Tech 21 SansAmp GT2

easy enough to use

ok, here's where I have to set the record straight as far as using this in a live situation. Like all sansamp preamps, you need to make sure you use FULL RANGE SPEAKERS!!!! Example: I would use this as a distortion pedal through a marshall or a fender, and it was always a battle to get a good sound. I used it with a roland JC 120, and it sounded BRILLIANT! Full range speakers!!!

sansamp products are kinda funny, in that they act up sometimes. This particular pedal, I used to have to whack it on the floor somerimes to get it to co operate, then other times, it was fine. The footswitch on my trademark 60 is tempermental too?

these guys r the BEST!

For direct recoding, I always use a POD, but this thing works well too. However, the POD blows live, and this thing works well.

Easy to get a good sound of. The way it works is fairly simple. Switches and knobs to be tweaked as you see fit. 3 types of amp, 3 types of speaker and - get this: 3 different mic positions can be simulated - and that is the key to getting some fantastic tones. There's also the obligatory Volume, Bass, Treble and Drive dials which give a fairly big tonal pallette - I've only scratched the surface of this pedal's capabilities and I've got more than enough sounds to be working with.

I use it with a solid state Trace Elliot amp and either my Strat or Les Paul. It's pretty much noiseless in terms of buzzing and the like. A little buzzing if you're too close to your rig, but that's the deal with pretty much anything.

This can be manipulated to get the rhythm sound of just about any rock guitarist you want. Lead tones are a bit more down to pickups and of course your magical fingers, but I have to say you can ape anyone who plays a Les Paul into a Marshall with the greatest of ease and accuracy.

Solid pedal, well constructed, never so much as a fizzle or a squeak out of it. You drive a tank over this and it won't even blink.

Never had to deal with TECH 21.

Well, I've tried a lot of stomp boxes, and for me, the Tech 21 Sansamp GT2 is the absolute cherries!!!

I got one on eBay for a song and it if I lost all my gear to a gang of raiding dwarves I would replace it in a minute!

It allows you to tweak amp type, speaker type and mic position!

It's also very responsive. The 3 types of amp are Fender-esque clean, Marshall-esque rawk and Boogie-esque crunch.

It goes through your amp without stealing the character of your guitar's tone, rather colouring it with the degree of saturation of your choosing instead. You can run the whole gamut from a very slight overdrive to a window-breaking, boot in the arse thumping crunch. Beeeatch. I should get money from Tech 21 for this kind of praise.......

NB - With a bit of tweakery, I've managed to add tube warmth to the clean channel of my solid state amp. This pedal has literally save me a few hundred quid and I will at some point dress it in a skirt and a wig and marry it

Quite easy to get a good sound out of it. It is harder to get the sound you have in mind coz this thing covers such a wide range.

I used it mainly for direct recording. I gave it a try from my Telecaster to a Soldano 50 watts. The distortion is a killer. I didn`t had to go above the high gain setting (on the marshall) with the drive halfway to get a very decent heavy rock sound. There`s plenty of drive with this and the clean Fender sound is good too. But after all, i can't use this for recording. It lacks the a good overdriven sound, before it distort. I can`t get rid of this scratchy higher gain buzz. This thing sounds the same as my Twin preamp plugged direct. I don`t hear the speaker simulation. The mic switch seems to curve the wrong freq. Maybe this is now a different era now. Please Tech 21, blow our mind with a new era of amp simulation, improve your technologies; its getting there

I was looking for an analog amp simulation to replace my (oh! too noisy) VF-1. That wasn`t it. This pedal seems to have a purpose but it isn`t mine. I'm gonna get a Vox Tonelab and that`ll be it(I wish!!!!).

It's pretty easy to use while offering some options for amp and speaker simulations

I bought it as a direct recording device and I am disappointed. while it excels in producing distorted sounds it lacks quality for clean or in between sounds (which I prefer). maybe i am picky, owning two tube amps, but it just does not give me a good feeling and flow while playing. but even the overdriven settings are only good for one sound - a real marshall is way more versatile.
The eq is not very useable in my opinion, with the highs to harsh and producing noise and the lows too broad so you get either muddy or thin sound.

