Tech21NYC

21 hours ago, Jack said:

What can't/won't/doesn't happen in an ampless setup is volume creep and volume wars where everyone turns themselves up throughout the night. Maybe you start with a quiet drummer, maybe you start with a loud drummer. What you don't get is a drummer who keeps hitting harder and harder because that bloody guitar amp is drowning them out. 

Totally not accurate. Even with individual monitor mixes volumes will still vary and keyboard players are the worst. I've worked for years in musical theater in NYC and they pay programmers a lot of $$$ to setup the multiple keyboard patches to specific levels and even then it doesn't always work. The last show I played on Broadway was the Neil Diamond "It's A Beautiful Noise" musical and the band was onstage. Everyone was required to wear IEM's and we all had 16 channel monitor mixers. Players would still get volume notes and even with my custom 25dB Westones IEM's, when the stage would move forward during parts of the performance the ambient volume would overwhelm my IEM's and I wasn't about to ruin my hearing for some stupid gig. Even warming up the sax and trumpet would be so loud acoustically, turning them off at my mixer did nothing. 

Not every situation is guitar, bass, drums, keys and vocals. The loudest gigs I've played have been with brass players. Try turning down a saxophone. 

In the end you either know how to play a low volume gig or you don't. It seems if volume is such a huge issue the "first" thing to ditch would be the acoustic kit. Use a Cajon player or electronic kit, that brings the volume way down. Maybe it's different on your side of the pond but in most live music venues I go to it's the PA system that is always too loud. DJ's as well. In a small venue there is no need to mic anything unless your drummer has a weak foot. When everything is direct you are totally at the mercy of the person running sound and on the average the skills of most sound "techs" is pretty subpar. Our sound tech works for a big sound company in NYC and he will tell you that most techs barely mix. They are level setters. 

On 04/10/2025 at 07:34, Jack said:

Nothing wrong with either approach but don't think that an all-pa setup won't work in small venues. This place held fewer than 100 people. 

So, acoustic drums (which typically dictates how loud the band will play) which is typically the loudest instrument on the band stand and has no volume control (other than the players dynamics) and no shield in front of drum kit. Band is behind the speakers and sub which means unless the PA system is really quiet you will get a ton of low end backwash. Monitoring with IEM's I assume? Dedicated sound person? If you're drummer plays very quietly and the PA is not too loud it can work. If the drummer is loud and by default so will the PA in order to keep up with low end backwash and drums you will have to monitor at unsafe levels with your IEM's. 

Class D is the operational class of an amplifier. SS power amps are by design meant to be flat response and shouldn't "sound" different when run in their linear operational range. The big advantage of Class D is the power efficiency and the resulting lower weight when compared with Class A, AB, G and H etc.

When we were making amps our VT Bass 1969 and 1000 heads were offered in both 300 watt Class AB and D and 1000 watt Class D platforms. They sounded the same. Now our dUg Ultra Bass 1000 amplifier sounded drastically different from our VT Bass 1000 but that was due to the unique preamp section. The Class D power sections were identical. 

When you run the Bass Driver into the front end of an amp you are stacking preamps and that changes everything which is why we recommend setting the amp on the neutral side if the Bass Driver will be used as an always on effect. 

It would probably make more sense to add a chorus with the Bass Driver.

Vintage tube Ampeg SVT, V4's, Traynors, Sunn, Marshalls had no "Blend" control which is why I mentioned the reason for the design. 

I think for a lot of players that have only played solid state amps and have never spent a considerable amount of time with tube amps, any type of OD can seem like an effect. When I cut bass tracks at home I usually just use my old Leeds pedal. No blend. I used to go into my Great River ME-1NV through my Emperical Labs Distressor but found even just running the Leeds fairly clean the bass sounds more there and melds with the track better. 

What are you plugging the Bass Driver into? An amp, mixer? 

The Bass Driver "DI" was designed to facilitate the old school way of both mic'ing and direct inject that was done in the studios and stage for years. I can't recall that last time I've seen any live sound tech or studio engineer employ this technique. Typically they would close mic your bass amp and split the signal to a DI. The mic'd amp sound would provide the character and body to your tone and the DI of your instrument would add definition. The two sounds were mixed accordingly and your final sound was a composite. 

