Tech 21 Tri-O.D. Overdrive Pedal

The pedal is very easy to use in th studio (which is what it was made for). However, playing live it is quite a hassle to dial in more than one sound.
I use it mainly just on the 3rd setting, overdiven - as a distortion box. The problem is that there is a lag in the switching from clean to distorted so I had to get a bypass box to route it though. That is why I am giving it an 8 for ease of use.
Again - this is a studio amp emulator box so the rating is geared towards using it in a live playing situation.
The switching problem I believe is being alleviated in the new TRI-AC.

The sound is killer!
The best eq, the best distortion, and the best sound versatility in all units this and twice the price. What I especially love is the live "beefy" feel of this box, it plays like it was a much bigger unit.

100% reliable, rock solid. The only bad thing is that the batteries (if you need to use them) require you to take out 4 screw before you get to the battery casing.

Never had to deal with their custommer support so I can't rate it.

Excellent for metal, blues, rock, jazz, whatever you want -you can dial on it.
It doesn't do esoteric overdriven amp sounds like other unit when being overdirven way too much, but for what it is it is THE BEST.
I am hooked to Tech21 for life!

this unit is very easy to operate.no manual recqired.though the
manual suggests using it in the effects loop.it did not work well.it is fabulous sounding thru the front of amp.

the fender tweed,boogie ,marshall emulations are some of the best
around.I have an old 1976 marshall rewired to bassman specs and
I am very pleased.I would like to try thePSA ,which is their version
of the triaxis

metal case,no trouble so far

have not had to

I play rock and blues.great versatility in tones. beats carrying
three amps.great preamp for the price.I have played for
20 yrs and if you cant get a good sound from this.give up

Even though the use itself is quite simple, (3 programs, you step them through one after the other), this fact makes it quite tricky to use two or all three sounds in a live situation, so i'll rate it only a 8.

I used it with a lot of different amp types. Until now it was quite impossible to make ALL of them go and provide a sound i can work with by using a single unit. Tried VTwin, Fulldrive I and II, the 808, Expandoras, RATs and other little animals, you name it. This unit makes it happen.

Soldano Atomic 16, THD Plexi Top, Trace Elliot Velocette, a small Laney 15, a Fender Blues De Ville,... Works with each one of them. At least good 'nough to make me feel good.

Guitars: Strats. Only Strats. No humbuckers. A '65, a Vintage '62, a '79 and two real great early Relics (57 and 60 Reiss.). With each one of them i can control the tone perfectly just by using tone and vol controls. From a real nasty crankin'tone to a rich full boost, from soft Boogie lead notes to full Marshal blast, if i can do it, it can do it too.

It's quiet. Pure and simple. If there's noise, i check my other stuff.

Effect is always there. All three sounds are the way they describe them. And the way i expect and know 'em.

Can't say nothing here, only had it for a week, but i already took it out to a session and it was fine. Seems well-built.

No experience yet.

Jazz, Fusion, Blues, well, you like the sound of it, you use it. Don't know if it's "a good match", guess it depends on your own view. For me, it is.

I am playing for over 20 years now , i had all kinds of stuff, the amps i own are described above (except the 63 Bassman, i'll check that match later, but i guess it'll work as well).

Would i buy it again? I'm trying right now to get another one on eBay. I plan to use two, 'cause the only real flaw is that it's in fact (as some other people pointed out) somewhat tricky to make every single sound really shine without messing up the others. Well, i had a Boogie Mark II and i'm used to this. Try to make the lead sound fly without messing the clean sound. I never got that...

Anyway. I love it. And i'm not affiliated to the company in any way (i wish i was). I will start checking out their other stuff soon.

This category only rated a 6 because, although it is very easy to use, it is also difficult to use live. This is because if you eq a good clean sound, it will sound very weak on the OD channels, and visa-versa. This is remedied in the new TRI AC. For home pratice or recording, no problem.

Sound quality is absolutly amazing. A saleman showed me one of these 10 years ago and I laughed at him without trying it (I was young and dumb!). He claimed that this thing sounded better than most of the amps on the market. Ten years later, in my opinion, it still does. Sure, you can buy each amp and spend $3000 in the process and sound better, but this pedal will come close. You have to spend some time with one of these, with a good power and and speakers to really appreciate the beauty of this device. You will be amazed. This pedal is so juicy and alive, it is incredible. It feels real because it is real, not like some of the amp-modelers of today that don't respond like a real amp. It sounds better than my main rig, but I don't use it live due to the eq problem stated earlier, so I will probably switch over to the new version soon.

