Carvin MTS 3212

Pretty nice, separate eq's for each channel, reverb, drive, presence that I did not find too useful, etc. 100 watts, but not that loud for so much power. Plenty of tubes.

I have an Epi LP standard. I play mostly hard rock/edgy stuff, and I found a lot of different sounds that I liked by messing with the channels and eq. It had a tiny hum when turned on, but was really pretty quiet. The clean was pretty nice even at high volumes. The distortion was a little harsh, but not bad. Overall I thought it was a bright amp. The big problem that I had was that for 100 watts, it was not very loud. I had it side by side with my Fender FM 210r 65 watt solid state, and you could tell the MTS was a little louder with the right settings, but not as much I expected (note: the MTS did have better tones at high volumes). At practice, I had a hard time hearing myself over the drummer, singer, bassist and other guitarist, even when cranked. The other guitarist has an old Peavey Duece that is a similar setup to the MTS, but the Peavey is louder and just has a more powerful sound. I admit we could turn down a bit, but we like it loud, and I want an amp that can be loud when I want it to, and can stand alone if a PA is not available. That's just the way I roll haha.

It seemed very well built, and I would have no worries about the reliability, but I only had it for a trial period. However, I worked it pretty hard and nothing broke.

Well, I returned it, but they were very nice through the whole process.

I liked a lot about this amp, but it was not for me. It seems to me that a 100 watt tube amp should be louder and have a more powerful sound than the MTS (I realize that this is sort of subjective). I like that I was able to check it out for 10 days and send it back. I have to give it a 6 because I thought that compared to a few other amps I listened to in this price range, the MTS had similar tones and options, but just did not get to and average score for me.

100W, all tube, 2007 model Carvin MTS 3212 2x12 combo amp. It comes with Celestion GT1275 speakers, 5 12AX7 tubes, and 4 6L6 power tubes, with a bias switch if you want to use EL34s instead. It has 2 channels, Gain and Clean, each with a Volume and 3-band EQ. The clean channel has a presence (bright) switch, and the gain channel has a presence knob that ranges from muddy and dull at the bottom to ear-screetchingly bright at the top. It has a spring reverb, an effects loop on the back, a speaker out with a switch for 4, 8, or 16 ohms. The FS22 footswitch has a channel switch button and a reverb/effect loop button. What it really lacks is a master volume, and it could really use 2 separate knobs for low and high presence on the gain channel. A headphone jack would also be nice.

My main guitar is a Caparison TAT-II. It is a neck-thru strat type with a maple neck and alder body. The pickups are the stock Caparison PH-F and PH-R. It's a generally bright sounding guitar. I generally play jazz fusion, in a similar style to Marco Sfogli or the new Kiko Loureiro, or I play straight up jazz. I also do a decent amount of shredding where necessary. The amp is awesomely responsive to pedals, of which I have a Visual Sound V2 series H2O Chorus/echo pedal, a dunlop cry baby original wah, and an ISP Decimator I don't need as much as I used to with this amp.

Clean channel: The clean on this amp is phenomenal. It's really noiseless, super loud when you need it to be, ultra responsive with sparkling highs and really rounded lows, and has some awesomely spectacular sounding breakup around 4 or 5. It will be super loud by the time it breaks up, but it's worth the ear pain, seriously. It's not the absolute best I've used, but it's up there. Clean channel gets a 10/10, which I'm very happy with as I go clean 95% of the time.

Gain channel: Ugh, this is the letdown of this amp. If you're into nu metal and downtuned nonsense, you'll love this amp. Try as I might, I absolutely cannot get a good solo sound out of this amp like I want. It's not super noisy, but it's extremely muddy, and if you turn the presence up it just makes it twangier and AC/DC-er. Even on the best setting I've found, sweeps get ultra muddy in the middle and just sound nasty all around. The best setting I've found is about 6 on bass, 4 on mids, and 6.5 on treble, with the presence being about 7. The gain can be all the way up or around 3 O'clock. Even on the most ideal setting, it still doesn't cut through the mix, which it should, and the channel is so quiet that playing in groups means you have to crank it and really push out the muddiness. If you know how to help this, please e-mail me at schmitzel88@gmail.com . Gain channel gets a 5/10.

