Crate CR212

Mine is the "anniversary model" with the creme covering. Serial number is 018 on the anniversary badge.

I bought this amp because I'm a rock player and recently started branching out into country/cover gigs and my marshall stacks just didn't cut it. I was in a local shop and played every fender tube amp I could find, then on a dare plugged into this thing. It sounded better than any of the $500 fenders.

60 watts solid state, 2 channels, switched, line out/in jacks, extension speaker jack (cool!), 2x12" speakers (mine don't say celestion, but they look original- if anyone can tell me how to get info on the speakers using the number codes stamped on them............) I love the overdrive channel, sounds like a tube screamer if you set it right. Loud, versatile, good reverb. I dig it

This is my country amp. Clean channel sounds better than a fender tube, overdrive channel sounds like OVERDRIVE, not a buzzy distorion, and matches the sound of my tube screamer very well. With the tube screamer in front of the amp, I've got a 3 channel amp that can keep up with most any cover song... I'll probably start using a little multiFX unti for delays and such, but really dig the sounds of this amp. It's LOUD. I haven't had it above "5" yet, can't see that I'd ever need to....

The "hi" input was broken when I got it, I've just used the low input. Maybe I'll get that fixed one day......looks like other than that it's built like a tank. I gigged with it. Kinda nice to walk in with one combo amp, a gig bag, and a pedalboard......

nothing on the website about this one, haven't contacted them to get any more info.

I'm a gear addict. Amp-wise, marshall 3203 & 2210 heads with 2x12 & 4x12 cabs, marshall lead 20 combo, '61 fender bassman and cab (doesn't leave the house), peavey bandit (for sale), roland minicube, crate CR-1 (also for sale). guitars- les pauls, custom Mike Curd guitar "Mona", USA tele, old squier strat, and a bunch of other junk guitars........

The only complaint I have about the amp is that there is no led light to tell you which channel is on, sometimes in a loud situation (with a tube screamer on), I forget to switch out and end up playing on the wrong channel (wonder if a footswitch with LED's would work....)

I'd love to have another for backups, to leave at the rehearsal space....If stolen I'd try like hell to find another.

Clean and overdrive channels, two 12" Celestion 70w speakers, reverb, treble, mid and bass controls. Master volume. Channel switching w/ foot switch.

Reverb is terrible. Clean channel sounds good but isn't very loud. I've read the other reviews and it sounds like these amps must be pretty inconsistant in sound. You either get a good one or a bad one. The overdrive channel sounds great with plenty of heavy metal crunch and a warm compressed feedback. The celestion speakers, I'm sure contribute a lot to the crunch. My main rig has always been an old 50w Marshall half stack, this Crate will be my practice amp now cause it is more portable. I use Les Pauls and Stratocasters.

I just picke d this amp up but like another guy said, this is a relatively old amp and it still works so it must be built pretty well.

Don't know.

I've been playing for 40 years, I like Strats and Les Pauls. I use Marshall and Fender amps. I like the Fender reverb when I play soft blues. I play a lot of blues, classic rock and metal. Favorite bands are Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Stevie Ray, etc. The reverb on this Crate is really bad, I would rate the thing a lot higher if it had decent reverb. When I'm playing loud this amp really sings, I'm impressed how well it sounds for a solid state amp.

60 watts into 2-12 inch speakers, 2 channels, effects loop, footswitch jack, reverb. Jacks for 2 additional 8 ohms speakers. This thing has plenty of volume and the distorted channel is even louder.

Clean channel is okay, but the distorted channel only seems to add more volume. Not much character in the preamp. What I do is run a V-Amp2 processor straight into the line in and use the CR212 as strictly a power amp.

A friend gave this amp to me, and it had a loud hum. I discoverd the only problem was that the input jacks were broken and not grounded. New properly grounded jacks cleared up the hum, and its been working great ever since. I spent about $30 getting it into shape.

