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Tech 21 British
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Tech 21 British
mooseherman mooseherman
Published on 04/27/10 at 15:26
This is an analog pedal, a pre-amp that seeks to emulate the Marshall sounds of old. There is simply a 1/4" input and output, as well as a D.C. adaptor input. This is different from most pre-amps in that it is a pedal, and can only be used when the switch is depressed.

UTILIZATION

Getting a nice sound out of this isn't too difficult. I've found that it's a pretty easy device to use once you've found your sound. There are six knobs on this pedal. Level, Low, Mid, Hi, Character, and Drive. Other than character, they are all pretty self-explanatory. The character knob is interesting, I have never seen that name applied to this effect, nor have I heard a pedal with this kind of adjustment. A salesman explained it to me this way; the pedal sounds more "modern" the more you increase the character knob. More on this in a minute. The user manual is very helpful and is refreshing, since it actually is written in a natural, conversational way.

SOUND QUALITY

I have tried this pedal with a few guitars, and I've actually found that my Favorite combo is with a Fender Twin and Les Paul. This is because the pedal is supposed to emulate Marshall sounds, and it just sounds strange when using an actual Marshall. I liked the pedal for what it was, but I found that I was a bit disappointed with it overall. For one, adjusting between sounds is tough, because simply adjusting the gain or lo/hi knobs would seem to always require adjusting the character knob as well. Also, I don't really like the later Marshall sounds very much, so the higher character settings didn't really work for me. Considering that it did rob me a bit of my Fender Twin sound that I love so much. Basically, this thing is cool but only if you really need a bunch of different sounding Marshalls, without actually buying them.

OVERALL OPINION

I like the range of sounds you can get with this thing, but I find mostly that it is really just a cheap Marshall knock-off. If you need that sound for a few things (like a one-off gig or two) but don't feel the need to actually buy a Marshall, by all means look into it. However, most of the time you would prefer the real deal.