Crate BV120H Blue Voodoo

2 channel, dirty clean, latty dah

Ibanez gsa60 and yamaha pacifica. This is amp is pretty cool, and i got the head for 250 bucks!! It's pretty sick for the price, definetly has "my" tone, which involves a lot of mids and lows, very few highs. I play everything, but this thing rocks for real metal, not for pussy nu metal shi-ite that needs 10,000 dollar amps to sound good. I play testament, dream theater, Shadows Fall, and loads of other stuff. The thing I dislike about this amp is the gain control is misleading. The gain control on 6 is the same gain you would get from a marshall on 10, and anything past 7 on gain for this thing is unusable, its simply to fuzzy and harsh. That being said, this thing can get a killer metal tone at around 3 gain which is my rythm, then for lead stuff its around 6. Definetly not a 800 dollar amp, but for 250 bucks for an all tube amp, how can you go wrong?

Purtty good. hasnt crapped out on me yet

never dealt with em.

Sick head, buy it if you see it for 350 or less, other wise go bust a nut and invest in something major but at this price range you cannot get any better.

Don't know what year this amp was made, but I bought it new about 6 months ago. The features are covered in the 130 reviews prior to this one, so no need to address except to say that I think the design layout is very user friendly and provides all of the essential options a guitar player could need.

More than enough power for just about anything I can think of.

I like Fender clean type and the ability to also get good overdrive. The latter I really have to work on because I have a particular quality distortion I want. The clean I am looking for pretty much requires 6L6 tubes, but the overdrive I like leans a bit more in the EL-34 direction. 6L6 overdrive has too much splash. The EL-34 overdrive is tighter, but tends to lack the bottom end you can get with a 6L6.

Well, this amp allowed me to get the sound I was looking for by playing with the tubes. This amp came stock with pretty decent sounding tubes. The 6L6 tubes were Groove Tube 6L6Cs, which are Chinese made. They look like Shuguangs. They had a "4" distortion rating. They did not sound bad except that one in the batch of four was defective. Musician's Friend was not particularly helpful. I yanked the tubes and replced them with a set of SEDs that biased right at 37MAs. Perfect!

The stock preamp tubes were all Groove Tube 12AX7C's, which are the pretty decent Shuguangs everyone keeps raving about. Not bad, but still giving me too much of that 6L6 splash when overdriven. I replaced the V1 Shuguang with an NOS GE 12AX7WA, which had more presence and detail. But the most important changes were made at V2 and V4. V2 in the Crates covers your drive channel. I stuck an NOS Sylvania 5751 there. It is potent enough to still rip, yet it tames down the gain just enough to reign in that 6L6 splash. Next, I stuck a JJ ECC81 (12AT7) in in V4, the phase inverter slot. A lesser gain tube in the phase inverter robs some amps of their character. In this case, it was perfect for bringing out the qualities I was looking for.

Other have commented on how this amp will do punk and metal. With Vintage 30s, it definitely covers the metal. But I am not a fan of heavy metal or of Vintage 30s. I play classic rock, Brit pop, power pop, 60s coves, and 70s classic rock. I'll take Greenbacks or G12T-75s over Vintage 30s any day. For this amp, I have a Fender Tonemaster 4 X 12" cab that came loaded with Vintage 30s. Out went the Vintage 30s and in went two Greenbacks and two Blue Alnicos. This is tone!

I haven't really pushed this amp. It has covered plenty of bedroom practices and an occasional jam session. It will be getting more of a work out in the very near future. So far, so good. No reason to expect anything other than reliability. Only problem to date was the bad 6L6, and that wasn't a problem with the amp.

Never dealt with Crate on this amp, but I have owned several Crates amps over the years. Their customer service is the best I have ever dealt with in the music industry. It has a lot to do with why I keep coming back to their products. They offer decent products at very reasonable prices. They back them up with good warraties (5 years) and good customer service.

