Crate BV60H Blue Voodoo

I bought this head/cab in summer of '96. The usuall, 2 channels, distortion, and clean. Dual channel reverb, effects loop, yadda, yadda

Ok, here's my setup.
BV60....Fender Strat with Duncan Hot Rail in the bridge....Boos GE-7, DOD Grunge.......Boss CH-1....Ibanez Swell Flanger (early 80's)...Ibanez Digital Flanger (same one Tom Morello has)......Boss DD-5.....Big Muff....535 Crybaby. I play alot of different things, from pumpkins, nirvana, rage, radiohead, creed, taht whole bag. I mainly just use the clean channel which is fine, and my pedals for other sounds. I do have it set to get a nice 60's blues tone, Hendrixish kinda sound. Its pretty loud,which is why i bought it. The distortion isn't very thick, or brutal. Not bad blues sound, but tahts about it.

Ive had it almost 5 years, never had to replace tubes yet, no problems with electronics, the cab is fine and hasn't blown. I've been kinda rough with this amp, and it hasn't disapointed me at all. I bought it so i could be alot louder. I was in a band using a little 60watt Crate combo, it don't cut it. So i went for the half stack. For the price, you can't beat it. I'd buy Crate again, ive had 3 of them and never any probs.

Never had to deal with them.

I've been playing 7 years now, and feel i know a decent amount about guitar gear. If i moved up to differnt amp, probly be the generic Rectifier, or Jcm900. If it was stolen, i'd see about a used one again. I love it can be loud, and that ive had no problems. I didn't compare it with anything, i wanted a half stack, this is what they had, i bought it. I do wish it had better distortion, but thats the fun of eq's and pedals. Crate is a great brand, don't let it fool you.

60 watts, two independant channels. dual reverb (WHOA!). two AX7 tubes, 4 6L6 preamp tubes. Bad ass distortion. Descent clean channel. Blue cosmetics with gold corners. very loud!

I use seymour duncan distortion in a Ibanez RG470, It sounds good,but hums. My freind used his BC Rich with a Duncan Live Wire pick-up and it tore the damn house down! The amp gets feed back at high levels, but crate's has a reputation to do that. I play heavy music (Pantera,Metallica,Slayer) and this amp can handle it.

It's pretty reliable, but I don't abuse that much because of the tubes. I have never had a problem with it.

Never needed any. I would assume it to be descent.

For somebody who wants a half stack and not spend a ton of cash this could be the one for you. I might be interested in selling it soon with a Ampeg cab, for around $500. If interested E-mail me. Any question's would be well welcome also.

I just bought this amp used, with the BV412 cab. Its alright, but i have one thing i can bitch about... the reverb leaves something to be desired, its flat, and its lame, turned all the way up it is barely noticeable (although i upgraded from a Fender Priceton Chorus(so i may be a little spoiled)) but the reverb isnt that great, but i bought it for "punk/ska" not blues so i shouldnt dwell on it. it could also use a headphone jack (i just got it an hour ago and i didnt see one(there;s a slight possibility it might be there)) It has nice distortion though and even enough power for live performance.

Im using a Fender American Standard tele (primarily the bridge p/u) it works out pretty well, im sure itd sound better with my ibanez RG570 but ill see when i resting it. As i said i bought it for punk/ska and it works great for that. Its pretty frikin loud i got it for live performance with my band and its doing the job, clean channel is clean right up to the 10 mark, it may not for you though, im using a cab rated at 120watts. but the only reason its a 7 is because of the GD reverb.

hasnt failed me, but the GD handle broke the day i got it, but i do atmit to fucking with it a little before it broke.

I called them to get a replacement handle, they were nice about it, the transferable warenty was nice too!

my black ass has been playin bout 5 years, im not a real gear-head, i bought a Zoom 505 once (biggest mistake of my life(well the taking my pants off in public thing didnt go down to well either?)) after it broke i never bought one again, only effects i need are 1good distortion 2REVERB!!! 3chorus/flange

The amp seems to have pretty good features, WHEN IT IS WORKING, that is. Most of the time, it isn't. The features for the functioning amp are listed below by the other reviewers, you know what they are by now.

