Behringer V-Amp 2

I wanted to write this review to thank that "James Acker" guy who reviewed this product on here (3 years ago). Your battery suggestion (below) just brought my V-Amp 2 back to life. So where ever you are... THANKS!!!

On to the review!

Very easy to use. Never used any editing patches. Bought it used... no manual, don't need one. You can download the software and user manual for free online, but I've never needed it.

I'd highly recommend this before buying one of those way over-priced Line 6 things (that do the exact same thing). For the value, it's unbelievably cheap ($99 new). Why not have one of these lying around? Cheaper than most stomp boxes.

I'm going to give it an 8 just because you really need a manual or something printed to find what preset number matches what sound (like 11 for Van Halen). But I rarely used the presets.

I mainly use a Fender Strat with humbuckers. I use the V-Amp when I want to get cool sounds at low volume, headphones, laptop recording. Works great, but I don't think I'd use it live.

You could use it live I suppose. I believe there are ready is some speaker emulation thing on it... so I don't know how that would sound through an amp & speakers. It could work though.

My fav artist isnt important. Whatever your looking for, I'm sure the V-Amp could get close.

O.k. As I mentioned before, this thing crapped out on me and I thought it was dead. It wasnt dead... just a simple watch battery replacement and a reset (thanks again James Acker, below).

Anyway... before I knew what the real problem was (I was in Afghanistan) I opened it up. From the conditions I was living in the thing was filled with dust. I blew all that out... still wouldnt work. Then I got mad and slammed it down a few times hoping that would fix it. Then I gave up on it and threw it in a junk box. It sat in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees for months. Then tonight I learned it was only the battery.

Sure it's in a cheap plastic shell, but considering how much unjustified abuse I put this thing through... and the fact that it now works perfect... that should say something about it's reliability.

Never had to use

What do you got to lose?

Like any multifx, especially at this price point, it could be easier and the manual COULD be better. But it's super easy to get started and the interface is straightforward. Wish it had an on/off switch, but for a hundred bucks, including bag and foot pedal, this is pretty hard to beat.

I'm giving this a 9 based on it's VALUE for the buck.

People who trash this unit are clueless.

I spent many years on the road as a pro player and have a great live rig, guitars and more boutique pedals than I have room for on my pedal board. (e.g., Hotcake, Eventide, Cusack Music, Barber, etc., etc.). Anyone who expects this little powerhouse to compete head to head with "real gear" tone is beyond naive.

It will NEVER sound like a Plexi or AC30 or whatever rig you love.

It's not a high end modeling unit for recording, though I'd imagine it makes pretty passable demos in garage band.

What it is AMAZING for, are three types of players.
1) Students trying to learn how to use effects and wanting to experiment with many different sounds easily and on a budget
2) Occasional Hobby players who just want to hook something into a cheap amp or stereo and a sound pretty impressive
3) Semi-pro and Pro players who want something portable for practicing and hooking up an ipod to.

For these, this unit is amazing. Other players would dig it too. But there are comparable units (pod, vox) with different capabilities that may be more appropriate...but MORE MONEY.

The layout is smart. The ability to turn up an aux input is inspired. The tap tempo and tuner are helpful. Etc. It's a long way from perfect. But it's a less than the cost of most effects pedals and exponentially more versatile.

And the sounds? Yes, they're a bit digital. Yes, every preset isn't great and there are some volume issues across the presets that could have easily been smoothed out. It's not dead silent. The trem could be better. The wah is useless. Chorus, flange and phaser are so-so. But all in all, it sounds GREAT for what it was generally meant for...Practicing and perhaps some home demo's.

I wouldn't gig with it. It's plastic, not a pro piece of gear, though it can sound fairly pro. Don't know how long it will hold up, but I'd expect fairly well with normal semi-careful use.

have never dealt with Behringer.

If you're a budding player, buy this...yesterday.