I contacted them about the problem, and they helped. I was also able to obtain a schematic with tech tips off ebay.

I was looking at getting a better amp until I tried using the external processor with this amp. It works for me. I would hate to lose it.

Made in the 80s. This is a 60th anniversary special made by Crate; mine is #363.
Versatility: I play an array of different styles from rock, to country, jazz, some classical, etc. I love musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, Jimmy Page, Chet Atkins, etc. In other words, the greats. You know 'em, you love 'em. I also enjoy lesser known artists like Brian Wooten (Whiteheart), Dave Bainbridge (Iona), and Dave Beegle (Fourth Estate). Now, does this amp provide the versatility to play a variety of styles like I do? No. It's a solid-state amp. You can't imitate tube with transistor. Period. However...
Features: With the Line-in jack in the back, you can feed the output of a nice guitar preamp, which completely bypasses the amp! I'm using a Carvin Quad-X preamp, which has a rip-roaring sound itself. Coupled with the powerful 60 watts of the Crate CR212, I get my money's worth! The speakers on mine are on the fritz right now.

I'm using a Fender Squier Stagemaster, 2 single coil and a humbucker. I get really nice tones out of the amp; this is a great amp for a fender single coil setup. The distortion isn't that great, but I've never heard great solid-state distortion from any amp. Get a tube preamp if you want to get anything out of this distortion-wise. Clean channels stay clean at high volumes.

I would totally use this amp on the road. This thing has great volume and doesn't change the tone of the preamp when I have the preamp's output routed to the line in of the amp. The preamp then becomes the head!! I ripped off the gross tweed vinyl covering and put some nice dark blue vinyl on, so it looks real sweet! going to replace the stock knobs with chrome hardware to make it look better.
Overall, it's a great "beater" amp to take on the road (which I do all the time) and provides the volume I need.

Not sure what year the amp was made, probably mid-80's. Amp is versatile enough for my styles, 70's era rock...Stones, Aerosmith, Ramones. Has channel switching. Solid state and more than enough power. The clean channel sounds great but cranked up, the distortion channel is amazing. I don't use effects so clean, dirty and reverb are all I ask for in an amp.

I have 4 guitars but tend to favor an inexpensive Epiphone Les Paul Special double cutaway with Gibson humbucker and custom P-90. This amp wasn't noisy at all and sounded great with this guitar at band rehearsal volume. At low volumes the best Marshall stack isn't going to sound that great so... I thought I would need to buy a good overdrive pedal (TS-9) but after turning up the volume I realized I don't need it.

I just bought it but the fact that it's as old as it is and everything works tells me it's pretty reliable.

N/A

I felt compelled to write this review because I read other reviews of this amp and couldn't disagree more with most of the comments. I just brought this amp to rehearsal so I could really turn it up and was blown away. First of all I had the amp on around 2 and it sounded loud and clear over the drums and the rest of the band (and we tend to play loud). It had a definite tube sound and just sounded full bodied and like a true rock and roll amp. I've been playing for 20 years and have owed three Marshalls (tube combo, tube 1/2 stack and solid state) and I gotta say this amp beats the 2 combos and comes in a close 2nd to the 1/2 stack (which wound up having problems). Anyway, this is a cool, loud, fun, rock amp and although it's too loud for my apartment, is a great live amp. Can't wait for our next gig.

3 channels, 0DB, -6DB sensitivity, and a FT. SW. channel. Gain, Lo, Mid, High, Drive, Mix, Volume, Reverb.

Reverb is non exsistant. I use the eq only. When plugged into the FT. SW. channel, only drive and mix apply, crappy sounds. It is possible to get something half decent, but it sounds like its coming out of an envelope sized practice amp.

The amp's distorsion is totaly horrid. Flat, dull, blah. I don't use it.