I reviewed this amplifier before, the only reason you're hearing from me again is that I've got a great horror story to share with everyone. SLM electronics is probably going to send out a hit man, but I've got to let the cat out of the bag.
It sounds great, I think better than most Marshalls (not the old ones!) that is not my problem.
It is an 8 because nothing is perfect, I have a Boogie which gets the 9, and this amp gets the 8. It has a good crunch, but gets muddy and unclear with that high-mid 'mud-slinging' Marshallesque distortion.

Time for the story. Once upon a time, there was a guitar player and a drummer, and they played together, pretty well I might add. The guitar player one day discovered the wonders of tube amplification, and returned with the Crate Blue-VooDoo 60 watt head. They played together for awhile, until the tubes blew. The guitarist had them changed, to Sovtek EL34s. In another 3 months, those blew. The guitarist had heard enough about tubes to know that Sovteks suck ass, and he had the Groove Tube EL34s put in and his tone was great. However, it was time for the guitarist to go to college, and he never really pushed his new Groove Tubes.
When the guitar player returned from college, he found his old friend, the drummer, and they began to play again. They only jammed for a few days when one day, the guitar player turned on his amplifier...
AND NO SOUND CAME OUT.
The fuse hadn't blown, but it wasn't working, so the guitarist assumed, "Those unreliable tubes. Oh well, it has been awhile, I've played a whole lot at college but very quietly, maybe they just got old and suddenly blew just as I turned on the amp." Naive, but the guitarist had yet to experience the true horrors of Crate tube amps.
The guitarist lives way out in the swampland of Maryland, and drives the 2 hours to the nearest music shop. The people there know him well, he is a regular, he goes to the repair guy, his friend who has been fixing amps for more than 20 years. He hands his amp over again. "The usual tubes, I guess they blew."
The next week, he returns to the shop to retrieve his head. It's all ready, and strangely, not only had two power tubes blown, but some sort of capacitor and one preamp tube. "No matter, it wasn't an expensive repair" said the guitarist, now out $90 on this occasion and about $210 on amp servicing and parts in his short lifetime.
The guitarist returns to the drummer, and begins to lay down some really brutal riffs. He's been practicing a lot lately, and finally got his downstroke speed above 128 bpm. The dou jam for about 30 minutes that night, and then the next day, begin a monster session after the dry week.
There are four seperate jams, each 30-90 minutes in duration, and seperated by breaks. The guitarist never claims to be kind to amps, but he figures, these are Groove Tubes, and the amp has just been serviced by a very experienced man who is also my friend. The amp ought to be able to take it.
8:00 p.m. rolls around. The pair prepare for the final jam of the day, since at 9:00 the cops will show up and end it for them. (They really do, every time!) The guitarist plugs into his rig, turns it on, and...
NOTHING. NOT A WHISPER. In fact, the amp is behaving just as it did the week before when it went down.
There was a lot of cursing that night.
I am that guitarist, am I doing something wrong? I plug straight in, use a microgate in the effects loop, and a surge protector that hasn't blown a fuse or anything. MY ONLY REMAINING RATIONAL EXPLANATION?
Crate amps suck major ass.

The warranty just pays the guy who fixes your amp. You've still got to pay for tubes, but they cover labor and other parts that might have broken. My repair guy is awesome, he is with me 100% in trying to get the big company to pay for the repair instead of the broke musician. He's always done a great job with my amps.

But here's the bottom line, I don't care how good the 'customer service' is if the PRODUCT SUCKS MAJOR ASS!!! And this is the case with Crate amps.

Please, please do not buy this amplifier! I was planning on selling mine, but I just can't do it now, at least not to an individual. I cannot lower myself that much, no one deserves to have this head treat them like it treated me. That slutty head!
This head is not even worth $200 in mint condition, because I swear if you are a serious player, you will DESTROY it very quickly.
DO NOT BUY IT!!!!!
DO NOT EVEN ACCEPT IT FOR FREE!!!!!

I have had it with this head. When it went down on me yesterday, it went down for the LAST TIME. Now, it is at the bottom of Broad Creek. I threw the piece of shit in the river, man!

DO NOT BUY IT!!!!!