Haven't had any problems yet, but it seems to be pretty reliable.

No problems yet, haven't needed to contact them yet.

I have been playing for only 5 years and I'm only 17, but I already teach at a store and have a somewhat steady job as a studio musician at a local recording studio. My other gear is a heavily modded Gretsch G5222 5W tube combo, a Line6 Spider III I won in a solo contest and am trying to sell, a Marshall MG250DX, and a fender 15W solid state I started on. My guitars are the Caparison TAT-II, a Schecter Gryphon, a Warmoth custom VIP, a Gretsch G5120, and a few custom strats I built. The guitars all have the same verdict: clean is awesome, gain is muddy as hell. A master volume would be awesome. I'm considering getting it re-biased and swapping out all the tubes, but it might be easier to just sell it and get a Mesa Lonestar or a Carvin V3. I got this for $350 lightly used on ebay with the footswitch and cover included, and I couldn't pass on a deal like that so I somewhat bought it on impulse. I'm glad I did for the cleans, but the gain channel is so muddy that it's almost not worth it. If you're like me and play clean a lot, get a carvin Vintage series. If you play a lot of distortion, get a Mesa Lonestar.

Just got this amp from Carvin a week ago, so I'm guessing it is a 2008 model. Great amp for the money. Very versitile, many sounds and styles of mucis can be achieved. I play heavy, doomy rock (FuManchu, The Sword, Black Sabbath, Bongzilla, sHEAVY, Orange Goblin, Mammouth Volume, Sleep, etc). The amp has two channels with seperate EQ's. Came with footswitch that switches the reverb on/off and changes the channels. It has an effects loop. But no headphone jack. That would have been nice. I rarely use the reverb because I like a real clean and punchy sound. I down sized to this amp from a Sunn halfstack. The Sunn had a better clean channel, but nothing beats the overdrive channel. Plenty of power at 100/50 watts. I have mine set to 50 watts. Very loud amp! It's got 6L6GC power tubes and 12AX7 preamp tubes. You can also put in 5881's or EL34's in for the power tubes. Just have to change the bias if you use one of these other sets of power tubes.

I am playing a Gibson Les Paul with a 57' Classic Plus pickup in the bridge position and a 490 in the neck position. Also play a Fender Custom Limited Edition Telecaster with DiMarzio humbuckers. It has a set neck and is all mahogony. They both sound extremely good through this amp. Not much noise with this amp. It is the quietest tube amps I have ever owned. It takes pedals exceptionally well. I pretty much use only Electto Harmonix. My Double Muff and Phaser sound great. I have a Bad Horsie Wah pedal that is great too. If I hook all my pedals up, I do use a noise reducer. But it is still not that bad as far as noise goes. The distortion is brutal. When cranked, it sounds similar to a Boss Metal Zone. I back down the Drive knob to about 2 or 3 and stomp on the Double Muff and it has the sweetest sound. Such creamy and sustaining distortion. Love it!

I feel I can rely on this amp. I have owned other Carvin amps in the past and they have never given me any trouble.

The salesman I dealt with over the phone was very friendly and helpful. My amp came with 6L6GC's but was advertised as having 5881's. So I emailed Carvin and told them I would like to have the 5881's, as was advertised came in the amp. They are sending me a free set of 5881's. So now I have two sets of power tubes. Can't complain about that. Plus, I got a free footswitch ($29.99 value). They are great at Carvin!!

I have been playing for over 20 years. I also own a Marshall VS230 amp and a Jordan practice amp. I own a Gibson Les Paul, a Fender Tele, and a Washburn acoustic. I own a EH Double Muff, an EH Phase Shifter (phaser), a Morley Classic Wah, a Morley Bad Horsie Wah, and a Behringer Noise reducer. If it came up missing, I would certainly go buy another. Well worth the money! I do wish it had a headphone jack, but not very many tube amps do. You will not be disappointed with this amp. It is a great amp at a great price from a great American company. How could you go wrong???

I like that each of the two channels has its own eq. That really helps to maximize the use the clean and the distorted sounds. On amps with only one eq, you always have to compromise between them. Not a problem here.

