Behringer Bass V-Amp

I would give this unit a better ease of use rating, but I find it clumsy to press a button to get to half of the controls on the unit. I would rather use the software that can be dowloaded to control things. Then, once you have set up some presets, it's very tricky to get them saved to your computer. However, by using the software, editing the patches is very easy, and the unit, itself, does a good job of saving my work.

I am using this with a Fender Strat, a Washburn Bantam Headless copy bass, and a Kramer Aluminum neck PJ bass. It gets plugged into my computer studio, and is usually monitored with headphones. The first thing I want to say is that the sound is terrible without the software interface. There is an internal gain and output (master volume)control on the setup window, only accessable from the computer software, that needs to be adjusted. If the gain is over half way, the unit will cut out when you hit a hard chord. If the output is over half way, you will hear squaking sounds that don't sound musical. Once you have these controls set properly, the unit sounds much better. But I find that I have to set the output every time I turn it on, as it defaults to all the way up.
I think the speaker emulations are fabulous, with the one problem being that they come out at different volumes, so when switching from speaker to speaker, you have to mess with the output control. The amp emulations for bass are good. The guitar amps are good, but are lacking a good blues setting. The mic preamp is a cool option. I don't have a keyboard, so I can't really comment on the keyboard settings. Most of the effects fair to weak, but the chours sounds good, and it's hard to mess up a delay. But, since I bought this unit to compliment my home recording studio, which already has too many effects, I'm not too worried about that. While I am into getting my own sound, I should mention that using the British High Gain setting does a great job of duplicating the amp sounds on Iggy Pop's Raw Power album.

For the home studio use I got this for, the plastic is holding up just fine. One of the jacks has gotten loose, but that happens on everything. I don't use this on stage because of it's fragile look, and the fact that I need a computer to eliminate the squaking problems I mentioned above.

I haven't had a problem, so that phase of customer support has been untried. I have downloaded some stuff from their site, and wish they could give me more user information (like on the built in synth).

I am a guitarist who also plays bass, but doesn't have a bass amp, so I was mainly looking for a unit that would make my bass recordings sound good, but find this unit to be a great cheap unit for over all home recording use. I have been playing since 1969, with lots of stage experience. I either call myself a very versitle blues guitarist or a closet punk rocker, and also like to do experimental and electronica work. Among my fovorite artists are Hendrix, Deep Purple, the Ramones, John Lee Hooker, Yello, and Crystal Method. Other than not getting a satisfactory blues setting, this unit does a good job of getting me what I want. I mainly only looked at this unit because it was cheap and I was poor, and the unexpected features sold me on it. While my favorite feature is the speaker emulations (the Sunn Coloseaum setting, emulating one 12" and one 18" is awesome), I wish it had more, like the 3" speaker Ritchie Blackmore claims he uesd to use (probably an exageration) to the EV 30" woofer. I also own a DigiTech RP300, which has a good blues setting and better effects, but lousy speaker emulations, so they compliment each other well. In the same money situation, I would buy it again. With more money, I would look into other units, but might want one of these to go along with a better unit. It has plenty of interesting bass tones, but not being a "real" bassist, I will leave the critique of those setting up to someone else.

I found it pretty easy to get going with this - buttons with multiple uses normally cause some initial stopping-and-thinking moments, but the manual (revision 1.2) is straightforward enough, apart from where it insists on over cross-referencing itself. I needed to revisit the manual to check how to edit each feature and one thing I would comment on design wise is that I find 5 patches in 25 banks a pain and think that 25 patches in 5 banks would be more helpful in limiting the amount of times you have to press a button when jamming out ideas of performing.