Fast forward to how things are presently done. Most studio applications are DI'd bass. For live situations most sound techs will either plug you into a DI box and you just use your bass amp as your stage monitor or they will take a DI out of your bass amp. Bass amps will typically have a pre/post setting on the DI. The pre setting is just the sound of your bass pickups and the post is the sound of your amp but most amps don't have compensated (speaker sim) outputs. 

The idea behind the Bass Driver is that you would plug into the BDDI and send the parallel output to your amp for your stage and room sound and the SansAmp output would go to the board giving the engineer a more consistent feed and a more complex tone. 

The Bass Fly Rig was not designed to work like the Bass Driver. 

I think a lot of players associate the SansAmp sound with distortion. They can do clean to overdrive to very distorted if desired. You don't have to use the Blend to obtain clean tones. They operate like old school tubes amps but have the advantage of producing distortion without the need for high volume levels like an old SVT, HiWatt etc. 

49 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

I am not sure how it is a compromise? I would think it would give you more control over your sound.

An IEM is not a musical instrument amplifier. The idea is that it takes the place of wedges for monitoring. FRFR speakers are designed for sound "reproduction" vs sound production. The electric guitar and bass were designed to be used with a musical instrument amplifier not an IEM. It works and if you like it or prefer it that's cool but know it for what it is. When I'm at home and play guitar or bass I don't look for my IEM's to play through. 

49 minutes ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Honestly I can hear my low end so much better on IEMs than I ever could live, I am really enjoying it. I can have a mix which is just the things I want to hear without having to compromise on listening to some guitarist flat out - I want to hear me, I want to hear vocals, I want to hear the drums, I can hear the guitars but nowhere near as loud as they are compared to everything else live.

 

You must be playing in a fairly low volume situation or you may be monitoring louder than you think. Are you using custom fit IEM's or generic ones? Even with my 25dB custom Westone IEM's and our drummer behind a plexi shield his drums are still quite loud. 

 

 

The Clean channel is totally clean. There is no amp or speaker emulation. The Drive channel can also be set clean if desired. It's best to turn the Bite off and switch the Mid control to post. Here is a picture of the pedal set so the Clean and Drive channels are both clean and relative in volume with a P-Bass. 

One user suggestion regarding the Bi-amp mode. It's easier to hear and understand what the high and low pass filters are doing if you turn off the level control on the opposite channel. For instance, you can dump all the low end out of the Drive channel (if desired) and still have a lot of clean bottom end when you mix in the Clean channel etc. 

If you're playing through IEM's which are basically glorified hearing aids and there is no stage amp, the amp and instrument no longer hear or respond together. This may not be as big of an issue with bass vs lead guitar where sustain is more important but it is a compromise. The problem with bass and IEM's is that unless your IEM's isolate you from the PA's low end, it will become hard to hear yourself which will cause you to turn up your IEM's which defeats the purpose from a hearing protection aspect. IEM's can just as easily damage your hearing as well as protect it. 

I've played in situations with IEM's or headphones with real amps in isolation as well as modelers and the difference is negligible. In a recording studio setting it's not much of an issue but in a live performance with players adjusting their volumes as well as the adjustments to the PA it can be a real challenge. 

Do they have decibel limits at live venues in the UK? Is that where much of this is coming from? 

22 hours ago, redbandit599 said:

Hi there - the SH1. Sorry, should have made that clearer!

That's a signature pedal and the artist would have to request a change. Even at that, we would have to lose the tuner due to the current limitations of phantom power. Personally I'd just add an inexpensive DI box. If you want something similar, the VT Bass DI would be closest but it depends how you dial it in. 

20 hours ago, redbandit599 said:

@Tech21NYC love the sound of this pedal, but I'd happily trade the tuner and second channel for a clean throughput and phantom power. That would make it closer to your existing offerings and (for me) be a more giggable package.

Which pedal are you referring to? 

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

 

Of course there is, there always was. I just don't believe a guitarist who says he is going to do it

 

It sounds like you've been playing with amateurs.  You either know how to play a gig or you don't. In my decades long playing career I've played over 5000 gigs. Whether I'm playing a multimillion $ Broadway Musical production, local pub gig or recording in a studio the same principles always apply. You play at the appropriate volume for the room and situation. As a rule of thumb in most situations the drummer tends to dictate the overall volume of the band which is why I find it puzzling that in many situations where everyone plays direct, they use an acoustic drum kit. 