Read other submissions for features

I play an Ibanez Rg7620BK 7 string, tuned very low, the amp handles it pretty well! The clean channel is nice, but breaks up WAY too soon! The distortion is pretty good. It's great for rock-metal, but not so great for "new" metal(but it's still high-gain!). This amp gets pretty loud, and still sounds nice at the higher volumes, but if you play big clubs, get the 100watt version. The amp is pretty noisy. All things considered, this is a nice amp, you really get your $'s worth. This amp is a VERY good recording amp, the distortion is fuzz at low volumes!

N/A

N/A

Overall this is a cheaper, quieter Marshall JCM 800. It would be nice if it had more pre-amp tubes, but it's nice as is. Try one, you will probably buy it!

I have one of the older models, made in the early 90's with the old-style cosmetics. Pretty much the features that you would expect from a 2-channel tube head, but the parallel FX loop comes without a mix control, although it can select from +4/-10 levels.

I use a customized Ibanez guitar, lpugging straight into the amp, nothing in the FX loop. Before I had this, I was using a crate excalibur 100-watt head. That is a solid-state head; it was good for solid-state, but when I heard the blue voodoo next to it I just had to trade them. The tubes are a lot noisier, but if you use tubes and crank the gain without a noise gate, you shouldn't complain about noise so much anyway. I've got a noise gate anyway, so I don't care. I've owned the amp for more than a year now, and so I know about the tones that come from it. The distortion is bad to begin with, because it is a bit flabby at high volumes, with too much low end mush. This is the fault of the 6L6 tubes. I personally do not like the sound of the 6L6 and had EL34s put in. These solved the problem that i was having and made the tone much more crunchy, clearer and more Marshall-like, which is what i wanted from the amp. The gain is clear and crunchy, but there is a bit too much treble present, so the treble control cannot be turned up past 5 with decent volume.
What crate i think is doing with this amp is mimicing the marshall. They do a good job, once those 6L6s are removed. It does sound like a marshall. It doesn't sound like a great marshall, though! Some reviewers have said that the amp can blow away marshalls... this is true only in a store, where you cannot crank the amps. Out in the world of extreme levels, and this is where i and playing musicians live, the marshall sounds far better, because marshalls exist for the sake of extreme volume. crate has made a marshall-clone that sounds good quiet but when turned up becomes a bit muddy and cannot compete with the transparent EVH-style marshall distortion. the clean sound won't bother you, it's alright i guess. i never really used it that much.

the amp is fairly old, and it has broken down on me twice. the first time it was a fuse and a resistor in the power section that would have made the amp worthless if it wasn't for the warranty. Crate paid out almost $500 in warranty labor to fix the damage from the high voltage running around wreaking havoc in the chassis. This is why my guitar is grounded!! this amp will teach you safety. the second time it went down it was a simple power tube failure. advice; never skimp on power tubes! get Groove Tubes every time, and do not be tempted by cheaper tubes. no one will appreciate your frugality when you break down after 30 seconds of high-volume playing (this did happen to me.) i am forced to use it without a backup. it has lasted through extended sessions without complaint, but now i dare not crank it up past 7. it doesn't get amy louder past there anyway, it just compresses more.

warranty is important with this amp. i will not use it outside of my practice room once the warranty expires, the power section has screwed me so. it is a large company, so don't expect boogie service.

i've been playing for 6 years, and now i've moved on to a mesa rack system (studio preamp, 50/50 poweramp). i'm satisfied with the mesa, but on occasion i have to go back to the marshall-style voodoo. i'm saving for a marshall rack system, but i won't sell the voodoo. the new owner would get screwed with the power section, and i don't want anyone else to go through what i went through with the breakdown. i like the amp enough, and it has usable gain sounds. at least until the marshall arrives! it is now my backup.

Dual channel amp. Pretty straight forward. Standard features include dist/clean channels, volume, 3 band eq on each channel, nothing too fancy.

This amp sounds truly AWESOME. I compared it to the Marshall JCM 900 sitting next to it in the music store and it totally blew it away (And about 500 bucks less too!) 4x12 configuration totally rocks. More volume than I'll ever need. This amp can make any sound imaginable, but my only bitch is the reverb (solid state, kinda cheesy and hollow sounding). Beautiful sounding clean channel, and downright lethal sounding distorted channel.

I don't do any gigging, so this amp doesn't get hauled around much, but it's built like a tank, thick high density fiber board construction. It's gotten knocked around a bit (spent about a month sitting in the bed of my truck), still works. Read all of the reviews on how bad some of these amps break down, haven't had any problems yet, and it's well over a year old now. No tubes have blown, nor have any been replaced.