Been playing about 25 years. Own about 10 others amps and over 20 guitars. Didn't really need this amp, but the blow out price was too good an offer to pass up. Besides, I had the idea that I'd be able to tweak this amp to get exactly what I wanted out of it. That turned out to be the case. I'm very happy with it and kind of regret that I did not buy two at the blow out price.

Made in 2000, I ordered this from a local music store and had to wait almost 5 months to get it (which kind of pissed me off) I'm only writing this review to let anyone know who is looking to buy this amp that it is a great piece of equipment. I won't get into the features too in depth b/c the other reviewers have already done that.

I use this amp with a few LP Standards with various pickups (all switched out the stock pickups were horrible. I also use a Washburn N4 unbelieveable axe, 84 Kramer Baretta, Jackson Soloist, ESP Kamikaze and an Epiphone Nighthawk special. I play Rock and Metal, Old 80's metal like Van Halen, Dokken to newer stuff like Disturbed, Godsmack etc and of course my band's original material which is a cross between the downtuned stuff of today with actual solo work unlike a lot of crap bands out right now. It can be a bit noisy when the gain is dimed out but what amp isn't. What I really want to say about this amp is that I had it for almost 4 years and was about ready to trash it. I kept getting this swooshing sound (without effects connected) IT was like noise storm, it was awful man. I paid about 800 for the head and 600 for the Vintage 30 cab it never quite sounded right to me. I had tried (almost) everything, took it to the shop about 4 times, they said everything was fine, Changed out the power tubes 3 times, nothing worked. I got bad advice from Crate is really what happened, they told me that I really didn't need to change out the preamp tubes, well I finally did it and WOW! Swooshing noise was gone the clean channel didn't clip anymore and the OD channel finally sounded like the freight train that I had been looking for. IT DOES LACK A LITTLE BOTTOM END THOUGH. It is not my Ideal amp but I won't be getting rid of it, ever. I'm very pleased with it now and I will keep it.

I've been a gigging musician for more than 8 years now and the BV has actually been dropped before, which is pretty much fatal for a tube head, it still worked perfectly, I couldn't believe it, I got lucky I guess. It has been through a lot, someone spilled a beer on it and I thought for sure it was toast, still worked. From what I've experienced it is built tough and has been completely road worthy. I have a backup but it is an old Randall 100W solid state that I really don't want to use in a live situation but If I had to I'd use it for the night.

They've always answered the phone and were always more than willing to help out, but I'm not so sure that all of the techs are as knowledgable about their products as they should be. Most of the guys I spoke with were really cool but there was one punk ass that thought his shit didn't stink and was kind of a dick, real pretentious little fucker, he was no help at all. But for the most part they have tried their best to help me out. Unfortunately I had to figure the shit out myself and because of that one little pretentious fucker they get a 5.

Been playing for quite a while, over years live and just playing for more than 15. I have experience with Marshalls (the other guitar player in my band has a JCM 800, great amp, but the BV keeps up with it in every aspect. I wouldn't pay twice as much for what he has over the BV. The Reverb seems a little tinny to me but not too bad, I use it but I keep it dialed down to about 3 or 4 any higher than that and it seems artificial. The funny thing is, I bought this only because Marty Friedman was endorsing it and it was relatively affordable, mid range. If I had $4500 to drop on an amp I'd buy a Diezel VH4 but I don't see that happening anytime soon. For the most part, If you're looking at buying one of these I'd say go for it. I don't know much about the newer models with the 20 tubes, god what a nightmare that must be to buy all of those and change them out. Anyway it's a great amp and can hold it's own with many of the higher priced amps that are out there.

Already covered this in previous reviews.

