Acoustic Guitar Magazine | 7 years ago
The Acoustic Fly Rig is the newest of Tech 21’s Fly Rig series, which is based on the notion that if you’re called on a fly-away studio or performance gig, you’d only have to pack your axe and this sprightly stompbox, which weighs in at a slim 1.3 pounds. At 12-1/2 inches long, there’s a decent chance the Acoustic Fly Rig will fit in your gig bag pocket. Once set up, the Acoustic Fly Rig acts like a souped-up DI or acoustic preamp, delivering a high-quality, low-impedance signal that’s ready to be plugged into a mixer channel and drive longer cable runs without degradation. On top of that, there’s a compressor, a boost function, a powerful 3-band EQ with sweepable mids, reverb, and chorus or delay with tap-tempo time control. And of course, there’s the tuner/mute, whose importance can’t be overstated. For controlling feedback, there’s a phase flip switch and a notch filter knob, sweepable from 70Hz to 350Hz to help tame wild rumbles. A sweepable low-pass filter (LPF) rolls off unwanted top-end frequencies and artifacts.
Overall, the Acoustic Fly Rig is a terrific tool for acoustic guitarists. It’s well built, it operates extremely quietly, it has potent EQ and effects, and it has a few things that every amplified acoustic player needs—like feedback-controlling features and a tuner/mute. All that, plus it’s extremely portable, and much easier to carry than an amp. Though I boarded no planes during my time with the Acoustic Fly Rig , I definitely felt like I was flying in friendly sonic skies.
