Peavey Transformer 212

This is a follow up to my previous post. Still love the amp but those trying one be aware that this amp loves humbuckers and tolerates single coil pickups. It does not have an exceptional sparkle to it. I've called Peavey and asked about the lack of sparkle and treble and they commented that in their opinion the 1 x 12 Transformer has a more balanced sound.

Still a great amp with lots of options if you need them. I feel that my Transtube EFX 212 has a better clean sound, but that be more a testament to the Transtube; especially if you read the reviews.

This is a phenomenal amp. I play Rock, Metal, Blues, and I guess just about anything. This amp handles them all real swell. This is the modeling amp so there are lots of potential channels and comes with a pretty sweet footswitch to control it all. Has dual effects loops and headphone jack. I loved it as soon as I plugged it. What is really cool about this amp is just when you think you have the perfect sound out of it, you find hidden extras that can really shape your sound.(They are explained in the manual) That was until I found the hidden features such as mid boost and combining any cabinet with any amp. I use this amp at home but plan to use it live and has more than enough power. Tuner is also nice along with 6 effects.(7 if you count delay) Delay,chorus,phaser,flanger,rotary speaker,tremolo

I have a Hot Rod Strat with Lil jb,and 2 lil 59 seymour duncan hb's. Also have a hand build guitar with SD Distortion and Lil 59 in the neck position.This amp does create a bit of feedback but can be taken care of with the hidden noise gate feature. Clean channel sounds tremendous but sometimes distorts a bit. The distortion is great, especially when you get your settings tweaked to your liking and match up the right cabinet. It really can achieve a tube sound which I thought was impossible until I tried this amp.

So far so good but havent used it live yet. Built like a tank

I have never had to deal with them and hopefully I never have to.

I have been playing for abbout 12 years or so and I own my hot rodded strat, and my Ibanez Rg flame maple body with warmoth neck. Both guitars have Seymour Duncan pickups and sound and play amazing. I love pretty much everything about it and can't wait to learn to use every little thing on it. I compared it to a Line 6 Spider 2 and liked this amp's sound much more. I sold my Marshall Valvestate in order to buy this amp. This amp definately has more distortion than my old Marshall but wish it had a little more. Not much though, it is pretty nasty. The built in tuner is also a nice feature and the fact that you can tune to e flat on it as well as alternate tunings!! Buy this amp while you have a chance because it has been discontinued.

The Peavey 212 has 12 amp models, Reverb/Delay, 5-types of modulation, chorus/flanger/phaser/tremolo/rotary. Footswitchable preset select, effects on/off, boost and tap tempo. 2-x50 W power amp, 32 pre-sets, 16 factory/16-user, with primary and secondary settings. Guitar/chromatic strobe style tuner and efefcts loop. I purchased mine in 2000.

I play a Fender Strat, and a Alvarez Acoustic. Easy and hard rock, or the heavy grind like ZZ top, ect...The amp can be tweaked to simulate most all Peavey's used in Rock. My reason for giving my opinion is because with most amps, sounds, mixers, it's mostly about the users tweaks. We all know Hendrix could make a pig nose scream.

Let me share a setting and you see what you think. To get a ZZ Top grind I set up as follows. Amp-High Gain, Pre-7, Low-9/10, Mid-4, High 6/7, Post 6/7, nodulation-flanger, rate-depth 0, bring this in to tweak sound, Feedback 5/6, Level 0, Dynamics 6, Tempo slow. To sharpen the sound take Pre to 7 and Post to 6. As you raise the sound either step back or tweak the post accordingly. Best advise is to pratice your settings, then compress it.

The one thing I was not pleased with is no clean or low sustain. It's like you have to go all up in pre-gain to get sustain. Then you have the fuzz where you don't need it. The amp need a sustain control. The old Hi-Gain I played on in the 70's would hold a tone until you got out of school. I am sure it isn't the best amp in the world, but for all of our glory reading this it surpasses very many amps in the market for what we're trying to do. I'm very pleased with mine.

I do not play gigs, but this amp is dependable. My advise, I would never play any gig without a back-up.

