# Tech 21 FlyRig 5 , my weekend experience with it.



## -=Sc0rch=- (Mar 28, 2010)

I seen talk of these on other forums and wanted to try one out. I got lend of one for a test drive last friday to play with over the weekend. I don't have clips, there's tons on youtube, but these are just my thoughts and opinions of the unit at home playing through various methods:










Build quality. 

Its all metal casing feels like it can take a beating. Pressing down on the footswitches don't make a big clunky noise when stepped on. One thing I did notice is when the middle buttons are pushed, the knobs dip down a slightly into the unit. This led me to believe the whole internal circuit is built on one circuit board without enough mounting support. 

Sound Quality. 

This has 5 effects, the Sansamp, Plexi, Boost, Reverb, and delay with a tap tempo button. The sansamp works as it should, imitating an amplifier with simulated cab. You can dial in a nice gritty clean with this on its own. the reverb is incorparated into the sansamp section and it sounds very usuable. However it is largely affected when you have the plexi section on, so adjust accordingly. 

The Plexi sounds like a marshall, I tried it a couple different ways, adding it as a extra gain stage to the sansamp, and as a simple dirt box into the front of a tube amp. To my ears, and I am blaming partly to the darker sound of my guitar's humbuckers, but it didn't like my dimarzio tone zone too well, so I tried a different guitar with an EMG 85 and holy crap, this thing can sound tight in the low end. I then tried a strat with Single coils and I say it really shines with low-medium output pickups. 

I don't think metal players will like it, it's more of a classic rock / hard rock type of tone. I had no problem getting an early Van Halen tone out of it though. Tech 21 even has a youtube demo of them playing unchained with it. 

The boost function works excellent, i loved the gritty boosted tone of the sansamp with the boost section on, plexi section off. perfect for lead breaks or enhancing a higher gain tone of the plexi too to get a hard rock tone.

the DLA (delay) is warm sounding, and the "drift effect" adds a nice chorus dimension to the echo trails. I was automatically thinking MXR Carbon Copy when I turned it on. The tap tempo feature is cool to have on this.

I tried the unit 3 ways:
- guitar input of a tube combo amp: matching the Sansamp section to unity gain with the amp's clean channel, turning on the plexi section automatically turned my 6L6 tubed Peavey Ultra in a Marshall. I was super impressed.
- effects return jack of a combo amp: Amazing. My guitar amp has a master volume so getting my levels the way I like on the Fly Rig, i could dial my prefered volume on the amp. it works/sounds just as good as up front.
- channel input of a Mixer PA. This one blew me away. I wasn't expecting to get a great tone out of it but I was wrong. I would have no problems relying on this to plug into a house PA if my guitar rig broke down. It just works. 

Likes:
- Size, it's super small, does all the above, fits in a gig bag pocket or guitar case.
- the dials of each section light up when you have them on. Cool feature to see on dark stages.
- great tone for small form factor, works great as a "get me through the rest of the gig" rig if your main rig quits on you.
- cranked marshall tone in a little box!
- Worked well in any hookup method I tried.

Dislikes:
- the plexi and boost can be a bit noisy depending on gain settings. They should have added some noise reduction into this, if that's even possible for such a small unit. 
- the controls are very sensitive, a little turn on the knob goes a long way, this can be a good or bad thing depending on the situation.
- the wallwart power supply cord could use an extra 3 to 6 feet of lead length. This is intended to be an all in one solution (to play "on the fly" with, hence the name right?). I hate seeing stages with a lack of power outlets up front, so some extra length on the power cord comes in handy if you forget an extension cord.
- price: Long mcQuade currently lists it $315. Little pricey if you ask me, especially when I can find other floor based units with more functions new and used. It's a nice unit to have as a backup rig, but is it $315 + tax nice? not really...


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## Ti-Ron (Mar 21, 2007)

Very interessing review.

I was curious too about the size when they annouce it.

Do you think it's aimed to the public that want a back up without buying a multifx?


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## -=Sc0rch=- (Mar 28, 2010)

Ti-Ron said:


> Very interessing review.
> 
> I was curious too about the size when they annouce it.
> 
> Do you think it's aimed to the public that want a back up without buying a multifx?


12" across, it puts it in your mind the second you unbox it "no way will this little thing hang with a real multifx", it sure fools you though. and yeah, it's the perfect little backup for a multifx rig. I would take this out to open mics and small jams on its own in a heartbeat. Was kinda sad to take it back today, wanted to play around with it some more.


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## mhammer (Nov 30, 2007)

Excellent review. Informative and fair. Also prompted me to start thinking about something.

I bought a 6-switch footswitch unit for a Marshall Valvestate from a guy, that I'm itching to convert into something like a Fly Rig at some point...once I've finished all those _other_ pedal projects on the stack. I figure that I can use the little 9mm pots, like Tech 21 uses (minus the lights), and provide some closed-circuit jacks in the back, with normalized patching, but the option to re-order some of the effects with patch cords. The send/return jacks would also permit insertion of other FX into the signal path. Six stompswitches for 6 FX. 

I'm still mulling over what would make up an all-purpose floor unit (good thing somebody asked about the 5 or 6 must-haves a few weeks ago!), but I figure a clean boost w/EQ, an overdrive, a fuzz, a phaser, tremolo, and delay (in that default order) ought to cover most bases. I've got populated boards with each of those sitting around. Just need to do the machining to fit the pots, figure out how to mount the boards, drill holes for the patch jacks, legend it up, and install.

The Fly Rig looks like a handy little thing. It'd be nice to have something like that around; DIY or otherwise.


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## -=Sc0rch=- (Mar 28, 2010)

mhammer said:


> Excellent review. Informative and fair. Also prompted me to start thinking about something.
> 
> I bought a 6-switch footswitch unit for a Marshall Valvestate from a guy, that I'm itching to convert into something like a Fly Rig at some point...once I've finished all those _other_ pedal projects on the stack. I figure that I can use the little 9mm pots, like Tech 21 uses (minus the lights), and provide some closed-circuit jacks in the back, with normalized patching, but the option to re-order some of the effects with patch cords. The send/return jacks would also permit insertion of other FX into the signal path. Six stompswitches for 6 FX.
> 
> ...



I love seeing projects like that. If you do it to this vavlestate footswitch, make a build thread. Would be super interesting to see how you pull it off internally.


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## tomsy49 (Apr 2, 2015)

I Have the fly rig RK5 Richie Kotzen signature version. The Sansamp delay and boost are the exact same but instead of the plexi channel it uses his signature OMG overdrive pedal. It has a bit more gain on tap than the plexi and you can even get into Metallica type tone territory with the boost. I really like it and currently run it into a powered PA speaker with great results. Wide variety of tones to be had in a small box!


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