All serious guitarists I've ever met are on a quest for the perfect sound that is a magical blend of an uncorrupted signal path and well selected effects while not spending fortunes and occupying the minimal amount of space on stage. It’s a never ending quest in my experience but one we keep returning to time and time again. I've been through a number of multi-effects systems over the years and endless individual stompboxes in my quest for my ultimate tone in a sensible package and I had safely come to the conclusion that multi-effects are simply no match for individual pedals, so why the Nova System? The answer is a mixture of cost and space. I've long since realised that essentially what I need in my playing is an Overdrive, Wah, Reverb, Delay, EQ and a Boost for solos but there are times when it would be nice to play around with other things like Phasers, Flangers and Pitch Shifters etc. but that’s yet more expense and takes up even more space on an already cramped stage. The answer had to be yet another look at multi-effects but NOT something with amp modelling as that’s nothing like as good as a real valve amp. That got me thinking about my experience to date with multi-effects and one thing was crystal clear – multi-effects systems are universally awful at anything that traditionally sits in front of an amp like Wah, Overdrive and Distortion but they’re generally pretty decent for effects that are usually based in the loop. Clearly what I needed was a really good multi-effects to sit in the loop of my amp and after a great deal of research I decided that the Nova System could be perfect. I've been playing around with mine for over a week now and I feel I have a good idea of what it’s about. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not, but it does have a lot going for it.
What is it?
The Nova System is a high quality multi-effects system with NO amp modelling. In a way it’s a stripped down version of the G-System which is easily more than twice the price of the Nova System. It has two rows of 4 buttons that cover Drive, Compressor, Reverb, Pitch, Modulation, Delay, Boost and Tap Tempo. You can connect it up using the ‘Drive’ input if it’s in front of your amp or the ‘Line’ input if it’s in your loop. If you use the latter, the drives are automatically disconnected. There are midi connections available, though I don’t use them and a connection for a footswitch that helps you control the patches and believe me, this is a MUST. It’s about £35 to buy this G-Switch accessory and in my view it’s essential. With this connected all of the buttons on the Nova System act like conventional pedals and the G-Switch deals with changing presets and banks. Without it you lose some functionality and honestly, just spend the £35 otherwise you’ll just regret it. The build quality of the unit is very high.
What I don’t like about it
Although the Nova System uses fully analog overdrive and distortion, it doesn’t come equipped for the 4 cable method (4CM) so drives can’t be located before the amp while time based effects are located in the effects loop as they should be. Now in one sense that is a ridiculous omission by today’s standards, certainly at this price point and it does force a compromise that won’t be for everyone. You either have to locate all effects before the amp or you sacrifice the much heralded analog drives and presumably the Compressor. Obviously this didn’t bother me in the slightest because I bought it knowing full well I wasn’t interested in the drives, however, in the interests of this review I did try it in front of my amp so I can tell you that the drives are quite impressive for a multi-effects system but they’re still a long way short of either a decent valve amp or an individual pedal. The distortion isn’t even remotely as good as the dirty channel on my Orange TH30 and the Overdrive is nothing like as good as my Hardwire Overdrive pedal that cost me less than £50 new (those Hardwire pedals are SERIOUSLY underrated!). The Nova System doesn’t have a Wah effect onboard but again, that didn’t bother me at all because my experience with other multi-effects systems suggests it would be poor anyway. Running the Nova System in front of a clean amp is certainly a viable option as the drives are very passable and all of the other effects work very well in this way but in my opinion it’s not the ideal use of this system. Nevertheless, the lack of 4CM connectivity is certainly a very disappointing omission.
My other major gripe with the Nova System is its needless complexity. To illustrate my point I want you to consider an ISP Decimator for a moment. This is a pedal that is supremely good at what it does and is by a long way the most effective noise gate I've ever used. It’s also the simplest noise gate I’ve ever used as there’s only one knob. You turn it on and you adjust the single knob until you have the desired level of noise reduction. It does exactly what you bought it for, it does it better than any other noise gate I've ever tried and you don’t have to spend your life adjusting endless parameters you don’t understand. THAT is what I want in a pedal; something that simply does what it’s supposed to with the minimal amount of fuss. Now let’s look at the Nova System in comparison and it makes sense to start with the noise gate. On this effect I’m given 4 different things I can adjust – ‘Mode’, ‘Threshold’, ‘Damp’ and ‘Release’ yet regardless of how I adjust things, it’s nothing like as effective as the ISP Decimator so what’s the point in all this endless adjustment? Just cut the noise and let me play! If ISP can do it, why can’t everyone else? The EQ is much the same as it’s a parametric system. The Nova System is designed for guitars so TC Electronic must have a fair idea of the frequencies that will be used. Why do I have to start researching frequencies etc. when it would have been far simpler with the controls available to offer either a 6 or 9 band EQ. The actual effects themselves are even worse! Go to Reverb and you’re given four different types of reverb to choose from, which is fair enough, but you’re then given THIRTEEN different parameters to adjust, most of which mean nothing at all to me because I’m not a fully qualified sound engineer. I just don’t see why a lot of it is there because most of the adjustment that’s available just makes a hideous sound so why don’t TC Electronic, who presumably know something about guitars, do some of this for you in the way that ISP manage? I don’t even understand what a lot of the terms mean and the instruction manual is about as clear as mud because their explanation of most of the technical terms leaves me completely baffled. This kind of ridiculously complex adjustment is true of the vast majority of effects on the Nova System and it really irritates me but in fairness to TC Electronic, this issue is equally true of every other multi-effects system I've ever used as well as some stompboxes.