I have been recording for years, have done professional stuff and have a music tech degree, but my recording experience with guitars has always been recording other people either using a mic'd amp or a lead from a preamp/amp moddler (the most high tech was a pod original). I have had guitars for years for pleasure and was impressed by what I could get out of the free limited version of Amplitube I got with Protools LE, but didn't want to pay the price of the full thing and actually preferred the idea of some hardware I can jam with. The Bass V Amp is cheaper than the cheapest plugins and really brings the sound of my Bass guitar to life. What I wasn't expecting was just how good the unit worked on other sources - obviously my lead guitar and my electroacoustic, maybe my keyboards (as suggested on the box and legend)- but running an effects send through it opened up all kinds of fun hands on possibilities. The fact that I can automate stuff using MIDI is great - running a drum track through it and playing with delay effects, distortion or even just a basic amp model is great fun and sounds just excellent for the price. I wont be throwing away my waves plugins but this baby does the job I bought it for (making my old J bass sound good) but loads besides. Most importantly for me, it stands up strong against the sound quality of equipment I feel more 'expert in', namely my synths and electronic kit

The only thing I would say - which makes the unit a victim of its success - is that now I know how good it is, I wish I had bought the pro model for ??40 more, but only for the digital output, and this model is nicely portable and comes in a cool little bag.

Cant really comment as its early days. For gigging, Im a sucker for throwing money and the most robust stuff, if only because of bad experiences with early digital synths and computers, but I reckon I would trust this unit to perform until it proves otherwise,

Not needed support for this or any other behringer product I have used or owned, and I like it that way.

Guitar wise, Im a dabbler, but Im an old hand at production of a range of musical styles, and the V Amp is up to the job of providing a bridge between my fairly average guitar playing and my recorded music, which I set high standards for. This unit spends most of its time plugged directly into a Digi 002 control surface/interface/mixer and is run alongside some very expensive and rare synthesizer, not to mention some high end plugins. What I can't overstate is how much fun it is - I get lost for hours with this!

Worth reading the manual so you know how to make use of all the features, but not too difficult to just fiddle around with if you're familiar with other similar products.

The presets are good, and you have the option of editing them, and downloading them through the midi interface.

I'm mostly going to use this unit for recording straight from my acoustic bass, and so far its performed well. It's very quick to adjust things if you need to tweak the sounds and the range of possible tones and effects you can have is impressive.

You can get some noise with it but this is easily eliminated by tweaking the volume and gain. Personally I don't like have too much gain on my bass anyway so its not really a problem for me.

Also seems to work well through a standard guitar, I really like the way behringer suggest alternative setups and they clearly have tested their product and developed the sounds with these in mind.

Of course it is a fairly cheap unit, so you might not get the same sorts of sounds you can from thousands of pounds/euros/dollars worth of gear, but it is a nice compact unit with a massively diverse sound and setups for the money.

Haven't had it long at all but Behringer are an excellent manufacturer of all sorts of sound equipment and I trust that it is a pretty robust unit.

I am a musician who has recently got enthusiastic about home recording and I needed some sort of amp for my electro-acoustic bass and I eventually decided I might give an amp modulator a go. And any capability of working with an ordinary guitar, keyboard and vocals is a bonus.

I was deliberating about what to get for my needs, and saw this excellent device. It came today and I realise this review is a little premature as I haven't had many days use to test it but I probably would forget to write this by then! I wasn't sure whether to go for the V-Amp or V-Amp pro as the V-amp was so cheap I thought it might not sound very good. However I beleive I made a good choice in getting the standard bass V-amp otherwise I would be swamped with all the extra features of the rack-mount bass V-amp pro!

You really can't complain about a unit at this price that provides such a good sound, and a carry case, power supply and footswitch. I remember about five years ago I bought a guitar effects unit for well over twice the price and it came with nothing and had much less features than this.

I am slightly taken aback at how well behringer bass products have worked out for me so far and it leaves me wondering what the catch is considering the value for money you seem to get. Nevertheless I haven't found fault with this and I think if you're looking for a bass amp simulator with extensive features you should definately consider this one along with the bass V-amp pro depending on how much of a audio-tech head you are.

