They’ll come back down - it was like this with the Centurion MkIII bass heads a while back (Faith No More bass tone in a box) and now they’re back in the $150-250 range.
@@ObeseChess On the bright side, there's now a Peavey Decade amp in a pedal and a DIY preamp kit. The amp in a pedal is a ridiculous $300, but the DIY kit is really cheap if you know how to solder.
So whilst we were all being gear snobs selling off our cheap gear and buying ever more expensive amps, Josh Homme carried on using his 1st practice amp and made it his sound!
Fuck that, cheap shit all the way. Guitars I play the most are all my cheap ones. Find a decent quality entry model and you're golden! If you wanna splurge, get an Ibanez AG85 or something. Don't spend over $1k on a guitar unless you really love the look/feel/sound of it THAT much!
there are so many old Peavey amps left because they made them almost indestructible back then.The term "planned obsolescence" was not something they had heard yet. Peavey in the 1980's was probably the most reliable brand on the planet.
It's true..I bout one from my bud,kicked the crap out of it for years and sold it back to him years later for the same price..it was heavy but seemed indestructible
I remember hearing they went around to pawn shops and got a bunch of “junk” amps for SFTD. Homme regularly plays cheap solid state amps and toured with an Epiphone dot for a while. If you really want to take a lesson from Homme then go to second hand music stores and test everything/anything out. Don’t just order stuff online because someone sold you on it. Good gear is whatever inspires you to make more music. Aside from that it’s about replicating tones or maybe collecting but that stuff is less gratifying to me.
This. I personally scored myself a 1979 Peavey Century 200H head a couple of years ago second hand for dirt cheap and can't see myself letting go of it. Great for those fat, greasy, fuzzy tones, pretty similar to this little amp here. I've played a lot of shows and recorded 2 albums with it at this point. Had many people come up to me and ask what amp I'm running and tell me my tone is just mental, lol. I've spent less than $800 total for all of my guitar gear, and that's including 4 pedals, 2 guitars, 2 4x12" cabs and the head I just mentioned. A lot of people spend that much on just an amp head alone.
@@chrisbardolph I've got a Harley Benton LP that came loaded with some cheap Wilkinson P90's and it cost me $170 brand new. Thing sounds beefy as fuck and plays well once you set it up properly. Recorded a lot of songs with it.
To add to this, apparently they got a lot of old cheap crap pawnshop amps, mic'd them all and painstakingly blended them to get the huge deep punch. Good luck replicating that.
I could certainly see myself using one. It's also making me wanna search for a similar lo-fi toy amp I can throw around in that way. It would suit my aesthetic for sure.
For me, the secret sauce will always be what works for me, not someone else.What's interesting and telling is ,that in your quest to capture the sounds of a particular band, and two guitarists in particular over time, you've been through almost every kind of gear made.So ,- what do great, original bands use? ANYTHING that works for them at the moment.The important factor is always going to be your individual approach and thought processes, - broad, - or narrow.
Yep. I’ve got an old 80s backstage plus and it has the pre/post and a unique “saturation” pot that dials in this unmistakable peavey crud/fuzz, a little or a lot, its really great.
I agree but you kinda gotta play em loud. I have a bandit 112 that I really love, but it's a piece of shit lmao I gotta keep the volume reasonable in my shitty ass apartment 😭
Proof good gear isn't always the most expensive. I've got a battered old Ashdown Five 15 bass head (long since discontinued. I barely know much else about it) sat next me on the mix desk, and I've gotten really big smooth bass & guitar tones out of it. The only downside is the fan is noisy, but I fix that by placing it away from any mics and using long cables. My fave feature of it is the DI channel, which means I can plug straight in, and it becomes a preamp of sorts. It's even got an overdrive circuit built in! I genuinely love it. I swear so much of gear history is full of stuff that people didn't use because it was the in-thing, but because it was cheap and no one else wanted it (Roland 808, the original fuzz pedal, the Jazzmaster etc.) These things only became legendary (and then expensive AF) only after the fact. It's the craft that makes the difference. It's way too easy to lost in fetishising gear rather than learning how it works and perfecting your craft.
Played this amp during my punk days in NYC, just this and a beat up Les Paul. No pedals, just a mic on it and cranked into the PA. I didn't have much cash and had to take public transportation to all my gigs. It just died a couple of year ago.
I bought this amp back in the mid 90's for 5 bux. I still use it to this day. I write all my songs on it. Love this amp. Their is a tech in my town at a major national guitar store who uses this amp exclusively to test all the guitars that come through his shop.
I’m such a huge fan of old peaveys and small amps in general. The Peavey Bandit is a staple in bedrooms and small studios. The 80s and 90s Fender and Peavey Solid State amps are so good.
I have an old 1992 peavey special 112 combo I bought new, the sucker has 160 watts, it sounds good and can drown out a friends marshall head and 4x12 cabinet. Nice that it will fit in just about any car too.
