Behringer LX1-112 V-Ampire

This is a short follow up of my previous review after reading the other reviews.
Anyone who thinks they can get a 1X12 digital modeling amplifier and expect it to work by itself in a band context live is a fool.
Even an all Tube 1X12 speaker amp would have some troubles with this, unless the venue holds 30 people....

I have to say that to be unable to get a good sound out of this amp like many reviewers have really makes me think that these reviewers either have no experience with sound or need to get their ears cleaned out.

Like any amp out there, tube, mosfet, transistor and most of all digital, It takes some time and patience to dial in a sound that will make you happy.
This happens with all amps. Not just this one.

Seems to me that certain "musicians" want Tone handed out to them on a gold plate.....
Learn how to play first....then RESEARCH and work for your tone!

I'm still trying to figure out who the heck Uli Behringer does it.
I have been a professional recording and touring musician for 15 years and now own my own music school and studio.
I've been working my butt off trying to get the best natural sounding Direct sound for recording hi-gain guitars and a ton of gear later here comes this $299 amplifier that does it.
Keep reading on for more details.
As for features, you couldn't ask for more from a single amplifier. Most effects, amps and cabs are on here.
I'm not going to write all the features, you can find those at the behringer website but I would rarely give a 10 to a product but in this case I can't help it.

I use a Parker Fly guitar with Hum (with split coil option) and Piezo.
My main style is Rock, Progressive and Metal but because of my work (recording session and teaching) I have to be available to achieve pretty much any sound needed.

But first let me tell you a little on how I got to this amp. I' ve been through the top of the line LINE 6 products, owned a Vetta II, Pod, POD xt.....Tried the Vox's, tried the fenders and the Johnsons almost coming to the conclusion that Digital modeling just isn't there yet. For live situations, no problem, but when in the studio all the digital artefacts start coming out. Sure if you have keyboards and all covering, they work just fine, but when you need a solid guitar tone with just drums and bass then there is no way any of these amps would cut it. To a inexperienced ear it might work, but for me who has worked with audio recording for 15 years it just wasn't good enough. Call me a sound snob.
So it was either going back to tubes, cabs and SM57's (which I did for a while with Mesa's and Marshalls frying up on me during recording sessions wasting time and money!) or it was continuing the search for the holy grail of recording amps....
I ended up doing a session for a studio in chicago whom told me they would like me to use the amp they had since they had a certain sound in mind. I get there and my first thought was "You have to be kidding me!", buy hey I plugged in and the when I heard the sound coming out of the studio monitors I just went "OH!".
It was a Behringer V-ampire on the Classic 50W setting.

So I decided to buy one for myself and mess around with it. Worst comes worth I would resell it on Ebay. No big deal for less than $300.

My overall review for this amp is that the sound coming from the 12inch jensen speaker isn't as good as the direct sound (The other modeling companies are the opposite, they sound good from speakers but not as good direct) but, the direct sound is amazing on any amp model. I did use one little trick to make it even better, which is my APHEX Guitar pedal in the V-ampires Efx loop. This really enhances the warmth and overall tone. But even without it, the direct sound using the dual XLR's is really the best I have ever used and worked with. No digitalness to the sound, carachter and some darn good effects and reverbs.
I have used this in a live situation with the amp facing me tilted slightly on it's back and used as a stage monitor (sounds a lot better than having you guitar miked then fed through a monitor!) and used the XLR outs direct to board.
The other guitar player in the band had a $3500 Diezel half stack.
At the end of the night I was recieving compliments on my sound many critisizing the fact that the other guitar player was muddy and they couldn't tell what he was playing even when doing lead work. So there I was with an awesome sound with my $299 amp getting compliments on my sound over the other guitar players $5000 guitar rig (that's including his effects and rack units). All I had was my Parker, my little amp and used it's dual footswitch to go from my 3 basic sounds. Clean, Rhythm , Lead.

This amp is made to go direct. The speaker is an option to hear yourself on stage or for practice purposes. I tried hooking it up with a 4x12 and it sounds darn good but still, the direct sounds are the best. And the best on the market out there.
On top of that, you get models not available on any other units, like the great german amps from ENGL.