I just have it for a few days, it looks solid.

while it may be pretty good for some heavy metal sounds it lacks quality in other disciplines. it does not at all feel real like some other reviewers stated (which made me look for one on ebay), lacks the dynamics and in betwenn sounds of a good tube amp. I'll put mine out for sale...

Although there are quite a few paramenters on the GT2 to play with, the manual offers up lots of suggested settings that would allow anyone to plug in & get some good sounds in minutes. You don't have to be a genius to work out what 'SRV style' means, for example. The fun starts when you get into tweaking the sounds yourself. I think the only problem with the GT2 would be if you were gigging & tried to switch settings between songs (in the dark!) - it's pretty fiddly.

I've had the GT2 for 6 months. I use a 1977 American strat into a 1980s British (solid state) Sessionette amp. The amp's own overdrive is pretty poor & I was ready to change it for a tube amp - but now I won't bother, at least for a while. As a fan of players like SRV & Kenny W Shepherd I was looking for something that would allow me to get close to their tone and still keep the natural tone of my Strat coming through. I tend to use the GT2 set up most of the time to get this mild overdrive & it really works. It is a very 'musical' sounding pedal and very responsive to the way in which you play - it resonds very well to the amount of attack you put into the strings. I'd contrast this with digital modellers like the V - Amp & Pod, which I found very harsh & frankly, artificial. I owm a Boss BR64 digital portastudio & the myriad of on board guitar sounds are really poor in comparison with the GT2. I also own a Rat, but I find that too harsh for my tastes. The acid test for the GT2- does it make you want to sit down & play? Answer is always yes. Finally - it does hiss a bit on some settings, but I can live with that.

so far so good. seems well built & the footswitch is robust

I've been playing for 25 years, but I've only recently started to get back into the guitar seriously. Started taking lessons last year, after years of just fooling around. other gear owned - Rat, Tokai Flanger (old) Ibanez Sonic Distortion (older).I listen to most types of music, but for guitar I go for SRV, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Johnny Winter, Paul Kossoff thro to Chilli Peppers, Mars Volta. If I lost it, I'd buy another - or check out some of the other similar Sansamp products. I compared the GT2 to Pod, V- Amp & some Boss multi-effects unit the guy in the shop suggested (interestingly he didn't suggest the GT2, I found it on the shelf & asked to try it). Does this pedal encourage me to make music? Yes. Would I recommend it? Yes - I like to play blues oriented stuff, but it is also great fun to set up some of the more extreme rock & metal patches & have fun. Check one out.

Kind of a honeymoon review, I've had it for a couple of weeks now, so still getting to know it some. But I found a tone I'm groovin with, so I really haven't been touching the knobs.

Anyway, 4 knobs - Level, High, Low, and Drive. Three small sliders - "Mic", which is supposed to emulate mic placement, another for gain level, and one for amp type.

I think the switches could stand to be a bit bigger.. what I think would be super cool is if you could switch the gain level switch with a add-on footswitch, it leaves the basic character of the tone the same but steps up levels, so I could see this being useful on stage if you could switch it without bending over.

Not very noisy, as others have said, there is some noise on the super high gain settings, but no more than you'd get out of a real amp.

I'm using it in the effects loop of a Behringer AC112 to compensate for the amps so-so distortion. The GT2 is a bit thin in the mids, I follow it with an Danelectro EQ pedal to compensate. The GT2 sounds very good, though, a good foundation for a good tone. Strangely enough, the best tone I get is when it's set for classic/clean/california and run it with the amps drive channel, they complement each other with added girth.

Good dynamics, the tweed setting especially shows how it distorts gradually with picking strength, unlike many SS products that are either on or off when it comes to this.

Gobs of sustain to be had too.. if you want it. Somedays I don't because I'm playing too sloppy!

Seems strong enough..