I have not had one problem with the amp. I did read the faulty install job on the handles. I guess that dude was mad at his boss that month? Sound like an "I'll show you?"

I have been playing 35 years. Remembering 30 years ago playing on a High-Gain model was one of the reasons I bought it. It duplicates it exactly. I've ran mics through this amp and that is a weak point. My Shure's will work in the amp but it really wasn't made to handle mics. However being a Rocken amp that has the possibility of using acoustic and mics is a plus for what it's worth.

Bought brand new 2003 after playing other amps that were similar, paid 600 bucks (good price). Made in America! thats a plus. 16 user presets kind of weak though.

sounds great for 600 bucks

I have read reviews that the handle comes off. Mine too came off so I took it apart (good thing it was off and unplugged, had a nut fall into the circutry) and while reinstalling my handle i noticed a green sticker with the quality control inspectors name on it. I also have a friend who bought a 5150 and the reverb tank doesn't work, I took this amp apart as well and to my surprise it had the same name on the same type of round green sticker! This persons name is Mr Proctor I will guess he is a man all though I could be wrong in any case you suck Proctor! Hope someone from peavey reads this then fires you. If I spend that kind of money on a product I expect the handle to stay on, and since this amp is kind of heavy anyway, its probably a good idea that the handle does stay on, a small problem makes it look cheap and makes this guy look lazy, would anybody deal with someone who is lazy and cheap?!

haven't dealt with them all of my repairs done inhouse but other reviews say they are very good.

playing 25+ years have tons of other stuff including Fender Cybertwin SE wished i would have bought that one first. If i could get it for the original price i paid for it yes i would buy another one but they are through the roof now, i think they want just a little too much for them now. But at the time it was the best value for the money. If anyone else has taken it apart and found the same sticker with the same name let me know. Don't get me wrong it sounds fine and it does what peavey advertises and no im not a hater i like their products, they make them in America and employ a lot of Americans! But i have certian expectations when i spend money and so should everyone else and when i read other reviews and something like a handle is a common problem then i wonder about how competent these people are. Would you leave your kid with someone who is lazy and doesn't care????? !!!!!!!!!!!!

Excellent features give you the ability to add any kind of effect you would want. Like the built in tuner, the footswitch which is included, very useful for changing amp models AND providing a solo boost. There's also a direct line out.

To be picky -
The power dynamics could be a little versatile as it is harder to get a cranked sound at super low apartment levels then like the Vox valvetronix. As far as a wish list - a jack for external speaker, a stereo headphone jack.

I really love this amp, am not a tube only or vintage snob, but am a hard and realistic grader - very seldom is there no room for improvement hence a "10". I also have a Vox valvetronix and compared many amps. What people don't often comment is - the 4 Peavey models that are included as part of the 16 - are very, very good. I am a big Marshall fan, and the crunchy sounds and dirtier channel on the Peavey amp models are very, very good and shouldn't be discounted when evaluating this amp. For instance, the Line 6 insane amp model is unique to Line 6 and very good, but more limited for heavy metal while for classic and crunchy rock Peavey settings are very good to excellent.

I would say the Marshall amp models, while good, are not necessarily dead one, especially the Crunch which can sound a little nasal-y. However, if you fiddle with swapping the cabinets, you can get a more open, throaty sound to me is more of a useful Marhsall-esque sound and close enough for the typical beer drinking audience wanting to hear an encore of Free Bird. Tweaking the cabinets can make a given amp model sound almost completely different, which to me is a huge positive. The key here is I am not sure if you do a blind A/B test the Transformer is dead on - but the most the sounds you can get out of this amp are very useful. You would know what I mean if you ever bought a digitech multi effects unit. You wind up using 2 or maybe 3 sounds and the rest are not useful unless as a kid you sat way too close to the TV.

The Transformer does not appear to my ears to get as good a Fender clean or SRV gritty or Vox sound as the Valvetronix, nor be as crisp as the valvetronix with single coil pickups. However, with humbuckers and the distorted settings the pendulum swings back to the Transformer. I haven't tweaked the amp yet through the MIDI PC interface though.