I honestly do not know how to explain this. I have been through more gear in my career than one can imagine and I acheive the best results out of a $300 amp.
Any style is welcome with this amp and it will let the carachter of different guitars come through (unlike other digital units that you can put a PRS and a cheap Squire in at the same time and not tell the difference....LINE 6 anyone....).
9 because the sound from the speaker isn't as good as the direct sound...but hey, when you hear th

Never had a problem with it. Had it now for about year and a half on stage and in the studio with no problems.
Had back ups for Line 6 and my previous 2 amps since each one of them had suffered a problem somewhere down the road.
I have a V-AMP 2 back up for this, but again, never had to use it.

I have emailed Behringer USA for questions a couple of times and always got back to me within 48hrs.
They seem pretty good to me.

I think I said enough already. I really like it.
If it were stolen I would buy another one, then another one and another one.
This is my amp. Bar none.
I have reviewed other product on Harmony Central and this is the highest rating I have ever gave to a product.
Only TECH 21 comes close (along with the Behringer ULTRA G) to the sound I really wanted, but they are limited and have a certain carachter to them that don't work in some situations.
The V-AMPIRE is the best out there. Period.

Tons of feature's. So many effects.. I bought the FCB1010 and i am in veratility heaven. My main gripe is that you can't layer the FX, just use one at a time. You can use the compressor with any other FX, but have to use the computer to use that option. DOn'T FoRgEt.. your getting a ton of stuff for your money.

TWO Things that made my amp sound like crap..

1. The speaker simulation was turned on. YOU CAN'T EMULATE A GUITAR SPEAKER THROUGH A GUITAR SPEAKER. SOUNDS DISTANT, MUDDDY, and HORRIBLE.

2. I played it for a while after i turned the speaker simulation off. After cranking the amp for a good hour, the speaker broke up and came to life. I guess it needed time to break in. Suddenly i was smiling and it sounded good. REAL GOOD.

After those 2 things were fixed, I am VERY happy with my tone. Humbuckers sound like humbuckers, single coils like single coils. I've owned a ton of tube amps, have always been hypercritical of my tone, and I think they nalied a decent sound for 70% of these models, making this a very, very, very good sounding amp and a good buy.

I own the 50watt Jensen version.... I want the new 60watt BUGERA version. My amp needs more volume!!!!!!

I give it a 9, because these are the best digital models I've heard, and I think it blows away most everything else I've heard as far as a good guitar tone.

owned it almst a year..not long enough for me 2 make an opinion

For the Price, it gets a ten. If this amp was as costly as a Line6 Flextone3 I would still rate it better than the Flextone3. My friend brought one home for me 2 try against the Behringer. As soon as i turned it up it sounded like Midrange vomiting all over the band room. It got lost in the mix. My V-AMPIRE doesn't seem to have as much power, but the tone is sooooooo superior. Who wants a loud girlfriend thats obnoxious? I'll take a quiet one that treats me better any day of the week. TEN

This is a modeling preamp intended for direct recording that includes a power amp and speaker for playing live. It includes 'Simulated amp models and Cabinets". It also includes built in effects.

It is a direct recording Amp. Live, it sounds like my Mesa Mark IV mic'd w/ an SM-57, Recto-cab'd, processed, and recorded. I'm impressed.

No problems after 3 months.

N/A

It does what it is supposed to: Sound like a mic'd and recorded amplifier. For playing live, I replaced the Jensen speaker with a 200 watt EV and it sounds great; I'm enjoying playing through this amp.

Judging from the latitude of opinion here, I think the best one could say for this amp is that it's not for everybody. I bought it because I've begun a little guitar doubling (I'm a keyboard player), and thought it would kill a lot of birds with one stone.
Truthfully, this amp has a jillion features. But it very much falls into the "ya get what ya pay for" category. After spending countless hours trying to refine a SINGLE sound, I honestly hope somebody steals this thing before I have to pawn it or sell it to some unwitting kid. Dinky little amps which accompany guitar 'packages' don't sound much worse. More...

Here's what's wrong with this thing, and I'll try to be brief. It is layer upon layer of coloring. The amp sounds aren't convincing, and they're fed through yer choice of virtual cabinets, which color the amp sounds and create some of the flattest crappy sounds it has been my misfortune to purchase. To compensate for this, a variety of effects and FX combinations are available to 'fix' what wasn't right to begin with. Add a touch of reverb and feed the whole works through a noise gate which causes the most uneven decay imaginable, and you've got this piece.
I bypassed the crappy virtual cabinets, and just used the amp models and the 'sound' (I'm being charitable) of the cabinet, and good grief! I had to crank the noise gate to 15! With the noise gate off, it is ungestionably the noisiest amp I've ever encountered, and 'buckers don't remedy the situation.
The presets are heavy on sci-fi sounds, which I suppose are there to divert one's attention from the fact that the thing couldn't hold it's own in the clean dept. to save it's life.
Live and learn.

