[slejhamer]

Anyone familiar with this brand?

I bought the Roland Microcube but am returning it.

Looking seriously at the Tech 21 Trademark 10 amp. Gets great reviews.

Comments?

http://www.tech21nyc.com/guitar_intro.html

[adam]

Tech21 make the SANSAMP, don't they?
That's all I know about this brand

[slejhamer]

Hey Adam. Yes, they make the famous Sansamp. In fact, their amp is basically an analog modeling Sansamp with an amp and speaker. I guess that makes it an "avecamp."

[guitarman]

I tried a roland cube amp many years ago. I never really liked them. About the only thng Roland that I could stand to play was the Roland Jazz chorus. Even that I didn't keep long. I now have a Custom 4X12 Cabinet with a Custom head. I'd love to ditch this thing and pick up another Fender Twin. Not that the custom isn't a good amp, its just way too big.

[shuttertalk]

What happened to your Line 6 amp, Mitch?

[slejhamer]

What happened to your Line 6 amp, Mitch?

Hey, you turned into a galloping green slug!!! :o


Here is my amp history; I swap these more than camera lenses:

Line 6: Clean channel was weak. Gain channels were quite noisy. It had to go.

Vox: Couldn't get a bluesy crunch. Note that the "blues" model amp is only on the more expensive (and too loud for me) 60 watter. I want bluesy crunch at low volume and low cost.

Pandora: Fun fun fun. But too digital sounding to my ears. I sold it for what I paid for it.

Roland MicroCube: Sounded great in the store with a Tele and stock 9-gauge strings. But when I got it home and slammed it with my Beefy Slinkies, the little speaker went "flub." Just can't handle my bass strings. I borrowed a friend's DOD 250 overdrive pedal and it really gave a great crunch through this little amp. Except for the flub.

Today I went to Guitar Center during my lunch break and took my own guitar (the cheapy '51.). There are actually VERY FEW low-priced, small solid-state amps that can handle it with these Beefy strings. Even the 25-watt Fender 1x10" struggled with the bass notes. Too bad, because the Fender had GREAT clean sounds otherwise.

I also played a Crate Palomino V32 all-tube amp. 30 watts of sweet tone through a 12" speaker. Oh my! Simply amazing. Nice chimey treble but not too bright, and DEEP rich bass notes. Every pickup configuration of my guitar sounded like gold. But, this amp is about 3 times too expensive, and 6 times too powerful for me. I'd need to spend hundreds more on a good attenuator. But now I know exactly how good a Squier can sound. And it's frustrating that I can't get that sound in a small, inexpensive amp. :x

I played a small tube from Epiphone and it was very nasal sounding to me. Not big and warm the way a Blues Jr. is big and warm. (The Blues Jr. is only 2x too expensive and 3x too powerful for me. )

Back to solid state amps: I played MANY. Fender, Behringer, the new Vox, a Laney hybrid, and more. (It was a long lunch break, LOL.) They didn't have a bigger Roland, so I can't tell if the bigger ones will also flub. The best small amp to my ears was a 30-watt Crate VTX. But the effects were poorly executed. And why have gimmicks like a CD-input when there's no line out for recording??? Argh!

So I am still seriously considering the Tech 21, which seems to have everything I'm looking for. Only I'm thinking of the 30 watter instead of the 10. SRV-like Texas Blues to AC/DC crunch. 1/4" line out AND an XLR DI line out to go into a mixer or PA. An effects loop, too! Sounds great ... only I have no idea how it actually sounds because no one stocks them. And most of the web sites that carry them are sold out. Not one is for sale on ebay. Ugh.

As an aside, I called Tech 21 to ask them a few questions. Got a very friendly guy who really seemed to know his gear and his competition. Gave me some great info for comparing the TM10 to the TM30. If customer service is a factor, then Tech 21 gets big points in this department. 11 out of 10!

So that is the end of my guitar amp shopping experience today. I'll pick it up tomorrow when I visit a different store.