Muy exellente!
I emailed them asking for a manual since I bought it used, they emailed me back within an hour! Almost unheard of these days..

Play blues, Trey, Santana-ish stuff. I've only been playing electric for a year, but did acoustic, keys before.

I got this becuse I had the Behringer (starter amp I know), didn't have the $$ for a good tube amp, and had been wholly unimpressed with all the mainstream distortion and overdrive pedals. So I was looking for something to fundamentally alter the tone of my amp, and was looking at the usual Line6 and Digitech culprits, and someone suggested I check out Tech21. Glad I did. The thing is technically an 'Analog amp modelling pre-amp' or something or other, so it has a lot of applications. But in my case, it's a distortion pedal that only cost $100(used) and completely blows away anything else I've tried, and got me closer to the tone I was looking for than anything else for that paltry sum.
I'd replace if lost in a heartbeat.. I may start hoarding these.

Very easy. There are a couple of web sites with sounds for it, in addition to the Tech 21 site. Flip some switches, twiddle some knobs, it sounds pretty good. No manual with mine, but I bought it used.

Pretty quiet. Most often run it into a Yamaha DG-Stomp then into my computer. Not noisy, although the distortion sounds seem to have too much high-end for me. I'd roll off anything over 6-7Khz or so. Personally, I just run it into a clean setting in the DG-Stomp and make sure the Speaker Simulation is on the DG, and it rips.

I have used it live with my Fender Jazz bass and Eden amp & 410 cabinet, and on the "SVT" sound setting it had a very nice growl.

Seems solid, metal case. Flimsy battery cover, nothing that duct tape wouldn't fix, though. Would imagine it will last a while with reasonable care.

Never dealt w/ Tech 21, website is somewhat informative, I guess...

I play mostly rock (indie, hard, and/or metal), been playing for many years. Mostly recording now, thru a Gretsch Nashville JR or 73 Les Paul Standard, into DG-Stomp and into the computer. I wanted another "amp simulation" type box for direct recording into the computer, and so far, this has got some nice tones. Pleasantly surprised with how well it worked for bass live; I wonder how it would sound live with one of my guitars. For $100, I probably would buy another one.

I actually tried the GT-2 out a few weeks ago in a guitar store but didn't buy it. Today I had a day off so I went to the local guitar store and picked up a used one. Unfortunately, the guitar store was flooded from water pipes breaking, so I had to trust that the sound of the GT-2 was going to be what I remembered.

I won't beat a dead horse, but the GT-2 is super easy to use. If you are someone who likes tweaking the hell out of knobs, then you might want to look elsewhere. TECH 21 has done such a great job with the tone, that you really get a great sound at every setting.

Mine is actually used so it didn't come with a manual, etc. To be honest though, you don't need one. You have your in and out jacks, four knobs and that is it. Considering those few options, it is amazing what this box can do!

There are a few things I would like to see on the GT-2 that are not existent. I don't know if they are planning on building a GT-3, but this is what I would like to see:

- Mid knob
- Reverb perhaps?
- Noise gate?

Other than that, this simple little box is easy to use and doesn't need alot of options.

I don't know how TECH 21 does it, but they continue to amaze me with the tone quality of their products. They capture the tube sound that other companies could only dream of capturing. I have owned the TM60 amp, a power amp and the original sansamp and the GT-2 impresses me as much as the others did.

If you are reading this, you obviously know that the GT-2 emulates a Fender, Marshall and Mesa Boogie amp with the use of three separate switches. I found that you could get a great early Eddie Van Halen tone by setting all of the switches in the middle position. Amazingly, with the flick of a few switches you can have a great Metallica "black album" sound or a Stevie Ray Vaughn type of tone. I know it sounds crazy, but this box can do it. Don't ask me how, but TECH 21 does it. The cool thing is that it is analog. There is no digital tones that sound distant, etc.