I remember my Peavy Bandit stack I made when I was 15 back in the 80s. Took 4 of them and mic'd them up and voila 80s metal with a BOSS Super OD and Boss DD3 Digital Delay. The good old days. Expensive don't mean good.
When I first heard QOTSA, they had just released Rated R. They instantly became one of my favorite bands. I ended up buying a Peavey VTM 120 head because I could get those kind of tones with it. Cool amps if you can find one.
All the little Peavey amps are classics. They don't need to be anointed by rock stars. The Transtube Rages are fantastic amps for recording and sound huge when you crank them up. They also have a lot different sounds but react well to fuzz boxes and other pedals.
It's never a bad idea to pick up an old usa-made peavey as a backup if you come across one cheap, that's something you really can't say about many brands
@@eirikstor True. There's that picture from the SFTD sessions Eric Valentine put out years ago (on what is now the Gearspace forum iirc) where we can see the insane mic setup they used in front of an Ampeg head and cab with a Peavey Standard next to it.
Gear is what you make of it. You won't have certain sounds from the above amp but if you work with it, you can make your own music that sounds cool with it.
80's Peaveys really are underrated amps. I love the pre and post volume knobs for dialing in gain. Also, the Peavey VTM 60 head is an amazing tube amp that many compared to JCM800's, and can be found on the used market for a few hundred dollars.
I still have a Bandit silverface :) which I did some upgrades! replaced the opamp chips inside with Burr browns, I think it sounds a bit better etc. but these amps seem to live forever!!!
I love Peavey Transistor amps, I own a Peavey Envoy 110 (40w) I replaced the stock Blue Marvel speaker with a Jenson and it just blows me away. There are plenty of Peavey transistor amps that will surprise people if they can just get past the stigma of owning one. I also own a Peavey Studio (80w) came stock with an Eminence speaker, I find the sound a bit brighter overall. Its a nice change up to the Envoy
I picked up a rage 158 a few weeks ago and it honestly sounds great for what I'm doing with it. Just a very abrasive, thick sound cranked, and a good crispiness at lower volumes. Tiny, shitty solid state amps are way too fun.
Peavey Rages (and all other older small Peaveys like the Decade) have no right to be as usable as they are. I used to have 3 of them and they're a surprising amount of fun
PV usually makes pretty damn good stuff but their Transtube line is stellar for the price, especially the old stuff, curious bout the new bandits though..
I am torn, part of me wants Peavey to get the recognition they've always deserved (besides the 5150/6505 obviously)... and part of me hopes no one catches on so I can continue to scoop up cheap ass amps that sound amazing.
Peavy is such an underrated flagship amp. It's a low price amp, with an amazing tone that just rocks! I had a Peavey Bandit 112. Best sound I ever got.
Pretty darn close. I think their signal is a tad bit brighter (not by much) than this (might be an eq /post capture thing) . BUT! You're pretty spot on.
I think the message is you can make good music no matter what the gear. Got mine handed down from my dad, which was his practise amp. No one needs the exact same sound as Qotsa but helps understand how the tones are created, fuzz, low gain, small speaker for the more up front tone. So many decent practise amps available these days even with tubes in. Spoilt for choice. Thanks for the demo though, interesting to see. Mine has been in the cupboard for about a decade, saves me getting it out and dusting off lol
I played the predecessor to this amp, the Backstage, in the early 80's when I started. Not a bad amp, once I got a Fender Pro Reverb I never played it again though. I've found I can get a usable sound out of just about any amp.
Awesome! My first amp was a Peavey Studio Pro 20 with the same looks but a little bigger and maybe another knob or two. Along with my first guitar, a Sears Catalog white Cort "Effector" explorer that had built-in effects like distortion delay reverb etc. I still have them at my Folks house in the Harry Potter space under the basement stairs, lol!
We used to jam in my other guitarist's dad's auto repair garage in the early 80's. We both had stacks. I had a SOUND CITY 120 (6 Mullard el34's) 1/2 stack and he had an AMPEG V4 1/2 stack. Now although not as loud, putting his little brother's Peavey Decade in the corner of the lift bay and cranking it up sounded amazing. The reflections against the concrete floor a cement block walls rocked!!!!!
I have a Peavey Pacer from 1980. 45 watt. It’s actually a fantastic amp. Nice reverb, takes pedals well. I don’t use it much but when I dig it out it always surprises me.
What cracks me up is that I still have mine from new, it was my first amp like half a century ago. Used it as a preamp starting in 1991; it didn't make me famous or good so don't get your hopes up y'all
I play pedal steel through one. I got a stereo reverb rack and one side goes to a peavey nashville 400, and the other side to the normal channel on the decade. That little speakers tin can tone and the hairy sound of the decade cascade well with the almost sterile sound of the nashville. Gives it a little character.
ah man i used to have a vypyr 20 or 30 watt. the delay and reverb didn't work though due to corroded potentiometers. wish i had got another one though, i liked the sound a bunch
I have a Crate "The Can " amp Yep. Made from a Plastic Gas Can Rumor has it , Famous Seatle bands used one on studio stuff Crate USA made Great stuff as well !
