Tech 21 SansAmp Character VT Bass DI 4-stars Reviews

A very nice and versatile pedal, with a few minor quirks.

The pedal offers a broad range of vintage sounds, from clean to high gain. It feels sturdy. The coloured DI is very useful in live situations.

I would have preferred the in- & outputs at the top instead of at the sides, partly because it is not the last pedal in my chain. The noise level at high gain settings (character and drive past 12 o clock) makes me want to run it through a noise suppressor.

The knobs are sensitive: a small adjustment can change your tone quite a bit. Choosing a different kind of tone requires adjustments on several knobs, which is not very intuitive and make quick changes tricky. The knobs turn easily: quite often by accident. It is hard to remember settings with this many knobs.

At most settings, playing with my active bass with bridge humbucker, lower notes are distorted more heavily.

It drains battery when guitar cable is plugged in and device is turned off

It drains battery when guitar cable is plugged in and device is turned off

The XLR phantom power big plus.

A very good DI, a lot of options and posibilities

I am playing with a pop-rock band and this was my first DI. It is very versatile and useful, my bass has a heavier and beautiful sound, I also like the drive and character options, it gives a punchy sound, exactly what I was looking forward.

Pros

- It has a lot of options , so you can adapt for whatever genre you're playing.

-It has extra buttons ( bite, volume )

- It has useful outputs, you can use different cables(normal, XL)

Cons

-It makes a little hum when you are on the drive option at maximum

-The battery and power supply are not included

For it's price , it's the best pedal you can get, it worth every penny. The more I use it, the more I find new ways of improving my sound, so you need to spend time mastering it

Great multi purpose pedal -useful in emergencies!

This pedal is up to the usual high standards of Tech21 gear. It can be used in many ways. You can bypass the amp simulation circuitry and just use it as a volume boost, a 3 band active eq. pedal, a DI box, an overdrive pedal or an amp (SVT style) simulator for live or recording work. I always have mine with me in case of amp failure and very often have used it in conjunction with my amp to go into the PA for extra support or to my other band mates monitors.

The amp simulation is good but I find the higher overdrive / distortion levels a bit hissy. Its eq. is shared by both the dry and overdrive circuits, so if you are attempting to blend overdrive into your clean signal, any adjustment of the eq will effect both -which is a bit of a drag because sometimes a thinner overdrive with removed bass sits better on top of a dry signal but here you can't eq. the two separately.

Anyway, for all that it brings in one box I am satisfied.

I purchased the original VT Bass pedal two years ago,but I could not turn my active bass up full, there was no blend feature so i sold it and purchased the VT Bass DI, This has the same problem,I could always just turn my guitar down but I prefer to play at full output, also the blend control affects the output and I found myself constantly adjusting and re tweaking the settings This unit is very well constructed and does produce a good SVT sound also the DI facility is great I feel the Unit is better suited to passive basses, home recording with the VT Bass DI was great although for me the complexity is too much to deal with in a live situation

Good for DI, no so much for OD

If you use this as intended, it's great. Gives a good approximation of an Ampeg SVT for recording and live (to a mixing desk). I really wanted it as a drive pedal and I don't think it's particularly suitable for that.

It has a very smooth drive which is great when you use it as an 'always on' pedal but as an overdrive I didn't like it: not enough bite, aggression or character for my taste.

Ended up building a Caitlinbread SFT pedal clone, which suits by needs better.

Favourite

A very reliable and versatile preamp, with some great sounds. Particularly good on festival stages, but I wouldn't be without it in the studio either. It provides a 'weight' that I associate with a valve power amp. Really fun to use (and fun to carry).

Ampeg in a tiny Box

I had the original VT Bass v1 which I loved. This is an evolution of what made that great. Very solid build as you'd expect from Tech21 and the edition of the Bite and Speaker Sim switches give great fleixibility. If you want Vintage Ampeg SVT sounds without the weight then this is your ticket. This is also the only negative about the product but then it is the VT Bass DI!