For the money, it's a better value than the POD or pocket POD. Spend the extra bucks elsewhere. Over the years you'll buy LOTS of gear if you're like most players. Assuming it holds up, this is a unit that will remain in your arsenal, but take on different roles as you progress. It'll start out your main rig, making you sound more pro than you are through a cheap amp or some kid who's daddy bought him an expensive amp but no effects. Then it'll become the thing you play with headphones so you don't bug anyone. Etc. Etc. On down the line until it's like Woody from Toy Story. Old and worn but with too many memories to chuck it.

For me, it's what I'll throw in a dufflebag and use when I travel or when I don't feel like dealing with the hassle and volume of my amps. It won't ever replace tube satuated bliss. But it'll help any player built their chops and hone in on what tone they like, so that when they drop real $, they do it smartly. Nothing sadder than somebody throwing down heavy cash on the wrong kind of amp, then being forever frustrated that they can't get the tone they want.

The only similarly good value I can think of for the beginning player or hobbyist is the new Fender XD. Don't know how they'd sound together.

My guess is that more inspiration and songs come from units like the V-amp, pod etc. than any pedal/amp set up out there. Only the plain ol' acoustic guitar probably trumps these in the writing category.

Three thumbs up.

Very easy to use. Anyone with basic knowledge of guitar effects processors can use this. Otherwise, the thorough instruction manual included should help. Patch editing and saving is fairly easy too.

With a decent set of studio headphones it sounds really good (I use Audio Technica ATH-M40S 'phones). For the price (mine was ??67) it's an absolute steal. I had a Line 6 Pocket Pod prior to this, and while it sounded pretty good, it was really fiddly and hard to edit without a computer. This unit sounds better in my opinion, the high gain stuff is on par with the Pocket Pod and the clean and crunch sounds are better (to my ears anyway). It also has a more natural 'feel'. Don't know why as it's digital. The effects are good too. Not as good as some processors (I have NI Guitar Rig 2 and 3, a Line 6 Toneport with Gearbox, IK Amplitube 2, Metal and Jimi Hendrix and Revalver 2 and 3 demos and the effects on all of them sound cleaner). But the effects are on the V-amp are very good. The reverbs in particular surprised me. They can be selected independently from the other effects. Reverb #4 is my favourite; it sounds like a long delay but without the repeats. Sounds gorgeous with an acoustic plugged into it and the preamp bypassed. As far as amp models go, they're on par with Line 6's. The other software I have has models that sound cleaner and more detailed, although their simulated speaker cabinet response is much better, as the software is much newer.
However, I record with the V-amp as it's much easier to use. I'd rather tweak the V-amp than try and tweak a program clicking a mouse.

It hasn't died yet and I've had it 8 months.

I've never had to contact Behringer.

This is a really good unit that is excellent value for money. I hope they update it in a couple of years and refine the amp models and effects. The V-amp 2 is really quite old compared to the newer processors. I'd buy a V-amp 3 without a doubt.

Any questions, email me. I'll happily provide soundclips too.

I use this as my practice amp. It's pretty plain and simple, to get to the different amp settings (17-32) just hold the tap and twist the knob. All things can be learned through just reading the manuel.

Compared to the pod xt, it would be a 10 imo. But in general its just an 8;average. I play tech death metal, and I mainly use the modern high gain amp, and I can get a great death metal tone. The cleans are pretty decent for the most part. The fx are good as well, kind of the basic stuff though.

it's has been fine so far, but keep in mind it is made of plastic.

If you are a death metal person and are confused to what home recording/practice amp to get, the v-amp is your best route or the pod 2.0. The pod xt is just too fuzzy and every tone you use with distortion/compresssion is going to come out muddy, unless you spend hours(im not lying) ****ing with the parameters and placeing effects in your amp settings ect. ect. ect. Plus it only costs 100 bucks you can't really lose. Also, if you are still unsure, look up matt soleto of decrepit birth on youtube of him playing along with his songs. All done with the v-amp 2.

i've owned this for 3 or 4 years now. in the beginning, all i had was a soild state that i thought was silly, and i was able to coax some really nice sounds that could make my solid state sound less silly.
that's the thing...this thing is very tweakable, if you like that. like me.
some presets were not accurate.
so you must be patient to get the accurate sound, but once you figure out how to use it, there's a lot you can do. the manual is pretty good at telling you what you get.

