Tech 21 Blonde Character Series

This pedal is very easy and logical to use. The manual will give you some nice starting points to reference the various sounds it is capable of, and then you can tweak and adjust to your own taste. The Character Series pedals are surprisingly light but very sturdy and tough due to the cast aluminum casing. The switch is solid and durable while the knobs are firm and feel very secure. You get level, treble/mid/bass, character and gain to control. The character knob is the most important of these.

The sound from this pedal is to emulate the various Fender amps from the 50's through to the 60's and early 70's. This is where the character control comes in play and why it is the most important of the controls. When you crank the knob full counter clockwise (left), the pedal will sound much like a 60's/70's Twin Amp. Clean full tones that are associated with this particular amp. As you turn the character knob clockwise (right), you actually begin to go back in time, as it seems, through the various black face, brown face and tweed amp sounds. Around the 9 o'clock position is a very useful 60's Deluxe sound and then on through the Super and so on until you arrive at the 11 o'clock position. This is where you morph into brown face sounds. A little less clean head room but very useful. At the 1 o'clock position is a very nice sounding tweed bassman sim and as you continue, the gain naturally increases as you go through 50's Deluxe, Super and so on. The adjustment is very subtle but also quite definitive as you turn the character control. The gain is also very powerful. In fact there is much more gain available then the original Fender amps that are being cloned here. The treble, mid and bass controls are very broad and will cover a wealth of tones. Does it sound like Fender amps. YES IT DOES!!!! Not only sounds like, but you actually get the various compression and response from the various settings. I find this very remarkable and I have to say this is far better that any digital simulation I have ever used. One word of warning. This effect works far better with a neutral flat amp or better still, direct to a sound board or recording interface. It will color the sound of any amp but you may not get the required sound you are looking for through an amp that already has it's own sonic distinction.

As mentioned, the pedal seems study and rugged enough, as long as you don't punt it around and bash it it with a baseball bat or something.

I have never had to contact Tech 21 but I have read that they are very good to deal with.

If you want the classic sound and feel of Fender amps of the past then must owe it to yourself to buy this pedal. I have a few Fender amps, all reissues, and I simply can not overstate how close this pedal comes to these amps. Perfect for recording or live through the PA/Mixer board as it is very quiet and noise free. Now I can have an entire studio of Fender amps at my disposal for my home studio needs. I am so impressed with this pedal, I will likely get the Liverpool model which is a Vox AC30 sim. This pedal is highly recommended.

While the pedal does produce a nice sound in nearly all settings (unless you go for extremes), its controls are so sensitive and can have such a great impact on the overall tone that it can be very hard to dial in "your" sound.

For example, if you have the pedal on your board, take it out of your case or box to set up for a gig and notice that the "character" knob and the EQ knobs have been moved a little in transportation, it might take you a while to find "your" sound again.

I have not seen a pedal yet with such effective controls - but this can be a blessing and a curse.

I like a Fender-Twin-like sound, but I don't want to lug around tons of equipment to the small gigs I play with my band (classic Soul/R&B, old favourites and own material presented in similar style). The only effects I need in addition to a nice overall sound are a little tremolo and reverb.

Therefore, I have purchased a German-made "PCL Vintage Amp". Don't be fooled by the name, it's brand-new and solid-state only - however, the tube freaks I know have asked me lots of times what sort of set-up the amp has and are always amazed when I tell them "no tubes at all". The amp does is a 2x12" 60W combo with Jensen Neodym speakers (just over 20 kiligrams in weight) - a near-perfect match for the built-in speaker sim of the pedal.

I bought the pedal to infuse a bit more Fender-Sound into my overall amp sound, I mainly use crisp clean settings with a little bit of break-up at high volumes. I have to say the pedal does its job pretty well - at least it's doing enough for me. It adds some of the bells&whistles that my amp's very neutral clean channel lacks, while still not destroying my overall sound. I can also use my amp's crunch/lead channel without switching of the pedal, and that works fine as well.

It's not noisy, offers a great range of sounds (even though some of the extreme settings are a bit rough) and really offers a "sound in a box". Yes, I admit that it does get a little hissy if you turn the "character" or "drive" knobs past a three-o-clock-setting, but the settings in between are really really nice. Remember: it's analog, and reacts in an analog way. Don't expect crystal-clean clinical sounds, but warm human tone.

