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New Tech21 Q\Strip.


Painy
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40 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Danny - you've mentioned these guys before, I think,  and it does sound really interesting / neat. Obviously their shipping charges to the UK are more than $2 though? If you've got a mo, would you mind giving an example of typical costs of how it would work to buy something from a store in the US that doesn't normally ship to the UK using shipto.com? What insurance / guarantees to you get etc.?

$2 fee plus whatever standard rates USPS or FedEx charge to deliver / insure. I got a pedal over here for something like $25, check their site for any more info.

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11 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

Enjoy! (And this will be worse than the PDDI for 'forever twiddling' 'cos it's more versatile from what I've seen :) )

Is this a new band venture you're in? What genre you guys playing and any gigs in the diary?

Cheers. I’m not sure I will play as much with it as I have other pedals in the past. I play mostly with a pick but have always struggled to get a fuller finger type tone. I’m going to concentrate more on this that overal tone shaping. It will be used always on after my Cali and before my Pork Loin. 

It’s the she’s of an old band. We split in dec 2016 and I had was enjoying my Sat evening back, but my singer (and GF) was getting twitchy so she put a few ads up. That was may last year and we are still struggling to find a band we feel happy with. The guys we have can talk the talk, but the end result has been anything but inspiring. So, I’m hoping we will gig this year but things are going very slow. We are just doing the standard covers at the moment, nothing that really needs anything special  sounding from the bass, but its nice to hear a nice tone once in a while 

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I've got one. Super duper powerful eq, the lpf and hpf are a great touch however the lpf is based at 3k which I would usually think is a little low for me but the other controls make up for it and from what I understand, the drop-off isn't as steep as on some other lpfs. So it all balances out and allows me to get some cab-sim sounds when I DI. 

I'm not in any gigging bands at the moment but it's a great tool for recording everything, guitars, bass, vocals.

I did think at the time "why don't I get the vtbass DI instead? Or the two notes lebass" but this has a great eq and small footprint and isn't just for one instrument. 

The deep down truth is that I bought a spotless b-stock qstrip in the states from prymaxe. The b-stock discount, coupled with the other discounts they offer and the fact that I could get free shipping to my father in law's and then just bring it home meant that I paid about £160 for it. At that price, I'm very happy. At the UK price of £308? I don't think I would get enough value out of it to justify the cost.

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I had my first go on mine last night. It arrived during the day and i went straight off to rehearsals.

I will say i love it, love how it looks, love what it can do but think its waaaaay over priced. i agree, at £308 its not quite good value for money, but thats not to say its not going to do its job.

During the rehearsal i played with it, and yes, its very powerful. Problem was i was going through the studio's 2 1x15 Behringer cabs, and standing right in front of them. It sounded good to me, but listening back to the recording it was very boomy. My fault of course, and i need more time with it. I ended up using it more off than on, just so i didnt keep the band waiting while i fiddled with it. Next rehearsal isnt for a few weeks so ill have the hang of it by then, and ill also use my own cab. Those 1x15's are horrible, but convenient.

Im not sure how useful it twill be yet, but i can see its potential. I think its much better suited for home or studio use though.

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I had that on last night and it did seem to do something with my tone. I wouldn't say it was a huge improvement, certainly not as much as backing off the low knob on my bass, but its nice to have a safety net i guess.

I do intend to use the Q/strip for a few instruments so its not just for bass.

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I finally got around to playing with my Q/strip at home last night. Just Bass- Q/S - Zoom B3n in bypass mode and headphones. Ok, so its an EQ, not really much to expect. Plugged The Sire V7 in and had a play. Very powerful but i found the best tones were almost flat on the boosts. I never really had a 'wow' moment but i can see it potential. Saying that, even with it off and using my normal Zoom presets i wasn't feeling it last night.

I thought id drag the P bass out for a quick go, not played it for months.....WOW, there it is!!!!. I was amazed by how much a small turn on the two mid freq's can go from almost both pups on Jazz tone, to  bridge only growl pup, on my P bass. Obviously all the tones in between, but im really, really impressed with this box. I still realise its nothing really special, its just EQ, and all this may not translate donkey well to using it with a rig in a band situation, but its so easy to tweak to get quite different tones that im really over the moon with it.  

So, back to playing P bass again, although i will miss the B sting. Might invest in a Sire P bass at some point.