I’ve never owned that Peavey amp, but did record an album with a Peavey amp, because that was what I had at the time. I’ve found, you can usually make what you got work, & sometimes you can stumble across something really cool you wouldn’t expect. I once got a really cool sound on a home demo going direct in with a Boss Overdrive/Distortion pedal. The more expensive stuff can usually get you to at least “good”, much faster, and will give the player more “wow” moments in the room, where with the Peavey, it was “that sounds pretty good”. However, it’s sometimes harder to get that “sounds awesome” feeling in the room, to tape, with some of the more expensive stuff. What sounds “awesome” playing in the room, doesn’t always set in the mix the best.
My first amp was a 1980s Peavey Renown 212 - I always thought it had great tone for a solid state and quite a bit of flexibility. Every time I brought it out - I was "gear shamed" by the bandmates - I finally gave into the pressure and sold it to buy what was considered "cool and acceptable" - at that time I did not realize my peers were probably listening with their eyes not their ears. Now I really don't care what anyone thinks and do wish I would have kept it.
The Renown could surprise you. There was a guy at out local Guitar Center about a month ago really laying some fat and thick classic rock licks that sounded FANTASTIC and everybody in the place eased over to take a look at what he was jamming though. It was a early model Renown (the one with the output transformer) that looked like it had been dragged up the road behind a truck. He was just running straight into the amp with no pedals. Everybody in the place was shaking their heads in disbelief. He really knew how to dial that thing in (he also bought it for like $140). It made me wish I had mine back now that I'm older and patient enough to tweak knobs and search for tones instead of just expecting to just plug in and get tone with no effort.
OMG! My 1st amp! I bought it at Lier's Music in Riverside California, December 1981, for $99! Had it for a few years. I eventually plugged it into a Yamaha 50/112 amp and got some cool sounds running a bunch of effects through it.
I used to use a Decade as an amp for a talk box in the 90s, speaker disconnected, instead going into a horn driver (and then on to the Tygon tube), saturation knob on, fully cranked.
Yeah, you got really close, that’s pretty cool. They do a ton of post production to boost the thickness and mid range however, and they layer a ton of guitars with different amps. I remember an interview with their engineer that recorded Songs for the Deaf, and the studio was just lined with tons of different amps, but interestingly enough the vast majority were small combos, so definitely not going for the large Marshall stack sound.
I was dying to hear Mexicola in this video. It's the first thing that came to mind when I heard the bass tone in the intro, it really is an iconic sound!
Imo the secret to those amps is the speaker. It’s nothing fancy but it sounds perfect for the box. I put my decade speaker in a 70s Champ and it sounded amazing.
Eric Valentine told in the deleted episode of "Making records with Eric Valentine" that he used it for Bass on SftD with a Coles 4038 ribbon as close as possible to the grill ! He mentioned, that the amp was whisper quiet
The little Peavey amps sound great when you fit Jensen speakers. I have a pair of them one with an alnico speaker and one with a ceramic. Both are great amps..
Oh snap! I have this exact same little amp...its up on the top shelf in my closet! I'm 40 and I remember receiving this amp when I was around 13 or 14! It was my stepfathers amp,but he never learned guitar but I did, so he just gave it to me...this was in the mid 90s! Lol! Awesome to find a video on it! Great video, man! 🤟💯
In my younger days, I played gymnasiums with a Peavey backstage plus, much like this but it’s big brother with more features. For a solid state the amp cranked to 10 actually sounded great built like a tank and filled a room or hall and like I said a gymnasium without issue. They used to make them bulletproof.
My 2 bobs, For drive sound with a six string electric, the Decade sounds better on saturation input, Post gain set about 7-9 Pre 3-5 (for bedroom use, gets really loud after that). EQ - Low 10, Mid 7, High 9. try that, less farty sound. Good bombproof practice amp, better sound than early Rage. I have both.
For my practice amp around the house I use an old Peavey Bandit from the same era. Same jagged, sharp Peavey logo. 8 inch speaker. Honestly, a badass tone, whose character I cannot get from anything else lol. At least, not without completely changing all settings and eq. My Bandit is sparkly clean yet a smidge of a little grit to spice it up.
I've heard the Mostortion uses this Peavey tone stack, which is lulzy if the "LA & Nashville secret weapon" was baked into every pawn shop ghost from Meridian.
Try a Marshall Bass 12, it as good as these amps are hyped up to be. WGS makes the absolute best sounding 10 inch speakers, the 65 watt model especially. Obviously that’s what you want to load one with.
The small Peavey amps from the 80's were workhorses for people who had little $$. I remember doing metal tunes, running our Backstage and Studio Pro amps dimed for hours on end. The amps and speakers were bulletproof.
I don't believe it (but I really do. Our Amazing Media Powers.) that was the 1st amp that I purchased back in the early, mid 80s. My brother and family had amps but this was the one that I purchased. along with a MXR Distortion+. I got on UA-cam to look up the 90s Peavy Rage 158 that I saw at Goodwill. And I was sitting here thinking of My 1st Peavy amp, the Decade. And here is the video.
