Tech 21 CompTortion

Four buttons, very simple to use. Just keep trying out new combinations and you'll find something you like.

Here's the thing, I love the sound I get out of it, but it's not what I was expecting. I figured I would get a good compressed sound and distorted sound individually, but I haven't found one for either. But I have found an awesome setting for overdrive at level 10 o clock, tone 9 o clock, tortion at 8 o clock and comp at 9 o clock. I've only had this for a day, so I don't know the full capability of it, The distortion sounds harsh after 11 o clock, and the compression sounds like a thud after 1 o clock, but I think I can get some good sounds out of them if used sparingly. I actually prefer the overdriven sound produced by this rather than my TS-9 DX. It' accurately simulates the sound of a tubescreamer and even has a bit more clarity. It produces a lot more noise than my other effects when it's on, but when playing it isn't noticeable. Less noise than the TS-9 when on. No noise when in bypass mode. I'm using the comptortion into a Boss chorus into an Ibanez Tubescreamer into a Boss Flanger into a Marshall VS 102R. I like my tubescreamer for channel 1 and the comptortion for channel 2. I like it for overdrive and it's nice to have compression and distortion without buying two pedals, but if you want a real compressor or distortion pedal you should buy something else.

....I don't know, the footswitch seems very very cheap. When you step on the switch it doesn't always turn on or off. I opened it up and saw that the spring from the switch isn't attached to anything expect for a piece of plastic that it's guarenteed to slip off of. The case is sturdy, but I'd be careful with the cords and moving them too much. And I wouldn't step to hard on the switch for fear of the spring shooting off to who-knows-where.

No idea.

I play hard rock, but I don't know how useful this thing would be for blues or jazz. It would probably add a nice full sound to it, but if you're looking for compression or distortion alone you should probably buy something else. Awesome overfrive, and it's nice to have the options of using distortion or compression since I normally don't use them anyway, but I wouldn't use this pedal for primary use of either. It would be nice if it has a switch for either distortion or compression and one for both, but it's fine as an overdrive pedal. I don't know if I'd buy it again because I have a tubescreamer as a backup. I've been playing guitar for five years, I have a korean strat and a Gibson Les Paul and I only need to use this with the strat cause the Paul sounds beatiful just with the gain form the amp. Overall this is a pretty cool effect since it has both distortion and compression and can give an awesome overdriven sound, but it's not perfect for either.

Simple, easy to use pedal. Has four controls- volume, distortion, tone, and compression. The manual gives a few settings to try out, but none of them really impressed me.

I use the Comptortion on the "clean" side of my rig. I usually run my guitars into a TS-10 Tubescreamer, then the Comptortion, then into a Fender Musicmaster Bass amp. It's a great blues/jazz/rock setup. Sometimes, it's just guitar>Comptortion>amp, depending on the song.

The Comptortion works best when used as a boost. The distortion sounds terrible if cranked up past 12:00, and the compression is also worthless after 12:00. But with just a hint of distortion (no more than 9:00), and a little bit more compression(around 11:00), this box makes your guitar sing. I often use it to give a little extra push when soloing. It works well for songs like Little Wing or Comfortably Numb, where the solo builds up at the end of the song. Start clean, then add some more drive, then throw on the Comptortion. It adds extra push, but doesn't sound like an effect. It also works to give a decent Jerry Garcia/Trey Anastasio/Steve Kimock clean boost kind of sound.

Useless for surf, rockabilly, country, or metal

The metal casing, switch, and knobs seem very sturdy. The downside is that the line in/out jacks are mounted directly to the pc board. If your idiot singer happens to land on the cord/plug while jumping around, you'll be looking for a replacement pedal (and a doctor to remove the mike stand you rammed up his ass).

Never had to deal with Tech 21, but they seem easy to get ahold of. Their website offers a lot of information and email support.

For me, this pedal is definitely a keeper. I don't use it all the time, but when I need that extra push, it's there for me. If you are just starting out, this definitely isn't the first pedal you should run out and buy. It's just a rally nice extra.

see below...

Been giggin with it for months and its seen lots of studio use too, not even so much as a sputter out of this thing, and I have dropped it a few times too.

never dealt with them.

This is a follow up to a review I posted a few months ago. My setup is as follows fender american deluxe strat, wah, fulltone stereo dejavibe, fulltone fulldrive II tr100, fulltone fat-boost, way huge aqua puss analog delay, tech 21 comptortion into a '65 fender twin reissue. I power them all with a voodoo labs pedal power except the vibe. I have tried and tried to replace this thing, because I was sure there was something better out there. What I found is that this pedal is a very key ingredient to my sound. I have it set as follows. Volume: max, tone: 2 o'clock, tortion: off, comp: 10 o'clock. It is almost completely silent and it really fattens up my tone. It adds a degree of sustain, and while there is a little noticable volume swell in the sustain it is no big deal, an untrained ear cannot hear it. The overdrive on this thing is horrid, though, the compression on this thing is a real sleeper.