Extremely reliable except for the fact the handle was under-engineered for the weight of the amp and it came off.

Peavey is the best in the business. No one else compares. They don't nickel and dime you and they obviously get it.

I have been playing off and on guitar and bass since the 70's. I was never in a position to buy the best when I was young, but can buy the best now. Who really wants to take a $3,000 PRS guitar and a $3,000 hand wired amp to a gig unless you are being sponsored or are a traveling band and have several backups?

This is a great amp if you want versatility. The sound is much better to my ears than most other modeling amps (Line 6) with the possible exception for cleaner sounds - the valvetronix series I think does a better job for country, single coil, Fender sounds. Bottom Line - This is a great gigging jack of all trades amp for rock and heavy metal classics and does not have that overly antiseptic, masked sound of many other digital amps. You can get many useful sounds. A litmus test is that I have 5 other amps (Fender, Vox, Crate) and this is the amp I play the most because of the ground it covers.

Not a negative, but another perspective is the Transformer was extremely well thought out, but they have not tried to take it to the next level. I actually emailed Hartley Peavey himself to see why they have not made any modifications or updates or made a head version with a direct line out, additional speaker outs and added more amp models - they have not done anything in 4 years to this amp. Digital and modeling amps are not going away. If you read Jim Marshalls book, "The Father of Loud", he even talks about this, the future of digital, Marshall Amplifications R&D emphasis and that he is extremely proud of his digital lines. Digital is going to close the gap further.

If I had more room I would look at the Randall MTS/Modular series and the Bogner line; but would not get rid of the Transformer and continue to use the heck out of it; if you liken it to golf, it is a utility wood.

Have had some time to play with mixing and matching the available amps and cabs. The sounds on this amp are great for crunchy blues and distorted rock. It has a very good "sweet spot" in those arenas and probably gets a B- for getting the Fender sound and doing a single coil justice, and for over the top heavy metal for my ears the regular transtube 212 EFX has slightly better voicing. It your spectrum is mainly blues and rock though, this is a great amp.

This is a heads up for any Peavey amp owners out there. I picked up my Transformer 2x12 and the handle came off in my hands. The amp was in off so no damage was done. I remembered a review of a few years ago, when this happened to someone and the amp was fried. It was an easy fix for me. I would recommend any owners take the time, 30 minutes maybe and remove the amp section. You can tighten and secure the nuts and avoid a big hassle.

I had a Transformer 1x12 for a couple of years and with the group I sit in with, I needed some more volume. The store I bought the 1x12 from had a trade-in special combined with a 50% off sale. I was out the door with a 2x12 for $400 including the $250 trade I got for my 1x12. No new learning curve since I was familiar with the amp's setup. I explored the different settings, found a few that were interesting. I am not a gear head or tone freak, but I'm getting into that stuff more nowadays. Most of my playing is done with the satelite radio stations or Guitar Port tracks. Really can't complain about the backup band making any mistakes. The guys in the Wednesday nite band are all players for 30-40 years like me and have equipment that goes dates the rock era. The pedal is a very easy and useful tool to use and was included in the price.

I play a 96 Strat Plus and a custom Bil Mitchell acoustic. Styles I play are mainly blues, rock, country. Playing along with the satelite music stations loud on the home stereo is 98% of the amp's use. I sit in with some bands once in a while. I find the amp is noisy on some settings and that can be annoying. Sounds like a breeze blowing out the speaker on the settings with the gains pushed up. Since I set up my own user settings, I don't explore around the 1,000,000 or so presets that this amp has got. It has got some neat sounds, but I don't need that many in my situation. I found a good bluesy tone that works, but it still isn't a Fender Deluxe. I found a distortion sound that sounds ok, but it's not a Marshall. I have a clean setting that works for rhythm. After reading a lot of modeling amp reviews, I realized I subscribe to the "I don't want to carry all that equipment" school. When you are playing with guitar players who have been around, the sound isn't as important sometimes as the licks you're playing.