in the beginning, i used this with a peavey solid state and got good sounds.
i enjoyed the andy summers-like preset, but had no presence so i had to adjust the drive, found that the srv was pretty harsh in the highs so i had to adjust the treble, but other than that sounded great. i'm a huge vox fan, so i loved it in the beginning because i thought the vox sounds were good. now i have an ac15 with an ef86 channel and i think the vox on the behringer will just not do. i love the chieftain, but found that the modern class A is in now way a sound like a matchless. blackface twin and fender champ settings are good, as are the soldano-ish and jtm 45 sounds. jcm800-ish sound was not too bad either, and if i were in a mood to play van halen (like when i use the "eruption" setting for ain't talking 'bout love with my gibson les paul!) i don't think i've ever done any tweaking. the worst of the tone bank presets, to me, is the factory setting for "streets", which is A1. the amp setting, cab, delay, feedback, and reverb are all wrong, and you have to tweak it to get the right sound. i find that the roland jc-120 setting had been a better amp for this, and even using the presence feature (tap button + treble) along with this amp, made the jc-120 sound a little tubey, like the roland bolt60's (remember those?).
in fact, the jc-120 (80's clean) sound is the best sound on this, but again, you have to increase the drive to 1.

currently i am only using this at home. with my solid state amp, which i now realize has a pretty good solid state clean, i use the amp settings, but with my vox, i am only using the digital effects.

like i've said, i used this in the past with a les paul or a dot into a solid state, but currently after having put it aside for almost a year, i took it out again and realize i like the digital delay, and have actually used it for noodling around at home, and currently the setup has been strat into vamp, delay setting (long delay with feedback at 4-6 repeats, tempo 132) reverb at 2.5 - 3, into vox.

right now, i haven't the time to sit with this thing and try to remember everything i've known thing to do. one is enough for now.

a couple of times it went bizarro world on me and shorted out or something because i lost presets and got crap sounds that weren't even preprogrammed. i don't even know where they came from.
but i restored the factory presets and everything was ok. if you leave it unplugged for a while, you'll lose your presets.

i play different kinds of music, and honestly i haven't taken the time to see what this thing can do. i mean i may have at one time, but since upgrading my gear, i don't do much with this anymore.
been playing off and on for about 16 years.
i have a gibson les paul custom, a dot, and a 62 strat. i play through a vox ac15 and a valve jr with mullards through a divided by 13 cab fitted with a g12h heritage series speaker. i also have cute little vox da5 for practice, which also has a good delay feature and some nice fenderish sounds and passble, though still voxy marshall-ish sounds. i use a fulldrive mosfet, an old dunlop wah, sometimes that fender deluxe boss pedal, and sometimes an old turbo overdrive to color my sound. lately i've used the behringer vamp2 for it's delay setting only.
what i love about this is the jc120 setting.
what i love about this is the tweakability.
what i hate about this is the tweakability.

I've used this for 3 or 4 years live. My environment was not amp friendly so this is what I've used up until I needed to play acoustic and electric. Doesn't work for acoustic well and I'm trying to limit my baggage, I just bought a digitech GSP1101 and the jury is still out.

Ease of use: It depends, its easy to access the necessary areas (volume, EQ, patch switching (5 at a time from the included footswitch), you need to manualy push a button up or down to change banks to get the next set of 5 patches (5x25=125). I have 5 sounds that I switch between.

If you want to customize the effects you need the software. Which I got to work after buying a $35 midi to usb cable. It gave my xp fits so I would install it and then uninstall it. I would not recommend spinning the effects selector. Case in point, factory reset the whole unit before you settle in with it. If you are down the road go to bank 1C and reset that patch. Now listen close and play, you hear compressor, Chorus and Delay. Spin the effects dial and then return to that point, the delay is now gone and you can't get all 3 back unless a) you don't save the patch, b)factory reset, c) software. You can switch anything else all day long no problems getting back or if you only want 2 effects. I would simply switch patches and then try different amp models.

