Red Panda Tensor

first of all, I love it.
I'll try to give a description of what this thing is: it's a tape maching that follows you everywhere, and you have some control of how it follows you. It can track you, repeating everthing you play, or it can record what you play (overdubbing or not) and play it back. The play back can be adjusted: you can set direction and speed, stretching and compressing (without affecting pitch), and change pitch. Add a little controlable randomness if you want with a dedicated control. Now, where it gets really interesting, is by using the footswitch or the expression pedal. With the first you have 4 different modes available (and use it to store presets, or to control the pedal footswitches if you want to spare them from stomping - don't forget this is a type of loop pedal, so there will be a lot of stomping), and with the expression pedal you can control any of the parameters and combine them if you wish.

The thing is: you have to know what you will use it for, and there is no obvious use to it. Otherwise, it wil create a mess, or an unusable effect. It is a wonderful pedal, opens up your creativity, but you'll have to be open for it.

I use this with guitar, primarily, and while I'm also interested in ambient textures (often as a part of something that isn't ambient in other ways) I find that the Tensor's USP's (Unique Selling Propositions - what sets one thing apart from another) are not really musical in themselves. They're more for glitching things up, or are novelty things such as the tape effects, something you'd use very seldom if you're interested in making actual songs. The only dependable function here that is of use to me would be the looper option, but I already have three pedals (Strymon, TC Electronic, and Boss) that can all loop material with far more control over that loop.

I was looking for something that could enhance what is passing through it, and the Tensor, with the exception of being able to loop, just messes around with the signal (in mono too, which for something like this is a limitation), either for novelty effects or randomly glitching whatever is passing through it which is, like it or not, just another novelty effect of no real musical value.

My music is about intent, and direction, and while I'm as happy to noodle around for ideas just like most people, the ideas have to come from me, and they need to crystallise and be repeatable, and the Tensor's "USP" of randomness and weirdness is just too difficult to put to any musical use unless you always have a recorder running to catch the moment when it did something interesting.

The build of the pedal is very nice, and the idea of the LED colours giving clues as to settings is also a good feature, as is the idea that an expression pedal could control settings on the fly (done by many other high-end pedal makers). The fact that settings can't be saved on a pedal that is so difficult to "dial in" is a real minus. Over the course of years I might be able to build up a bank of 32 settings that I can use, but as it is I'm stuck with taking a digital image and then trying to recreate the sound later from the controls! The dark finish is a bit of a minus as well. This pedal will rarely be used on stage (it's not predictable enough), and in a studio it could be a more useful colours and a more useful format too. It doesn't do anything standard (like chorus or flanging for example) that other simpler pedals can't do more simply and more controllably.

The tape reverse isn't unique, it's on pedals such as those made by Empress (Echosystem) and Old Blood Noise (Minim) and in a far more musical context. The Empress Echosystem (and the Strymon Timeline) are much more usable for people that want to control all of the elements of the sounds they're making. The Echosystem also allows some weirdness, but not at the expense of having a very usable and very controllable set of musically useful configurations, which the Tensor simply doesn't have.

So in summary, it's probably a really good pedal for those that might want to have a device that makes some musical decisions for them (not just sonic effects, this goes off by itself randomly babbling the things you put into it) because this is designed not to enhance your sounds so much as mangle them in a way that's both tricky to control and a bit hit & miss in what you get back out - in glorious mono.

I think for the money, if you're a musician that likes making sounds that are fundamentally musical but which need a light sprinkling of "fairy dust" on them for seasoning, then this isn't the pedal for you. If you're someone that doesn't mind when your seasoning drops into your dinner in one huge blob, and you say, "oh well, let's see what it tastes like", then you might get along with this. I can't get along with it at all.

If I can return it, I will.

I hate this standard pedal world-view of providing a couple of knobs and hiding extra functionality for midi controllers, shift buttons, hold three stomps and turn this to the right and that to the left etc — why not make it a little bigger, add a small screen and a couple of data-knobs? It wouldn't add too much to the price.
It has presets, but you can't deal with them without midi, it has at least two extra knobs you can't access other than in a web-based midi-editor. It's stereo, but on stereo-jacks, which are sadly not a standard nowadays, so you need some weird Y-wires.

Okay, I can complain endlessly, but let's stop here and finish it all with this: what it does with sound and its functionality is unexplainably amazing, really.

Or, perhaps I'll finish with the fact that I'm having difficult times convincing myself I don't need a second one for another instrument.

Bottom line: a unique and versatile pedal with rich sonic possibilities.

Usage
I don't use the pedal with guitars but rather with synths, samples, vocals etc. and works perfectly on all types of signals. You can get some very unique sounds on extreme settings. One of the best features in my opinion is the momentary looping switch, which lets you capture source signal into the rest of your effect chain without any unnecessary clicks etc.

The pedal might be a bit difficult to wrap your head around (esp. the NXT mode), but once you understand how it works, all of it is very intuitive.

The price is a bit higher, but it's well worth for the product.

I had been wanting to get one of these for several years but never pulled the trigger because there were always "safer" things to buy.
I finally ordered one not long ago and ended up returning it. It's a very good pedal, build quality and sound were second-to-none and nothing really does what it does. I just wasn't really sure how to use it and so I couldn't justify keeping it.

It's definitely a pedal you have to learn how to use, which I wasn't really willing to do. It can be as subtle or extreme as you want, but it takes experimentation to understand how the controls interact with each other and how the different loop modes work. It's very easy to get weird sounds out of it, it's more difficult to use it musically. It can do a basic reverse that sits very low in the mix, it can do pitch shifting, and even a nice chorus. In my opinion, that's not what the pedal is for because there are others that can get those sounds more easily and arguably better sounding.

To me, this is more of a pedal that you use as part of a composition. When you start using the looper functions, it can become a delay (with other weirdness added to it), or create very cool soundscapes, drones and glitchy blips and bloops. And if you add an expression pedal, that gives you even more options to get creative.

I never tried a Strymon Deco, but it seems to be the same type of pedal that's not really a specific effect on its own, but almost an instrument of its own that you have to actively play. For my playing and setup, that just doesn't really work for me. I like to 'set and forget' so I can focus on playing. If I would do that with this pedal, I would feel like I'm not using it to its full potential. As such, I would rather have separate pedals for chorus, reverse, delay, etc. instead of constantly changing settings on the Tensor to get those different sounds.

I realize these are all problems with me and not with the pedal, which is why I'm still giving it a high rating. It's an amazing pedal, just not right for me. I was a bit sad to return it because I had high hopes for it, but I had to be honest with myself that I probably wouldn't use it as much as I would have to, in order to justify the cost.

As always, Thomann's service was excellent. I almost never return products so I wasn't 100% sure how it worked, but their assistance and fast response to my e-mails was great and made it very easy.

The controls seem a bit weird at first but once you play with it for like 1 hour you will get the grasp of what is going on quite well.

Build quality is amazing and the finish on this is to die for. The buttons are very sturdy and the fact that there's a USB MIDI host built in which you can use to tempo sync or control the unit.

It's capabilities are really extraordinary. You can loop small "phrases", reverse them, create "glitches", different harmonies. The randomiser is one of its biggest strengths. It helps create interesting soundscapes for almost zero effort. As far as I know (haven't tried it yet) you can control most of those functionalities via USB MIDI, which means you can also sequence changes to those.

Pretty powerful unit, highly suggested if you want to create atmospheric / ambient music.