Never had a problem. I also have a Peavey Stereo Chorus that I bought used 12 years ago and it starts every time. I put 2" casters on both of them so my wife can roll the amps out of her way when she is in our music room

n/a

I like this amp a lot. Even though I have been playing since the Beatles hit and have become a good player, I never really collected that much gear over the years. Over the years I have owned an Ampeg GeminiIV, Fender Bandmaster head thru a home made cabinet, couple of Peaveys and a few other minor rigs I can't remember. Nothing special. This amp sparked my playing with all the bells and whistles it came with. I had a fun time spinning the dials and hearing all the sounds this amp could make, but the novelty wore off after a while. Now, I know a little more of what sounds I need and with those sounds set in the user bank, I can play right into most of the material the Wed nite band calls for. This amp is not a Matchless or a Boogie or a Twin. But for the price and options it has, the Transformer 2x12 is a lot of amp for not alot of money.

My amp was made in 2003. I paid around 850$. I am a very very uneducated guitar player. I play drums and picked up guitar to help me right songs. I write metal mostly(See Godsmack, Papa Roach, Rage, Etc...), but I have played many styles thru this amp. I am fairly positive there aren't too many sounds you couldn't get out of this amp. There are no features I could think of adding, but then again, I am a rookie player here. There are WAY TOO MANY features for me. I can honestly say, for the songs I write, which is just rhythm since I can't play lead at all, I bought the wrong amp. I am hoping that I get good enough to actually use the whole thing. As far as the volume is concerned, I am a drummer, and I am a LOUD DRUMMER, and when my guitarist uses my amp, it cuts thru almost as good and clear as his Marshall Half Stack. That is all IMO. All the rest of the facts you can read in numerous other reviews. Oh, by the way, the footpedal is awesome! Jumping between to channels is easy since you can achieve this just by pressing the last button. For example, if you are on channel 1 and you switch to channel 4, you can switch back to channel 1 just by pressing channel 4 again. I don't use this feature, but I imagine it would be very helpful in the dark on stage instead of having to fumble over all 6 buttons. The design is great and it blows away my buddies footpedal on his marshall. I have decided on a few things I think they could fix or change or add. The preset levels, for one, are all different. You switch from one to the other and never know where your volume is gonna end up at. Second thing, the banks and channels seem to have no real organization. It would make sense to me, the novice that I am, to maybe set all channel 1's to maybe a clean, and all channel 2's to maybe a dirty rhythm, and all channel 3's to maybe a heavy distortion, and then finally all channel 4's to maybe a lead distortion. And I don't mean neccessarily exactly like that, but some sort of organization. It just seems to me that they are too random. Lastly, I would love to see a chromatic tuner. The tuning function is great on this amp, but having chromatic also would completely eliminate me having to buy another tuner or walking around thinking I'm in B when I'm really in some B# or A or some shit like that.

Schecter Classic 7 (7 string obviously), Schecter Omen 6, Schecter HX-5 (5 string baritone). The 7 and 6 both have 2 Dunkin Design (see Seymour Dunkins made in Korea) humbuckers. The 5 string has one of these pickups. The tone is good out of this amp, but I don't feel they are great tones. There are so many you can get out of this amp that most won't have a problem, but I just can't seem to find a nice warm honey round distorted tone that sounds good with my 5 or 7 string. Godsmack tone seems hard to find for me, but again, I am a novice and definatly haven't played with the sound enough to say it is impossible. In fact, I pretty much gave up and just this week purchased a Mesa Mark IV. Gonna see what I can do with it, and it should be more along my lines of 1 or 2 tones and no effects to mess me up. There are more sounds than someone as novice as me could ever use on the peavey. The effects on this amp however are great. They all sound realistic and they are very useful for todays style of music. Everything seems to be in line at higher levels except the distortion. Either the speaker gives or the amp itself. I am not sure which, but it sounds like my speaker comes to the verge of buzzing and just barely crosses the line.

Never had any breakdowns yet. It has turned on everytime I have flipped the power switch. I only use it in home so I don't know if I would gig with it or not...probably would gig with it alone, since I usually don't prepare well, which is how I got this amp instead of something more along the lines of...lets hear it once more....NOVICE ME!!!!