I am not sure what could go wrong unless you destroyed it intentionally.

I never dealt with them. I have e-mailed a few questions to them that were answered very promptly.

This was the best money I have ever spent on a musical product. I did buy this used, but it far exceeded my expectations. I have become familiar with Tech 21 products in my studio session work. You would be amazed at how often they are used in the studio. These products react and sound like the real thing, not only the real thing, but a top-notch real thing! Please, if you are truly interested in TONE, check out Tech 21 (Just use them correctly, in a loop or into a power amp), you will not be disappointed.

Multifunction stomp box with three amp simulations, speaker emulation and bypass. Each amp simulation - Tweed, California, British - has a volume (with on/off) and a gain control, and there's a shared master section with active bass and treble controls (limiting factor #1) and Master Volume. One input, one output, 9V DC power supply socket (or unscrew the backplate to install a battery if you prefer), plenty of LEDs to tell you where you are, with the whole lot mounted in/on a very sturdy metal case. Solid. Just one footswitch to control a multitude of functions, and this is limiting factor #2 in an otherwise very versatile unit. If all three amp simulations are on, the footswitch cycles through the three modes, so it takes you two stomps to go from Tweed (= Fender) to British (= Marshall) or from California (= Boogie) to Tweed etc. If two of the simulations are on, the footswitch again cycles through three sounds: the two "on" amp simulations and bypass. If only one of the simulations is on, the footswitch simply switches between that and bypass. And if all three amp simulations are off, the footswitch switches between bypass and the speaker emulation. This shaves off the high end a bit, so pretty useful for getting stuff direct to tape, apparently. Haven't used it myself. I've given a 7 for ease of use because although you can fairly easily get some great tones out of this unit, it isn't easy to get access to all those tones as quickly and as simply as you need in a live situation.

I really liked this pedal in the store (played through the Tech21 60W combo), but once I got it home I wasn't so impressed and it took me quite a while to get to grips with it again and to figure out the settings to get the sounds I like. The more I've experimented with it the more I've grown to like it. I've used this pedal with a variety of guitars, principally a 1982 Ibanez Artist (with JB and '59 Duncan humbuckers), a 1990-ish Fender USA Standard Strat and a 1997 Gibson Les Paul Special DC (twin P-90s), with the pedal plugged straight into the regular input of my Trace Elliot Speed Twin C30, a class A 30W 1x12".
At low gains the Fender simulation has a lovely chiming high end and a very full low end to give that slightly hollow tone, and switching between that and my amp's clean sound (very Voxy, much darker) gives two totally different clean tones. When you crank the gain the Fender tone is less impressive, even at moderate gain levels where it can sound a bit buzzy/crackly on the bass notes as the volume decays, not quite as smooth as real valves. On cleaner settings the Fender tone is fine with single coils, P90s or humbuckers, but with higher gains the humbuckers are less impressive than the single coils and P90s which cut through the mild fuzz much better.
The Boogie simulation gives a thick, smooth and creamy Santana-esque lead tone with the bass and treble flat, while boosting those two gives you that scooped modern Metallicized metal tone. Which is nice, if you like that sort of thing. Kind of reminds me of a dentist's drill, but there you go, tonal taste's a funny thing. Humbuckers are definitely the way to go on this channel.
The Marshall sound, on the other hand, is a killer. Really fierce mid-range and treble, great for AC/DC riffs if you hold back on the gain, and pretty mental as you crank things up. At really high gains it gets all wheezy and compressed, the sound of over-worked valves. Great!
So overall pretty impressive, particularly at the medium to high gain end of things. The lower gain crunchy sounds are also pretty good, though the Fender simulation isn't quite up to par. Overall this little box does a pretty fair job of emulating a truckload of classic tube amps. Of course it's not the real thing, but then it doesn?t weigh a few hundred pounds either.

No problems or complaints, and the solid build suggests a long and useful life. Tech21 products seem to have a pretty good reputation for durability and roadworthiness.