Never dealt with them.

I paid $1275 (4x12cab + 60watt head) of some of the most well-spent money I've ever had. This amp is awesome, it's clean channel is sparkling, and the gain is absolutely brutal. Haven't had a single problem with the amp (stays on standby for hours at a time). In my humble opinion, it sounds better than any Marshall. This was my first tube amp, and definitely not my last Crate. It hasn't let me down yet, and something tells me it's not gonna.

60 watts tube head, Loud as hell! alot of headroom and both channels kick ass! channel changer not included! Nice look well built. this amp is good for metal, hard rock, blues and jazz. 2 channels fx loop, auto bias! 3 channel would have been good.

gain can go from zeppelin to silverchair to rammstein easily!Presence control kicks, you can go from that scooped mid sound to that fuzz like sound a la chorus of "Wish" NIN and everything in between. reverb is kinda cheesy but not bad. every sound is a usable sound on this amp. i'm running it with a marshall 1936 2x12 cab and it sounds like a 4x12. nice low end. amazing amp for its price. tried out a single recto that sounded a snidge better distortion wise, but this amp is 1. $1000 dollars less and has a better clean channel.

not yet... great amp so far.

been playing for over 3 years and i luv this amp!a must have for young players like me with limited budget looking for "that sound"!

Made circa 1995. 2 channels, clean/overdrive, plus gain boost. Effects loop, XLR out, auto-biasing (really cool--you can use either 6L6 or EL34 tubes in this without rebiasing the amp). More than enough stuff for me.

Great sounds. Can do just about anything; metal, blues, country, funk, whatever you feel like. Mine isn't noisy at all. It works really well for me because I like some scooped mids and heavy distortion in my tone. It cleans up really nicely too, and the clean channel has a Bright switch to add a little spank if you want.

I've had this amp for four years now. It doubles as a coffee table, chair, tv stand, mini bar, and lots of other furniture. It gets lugged around, too. I think it sounds like the day I bought it. Never needed service.

I applied for the warranty, and Crate sent me my card promptly (not that I've ever needed it). That's the only contact I've had with them.

This is my main amp right now. It's great. I have no complaints. All my guitars sound good through it, yet each retains its own distinctive character, which is key. Even through heavy distortion, I can hear the differences. It works especially well with my 7 string Ibanez, pushing out an amazing tone. I used to hate Crates, but I tried this one because I was in the market for an affordable tube amp. So far, this is still the only Crate amp I like, but it's a keeper.

Some of the features of this amps are excellent, one thing that I don't like is the solid state reverb. I don't use much reverb anyway, but I play very heavy music and some times when you want to switch from the heavy stuff to a more bluesy tone, you want a tube driven reverb. The BV60 combo (1x12) have tube driven reverb. another thing that I don't like about this amp is it only has 50 watts RMS as opposed to it's 'little brother' the combo. If you can ever get your hands on the schematics you'll notice that the combo uses more tubes in the preamp section. The nice thing is that you can completely interchange the 6L6's with EL34's, but you will lose the low end punch. I use this amp in my house with my BV60 1x12 combo, a leslie, and a rivera thrity-twelve. I use it all when I play gigs with my band, and I've got enough power to play anywhere.

I have a Fender strat and An Ibanez Rg570. The humbeckers on the Ibanez unleash wicked tones. Put it on the middle single coil, clean channel, and boom, you have Kirk Hammett's clean sound on Master of Puppets, Unforgiven, etc. I like the 6L6's for the low end that I need in playing my variety of styles. I have yet to hear the clean channel distort at high volumes, unless I tell my processor to do so!

I haven't had the head in real good shape long enough to decide. When I got it , it was in need of medical assistance. It had the wrong tubes and fuses in it, a short in the effect switch, but now it sounds great and I haven't had any problems with it.

Haven't had any contact with the compny but the guy who runs the service center here in Cedar Rapids, is one of the best guys I know when it comes to fixing the stuff.

For the price that I paid it is one of the better values that I have ever stumbled across. I choose crate because they deliver quality instruments, and every Marshall Amp that I have played on Was a piece of shit. I would buy another one if I could find it for a price as reasonable as this one.