Sansamp Character Series Thoughts?

giantchris · July 11, 2011, 04:30:16 AM

Hey I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts/opinions on them. The Condo where I live it is essentially worthless to practice/play/record with an amp at any sort of fun volume and was curious if anyone had any experience with these with downtuning and added heavy distortion. All the shops I've been to have been sold out :d and I haven't had time to go to the big GC downtown as I work nights and its a big pain in the ass to get there with the free time I have.

Sam Hain · July 11, 2011, 07:25:30 AM

I have the Oxford and the California. Awesome pedals. I dont use these pedals as distortion though. I run mine into my amps Power Amp in jack to shape the sound I want, then get the distortion from Big Muff, which it sounds like your gonna do something similar. It gives me a sound similar to Corrosion of Conformity to Sabbath. They work great with a good set of head phones. The pedals is pretty powerful though....its easy to over do it with the controls and way overdrive your cabs, but with some time you can really dial in some cool tones.

As a stand alone stomp box there good too. The U.S Steel is real nice just as a distortion pedal. IMO.

Does that help?

giantchris · July 11, 2011, 07:50:06 AM

It does help quite a bit actually. I was essentially considering using them as a DI to my computer to play silently and wanted to know if they take pedals well. I've been using Line 6 stuff and its not bad if you tweak it but it doesnt do all that great with my fuzz factory or hm-2.

Love COC thats perfect thanks a ton.

grimniggzy · July 11, 2011, 10:15:05 AM

LOVE the VT Bass, I also use it as a Preamp into my "Power Amp In" jack

Hemisaurus · July 11, 2011, 10:30:06 AM

Didn't their first product cover all these things?

grimniggzy · July 11, 2011, 10:37:25 AM

in a way, it does the same job. the character series pedals are meant to cop the tones of specific amps though.
http://www.tech21nyc.com/products/sansamp/characterseries.html

Hemisaurus · July 11, 2011, 10:53:54 AM

Does anyone have multiples? No forget that, we are a collective here, is anyone willing to post gut shots of their pedal? I'd be interested to see how similar or dissimilar the different models are internally.

grimniggzy · July 11, 2011, 10:55:58 AM

found some here...
http://freestompboxes.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6571&hilit=tech21+character

Hemisaurus · July 11, 2011, 11:51:57 AM

So it's the same PCB for each with some jumpers, if you think you'd want more than one, probably better to buy the Classic or GT2. Didn't read the entire thread, wonder if anyone has added switches to the jumper pads, so they can switch them on the fly, like the original models.

Hemisaurus · July 11, 2011, 12:03:59 PM

Posting this for the schematic readers, it's a great example of analog modelling and/or tonestack design, each switch only inserts or removes a few components, but the effect on the sound is large

justinhedrick · July 11, 2011, 12:20:15 PM

now, on those pedals do you HAVE to have the mic modeling on there? what if i wanted to use it as a straight up pre-amp?

rayinreverse · July 11, 2011, 09:54:31 PM

I have the oxford. I use it as a preamp for DI recording.

moose23 · July 14, 2011, 01:17:51 PM

I have both the VTBass and the Oxford, love both of them and use them in my main rig all the time (well only one at a time), super tweakable eq, tubey overdrive at any volume and a lot cheaper than a tube pre. I run them into an old Trace power amp into an Eminence loaded diy 1x15. Wanna add another 2x15 but that can wait. I've used both with guitar too and can't fault them.

Instant Dan · July 14, 2011, 01:51:45 PM

Orange Goblin uses 'em.

SpaceTrucker · July 15, 2011, 08:41:11 PM

I got a vtm 120 so all the dip switches do the same basic thing. But I'm thinking of taking out the flimsy little switches and mounting then where the logo used to be with some mil spec metal flipswitches. And maybe adding a Baxandall tone stack switch. Just to cop some sleep tones.