However, I would still want my own amp with it and wouldn't run the pedal directly into the mixing board - but with the included speaker sim, my amp's non-emulated line out now really offers a great sound and the amp doesn't really need to be miked anymore.

I will not go into discussion if the amp now sounds "like the real deal" - I will just say that I really like the sound, the pedal is on constantly.

No problems or concerns whatsoever.

No experience.

For my requirements - have a little more of that Fender sound without having to lug the amp around - it's doing a near-perfect job. As I said, I stay on the clean or only mildly overdriven side of sounds most of the time, and for my ears the pedal is doing great in combination with my gear (the afore-mentioned amp and a 61 South Highway 61 guitar).

However, this is one of those pedals that would really benefit from the option to store your 3 or 5 most favourite sounds OR have its really effective controls MIDI-operable. There's so much sound in this little box that it's really sad you can really only have one sound for your gigs without having to sit near your pedal board and dial in a new sound. The least should have been a similar design to Ibanez' Tone Lok series that prevents the accidental change of settings.

Overall: great pedal, it loses two points because of its "one sound only" usability.

The pedal is not hard to use, but it is very sensitive to changes in settings and other equipment in the chain. That provides a wide range of sound options, which is good, but I have to pay attention how to dial in sounds, and it sometimes takes a bit of work to get it right. There are many knobs to tweak, and they all interact with each other, so that it is easy to go either right or wrong with just a few minor adjustments. If set wrong, the pedal becomes extremely noisy and unusable. However, by tweaking the Level adjustment at its lowest settings, it is possible to get most of the desired overdrive at moderate gain, character and mid settings with minimal background noise.
There is not much of a manual, but the information provided is helpful. The suggested presets are a good starting place, but the suggested preset Level settings were generally too high and produced a lot of noise. After fiddling with the controls for a little while, I figured out how and when to make adjustments. The manual lists where the pedal needs to go in the overall pedal chain. That position is important to control noise.

I have run this through three guitars, a Fender Tele with Fender Vintage pickups, a Larrive RS-4 with Jason Lollar humbuckers and a Ibanez with Vintage Vibe P-90s. It sounds good with all of them, but I adjust the Character and Mid levels to match the guitar tones and adjust the gain to add bite. The Character setting adds overdrive at the low and mid levels, so it warms up the sound, which is better for my Tele than for the humbuckers. I have to back off the Level when I add either Character or gain.
The pedal sounds best when I run it in front of my Fender Blues Jr. amp. It "Blackfaces" the Fender amp tone, adding some punch at clean settings and providing a classic Fender howl when the Character and Gain are set between 11 and 1 o'clock settings. The Level dial needs to be as low as possible to control noise at those settings, but the amp wails when the settings are right. Small adjustments can cause big changes in the sounds. For very clean sounds, the Fender is best by itself, but the Tech 21 pedal adds punch and overdrive at normal bedroom volume settings, and it also provides as much volume boost as the amp can handle, so that the 15 watt amp can blast out as loud as its 12" speaker can handle.
I have also run the Tech 21 pedal straight into a board or into my Shenandoah PA/acoustic amp. It sounds good that way too, although not as good as into my Fender. I found that I get a better sound running into the board or the PA if I first run the pedal into a PreSonus BlueTube preamp before sending it out. I dial the input level of the ProSonus down to zero and set the tube setting at 12 o'clock or higher, and I set the level of the Tech 21 pedal as low as possible. It is easy to peg out inputs to the ProSonus or the receiving board due to the strong signal, but if done correctly, the PreSonus warms up and smooths out the Tech 21 pedal and provides a reasonable simulation of a real tube amp sound. It is not as good as actually running it through a Fender tube amp, but it is as close as I have found.
I often run the ech 21 pedal in a chain through a Boss DDS6 delay to add some room fullness and a MXR M-102 Dyna Comp Compressor Pedal to tighten up the sound and add some punch. I use a Digitech reverb pedal when I am not using the Fender Spring reverb, and I occasionally may use a CryBaby wah and an Electoharmonics Bad Stone phase shifter for special effects. I use a Boss volume pedal. The Tech 21 complements these other pedals well, but the order of the chain is important, as stated in the manual.

This is a new device for me. I hope it holds up. The SansAmp series has been around for a while and I understand it has a decent reputation for durability.