This obviously delays it going in to the Classifieds for a few months now :-)

 

Edited by dave_bass5
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  • 10 months later...
On 23/10/2017 at 23:30, Dood said:

Not surprisingly, I've had my mits on one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqSMMLsr4yM

I thought it was great and would love to get one on my own board when finances allow.

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but it seemed a better idea than starting a new one. :).

I'm seriously considering adding a parametric EQ pedal to my setup.  @Dood's review on the Q\Strip is excellent but does anyone have any thoughts / experience in comparing it  with the Empress ParaEQ

I don't necessarily need the DI features of the Q\Strip just the EQ.

Edited by PJ-Bassist
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2 hours ago, PJ-Bassist said:

Apologies for resurrecting an old thread but it seemed a better idea than starting a new one. :).

I'm seriously considering adding a parametric EQ pedal to my setup.  @Dood's review on the Q\Strip is excellent but does anyone have any thoughts / experience in comparing it  with the Empress ParaEQ

I don't necessarily need the DI features of the Q\Strip just the EQ.

Thank you :) I really appreciate that. it's been a week from hell, so this was a nice lift.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Empress is a nice pedal, I used to own one. The Q/Strip has two bands of sweepable midrange, two shelving EQ's, high and low pass filters and a 4.7 MegOhm input impedance. The Empress gives you three adjustable parametric EQ's with adjustable Q's for each, a 30dB foot switchable boost, 1MegOhm input as well as a 3 way input pad.

Our unit was designed to be like an old vintage channel strip and uses Mosfet circuitry. I'm not sure about the Empress topology but it's a well made unit. It depends on your needs. We go with a medium Q as that seems to work the best for most musical instrument applications. A wide Q can be a bit too subtle. The narrow Q is useful for fixing things like a specific frequency node or feedback etc. The HPF can be helpful as well for low end stage rumble or problematic low frequencies. The LPF in conjunction with one of the midrange bands can be used as an analog speaker sim. 

In the end it's always best to try both side by side if feasible, but I think I've covered the differences and similarities. 

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3 minutes ago, Tech21NYC said:

The Empress is a nice pedal, I used to own one. The Q/Strip has two bands of sweepable midrange, two shelving EQ's, high and low pass filters and a 4.7 MegOhm input impedance. The Empress gives you three adjustable parametric EQ's with adjustable Q's for each, a 30dB foot switchable boost, 1MegOhm input as well as a 3 way input pad.

Our unit was designed to be like an old vintage channel strip and uses Mosfet circuitry. I'm not sure about the Empress topology but it's a well made unit. It depends on your needs. We go with a medium Q as that seems to work the best for most musical instrument applications. A wide Q can be a bit too subtle. The narrow Q is useful for fixing things like a specific frequency node or feedback etc. The HPF can be helpful as well for low end stage rumble or problematic low frequencies. The LPF in conjunction with one of the midrange bands can be used as an analog speaker sim. 

In the end it's always best to try both side by side if feasible, but I think I've covered the differences and similarities. 

Thanks for the response @Tech21NYC

I ended up purchasing the Q Strip last week.

 

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  • 4 months later...
On 14/02/2018 at 15:25, dave_bass5 said:

I've just ordered one of these (on a whim). My Mate has just got one and raves about it, even his Dingwall sounds better apparently. Hoping it will replace my BDDI. I realised ive been using the BDDI mainly for EQ, as i have a Pork Loin for dirt, so having even more EQ is going to be fantastic.......in theory. Not a cheap thing to buy just for a bit of EQ, but it does look lovely IMO, especially those red knobs lol. Oh, and @dood, yet more money spent after watching one of your video reviews 😉

Well this one is now sitting at the end of my home pedal board! I didn't get on at all with the BDDI (which Dave, I know, is a big fan of!) but I'm really loving the Q\Strip's tone shaping capability: it goes several steps further than what my amps can do, which is saying something as they're both pretty good (particularly the Mesa M6) in the tonal options they provide. And I finally have an XLR out on one of my pedals to boot :) 

Found an excellent review by Ed Friedland, which I've tweaked / put some headings in for my own ease of reference. He says it all much better than I ever could - attached in case it's of interest to anyone else.

Tech 21 Q-Strip.pdf

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13 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Glad its working out Bas. Also check out the Pete Thorn YT video, he gets a lovely  P bass tone, which i actually used for our last demo.