That was my first amp back in 1980. I got it for free from the dumpster at a local music store that had a fire. It smelled like smoke and I had to replace the tollex but it was a great little amp. I gave to a friends son a few years ago when he started playing guitar.
I’m a fan of 8’ speakers. The little 1w Supro I use at home sounds killer, with or without pedals. Idk how this amp fairs with delay/reverb but the Muff really brought it to life 🤘
Stuff I use at Sweetwater: imp.i114863.net/P1KkY
Stuff I use at Thomann: bit.ly/mythomannstore
You got a tab for Kalopsia? Been looking around for that
"I got one for 30 dollars"
5 months later with hype, there's one on reverb for 1400 . . .
I was just going to say that! Holy cow people are quick!
@@chrisbenson1465 Josh Homme just sold an amp for 1400 too.
They’ll come back down - it was like this with the Centurion MkIII bass heads a while back (Faith No More bass tone in a box) and now they’re back in the $150-250 range.
@@ObeseChess On the bright side, there's now a Peavey Decade amp in a pedal and a DIY preamp kit. The amp in a pedal is a ridiculous $300, but the DIY kit is really cheap if you know how to solder.
@@madhatter8508 No need. You can get an Audition 20, which is almost the same exact amp, for 1/10 of the price.
i think this dude is a queens of the stone age fan. i think.
No one knows…
I’m retiring from queens after this video. I’ve explored everything.
@@eirikstor nooo
Never heard of ‘em
@@eirikstor noo please
So whilst we were all being gear snobs selling off our cheap gear and buying ever more expensive amps, Josh Homme carried on using his 1st practice amp and made it his sound!
And what a bad sound it is!
True, true...but in fairness, *part* of his sound, along with his fancy pants vintage Ampegs and Ovations and Australian boutique guitars.
@@InGrindWeCrust2010 and echo park guitars out of Detroit
@@cory-o-cookies95 True, and others...although no need to mention Echo Park.
Fuck that, cheap shit all the way. Guitars I play the most are all my cheap ones.
Find a decent quality entry model and you're golden! If you wanna splurge, get an Ibanez AG85 or something. Don't spend over $1k on a guitar unless you really love the look/feel/sound of it THAT much!
there are so many old Peavey amps left because they made them almost indestructible back then.The term "planned obsolescence" was not something they had heard yet. Peavey in the 1980's was probably the most reliable brand on the planet.
Durable goods law. It has been a battle for a long time. Peavey just built business on a quality product.
I love my new Delta Blues. I'd say they still hold up today.
Look up the lightbulb industry in the early 1900s.
It's true..I bout one from my bud,kicked the crap out of it for years and sold it back to him years later for the same price..it was heavy but seemed indestructible
@@Yeldineyintunyeah they built them to last forever make then
I remember hearing they went around to pawn shops and got a bunch of “junk” amps for SFTD. Homme regularly plays cheap solid state amps and toured with an Epiphone dot for a while. If you really want to take a lesson from Homme then go to second hand music stores and test everything/anything out. Don’t just order stuff online because someone sold you on it. Good gear is whatever inspires you to make more music. Aside from that it’s about replicating tones or maybe collecting but that stuff is less gratifying to me.
This. I personally scored myself a 1979 Peavey Century 200H head a couple of years ago second hand for dirt cheap and can't see myself letting go of it. Great for those fat, greasy, fuzzy tones, pretty similar to this little amp here. I've played a lot of shows and recorded 2 albums with it at this point. Had many people come up to me and ask what amp I'm running and tell me my tone is just mental, lol. I've spent less than $800 total for all of my guitar gear, and that's including 4 pedals, 2 guitars, 2 4x12" cabs and the head I just mentioned. A lot of people spend that much on just an amp head alone.
Same goes for guitars and pickups specifically. I’ve played some no name cheap ass pickups that just killed.
@@chrisbardolph I've got a Harley Benton LP that came loaded with some cheap Wilkinson P90's and it cost me $170 brand new. Thing sounds beefy as fuck and plays well once you set it up properly. Recorded a lot of songs with it.
To add to this, apparently they got a lot of old cheap crap pawnshop amps, mic'd them all and painstakingly blended them to get the huge deep punch. Good luck replicating that.
@@birdbathbash And old tape recorder things with 2” blown speakers.
The bass tones sounded pretty damn good.
Yup
If you just play/write, use what inspires you in the moment, and don't worry about gear... it's amazing what can happen
I don’t care if josh was just messing around about this amp and it being a “ secret weapon”.
This sounds pretty freaking cool.
Not sure why anyone would think he's messing aroung. The proof is in the pudding. Just listen and you can hear it in the recordings.
Crazy. This is literally QotSA in a box. He wasn't kidding.
What do you think? Is this the secret sauce?
I could certainly see myself using one. It's also making me wanna search for a similar lo-fi toy amp I can throw around in that way. It would suit my aesthetic for sure.