I have not needed it and hope I won't.

I play fingerpicking Texas/Americana blues, country and rock and roll. This pedal fits what I want very well. I have been playing for 40 years and have a lot of gear. This pedal seems to fit with the best. I mainly play through a Fender Blues Jr. Amp, using three solid body electrics with three pickup types, as well as an Eastman archtop. I have a 75 Twin Reverb that I never plug in anymore, as I don't need the volume. I have a 15 watt Marshall combo that use sometimes, by itself or in parallel with my Blues Jr. The Tech 21 pedal works well with it, but the settings are delicate to reduce the background noise to an acceptable level. As mentioned above, the Tech 21 pedal also sounds good running into a PreSonus Blue Tube preamp and then into a Shenandoah acoustic amp/PA or into a recording board.

I read other reviews where people preferred the Tech 21 Liverpool pedal. I took both home for a few days and tried them out on an A/B comparison. I can understand why others liked the Liverpool pedal, which is very good, but I prefer the Blonde for what I play. The Liverpool pedal is much more tuned to the high harmonics. It semms to accentuate and double the first harmonic (12th fret), providing a bright tone, like the Vox amps it models. The Blonde seems to resonate more on the second harmonic (7th fret) providing a natural fifth, which adds midrange character and more fullness. Both do a good job of modeling the Fender and Vox amp sounds. The Liverpool pedal might provide more variety running through a Fender Amp, but I ultimately found it to be a bit too bright and jangley for my tastes. The Liverpool noise level was also more pronounced at the high end, and I had trouble dialing out a hiss. The Blonde gives me the sounds I like. I might but another Tech 21 pedal someday, but for now, I have what I want.

I have never liked standard digital modeling effects. I did an A/B comparison of the Tech 21 with the Fender Amp modeling and a digital Zoom device I have, which is quite similar to the Boss modeling of a few years ago. There was no comparison. The digital sound was lame and weak, like it came through about three rooms away, through closed doors. The Tech 21 analog effect sounds like the real thing.

My only complaint is that I wish the level control was more weighted towards the low end. To control the noise, the level has to be kept low, and it is very sensitive. It needs to be dialed up to the level where the device works withouth its own internal distortion, but not then low enough that the background noise is not noticeable though the amp or board. This control is sensitive.

Despite less than satisfactory experiences with previous Tech21 products, I bought one of their Character Series Blonde pedals on the strength of reviews and a very brief audition. This pedal has built-in non-defeatable speaker emulation. As such, it's not really suited for use in front of a guitar amplifier. Its intended application is to feed a board, whether live or in the studio, with an excellent facsimile of a mic'd Fender amplifier. It does this very well.

Adjustment is simple. The controls interact a bit, which is to be expected. There's an amazing range of sounds available from this pedal.

I play Koll DL Thinline guitars. These are thinline guitars having a carved top and back and solid bent sides. A pair of rails, rather than a center block, leaves the back and most of the top free to vibrate. One guitar has P-90s and a Bigsby tailpiece; the other has humbuckers and a hardtail.

I play through a variety of full-range amplifiers or straight to board via a DI.

The pedal has controls for level, drive, low/mid/hi EQ, and "character". It's the latter control that really makes this pedal useful, as it offers up a continuous spectrum of variations covering the gamut from tweed through blackface and silverface, including a lot of in-between sounds that were probably never emitted by any actual Fender amplifier. As my own aesthetic depends upon what I want to hear rather than faithfulness to some particular amplifier, this works well for me.

Indeed, the Blonde goes well beyond one's expectations of Fender sounds. High settings of the drive control takes one into sonic territory that I associate more with Mesa/Boogie Mark-series amplifiers. It's not a sound I use often, but it's nice to have that capability on tap without buying another pedal.

I've had this for a month. No idea about long-term reliability.

I've deal with the company's online support staff to request electronic copies of manuals. They have responded promptly.

I play improvisational fingerstyle guitar, drawing elements and motifs from classical, jazz, folk and rock. I first picked up a guitar in 1967, played for about 15 years and then took a break. I started playing "seriously" in 1999.

This is a very good pedal for what it does. This may sound like faint praise when in actuality my musical style doesn't have much use for distortion. However, when I want that particular "flavor" of sound the Blonde performs very well.