[shuttertalk]

Hey, you turned into a galloping green slug!!! :o

Yeh, now you and me are dopey looking creatures...


Wow, sounds like you go through amps like women go through shoes...!

[slejhamer]

Yeh, now you and me are dopey looking creatures...

Watch it, slugboy, or I'll pour salt on you!

[Zig]

I've a Sansamp Bass Driver, which epitomises sturdiness and reliability. I've always felt their overdiven guitar sims to be too "sim-like", and Line 6 for me have managed to make clean tones really sing as they've gone into amps(as opposed to DI). Though I wouldn't rely on Behringer, their DI modellers for me do things that others don't reach.
Eg; if I was recording a convincing valvy overdive, I'd choose Behringer; if I was doing a bitey strat or wanted good-quality wet effects-on-clean, I'd use Line6; if I were doing bass, I'd use the Sansamp.
I'm guessing that, as it's bluesy crunch you're after rather than full-on recto-insane, the Tech21 boys have brought out a sturdy and well-thought out bit of kit.
So slej: you MUST tell us your thoughts on its arrival! I wanna know all the details!

[adam]

I want to get the Behringer GDI-21 for portability when travelling around to plug straight to the mixer and the Line 6 POD XT Live for other use (with the intention of going staight to the mixer rather than amping) *runs away*

[slejhamer]

I am overwhelmed with amps now! It's amazing how different they all are.

Here are the amps I've played over many hours these past two weeks (4 separate trips to the Guitar Center!), and my thoughts (based on how my guitars sound through them):

Epiphone Valve Special - cute little tube amp with a retro vibe. Limited functionality, and really only sounds good at higher volumes. Not what I need. But worth a look if you need a simple 5w tube-driven box.

Line 6 Spider II 112 - I was excited about the "blues" modeling amp, but was very disappointed with the 12" speaker's ability to handle overdriven bass notes. A simple blues shuffle in E totally kicked the speaker's butt. Wimpy!

Line 6 Spider II 212 (used) - I was even more disappointed that TWO 12" speakers couldn't handle overdriven bass notes. What do they make the cones from, tissue paper?

Marshall MG50DFX (used) - Another 1x12", but handled bass notes much better than the Line 6 amps. Good distortions and surprisingly nice clean channel, but not much of a crunchy blues amp. Used price was very good though - I'd recommend it to someone looking for a Marshall sound at a good price.

Crate Palomino V8 - sweet little all-tube combo, but no other functionality that I need.

Crate RFX30 - an excellent clean channel, but very harsh "solo" channel. Hated the effects.

Crate RFX65 - bigger brother to the RFX30. The larger speaker worked much better with the overdrive channel. But no line out or headphone jack? Only a speaker out? What were they thinking?

Fender Princeton Chorus (very used) - oh, man! What a great, classic clean sound from the twin 10" speakers. It struggled just a bit with my beefy strings, but a little EQing would take that away. The chorus and reverb effects were phenomenal. And the gain channel wasn't as bad as I've heard. I nearly bought it ... but the jack pack (line out, effects loop, phones) was DOA. Darn! I could probably get it fixed or replaced, but the price for the amp was already pushing my limit.

Fender Rumble 60 (Bass amp) - just for fun, I plugged my guitar into a Bad Monkey OD pedal and ran it through a bass amp. I don't know why. It wasn't half bad. The salesman was quite impressed. I mentioned how the '59 Bassman was a classic guitar amp, and he was shocked. Then he tried to sell me one. Get real!

Fender Frontman 25R - wimpy!

Fender Champion 300 - not bad, but the 10" speaker couldn't handle my beefy strings. What's up with these wimpy small amps?

Fender Deluxe 900 - Nice 12" speaker, good digital effects. Good crisp cleans - not like the Princeton, but very pleasant. Terrible distortions, but I could use an overdrive pedal through the clean channel ... well, that's too expensive. It was a clearance sale, but they wouldn't budge past their listed price. No line out or headphone out, either.

Vox VR30 Valve Reactor - YUCK.

