transferred to the pedal acoustically⁶. Delicious Audio reported the Mini delivers a clean vibrato sound based on the algorithm of TC's original Stereo Chorus pedal⁷. MusicRadar's Michael Astley-Brown found the Mini's TonePrints "offer huge choice" and that the "vibrato tones are great"⁶.

What reviewers said

Curwen's overall verdict on the Shaker was positive, listing the TonePrint function, latch mode and broad tonal range as reasons to buy, and finding nothing to avoid: "A cool pedal with an effect that's not heard as much as other modulation effects, but deserves to be"¹. Premier Guitar's reviewer covered the Shaker alongside the other TonePrint pedals, noting its Rise Time, Speed, Depth and Tone controls and its latch feature³.

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