Crate BV60H Blue Voodoo

this is the older logo blue voodo with the square small logo.

its only two channels, clean and distorted, which i like, its simple yet all you need. it has a effects loop on off switch and a -20 db boost too. another feature is global presence, which i am a big fan of. the feature on this amp that is different is the active eq. with boosts or cuts, its hard to get used too, but my previous two amps were like that so im used to it. if you get used to the active eq. its a great amp

its variety is pretty impressive. the active eq is a big part in that. the mid control really goes from scooped mesa like john sykes whitesnake tone to a realy dry randy rhoads in terms of midrange. i like the distortion, but in my opinion, it sounded best with the distortion on 7 and use a overdrive pedal. it gets really compressed and tight. the last great thing is the tubes really compress alot as you distort it, which is something i really like.

my tubes randomly stopped firing, but the control lights worked, which was lame, but other than that a plus!!!

2001 Blue voodoo 60 head. Pretty simple two channel affair, with reverb, channel switching, level selectable fx loops etc. I went for the 60 rather than the 120 because i find lower wattage heads develope a far superior tone. Its still running standard valves but i'll get these changed out for EH 12ax7s very soon

If anyone says that the drive channel on this doesnt have enough gain then theyre either a sad child who knows nothing about guitar tone or just an idiot! I play hi-gain melodic post hardcore and i have the gain set to about 4.
The sound is pretty similar to marshall DSL just a bit more bassy and with a tighter mid range response. I use it through the matching vintage 30 loaded cab and it sounds huge, it replaced the my marshall in my live set up straight away. The clean stays nice and clean up to huge volumes, the only thing i dont like is that its hard to set up a balance between the two channels, i'd rather it had a master volume control. My main guitar is a PRS 20th anniversary, but you'll also find me swinging a fender ltd edition fat strat and a musicman sub1 trem. They all sound great through this, its not the most versatile amp but its great sounding for modern rock music.

Seems fine to me!

Crate have a good dealer network in this country

Its a great amp, it has its own sound that doesnt colour the sound of your guitar too much but still leaves a decent imprint. Its got lots of volume and cuts through a band mix well. I'm comparing this to the other heads i've owned in the last two years, mesa dual rec (mk1), marshall DSL50, peavey X series, Genz benz el-diablo, marshall jcm900 50w. I'd say it beats all of those hands down, the genz is probably a better amp for recording because of its versatility but as a live amp and the core of your sound the BV60 is just great.

2 channel amp,made in 1997

using it with a fender strat through a 2x12 vintage 30 cab

had to replace a power tube and a preamp tube

want to do some mods to it,the person who posted below me,please contact me about specific modding this amp.

long enough to know diffrent tone when I hear it

J. Doe, additional comments:

Since they don't make Crate Voodoo 60's anymore, you may as well play around with a used one as they are reasonably cheap compared with newer alternatives. I don't advocate for the so-called "pro" mod companies who work on amps because they charge big bucks and offer a 50-50 chance of screwing up the tone so badly you'll want to sell the amp rather than suffer. There is nothing very complicated about changing the amp's tonal quality yourself.

The Crate BV-60 head can be made to sound like almost any amp you want - Marshall, Soldano, Mesa Boogie - if you are willing to change a few resistor and coupling capacitors values. The basic amp circuits are pretty much the same for most guitar amps; what makes the most difference in tone are the values of capacitors and resistors used in the tone control circuit. Crate has two tone control circuits, one for clean channel, and one for overdrive, and either or both can be modified to get the warmth you want.

The most common complaint with Crate BV-60 is that it sounds a little too "crunchy", too much treble, no warmth on either channel. That is easily fixed if you are good with a soldering iron and don't mind taking your amp apart.

1. Always carefully MARK with a permanent ink marker pen, every single wire that plugs into the PC board, because there's a whole lot of them and reconnecting them is much quicker if you number the board and the wire, 1, 2, 3, so wire #1 goes on terminal #1, etc.

2. Get a schematic diagram for your Crate before you take it apart.

3. If you haven't worked on high voltage equipment before, read up on the subject before zapping yourself.

Some things make a big difference in how the amp sounds and on a scale of most to least, changing tubes is one of the smallest influences, while changing component values at the tone network has one of the biggest influences on tone (obviously).

Changing coupling capacitor values makes a small difference, a little increase from .022 ufd. to .045 ufd. here can add more lows to warm up tone but not as much as changing values in the tone control circuit. The ideal is to modify both tone circuit and coupling caps so they work together. It's easy to do, except for one thing.

The Crate printed circuit board can't stand much soldering iron heat and the foil tends to lift off the board too easily, so you have to use a small soldering iron (never use a soldering gun!) and lightly touch the connection to avoid overheating. Crate should use much thicker foils and better quality boards, but if you are careful, you won't have to do any jumper wire work to repair board damage.

