Peavey Sessionbass Head

I've heard they were made in the early 90's.
I play blues, hard rock, and funk, with a 70's Jazz and 83 Rick 4003. it does the job every time. I've used it with a SWR Triad Cab, a custum made 2-10 and a 15,(Madison Speakers, can't say enough good things about their quality speakers) and then a single Madison down fireing 18, all with equally good results. The band likes the sound of the single 18, as it gets grindy and throws the lows. Power output is not a problem, though clipping was until I started useing the 10db pad button.I use it for small and medium gigs and practise and yes it has enough power to suit them all so far. I have 2 tube Bass amps and 2 solid state Amps. I do use the Session the most, so does my son.

The rick and Jazz with a maple neck get that grinding sound that helps the amp distort the way I like it, I use my fingers, pick and slap when needed. The amp has a parametric eq and contour, it's like a small boutique amp made by Peavey, I have a Carvin R1000 AN SVT and a Peavey Alpha Tube Bass Amp also. but mostly use the Session Amp.

I've owned it for 3 years and never had a problem

Never dealt with them for this Amp, as it has never had a problem.

I have been playing Bass for 25 years, I use a Swr Triad, a custum made cab that has 2-10s and a 15 Madison, and a Madison down fireing 18. I have a Carvin R 1000, a 69 Ampeg SVT, a 90s Peavey Alpha Tube Bass head and the Session. The Ampeg is retired, the Carvin is going up for sale.
If the Session was stolen, I'd replace it, as my 16 year old son loves useing it as much as I do.Thats the reason I've been useing the Alpha more these days, which gets the same sounds, with a booster Eq like the Carvin only with tubes... I've found that as long as you have quality Basses and speakers, A parametric eq and a couple hundred quality watts your home free. Bass Players are as finicky as any other muscian, but once we find the seperate lovable components, we stay with them.

No idea what year the amp was made. I bought it for $150 at a music store that was clearing out their bass gear. Good deal, eh?

My band plays hard rock, for example, like Tool, Incubus, Deftones, etc. It really doesn't push a good low end. There's no channel switching, but there are outputs for effects loops and a headphone jack. I use this amp for everything, from practice to gigs in small clubs. It works for me for now, but I desperately need something that can drive my low end through my ampeg 410 SVT cabinet.

The bass I have is a late 70's Peavey T40 bass, that sounds so wonderful. It has 2 dual soapbox pickups which I can switch between. The amp does suit the style of music we play though, however, it really cannot push lows really well. The highs are almost non-existent, whereas oddly, you can really get a good, punchy funk-bass tone through the amp. If it's your thing, the contour knob really helps you get muddy with the sound.

Hasn't given me any problems yet. Never broken down. I can only give it a good rating because of that.

No idea.

I've been playing bass for 7 years. The 410 SVT ampeg cab that I have had has been with me for 2 years now. I used to have a Crate 100 watt combo amp that I practiced with, but couldn't stand it. The Sessionbass head was an upgrade, yes, but nowhere where I want to be with my sound. I'd say this amp is great for practicing, or even as a backup for gigs, but definitely not an amp to record or put on a show with. You can find these pretty cheap.

Straightforward to use, the contour knob gives good flexibility. Loads of other knobs and buttons so your sound preference is easily achieved.

Used for practices with 5 piece band all the way to 450 plus people. When practicing I use a custom 2 by 8" cab (sounds good 'though - and have used it for small gigs) when used in anger I use two 15" cabs - with totally awesome Celestion K15 drivers - the voice of rock and roll.

Plenty loud enough for quite big venues, but don't worry about playing Wembley (or for you Americans the Rose Bowl) as there is a DI out for PA use. 130 Watts into 8ohms, 200W into 4ohms.

Currently using an active Carvin LB70, the amp handles this with ease giving a smooth response especially in the lower registers. Much better than other amps I've used (Laney, HH, Carslbro). Also fantastic for slap sounds (there's a bright button which really kicks it out).