In a way it puts to shame a lot of the companies offering similar products for much more money or for the same money but with less features.

Well I had to read and reread the manual a couple of time to understand how to work with everything but after knowing how to acess de funtions its rather easy to use.
The one thing i think it laks is the ability to program (for example) the delay time either than the tap way. That can be overcome by using the V-amp softwere.

I figure the best way to test something like this is with headphones (i'm using behringer's HPS3000) cause like this there is no interference from the other things in the chain.

E-Guitar:
AMAZING distortion! the rectifier simulaton combined with the correct EQ setting and a 4x12' cab. sim. can make the famous "balls to the walls" effect.
I found that one can make an almost perfect simulation of an acoustic guitar wile using an electric one.

E-Bass:
Din't take mutch time with the bass but it has a pretty good sound

Keyboards:
The prime thing it was bought for but still not mutch to say. Put it this way, it does it's job.
One thing i'd like to point here is the X-over that alows the keyboard player to have, for instance, delay on the hi arpegio notes and nothing on the low chords

The footshitch is routh and, even being all plastic, it looks resistent. One thing it's important to analize here is that, because it has an external footswith and a rather long cable u can put it away from harm and your feet :)

Well nothing to say unless the store that sold it said that they never had a problem with behringer's tech support and waranty

Sound's great, looks cool, comes with a nice transport bag....need to say more?

Easy to use, but the manual can be somewhat confusing. The patches are user-friendly.

The effects, in general, sound great! There is some noise with a few of the patches, but overall, I'm very satisfied with the sounds. It is well worth the $100 I spent on it.

Just bought it, can't comment on reliability yet...

no issues yet

I'd highly recommend this one. This is the first effect pedal I've bought in years. Had a Zoom pedal that was a pile of junk, and I'm usually not an effects user, but this one is a treasure!

It's easy to use, but I'll put it a 7 for a couple of reasons:
1- upgrading is a pain in the ass
2- the manual could be a lot better
3- editing gets easy when you download the soft, but the interfase is not as good in the device itself. Programming via MIDI is a breeze.

Sound quality is ecellent for the money. Presets mostly suck, but a couple are actually really good.
I'm playing a Yamaha Attitude which I had made fretless, and getting a good sound was easy. Played through a PA, through studio monitors and amp, and in any situation the sound was satisfying.
FX are nothing to write home about, but reverbs, chorus and delay are OK, some are sort of fun, but for my style (jazzy) are not quite usable.
Not that the FX are bad, they're just generic.
Anyway, the sound of the amp/cabinet simulations is stellar for the price.
The acoustic simulations are pretty much useless, the electric ones are great for some stuff, perhaps the clean sounds are a little sterile. Anyway, this is a Bass V-Amp, and having the guitar and keyboard simulations is a great bonus.

I dislike the power cord, I think gigging is possible if you're very careful with your gear, but I don't think this thing is at home onstage, unless you're very careful.
Since I have it just for a few days, I won't rate it for actual reliability, but rather for the impression it gives to me.

Behringer has been quite good in the past in this department, and their website has lots of info, not to mention the free software editor. I think they're great at supporting their products, hope I don't have to deal with them for anyghint else ;-)

I play jazz and argentinian folclore mostly. I find it very useful.
I've been playing guitar and bass for almost 20 years, have and have had assorted electric, acoustic, basses, FX, amps, you name it. I work as an engineer in a project studioIf it gets stolen, I will probably buy it again, or perhaps if I have the money go for the big brother, if only for the digital out.
I think it's a terrific value for the money, find the gig bag a nice touch, hate the power connector that makes me feel a little worried about its long term survival.
Minor niggles, since it's all about the sound, and the sounds are there with some work, and having in mind the price, of course. Obviously simulations, and more in this price range, are far from the real thing, but being able to play with this lot of sound possibilities and getting this much sounds is just great.

