Tech 21 XXL

How easy to use? Got a brain?

Marshall and an old Tubeworks(both tube).Its a Fuzz box= noisy(not excessive).This is the BEST fuzz box for the neck pickup that I have ever tried.Hendrix playing the blues is the tone you get out of this thing.

I hope so.I am plannig to keep it for eternity.Backup?I any't no Carlos santana.If this goes,I will have to wip out my trusty Boss dS 1.

Generally speaking,costomer support on this type of product is poor and not very forthcoming.(understandbly since they are dealing with one of the most egotistical self-centered souls on the planet.Guitar players!)

It is chocking to read some of the things us peace loving musicians will do to our fellow musicians.I will find the person who stole the box,tell him that I forgive him for his moment of weakness,and plitely ask him to return it to me.When he is bent over to pick up the box,I will jam up guitar neck right up his ass,up to the 12th fret!yeah baby!

This pedal have four controls: level, tone, warp and drive. It's easy to use but you have to take time to know the warp control. Somepeople say that this feature is not appreciate, in fact at first my opinion was the same. But when you take a time with this control you know the importance of the control. Basiclly is this: in the right position you achieve a fuzz sound and in the left position you achieve a overdrive-fuzz sound(in the middle you get another overdrive-fuzz sound)

I think that is more a fuzz-overdrive than a distortion pedal. The sound is very good, warm, with a lot of harmonics and the most important: you hear your natural guitar sound. But it depends on what amplifier do you conect this pedal. I conect it to a Egnater TOL50 combo with a strat plus deluxe guitar and the sound is wonderful. To get a idea of the sound you can think on Hendrix, David Gilmour or Robben Ford sounds. But I try to conect the pedal to a Roland Cube40 amp and it sounds pretty bad. I also conect it to a sinmarc transistors amp and the sound is pretty good. The only thing bad is than you can't reduce the drive sound although you turn the drive control control left.

I play a lot of styles and have been playing for 10 years. I also have a digitech rp-12(bad distortions if you don't use the EQ) and a engl 350 preamp(good distortion but not as classic and "vintage" sound as the XXL). I have played with some distortions (that I haven't owned) like the boss MT-2, ibanez fat cat, zoom 505,zoom 404040, etc and I didn't like this distortions very much. I think the XXl is a great pedal.

This pedal is fairly easy to use. 4 Controls - Level, Tone, Warp & Drive. Pretty self explanatory.

I switch back and forth between Les Paul Junior's and Japanese Strat reissues. All fitted with Seymour Duncan Hot Rail pickups (Yes, my Junior has a Hot Rail in it as well). Sonically, all my guitars are big sounding to begin with. Add the XXL to the mix and the possibilities are endless.The trick to this pedal is using your guitars volume to control everything.

My signal chain is as follows: an original Digitech Whammy, Clyde Wah, XXL, Boss Flanger, TC Chorus, Line Modulation Pedal, Boss Chorus pedal, Boss DD5, Line 6 Delay and a Boss Noise Gate. All pedals are powered with an Voodoo Labs Pedal Power except the Wah, the TC Chorus and the Line 6 boxes.

Is the pedal noisy ? Yes and no. While engaging the pedal you'll hear a slight "clip". It will make your amp hiss a bit as well, but what loud amp does'nt hiss. This is why I have a Noise Suppressor.

This pedal will interact with amps differently. With small practice combos, the pedal is a bit overkill. This pedal definitely needs to be fed into a clean amp. Then again I'm part of that school plays clean and uses a box for my "heavy" sound. I run two Marshall JCM 800's (Model #2203) and plug into the "low" input. This allows me to have a loud clean tone - It's the Smashing Pumpkins trick that I've been doing for years. So when I kick in the XXL, you definitely know that it's on. Just an incredible rich tone, with gigantic harmonics and massive punch.

For those of you looking for that Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock" tone, this pedal will nail it. And like I said before, you can vary the tone with just a roll of the volume knob. A very solid sounding Distortion box.

I've had this pedal for about 4 years now. No problems at all. One of the better built pedals out there.

This is the only pedal I take to the gig.

Never had to deal with Tech 21. If this pedal broke, I would just go out and buy another one.

I play all different types of music. Primarily, I play Alternative
music. My influences are Steve Stevens during his time w/Billy Idol, Robert Smith from the Cure, John McGeoch's work with Siouxie and the Banshees and bands such as the Church and Echo and the Bunnymen.

For what I do, this pedal allows me to do what I need to get done. When pushed, the tone is completely volatile and aggressive, but yet still musical. I needed something that would give me night and day between my settings. When I play clean, the tone is very dreamy and watery -depending on what modulation effect is currently engaged at that moment and my dirty tone is complete anarchy. Basically, my tone will say "l love you" and then turn around at moments notice and tell you to "F**k off".