17 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

And other such believable lines such as "cheque is in the post" 😀

I'm not quite sure what your trying to say. Are you saying in 2025 there is no way to play a 100 watt guitar amp at a low volume vs playing a modeler through my 1000 watt FRFR wedge? 

It's really sad to me that playing live has become this. While I do "get" that in certain instances for a "show/performance" like Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Lady Gaga etc this might make sense. For the most part much of it comes down to inexperienced sound techs and musicians that don't know how to differentiate between a live performance and a studio recording. It's also part economics. For smaller acts that can't afford to travel with their gear it provides an option.

Think about this. You have a live drum kit that has no volume control. It's typically the loudest instrument on stage and yet the instruments with volume controls like guitar, bass and keys are all direct? I can turn down my 100 watt guitar amp to a quiet enough volume in my living room while watching TV, can the average drummer play that softly? While the plexi helps reduce the volume (I use an attenuator as well as plexi shields with my guitar rig) but even at that a loud drummer will still be loud no matter what. 

For myself their are only a handful of situations where I've agreed to not use an amp. Musical theater gigs and certain studio situations. I play better when using an amp. That's the point of the gear. To allow you to play and perform your best. It doesn't have to be loud to work. 

8 hours ago, Japhet said:

In my (limited) experience, I'd say that the volume delivered by a valve amp is more 'linear' than SS or class D. In other words, 8 is much closer to twice as loud as 4. Class D amps that I've had tend to get more 'shouty' without getting much louder whereas valve amps keep the inherent sound, albeit with a bit more drive, as they get pushed harder. These are my layman's terms which might work for some.

You have it backwards. SS amps are more linear. What you are describing is the tube amp starts to saturate and "compress" more when turned up. That provides a bit of a cushion to the sound whereas the Class D amp will just get louder. With SS amps there is no output transformer. The wattage changes with impedance. See the specs for our 1000 watt Class D dUg Ultra.

1000 Watts RMS minimum, @ 4Ω

600 Watts RMS minimum, @ 8Ω

300 Watts RMS minimum, @ 16Ω

Many commercial SS amps are rated at 2 Ohms because that's the biggest number. The only time I ever blew up a power amp was running at 2 ohms. 

13 hours ago, agedhorse said:

There are a couple of reasons for using a 200 watt module… the first being that the amp is not operated at 4 ohms, therefore the rated power is only 100 watts. The second reason is for duty cycle management combined with the modeling algorithms, specifically relaxing the compression and

limiting attack time versus how hard the amp is driven. There’s a ton of stuff going on under the hood.

Actually it is. From  the spec sheet. 

Wattage

200W into 4Ω (Simulates 85W Tube Amp Performance) 

Speakers

Two - 12" Jensen® N-12K Neo

Total Impedance

4 ohms

It makes sense. You want more available headroom when using the SS amp vs the tube amp. Coming from the sound reinforcement side of things the basic rule of thumb was always doubling the amount of power in relation to speaker wattage. ie 1000 watt of speakers use at least a 2000 watt power amp. I found this out the hard way by constantly blowing tweeters in my PA tops because I was using an underpowered power amp. With musical instrument amps it usually goes the other way. A 300 watt SVT is paired with an 800 watt 8X10.  A 100 watt Marshall will be used with a cab rated at 200-300 watts.

Of course this begs the question what is accomplished with with all that complex stuff under the hood? A lighter, less expensive amp that has more flexibility and no maintenance other than software updates. The repair and reliability is hard to quantify at this point. Digital amps usually can't be easily field serviced. If the processor goes out it needs to be replaced etc. We do some repairs on the Class D power amp modules in our amps but it's usually more cost effective to replace the module.  While tubes became an obsolete tech in the 1950-60's and have their own set of drawbacks they are still being made. The original Line 6 AxSys 212 which came out in 1996 is no longer supported by Line 6 and can be very difficult if not impossible to repair and yet my '66 Fender Bassman lives on. 

On 17/04/2025 at 09:57, agedhorse said:

Mike’s still here, doing mostly legacy repairs and touring support of legacy products. 
 