OK, this is now my third review of this amp. Guess I'm getting a little obsessive. In my last review I gave the sound quality an 8 because the clean sound isn't my favorite in the world. What was I thinking? The dirty channel alone is enough to rate a 10. The main reason for reviewing it again is because I recently had a chance to A/B it with a new Marshall JCM2000 DSL. A friend of mine's car broke down after a show and he asked if I could take his Marshall head home with me. I tried both heads using my entire rig, which is as follows: Ibanez Jem7PBK or Gibson Les Paul Studio Lite, Boss TU-2 tuner, Dunlop 535Q Crybaby Wah, MXR ZW-44 Zakk Wylde Overdrive, Boss GT-3 multi-effects unit(this last run through the effects loop and used only for time-based effects, EQ and noise-gate), BV120 head and a Marshall 1960A cab with Celestion Vintage 30's. I went back and forth between both heads like 12 or 15 times. Using the pedals and guitars I always use, and the sound I like the most dialed in on both amps, they sounded IDENTICAL, literally!!! The responsiveness, loudness, sustain, EVERYTHING was the same. The only difference was that the Marshall had a SLIGHT bit more low-end, and I chalk that up to the fact that I haven't changed the tubes in my BV in about 3 years. I would challenge anyone to listen to these two rigs blindfolded and tell me for sure which was which. The BV is about half the cost of the Marshall AND it has independent EQ sections for both channels, while the Marshall had only one. The point is, I thought the Marshall was a great amp, but not one iota better than the Blue Voodoo, and for twice the price. Mesas are muddy and generic-sounding in my opinion, good for metal rhythm playing but shitty for solos. For my ideal sound, I prefer to have slightly more gain than either of these heads push on their own, so if any of you are looking to push your BV's over the edge I highly recommend the ZW-44. By combining that pedal, a little chorus and EQ tweaking on the GT-3, the BV head and the 1960AV cab, I have the warmest, loudest most brutal Goddamn sound you ever heard. If you DO try the ZW-44, be patient and play around with it's settings and your amp's settings. It can create a lot of noise and unwanted feedback if you're not careful.

As I've mentioned in previous reviews, EXTREMELY reliable. Also, I found the 800-number to order Crate parts and replaced the missing "feet" on my head for all of 3 bucks apiece. So, occasional tube replacements aside, I've spent $6 on maintenence in over 6 years.

Haven't dealt with them much.

As you can guess, I love this amp. One word of warning though: Tube amplifiers let every nuance of your playing come out, much more so than solid-state amps, even the modeling kind. This can be good or bad. If you are a good, precise player, they will make you sound that much better. If you are sloppy, however, and let strings ring out unintentionally or hit alot of bad notes, everyone will hear that as well. If you know you aren't that great at playing precisely you might be better off with a Line 6 or a Marshall AVT.

2 channels, didn't come with footswitch (I got it used). All tube.

I play a Jackson RX10D, and a RR5, and a Charvel 375 DLX. I play mostly metal. It's a great sounding amp, I can't believe how great it sounds. The clean channel could be a little cleaner, but I'm getting used to it, and learning to roll back the volume on my guitar a bit, and that cleans it up better. The tone/sound is perfect for me. The guys in my band all love it too. The other guitarist wants one now.

I've only owned it a couple of weeks. I would not gig it w/o a backup, because things happen beyond our control.

I have been playing for a few years. I own a Crate GFX1200H full stack (which has now been relegated to backup duty),and a Peavey Audition 110 practice amp.
If it were stolen, I would definitley buy another one. How the hell do you lose a HUGE HEAVY amp head? Well, if I did..I would buy another one after kicking myself repeatedly in the ass for being so stupid. I do wish it had 3 channels like the GFX1200H, but that's ok..it's great.

120 Watts, clean and dirty channel, reverb, 4 6l6's, bass treble mids, all the knobs effects loop. Just your basic tube guitar head design done very well. Of course its blue as well, with a backlit sign and tubes. Classy.

Honestly, its a tube amp, what more do you want from it?