Simple manual, but I hated all the recommended settings.

A noisy touchy comp mated to an artificial fuzz. However with both effects throttled back to almost nil, I can get a useful boost to my stock amp tone. So I'm keeping it for now, but it ends up being a one trick pony.

Seems trustworthy, but I always have my trusty battle scarred Boss OD-1 just in case.

I play retro twang & Chuck Berry style rock, with occasional trips into Crunch & Roll. Tele into a Laney VC-30 (class A tube 2x10). I use it with a Westbury (guyatone) analog delay & Nobels (poor construction, great tone) tremelo. This gizmo is not the do all end all. I feel it's place in my effects chain is temporary.

Nothing very difficult. Volume, tone, compression, and distortion knobs. The on/off switch, however, was weird. I had to screw it in, kind of, before it would work. It didn't seem to move any more downward when I twisted it, but it had to do that before it would work.

It sounds okay, except there is a very subtle hint of distortion in it, even when it's supposed to be totally clean. It's not a bad sound even with that hint of distortion. If I was a hardcore blues guitarist, I'd might use this pedal and nothing else. Nice blues sound. However, it did castrate my amp's distortion. For some reason though, it didn't seem to effect my Big Muff at all (Comp in front of amp distortion and Big Muff, and everything else too).

If you want to switch between clean and distortion, it will take much knob twisting. Because when you turn the distortion up the volume goes WAY up, so you have to turn the volume knob down. Annoying. You know what's weird? My friend's Danelectro Surf & Turf compressor that I bought him for $35 sounds better than this compressor. No hint of distortion, plus you don't get that hard pick attack sound either. Another nice thing about the Surf & Turf is that there is no tone control. In other words, your tone is not effected, which is great if your guitar has a great tone. Actually, my friend's guitar sounds like ass, so it's not so great for him. He could use some serious tone sculpting.

Anyway, I would only use this for blues, and that was if blues was the only thing I was playing--in other words, for semi-distorted warm compressed sounds, and then shut it off if I want to be Eric Clapton or something. I bought this to replace my Korg Toneworks 411 multi fx. No deal. I'm not totally satisfied with the Korg's compression (attack is still too strong), but at least I get good fuzz distortion with it too.

Probably reliable.

Don't know, sent it back.

As I said, it's got serious drawbacks if you play more than one style. It's not horrible, but it's not great either. It would be much better if it had a seperate switch to activate the distortion, plus a seperate volume knob distortion, plus it would be good if you could bypass the tone control. I should have known not to try to displace the workhorse of my effects chain.

Easy once you realize that the sounds past 12 oclock are too distorted and sensitive.

Beautiful. Set the distortion and compression to about 9 oclock(pointing to the left for all you ""digital time reading only"") people. It adds a lot of depth that words of course can't describe, because they are words, not music.

Good I assume.

Good I suppose.

This pedal should be about a 9.5 overall, but some guy(girl?) who didn't leave their email or name submitted a bad review for it about two years ago. This person complained because the sounds are terrible between the 12 and 6 oclock setting, this is true, but the sound quality between 6 and 12 oclock is amazing. Buy it of go to a store that will let you test one.

This is extremely easy to use. Just read the antidumb manual and play with the pedal as long as you can, experiment and try all the settings that you can possible imagine.

I got a Fender Mustang, a Big Muff, an Analog Delay, a Fuzz Wah Morley, a Phaser, a Chorus and of course the Tech 21 Comptortion all connected to a Carvin amp. The great thing is that you can use it in a bass without any trouble. I play guitar in a couple of bands and the Comptortion is very adaptable to any kind of music, I use it for sustainer porpose only and it's really great, the best sustainer ever!, keeps the sound up to 10 seconds. It is ideal for solos or ambient effects. Sometimes is a little noisy when you set the comp to the top, but I play noise music so, it's ok with me. My settings are: Level at 11, Tone to the top, Tortion off and Comp to the top.I used to play the bass in another band. A 4 string Active Ibanez Soundgear Sr400 (amazing bass) connected to a Zoom 506, then to the Comptortion and then to a Carvin amp PB 150. In some songs I used the distortion with the bass and it was really cool, a great sound like a fuzz but different, like a Big Muff for bass. The setting were: Level near 9, Tone to the top, Tortion almost to the top and Comp off.

You're not gonna a have a problem with this pedal in at least 100 years if you take care of it.