No idea.

I have been playing accoustic guitar for about....my whole life since my father played while I was growing up, but I really sat down and learned more then 6 chords only about 4 years ago. I have been playing electric guitar for only about 2 years. Only other gear I own is a Ibanez Tubescream, which my guitarist stole from me and took to college with him, and my primary pedal, Boss Metal Zone. I do love this amp. Again, I just bought a boogie (should be here in 4 days) and I was actually going to sell this amp, but......this is my first amp I have every owned, and it is my baby, and after reading all the reviews of people on here, I decided instead to write this review and try to learn it. Since reading these reviews yesterday, I have actually sat down with my amp for about 3 hours and went thru all the factory settings and played with each of them a little more to try and appreciate the sounds a bit more. It worked and I have decided to indefinatley keep this amp. Again, I was stupid and I didn't compare or shop around. I went to a store to look and while there decided to buy an amp so our second guitarist could have an amp to play thru that would hang with my lead players marshall. (see second guitarist = cheap bastard that has to have his gear provided by his drummer) It was the best thing I ever did since it inspired me to go buy a decent electric and learn to play guitar even more. One thing I would like to share...If you are a new player or strictly a one style rhythm player that doesn't really use effects, do your research first. Don't just jump into an amp, because as I found, it will make you more discouraged in the long run having 60 some sounds to play with and only using 2 or 3 of them. I know I was bored and discouraged, but I have now found a new respect and rekindled my desires to really learn how to play. Reading these reviews really helped that happen. I am giving this amp an overall of 7 only because it is soooooo confusing for a rookie, but if I was very experienced or a decent lead player, I am sure this amp would rank a 10 overall. Not a 10 in all catagories. As most everyone in here has said, nothing is perfect. And above all, tone can always be better. But it is definatly worth the price and it has the balls to keep up with a loud ass drummer and half stack blaring with it. I do think that it could use a better speaker, although I am not a sound man, so maybe this is an unjust accusation. 2 weeks ago if it was stolen I wouldn't have bought a new one, I probably would have paid someone to steal it and collected some insurance for it, but now if it was stolen, I still wouldn't rush out to buy a new one since I just bought a boogie. If I had 800 dollars to blow though and was in the market for a new amp, I would definatly consider it. I would just have to actually compare it to something else first.

I bought this amp two years ago after looking for a good combo amp to cut down my rig, which included a Marshall head, Peavey preamp, and custom speaker cabinet. I wanted an amp that had the effects and tones that I needed all in one package. This amp came the closest, so I bought it.
It has 32 channels, 16 user and 16 preset, but frankly, 32 user channels would have been a lot better. Has headphone jack, D.I.'s effects loop...but no speaker ext. jack??? I never really understood that as it limits the amp in many ways, but whatever. Also, the D.I.'s are controlled by the master volume (quite foolishly) so you have to have your amp in a very limited volume range to use the D.I.'s effectively. That has to be the stupidest design I've seen in a while, but hopefully there was a reason for it...
It has a LOAD of different options, most of which I haven't looked at that much. You have your vast amount of amp simulations and you can switch around the cabinet simulations for each one. Has a few effects like chorus, phaser, roatary speaker, delay. I find them quite nice. No, they aren't the greatest effects I've ever heard, but they are very usable. The pedal that comes with it is ridiculously handy and I'd be screwed trying to use it live without it...can switch channels, add affects, volume boost, tuner, etc. Very well thought out.
Oh, and this is definitely a solid state amp.

