Tech 21 QStrip

I love this box, it's extremely versatile and musically sounding!
The knobs are precise and smooth, but without snap to the middle position. Anyway it sounds quite neutral with knobs at about a noon position and this is good.

Build quality is decent, but not perfect: XLR output is a bit misaligned, soldering quality is average, internal board is thin and a bit bent. And I think it's a shame for such price!

Strange manufacturer decision that when you power-on pedal it's always in the ON-state, so it doesn't remember its last state before power-off. According to the support it's normal behavior and you can switch it to default ON or OFF-state by re-soldering some elements on the circuit board! I don't think it's quite elegant and intuitive solution :) Also ground lift is cable dependent: if your cable has
ground pin connected with shield of the plug (I think most of them does), you can't use ground lift and this is also normal behavior according to the manufacturer support :)

But sound and feature-wise it's very good, especially it shines when you feed it with a bit hotter input signal allowing MOSFET elements to add a bit of tube-like saturation.

This little box - busy looking on most sides - is very competent at what it says to deliver : a vintage inspired but accurate true parametric equalization which some creature comforts.

The equalization part is, in a few words, excellent. The ranges for low-mid (40Hz-700Hz) and high-mid (300Hz-6kHz) frequency selection are totally usable. Did not measured the +/-18dB with precision tools, but seem accurate. The manual gives quite a few propositions for settings regarding if you intent using it as an equalizer or en effect, but gut feeling is not restricted as an option. HPF and LPF are useful whether you need to clean a bit of ramble or, again, use them as an effect.

The cost of this product is mainly because of the fact this is a analog pedal, which requires quite another level of engineering. The size for value proposition is pretty good in that regard.

The fact this little box can be used like a D.I. with phantom power may not be useful to everyone but can come in handy, especially for bass players who uses it as a cab sim. Early in your chain, the parallel output can be used for your tuner or as a secondary chain, if you are creative.

Construction wise, the box is your standard aluminum box, but the knurled metal buttons give a premium felling when making changes to your configuration.

Of course, if you need a simple equalization box for low-fi effects or such, this is overkill in every way. But if you need a sim cab with precise equalization in a small box, or need to tinkle precisely your mids to make your drive pedal to the edge, it's a solid choice. Bonus points for the color, which stands out on any pedal board (yes, it can be important at times :) ). I used it with a variety of instruments (basses, guitars, cellos, keyboards) and never been disappointed.

Usual Tech21 high quality build and sound. I wanted to use this as a bass preamp but found it less useful than I was hoping. The eq section is huge, but in reality the higher mids parametric did nothing over the last half of its sweep on bass guitar. The pedal is larger than other preamps like those from MXR (M81) and the volume knob doesn't go down to zero (mute) either. Used as a speaker emulator with the HPF and LPF switches engaged I found it impossible to achieve a sound as good as the Tech21 Blonde Character pedal or the Tech21 VT Bass DI. At the price I was expecting something more so have decided to continue using my MXR M81. Thomann's return policy and customer service was the usual platinum standard.