I played in a lot of bands so I can assure that you can play any kind of music you want with this pedal. I played Classic Rock, Dark, Goth, Indie, Noise, experimental, Grunge, Industrial. If you're looking for the best compresor/sustainer this is it, but if you're just looking for a distortion you're not gonna find a great one in this pedal. I play my guitar with an e-bow sometimes, and the sound sometimes is not very good with the Comptortion, unless you increase the level or connect a Delay to the chain, the sound of the e-bow is gonna be missing loosing it's bright and unstopable sound. But anyway, this Comptortion Tech 21 is the best compresor/sustainer ever!!!!!

Its very easy to use. It has four knobs: Level, Tone, Tortion(overdrive), and Comp(compression) plus your standard switch and a LED. The manual is very helpful in regards to where to place this effect in your effects chain as well as giving some helpful hints and a few recommended settings. I bought this pedal for its compression effect only, and I found I was able to find its sweet spot in 10 minutes or so.

I am using a Fender American Deluxe Strat with those Vintage Noiseless pickups through a '65 Fender Twin Reissue and a Sunn 2x12 bass cabinet. Others effects I am using include an Ibanez TS-9 Tubescreamer Reissue and a Way Huge Aqua Puss Analog Delay. Let me reiterate that I only bought this pedal to use as a compressor, but I did experiment with the overdrive. I found the overdrive to be very saturated and loaded with sustain, yet it seemed to swell and become metalic, mechanized, if not computerized for lack of a better word. It was not as organic and warm as the TS-9. The compression on the other hand is excellent. I was searching for an effect that would increase my sustain, as well as narrowing the volume gap between my chords and my solos. This pedal delivers exactly that. I have it set as follows: Volume: 12 o'clock, Tone: 3 o'clock, Tortion: off, Comp: 10 o'clock. The effect is very quite unless you turn the comp and/or tortion passed 1'oclock, then its pretty unbearable. However, it does have a built in noise filter, which allows you to run your favorite overdrive pedal before it and not have any noise. It sounds great with the TS-9. I have not noticed any loss or change of my tone. It is not a true bypass pedal, but it is completely analog. I leave it on all the time, as it is now an intregal part of my setup and sound. I am rating the sound quality as an 8 because of the poor quality overdrive, however if this were just a compressor I would rate it as a 10.

I cant afford backups really, so I try to only buy th emost reliable stuff. Its built like a tank. No worries here.

Never dealt with them.

I play rock music - alternative (Pearl Jam), southern(CCR, Lynyrd Skynyrd), classic (Alman Brothers) with some blues here and there. I have been playing for about 8 years now, and if this pedal were lost or stolen I would definately find another. I did shop around for compressors, but this one came highly recommended and I got a great deal on it, so I figured I would give it a shot and what do ya know, I really liked it, so that'll save me from breaking the bank on a Way Huge Saffron Squeeze. I think the compression is great and the noise filter is a nice touch. Its built well and its affordable too, but the overdrive is just not for me, but it may be great for industrial types. Therefore I am rating it at a 9 here, if it were just a compressor again I would've given it a 10.

NO PROB USING IT AT ALL WORKS FINE EASY TO TRN ON OR OFF.

IM USING A FENDER JIMI HENDRIX VOODOO STRAT OR A CUSTON SHOP 69 RELIC STRAT. I HAVE A VOX KING GOING INTO THE COMPTORTIOIN THAT GOES INTO A YARDBOX CLEAN OCTAVE BLEND AND A UNIVIBE THAT GOES INTO A LINE6 FLEXTONE AMP AND IT SOUND PERFECT. BLENDS IN WITH OTHER EFECT GREAT ALSO THE PEDAL HAS A HUGE RANGE YOU CAN GO FROM A NICE WARM TUBE SCREAMER SOUND TO A HEAVY FUZZY GRUNGY SOUND

PERFECT TO DEPEND ON EVEN THOUGH I USE OTHER DISTORTIONS I HAVE PROB USING THAT ONE ON ITS OWN

ITS JUST A PERFECT PEDAL

It took me about 20 seconds to get some great tones. If you have a basic understanding of how compression works and can twiddle knobs, it's a no brainer to use.

I don't generally give out 10's, but this pedal makes my guitar sound better every time I use it. I use a Les Paul with Fralin humbuckers, into a Clyde wah, Comptortion, Budda Fatman, Ibanez EM-5 and Budda Twinmaster. This pedal compliments everything in the chain. I use it mostly as a boost for my Fatman and Twinmaster. Here are the settings I usually use. Level 2 o'clock, Tone 2 o'clock, Tortion 7:30, Comp 9:30. This kicks the tubes right in the balls and brings out the best in everything in the chain. Sometimes I muck with the knobs for additional overdrive or compression.

No problemos.

This pedal has become an essential part of my rig. I'm actually considering getting another one for boosting solos and leaving the first one on full time.