I've had about every distortion box ever made. I chose this box on a whim actually. I read a review and decided to pick one up. Compared to other boxes this one had the most gain. My thoughts on other various pedals:

The Boss DS1 - Too fizzy
The Boss Heavy Metal pedal - Not applicable in a real situation
The Fulltone Fulldrive - Not enough drive
Big Muff - Big disappointment - too wooly
The Creamy Dreamer - Not musical
Tube Screamer - What's the big fuss about this pedal ?

Hands down, the XXL is my favorite distortion box. It suits me fine. I would definitely buy this pedal over and over again. It's part of my musical DNA.

It does take a little tweaking... but there are four knobs -- not rocket science, but you have to give it a chance...
Some pedals "play it safe" by limiting the variation in sound availibility - thus they are "easier to use" for the whiners in the bunch ;) This pedal does not "play it safe"... so yes, you do have to tweak to get kewl sounds... but let's face it, if you just jumble your amp's knobs and try to play, it's going to sound like crap - does that mean your amp is hard to use? I digress...

One other complaint - the LED doesn't shine very brightly, even with a new battery... BUT, the unit I bought has a battery lid (this must be a change from original, since I see someone complaining about removing screws to change batteries in a prior review)--- this is something to lose/break... I would prefer just having to remove the four screws every few weeks... oh the pain, the pain ;)

I will base things on the Peavey Envoy (transtube) SS amp (set clean with a little fake power tube overdrive) with a Les Paul and EMG 81/85. I know it'll be 10x easier to get tone out of the Mesa Triaxis/90-90 setup.

First, as I said above, this pedal does not "play it safe" by only offering limited tweakability to one particular sound (yes, even the venerable TS808 is of this variety - you can't make it sound bad generally, but it has limited uses imho)... that said, you can get some terrible, farty-blatty tinny crap sounds out of the XXL if you don't tweak... I first plugged it in, left the Warp in the "safe zone" and got a pretty bland, tinny, farty sound...

I started playing with the Tone and Warp knobs (leaving the Drive at about 3 o'clock), and got some complex, very dynamic and musical distortions --- I own tons of pedals - the better ones, in my book, can really sound terrible if you are lazy and don't dial for awhile.
It's obvious that Tech 21 discontinued this pedal because the average user did not have the patience/prowess to find the tone in this very special little box.

After about 5 minutes, with Tone at 5 o'clock, Warp around noon-one and Drive at about 3 o'clock, I was jammin away with some nice, Noisy (yes, it's noisy---- but so is a cranked Marshall, Boogie, Soldano, Rivera, etc... folks! Be real!) Complex Compressed yet dynamic sweet harmonic sustaining distortion --- (very much like a pushed tube preamp)... Another pedal I own, Fulltone DP2, has similar qualities (the Fulltone is a lot more versatile... but at a price)- The Fulltone also has some complainers -- for the same reasons - it can sound bad due to it's tweakability and ability to go over the edge in all directions...

Bottom line - I love it and will probably try to grab another while they're still not too rare - it's unique and a keeper... can get some very Vai/Satriani/et al punchy, noisy, harmonic fun out of this puppy

Hmmmm.... not built like a Fulltone, has plastic in/out jack housings... but the box is the standard "Hammond 1590B" size box... It'll last with a little care - the knobs are not offset, so you don't want to throw it in a bag with guitar/mic stands, etc... and you don't want to jump up and down on it (well, other than the switch)... it seems to use an electronic "flip/flop" switch ciruit -- that is, the switch is single throw (momentary, like on Boss/Ibanez stuff)... so it should last longer than the mechanical double throw switces that go "click" every time you stomp... (ok, I prefer the fell of the mechanical double throw switch - you can tell when you hit it)

The LED doesn't shine too brightly....

I'd never rely on one pedal with no backup... you just never know... lightning strikes...

N/A

At $41, this was a steal... I can get sounds very comparable to some of the nastier, noisy, tube-ular shred tones that I get from the Fulltone Distortion Pro... I don't know what the list was, but even $100 would be a good value for me.... From a sonic perspective, I'd hand over my TS808 (if it weren't so damn collectible)before I'd give up this pedal... TS808 tone is all over these days... the XXL is more unique, more on-the-edge (or _over_ the edge) and way way way more amp/tube like imho....

I'd buy another one... ;)

No problem if you read the manual and understand what the "Tone" and "Warp" knobs do. Otherwise you might be a bit puzzled, because the "Tone" knob works a bit strangely and the "Warp" knob is subtle unless you know what to listen for.

Guitar: cheap Korean Strat copy with humbucker retrofitted at bridge.

This box does one sound beautifully, and it's "My hot-rodded Marshall stack is overheating and about to explode." Turn the Warp all the way CCW, tone about 1 o'clock, and set gain according to how hot your pickups are (I use about 2 o'clock). Big bassy hi-gain chugga-crunch and singing "woman tone" sustain. Wonderful!