As manufactured, too much treble, no low end to speak of, pretty much average for the price - but as modified, it's fantastic!

Change the power supply electrolytic filter capacitors as soon as you can if the amp is over 10 years old or was used a lot. This is true with any amp, whether you paid $10,000 for it or not, they all blow filter caps eventually. Electrolytic capacitors eventually dry out or blow out, sometimes taking the circuit board and other parts with them.

Become your own tech support.
Learning electronics isn't hard to do in your spare time.
Do it yourself - cost of replacing all electrolytic and coupling caps, plus a few resistors and a new filter choke - under $60.00.

I give the Crate BV-60 a "10" once it's tailored to produce the sound you like. Great tone, good design, and relatively cheap!

In 1995 I bought a BV-60 made in the early 90's working condition. It has two channels, effects loop, reverb. It's really made for metal and hard rock/punk rock, and I play all kinds of styles with it and they sound good. The Crate is flexible enough to do just about any style. It's biased toward being more treble than bass and has a solid midrange but weak low end.

I gig with several US-made BC Rich guitars. Amp has a low hum level at high gain which is usual for tube amps, even after replacing power supply filter capacitors. I added a filter choke in place of the sag resistor in the power supply and got a huge increase in crunch and edge from higher voltage on the tubes, which went from 460 volts to about 500 volts on output tube plate supply.

If you notice the amp hum is louder than it should be, or the amp sounds weak with too much treble, you may be about to have this experience:

I was playing at low volume one day, took a break, and left the amp on standby for about 30 minutes. Turned it on and bam, smoke came out of the chassis, and it stopped working. I opened up the head and found a blown filter capacitor with waxy oil all over everything and the printed circuit board was fried at the jack where the output tube board plugs into the main board. So I scrapped off the carbon and found high voltage had shorted across the pins on the plug to ground. Cleaned off the carbon, replaced all the filter capacitors with a 500 volt rating, and it worked fine.

Here's the problems with Crate's BV-60: The high voltage power supply factory spec says it kicks out 460 volts. The filter caps are in series and rated only at 350 volts each, so if one capacitor shorts, the other will blow.

Also the plate coupling capacitors are rated only at 400 volts which is too close to the plate supply voltage for my taste, so the next thing I did was remove all coupling capacitors and upgrade to 630 volt rated capacitors in the plate supplies for each tube.

One thing the BV-60 could use is a better bias setup for tubes - the grid bias trimmer adjusts both output tube grid bias together so you can't adjust plate current for each tube separately for unmatched tubes. Some people can't tell the difference, but if the tubes are biased individually so as to draw the same plate current, amps usually produce a slightly smoother, fuller sound.

I compared the circuit schematics of Crate with other manufacturers, and found that Crate pushes their 6L6 tubes a bit harder with higher voltage than most others, so reliability is vastly increased by replacing lower voltage rated capacitors with higher voltage ratings, and replace any low wattage resistors in the power supply with higher wattage wire-wound resistors. It doesn't matter what amp brand you buy, you still have to replace electrolitic capacitors about every 6 to 10 years in the power supplies because they dry out, short out, or just begin leaking. It's very easy to do if you know how to use a soldering iron.

I got a list of local service centers near my home from Crate's website, started calling them one by one, and nobody answered the phone at any of them, so I assume if you want service, it will have to be Crate that does it. I gave up and fixed it myself and am glad I did because I discovered some things about it - the basic design of the BV-60 is excellent and once it's upgraded with a few part replacements, it's a great little amp.

Crate sent me a copy of their schematic diagram for about $16.00 very promptly with a phone call and credit card, so I can't complain about that. But other manufacturers, such as Fender, post their schematics on the internet.

I've been playing about 35 years and own Mesa Boogie and Carvin amps, and if the Crate was stolen, I'd buy another one, used of course, and do the same upgrades again.

Two channels, sep EQ, reverb, effects loop blah blah, what more do you need?

I cant believe this is nt rated higher, fek me this head screams and cuts through like no other and its very quiet at high gains, yes it is, if you think this is noisy you best buy a tranny buzzy-chainsaw offering from marshall or whoever. Find your volume/tone controls and do a bit of work finding different sounds with the same gain level, try it its how the classic guitarists did it and they cant be wrong.
Find a better amp for $1000 and I'll eat my tadger.

I'm looking for another few to add to my backline so watch out e-bay.
I own/owned Soldano/Marshall/Laney/Boogie/Peavey/Refridgerator Racks etc etc, this IS THE BEST.