I just run this straight into the board with a behringer di. Can be somewhat noisy at times especially with a cheap cable. Buy a good cable. Isn't that why we play guitar, to make some noise? Don't run this unit into the preamp section of your guitar amp. It will sound bad. Run it into your stereo or headphones or mixer board or the "power amp in" on you guitar amp and it will sound great (for digital). For $99 unbeatable. If you are search for a tone that defines you, this isn't it. If you are looking for inexpensive versatility with descent tone this works great.
I play a strat and prefer the compliments of the fender amp models: 65 Black Twin (SRV),57 Deluxe Tweed Combo (Jeff Beck blow by blow), and the Bassman. Not perfect but hey to buy all those amps? I also switch to the vox ac30(not the treble boost version). I'm going to give this a 10 based on digital unit that sounds similar, not exact, to thousands of dollars of gear.

Only failed me once, at home fortunately. Back of cover says "do not remove bottom cover no user serviceable parts". There is a lithium battery inside. If you unit ever starts sounding different then the day before without explaination then this is it. I serviced it myself and I'm still alive. Used it for 4 year with much satisfaction. I'm older and play in a worship band. If I was younger playing near a mosh pit it might not do so well with sudden impact.
I've used without a backup for years. Although, since worship can be anything you create it is not necessary to be identical to the last time you played the song. Tthere are 2 keyboardist and a piano player that can cover the cords if the v-amp were ever to go on the fritz. If I got paid and it was crucial I would consider a backup.

It seems like I tried emailing them for some reason, can't remember what. No reply.

We play worship music, anything from modern, to latin, to swing, to jazz, to hymns. We have a very skilled pianist from motown. Included: Lakewood, Hillsong, Tomlin, Baloche, Gungor. I've been playing off and on for since I was 19 so I guess around 27 years or so. If I didn't just buy the digitech GSP1101, (which is highly customizable from the unit without software and sounds great but $500), I would replace it in a heartbeat. I like the aux in so I can run an mp3 player into it and blend the guitar. I don't like the shape so much for cabling. Tones of tone in a compact unit. This seems as rich to me as the GSP1101 and seems warmer then the pod. 24 bit is nice. I wish it could handle acoustics better. If you can't use an amp for whatever reason. Buy this unit.

To get the full effect of it, you need to read and re-read that manual to get the best tone off this. The manual sucked. Could be a lot better... but just read on. Don't know the firmware version.. I wish it were easier to load the new one... haven't figured that one out yet (I have no MIDI cables or interface) I'd like to upgrade it and I know I can (sys file on the website). Date code is 05 05, I have no idea what the FW version is. Editing is very versatile.

I put this directly into a regular stereo with EQ options, 2 8 inch speakers. It's not noisy and needs NO extra noise gate. It seems people reviewing this are confused about how to use it. (When you switch from studio mode and live mode the gain control is the noise gate's first parameter, then use the two arrow buttons and click the E and set it from 1 - 15, third use the compressor and use the tap to edit the "presence" of the effect with the effect knob) Same goes with all the other effects with the tap key. This is all key to the sounds of the effects. They sound great if you tweak them. I use the Savage Beast, Modern Hi Gain, and the ultimate v-amp for metal. Once again: You really need to tweak the hell out of the settings for the amp presence, the cabinet, noise gate... MOST IMPORTANT: The distortion isn't weak... you need to up the DRIVE option to get some deep distortion.) For rock I use the Brit Class A, Custom Hi Gain, and classic clean and clean v-amp for clean setting. and the mighty American Blues and the tap on the same setting. I don't want the sound of my favorite artists... but I can get a great tone for Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Death, October Tide, various doom bands. Not really a great tone for brutal brutal metal. The reverb is nice on 2 or 3. Good for recording and jamming.

This thing is cheap plastic... so i'd be careful with it. Behringer is notorious for bad dependablity - considering the plastic use. But I think this is what makes the price really reasonable. I wouldn't use it at a gig laying on the floor. A heavy step could break this little killer tone master.

Never had to.