Thanks Dave!

I do kinda love it when my J bass playing BC buddies recommend me this or that pedal for getting a good P bass tone!

It's just that they must now know or are shortly, themselves, about to discover(!) what a great real P bass tone we can get from our Yammy PJs :) 

Why settle for an imitation when you can have the real thing! 😂

Edited by Al Krow
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All,

Just bought one of these, so thought I'd add to this thread rather than start a new one.

I have got some great sounds out of this just running a P bass (4 and 5 with flats and rounds) into it with nothing else.  Really impressed.

However, running my full signal chain into it, it sounds like fizzy crap.  Effect order Tuner - Spectracomp - DG B3K - DG VMTD - Q Strip - Focusrite 2i2. (Bass 5 string jag PJ in passive mode).

Running into my amp, my pedal settings sound great (Mesa Walkabout set flat).  Been trying to use the Q as a cab sim with recommended setting it the book, but sounds rough.  I was expecting to be able to fine tune the distortion sounds from the 2 dark glass pedals, but it just isn't happening.  Any ideas for a start point setting wise? Otherwise I'm back to starting flat tonight and endless tweaks!

Cheers, Dan

PS. Any other user settings for different sounds you guys want to share would be great too.

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Had the B3k and the VMT and they are fizzy, Q Strip being a pre-amp to all intensive purposes will hammer the signal signal up and increase what fizz you have.

Are you stacking the B3K and the VMT as always on? 

You do have a lot of signal push there, what was normally unity gain, may now be too much.

Other option is that if you like your tone with the Q strip, place that up front to tone shape and  then distort

 

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36 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Had the B3k and the VMT and they are fizzy, Q Strip being a pre-amp to all intensive purposes will hammer the signal signal up and increase what fizz you have.

Are you stacking the B3K and the VMT as always on? 

You do have a lot of signal push there, what was normally unity gain, may now be too much.

Other option is that if you like your tone with the Q strip, place that up front to tone shape and  then distort

 

Essentially, yes the B3K and VMTD are always on and stacked for driven mode.  They are set for unity gain (well, equal volume compared with clean to the ears) to the Walkabout.

I like your advice there, I'll try dropping the level into the Q strip and see what happens, both in terms of volume change and tone. If that fails I'll try running into the Q strip first.  For recording purposes that could be quite neat as I could get a clean and dirty signal from the Q Di and the VMTD Di - blend later in the DAW.  I'll try those options tonight.

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The Q/strip is a lovely EQ, very versatile, but that's all it really is. Its not ideal as a speaker sim, it just attenuates the top end. When i had mine i found my BDDI to be a much more capable 'amp sim' for recording and used at the end of the chain.

Live it worked much better but at the start of the chain, and then i let my various pedals shape the tone as it passed through the system.

 

Edited by dave_bass5
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5 hours ago, No. 8 Wire said:

Essentially, yes the B3K and VMTD are always on and stacked for driven mode.  They are set for unity gain (well, equal volume compared with clean to the ears) to the Walkabout.

I like your advice there, I'll try dropping the level into the Q strip and see what happens, both in terms of volume change and tone. If that fails I'll try running into the Q strip first.  For recording purposes that could be quite neat as I could get a clean and dirty signal from the Q Di and the VMTD Di - blend later in the DAW.  I'll try those options tonight.

Let us now how you go, of course the other option is to really roll the tone off your bass, you will get the drive, may just attenuate the fuzz, and could give an almost ‘tube’ type tone 

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12 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

Let us now how you go, of course the other option is to really roll the tone off your bass, you will get the drive, may just attenuate the fuzz, and could give an almost ‘tube’ type tone 

With the stacked DG boxes I'm really after a quite defined tone, along the lines of Nolly Getgood but with a little more bottom end.  So the high part of the fizz needs to be there, just not too fizzy!

I had a play last night and running the Q last I just can't get a tone I'm happy with, however, with the Q bypassed the tone is also a hollow fizzy crap fest!  So, it seems that the magic happens when driving the Walkabout preamp and the VMTD and B3K settings won't read across.  So tonight I'll start from everything flat or zeroed on all three pedals (after noting the current settings) and go from there.  I'll also swap the order if that fails time permitting.

Cheers all for the input!

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