Any small combo with the pre and post gains are worth trying, Marshall AVT’s and the such
@@ryansouthard4929 is the pre gain for preamp and the post for the power amp??
For me, the secret sauce will always be what works for me, not someone else.What's interesting and telling is ,that in your quest to capture the sounds of a particular band, and two guitarists in particular over time, you've been through almost every kind of gear made.So ,- what do great, original bands use? ANYTHING that works for them at the moment.The important factor is always going to be your individual approach and thought processes, - broad, - or narrow.
Patiently waiting for the value of these on Reverb to skyrocket
Solid state Peavey amps are so good. Great sounds, been using them nearly exclusively for well over a decade now.
They can get super loud and break up in just the right way/amount
Yep. I’ve got an old 80s backstage plus and it has the pre/post and a unique “saturation” pot that dials in this unmistakable peavey crud/fuzz, a little or a lot, its really great.
I have a peavey rage 158 and sounds pretty good with pedals
True, I've been chasing a Teal Stripe Bandit 112 and a XXL since they're nigh perfect for what I play.
I agree but you kinda gotta play em loud. I have a bandit 112 that I really love, but it's a piece of shit lmao I gotta keep the volume reasonable in my shitty ass apartment 😭
Proof good gear isn't always the most expensive. I've got a battered old Ashdown Five 15 bass head (long since discontinued. I barely know much else about it) sat next me on the mix desk, and I've gotten really big smooth bass & guitar tones out of it. The only downside is the fan is noisy, but I fix that by placing it away from any mics and using long cables. My fave feature of it is the DI channel, which means I can plug straight in, and it becomes a preamp of sorts. It's even got an overdrive circuit built in! I genuinely love it.
I swear so much of gear history is full of stuff that people didn't use because it was the in-thing, but because it was cheap and no one else wanted it (Roland 808, the original fuzz pedal, the Jazzmaster etc.) These things only became legendary (and then expensive AF) only after the fact. It's the craft that makes the difference. It's way too easy to lost in fetishising gear rather than learning how it works and perfecting your craft.
its a $379 pedal hes using so yeh it is money
Dude you killed every riff, great guitar playing
And bass lol
thanks!
Played this amp during my punk days in NYC, just this and a beat up Les Paul. No pedals, just a mic on it and cranked into the PA. I didn't have much cash and had to take public transportation to all my gigs. It just died a couple of year ago.
Was it loud enough to hold up to a drummer?
@@metalheadblues it was being pumped through the PA and the drummer had a monitor by his side. All you have to do is mic it.
that bass grunt is so GLORIOUS
I bought this amp back in the mid 90's for 5 bux. I still use it to this day. I write all my songs on it. Love this amp. Their is a tech in my town at a major national guitar store who uses this amp exclusively to test all the guitars that come through his shop.
I used to use an old Fender solid state amp and it recorded like an absolute beast.
That bass sure sounded legit!
I’m such a huge fan of old peaveys and small amps in general. The Peavey Bandit is a staple in bedrooms and small studios. The 80s and 90s Fender and Peavey Solid State amps are so good.
I hated my peavy studio pro.
I’ve got a Peavey studio pro and a fender 85 red knob. The I’ll never sell my fender but the peavey is for sale if you want it. Lol
I have an old 1979c Peavey Deuce. Thing still works. My first amp was a Peavey Rage from 1997. That little thing is still going.
I have an old 1992 peavey special 112 combo I bought new, the sucker has 160 watts, it sounds good and can drown out a friends marshall head and 4x12 cabinet. Nice that it will fit in just about any car too.
@@jasonrackawack9369 The Peavey tube stuff was loud as hell.
I remember my Peavy Bandit stack I made when I was 15 back in the 80s. Took 4 of them and mic'd them up and voila 80s metal with a BOSS Super OD and Boss DD3 Digital Delay. The good old days. Expensive don't mean good.
When I first heard QOTSA, they had just released Rated R. They instantly became one of my favorite bands. I ended up buying a Peavey VTM 120 head because I could get those kind of tones with it. Cool amps if you can find one.
All the little Peavey amps are classics. They don't need to be anointed by rock stars. The Transtube Rages are fantastic amps for recording and sound huge when you crank them up. They also have a lot different sounds but react well to fuzz boxes and other pedals.
It's never a bad idea to pick up an old usa-made peavey as a backup if you come across one cheap, that's something you really can't say about many brands
Far better than the trans tubes.
If you blend this with the ampeg amps it combines quite nicely. They compliment each other well and the combo is the songs for the deaf album sound.
I don't think they used the Decade for guitar on SFTD (blended with the ampegs)? I think they used the bigger Peavey Standard and Musician for that.
@@eirikstor True. There's that picture from the SFTD sessions Eric Valentine put out years ago (on what is now the Gearspace forum iirc) where we can see the insane mic setup they used in front of an Ampeg head and cab with a Peavey Standard next to it.
I was under the impression that their "sound" came from the overdriven Ampegs. A la the Catalinbread SFT Drive pedal (which is killer, by the way).
