Back in 1976, two brothers – Kim and John Rishøj – set out to design an effects pedal for guitarists that would address a common problem with such devices: considerable and unwanted noise within the effected signal. The resultant product, the Stereo Chorus Flanger, commonly referred to amongst players simply as “SCF,” was a runaway success within the industry (affectionately dubbed “the sound of silence”) and the Rishøj’s company, TC Electronic, established an early foothold. 1985’s rack-mounted TC229 delay unit continued the winning streak, with then-unmatched delay time (up to 32 seconds) and sound quality.
In 2009, TC Electronic entered the bass market offering the first bass range ever to have on-board presets and built-in tuner. Over the years, this range has been further refined and expanded, and today the TonePrint technology has been implemented in the TC bass combo range, making that line a first of its kind.
We recently spoke with TC Group CEO Anders Fauerskov about the revitalized line of guitar effects from TC Electronic, the organization’s legacy, and plans for the future.
MMR: How would you describe the genesis of the company back in ’76?
Anders Fauerskov: TC Electronic was started by the Rishøj brothers, as you know. Being hobbyist guitarists, they couldn’t find pedals that lived up to their requirements, so they made their own. Soon, their friends wanted some as well, and they then decided to show up at a trade show with a suitcase full of pedals, to show to potential customers. An order from Japan worth $20,000 made them decide to can their engineering studies, and start TC Electronic instead.
Talk about the reaction at the time to the SCF and its impact both for the company and within the industry.
The SCF pedal was first made a few years after the company was founded, and it was an instant hit. It was also the pedal that made TC Electronic go into recording effects. They found that studios were using the SCF pedal for recording, and therefore decided to take two of [the units] and put in a more studio-friendly format, which became the TC Electronic 1210 rack-mounted unit.
More recently, the Polytune made a similar splash.
The Polytune was one of those products that emerge from very clever and creative engineers. Had you, at the time, asked the market what they wanted, no one would have suggested a device where you can tune faster by strumming rather than by picking each string. Therefore, it was a bit of gamble – also because pedals for a long period up until then had not been a core focus area for TC Electronic. But the reaction was overwhelming, and, despite some very hard work in Operations and what we thought were optimistic forecasts, it took us about six months to catch up with demand and to be able to ship same or next day as orders came in. There is no doubt that the success of the Polytune made us more confident about our direction back into stompboxes, enabling us a year later to release both a host of digital TonePrint-based pedals and analog pedals.
Talk a little more about the relaunch of stompbox guitar effects within TC Group. What were some of the challenges faced?
TC Group [TC Electronic, Tannoy, Lab.Gruppen, TC-Helicon, TCIApplied Technologies – Ed.] is active in many audio segments: hi-fi/residential speakers, commercial install systems, touring amplifiers, broadcast processing, recording studios/post production processing, vocal processing, bass amplification, studio monitors, computer recording, and guitar effects.
So we are hardly talking about “relaunch” of the whole group, but certainly a re-launch of guitar effects. One of the key challenges initially was to come up with new, attractive features and angles in an otherwise mature market. However, we have managed to establish a very dynamic engineering group, surrounded by strong product management, marketing, and sales. The things that have made us successful are those that are not immediately visible: a uniquely adapted Scrum process in engineering, extremely strong teamwork (not only in engineering, but throughout the whole chain), and a good eye for what features are essential and what are not, combined with a good balance between very new concepts and some that are less revolutionary. Finally, we feel we get great input and feedback from the users of our pedals. It’s a real two-way street.
What’s been the reaction to the TonePrint pedals?
Reaction to the TonePrint-enabled pedals has been extremely strong. Some of them are bestsellers worldwide within their categories. Important to note, though, that whereas the TonePrints are extremely popular (we can, via App statistics, see how many are downloaded and can calculate the ratio between sold pedals and TonePrint downloads), there are a lot of users who don’t use the TonePrints at all – they just enjoy the sound quality and the product as a whole.
What are some of the other significant product launches in the past few years?
Within the guitar effects area, we’ve already covered most – the Polytune (including Polytune Mini, the recently launched Polytune II, and the Polytune App), as well as the digital TonePrint pedals. A further successful product for us has been the recently released Ditto Looper, which again focuses on great sound with easy access.
What’s on the immediate horizon for TC Group?
Definitely more pedals. We will continue to open new areas we are not addressing yet, and improving what we have – it’s a real passion for everyone involved. However, in looking at our idea-bank, there are also some truly revolutionary products in store that will dwarf anything we have done to date. It is an extremely exciting time to be at TC!
As a final thought I just want to thank everybody who is using our products, and hope that they contribute to the enjoyment of playing music. That is our mission. I also want to thank everyone for the invaluable input they have given us through the years – please keep it up!