I am using either a stock Gibson V-Factor or an EMG 81 equipped Ibanez SA-1260. I have also used an Ibanez Artist with Duncan JB's, a Duncan equipped ESP EC-1000, and an EBMM John Petrucci with Dimarzio's. I also use a matching Crate BV-4x12 with the Crate American Vintage speakers. I play metal mostly and emo. Lamb of God, Shadows Fall, Arch Enemy, Mastodon, Coheed and Cambria, Texas is the Reason, Thrice, Helmet, Fairweather, Ed Gein, Psyopus. That kind of stuff.
The clean channel is very well put together. All you would ever need out of a clean channel, sans effects. It stays very clean at high volumes, and trust me the clean channel can get loud. It takes effects very well, doesnt get all garbled up.
The dirty clannel, again, done very well. Does it have all the finesse and passion and verve and scope of a Bogner or an Engl. No, and who gives a holy handjob. When you get into a live playing situation with bass and drums and singing ect, your $2500 Bogner-Engl-Framus will sound a lot like my $450 Crate.

Ive had it for 4-5 months and its held up perfectly well. No preformance issues at all.

I havent dealt with Crate and i dont think i will have too anytime soon.

I diddnt want to love this amp. I got it cheap from MF on closeout, and i got the cab used too. All told this halfstack ran me about $830. You cant buy a new Peavey head for that. Ive A/B -ed this with Marshall 's (JCM-2000, Mode Four), Mesa 's (Rectifiers, Stillettos), and all manner of Peavey heads ( 5150, XXX, JSX).Like a previous reviewer i have the money for Marshalls and Mesas, but I like this rig better.

You know about the features, 2 channels, one clean, one dirty, plenty about that in other reviews.

This is actually a follow-up review and a rebuttal to all the schmucks who posted saying the BV sucks and we should all buy Marshalls or Boogies. I can afford any damn amp I want and I'm perfectly happy with my BV. I bought it five years ago because at the time it WAS all I could afford but it has served me well for all that time. I don't know, maybe Ahkmed and all the other morons who hate the BV so much just got defective units, or perhaps they are all a bunch of pole-smokers. Ahkmed is obnoxious but at least he had the balls to include his name, unlike the idiot who goes on and on telling us how tubes work and complaining about how "young kids" today don't know what an amp should sound like. I have a number of effects in my rig but I can also get a very large warm sound just going straight in. I play an Ibanez Jem with Dimarzio PAF Pro's and use a Marshall 1960 cab with vintage Celestion 30's. It's loud as Hell and, to my ears, sounds as good if not better than the Marshalls and Boogies alot of my peers play through. Don't get me wrong, those are both great amps but everyone and their sister plays one and the Boogies all sound the same to me. Some of us would prefer not to be clones! I should tell you, it's not just me. I get compliments about my sound all the time, often from the sound guys at the clubs we play at. In fact, the guy who is widely regarded as the best sound engineer in my city says my tone is the one of the best that he deals with in his job. And no, I'm not from Hicksville, I live in the 5th largest City in the US. To be honest, this same guy has also told me that he doesn't like the sound of most of the BV's he deals with but he loves mine. Maybe it's the PAF Pro's? I don't know, the BV isn't for everyone and if you don't like it then don't buy it. Just don't tell me that my amp sounds like shit just because it didn't sound good for YOU.

5 years, 50+ gigs, hundreds of rehearsals and no major problems. Replace the tubes as needed and you'll be in good shape for a long time. The only complaint I have is that two of the "feet" came off of mine and now I have to put a couple of 9-volts underneath to make it level sitting on the cab. Anyone know where I could replace these?

I'm giving it an 8 just because I know not everyone seems to get as good of a sound as I get. Also the clean channel isn't that great but I never use it anyway. Use a guitar with PAF's and a good cab and you should be happy, especially considering the price. I recently added an MXR ZW-44 overdrive to the front of my already-distorted amp and with that I get all the low end of a Boogie but without the lack of mids and sameness of sound.

Pretty simple amp on the front and the back. Heres the two things that are nice, seperate reverb for each channel and the effects loop can be turned on and off by the footswitch. I wish you could turn the reverb on and off by a footswitch as well, that would make me happy, might get that done when modding it.

