Tech 21 • NYC : HOT-ROD PLEXI

http://tech21nyc.com/products/effects...

Andrew and the guys and girls at Tech 21 are world renowned for delivering innovative and great sounding products at an affordable price. Fortunately that affordability does not compromise quality as their products are as good or better than rival products that are two or three times the price. The new Hot-Rod Plexi is no exception.

The Hot-Rod Plexi is fundamentally a distortion pedal based around the classic sound of a '68 Plexi. If you've ever experienced the real thing you will know that ear-bleeding levels are often required to coax the best sound out of these beasts. The Hot-Rod Plexi lets you achieve that serious driven tone at a somewhat more moderate volume while at the same time offering low-gain and insane-gain options, all within the click of a footswitch.

The Hot-Rod Plexi's 'Hot' control and accompanying footswitch add a virtual extra 12AX7 to the preamp stage allowing you to switch in and out considerable buckets of extra gain. That means you could set the 'Stock' Drive control to a moderate level at, say, around 10 o'clock - just enough for some mild breakup - and then kick in the Hot control for some serious lead tones. That, my friends, makes the Hot-Rod Plexi a two-channel Plexi-spitting must-have for any pedalboard likely to be indulging in the sonic glory that we call Classic Rock.

Dynamically, the Hot-Rod Plexi is very sensitive. Just like the real thing, subtle manipulation of your guitar's volume and tone controls will avail considerable 'clean-up' and controllable gain. Important features of the Hot-Rod Plexi don't stop there; the Tone control is a low pass filter that shifts the high cut from 10kHz to 1kHz which essentially allows you to decrease the high end without losing mids or getting muddy. The 'Thump' control lets you cut or boost the resonant frequency of a 4x12 cabinet: at 12 o'clock it's flat and winding it up will result in a crushing, tight bottom end that needs to be treated with caution!

There are a lot of 'Plexi' pedals on the market. Few, if any, offer the features, dynamics and sheer sonic scope of the Hot-Rod Plexi. Highly recommended.

Gear used in this video:

Guitars: Redhouse T-Style with Klein Epic 52 pickups; Gibson Les Paul Std. Fade (Larry Corsa LCPG-187) with Manalishi Pickups
Amp: Laney VH-100R Clean Channel & L412 Cabinet (Greenbacks)
Cables : Providence
Mic : Violet Design 'The Amethyst' (amp) Samson Airline77 (me)
Camera : Canon 60D (me) and Sony HDR CX150 (pedal)
Soundcard : AVID Mbox Pro 3
Computer : Apple iMac 27" i7 3.4 GHz 16 GB RAM
Software : Pro Tools 10 LE, Waves CLA Guitars (slight comp over input track), Waves L3-16 Limiter (to keep levels in check at output), Apple Final Cut Pro X (video editing and Youtube compression).