Josh dont forget to mention their bass products too ! Their bass line up might be worthy of a whole episode ! History has been written with sansamp bass tone !
The XXL was one of my first pedals before i even know how to properly use it or how great it was. I have a lot more knowledge and options now but the XXL is still the heart of the high gain sound on my board, and I prefer it to pretty much every other distortion I’ve come across.
Tech 21 XXL and GT2 are my faves drives. K5 Fly Rig is also quite excellent. All well made, bulletproof tone tools for live and studio. Get a GT2. Super useful.
My dad bought an original sansamp in the 90s. When I played my first gig at 16 years old, he tried to give me the pedal to use. I told him it was crap and wasn't as good as my Peavy Vypyr modelling amp. Thankfully, some time later I sobered up from my youthful naivety, the Peavy is long gone, but the Sansamp remains centre stage on my pedal board
The Sansamp. It's just a classic. One of the all time great DIs alongside the Rockman, the Motown mojo box, and whatever that Boss box was that Josh based the Clover off of.
💯 percent agree! I got lucky and my band mate sold me his double drive for like $75! This was about 5 years ago now but it literally hasn’t left my board! I’ve convinced many a friend to buy one over the years too.
I had a trademark 30 amp, lovely lovely tones kind of like a sansamp but brought to life, it's common now but back then being able to plug directly into the PA was an amazing thing.
I love Tech 21. The classic Sansamp is really useful for all kinds of gnarly production stuff. Got tired of it on bass so I use it on drums often. Their Doug Pinnick bass pedal is really fantastic for a specific crunchy kind of bass tone. Nail’s the King’s X sound.
I absolutely love their GT2 pedal. I randomly came across a video about it when doing mesa clone research. I liked the sounds in the video and thought it looked pretty cool so I grabbed one. I've never been one for "amp in a box" pedals or amp sims but the GT2 was just something else. It sounded so good while just having so much control over your sound. What surprises me is how much gain you have and how tight the high gain sounds are. They exactly replicated the sound of a boosted high gain amp with speaker emulations in a single box. I have yet to come across any amp sim pedal that can actually give a modern high gain sound straight in with without any kind of boost. Tech 21 has eternally earned my respect for that single pedal.
Love them. My main drive is the XXL drive (cleans up sooo nicely). Also got a Double Drive that I hunted down after seeing you speak highly of it. Prefer the XXL over the DD though.
My first experience with Tech 21 was at Mars Music. I played the Tech 21 Trademark 10 amp and was truly shocked by how much depth it had for it's size. The different tones that you could get, and the reverb were amazing. I wasn't able to get a new amp for a long time, but when I could, I got two Trademark 120s. I also have two of the Boost Overdrive pedals, one signed by Andrew Barta!
I use the SansAmp Bass Driver and ParaDriver pedals. I run’em in parallel so I can have that full SVT sound from the Bass Driver and the overdriven Geddy sound from the Para Driver.
I LOVE the DP-3X even though I don‘t use it with distortion at all. It just slays with a P-Bass, just roll back some bass and don‘t use too much compression and gain! Also, the good old SansAmp V1 is so so good. Again, just don‘t overuse the blend knob and your mids won‘t get killed. Biggest mistake they put in the manual (always 100% blend).
I have the sans amp paradriver, and it gets me one of the best bass sounds I've ever had. My darkglass replaced it for certain tones, but I still use it. Great pedal.
Love ‘em! My plug n play band rig is a PSA-1 into a tc g-major, trough a PA amp into an old sound city 4x12 bass cab. Fail-safe….except for maybe the wonky knobs on the g-major. Oh and there is a CFH Wah going on upfront. Can only imagine the awesomeness of their pedals.
I have the GT2. I used it as my direct to front of house amp modeler for a long time. The British setting with a tube screamer in front of it is my favorite.
I had the Tech21 Trademark 300 and the 2x12 box for it. Although I love Tech21, I never got the sounds out of it I wanted and the pedals I had at the time did not work great with it. The amp had several issues, besides being very heavy, the clean channel never was loud enough compared to the other two options. And when one of the channels stopped working I got rid of it. But I still have fond memories of being able to play freaking louder than the rest of the band with my 300 Watts.