Early records, yes. I have a video on that as well!
Gear is what you make of it. You won't have certain sounds from the above amp but if you work with it, you can make your own music that sounds cool with it.
80's Peaveys really are underrated amps. I love the pre and post volume knobs for dialing in gain. Also, the Peavey VTM 60 head is an amazing tube amp that many compared to JCM800's, and can be found on the used market for a few hundred dollars.
I still have a Bandit silverface :) which I did some upgrades! replaced the opamp chips inside with Burr browns, I think it sounds a bit better etc. but these amps seem to live forever!!!
+1 One of my favorite guitar sounds is in the record "Ciudad de Brahman" and it was mostly recorded with a Peavey VTM
my biggest regret in life is selling my vtm 120
I love Peavey Transistor amps, I own a Peavey Envoy 110 (40w) I replaced the stock Blue Marvel speaker with a Jenson and it just blows me away. There are plenty of Peavey transistor amps that will surprise people if they can just get past the stigma of owning one. I also own a Peavey Studio (80w) came stock with an Eminence speaker, I find the sound a bit brighter overall. Its a nice change up to the Envoy
I have a beat up peavey pacer, sweet amp
I have a Peavey Audition 20 and it sounds pretty much identical. It also looks pretty much identical, same grill, knobs, etc. I got it for $50.
This was my first amp in 96. Got it as a gift from my uncle. Pretty cool knowing that it was used on some classic tunes
Wow that bass sound! Very cool
I picked up a rage 158 a few weeks ago and it honestly sounds great for what I'm doing with it. Just a very abrasive, thick sound cranked, and a good crispiness at lower volumes. Tiny, shitty solid state amps are way too fun.
Peavey Rages (and all other older small Peaveys like the Decade) have no right to be as usable as they are. I used to have 3 of them and they're a surprising amount of fun
@@ColbyJohnson303 I've been recording with it and it sounds better than my actual full stack
I agree with this 100 percent. I was always on the search for how to boost that same sound in a live setting.
Want shitty find an old gorilla LOL!
@@pearlgrays I ended up buying four of em and running them together with a splitter. Th only alternative is a mic live
makes me miss my Peavey Audition 110, its in the shop right now gettin a grounded cable and a couple other things done to it. cant wait
PV usually makes pretty damn good stuff but their Transtube line is stellar for the price, especially the old stuff, curious bout the new bandits though..
I am torn, part of me wants Peavey to get the recognition they've always deserved (besides the 5150/6505 obviously)... and part of me hopes no one catches on so I can continue to scoop up cheap ass amps that sound amazing.
Way too late for that!
I wish I got a VTM or 90's Butcher when they were still $400 lol
@@IHateMyAccountName Both of those are sick amps.
@@brpadington I'm just glad a Sovtek when they were $500 lol
I think the bandit is pretty widely recognised as a legit sleeper amp.
I used to pre-amp my Marshall 50 watt half stack with my 81 Peavey decade for live gigs, and band practice.. I have 2 of them right now.
Peavy is such an underrated flagship amp. It's a low price amp, with an amazing tone that just rocks! I had a Peavey Bandit 112. Best sound I ever got.
Yup peavey bandit 1-12 sounds like a tube amp. So awesome
The cheapest one on Reverb is currently $500🤦🏻♂️ This is the Lead 12 all over again!
Man Ffs
Cheapest currently at 325, most expensive at 1400. Ha.
These types of videos typically FUCK the resale markets about 8 minutes after going up. Even though Josh covered it in older videos.
I’m the same way with my Laney LC15. The old one, with no reverb. Best tube amp I’ve owned. Period.
Pretty darn close. I think their signal is a tad bit brighter (not by much) than this (might be an eq /post capture thing) . BUT! You're pretty spot on.
Definitely killer on bass! I dig a couple guitar tones too, but I’d love to hear this with a proper Pbass
I think the message is you can make good music no matter what the gear. Got mine handed down from my dad, which was his practise amp.
No one needs the exact same sound as Qotsa but helps understand how the tones are created, fuzz, low gain, small speaker for the more up front tone. So many decent practise amps available these days even with tubes in. Spoilt for choice.
Thanks for the demo though, interesting to see. Mine has been in the cupboard for about a decade, saves me getting it out and dusting off lol
I played the predecessor to this amp, the Backstage, in the early 80's when I started. Not a bad amp, once I got a Fender Pro Reverb I never played it again though. I've found I can get a usable sound out of just about any amp.
Awesome! My first amp was a Peavey Studio Pro 20 with the same looks but a little bigger and maybe another knob or two. Along with my first guitar, a Sears Catalog white Cort "Effector" explorer that had built-in effects like distortion delay reverb etc. I still have them at my Folks house in the Harry Potter space under the basement stairs, lol!
The guitar had built in effects? That's cool
Josh gets a great sound out of it and your sound is very much like Josh guitar tone.