Don't know -- don't care. It's going out the door.

Yawn.

I've been a full-time pro keyboardist for 28 years. I own too much gear.
I wish somebody would steal this to relieve me of the indignity of trying to con someone into buying it.
I've never thought so low of a piece of gear, and I gave it a fair chance.
Overall rating: SUX. -10

The amp was certainly feature packed (note the use of the word "was"- read on). The 32 models and 16 effects were what attracted me to purchase this, coupled with the low price.

I firmly believe that this product is a quasi-legal knockoff of the line 6 POD. If you compare the two feature for feature, you'll see for yourself why I come to this conclusion. I have not tried the POD or POD 2.

I could not find it in a store anywhere in my area (Springfield/Hartford) so I purchased it on faith from AMS online.

I could not get a decent sound out of this amp, except for one or two clean sounds. I found the best one came from something I think was called "Classic Clean". I really wanted to like "Blackface" but it sounded clipped and harsh to me. All of the crunch or distorted sounds sounded squashy, overly compressed, and non-musical.

A good test of this is to run your a finger up and down the low E string (glissando) and listen for the round, central character of the note to come through. It doesn't with this amp. Stones-style boogie barre-chord comping also muddies up in a very disturbing way. I returned the amp for a refund due to the horrid tone.

I did not keep the amp long enough to form an opinion (three days- it was that bad sounding).

It looks fairly solidly built. I suppose it would hold up. I do wonder what happens when an LED eventually burns out. All of the control knobs use a ring of LED's as their "pointer". Without these, you'd never know where your pot was set. There are no markers on them. They are also "encoder" wheels, meaning that they never really need to return to a zero point. They just change the setting from the current preset when turned.

The warranty was only one year. I never had to deal with customer support, but I'd highly reccomend American Musical Supply. They made the product return quick and painless.

I've been playing steadily since 1974. I play a Classic 50's Fender Tele and a MIM Strat with a Duncan JB Jr in the bridge. I have a Marshall Studio 15, a Tech 21 Trademark 10, and recently sold a Fender Blues Jr.

I suspect that there may be someone somewhere that might find this amp useful. I did not.

I just bought this amp new today. So far, the features are great. It has a lot of effects and you can combign them if you actually take time to learn to use the amp. Those who bash it for lacking features haven't taken the time to play around with them. It allows for imput into a P.A. and also, for between sets or background music, you can plug a cd player, drum machine, or whatever into the back of it. The only effect that i do not like is the auto wah...but who in the world uses an auto wah anyway? I haven't used this amp live yet, but the sound kicks the ass of my old peavey transtube efx 112.

I use one semi-hollow body guitar with dual humbuckers and one semi-hollow thinline with three lipstick tube pickups. So far, i love the sounds i can get out of it. ****PLEASE NOTE**** if you want this amp to sound exactly like any of the amps it models, don't spend your money on...save it. I bought this amp because I am a college student and i don't feel like going in debt to buy a my guitar amps...until I start doing music full time, this amp will cut it just fine. It suits my musical style perfectly...which at this point is limited to folk/rock and blues and contemporary pop style stuff. This amp does get a little noisy in the very high gain amp models with the gain all the way up...but, the noisegate takes care of that just fine. As far as and kind of rattle or buzz, i haven't heard any. It does highlight any pickup noise that you have...but of course any thing that's digital will pickup such noise, and in fact the actual tube amps that this models will generally make more noise than the digital model. It can do moderate distortion very well and the clean sound is very much to my liking. Once again, DO NOT EXPECT THIS AMP TO SOUND EXACTLY LIKE A 3,000 Egnater or Buddha boutique (sp)...after all the list price is only a little over 300.00. It does a good job for the money.

i've only had it for a few days, but it seems solid. It does have a lot of plastic...but remember folks, plastic is very durable and it helps to keep the amp light. If i remember correctly, Jenson speakers are known for their ability to take a beating...it's aight for the money.