I was expecting this amp to have a good distorted sound, but I was really surprised at how good the clean sound is! It is surprisingly full, and really sparkles. The distortion channel is what I expected--more than enough gain. It goes from a bluesy overdrive to new metal, and anything in between. It also has plenty of bottom end.

I've never had any problems with it. Take care of it and replace the tubes and I think it will be fine. It's really sturdy, and NOT made from particle board! Cheers to Carvin for using real wood (baltic birch I think) for this amp.

Never needed it because the amp never broke.

I've played and owned a lot of amps (several all-tube Marshalls and one Mesa to name a few), and I've been playing guitar for almost 15 years. I know my equipment, and this amp cannot be beat, especially for the money. I strongly recommend this amp.

MTS 3212 with 212 extention cab.

I recently purchased this amp from a friend looking for something to use as an OD/Gain amp with my Fender Twin. Didnt really expect much from Carvin but the price was right and I figured I could get what I spent for it if I needed too. My initial thoughts proved to be correct. The Clean channel was actually pretty good better than I expected, but the Lead channel was poor. The gain stage was dark and had some strang harmonic overtones. Not at all musical. I tried the amp with a Strat and Charvel Preditor. The strat brightened things up a little but the humbuckers sounded horrible. After this I went on the internet to research reviews and other info about this amp. I found several reviews talking about tube and speaker swaps. Most said they had significant improvement with these changes. The most helpful suggestion was to rebias the amp. Appearently Carvin biases these amps low or cold by default to prolong tube life. I measured mine and it was about 110 ma across the standby switch. The mts has a bias adj inside. I researched and found that a better setting would be between 150-190ma across the standby switch. I adj mine to 180ma. The result was definitely noticible. The lead channel is much more dynamic. More musical/usable. I DO NOT RECOMMEND rebiasing your amp on your own if you dont know what your doing. Better to take it to a qualified tech. There is a lot of danger in there if you are not careful. Anyway I would definity say this is a good amp with potential with the right setup. I want to try some EL34 power tubes next.

No experience with this amp, but past experiences havent been good.

Have been playing 30 years or so. I would not buy this amp new from Carvin but if you find a good deal on a used one its worth a try.

I bought mine brand new back in '98. This was my first tube amp, and I was full of hope. Boy was I wrong. It's a 2 channel 100W all tube amp with reverb. Wish the presense control were a knob as opposed to on/off.

The dirty channel is very bad. The sound is everything that you don't want from a tube amp. It's scratchy, rude, and has very loose feeling to it. It lacks dynamics, and I don't know... It just doesn't sound right. I tried to like the dirty channel for 5 years. Never could do it. I've gone through stock tubes, JJ's EL34L tubes, and the 6L6G tubes. They helped, but still wasn't good. There was no subtley, and there was no in-between sound. BUT! The clean channel is very good. It has smooth highs and rounded lows. 99% of the time, I used the clean channel with a BOSS DS-1 in front of it. Did I already say I didn't like the dirty channel?

It was alive and kickin' til the day I sold it. It's heavy, and it's realiable. Carvin builds them like tanks.

I emailed them a couple times, and they wrote back. Helpful people.

I've been playing for about 10 years. This was the amp I grew up with. I wish it weren't part of my life, that's how much i hated this amp. Again, the clean channel is fantastic, but I didn't buy the amp for the clean channel. :(

From the Carvin Site:
MTS3212 COMBO
Reverb???both channels
??? Dual channels (clean & crunch/sustain) with separate level controls
??? 50 /100 watt output switch for tube saturation at lower levels
??? Bias switch for your choice of 5881(matched Groove Tubes???), 6L6GC's or EL34 power tubes
??? Tubes: four 5881 matched Groove Tubes???
??? Five 12AX7 preamp tubes for high gain (V1& V2 Groove Tubes???)
??? The cabinet voiced line output jack delivers the natural ???mic???d??? sound direct to your mixer
??? A 4, 8 or 16y?? switch allows your choice of speakers
??? A normalized Effects Loop is featured for foot effects as well a rack effects
??? The optional FS22 foot switch is for selecting channels and reverb
??? Hand crafted 7-ply poplar wood cabinet
A basic setup that is open to you for modification. There are many options for you to change it up utilizing the tube bias switch, speaker bias switch, effects loop, etc. It is an open canvas.

