Tech-21 Bass Fly Rig v2 - First Impression

[Thom Fioriglio]

View attachment 7050142Since I don’t need fuzz or any other effects, this is my pedal based Fly Rig.

I’m actually quite partial to the old no mids knob BDDI…

Comp, Tuner and BDDI is what I use most on the FlyRig. Nice to have the chorus and octafilter also to play around with.

 

[The Veg]

Some follow-up:

I bought the FRV2 about ten months ago and I've had some fun with it but now thinking about moving on to a small pedalboard.

Good unit overall, but I find that I like the general sound of one of the drive-channels more than the other one- I'd say that Drive 1 is a little too coarse and 'farty' sounding for my taste and Drive 2 is pretty cool. That said, I don't like how increasing the drive also increases the volume, and I find that just barely cracking-open the drive is all I need; dial in much more and it becomes not only WAY-louder than the bypass sound but also becomes a face-melting mess of sound...great for some players but not me. Some sort of master volume control for the effects-channels would help that of course. What I found myself using was Drive 2 for a little growl and then adding the OctaFuzz channel to that for hard & heavy moments, easy to do since the buttons are right next to each other and close-enough to engage them together with one stomp if I want to go straight from clean to extreme. The bad news is that with the closeness of the buttons, I find it easy to stomp two of them when I want one- especially when I can only steal a quick glance downward because I'm doing backing vocals at that moment. And speaking of unintentional button-stomps, those little black buttons are easy to inadvertently engage too if you're not careful. I was wondering for the longest time why my amp seemed too quiet until I found that the input-pad button had been accidentally pressed at some point.

I did wind-up using the chorus even though I didn't expect to, as it makes this one part of one song sound pretty cool! Is one part of one song worth buying a chorus-pedal when I build my board? I doubt it but we'll see. And the chorus is right next to the OctaFuzz button, so accidentally hitting both isn't good for that song.

So overall, it's not a bad unit if you're OK with its limitations. If it was the only effects-device I could use for the rest of my life I could live with it- but since I'm free to choose, I think I'm gonna go to other devices to improve the areas I found not quite right for me. I'll miss being able to put everything except my amp into the bass-case, but that's a small price to pay. I'm only looking to go to a very small board anyway

 

[Thom Fioriglio]

Some follow-up:

I bought the FRV2 about ten months ago and I've had some fun with it but now thinking about moving on to a small pedalboard.

Good unit overall, but I find that I like the general sound of one of the drive-channels more than the other one- I'd say that Drive 1 is a little too coarse and 'farty' sounding for my taste and Drive 2 is pretty cool. That said, I don't like how increasing the drive also increases the volume, and I find that just barely cracking-open the drive is all I need; dial in much more and it becomes not only WAY-louder than the bypass sound but also becomes a face-melting mess of sound...great for some players but not me. Some sort of master volume control for the effects-channels would help that of course. What I found myself using was Drive 2 for a little growl and then adding the OctaFuzz channel to that for hard & heavy moments, easy to do since the buttons are right next to each other and close-enough to engage them together with one stomp if I want to go straight from clean to extreme. The bad news is that with the closeness of the buttons, I find it easy to stomp two of them when I want one- especially when I can only steal a quick glance downward because I'm doing backing vocals at that moment. And speaking of unintentional button-stomps, those little black buttons are easy to inadvertently engage too if you're not careful. I was wondering for the longest time why my amp seemed too quiet until I found that the input-pad button had been accidentally pressed at some point.

I did wind-up using the chorus even though I didn't expect to, as it makes this one part of one song sound pretty cool! Is one part of one song worth buying a chorus-pedal when I build my board? I doubt it but we'll see. And the chorus is right next to the OctaFuzz button, so accidentally hitting both isn't good for that song.

So overall, it's not a bad unit if you're OK with its limitations. If it was the only effects-device I could use for the rest of my life I could live with it- but since I'm free to choose, I think I'm gonna go to other devices to improve the areas I found not quite right for me. I'll miss being able to put everything except my amp into the bass-case, but that's a small price to pay. I'm only looking to go to a very small board anyway

Thanks for the update. As one who really likes this unit, I find it interesting and helpful to see how others use it and what their overall impression is. Good luck with your pedalboard. I'd be curious to see what you include on it.

If I was to replace my Fly Rig, I would need a tuner, compressor and maybe a fuzz or OD. The octave is cool, but it doesn't really fit my music. I do prefer the Character button pushed in for an SVT tone and a touch of drive. So maybe a SansAmp BDDI would also make it on my pedalboard, if I were to go that route.

 

[JCW308]

Some follow-up:

I bought the FRV2 about ten months ago and I've had some fun with it but now thinking about moving on to a small pedalboard.

Good unit overall, but I find that I like the general sound of one of the drive-channels more than the other one- I'd say that Drive 1 is a little too coarse and 'farty' sounding for my taste and Drive 2 is pretty cool. That said, I don't like how increasing the drive also increases the volume, and I find that just barely cracking-open the drive is all I need; dial in much more and it becomes not only WAY-louder than the bypass sound but also becomes a face-melting mess of sound...great for some players but not me. Some sort of master volume control for the effects-channels would help that of course. What I found myself using was Drive 2 for a little growl and then adding the OctaFuzz channel to that for hard & heavy moments, easy to do since the buttons are right next to each other and close-enough to engage them together with one stomp if I want to go straight from clean to extreme. The bad news is that with the closeness of the buttons, I find it easy to stomp two of them when I want one- especially when I can only steal a quick glance downward because I'm doing backing vocals at that moment. And speaking of unintentional button-stomps, those little black buttons are easy to inadvertently engage too if you're not careful. I was wondering for the longest time why my amp seemed too quiet until I found that the input-pad button had been accidentally pressed at some point.

I did wind-up using the chorus even though I didn't expect to, as it makes this one part of one song sound pretty cool! Is one part of one song worth buying a chorus-pedal when I build my board? I doubt it but we'll see. And the chorus is right next to the OctaFuzz button, so accidentally hitting both isn't good for that song.

So overall, it's not a bad unit if you're OK with its limitations. If it was the only effects-device I could use for the rest of my life I could live with it- but since I'm free to choose, I think I'm gonna go to other devices to improve the areas I found not quite right for me. I'll miss being able to put everything except my amp into the bass-case, but that's a small price to pay. I'm only looking to go to a very small board anyway

Thanks for the update. I had the same experience. I sold mine and went with a KEMPER PROFILER Player, which has been absolutely fantastic for bass.