I use a tri-ac sansamp pedal on my board, use as an amp sim for clean tones so I have a total of 4 sounds available for recording, live and jam sessions
SH-1 Sansamp, currently used mostly as a pre-amp pedal for a clean signal (it can do *quite* dirty and gainy too, but just using it "clean", fully "blended" for the complete EV speaker cab simulation. But none of their "true" pedals yet. The SH-1 is outstanding, however-never getting rid of it. Never had the famous Sansamp bass DI drives that came before it, but extremely happy with Tech21 NYC.
It was about time!!! Tech 21, I'm such a fan. I have like 10 different pedals they make, they are all stellar. Very useful, great sounding and to the point
I love Tech 21! I've been trying a lot of bass preamps from other companies and finally found my comfort zone: the classic SansAmp Bass Driver DI and my personal favorite, the SansAmp YYZ .❤❤
I picked up the Fuzzy Brit after watching your review. I have to say I love it. It's super versatile and it is the first effects pedal I've ever owned that inspires me to play in entirely new ways. Very cool!!
I tried one of there 4 pedal boards thingy straight thru a interface into studio monitors and it blew me away sounded amazing . I’ll buy one when I find one going cheap enough
I’ve always loved their stuff. The first pedal I bought was the second SansAmp pedal that they put out. I still have it someplace but I haven’t played through it in about two years. There’s just so many good pedals out there nowadays.
I got the SansAmp GT2 original since the early 2000s. Every other guitar gear I got, have been replaced, sold, or broken... But my GT2 is always there!
Started with Tri A.C. pedal…then Acoustic DI, then Paradriver DI. The Paradriver is awesome on bass…I like it better than their Bass DI. I did also have a Trademark 60 for awhile and loved it. Was a little underpowered for the project i was in at the time. Overall, I love Tech 21…time to do a more nuanced tweaking session…
The last 7/8 years I’ve paired up the Tech 21 British with an Ibanez SD9M for my main drive tones. I can get that Swervedriver grind I love. Also own an XXL I got in 1995 and it’s a great pedal when you figure out the warp knob.
Aaaah! I totally agree, very underrated. My first love with pedals was the Sansamp Classic, which is a preamp, but at the time, I used it as an overdrive/distortion with my guitar. Absolutely king of my pedalboard, and I didn't need any other OD pedals. Tons of combinations, from low to high gain. The old version was quite annoying with the power supply (it was 6V? Can be wrong) and the knobs were super sensitive... not easy to manage in a live situation, with no light on the stage etc. Also, all the mini switches don't allow to have a quick tone change. I'm waiting for a newer version. Maybe more easy to use? Maybe something from JHS? 😏
I have the CompTortion.. I use it just before a clean amp with plenty of headroom being used as a pedal platform.. You can tweak that pedal by using the comp and tortion controls to do a mild amount of both, and you get a huge edge of breakup chunky sound that sounds like your amp, turn the tone control all the way up as it seems to be only a high cut control. The pedal seems to not have any pronounced mid hump.. Not sure if that makes it "transparent" but it seems so when used at mild gain settings.... KILLER pedal when used right. PLEASE DO A SHOW WITH THE COMPTORTION AND THE ORIGINAL IN IT!! I still have my generation 1 (NOT Classic) SansAmp Pedal and it sounds phenomenal in lots of applications.. Edge of breakup is not it's strongest suit, but it still works there...
Have you guys ever done an episode on FX69? DOD or Digitech and what is the difference, please.. You rock - tech 21 - even if orange is the new red.. lol..
Blonde mkii. Just got it and i love it. I put in front of my Tremonti head on the clean channel. Now i have brutal gain for Slayer, and fender cleans for Death Cab. Yeah im weird. Lol
Sansamp is one of my most important pedals. All of my bass tones and the only direct amp/speaker tone I use. I’d say Sansamp has its own sound. I think if it as an amp with its own voice and tone. I find the tone to be pretty similar across the range; it’s just like this Sansamp thing that captures so much attack and transients you can over do it. It definitely injects, doesn’t suck! That’s why aggressive style players gravitate to Sansamp.
YES! But I don't wanna contribute to a run on them and massive price hikes so I'm not gonna talk about the CompTortion on everything BUT electric guitar or the XXL...