Unfortunately it doesn't do anything else...trying to get just a little distortion makes it go crackle-crackle at the transition. Use something else, like a Butler "Real Tube".

It's not noisy considering the amount of gain involved.

Haven't had any problems but I haven't abused it either. No data.

Haven't had to ask.

It's a great pedal if you want the sound it delivers, which I think is killer. But it's not versatile. I'm giving it a 9 for the tone it has, but subtracting 2 for all the BS hype Tech 21 put out about how versatile it was.

It's a distortion pedal. Crank the gain and ROCK. It's especially cool for getting various feedback tones with the electric guitar and a big amplifier. Oh- changing the battery is a hassle with 4 screws.

The sound is not for everyone. This was a good fit for certain music I played- it has a full bodied distortion with a very harsh edge in the treble. Distortion boxes are like spices, it's good to have several different units around. Amplifiers are like the meat. No amount of spices will make rotten meat sound good. How's that for a carnivore analogy??

I gigged for years with this without any problems.

don't know.

This is good for certain metal and noise sounds. I wouldn't rely on it for all distortion needs.

the different of warp controll is't most notorious with the humbucking
to bridge. (sound more fuzz).THE WARP IS'T A GREAT ADDITAMENT.

GREAT PEDAL! I played for 13 years, I used BOSS distortion pedal, XXL better BETTER than dist. BOSS (DS-1, DS-2, SD-1, MT-2(puaj!))
fine tone "like amp dist. tone" very dynamic.
little problem of noise, extrange problem with low volumen setting of my guit. the high frecuency`s up`s in these situation.

no problema

BArta is't a good guy.

FINE pedal!!!

Pretty easy to get good sounds out of this (although I am still trying to find a setting that will let me turn my guitar volume and clean up the distortion). 4 knobs and a footswitch, not to difficult and thankfully most of the controls are labled for what they are (except WARP) unlike DOD's new boxes with stupid shit names!

It made a an old Ampeg VH 140 c solid state amp sound pretty crunchy to the point where some tube head buddys of mine thought the ampeg was a tube amp. Now-a-days the XXL is running through my Peavy Classic 50 tube amp.

It survived 4 years of punishing stomping in dives and outdoor gigs by a guitarist who would occasionaly get into it too much (thanks to beer chuging contests between me and the drummer) and is no worse for the wear. Hell it still looks pretty new.

NA

This little tank was good for the heavier stuff (CREED, queensryche, collective soul and originals) but was too much for the Stevie Ray and Chris Duarte tunes. Although I found a neat trick for that. I set my Tube amps dirty channel to a slight break-up tone (black Crow like) and then for leads I would kick in the XXL. It gave me that unpredictable drive and overtones that makes guitar players slobber for!

This thing is pretty straight foward and easy to get good sounds out of. Tech 21 website still has instructions on how to use it

Fender California fat strat-XXL-Music Man RD210 130. The MM is stone quiet with and without this thing inline. Of course when you crank it you get a little noise. Anyway, with the MM set super clean (totally countryfryed)I kick this thing in with warp full on and gain at 3/4 and I'm in heaven. Great harmonics and tube saturated distortion. Great response to player dynamics. I match the amp and XXL levels so I can use the volume to roll of the top. I also tried this with my Roland JC120 and well....you need tubes for tube distortion. Duh

I guess so and no I would not

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I mostly play 50's to current rock. I also dabble in Jazz & Country.
All in my basement studio with a couple of friends and just for fun. I've tried the DOD 250, Big Muff, French Toast, Akai Shred-o-matic (which I really like) and Fab Tone. This box is the best of this bunch as far as my setup and style go.

I thought it was fairly easy to get a good sound. I've had it for years but only recently integrated it into my setup. I've used it in the past for at home, personal practice. I finally started messing withe tone and Warp knobs and realized how versatile this pedal is. I'd say if your just starting out with this thing set the tone at 12 o' clock and the Warp all the way counter clockwise.

I have 2 Marshall heads(tube) and a Randall head(SS). Bolt-on guitars with humbuckers. It does get pretty noisy with the Drive past 12 o' clock. This is a high gain pedal. I love distortion and this thing delivers. This comes close to the best distortion pedal I've ever heard which is a Tonebone Hot-British. I didn't keep that one because I thought this came pretty close & couldn't justify the $.

I play rock with lots of distortion going on all the time. I've got a Marshall Shredmaster, TS9DX/808, Rat, MXR Dist+, Boss Heavy Metal, Westbury W-20 - none have the touch sensitivity this one has. Though I used the RAT for a long time, it's distortion isn't as refined as the XXL. The RAT is grittier, nastier. I wasn't digging the midrange bite of the RAT anymore. I saw 2 used XXL's for $40 or $50 at a store I should have nabbed them for spares because they don't make these anymore.