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Tech 21 XB Driver


Cosmo Valdemar

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£500 for an overdrive pedal?  

 

I didn't even think the 'clean' setting was that clean, added to which the recording/setting/bass sounded compressed!  :(  

 

A bi-amp switch; it has 2 channels, 1 with a HPF, the other with a LPF... blended back into 1 output.  

 

It'll be perfect for someone's needs but I can't help think they are just knocking out new 'designs' for the sake of it.

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51 minutes ago, warwickhunt said:

£500 for an overdrive pedal?  

 

I didn't even think the 'clean' setting was that clean, added to which the recording/setting/bass sounded compressed!  :(  

 

A bi-amp switch; it has 2 channels, 1 with a HPF, the other with a LPF... blended back into 1 output.  

 

It'll be perfect for someone's needs but I can't help think they are just knocking out new 'designs' for the sake of it.

It's a lot more than just an overdrive pedal! As for knocking out new designs for the sake of it, that's quite a curious take... what else do should pedal companies do? This one does offer something that none of their other pedals do.

 

As for the price... £500 was a guess but I don't think it'll be far off sadly.

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Personally, I'd say £450. That would put it up with the studio strip eq pedal they did a few years ago. 

 

What this looks like to me is that you can run both in parallel or combined depending on whether the crossover is selected or not.

 

That suggests to me that (without seeing a manual yet) that it can do parallel dual channel (Orange Bass Butler), bi-amp (Dug Pinnick) as well as lpf and hpf a la (Darkglass X7). It seems like a winner to me espeically with parametric mids. Pity there wasn't an option to run it with stereo bass. Can't have everything though.

 

As for Tech 21 "just cranking out new pedals because they can," obviously all pedal development should have ceased after the fuzz face in the 1960s. 

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14 minutes ago, Wolverinebass said:

Personally, I'd say £450. That would put it up with the studio strip eq pedal they did a few years ago. 

 

What this looks like to me is that you can run both in parallel or combined depending on whether the crossover is selected or not.

 

That suggests to me that (without seeing a manual yet) that it can do parallel dual channel (Orange Bass Butler), bi-amp (Dug Pinnick) as well as lpf and hpf a la (Darkglass X7). It seems like a winner to me espeically with parametric mids. Pity there wasn't an option to run it with stereo bass. Can't have everything though.

 

As for Tech 21 "just cranking out new pedals because they can," obviously all pedal development should have ceased after the fuzz face in the 1960s. 

 

You're probably more than aware of the set ups I've had, squire.  On paper it looks like a one box solution to an old set up I was running with a Rolls crossover, into a BDDI and a VT Bass.  I'd be interested in seeing what your Hamer would sound like straight into the dUg funbox.

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1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

 I'd be interested in seeing what your Hamer would sound like straight into the dUg funbox.

I actually still have a massive rack mount setup with the Rolls and a Digitech 2120 amongst many other things, which is insane.

 

The Hamer through the Dug sounds brilliant. Just add a sliver of chorus above 700Hz and it's monstrous.

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I just watched this presentation through some decent speakers.  The 'effing brutal' setting is about what the Darkglass A/O spiel might describe as 'picking daisies with your loved one, tra-la-la'.  Not really that brutal at all, it's more like the entry point for them.

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23 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

Personally, I'd say £450. That would put it up with the studio strip eq pedal they did a few years ago. 

 

What this looks like to me is that you can run both in parallel or combined depending on whether the crossover is selected or not.

 

That suggests to me that (without seeing a manual yet) that it can do parallel dual channel (Orange Bass Butler), bi-amp (Dug Pinnick) as well as lpf and hpf a la (Darkglass X7). It seems like a winner to me espeically with parametric mids. Pity there wasn't an option to run it with stereo bass. Can't have everything though.

 

As for Tech 21 "just cranking out new pedals because they can," obviously all pedal development should have ceased after the fuzz face in the 1960s. 

Not seen the manual either but from their blurb yes the Mix mode is parallel without crossovers. Just marked another notch on my list...

 

57 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I just watched this presentation through some decent speakers.  The 'effing brutal' setting is about what the Darkglass A/O spiel might describe as 'picking daisies with your loved one, tra-la-la'.  Not really that brutal at all, it's more like the entry point for them.