There are lots of things being done with solid state that can address most of the feel issues, your example of the MOSValve amps is one approach that was originally designed by BK Butler, we acquired the brand after it fell on very hard times (we built cabinets for TubeWorks for a while, before they shut down) and developed some new products, but the brand reputation was just too damaged to overcome the legacy issues. 
 

The work on solid state power amps for guitar continues on under the radar, Pat Quilter’s efforts are probably some of the most successful but then there’s also the Tonemaster series that’s gaining ground and popularity.

 

It’s a very complicated balancing exercise to develop new technology that convincingly emulates both the tone/voicing and the feel of the older technology. Of course you already know this with your products, specially the SansAmp. 

With these tariffs we all have bigger problems than tube vs SS vs Class AB vs Class D etc.   I used to deal with BK when he had Tubeworks. The MosValve was cool. I did a gig a few months ago and my co-guitarist had a little Qulter combo and it sounded good. Pat is a legend in the industry and I've used QSC products for years. The Tonemaster is unique in that it is a modeler dedicated to one amp sound married to an ICE power module but they use the same cabinets that their tube counterparts use. Interesting to note that the specs that Fender gives are somewhat relevant to this discussion. From the Fender product page: 

Twin Reverb amplifier uses massive digital processing power to achieve a single remarkable sonic feat: faithfully modeling the circuitry and 85-watt power output of an original Twin tube amp. Using a high-performance 200-watt digital power amp to achieve the headroom and dynamic range of a real vintage Twin tube amp, paired with the pronounced sparkle and clarity of two Jensen® N-12K neodymium speakers

On 17/04/2025 at 11:54, pete.young said:

@agedhorse @Tech21NYC this is absolutely fascinating stuff. Thank you for sharing your memories and experiences. I wonder whether either of you came across Greg Burman?

I'm not familiar with that name. 

14 hours ago, agedhorse said:

Yes, I currently work for Mesa Boogie, I'm the principle engineer behind all of the Subway bass products but also handle various aspects of the guitar amp world as well. I work(ed) hand in hand with Randy, John, Jim and Doug, spent a lot of time with them, in addition to all the other folks. While I'm the "new guy", I've been designing Mesa for about 12 years, and prior to that I designed for Genz Benz/Fender for about 30 years, plus all my pro audio designs, so I've been around the block more than a few times.

Does Mike Bendinelli still work there or is he long gone? He used to be one of the guys I would talk to there. I had one of the first Mesa MKII's (1978?) back when you would deal directly with Randy and his first wife Raven. My favorite amp was the MKIII Simulclass for lead guitar. I had a Studio Preamp and their old 50/50. The only thing I have left is their 112 Thiele which is not a good guitar cab but works for bass. 

I don't have problem with SS. When paired through a good SS or tube power amp our stuff can get very close to a tube amp sound. Recorded, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference. When push comes to shove I have not found any SS tech that can compete with what a good tube amp can do in terms of "feel" and tonal complexity. If you take something like my old BF Deluxe RVB amp. Our engineer replaced the output transformer with a Bandmaster transformer which makes it "sound" like a bigger amp but the wattage is technically the same. It also was modded with a cathode bias switch that removes the negative feedback. Substitute a 12AY7 in the first preamp stage and use a 12at7 in the PI slot and the sound and "feel" drastically changes and that's running the amp clean. You would be hard pressed to do that in a SS design. The Mosvalve was my favorite SS power amp for guitar and Quilter is doing some interesting things but it never gets quite there. Of course for some sounds and designs SS can be superior. 

Bass is a bit different. For the maximum amount of headroom in a tube bass amp, the weight and cost can be deal breakers for most. 

11 hours ago, agedhorse said:

That’s not really the reason why lower powered guitar amps sound louder. The biggest three factors are that the guitar signal resides in the most sensitive portion of our hearing, guitar speakers are very efficient in that range, and that when distortion is used (common for guitar), the THD is often 30-40% which often is part of the desired tone and this increases average power delivered to the speaker.

I have to disagree with you there because the same holds true when comparing a 50-100 watt SS guitar amp with their tube counterparts. I'm not talking about what most players would consider "distorted." 30-40% is quite distorted. I doubt most guitarists on these forums are playing archtops. Tube amps are usually rated "clean" at 5-15% THD. The guitar amp is 1/2 the instrument. It's musical instrument "production" vs reproduction which is what SS amps are designed for. You used to work for Mesa Boogie right? Randy said old school "engineers" thought he was nuts try to make an amp "intentionally" distort. 