Plug and Play. Easy accessable presets, which sound more like " I show you everything I can" than "This is maybe a sound suitable for you".
Besides the bass you can run even electric giutars thru the v-amp with guitar amp simulators taken out of the guitar vamp, but they are more on the distortion side.
The tap-knob for tapping in tempo is also the knob for the 2nd parameters and the amp-sim 16-32, not too cool.
Editing functions are quite easy to handle once you?ve got it & you?re able to remember and finally to use of all the possibilities this device has to make changes to the sounds (cab-sim, x-over...) Nice are the 6 different Studio and Live modes, which allow you to run the device stereo w/ or w/out cab-sim, or one channel w/ fx the other clean etc.
Manual is very good - it describes the device?s function not its coolness :-)

in brief: the sound is anywhere from shit till great. Most of the presets are as I mentioned good for the wastecan, but if you take your time you may find some cool sounding combinations according to your preferred style. The FX are midrange, surprisingly I like the phaser which sounds here far warmer & better than in comparable devices. VCF+Flanger is crap for playing with (but cool for noises), forget the reverbs. The bass synth is cool. The most of amp simulation is quite useless to me - I create(d) always my own sound out of it, which is quite ok, but will never reach hi-end quality. There is noise, yes, but you don?t need ro crank the volume at all, so it?s quite acceptable

D?oh! plastic! plastic! I don?t gig with it exept maybe at some performances with a DJ or electro laptop musicians. But that toy didn?t let me down so far, though it?s turned on rather every day constantly for hours.

no service used, no upgrades ordered

Mostly I play rock in all its varieties and I found some suitable bass and guitar sounds. If you rely on the presets you?ll be lost soon. But if it breaks one day I?ll go out to check something else I guess. I bought it because of it?s fair price and I needed something to get some sound of it for a theatre soundtrack production. After this job the Behringer helped me to record here and there some tracks for major music productions as well. I was close to purchasing a bass pod but this is mono and I didn?t buy it in the end. I give a six, because six means "well done", is far away from "crap" or "wow-wow-wow!"

Look cool, Great Nobs, Wish it had a digital display like the Line 6 Pod's. Using it can be kind of confusing, i recomend using the editor software online if your going for a really specific sound but its not hard to come up with some neat stuff. The Manual is great, They describe all the tones and controlls.

Im using this with a Fender Frontman 15B amp and a Fender Highway 1 Percision Bass. The Sound is terrific, its very clean and the denoiser works great. The effects are solid, you can make pretty much any sound you like, I made copied a bunch of the sounds from the line 6 Bass Pod i found online to this, Email me and i can send you them if you like. The Stearo effects sound terrific, i somtimes plug in the Frontman 15G to the line out left for the stereo effects. You can choose a bettween 32 amps and a ton of cabnets. Its great for recording.

Its held up great The only thing is that if your using it for a gig I would highly recomend the Behringer Foot Controller. It makes a quiet beeping noise when you switch presets so if you need to change sounds but that no big deal unless you have a bunch of different sounds for 1 song

N/A

Get the foot board if your going to do gigs with it, its got a wah wah pedal and volume pedal which are useful, Also when making sounds plug it in to a computer with midi cables and use the Editor software at avalible at the website.

Pretty intuitive, easy to get going as soon as you plug in. Editing patches is a breeze, though you?ll probably do much more if you use the software (free download) that Behringer has at it?s site (you?ll need a couple of MIDI cables and a card for your computer)
The manual works pretty well.

