Ecrawf099
(Ecrawf099)
1
Anyone use the good old solid state Peavey amplifiers from back in the day? They were ubiquitous amongst the burgeoning young guitarists of my day. I used to have a Peavey BackStage and a Decade. As a matter of fact, I wish I still had the Decade. Thanks to Josh Homme, of Queens of the Stone Age, the price of those Decades is skyrocketing. In an effort to cash in on the trend, Acorn Amps has reproduced it in an all-in-one pedal. Anyway, I digress… I recently ran across a well-used Peavey Special 130 at a pawn shop. I tried it out, and it worked beautifully. I talked them down to $100 and walked out with it. I cleaned it up a little, and I even used it at church yesterday. I was blown away. The worship leader, who had his doubts about it, came to me later and said how good it sounded… Any experience with the old Peaveys?
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I’ve had a Peavey Rage 108 practice amp for 32 years, cracking little amp, sounds great, especially for it’s size. I need to dust it down and give it a blast as I don’t think I’ve played through it for about 25 years…
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Ecrawf099
(Ecrawf099)
3
They are built like freaking tanks. Massive transformers. Can’t destroy them. I was headed to a gig one time, and the bass player’s Peavey 400BH head and 115 bass cab with the Black Widow speaker fell off the back of the pickup… and hit the road. We stopped, loaded it back up and headed to the gig. All that was wrong was that one of the the metal corner protectors came off. The thing still worked perfectly.
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I remember the ubiquitous comment in the industry “it sounds like a Peavey”
They were fairly indestructible though.
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I thought my old Backstage sounded pretty good for a little amp. Don’t necessarily wish I still had it, but if I did, I’d be happy. I had a Bandit 65, pre-Transtube. It was OK, as I recall. I moved on to other amps when the Transtube series came out or I probably would have bought one. People still hunt the USA made Transtube Bandits.
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pcarter
(AnungUnRama)
6
Peavey amps, in my experience, are hit or miss. Most of the time they are a fairly spectacular miss. However, I have a Peavey Classic 20 that used to belong to Bob Hartman of Petra (my all time favorite band). He used it on their “Wakeup Call” album which was the first cassette tape I ever bought with my birthday money when I was twelve years old. I remember thinking that album had pretty good tone and was surprised it is no larger than a toaster. Fired it up and nearly blew the windows out of my house! It continues to raise eyebrows whenever I break it out somewhere. It’s a rather one trick pony but man it does that trick well. Frankly the Classic series all sounds amazing. It is a bit fussy but I love the tone - especially with my Gibson Blueshawk! A transparent amp it is not and is very picky about what goes into it. My Jackson Kelley with the PAF Pro in the neck sounds absolutely killer through that amp.
Peavey amps in general continue to perplex me. Folks love them though.
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Ecrawf099
(Ecrawf099)
7
I agree, they can be hit or miss. But honestly, that can be said for many makes/models. I’ve played Mesas, Marshalls, and other big brands that left me less than impressed. What Peavey always brought to the table was “bang-for-the-buck.” Hard to beat for the money. And I have always referred to the Peavey VTM 60 as “The Marshall Killer.”
On that note, just yesterday, I was listening to Petra’s “Occupy” from the “Not of This World” record. I don’t know what gear Bob used on that, but I love his tone on the solo section. I’ve always assumed it was a strat-style through a Marshall, but I could be wrong. Bob could roll out some cool tones. Didn’t care so much for the Roland synth guitar stuff he used on the “Beat the System” record, but otherwise, top-notch tones.
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pcarter
(AnungUnRama)
8
I think he used a Les Paul Jr on some of those earlier albums and was a Boogie player before it became Mesa Boogie. At least live. They were also Peavey users both for guitar and amp. Ronny Cates was anyway until he switched to Tobias later on. He also used those Kubicki basses which were wicked cool. Bob live used and still uses Zion guitars and some that he built himself. There’s pics of Bob using all kinds of stuff - PRS, Rickenbacker - who knows what all. His phrasing has always been tasteful and always left me wanting more. Like “man you were going somewhere cool with that, why did you stop?” kind of thing.
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May be wrong, but I thought the Classic series was Peavey’s answer to the Fender Hot Rod series. Not a direct copy, and have their own thing, but, to compete with them. And I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing.
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pcarter
(AnungUnRama)
10
I don’t have any idea. The only reason I have this one is Bob was selling it. Otherwise I’d never have purchased a Peavey amp in all likelihood. I’d have stuck to Marshall Valvestate for small form combos.
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Ecrawf099
(Ecrawf099)
11
There were two amps in Peavey’s lineup that were referred to as “Classic.” There was the original Classic 2 x12 that @pcarter referred to, and the Classic 30 that you are referring to.
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Ecrawf099
(Ecrawf099)
13
Gotcha. I assumed Bob was using the older one. My mistake. But there has been a lot of confusion in regards to the two models.
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