Tech 21 Boost Series Pedals

Tech 21 are one of the the effects heavyweights, born in NYC, USA by Andrew Barta's vision of the Sansamp. His legacy lives on through other killer pedals like the new 'Boost' series featuring a form of drive coupled with up to 21dB of clean, switchable boost.

The Tech 21 Boost Overdrive was first under the microscope. I used this pedal with my Les Paul and Marshall Plexi to get a beefier tone out of my amp. The overdrive consists of controls for 'Level', 'Tone' 'Drive' and 'Sparkle'. All the usual suspects are here except for the addition of the 'Sparkle', which “Adds upper harmonics for an open, snappy sound”. The overdrive did a very convincing 'TS808' emulation, a great 'Top Booster' for '70s drive, and good Blues overdrive when dialed in with cleaner tone. Overall I thought this pedal sounded great for older '70s and '80s hard rock/ metal tones, and using the boost on its own sounded the best with my Marshall for getting the exact kind of tone I was after.

I took the same approach with the Boost Fuzz pedal and plugged into a driven amp, and what could be better than a Strat into a vintage Marshall for that Hendrix sound? The combination of a driven amp plus fuzz results in magic. Again, this pedal sees the same format of 'Level', 'Tone' and 'Drive', but the inclusion of 'Sag' adds an extra dimension “Allowing notes to bloom and sing at your command, for a dynamic, organic performance.” A wide array of tones was available from Hendrix, to Weezer. This pedal did a killer job of emulating those vintage Germanium fuzz pedals guitarists drool over.

The Boost Distortion has hints of that iconic modern Tech 21 distortion heard all over the world on some great albums (Nevermind…). It was easy to a get a thick clear distortion that emulated a modern high-gain amp, and is perfect for turning a good clean amp into a monster. This time the 'Sag' effect “Adds an expressive tube-like response to every pick stroke”, and did a good job of sounding like a worn in tube amp when digging into the strings, adding that tube feel even with solid state amps.

Finally, a pedal for bass, the Boost Fuzz Bass was my favourite, as it did a number of different things really well. I plugged this pedal direct into my mixing desk as I was after that insane fuzz bass you hear on Nine Inch Nails recordings and on some electronic recordings and it delivered with unexpectedly good results. This time the secret ingredient was the “+ Clean” knob which dialed back in a clean signal making it possible to blend fuzz and clean together generating a massive doubled sound when distorted guitars are in the mix. There is so much drive on tap that it is possible to go from warm, spongy drive to insane globs of mush that would be perfect for heavier styles such as stoner rock, death metal and industrial music. Dialing back the 'Level', 'Tone' and 'Drive', and boosting the '+ Clean' adds a bass boost to your overall tone, while turning the 'Tone' up keeping the 'Drive' midway was cool for 'Sabbath-like' rumble.

This new line of Tech 21 pedals is great and will appeal to musicians searching for a certain sound, whilst still having the flexibility produce a variety of different tones.