While I will agree with you that it's way easier to listen to a loud bass amp vs guitar amp, the problem with bass (or low end in general) is that when you start getting down to 200Hz the bass frequencies become omnidirectional. On big stages the low end backwash from the PA system can make all instruments difficult to hear. That causes everyone to start turning up or playing harder. Some of the newer more sophisticated systems use cardioid arrays to address this. I'm constantly bitching at my sound tech to move the subs as far from the stage as possible. I need to hear by bass player. A loud PA makes it very difficult to distinguish the actual pitch of the bass. 

Tube amps have more "useable" wattage when compared to most solid state designs. It's the reason a lead guitarist can gig with a 50 or 100 watt tube amp in most situations but a 50-100 watt SS bass amp is more of a practice amp. A tube amp will start clipping once it exceeds its RMS threshold but the resulting sound will not be perceived as distorted. Most SS amps become unusable once they exceed their RMS rating for any length of time. The last thing you want to do with any SS amp is run it close to it's max RMS wattage. Power is cheap. For some reason since Class D amps have become so popular many bass players seem to be going in a counterintuitive direction. Lots of power and minimal speakers. If you look at dUg Pinnick's bass rig, he's using his signature 1000 watt bass head but he's also running four 410 cabs rated at 2000 watts. That gives him a lot of headroom. 

The MP40 was replaced by the YYZ Shape-Shifter. 

13 minutes ago, fretmeister said:

...Of the others mentioned above, I've also had the Tech21 Steve Harris and I do regret selling that one but I think T21 missed a trick by not having an Aux in and headphone out for silent practice. I would never have sold it if it had those features.

Since a good majority of our customer base have home studios and recording interfaces, the need for an aux in and headphone function would not be needed and make the product more expensive. 

The problem with adding a headphone amp to a pedal product has to do with the newer switch mode power supplies. The older analog copper wire based power supplies that we originally used provided a ground reference for the pedal. When we started using the universal voltage switch mode supplies (that most of the industry is using) we found that those power supplies don't provide a ground reference for the pedal. That means you will get a noisy headphone signal. The workaround for this is to plug the pedal's XLR output into a mixer so what's the point. The other way to ground the pedal is to plug it into a grounded amplifier which means we would have to add another output which would make the pedal bigger and more expensive. 

Impulse responses date back to 1999 when Sony's DRE-S777 digital convolution reverb was first released. These units were very pricey. If you have a convolution plug-in in your DAW you can load IR's into it. Our purposes for the guitar and bass community, are generally for speaker simulation. Red Wirez was the first company I remember offering commercial IR's and a loader for sale. Here is an old Premier Guitar interview with Mike of Red Wirez where he explains what they are and how they are used. They have some nice bass cab IR's. 

While you can make a digital EQ curve that is beyond the capabilities of an analog hardware EQ and use it as an IR, technically it's not quite the same thing. An IR of a mic'd speaker cab also has time and phase information whereas a digital EQ does not have that information. 

My main point is that IEM's do not have the ability to block all sound form the outside. On a very quiet stage maybe. When the outside sound (mainly low end frequencies) start to overwhelm your IEM mix you will automatically start to turn up your IEM's. IEM's seal off the ear canal and create pneumatic pressure on your ear drum. Turning up the IEM's can easily damage your hearing. Sensaphonic sells this tool so you can monitor the level of your IEM's to prevent you from unsafe levels. The problem is that if you can't hear with the IEM's at safe levels there is not much you can do. I purchased my old Sensaphonic IEM's because they are silicone and seal better than acrylic IEM's and because they also provide more isolation than other brands, at least on paper.

Isolation: Up to 45.5 dB; broadband average 37 dB

Noise Reduction Rating: NRR 29 dB

I can tell you for a fact that on a loud stage they do not block enough outside sound. Look at where they put the sound system on one of our gigs. That big stack on the end of the stage was just a few feet from my vocal mic and guitar rig. My IEM's were useless. My gripe with playing in live venues in recent years is that the sound system is typically a bigger culprit when it comes to loud volumes. I always bring ear plugs to any venue whether I'm playing or not.