Crate BV120H Blue Voodoo

My amp is about a 2002. 2 Channels w/ an effects loop.
I would love it if it had a lead channel.

I have changed the preamp tubes to 12AX7C?s and re-biased the amp for Ruby Tubes El-34?s in the power section. This much improved the amp?s midrange capability and harsh buzzy distortion that came from the stock 12AX7R?s and 6L6?s. I am quite pleased with the sound that it produces. I think that people that do not like the sound of this amp don?t take the tonal characteristics of the tubes that they use into consideration. It makes a big difference! I personally didn?t like the sound of the amp w/ 6L6?s, but now it fits my tastes.

Have not had a single problem w/ Crate.

Never needed customer support.

I?ve played guitar for about 7 years. I play a cheap Ibanez w/ stock humbuckers. The review I gave of the sound quality of the amp was w/o any effects through the Blue Voodoo Cab with Vintage 30?s. For those who are interested, I usually run a Rocktron Big Crush Compressor, Boss GE-7 Eq, and a Boss NS-2 to the amp and another Rackmount Compressor/Gate in the effects loop. (Other pedals include Boss PH-2, MXR Phase 90, Ibanez TS-9, Danelectro Daddy-O, Ibanez DE-7 Delay.) I also plan on changing out two of the speakers to G12T-75?s and opening up the back of the cab on Vintage 30?s side (this should give more bass on one side and more clarity on the other). I will also change out my humbuckers, but not sure to what yet.
Overall, I would say that this is a nice sounding and inexpensive amp. True, I don?t think it sounds like a Marshall or a Boogie, but it has a distinctive sound of its own. As one reviewer said, ?it sounds good to me.? Don?t listen to the bad reviews, just try one out for yourself, and remember that tube types make a big difference.

You have read all the features before so I'll just bypass this category

I've used a Strat, Les Paul, Parker Mojo, Tele, Gretsch, and a Guild Brian May. The clean channel is bright, clean and crisp but lacks the warmth of a Fender twin or Deluxe. I rolled the PRESENCE control off and it lost that ice pick in the ear brittle sound. If this was all the amp did it would be cool. Put some pedals in front and you got all you want in a clean amp. However, the drive channel sucks bildge water! The annoying "bumble bee in a tin can" distortion. It did improve a little when I put in Sovtek 12AX7WA's in the gain stages but it still is way too buzzy. OBTW I used the Crate 4x12 that originally came with the amp.

So far so good. SLM has built a tank.

I called to get some tech advice when changing the preamp tubes from SLM and got right through. The tech support was great. I wish this category had a higher rating than 10. I am VERY impressed.

I got this from a guy who said, "I'll never use it again. You want it?" Not being one to look a gift amp in the speaker I gladly accepted his kind and generous offer. The amp is pedal friendly and is quite usable as long as you don't turn on the distortion side. This head books out at around $500.00. I wouldn't even consider paying half that much. Overall this is probably the worst sounding half stack I ever played.

this amp has all you need for most giging guitarists,good clean and good distortion no matter what style you play and the power is all you need for large or smaller venues

i play just about anything,blues,rock,some country,new rock,punk,i use two custom strats i had built with a dimarzio vitural vintage single coil in the neck and a 80s dimarzio super distortion in the bridge as well as a les paul and many other guitars from semi hollow body to two vintage strats a 65 and 58, and a tele as well, this amp does not make alot of noise or static,the distortion can go from nice breakup to shred just what i need

been giging with it fro awhile and no problems

never needed them

i have been playing guitar for over 30 years, i have vintage marshall and fender amps as well as some others ,silvertone,valco,ampeg and not to be a snob but i can buy any amp i want pretty much but there lies the problem,vintage fenders and marshalls are freakin gone nuts on the prices and the newer stuff is not any better in price and does NOT sound as good..sorry !! ,i have had mine for many years and paid way lees than what they go for now and to be honest would have never even thought of owning anything from crate,my thought was crate was crap !! until i played the blue voodo 120, i had a marshall jcm 2000 at 800.00 and it sounded no differant than the blue voodo and the voodo has way better clean tones,the distortions are the same !! i got the voodo in a partial trade and could not belive how it sounded so i sold the marshall for 800.00 and have been using the voodo ever since for about 250.00 in trade value, i dont use my marshalls or fender amps for giging anymore i dont have to the voodo does a great job and i dont have to worry about nicks and scuffs and beer and drunks misty wheather etc..etc..get one trust me !!

the mirror grill business is silly. here is a tip. turn the chassis around back to front in its case and it looks just like a 1960's marshall. the metal grill will now be in back and the control knobs will stick out under the blue tolex panel that used to be the back panel. everything fits fine. it was probably designed that way in the first place before someone got the mirror inspiration.

sounds just like a 1960's marshall.

the circuit board on this amp is pretty thin, the traces are too. the power tubes are on a separate board connected by rigid pins, not wires. one of the pins stopped making contact and 2 of the tubes stopped working. i would worry about transporting this amp.

has an 800 number but i fixed it myself over the weekend.

a good cheap substitute for a vintage marshall, but tour with 2 or more --you will need backup.

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.