Had this amp for about 4 years, never a hint of a problem even when generating large "trouser flap".

Can be used for banging in nails or knocking down walls when not on stage.

Absolutely no need for this.........

Also have a valve head - a brilliant Musicman. Ocasionally use this in a small venue (as this tends to become distorted if pushed).

If the Sessionbass went for a walk I'd buy another one. Immediately.
(But would consider a SWR Baby Baby Blue and take the opportunity to downsize a bit).

look down at the first review for the features. . .its pretty basic. The only really cool feature is the contour knob, it gives the head a lot more versatility in just one knob. for what it is (a low powered basic head) it has all the features it needs. anyhitng more would be redundant i think.

i dont play this amp, i am the guitarist for our band, but our bassist has used this amp for a few months now into a Hartke VX 410 cabinet. Our band plays modern punk (think AFI, Finch), and he plays either a Fender standard p-bass or an old Ibanez into this amp. I was worried at first, because its not all that strong. There is a clip indicator which turns red when the amp is clipping, and when he plays it its red the whole time non stop, which concerns me because it could screw up the cabinet, but we havent had problems yet. This amp sounds pretty good, but the low end can get a little flabby. I got this amp on trade from another local band, and there bass player had used two seperate cabs with it, so ive heard it in three different cabs, and it always was a little lose on the low end. Of course this problem is a little worse with our extremely cheap VX cabinet ($299 for a 410 cabinet). The contour switch is extremely helpful, you can almost just put the other eq controls at 5 and just use the contour to adjust the sound. When the contour is all the way on you get an almost completely mid-less sound, very punchy. As the knob is turned down more mids come in, giving less punch but more cut in the mix. All you have to do is find the right mix of cut or punch for your style, and your in. When we practice we do it LOUD, usually us guitarists have to turn down a couple notches when we play live. At practice and at shows this amps master volume is on all the way, and the preamp control is used for overall volume control, in an attempt to keep the sound as clean as possible. However, the preamp control still seems to linger at about 7 or 8. This setting is just loud enough to get around our guitars in the mix. For those punk players out there i would suggest something with more power, because there can never be enough, but there can definatly be to little. Although, I must add, the bassist who used this amp in another band used two cabs with it routinely, and it could push them, even if the amp got pushed really hard doing it. For those who prefer finger style (we use picks) this amp is very nice. It has good low end for finger style, even though with a pick (like i said) it gets a little lose sometimes. I would probably suggest this amp to someone who would use it in nicer halls, because in a big place youll need a good pa to be heard. We are playing a big place this weekend that has a terrible pa so we never use it, we always just crank it and go. Our guitar stacks can do it no problem, but we always have trouble getting the bass out there without overdriving it. oh that reminds me, this amp dosent have very smooth overdrive when its cranked. maybe its the solid state electronics (or the fact that my old bass amp was an all-tube vintage fender studio bass combo, i dont think ill ever hear bass overdrive as sweet), but it just sounds weak when you get it really loud. It gets a 6 for sound.

the casing is metal, and its solid state. I could kill a small animal with it, or a larger one if need be. The knobs are strong, and no stupid sliders to snap out.

never used it, never should need to.

Ive been playing bass myself for over 7 years (4 more than our bass player, actually). If it were stolen or lost, our poor ass bass player would be royally screwed. When you are poor and need a stack, you kind of have to take what you can get, but if you play punk or pickstyle hard rock than i would say avoid this amp. It is not very powerful at all, but if you dont need that much power, then this will get you a great sound out of a 410 or 115 cab, especially for you finger style players. over all for punk i give it a 4. . .for other uses i give it a 7, so ill average, round up, divide by the square root of pi, and give it a 6 overall. fell free to email me for more math fun! or if you have questions.

This is a very straight forward unit easy to use.

I have played many basses through this amp and they all sounded good. This being the session bass I think it was made to cover a wide range of tones and its also prety light and easy to move.

Its a rock.

They are very good.