Play: Metal, Rock, Blues... good for just about everything but the really brutal metal. I'd replace it in a heartbeat... this thing is my favorite guitar accessory ever. I wish is had a 10+ band EQ and a better amp for EXTREMELY heavy stuff, and an On/off switch

Im using a LTD ex-400 ( explorer model with EMG 81/60 active pickups)

Im playing in my bedroom and use the v-amp 2 with headphones ( sony MDR-200 ( a pair of 30-40 $ headphones )


thats all .

Its easy to use , just plug and turn the knob , you can choose out of many amp . hold the tab while turning for the second parameter and presence . its very compact and doesnt take place .

Ive never edit any patches , i just want to plug the guitar and play and get hi-gain , and nice clean . well the v-amp2 does that very well . basically , its bedroom use . its a toy with awesome sound .

Im mostly into metal , grunge , alternative so my review is base on that .

The unit sound very great , the rectifier head , the ultimate-vamp settings and a couple more give solid distortion with emg81/60 , specially playing in dropped tuning ( D or C ) ,

Its noisy if you have cheap guitar and pickup , i had a cheaper LTD ex-50 before and sound like crap . everything was noisy i couldnt heard what i was playing ( the change of strings ) . its better with emg 81 .

The only thing i complain is the palm muting ( but its probably the emg-81 , it give weird palm muting , im sure it would sound great with good passive pickup like seymour duncan sh-4 and a fat strat ). but dont let this remark change your mind about buying . its ahard to have punkrock palm muting with the emg-81 , this pickup is great but not for everything IMO . ill try it with a seymour duncan passive humbucker and write another review .


otherwise , the unit is very great for a bedroom use . its a toy made of plastic but it sound great . i wouldnt take that on tour on recording , its not a serious amp , its a bedroom toy .


ive never plug it to my computer , so i cant tell about midi stuff and everything .

Its better than the Line6 spider 2 i had before , im glad i sold it for a 80 $ behringer v-amp2 .

So for the price , you cant go wrong . through headphone , it sound fantastic , ive never try it with speakers cabinet or through a amp . i use it as a stand alone unit . i even bet it would sound better headphones . while playing through headphones , the cabinet selection is disabled i think but its no big thing , it sound nice .


Overall 10/10 for a unit under 100 $ . its really inspiring ( yes theres great sound in the hi-gain section , maybe not a tube amp , but really close to some artist like seether , nirvana , three days grace etc..., easy of use and get nice distortion . theres 4 type of clean and they sound crystal clean .

so if your a bedroom player who want a easy of use amp that take no place , give great sound and various amp and effect , get a v-amp2 .


sorry its a bedroom player level review . but its great . i would defenatly buy another anytime . the best amp ive had so far and perfect for what i used it .

Better than the fender frontman 15 , line 6 spider 2 amp ive had in my life .

Mine was bought off ebay used and work really well . never had problem with it . its made of plastic and look kinda cheap toy .

its realiable but wouldnt drop it on purpose .

Never had to deal with it .

for bedroom playing , late jam through heapdhone , its fantastic .

Just read the manual. The product is deep, but the knobs help, and it is pretty simple to use in the heat of battle if you understand how to read.

This has lots of great sounds. I have mainly used the Blackface model, as it sounds the most organic to me.

The plastic seems sturdy, and the knobs are encoders, not mechanical (except for master volume). The fewer moving parts the better.

I play the blues. I like to ride my volume knob to change sounds, and this gives me more headroom to do so.

I just got the VAMP-2 a couple of weeks ago, and I am very pleased. I took it to the local blues jam tonite, plugged into the fx loop of my Behringer GM-110 amp (on mode L1). I used the blackface model, and when necessary boosted the signal with the Behringer PB-100 booster in front of the VAMP. It sounded killer. I am so pleased that I can get such a good sound with such inexpensive, high quality gear.

Very self-explanatory! You have to be dumb to not be able to figure it out. The onlt thing kinda difficult would be MIDI if you don't have training or prior experience with running MIDI.

I think the secondary parameters have better tones than the first. Effects are very clean and adjustable. (Speed, depth and rate adjustments)

Never had a problem...... And I've owned mine for over 2 years.

? Never had to call

I'd buy another if I had to. I recommend it and have had 4 friends of mine buy it as well because of the impression it's made when they heard it.