I've had a number of amp modelers. The Tech21 character series is nice because I can easily mix and match an amp modeler with other effect pedals of my choice.

One complaint that I've had with other Tech21 products is that the active EQ is so sensitive that the slightest touch of a control makes a dramatic difference in the sound. The Blonde doesn't seem to suffer from this problem. I found it very easy to dial in the sounds I wanted to hear with the Blonde.

Very simple to use.

I use it mainly for clean sounds and it sounds incredible. I play this with a Reverb pedal directly into my Bose L1 Model 2 sound system and it sounds just like miking a Fender amp set clean. I was worried about the lack of reviews, but found some sound clips and tried it, and you can really gig without an amp with this. Much better than any of the modelers out there, perhaps because it's analog. Put distortion or overdrive in front of it and it sounds just like the amp does, but put them after it and it's terrible. I thought this was bad at first, but changed the routing and was amazed. You really don't need an amp with this if you play jazz, blues or classic rock styles in a band. Go direct and don't lug an amp.

Pretty easy to use, the suggestions from the factory are a great place to start so the manual is actually a good one!

I have also wrote a review for the Liverpool pedal and have really grown to love that one. So I thought I would give this one a try. I am running a very extensive rack with a Boogie Triaxis, Marshall JMP-1, Sansamp Liverpool and now the Blonde. I run tons of pedals that are racked in my rig on sliding drawers as well as some on the floor. It's sort of long but here is the chain. Floor: Zakk Wah, Fultone Dejavibe, Voodoo Proctavia, Boss Blues Driver. These are all run on the floor using a Tonebone Loopbone so I can pop them in and out of the chain. I also have a DMC Ground Control. In the rack: Keeley Comp, TS808, EH Pog, EH Electric Mistress, 2 MXR EQ's, BBE Stomp, Decimator. I control the racked pedals with a GCX and then I use another GCX to choose between the Triaxis, JMP1, Liverpool and the Blonde. Then I run out of the 2nd GCX directly to a GMajor and then to a Boogie 2:90. I usually use 2 1x12 Boogie cabs both loaded with Black Shadows..whew...OK..here is the actual review. This box did nothing running through the front end...it really works better if I use it as a Preamp. It is an extremely useful tool It seems to act and react better with passive pickups. I have 14 guitars so I tried quite a few. My Tele and my Strat both loaded with Vintage Noisless sound very good. This box truly covers the spectrum. The clean tones are very nice...clean with much Fender vibe. The distorted tones run from that sort of black face vibe through to tweed. It does get a bit squirly on heavy distortion settings. It will not sound metal no matter what you do but that is what I have a Marshall and a Boogie for. So. for a medium distortion tone I am quite happy with it. You might be asking..why would you even bother when you have a Marshall and a Boogie. The answer is simple, I wanted something a little more Fender authentic and this baby does it! Smooth, spongy and very musical. It gets a bit noisy as you add gain but that is what an amp would do. It acts and reacts much like an amp. Using the 2:90 helps it a bunch and gives it that tube warmth. I have not tried this direct into a board so I can't comment. The pedal did not disappoint and i have already given it a home in my rig. I gigged with it on a handful of tunes and it really made it happen. Gave me a good medium distortion tone for tunes like Hard To Handle, Summer of 69, Hey Jealousy, I even used on Limelight for kicks on the heavier parts and it was very smooth and not spikey. Good bottom end..good pedal if used and placed correctly.

No idea yet

No idea

Over all I do recommend this pedal. It truly does give you a lot of Fender vibe. I am very happy with it.

Easy to use and find a setting that fits. Lots of controls so it takes a little time to find the right sound. Manual helps get you pointed in the right direction.

Using pedal into Peavey Delta Blues tube amp at home for practice. Direct into the system at church. Play a Fender Telecaster through this. Sounds great with the tele. I can adjust the base, treble and mids to get the right sound. Turn up the gain, you can get some decent sounding overdrive.

Looks and feels dependable. Don't really know yet. This is my first Tech 21 pedal.

I emailed them about power supply. They responded very promptly to my email. Seems like they are helpful

Play classic rock, blues, worship music with some U2 / Pink Floyed type of guitar work. This pedal is a good addition to my growing family of pedals. Perfect for plugging directly into the PA. Also works good with my tube amp. If stolen or lost I would buy another. Good pedal...good price. Will check out other pedals from this company.