This is a very good amp for the money and works great in church, smaller gigs and studio I use it with a 4-10 cab and it sounds great. The reason I gave it a 10 here is due to the value you can get this head and a 4-10 cab used for under $650 and blow away any combos. If it was lost or stolen I would replace it if I could find it at a good price.

This amp must have been made over ten years ago. It works great for the kind of music I play. The guy I got it from played the same kind of music as me (hardcore) and it has worked great for both of us. I only use the one channel and it has some effects that I've never got around to playing with. I'm still a pretty straight up player and I don't use much for my bass. One thing I wish this amp had was a headphone jack. For the price of this amp you would think it would have one but I guess its not really made for that kind of playing. I was told it has a 12 in it but it looks more like a 15. The head plays into 4 ohms so it has a lot of punch in a small box. You could use this amp for large gigs and the pullout box makes it easy to move around.

It sounds pretty good with all my bass guitars. Its great for punk, hardcore, and blues. I've actually had this amp chip plaster off the walls before!!!! I've had a lot of people tell me they didn't think it would sound as good as it does. It has a good clean sound. Sometimes I actually wish it would feed back more!

You can totally depend on this amp. Not only would I use this amp on gigs but I have. You probably wouldn't even need a backup with this amp. It still looks and sounds like new! We've pushed this thing to the edge and back. It has over 20 shows on it (that I know of) and I've never done anything to it. I don't know if he ever had it worked on but the only thing I remember is his cat pulled the speaker plugs out once. We had to put it back together but I've never had any big problems with it.

I've never had to deal with Peavey but I've heard they have a lifetime warranty on everything.

I've been playing about five years but I just got this amp a year ago. If this amp was stolen I'd be really hurt. I'd probably cry for days! I have no real good pics. of the amp and I've never gotten around to getting the numbers off it. I would probably have no way of getting it back. I don't think they even make this amp anymore but I'd probably get another Peavey. I love its sound and the small box. I'm not real crazy about the fact that when I use the tuner send part of the amp I can't trun myself off to tune. I don't know if something is wrong with this part of my amp or if that's just they way its made. I also really wish it had a headphone jack! I've conpared it to the new Peavey amps (of its size) and I like it better. This amp just has a little more low end and seems to be made better. Plus it looks really cool!;-)

This amp was built in the late 90's, is single channel, solid-state, and fits in two rack spaces. It features a single input with a 10 db pad switch, three band EQ with sweepable mids, tuner send, bright switch, XLR balanced out (switchable for pre or post EQ) and a limiter. Power output is specified at 130 watts into 8 ohms and 200 into 4. It also has an EQ knob called "contour" which boosts lows and highs while notching mids. I typically use a single Peavey TXF 4x10 8 ohm cab for our shows. It has enough power for me to hear myself, though we always send me out into the PA also.

All in all, the tones are pretty basic - not bad, but nothing you haven't heard before either. And you wouldn't have to look very hard to find amps with more character to their sound, but that's really not what this amp is all about. Without much fuss, I can get a good sound in any hall or club where we're playing. OK fine for me. Both of my basses (J and Ric) work well through it.

I've had only one on-the-job failure with it. Last year at a corporate holiday party gig, the sound simply stopped coming out of my cab. I could hear myself playing through the FOH system, so I finished the song and plugged the speaker cable into the 2nd output. It did fine for the rest of the night and hasn't had the problem again. As far as a backup goes, the band carries a 2x200 watt 8 channel Peavey powered mixer as a redundant for ANYTHING which might fail at a bad time! I've never had to use it.

No direct experience, but the manual was available for downloading at Peavey's website.

I've been playing for almost 30 years. I bought this amp on eBay and sold my Fender BXR 400 Dual Bass head last year when I started downsizing my rig. (yes, my review for that amp is also posted) The Fender had a wider variety of tones and was MUCH louder, but it was three rack spaces and weighed forty pounds. The Sessionbass amp does what I need it to do, and I think that I paid a fair price for it. For a lightweight mid-powered amp, it's been a bargain.