Another potential issue is the way the buttons work on the system. I've already indicated that for practical reasons the G-Switch is essential, otherwise you’re faced with either losing three of your effects or you’re faced with laborious delays in changing. Even if you have the G-Switch you have to get used to the fact that the buttons don’t work like any other pedal I've ever known. With every other pedal I've used, you step on a button and the effect engages but on the Nova System you step on the button but nothing happens until you release the button. It sounds minor but it will irk some people and does take time to adjust your mind-set, especially if, like me, you’re also using conventional pedals. It has to be this way because if you’re not using a G-Switch some buttons have to be multi-functional. I don’t find this to be a deal breaker because you do get used to it in time but to me, they would have been far better making the unit slightly bigger to incorporate what the G-Switch gives you anyway.
Finally, it’s not the most straightforward system to get updates for because it’s a bit of a pain to connect to a computer and there’s no computer interface to adjust your endless parameters so you have to spend a lot of time crouched on the floor with a guitar while making any adjustments you want. This is a long way short of the sophisticated computer interfaces you get with most modern multi-effects.
What I love about it
Given how much I've written about what I don’t like about it, you may be surprised to discover that there’s an awful lot here to love about the Nova System. Firstly, it’s very well built and I have no doubt will stand up to the rigours of regular gigging. It costs more than many multi-effects systems and appears to offer less but you get what you pay for and here you certainly get quality. I also like the fact that although I wouldn’t use the drives on the Nova System, I appreciate that they’re there to fall back on in an emergency and all of the effects work well in front of an amp. I also like the fact that there is a different input to use if you have the Nova System in your effects loop that automatically disconnects the drives so accidentally stepping on the wrong button has no dire consequences.
Because compression is usually located before the amp, I had assumed that connecting the Nova System in your effects loop would also automatically disconnect your Compressor but it doesn’t. This seemed very odd but I'm pleased to say that the Compressor is actually surprisingly effective in the loop so that has been a real bonus. I had assumed that by locating my Nova System in the effects loop I would have to sacrifice both of the drive options and the compressor but in actual fact it has proven to be no sacrifice at all. My amp has a fantastic dirty channel anyway and I already have a superior Overdrive pedal that cost less than £50 so other than that very minor cost, I can enjoy everything the Nova System has to offer and enjoy it at its best because all of the excellent effects work even better when located in the loop.
In every other multi-effects system I've ever used the effects have been a very mixed bag. Some have been OK but a lot are woefully sterile, bland and suck tone. There are fewer effects available here but what you get is extremely high quality. I'm not missing my individual Reverb or Delay pedals at all as what’s on offer here is just as good and a lot more flexible because you can have loads of different settings just a couple of clicks away whereas the reality of an individual pedal is that unless you want to start adjusting individual knobs between songs, you have one type of delay set and that’s what you use all the time. You can do that here too but the point is, you don’t have to. The extra effects I've picked up like Chorus, Phaser, Flanger Pitch Shifting etc. are all equally impressive and I have no desire at all to get individual pedals instead. The weakest is probably the Chorus but even if you don’t care for the Chorus here, simply use the Detune option in the Pitch bank and you end up with an excellent chorus effect anyway. The possibilities really are endless. It’s perfectly possible that you could configure an entirely different ‘pedalboard’ for every song you play and simply switch to a different preset each time or you could do what I do and keep it pretty simple. Probably because I'm used to using individual pedals, I'm happy to have different effects pretty much set so what I've done is selected settings for Compressor, EQ, Delay, Reverb and Boost that I'm happy with and those same settings are on every preset I use so the only types of effect I ever need to change are Modulation and Pitch and in each of these, there’s only three I’d use anyway. That’s pretty handy as the G-Switch has three buttons on it.
Conclusions
I absolutely love the fact that with the Nova System you get effects of comparable quality to individual stompboxes, all in a package that takes up very little space on stage and costs a lot less than all those options would individually. I'm not suggesting it’s perfect as there’s clearly a number of things about it I’d like to change but it is VERY good at what it does. Too many multi-effects systems try to be all things to all men by cramming thousands of features into each unit and they end up doing everything between ‘poor’ and ‘average’. The Nova System doesn’t do this and it doesn’t try to pretend it can. There’s no amp modelling at all and that’s fine by me because unless you’re spending thousands on a system, it just doesn’t work. It also doesn’t try to emulate a million different overdrives and distortions that end up universally awful; it offers one of each that is certainly useable and has its own tone. All of the other effects are of very high quality and integrate with your existing amp very well. It’s not the most extensive multi-effects system I've ever used but it’s the only one that hasn’t left me wishing I’d stuck with individual pedals and that’s no small achievement. The only reason I can see changing this is if TC Electronic release a new version that addresses the issues I've highlighted but other than that, this is a keeper.