I mostly play extreme metal (black metal, death metal vs) which requires more gainiac tones. I prefer this distortion machine because of its hi-gain overdrive channel and its awesome color :).
it has to channels one for a crispy and fat clean, and one for distortion for headbangers. It comes with its original footswith that controls only channels, It works with both 8-16 ohms. I use it at my home studio and for recording my bands songs. this machine is powerfull like a lion. you can get hi driven tones with low levels without feedback. But with a little noise.

I have two jacksons, One SL1 custom shop pile o skulls with seymour duncan TB4 on the bridge and a PS4 with also seymour duncan pickups loaded into it. It works great with low tuned guitar. Gain channel gives you a variety of different stylish guitar sounds that suites nearly all kind of hard stuff. A little problem with noising but it doesnt matter much. Reverb for both channels make this amp superior.
clean channel distorts at very high levels so it doesnt bother you much.

I am waiting to have a big gig in turkey cause I will have the chance to test it in higher volumes to learn that how many hours it goes well. It has some small scratches over it. but that doesnt affect to the amazing sound comes from cabinets :)

never dealt. bought it used

I've been playing for 6 years, I have zoom gfx-8 processor that fits well with it. If it were stolen I will buy BV120H, It looks awesome and color is great. You can see those funny tubes inside it and it looks great like that. I tried some kinds of marshalls but I was never satisfied with those. Cause I didnt like their OD channels.

same features as everyone else posted - 2 channels with reverb, presence control, etc. its got 4 12ax7a's and 2 6l6's to power this bad boy, not to mention an awesome grill displaying the tubes inside (with lights, looks awesome on stage). i have no reral complaints here, the amp does what it needs to do.

i play this amp with an esp ltd h-202 and and an esp ltd f-200 and this amp destorys! i don't understand what most people on here are talking about, maybe they are deaf. alot of them are probably kids who've bought their first tube amp and don't understand that at lower volumes, its not going to sound huge and in your face. you've got to work with an amp and use your presence control!

anyways, i play hard rock/metal (ex. lacuna coil/evanescence) and this amp fits my style perfectly. its not very noisy at all, but can be if driven to the point. but honestly, i don't see why anyone will take the gain past 7 anyways, it starts getting alittle too saturated and fuzzy like all high gain amplifers. of the two channels, i perfer the dirty channe, it rocks. it takes alittle time to dial in the right tone, but when you do - watch out, it will blow you away. the clean channel doesn't impress me much though, but i'm sure with more tinkering it will do its job. it distorts at high volumes because (obviously) its a tube amp. i came from a marshall to this amp and i must say i'm much happier with the crate, it gives me what my marshall couldn't.

i've not had any problems with it yet. i've read so many horror stories on here, but i've yet to experience any of the ones mentioned. maybe i'm lucky, but it seems to be a very dependable amp.

same as above, i've had no problems to contact them over.

i've been playing for about 5 years now, and have owned countless amps in my time. i'd never been happy with my tone and always felt like there was something lacking, until i bought this amp. if it were lost or stolen, i'd have to get another. easy way to put it: this amp is the best thing you'll get thats not a mesa, vht or a bogner. try it out and see what you've been missing!

Everyone knows the drill with these amps, so I will not get elaborate or anything. It has a bunch of good stuff.

I play alot of metal, and I prefer the head distortion over any pedal I own. I have alot of boss pedals, eq shit, comp/sustainer..i really do not need any pedals for the gain channel. The clean channel is awesome! I am not going to say , bell like, buttery, phat,fat etc..I will say that it sounds the way a tube amp should.

So far so good, Crate has always answered my e-mails. Good enough for me. i am not hard on my equipment. In fact I only get to use this once a week as I leave it at my bandmates house so I do not have to take anything there on practice night.

I like to be different. My cousin has a JCM 800 and he gets pissed when my amp sounds better than his:) I just like it that is it.

The Blue Voodoo is a great amp. It has a good clean channel and a good overdrive channel as well. I believe they should have put a chorus effect on this amp so you didn't have to buy a chorus pedal. I'm not sure on how to use effect loops so I can't comment on that but it does have one. There is no headphone jack, which sucks. Use with a metal zone pedal and you'll be set to kill. Grunge and mega distortion have more bottom end but feedback more. A Tubescreamer works good as well. Use a noise suppressor and set the gain on three. Do not use distortion on the clean channel because you'll lose all your bottom end and it sounds like crap.

I play metal and use a metal zone to make it crunch. The overdrive on it cranked up sounds like AC/DC. Use a metal zone to get Metallica/Slayer sounds or a grunge to get a lower, Pantera-sound. I use a B.C. Rich Warlock, Les Paul, and a peavey Vandenburg.

Replace the tubes when needed and you'll never have a problem with it.

I would defiently buy it again if I had the chance