Alright, this is one person's opinion.
Clean Channel:When I finally played through this amp, I enjoyed the clean channel, but some issues arose. I use a Les Paul and I like a fat warm clean with as little break up as possible. This amp is designed for breakup, and with a high-output low end guitar like an LP, I would start getting overdriven sounds early at about 3 or 4, and any higher would be quite distorted. It was somewhere around concert volume before it broke up, but the fact that it does distort made it not my type of amp. I will say for those who like break up, it was great sounding light overdrive that was not at all unpleasent-it just simply did not suit my style. But people should know what this amp does before they buy it. I didn't rate it low because of this channel. The clean before break up was magnificent-less bass then a fender twin, but nice and fat with much clarity. When I put a Tubescreamer in front of the clean channel for crunchy rhythm, it sounded incredible, nearly perfect.

Distortion Channel- Now this is where I think this amp is weak. I could not get a satisfactory distortion out of it. It has a very deep thunking metal tone that wasn't necessarily a bad tone, but messing with the eq and gain wouldn't get much change. It was really deep and kind of muddy to me and when I tried using it in the context of my band, it WOULD NOT cut through. I just kept cranking the volume up until near the maximum, and it was too muddy to be heard through the other four guys. I couldn't get a nice light crunch with good mids, nor could I get a creamy overdrive. It is a deep harmonically rich metal channel that I did not find to be very versatile.

The first amp they sent me was damaged by UPS-of course. The amp rattled horribly everytime I played a note. It wasn't the tubes, so I had to send it back. UPS SUCKS- They damaged the first carvin my friend ordered(Bel Aire, a great sounding amp, all the tubes were smashed, the cover was jammed inward. They are a very unprofessional company imo. The second amp worked well, however, I only kept it for a few days before I realized it wasn't for me, so I can't comment on reliability.

Carvin is known as a company that is great to their customers. I had a coorespondence with Jason Golden throughout my UPS ordeal, and he helped me and instructed me through the whole thing until I finally decided to send it back. They are a fantastic company. I should note that they do have amzing products- the other guitarist in our band uses an AE-185 and a Bel Aire 2x12 and sounds great. This amp just didn't get along with me I guess. I decided on a fender twin 65 reissue and am happy I reconsidered.

The clean channel on this amp wasn't for me, but I could tell it was of high quality. It broke up too early for me and my LP though. The distortion channel was flawed for me however, and I couldn't make myself heard when I used it, and this is supposed to be a 100watt amp man... I couldn't stand the thought of having an amp with all these options, and only playing on the clean channel below volume level 4. The amp was sturdy, compact, not too heavy (compared to the Twin, holy crap!), I am sure it would last a very long time if you care for it. Try it yourself, dont take my word!

2005 or 2006 manufacture, standard Carvin MTS3212 tube amp.

This is the interesting part. I ourchased it in eBay and when it arrived I tried it out, clean sounded pretty good but lead was metal-suitable only. I swapped out the G12T-75s for Vin30s, also cahnegd the 5881s for SED 6L6s and put EH 12AX7s in the preamp stage. It helped, so I started using oit for rehearsals instead of my Hot Rod Deville, just to see what it could do. I could not get a good smooth lead sound out of it - even with the drive almost to zero I would still get a raspy, odd-order harmonic-rich sound which I just could not get rid of no matter what I tried. Our bassist even said that it sounded OK, but not as good as the HRD. So, I was looking at the schematic last night and it turns out that some genius put two pair of stacked 1N4745 Zener diodes between the second and third preamp stages in the lead channel (D1 through D4), connected opposit to each other so as to handle both phases. They are obviously there as clipping diodes. A 1N4745 limits at 16V, so two in series limit to about 32V,which sounds like a lot, but the gain of the preamp tubes is such that at that point a 0.01V signal would end up being over 50V, which would defintiely be limited to 32V - it would end up being a square wave, whcih is NOT tube distortion. Tubes distort slowly and don't yield square waves unless they are saturated. Anyway - the point is that someone tried to put a hard clip circuit in there, for Lord only knows what reason - it does NOT exist in any Fender or Mesa products that I know of (and I have some of both). And since the gain is so high it starts working at low input levels into the amp. Anyway, I am am reserving judgement on this until I remove those diodes from the circuit, then I will be able to get and give a more acurate idea of what it should sound like. In the meantime I will go back to the HRD, and I would strongly recommend to Carvin that they take the little hard clip diodes out, I haven't yet tried it but I expect it to sound quite a bit better after the diode removal.