I've never had need to contact them, but they have a good website, good literature and instruction manuals, and some cool products.

I like Tech21 stuff. The CompTortion is excellent, and I?ve been pretty happy with this unit too - loads of useful and high quality tones. For home use (and probably for recording) it's ideal, with the individual sounds varying from good to excellent. BUT?. the shared master EQ and the single footswitch mean that all that tonal flexibility is not so easily accessible when playing live. The Fender and Marshall tones are tonally fairly compatible, but the bass response of the Fender is pretty strong, and when you turn that down a bit the Marshall can end up a tad too fierce. But the Boogie tone is much thicker and needs a load of extra treble compared to the other two simulations. I've not yet found a really satisfactory balance between the guitar's, the unit's and my amp's tone controls which allows me to use all three Tri-O.D. channels in a live situation. And the single footswitch?? this footswitch business seems to be a common problem; I also have a Boogie V-Twin valve preamp, and that too has less than optimal switching due to not having enough footswitches. I don't want to be bending down and fiddling with controls and buttons mid-song! Maybe I'm wrong, but I would have thought a footswitch would be a pretty cheap item, and making the case big enough to incorporate however many you need shouldn't be too difficult or costly. I know all the manufacturers aim for compactness and simplicity, which is fine for a single function stomp box, but more complex multi-channel units like this Tri-O.D. and the V-Twin would actually be simplified by having more footswitches.
STOP PRESS: Just seen the new Tri-A.C. pedal., which promises to resolve the problems inherent in the shared EQ and single footswitch by combining digital programability and switching with analogue sounds. Looks like I?ll be selling the Tri-O.D. and investing in the new pedal!

Bought it at 6pm, gigged with it at 9pm....5 minutes tweaking before the gig and voila, very usable sounds.

I play in Singapore where the vast majority of clubs and pubs own all of the equipment so I just take a pedalboard and plug into whatever combo is on the stage. I had been going through hell trying to get a consistent sound and have a bag of pedals and multi effects that i will never use again now that I have the Tri OD. I use a Musicman Luke and Peavey Wolfgang (both excellent sounding guitars in their own right) The Marshall setting with the EVH's bridge pickup is perfect for what our band plays (mostly rock) and the california setting with the neck pickup is devine. With the luke, its a very clean sound and distorted chords are very nicely evenly voiced. I had no problem rolling back the volume knob to clean up the sound although i do have to roll it back further than on a normal tube amp.

havent been using it long enough to judge...

Nope...but I will say that the local distributor is ALWAYS out of stock of most of the sans amp models if tech 21 is reading this....

It's a very simple product that does exactly what it says it will do...I wonder why some of the reviewers actually purchased the thing expecting it to sound like a wall of rectifiers (which is completely impracticle in a small venue anyway)... I went looking for the Tech 21 stuff after I heard the demos on thier web site which blew away all of the competing companies demos (Line 6 etc) This model was the only one in stock and I took it on the proviso that I could return it if it didn't do the job...It aint going back...so much sound in such a portable box....try going to a gig on the bus, train or even a cab with a recto stack or large combo...no thanks. Oh and not one person came up to me and told me the guitar didn't sound any good....but then again yr average person in the crowd only cares about the songs, the atmosphere and the price of the booze...right??!!...go and buy one of these things right now!

The unit is very easy to use. The EQ is two band only (bass and treble) but it is an active eq, and extremly useful. Note that the eq is a master eq and affects all three channels. A slight drawback in my opinion. The manual is clear and short. With a few minutes of tweaking you can get just about any sound out of this thing from U2's Edge, to Eddie Van Halen. My biggest gripe is that the unit should have three switches on it to switch from one channel to the next. As it is, there is only one foot switch, and you have to tap it twice to go from channel 1 to channel 3. Again, not a big deal, but worth mentioning.