I have played the GT-2 through an amp, but I actually plan on using it for home recording. I used it to record a few clips tonight and was blown away at how the tones stand out in the recordings. I posted them online and had a few people listen to them without knowing what amp I was using. It sounds funny, but people guessed a Peavey 5150, a Mesa Dual Rectifer, a Bogner and several other amps. Nobody guessed that it was a digital emulator such as a VAMP, POD, etc. which I think really says alot about the GT-2.

The only negative about the sound quality is that you do get noise with the unit, but then again I am playing into a computer and there are all kinds of issues when a computer is involved. I play on buying a noise gate but really the noise is not so bad that you would hear it throughout the entire recording. It is only really noticable when you stop playing.

TECH 21 gear seems to be made pretty solid. Visually they don't pretty up their gear with fancy colors, goofy looking knobs, etc. and I think that gives them time to ensure their products meet reliability standards. Most of their products are flat black with yellow lettering, or a solid color, etc. They really don't need all of the fancy advertising trickery because the tones speak for themselves.

I doubt you will find a better customer support company involved in musical gear than TECH 21. Back when I owned a PSA-1, I had one of the technicians emailing me practically everyday to answer my questions about fuses, power handling issues, etc. I never get the run-around with the TECH 21 guys. They make great gear and their customer support is excellent.

I can't say anything else other than I think this is a great piece of gear and will stand up to many tube amps. TECH 21 has a great reputation and their products are a great alternative to the digital mania going on right now.

The sansamp gt2 distortion pedal is a very simple and easy pedal to use. Just two knobs to twist and turn for eq, level , amount of distortion you want. Plus , it "simulates" 3 amp models ( mesa boogie , marshall and fender) and mics.

The sansamp gt2 is a great sounding effects pedal and works great with both humbuckers and single coiled. I'm currently using it with a jackson sl3 or burns marquee series with a maxon compressor through a fender amp. It is pretty easy to tune to the sound you want by checking out websites or just figuring it out yourself. If you like to play a variety of music styles , this pedal is for you. Although the blues screamer + srv settings are not up to par , both van halen and metallica are great. This thing also can do Marhshall plexi style , Fender Funk , and variety of others. In fact , this thing has a tube sound!!! I would buy this effects pedal if you have a regular transitor amp and not a tube amp.(it will sound too compressed)

THis thing is pretty sturdy and just like a boss. It's made out of solid metal and not plastic. I would defiently use it w/o a backup

never dealt with them

As you mite know by now , this pedal is defiently worth the price. Although it is priced a bit high at 160$$!! , once you get the right sound , you will be a very happy guitar player. I play rock , metal and blues . Although the blues is not GREAT , the rock and metal are great. IF this were lost or stolen , i would deifeintly buy another one. In fact , when i was a young and brash guitar player , i played using a BOSS METAL ZONE. I LOVED IT ... until i got this. IF all u want is that death sound distortion and play power chords, go with the metal zone. If you want to play with variety of great sounds and playing blazing solo's ... buy this one.

Got mine setup with some good tones in a few minutes.

I am running a simple setup. Fender Tele --> Boss TU-2 --> SansAmp GT2 --> Roland JC-120. Not noisy at all, the tone is really focused and pulls off the tube emulation with ease.

I've only had it a week, so I really can't comment on the reliablity. Although it does look like it can take a beating.

I've conversed with the Lloyd @ Tech 21 who has been most helpful and has answered all of my questions with promptness.

I play tunes along the line of Helmet / Pumpkins / Failure. For the most part, I've always been against emulators as they are what they are, fake. I can pull off some pretty damn good tones with this unit. My JC-120 is an amazing clean amp, but I wanted the best of both worlds, great clean / great tube overdrive. I've tried a few units from the Keeley TS-9 and RAT MODs to the Hughes and Kettner Tube Factor. None of them really pulled off a good tube sound and I was worried that I would have to either ditch the JC-120 for an overdriven amp or get a new combo just for use as an OD. I am happy to say this unit adds a whole new dimension to my JC-120. With the right tweaking, the tones on this unit are really focused and pull off the tube amp emulation pretty damn well. It's really responsive and allows the subtle nuances of an actual tube amp to shine through.