I'm using a Epi Les Paul Standard that I have modded to some extent. I also run a Fender Standard Strat through it as well. It powers a Madison 4x12 cab. At first I didn't like the way it sounded, the clean sounded pathetic and the distortion had no low end. But then I remembered I had been away from tubes amps for awhile, a tube amp only shines after a couple things have happened, one the amp has to be properlly warmed up, and two, you don't start getting great tube sounds until you get the power section working. So after about 15 minutes of play on it it had warmed up pretty good and the sucker started to sound great! The clean breaks up just as you would want it to. The distortion is very full, very rich, and has that Crate tradmark dark tone to it. When I crank it up to full blast it will blow your head off, but it will sound so good while doing it. Starts to remind me of a marshall when it's cranked it has that dark tone to it. I usually keep the overdrive channel around 5-6 to get a nice even mix of power and pre, this gives me my best tone, a nice crunch that sounds clean but can still bite off your head. I have found the tone I love, and I'm glad I'm back to tube. I think some people on here also forgot, let your amp warm up, then beat the great tones out of her, she begs for it!

I'm not sure how reliable it is yet, havn't had the chance to test it on the road. A lot of pros use it on the road, so I'm going to assume it holds up. But it is tube and you have to be a little carful with them. I own some other crates and have never had any problems though.

Never delt with crate, and I own a few, so I guess thats a good thing!

This amp is awsome, some many great tones that you can get out of it. I started off on tube amps and played them for many years. Then played solid state for many years, and after never being happy with my tone I went back to tube, and I'm glad I did. I love it that you can get these things for so cheap since everyone else is after the 300watt version of this, why 300 watts of tube, that's crazy, way to much for any human being! If your thinking of buying one of these, buy it, just remember, tubes, they sound best when hott, so warm them amps up. Oh and change the tubes, try out some combos and see what works best, I'm currentlly using Mesa 6L6 and Electro Harmoniz 12A7X.

New, closeout of the blue vinyl. I've had it about three months, came with the Groove tubes. It is heavy, 58 or so lb. I need to get a case for it because it is not something you want to drop. It has Reverb and even tho I could do without it most of the time, I need it on the clean channel. Came with all metal footswitch.

I AB'd it with a Crate GX1200H just to see if there was any similarity
to the Flex-Wav circuit. NONE. NONE at all. The Voodoo is an entirely different sounding amp at all levels. Voodoo easily sounds better than the Flex-Wav and sounds nothing like it. It is difficult to remove the static sound from the Flex-Wav but it just isn't there on the Voodoo.
It's a 100 watt 6L6 tube amp and if you don't know how to make it work
get the hell out of the way, cuz I know how! I live right in the middle of snob country (Texas ranchers) and they just can't stand me.
So you know I get real tired of amp snobs. You don't have to like the Voodoo to be a good guy in my eyes, but don't spread lies about it.
I mean how can anyone get in such a lather over an amp. I question the motivation of someone who doesn't own an amp and yet has a vehement hatred for it. It ain't natural.

I don't know.

I don't know

It's been said before, best buy in an all tube head, [for what I paid anyway].

NEW-tube amp-2 channel--came with the footswitch.this amp gets the job done and then some.all features are useable.reverb is very nice[seperate for each channel.looks great and sounds better.pound for pound the best value in a tube amp going today.i wanted this amp for a long time and finally got one.i was not disappointed........

i play humbucker equip. guitars.single coil p/ups are to noisy.i beleive this would suit any style of music.the clean channel is very nice sounding and the dist.channel a fantastic.i have nothing bad to say about this amp--- i'm going to buy another one in the near future.

i've only had it a short time.from what i understand''these amps are made to be beaten''--just change the tubes when needed....

i've owned crate amps and speaker cabinets for many years.they are a very good company to deal with.i had a speaker go on me[out of warranty]--they sent me a new one anyway....hows that for a good co.

i've been playing for many years.i own a laney amp--marshall amp--another crate head--peavey cabinet 4/12----esp guitar--guild guitar.lets see.what do i like about this crate head--i like everything and dislike nothing.i do hate that i waited so long to buy it.for the money,you will not find a better amp...........