We used to jam in my other guitarist's dad's auto repair garage in the early 80's. We both had stacks. I had a SOUND CITY 120 (6 Mullard el34's) 1/2 stack and he had an AMPEG V4 1/2 stack. Now although not as loud, putting his little brother's Peavey Decade in the corner of the lift bay and cranking it up sounded amazing. The reflections against the concrete floor a cement block walls rocked!!!!!
Theres no one else better suited to do this video! Been watching since the first QOTSA vid and your tones are always spot on 🤙
I have a Peavey Pacer from 1980. 45 watt. It’s actually a fantastic amp. Nice reverb, takes pedals well. I don’t use it much but when I dig it out it always surprises me.
haha Peavey have som many models, I learn about 5 new ones every day
What cracks me up is that I still have mine from new, it was my first amp like half a century ago.
Used it as a preamp starting in 1991; it didn't make me famous or good so don't get your hopes up y'all
1:35 WHITE STRIPES REFERENCE
Queens definitely created their own sound.
I play pedal steel through one. I got a stereo reverb rack and one side goes to a peavey nashville 400, and the other side to the normal channel on the decade. That little speakers tin can tone and the hairy sound of the decade cascade well with the almost sterile sound of the nashville. Gives it a little character.
I play an Epiphone Les Paul Custom into an Orange Crush 35 and I am obsessed with the sounds i’m able to make from my fairly affordable setup.
Old Peavey's are the best solid state amps for the time that they came out in imo. Their early 2000's Vypyr series were great too.
ah man i used to have a vypyr 20 or 30 watt. the delay and reverb didn't work though due to corroded potentiometers. wish i had got another one though, i liked the sound a bunch
I have a Crate "The Can " amp
Yep. Made from a Plastic Gas Can
Rumor has it , Famous Seatle bands used one on studio stuff
Crate USA made Great stuff as well !
I’ve never owned that Peavey amp, but did record an album with a Peavey amp, because that was what I had at the time.
I’ve found, you can usually make what you got work, & sometimes you can stumble across something really cool you wouldn’t expect.
I once got a really cool sound on a home demo going direct in with a Boss Overdrive/Distortion pedal.
The more expensive stuff can usually get you to at least “good”, much faster, and will give the player more “wow” moments in the room, where with the Peavey, it was “that sounds pretty good”.
However, it’s sometimes harder to get that “sounds awesome” feeling in the room, to tape, with some of the more expensive stuff.
What sounds “awesome” playing in the room, doesn’t always set in the mix the best.
My first amp was a 1980s Peavey Renown 212 - I always thought it had great tone for a solid state and quite a bit of flexibility. Every time I brought it out - I was "gear shamed" by the bandmates - I finally gave into the pressure and sold it to buy what was considered "cool and acceptable" - at that time I did not realize my peers were probably listening with their eyes not their ears. Now I really don't care what anyone thinks and do wish I would have kept it.
The Renown could surprise you. There was a guy at out local Guitar Center about a month ago really laying some fat and thick classic rock licks that sounded FANTASTIC and everybody in the place eased over to take a look at what he was jamming though. It was a early model Renown (the one with the output transformer) that looked like it had been dragged up the road behind a truck. He was just running straight into the amp with no pedals. Everybody in the place was shaking their heads in disbelief. He really knew how to dial that thing in (he also bought it for like $140).
It made me wish I had mine back now that I'm older and patient enough to tweak knobs and search for tones instead of just expecting to just plug in and get tone with no effort.
OMG! My 1st amp! I bought it at Lier's Music in Riverside California, December 1981, for $99! Had it for a few years. I eventually plugged it into a Yamaha 50/112 amp and got some cool sounds running a bunch of effects through it.
The tones you pulled out of that thing sounded spot on!
I used to use a Decade as an amp for a talk box in the 90s, speaker disconnected, instead going into a horn driver (and then on to the Tygon tube), saturation knob on, fully cranked.
Yeah, you got really close, that’s pretty cool. They do a ton of post production to boost the thickness and mid range however, and they layer a ton of guitars with different amps. I remember an interview with their engineer that recorded Songs for the Deaf, and the studio was just lined with tons of different amps, but interestingly enough the vast majority were small combos, so definitely not going for the large Marshall stack sound.
Still, has a better sound than many overpriced amps or emulators that offer that sound... and way cheaper!
the bandits and special 112s are stellar amps, heavy as an anchor and I like the scorpion speakers they used
I was dying to hear Mexicola in this video. It's the first thing that came to mind when I heard the bass tone in the intro, it really is an iconic sound!
Imo the secret to those amps is the speaker. It’s nothing fancy but it sounds perfect for the box. I put my decade speaker in a 70s Champ and it sounded amazing.
Eric Valentine told in the deleted episode of "Making records with Eric Valentine" that he used it for Bass on SftD with a Coles 4038 ribbon as close as possible to the grill ! He mentioned, that the amp was whisper quiet
Totally nails the queens tones. Great unique hard rock tones
The little Peavey amps sound great when you fit Jensen speakers.
I have a pair of them one with an alnico speaker and one with a ceramic.
Both are great amps..
