Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

[rjudo]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

I had the tm60 for years and I still have a tm10 for the bedroom playing. Great little amps for not having tubes, a wide variety of convincing tones in them. What I like about them is they do a lot of tones well, whereas my tube amps seem to do one or two tones exceptionally well. If you don't want to drag three or four different amp heads to a jam, the tm60 is a good choice.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

And you can use the power engine with any floor modeller,..pod hd, vox tl, mustang floor..rack units too.


The character pedals are updated pedals designed to emulate one specific amp style, instead of the g2/tm/originals 3 in one more generic tones. So there are versions for vox, orange, marshall, hiwatt, tweed fender, mesa, etc.

 

[Fresh_Start]

A PowerEngine is basically a very neutral 60w cab, with an XLR in (and out - you can daisy chain 'em), and a full tone circuit. They're designed to complement the TradeMarks, the character pedals, and the SansAmp gear ( including a separate model for their acoustic DI (their acoustic amp rocks, too, but some of them have noise issues)).

I've also had interesting thoughts regarding a DI between a low watt head and a cab fed into a PowerEngine.

Check YouTube for vids...

A power engine could be great after a rack tube preamp too. Or the Send from an effects loop. It's sole purpose is clean amplification.

Chip

 

[BRHGM]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

I have the British pedal. It's sort of Marshall in a box sounding and works great direct to my mixer. Some people wire them to PAs or to Trademark amps and engines. Some of the pedals are more authentic than others. I liked the Oxford, the Leeds and the Liverpool. I did not like the US Steel or the California. The Blonde was ok. You could get a GT2 and save a few bucks. Although I love my Tech 21, it's not a real amp and only does a pale imitation. However, it's a great way to have a variety of sounds on the cheap. These pedals aren't meant to use with a tube amp, so they may sound really harsh to use as distortion pedals. So, yes you can use them with a Trademark 60, but you may get better results with a PA.

 

[xntrick]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

I had a Trademark 60 for a few years. It was very well made and had some great features (I particularly liked the output level boost for solos and the footswitchable effects loop). Lightweight and portable too.

Channel 1 was excellent for Fender-style tones, both clean and dirty. Really loved the tones here and it worked great with overdrive pedals too.

Channel 2 is for dirtier sounds - Marshall, Mesa, Vox. I am used to playing Marshalls and I found that, in comparison with the Marshalls I've owned, this channel had a darkness to it that I could never completely dial out. Some great recordable tones but I was always hankering after something more open and bright when playing live. In the end this led me to sell the TM60.

Les Paul used a TM60 in his later years. His tones would all be in Channel 1. I know there are guys who just use Channel 1 clean and use pedals for drive.

In summary, Channel 1 does excellent Fender tones, Channel 2 is voiced too dark to nail a convincing Marshall tone.

They can be had quite cheaply used and that first channel might be all you need.

+1 for the Trademark 60. Very nice clean tones and takes pedals very well. Channel 2 didn't have enough gain for me but a good od pedal would take care of that, the amp really came alive when i switched the speaker to a Wizard. I used to use a DCSM pedal with channel 1 and it had a killer sound.

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Hi there, I recently got one second-handed Trademark 60 amp. It's one fine sounding amp but i'm interested in the reverb tank appearance. In mine it is covered by some leather-like cloth attached by 2 screws to the floor of the case but the tank seems like not being connected to the floor. Is it the same with yours??
Have a nice day :headbang:

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

It is supposed to be in the vinyl bag, loosely attached to the floor of the amp with 2 screws.

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Thanx for quick answer Mincer. I was little bit confused by that because one of the screws was quite loose and it can be unsrewed by hands... so it seemed like previous owner's mod to me. (sorry for bad english) maybe i'll fix it someday.

 

[jtougas]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Don't - it's *meant* to be that way. It keeps the reverb tank from feeding back from vibrations from the box (my only issue with Tech21 products is their cabs could be a bit heavier built).

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

It should be just snug, not loose, and not screwed down tight.

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

:notworthy okay so I'll let it that way... IDK the cab seems to be quite solid, maybe not indestructible. Hope that no cab issues will appear :: refferences on cabs are mainly positive.

Btw. do you have any experience with external cab connection (2x12 maybe) ?

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Never actually needed an external cab, as it was always loud enough. Plus, I don't want to carry any more. I have heard people use them with success though.

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Helo it's me again. I have question about second chanel - is it common that some crispy noises appear in background while playing? Even by drive at minimum. They can be heard especially while single strings are picked (Come as you are - type of riff e.g.). When I play whole chords the noises mix together with overdrive and i can hardly decide where the distortion ends and where the noise begins. The last thing I noticed: noise is louder when weep button is ON.

Have a nice day.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

No- you shouldn't hear any of that...it should be silent unless you are playing. Single coil noise? Does it happen with any other distorted amp? Or using a distortion pedal on the clean channel?

 

[everdrone]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

I use my character series oxford and vt bass with recabinet impulses for my recordings

I use them exclusively in this:

https://soundcloud.com/earthalliance/march-into-the-sea

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

No, I don't have SC. Can not compare with other amp but I'm pretty sure, that it has nothing to do w/ my guitar pickups. Maybe I just used wrong definition of the sound. It's more like crispy end of sound, when I play some power chord and let it ring. It doesn't crack in whole time of playing - only when guitar signal damps out. It sounds the same even through phones when speaker is disconnected.
The recordings may be more helpful:

https://soundcloud.com/radix-neskuto-ny/sample-1

sorry about quality - it's recorded on mobile phone, but the crispy sound is there anyway
I don't know - maybe it's just the way the amp delivers overdriven sound and I just didn't used to it yet. In some reviews people mentioned that dirty chanel sounds a bit unusual at lower volumes.

 

[Simon_F]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

I can't play the clip here at work, but I never had the Weep button on when I had a TM-60. Didn't like the sound of that feature at all.

 

[Mincer]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Hmm, I hear a high ring in there...I don't know if I have ever noticed that in mine. I never use the weep function, and the high knob is always about at 11:00 on mine.

 

[Gone_Shootin]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

my ideal quiet rig would be an old school Fender Deluxe Reverb, and both if the Bogner Extasy pedals. Just a suggestion.

 

[kef]

Re: Tell Me About Tech 21 Trademark Amps...

Could you make some similar record of yours? I'd be very grateful. Maybe it is same on every piece. I can't say the ring is terrible sound issue for me. I hardly realise that while playing. I just want to know if my amp is ok. Speaker replacement would make a difference maybe.