The amp doesn't work well with ANY analog pedal. I have a Boss DS 1 (analog) Rocktron Rampage (analog) Dod Grunge (digital) and a Dod Envelope Filter (digital). The DS 1 and Rampage sound just as bad as the amp's natural distorsion. The Dod's sound half decent. Still kind of crappy.

Sounds like hell.

Clean sound is good though, I really like it.

Other than that, hell.

Being as old as it is, which I have no idea but I do know that it is old, i'd say its pretty reliable. But its bound to die some day.

Never dealt with them.

Not recomended for anything but the clean sound. It only works with digital pedals. Its worthless.

This amp has a clean and distortion channel,Reverb,plus the standard bass,mid,highs.It also has a bright switch on it to make it a little brighter.Line in-outs on the back.low and high inputs.

As far as sounds go,I use the clean channel,then go through a KORG tone works AX1G pedal.I have 69 effects with that pedal.I can make it sound however I want and the amp seems to like it :)Great low end on this lil toy.

I traded for it.I have to fix a couple things to make it perfect,But it will still knock pictures of the wall!You can't stop this amp!

Don't know.Old amp

I've been playing for 10+ years and this is the rudest amp I've had so far.

It's an older amp, it has two channels (clean and non-existing crunch). High, Mid, Low adjustments and reverb, nothing crazy standard crap. It is a 2 x 12 combo with 60 watts of power.

I have play two guitars through it a Squire Strat. and a Les Paul, the amp doesn't do justice for either. I play mostly hardcore/punk, and this amp doesn't offer any kind of distortion to be proud of so I used various pedals such as a Boss ds-1 and Metal zone. Both pedals gave the distortion I was looking for but the amp seemed like it didn't provide enough highs and lows to really make the music come alive.

The good thing about this amp is that it is reliable. It sure can take a licking and keep on ticking.

Never dealt with Crate's customer service.

Overall, if your a beginner and you want an amp with some power, but you really don't want to spend lots of coin on, this is a fairly decent amp to hold you through until you can afford a real amp like a Marshall or Mesa. If your advanced then don't think about this amp, but obviously being an advanced player you would know to buy only Marshall or mesa anyway.

This is an older version of the Crate CR-212 combo amp. It features 2 inputs a 0db and a -6db gain. A gain knob, a Bass, Mid, and Treble equalizer. It comes with some footswitch thingys, but I don't know how to use them. It's a dual 60watts with 2 12in speakers. This baby can crank out the sounds. A master volume and a reverb are in here, and I'll tell you, the reverb is pretty good on this amp.

Well, I use a crappy guitar with 3 crappy single coil pickups. But I have a DOD Death Metal Distortion and an Ibanez Soundtank Super Chorus. I play metal and hardcore, and with the settings up on my distortion pedal, this thing can crank out the booming basses and the ear-piercing highs, and all the nice, clean mids with ease. I've never heard a greater sounding amp. But this amp is capable of more than just metal, I can get grunge sounds, classic rock sounds, blues, whatever you want, this sweet amplifier will do it. There are no flaws in the sounds category here. The distortion on here is perfect, but it is recommended to use something with a little more bite.

Backup? With this amp? Yeah right, you won't need a back up, the casing on it is soooo sturdy, you can throw it through a wall for fun and the wall will suffer. And on the back of the amp, you can store effects and extra wires. I kinda like that. This amp never broke down, and it sounds pretty good when you run your CD player through the line-in jack in the back.

Never had to call them.....I bought it used and if it broke down, I'd be kicking Tom's A$$

I've been playing for roughly 2 years and I will definitely stick with this amp. I have a crappy Synsonics practice amp......DO NOT BUY LITTLE PRACTICE AMPS!!!!!!!! They are too quiet. In fact, I used to turn every knob up all the way and I got the cops called on me, and I live in a house. So, that proves how loud it can go. I just with i knew how to use that damn footswitch thingy (since it never came with one). But other than that, this is truly one great amplifier.....................But I would rather prefer a Marshall Full Stack, that would be the bomb.