I've been playing for a little over 10 years...and this is my only amp...i trust the warranty. I know a guy who's gigged with his behringer for over 6 years with no problems whatsoever. When i went amp shopping i compared this amp to my Peavey Transtube EFX 112, a Line6 Spider and Spider II, and the Line6 Flextone II. I felt that, FOR THE MONEY, this amp was above and beyond better than any of these. If it were stolen or lost...all of my gear is insured...so I'd probably be able to get whatever amp i want...but i would probably get this one again...or upgrade to the V-Amp rack unit. I love that it has great sounds if you learn to tweak it. And i love that it has 125 presets. That's awesome. I wish it had a little more power.

By now you would have read allot of the features so i wont go into it, but insanely versatile considering the price of these units

Bang for buck is what im reviewing here.

I have a whole bundle of valve amps, so does it compare... short answer is i would take one of my valve amps over it quite easily, however i didn't buy it to put my biggger amps into retirement, the reason i bought this thing was for prcatice where it's totally impractical to turn up a 100 or 50w valve amp to where it sounds good. This thing lets me get a great sound at a low volume without pissing everyone off / getting evicted.

So far so good considering something this cheap. But upon inspection it's put together well although i think the cab is made from fibre board, so i wouldn't throw it around to hard

havent needed them, but from other reviewers here they tend to support their product well

It's terrific value, it's capable of some good sounds although don't buy this unit expecting it to blow away your JTM ... but chances are your going to like it

Okay this is an update since my last post. I think i was the second or third post on this website for this product. Read past reviews for all the features.

I have an rg570, and an epiphone les paul custom.
Now for the sound, it sounds decent, I found that it was a good modeling amp, and is up there with the line 6 products. I am not going to bash it to much, basically because some people like modeling amps, and I liked it for a while, thinking i would like modeling amps, until I wanted an all tube amp, and tried one out. The amp itself isn't loud enough, i practiced a with my band with it, and it rumbled to much, and wasn't loud enough. So i bought the behringer 412 400 watt slant cab, and tried it with that. It sounded good when I ran it in stereo mode, especially the effects. Now I started to really hate it, after I tried it in mono and stereo with the cab, and it still wasn't loud enough. There is one thing I learned, 100 watts of a modeling amp does not sound no where near 100 watts of a tube amp. So I got disgusted with it, and went out an purchased the peavey xxx 120 watt all tube amp. Now I finally found what I wanted, and I am satisfied. If you are just looking for a modeling amp , and modeling amps are your thing, go for this amp, if not, don't consider buying it. I will use it for some recording, but other than that, it is holding down my carpet so it won't peel up..lol.

Some parts are very cheap on there, the amp is basically a big plastic, cheap ply wood amp. It hasn't came apart yet, but that handle on there really looks cheap, like it would break in any moment. The amp is in good condition still.

Great costumer support, they are a good company, and I still like the cab that I bought from them, like I said, i found that modeling amps aren't for me.

I have been playing for almost 6 years. I own a peavey xxx head,a behringer 400 watt 412 slant cab, a ibanez chorus/flanger pedal, an epiphone les paul custom, a ibanez rg570. I have more crap, but this is my basic set up.
I don't like modeling amps, they aren't for me, I am a all tube man, if you like modeling amps, and tons of effects get this amp. Its cheaper than most line 6's besides the spider , but if you want more, and all kinds of extras, like line outs, midi control, built in tuner, midi interface, 125 user banks, and all that cake get it.

This is a 2 week follow up after using at a couple of gigs, tons of features, great effects, ect......

Great sonds comming from the amp, NOT LOUD ENOUGH!! I dont know what I'm doing, but I cant get this amp loud enough!! And if I turn it up too loud, it's a rattle trap.... I do plan on keeping it for recording and the smaller gigs and I will just run it direct, but as for the big gigs I will not be used. It sounds AWSOME, I wish it sounded just as good loud as it does at a lower volume!

Seems pretty reliable still, no problems

It will power a 4x12, but I dont have one and dont know if I plan on using this for a giging amp anymore. It does sound GREAT, but just not loud enough, maybe I can mess with it some more and find some louder settings. My old 30 watt Peavey was louder than this amp by itself. My ole Replitone is still going to be my live amp, and it also did a grat job at the studio last week. If you do get this V-ampire to gig with at big gigs, plan on getting a cab or running it direct (Has great direct sound).