I use a Variax Bass and a Variax 500 guitar with it and I get a pretty decent sound for my project studio. Don?t expect the same sound you?d get from the REAL amplifiers (or guitars, in my case) but you?ll be able to get a lot of pretty decent sounds, depending on your style and taste.
The effects? I really wouldn?t count on them for ANY serious application, and since I usually use it for computer recording, I always use effects from the computer recording software.
The amp modeling is not exactly the same quality as the PODs from Line 6, but for this price is THE BEST you can get specially since you get BASS and GUITAR amps. Don?t really pay much attention to the acoustic and keyboard effects, I find them pretty much useless. The compression works halfways the way i hear it.
If you want to use this for direct recording in a DAW system, this is your best choice but it sure will take some time to get JUST the right sound and you?ll have to EQ, compress and mix it on the computer anyway. Sure will fool your ears, not to mention other people?s!

This is not made of metal but plastic. I don?t use it live much but it will sure hold if you handle it with care.

Behringer are REALLY TRYING to make their way through the market these days. Any help you need will turn out to be pretty useful, although until now I have not needed ANY support.

This will be VERY useful for a basic Live setup and a project studio recording situation. Simulation is OK, but don?t expect any miracles. You have to spend some time TWEAKING (as with ANY other piece of equipment) and you?ll end uo with VERY usable sounds. Maybe not as detailed and "PRO" as the Line 6 POD XT but sure as heaven a LOT cheaper!

To an extent, it is easy to get using this unit without the manual, but, as others have said, there are multi function buttons which it helps to know, so you will need to have a look at the manual to get the full whack out of it.

The manual is pretty straightforward, I tend to skim, then pick out the parts I need most, learning gradually. Comes with a free gigbag for protection, and most importantly, a footswitch of the up/down variety, to move through your saved patches.

Very easy to get going with, and addictive, due to the quality of the models and effects. 9 due to multi fuction buttons, and the fact that I prefer to edit via MIDI with my PC, using downloadable (should send a disk with the unit) software.

I use a US Fender Jazz Bass through this, into a Behringer BX1200 (120watt 1x12), and it is exactly what I've been looking for in 15 or so years of playing. Better sound quality than expected for ?90, better than expected for gear up to 3 or 4 times the price. I don't own any of the real amps modeled here, so I don't know about authenticity. Then again, would you need a ?90 box if you had any of these amps?!

For me it is amazing! I like the more tubey, slightly distorted sounds of bassists like John Entwistle, and I can get this. I feel I have created a "signature" sound for myself, and have saved this patch, with different effects, for easy stage and studio use.

At present I am in a "Stoner" rock band, who tune down to C, and both V-amp and Combo handle it excellently. I often use the drop-octave "ultrabass" effect, for extra grunt, but I would advise against using it too low on the bottom string as there can be tracking problems. It's just about learning your(and your equipment's) strengths, and playing to them.

I have recently played our band's 1st gigs, and have recieved an unprecedented number of compliments from fellow bass players and fans alike, regarding the strength and quality of my sound! Yes! I'm shocked too! My whole amp/effect rig cost under ?300, and it is better than anything I've ever spent more on!

Also excellent for recording guitar (good crunch and clean)and keyboards (like Leslie effect on E. Piano and organ sounds, auto wah on clavi), when I demo songs for the band. I record direct to PC, and have even used the effects and compressor for vocals and drums!

I've owned this rig for around 6 months, and have suffered none of the reliability issues mentioned for either the bx1200 amp, or the V-amp. Maybe it's the British 240v power supply or something? I don't know. Have practised hundreds of times with it, played gigs indoors and out, to 30 people and up to 1000 (outside). So far, excellent and no problems.

Some people complain about the plastic case, but I don't know what they intend to do with it? I am careful with my gear, but I think it could take normal wear and tear, and accidental bangs/drops. Try not to throw your bass at it or drop an amp on it, and you'll be fine!

No idea, registered all products online, will have to wait and see. Hope I don't need any support!!

As I said above, I play in a stoner rock band, which requires presence and volume in the mix. I've been playing for around 15 yrs now, and have never enjoyed playing as much as I have of late, and this coincides with my purchase of the Behringer Bass V-amp and BX1200. I wish there was gear like this when I started playing, I'd have progressed so much further. Heigh ho!