Oh snap! I have this exact same little amp...its up on the top shelf in my closet! I'm 40 and I remember receiving this amp when I was around 13 or 14! It was my stepfathers amp,but he never learned guitar but I did, so he just gave it to me...this was in the mid 90s! Lol! Awesome to find a video on it! Great video, man!
🤟💯
Wanna sell it ?
Nice video, it gets that qotsa sound. Your playing is very good too which obviously helps the sound too
I think Josh was punking us all.
Kicked it off with a little White stripes. Nice!!
Have mine for almost 40yrs still works perfectly…Don’t forget about the preamp out on the back 👍
I had a Peavey Bandit from the 80s, then transitioned into a Peavey Special 112. It is still my main amp.... With an original Marshall Guv'nor
This was the first amp I ever owned. I wish I still had it. Damn I wish I still had it. It was my favorite amp of all time.
I love the white stripes riff you played
In my younger days, I played gymnasiums with a Peavey backstage plus, much like this but it’s big brother with more features. For a solid state the amp cranked to 10 actually sounded great built like a tank and filled a room or hall and like I said a gymnasium without issue. They used to make them bulletproof.
Your playing is superb
My 2 bobs, For drive sound with a six string electric, the Decade sounds better on saturation input, Post gain set about 7-9 Pre 3-5 (for bedroom use, gets really loud after that). EQ - Low 10, Mid 7, High 9. try that, less farty sound. Good bombproof practice amp, better sound than early Rage. I have both.
Sounded sick on the bass. And Thats what they used in the bass breakdown for sure. They used a ribbon for more bass too.
I used a ribbom mic too ;)
@@eirikstor Oh nice - didn't know that was a ribbon. That'll be why the bass sounded so good!
*update the prices have sky-rocketed!
they have indeed
You made this amp sound incredible
thanks!
I had a model one size bigger as a Bass Amp in the eighties.I never knew you can use for Guitar too.That would have saved me a lot of money.
Yup, I watched that video too. I didn’t think they would last long on the used market after that.
Peavey was big when i was young. I had a smokin Yamaha 112. 30 watts of pure hell. Great amp
The I sat by the ocean tones seemed dead on.
Yeah man
Ah thanks man* there fixed it
They will overdrive like crazy but I’ve had two go up in smoke when pushed too hard,
I used to have a peavy blazer, little amp, don't remember the watts. It fricken rocked!
For my practice amp around the house I use an old Peavey Bandit from the same era. Same jagged, sharp Peavey logo. 8 inch speaker. Honestly, a badass tone, whose character I cannot get from anything else lol. At least, not without completely changing all settings and eq. My Bandit is sparkly clean yet a smidge of a little grit to spice it up.
I've heard the Mostortion uses this Peavey tone stack, which is lulzy if the "LA & Nashville secret weapon" was baked into every pawn shop ghost from Meridian.
I had a Peavey Decade and a lotus Les Paul copy as my main rig for nearly a decade !
Those peaveys from the 80's rock! I have a peavey triumph 120 combo, sounds insane. Great video!
thanks!
Found the next preamp pedal I'll be building! Thanks for sharing.
Haha nice!
Try a Marshall Bass 12, it as good as these amps are hyped up to be. WGS makes the absolute best sounding 10 inch speakers, the 65 watt model especially. Obviously that’s what you want to load one with.
The small Peavey amps from the 80's were workhorses for people who had little $$. I remember doing metal tunes, running our Backstage and Studio Pro amps dimed for hours on end. The amps and speakers were bulletproof.
I've just discovered peavey rage 158, after 40 years of playing... and its damn good!
Back in the 1980s I used Peavey amps for my SD-1 Pads and drum mikes. They worked very well for my applications.
The sky is falling has 1 of my favorite tones ever
The tone on that is absolutely brutal
I have a Companion 15 from many years ago. Still love it and it's sounds!
I don't believe it (but I really do. Our Amazing Media Powers.) that was the 1st amp that I purchased back in the early, mid 80s. My brother and family had amps but this was the one that I purchased. along with a MXR Distortion+. I got on UA-cam to look up the 90s Peavy Rage 158 that I saw at Goodwill. And I was sitting here thinking of My 1st Peavy amp, the Decade. And here is the video.
One of my favourite bass tones. So growly.
Reminds me of my Marshall Lead 12. It is from about '86. I just recently got a Peavey Express 112 at a flea market for $130.
Marshall lead 12 is one of the best amps ever made.
My friend had one of those. Check the blue knob. That might be a pish pull knob. I know it was on a couple of models
That was my first amp back in 1980. I got it for free from the dumpster at a local music store that had a fire. It smelled like smoke and I had to replace the tollex but it was a great little amp. I gave to a friends son a few years ago when he started playing guitar.
I’m a fan of 8’ speakers. The little 1w Supro I use at home sounds killer, with or without pedals. Idk how this amp fairs with delay/reverb but the Muff really brought it to life 🤘
So excited for mine to arrive! 8 inch speakers are perfect for recording