This is where this unit really shines. I use a Yamaha Pacifica 311MS (stacked single coil/hummer in bridge, hummer in neck) into the Tri-OD into a Roland JC-77. Need just a little bit of edge? No problem!!! Over the top paint blistering distortion? Yup! Now a few gripes. I'd rather have the California channel (channel 2) have less gain than it does. It's not that the distortion isn't great on that channel, you just can't clean it up enough. I'd prefer 1 to be clean-semi clean, channel two for semi dirty rythms and channel three blistering distortion for lead work. Channel two has very high gain like channel three (with justt a slightly different voicing). Even with the gain turned all of the way down it's still too dirty for my taste. But the real important point to note here is that all three channels are very useable in both live and recording settings. Really makes my amp sing. Great Harmonics, great sustain. Hey, I have owned almost everything out there because I'm a gearhead, and I used to own a guitar shop. If I had known how great this little box sounds I would have picked one up years ago.

This thing is housed in an all metal box. Metal switches. No problem so far. Built like a tank, and in my humble opinion ever better than a Boss pedal.

Haven't dealt with them yet.

OK......I play classic rock to metal. Been doing it since about 1982. My main gripe is clearly the single foot switch issue, and that the box should have an auxillary emulator out jack, so I can drive both my amp and the sound board when on stage. BUT.....This box has incredible tone....period. Better than the Hughes and Kettner tubeman, better than the Mesa V-Twin, better than any other pedal (boutique or otherwise) out there. Better than a tube amp you ask? Maybe not a good one......But close.....damn close.

Good sounds are available, provided the user wishes to spend a little time tweaking with their particular set-up. I can't get over how many reviewers use it in front of an amp when THE MANUAL PLAINLY SAYS USE IT INTO THE EFFECTS RETURN AND BYPASS YOUR AMPS PRE-AMP!!! I little awkward to switch as there is one switch for the three channels and it operates sequentially - i.e. you have to stomp twice to get from channel 3 to channel 2.

I use the Tri-OD into the effects loop of a Boss GT-5, which is routed to the effects return of a couple of Carvin X100B heads and then to a stereo cabinet. There is some noise as you crank the gain but anyone who would complain must have never heard a full-on Marshall with an overdrive in front of it. I find the emulations of the TriOD to be far more vibrant and present than the modeling of the GT-5, so I use the only the effects of the GT-5. The best sounds I can get are a really close approximation of a Dual Recto for rhythm and a very present gnarly Marshall lead tone. Of course in conjunction with the effects of the GT-5 the options are unlimited. As other reviewers have stated, it is difficult to get optimum tones for all three channels simultaneously because of a global EQ; I have the luxury of creating individual patches on the GT-5 for the different channels of the TriOD. I have to say that no modeling device sounds as vibrant and 3D to me as the TriOD through my tube power amps.

Tech21 pedals seem to be little tanks. As you have to take the entire bottom off the pedal to replace the battery, use it with an AC adapter.

No comment as I've never had a problem.

I play rock/blues/jazz and have been a pro player off and on for 15 years. You name it, I've owned it. I do enjoy the quality of the tones offered by the TriOD through my setup. If it had separate eq's and a solo boost switch, I don't think Tech21 could manufacture them fast enough.

All pretty straight forward - Overall Level and EQ, and then a seperate Drive and Level for each channel.

Well, I have to say I've really tried but I just can't get a decent sound out of this thing. I've tried it direct to tape, through a PA and in front of amps (Boogies)and everything seems to have this hi-fi, scooped out sheen to it. I would imagine it would be great for metal and stuff where you want that sound, but I was hoping for slightly more rounded and mellow tones to be available.

Funnnily enough, a friend lent me their SansAmp GT-2 and I fell in love with that straight away.

I really think the Tri-OD suffers from the compromises required for putting 3 channels in one box. It uses the same technology as the GT-2, but each channel only seems to feature a narrow section of the total amp simulation available in the GT-2, without the Mic position options too. Unfortunately, they're not the sections I like the sound of!

Also, would it really have been too much trouble to add a easier battery access?

No worries in that department. Quality build.

Never called them. Decent web-site, though.

Fine for the scooped-mid rock brigade. Didn't work for me.

Easy-Peasy Lemon-Squeezy

Standard Ibanez/Fender guitars. Sounds great with a little reverb. Used mainly for direct recording. Make sure you use single coils for the Tweed setting. It's a bit noisy switching if you're using it live.

built like a tank.

N/A

Great piece of gear although getting old now (2001). Not noisy like Line6 Pod. Add's life too tired amps (if they have a decent clean setting).