I find the sounds on this amp very usable and very flexible. Yeah, it sounds 'good' if you can dial in the right sound. If you're looking for a ripping tube amp with one awesome sound, look elsewhere my friend, that was not the intention here. I play soooo many different styles, that I couldn't afford to really go any other way. This amp does everything pretty well, but I don't know if it does any one thing amazingly.
I use a lot of effects with my playing because I approach playing a guitar with others as just another colour on the palette to create a beautiful sonic masterpiece. I'm not straight-ahead rock, though I do play that, or straight-ahead anything, for that matter. Neither is this amp. We get along very well together. Another bonus is that there isn't an infinite amount of tweaking you can do on everything. That prevents me from getting way too anal about my sound. I just dial in something that sounds like what I'm looking for in a few minutes as opposed to hours and hours.
This does not sound like a tube amp! It can get close, in a lot of ways, but it just doesn't do it! Don't think you're actually going to get all of the amazing amp sounds as listed on the amp to actually sound exactly like other amps. But the sounds are still good!
I used to be an anal tube freak, but then I realized, "Hey, if it has the sounds that I like, who cares?" I love tube amps, I love their tonal dynamics, if you will, but right now, versatility and flexibility are more important to me...I just am not rich.
So, if you like flexible, try this amp and I bet a lot of the sounds will jive with you. Try it out, I was impressed, and I'm not easily impressed. It sounds the best that I've heard for what it's intended to do.

I don't have more than one amp, so of course I would gig without a backup. Again, I'm not rich. This amp has never once failed me...Although the bolts that hold the handle on the top came undone once, but I tightened them, so it was all good...In fact, this baby has fallen down a couple of times and it's still good, surprisingly. I was a bit dissapointed with how it was put together but that's just from a building perspective, as it works fine and I'm sure it will work fine for a long time. Just not the greatest carpentry job and whatnot. My only really big concern is that all the digital control knobs are plastic, as well as there shafts, so you need to be mindful of that. They designed it so that if it falls over, the knobs won't actually hit the ground, but watch out for falling objects...

I've had mixed feelings about Peavey's support, but they're pretty good, for the most part of my experiences. Hey, nothing will last forever...I believe I have a 5-year extended warranty on mine, with no extra charge, so that's a bonus. Again, nothing's broken so I can't rate that bit.

I have to give this a high rating from my perspective because it has worked with me sooo well through so many different circumstances. I've been playing for almost 7 years and haven't "owned" a whole lot of gear, but I've tried a whole heck of a lot and I really like what I've found here.
It fits me like a glove. Hopefully it may fit you as well. I tried some other amps of it's kind in the same price range, and they were pretty good. This one just seemed to click with me the most. I would recommend to anyone looking for a new amp, make a list of options/tones that you feel you have to have and shop accordingly, doing your best to find the amp that most closely matches your list.
I use this baby with a 1984 Strat with Dimarzio Hs-3's and it is a wonderful thing. It it was stolen, I would be dissapointed. I would look around at all the different amps around because, hey, new stuff comes out in 2 years. No point in keeping personal bonds to equipment.
In any event, I think it's great. My only beef is that thing where the D.I. output levels are controlled by the master volume, and an ext. speaker jack would be a nice touch. But hey, nothings perfect...

Too many features to list. Check out Peaveys website for all the bells and whistles. It has a crap load of features. Some of the best are the way you can use effects. You can have more than one modulation effect at a time, etc... Some amps allow only one modulation effect at a time.

It sounded pretty good. Some channels or settings could produce noise, but once you figure the amp out you can get around them.
The pedal is BAD ASS!!!!!!! Peavey knows what the hell they are doing concerning a ultimate foot pedal!

This is the part I must comment about. I got the amp and inspected it when it came. The board that holds the speakers to the frame had cracks around all of the mounting screws! I've had other peavey amps and they were built better than this aka no overtightening of screws. They even knew they did it because they used filler where the ends split out!!! This must of been a newbie and have not had any other problems with Peaveys like this. I sent it back because of this. The company then asked me if I wanted a replacement for the defective/poor quality on the amp. I said no because I decided on another model elsewhere. A month later and no credit to my charge card I contacted them. They said they already credited my CC(liars who knows more than me! I'm the CC holder!!). Even worse they have the balls to now tell me that it wasn't defective!!!!! They are unprofessional and arrogant(8th street music in Philly,PA & online). Of course I called the CC company to dispute the charges. 8th street can go to hell.

didn't contact them, but will send hate mail about the hassle I got from the dealer(8th street).

It'd be nice if the dealer wasn't a prick. This one slipped thru peavey's quality inspection(ie: cracks in frame due to over tightened screws).