Tim mentioned on talkbass that he had to rush the video a bit to be ready for NAMM (the demo pedal is a rough production proto with the HPF and LPF labelled wrong) so he didn't really get into too much of the range.  Wouldn't expect the gain to be any lower than the DP-3X or other sansamps.

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I must admit I noticed that the lpf and hpf were labelled wrongly as well.

 

However, the thing that stuck out to me was that you can only (admittedly it may not be final) take the drive channel up to 750Hz. It would have been nice if it could have went up to 2kHz with more of an overlap from the clean channel.

 

Admittedly, that's in no way a deal breaker. Just a thought. The X7 ultra goes a lot higher in terms of how much low end you can cut from the distortion. Also, the dUg amp had a filter you could push round towards almost 3kHz if I remember right.

 

Whilst I don't doubt that the major points are taken care of, it's always cool to have settings that are a bit less safe than you think is acceptable. Applying tons of distortion to just the upper edge of the harmonics can quite often sound brilliant. It's probably too much to hope for really.

Edited by Wolverinebass
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  • 2 weeks later...

£599?!! So now Rocky Road surpasses Westside Distibution for the title of "biggest price gouger ever." They seem to have stuck with the formula of:

 

1. Take price in dollars. 

2. Change Dollar sign to pound sign. 

3. Add £100 or more more if niche item.

 

There is no way that pedal is worth that. People (including myself) have criticised Darkglass pricing. This is a whole new level to that. You could get one of the midi controllable Darkglass pedals (ADAM, Photon) for that price.

 

When we had the fun of the Dug Pinnick amp being sold for $1800 stateside and £2500 here, the Tech21 bods said on here that they didn't have any control over UK pricing. That's fine. What they do have control over is choosing to work with middlemen companies ramping up the price by £200. 

 

$499 = £395. Surprisingly not £599.

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4 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Add VAT @ 20%, customs duties and shipping and £395 Stateside is not gonna be too far off £599 over here? 

 

Yes. Obviously they're shipping the pedals singularly in 1st class Virgin Atlantic and serving them caviar.

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1 hour ago, Wolverinebass said:

Yes. Obviously they're shipping the pedals singularly in 1st class Virgin Atlantic and serving them caviar.

 

Haha - maybe! Although you've clearly more experience on travelling first class than me 😅

Either way, like you I won't be forking out £600 for a fancy EQ pedal with some drive...

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10 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Add VAT @ 20%, customs duties and shipping and £395 Stateside is not gonna be too far off £599 over here? 

 

 

13 hours ago, Wolverinebass said:

£599?!! So now Rocky Road surpasses Westside Distibution for the title of "biggest price gouger ever." They seem to have stuck with the formula of:

 

1. Take price in dollars. 

2. Change Dollar sign to pound sign. 

3. Add £100 or more more if niche item.

 

There is no way that pedal is worth that. People (including myself) have criticised Darkglass pricing. This is a whole new level to that. You could get one of the midi controllable Darkglass pedals (ADAM, Photon) for that price.

 

When we had the fun of the Dug Pinnick amp being sold for $1800 stateside and £2500 here, the Tech21 bods said on here that they didn't have any control over UK pricing. That's fine. What they do have control over is choosing to work with middlemen companies ramping up the price by £200. 

 

$499 = £395. Surprisingly not £599.

 

My brother in law has just taken up a position that takes him to Houston once a month.  I may take him up on the offer of, 'If you need anything, let me know...'

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14 hours ago, Al Krow said:

Add VAT @ 20%, customs duties and shipping and £395 Stateside is not gonna be too far off £599 over here? 

 

 

Well...

 

if we could order directly from a USA shop then the usual approach is applying 25% to the item cost and shipping to be safe to cover the VAT and import.

 

Let's say £50 shipping.

 

$395 is currently £312 at today's exchange rate.

 

£312 + £50 shipping = £362 

 

£362 + 25% = £452 delivered to a UK address.

 

As they are listed in the UK at £599 that basically means if it went via the distributor and a UK shop they are getting £147 between them. I suspect it's probably £100 to the distributor and £47 to the retailer.

 

This is of course ignoring the bulk savings available to businesses etc. They certainly won't be paying £50 per item for shipping by air. It will be something like half a ship container every year full of T21 products. Probably work out to a couple of quid per item. It's probably closer to £200 split between retailer and distributor, massively in favour of the distributor.

 

UK distributors really are taking the piss on so many products.

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