Introduction

This is a short follow-up of the original review of the Torpedo C.A.B. M (you can find it here). Two-Notes Audio Engineering made a major firmware update for its CAB M pedal in June 2020, renaming the CAB M in the process as CAB M +. They have also repositioned the CAB M + a little more towards users of effects pedals (versus users of tube amps who will perhaps be more inclined to lean towards the Captor offers which include a load-box section, a feature that the CAB M pedal does not offer). This update of the pedal brings a lot of very interesting new features and – of course – the control applications by mobile and PC / Mac have been revamped as well. This article intends to complete the original CAB M review by presenting the new features of this Cab M+ update.

Upgrading the pedal

The update is performed by the Torpedo Remote control software : update the Torpedo Remote itself if you are using an older version and the firmware update procedure should fire by itself, detecting that your pedal firmware is older. You can postpone or accept the firmware update….

The main new features are as follows:

  • addition of a clean preamplifier
  • adding a noise gate
  • addition of an enhancer module
  • addition of a tuner function
  • new reverbs: ambience mode, 4 new rooms
  • bypass control on each of the two microphones
  • the choice of the quality of the IRs (and the resulting latency)
  • reset the parameters of a preset by double-clicking the Volume / Value button

Once updated, the Torpedo Remote will look like this :

The clean preamp

I don’t use clean channels that much, but this newcomer is welcome ! 🙂 It is modeled after a 1974 SilverFace amp and it provides an almost autonomous solution by incorporating a preamplifier function directly on the CAB M+. Plug your guitar directly into the CAB M + and select the input with the highest sensitivity: you get clear, convincing tones, that you can sculpt with 4 settings: gain, bass, midrange and treble. You can of course keep your boost, EQs and other pedals in front of your CAB M+ and activate or not this integrated preamplifier.

Noise gate

Simple and efficient: two modes (soft / hard) and a threshold setting.

The enhancer module

This is for me the most interesting and spectacular addition of the CAB M +: it looks like the exciter of Wall of Sound with 3 settings: Thickness (bottom of the spectrum: centered at 400 Hz), Brilliance (top of the spectrum , centered at 1500 Hz) and Body (it is a combination of compressor, a HPF, and it is applied by starting from the low-mids). Thickness and Body work over a range of 0 dB (effect set to 0) to +15 dB (effect set to the max). The possibility of globally mixing the presence of the effect with the original signal is controlled by the Dry / Wet setting. It is very well done and it allows for fine tweaks. The enhancer can allow you to sculpt your tone very quickly and easily, with quite dramatic results. Inflate your CABs and IRs with the enhancer !

The tuner

A welcome little addition! It is quite precise and quite fast. Activated via the small icon on the Torpedo Remote (shortcut “T” as Tuner) it allows you to mute or not when tuning. The information is displayed on the Torpedo Remote app and also on the pedal display.

New reverbs

4 new ambience reverberations have been added. The CAB M + offers the ability to choose between fairly rich and clear reverberations (therefore quite present), to more subtle and darker reverberations (ambience).

Bypass control

A yellow “B” button is now present : it allows you to disengage the processing of the CAB or the IR, for each channel (A and B):

Performance settings

For third-party IRs, the performance level of the CAB M + can be configured: from 1.2 ms for IRs of 20 ms to 4.8 ms for IRs of 200 ms (end-to-end latency).

New Torpedo Remote software

The Torpedo Remote applications have been upgraded as well and allow you to set the parameters of the new modules added in the CAB M+ upgrade. The screenshots below are from the IOS version of the application :

Documentation update

A CAB M + version of the documentation has also been published: https://wiki.two-notes.com/doku.php?id=torpedo_cab_mplus:torpedo_c.a.b._mplus_user_s_manual

Conclusion

The C.A.B. M was an excellent pedal: with this M+ update it gains even more functionality, with the noticeable addition of the enhancer, which is -IMHO- a big plus to obtain “lively” sounds -or big tone !-, in a quick and easy way. Well done to Two-Notes who show their commitment to their products by serving updates of this level !