TC Electronic's Plethora X3 is a smaller multi-fx pedal… but it's still packing a lot of tones

While the Plethora X5 did a great job of condensing a whole feast of tonesome TC Electronic pedals into a multi-effects unit, the company know that on pedalboards, size is everything. So now they're offering a smaller take on the concept with the Plethora X3.

TC Electronic

(Image credit: TC Electronic)

The same flexibility remains; players can create up to 127 combinations of pedals in virtual pedalboard presets, and use TC Electronic's huge library of Toneprint presets for them. But this time instead of space for five pedals to line up, there's three. Making it even easier to integrate with other pedals. 

There's 15 of TC's greatest Toneprint effects pedals represented in the X3, a stereo looper, tuner and eight optional cab sims. 

Like the X5, this has MASH footswitches that double as pressure-sensitive expression pedals that you press and hold to activate and control specific parameters with your foot. 

The X3 also features onboard controls for tweaking effects on-the-fly live use with three knobs that can be assigned to different functions on the pedal. 

The TC Electronic Plethora X3 is priced at £289 / $349. More info at TC Electronic

TC Electronic Plethora X5 review

Rob Laing
Guitars Editor, MusicRadar

I'm the Guitars Editor for MusicRadar, handling news, reviews, features, tuition, advice for the strings side of the site and everything in between. Before MusicRadar I worked on guitar magazines for 15 years, including Editor of Total Guitar in the UK. When I'm not rejigging pedalboards I'm usually thinking about rejigging pedalboards.