N/A

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Based solely upon removing the diodes - about a 2 or 3 for the lead channel. Clean is nice, 8 or 9 (almost as good as my Lonestar). I'll get back to you on this...

This is a 2005 Model.
I ordered it back in July, haven't reviewed it yet, so here it goes:
This amp has 2 channels...you can get a footswitch that switches channels and turns the reverb on and off. Has an effects loop as well.
Its features are perfect except for a few small things...I wish it has a master volume, I wish that the footswitch had a led to tell which channel you were on, and that is about it.

This is 50/100W of full tube power.

This is flat out a ballsy amp. This thing roars. It works well with all pups. This amp can get anything from shimmering cleans to screeching leads. Very versatile. THeir is a huge variety of sounds.

THe distortion is incredible. And by turning the drive to about 1/2, and the volume cranked way up, you get that tube overdrive AC/DC tone. I love that...it sounds so great like that...anyway, this amp tweaked the right way can cover just about anything.

This amp is built like a tank. I feel 100% comforatble giggin w/o a backup. It has never broken down, however the tubes that were shipped in it, were not perfect. Because it was shipped from California to Boston, one of the tubes had internal problems, but htat was a quick fix

Did not have to deal with Carvin on this purchase

I love it. Great amp...

and can you beat the price?

$700 for a 100W tube amp? THat is unheard of!

All in all awesome deal!

This is the 50th anniversary edition (or so it says on the front) made in 04 or 05. It has two channels (footswitchable) and reverb (also footswitchable) This is a straight up rock and roll amp with no extra crap - other than a bias switch (changeable 6L6s to EL34's) and a Power cut switch which changes the amp from 100 watts to 50 watts (4 tubes - 2 tubes in the power amps section) This sucker has an armload of tubes in it and it comes in a nicely compact 2X12 package (smallest 2X12 I've ever seen) very nice work on the engineering of this little beauty.

This is where this bad boy shines. If you read in any other review that this amp doesn't have a good lead gain sound, you are being misinformed. From the moment I plugged in my 94' Les Paul Standard I was blown away by the sheer power of this little atomic reactor. The lead channel is blistering with the gain at about 11 o'clock, and when you crank it up it just keeps getting nastier and narlier. I have never been so impressed so quickly with an amp - and I've owned a 5150 II and a Mesa Triple Rectifier (I got off the stack idea after having to haul them around every where). Carvin has super value in a box with their MTS 3212. The clean channel gets loud in a hurry, and at about 1.5 it is already at concert volume. Once you start cranking the volume level, the clean will start to break up (because we're not dealing with a Roland Jazz chorus) but that is of no concern to a rock and roll player such as my self - Clean electric always needs a little "personality". For the price of this amp, I refuse to believe that you can find a better unit - With 4 power amp (5881's) and 5 12AX7 preamp tubes, 2 Celestion G12T-75's, and its compact size - This is the apex of 2X12 Combos. Sure Marshall, Mesa, Bogner, Soldano, Tophat, etc. all make great products that kick ass in the tone department - but the Carvin holds its own - and at a 1/2 to a 1/4 of the price as some of the others, why look anywhere else. Besides, this one is made in the USA!!!

I have only just got my amp, but it looks really solid and well constructed. I always try to bring my pod just in case I lose a power amp tube, but I really have no concerns in this area at all

I ordered the amp through carvin on the phone. Customer service was very friendly and knowledgable. Shipment came before they said it would - Perfectly packaged and ready to rock.

I've been playing for about 13 years and have owned a variety of amps in my day, tone has always been an issue until now - convenient size for gigging and a tone beast at that. If this amp was lost or stolen, I'd take my home-owner's insurance money and buy another in a heart beat.

If you want a killer amp with distortion to spare at an affordable price - GET A CARVIN MTS 3213 combo!!!!