Great as a pedal or DI

I got this to allow me to get some crunchier Fender tones in my studio- my old '64 Princeton has to be pretty cranked to get nasty. This is just the ticket- I can set it up to sound just like a louder version of my amp, dial the character back for loud clean tone, or set it at about 2 o'clock for great tweedy tones. The drive let's you go from squeaky clean to "12". I love the sound thru my amp with the speaker emulation turned off the best, but it does work great as a DI. Also makes a great bass DI- set it up for a little blackface Bassman grit, add a compressor and you're got a great, punchy tone. The EQ lets you go from old school to modern. Very versatile.

Butt Kicking Preamp

Flexible Pedal, can be used in a thousand ways. However it's greatest value in my opinion is direct into the power amp of a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe or DeVille. This combination gives you an AMAZING sounding single channel Fender amp with the ability to get a cranked up tone at reasonable volume levels. Being in a Canadian band that has to do alot of flying to the U.S. this thing is worth it's weight in gold, as I can guarantee a great sound with whatever amplifier a venue can provide me with. Worst case scenario I also bring along a Radial DI box and can go straight to the board. When we're at home I bring two of them as emergency backups in case either of the bands guitar amps blow up on stage (which happens). A ridiculously useful product.

Great Pedal

This pedal sounds amazing. Don't let purist snobs keep you from using modeling gear. It all depends on what you plug it into. I am currently running through the return jack of a cheap Fender FM210 converted to a head/cab with a Warehouse Veteran 30. It sounds amazing! (speaker sim turned off, of course) I have an Eminence Delta Pro speaker on the way to work as a flat frequency monitor so I can use the speaker sim. I plan on buying the British and Leeds pedals as well. Tech 21 Rocks!

An extremely versatile Fender-style amp simulator

This pedal makes it very easy to get a wide variety of Fenderish amplifier sounds. The speaker simulator is pretty convincing and the DIed sound is excellent.

Upside: makes it alot easier to get sounds.
Downside: might make me alot lazier about miking up an amp!

Speaking of amps, with the speaker sim defeated this makes a great overdrive or distortion pedal.

The sample settings on the card that comes in the box aren't that great, it's really best to sit down with it and roll your own.
The Character knob, as on the other pedals of this series, seems to be where 80% of the tone-shaping power lives. Experiment with settings and instruments. I'll be keeping this for many years.

Very nice analog emulator.

For gigs where I have to bring our p.a. system, mics, stands, mixer, mixer board processing racks, cables, snake, etc... this thing saves me bringing my Fender tube amp (and saves me from having to mic the amp, having loud stage volumes and dealing with feedback issues, and one less thing i have to worry about theft).

This pedal is actually quite good at quite a few different Fender sounds.

It's analog, so no AD/DA latency (which can add up if some of your other pedals are digital as well).

My chain is: guitar < Voodoo Sparkle Drive (for the occasional overdrive) < Tech21 Blonde (with speaker emulation on) < Line 6 M13 < stereo left and right channels < Radial Passive Stereo DI box < mixing board in stereo channel.

You can also use it in a a guitar amp: disable the speaker emulation if it goes in the input jack, enable the speaker emulation if you plug in to the Effects In .

Great sound, responsive and very tweakable. I recommend it to anyone who needs to travel light.

Of course nothing ever beats a real tube amp.

Versatile

I have played with this thing for a nite and I am impressed. I actually play it through an ac4 vox on a clean setting. I bought it to get some variations in chimey clean tones as it models fender amps. You can get some tweed settings to twin settings, I actually feel it to sound better with the sans amp engaged (its just alot cleaner sounding) it tends to be a lil mudded up and harder to find good setting with it bypassed. Just turning any of tyhe knobs changes in HUGE INCREMENTS so take a picture if you like something. The only thing I don't like is that there are no numbers on the knobs so if you REALLY like a tone....you have to get the sharpie out!

Tech 21 Character Series Blonde V2

Actually picked up one of these for another member of my band who is going to play a guitar part on only one song. So the signal chain is guitar>cord>FOH. So far it is working well. The part is a dirty guitar part and it works well for this. I am going to take the unit home and mess around with it some more. I am interested in using one as a clean platform for going direct. It's a little dry so would need a dash of verb or delay. Pedal in front for overdrive/dirt.

Curious to see if I can get that nice warm clean tone as a base. We'll see how it goes. If I can make it work, i may use it to eliminate my guitar amp for some gigs.