Tech 21 Trademark 30 - Well I had to BUY IT to hear it, as it's not available locally. So it's in my basement now. The clean channel is excellent - somewhat compressed but really chimes at volume. Sounds GREAT through headphones. I actually had to take the phones off to make sure the sound wasn't coming throught the speaker. The distortion channels are very good. Definitely better than what I got from the Vox AD30VT. Now here's the kicker: I set the amp model to "tweed", the mod to "high gain" and the speaker to "US" (mesa/boogie), set the drive knob between 10:00 and 12:00, and I get a very sweet bluesy crunch. Exactly what I'm looking for. I had to shave off some of the bass with my EQ pedal, but the 10" Eminence speaker holds up fairly well. It has a real 3-spring reverb that sounds fabulous - I'd say it's as good as the Fender Princeton's but it get a little too sensitive after the 12:00 setting. I really wish this amp had a 12" speaker, as the bigger TM60 is too pricey for me. Still, to my ears it's the best overall.

Behringer GMX110 - attempts to be an exact clone of the Trademark 30, with added DSP effects. It didn't work. The salesman said, in a hushed voice, "we actually get a lot of Behringers returned for quality problems."

Behringer GMX210 - a 2x10" version of the GMX110. It was on clearance at Guitar Center for $120US. Okay, let's think about that: 2 x 10" Jensen speakers, a low-priced variant of the Sansamp (including the same switches) modeling unit, DSP effects, a beefy jack pack with phones, line out, XLR out, effects loop, footswitch, etc.. And a built-in chromatic tuner. For $120. It was just too cheap to pass up. So I bought it and brought it home to compare directly to the Tech21. Sad to say, you get what you pay for. This amp is certainly feature rich, but there is an unbearable hiss on all of the channels, even at low volume with gain turned down. (It's in the master volume control, not the gain.) Also the pots have a static sound when turned. The store demo didn't seem to have either problem ... but now I have to think Behringer's quality is dubious. The only way to cut out the hiss is to activate the noise gate, but that's one of the DSP "effects", and you can't run any other effects (like reverb) if you're running the noise gate!!! WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Sounds muddy through phones, too.

I will be returning the Behringer and keeping the Tech 21.

Hurrah!

Now I want a good compressor/sustainer pedal, and maybe a chorus and a delay pedal. Then I'll be set!

[adam]

and I thought I was set when I bought my 300D kit....
and I thought I was set when I bought my amp...
and I thought i was set when I ordered a happy meal,

but was WRONG!! haha

[slejhamer]

I'm guessing that, as it's bluesy crunch you're after rather than full-on recto-insane, the Tech21 boys have brought out a sturdy and well-thought out bit of kit.

After another day with the Tech21, I can say I'm genuinely impressed by the tube-like tonal quality - it is warm and has a classic tube compression feel to it. It's more of a vintage tone, at least to my ears - a bit midrangey. And with modest gain, it gets a Texas blues style crunch, rather than a British sound. More SRV than Yardbirds, if you know what I mean.

Lots of variables are involved though - it has a custom 4ohm speaker, I use pure nickel strings on my '51 which really warms up the tone (and the Artcore is already very dark and warm), I switched to Ultex picks, etc.

Still, it's quite amazing that the Sansamp is 15-year old technology and still holds its own against more "modern" modeling amps.

I just wish it had a 12" speaker.

[slejhamer]

and I thought I was set when I bought my 300D kit....
and I thought I was set when I bought my amp...
and I thought i was set when I ordered a happy meal,

That sounds like my wife! "Why can't you be satisfied with what you've already got???

LOL

So last night I went and bought a Line 6 Constrictor compressor/sustain pedal.
http://line6.com/tonecore/constrictor.html

Only compressor with a built-in variable noise gate. Whoo!

Got it CHEAP on ebay. Whoo hoo!

[Zig]

Excellent!
When will mere mortals learn: it ain't a question of need! The GAS road goes ever on, and the satisfaction is in the journey...!