Diezel VH4

Hey Jorg ! Here is an excerpt from the VH4 owners manual that might help you find what you are looking for.


5.1.1 The Master Volume
The master controls the final volume of the power amplifiers. The layout of the controls is such that full volume ia achieved at the 1:00 o'clock knob setting. Turning the knob further will overdrive the power amp to create power amp distortion for those of you who prefer this sort of thing. We added this feature to round out the distortion sound pallette an the extreme end. So you friends of all things vintage can get clorations and textures that only power amp tubes can deliver. Bring your ear plugs , please.


This is an actual section of the owners manual. It is by far the most amusing owners manual i have ever read. Great Vibe !!

Later it discusses the Deep Knob and how Diezel Co. is not responsible for amp handles popping out. Bring on the bass boost.

I will review mine in a few weeks. I am expecting delivery on Monday
11/12

Call Uwe or E-Mail Peter. It's like having an amp builder in the family.

Bought it from Lark Street Music in Teaneck, NJ. Buzzy is an honorable man. Very easy to deal with.

I have been on the Waiting list for a pre-owned VH4 for 5 months and no luck. I grew tired of pestering Uwe and E-mailing Peter. They were very helpful but i bit the bullet and bought a new VH4.

I'll let you guys know in a few weeks.
I just wanted to help Jorg.

This is the follow-up report to my review below. Still a great amp. This amp is seriously LOUD! I play the master volume at ~9 o'clock and the preamp gain and volume between 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock. There is sooooo much headroom with this amp. Very impressive.

Read the support. Now the amp sounds as good as it can possible sound for me. Channel 1 and 2 are bit more balanced now. Channel 3 and 4 are a bit more aggressive now, as they were a bit moderate and too warm before. Fantastic sounds. But dont be fooled, the distortion is mostly pre-amp distortion. You cannot dial in the Boogie Rectifier sound. Regarding the parrallel effects loop: I have played around this the effects loop. And it is so great that the wet signal is only added to the dry sound. Unlike the Boogie Rectifier, using effects through the parrallel loop does not decrease volume nor sound of the dry signal. Regarding the distortion of the amp: The distortion has a rather high frequency compared to that grungy sound of an Boogie Rectifier. Think of Steve Vai sound. Creamy and sweet, yet aggressive in the highs, if needed. Compared to that grungy lower distortion frequency of the Recto. Just be shure what you want before you buy it. Due to the architecture of this amp, you can hardly get power amp distortion. That's the way the amp is designed. Personally, I like power amp distortion a lot, but still - fantastic sounds.

Seems very dependable. After a brakedown of a tube the fist night during practicing, it never stopped working ever since. But I am also a caring person, when it comes to women or amplifiers...

This should get a '12'. I went down to Munich to Peter Diezel and he customized my amp balancing channel 1 and 2 and making channel 3 and 4 a bit hot and giving channel 3 and 4 a bit more attack. They were very tame. Peter is a very friendly and helpful guy. What a fantastic support. Absolutely outstanding. Have never experienced anything like this with any of the other 10 or so amplifiers I own. Wow!

For that large amoung of money you get 4 channels with all these great features and great sounds. Great versatility, perfect with MIDI. If it got stolen, I would not buy it again very soon, because it is expensive. Thanks God I live in Germany, so I can get the cheapest rates. Im sorry for you folks in the U.S. who have to buy a totally overpriced VH4 due to exchange rates and shipping etc. But for me this is best available value for the money. Full stop. I wouldnt buy this amp, if you are playing hardcore stuff or New Metal.

This amp has a ton of features. It's a 100 watt mono head that is fully midi controllable. It has four channels: Clean, Clean/Blues, Rythm, & Lead. Each channel has its' own preamp with bass, mids, highs, gain, & volume. The Clean and the Clean/Blues channels have a bright switch. Each channel also has its' own channel insert that puts fx in between the preamp in and the preamp out (kind of like a separate fx loop for each channel). These can be turned on & off by push button or midi control. There are also two fx loops. One loop is a paralel loop with a mix control and its turned off and on by push button or midi control also. The other loop stays on constantly. I wish this loop was switchable also, but the channel inserts make up for that. The power amp has a master volume, presense, and deep control. The power tubes are 6L6's and the preamp tubes are 12AX7's. There are a bunch of speaker outputs as well. The power section can be biased for different power tubes. This last feature is sweet. There are lights on the back the amp that light up when a tube goes bad. When this happens the amp takes the tube out of the sequence. Very professional feature for obvious reasons.

All I'm using right know is a Jackson KV1 korina wood V with a Seymour Duncan in the bridge and a stock pickup in the neck, a phaser pedal, and a cord (I had to sell a bunch of stuff to get this head). This amp's sound in a word is simply AMAZING! Before I played it I had heard the clean channel was in a class of its' own. It really is. It has so much life and feel. Very punchy, dynamic, & crisp. I really don't know what to say about this channel other than it is second to none (I can't wait to play a Strat through this channel!). Channel two goes from clean to a bluesy crunch. I love the responsiveness of this channel. I can have the gain all the way up and not only does it clean up nice with the guitar volume, you really only have lighten you're picking to lighten the gain. Pick hard and it bites hard. Very versitile channel. Channel three is my favorite! This is what I use for my main rythm sound. This channel has more cut through than a Marshall and a bigger sound with even more depth than a Boogie. It doesn't sound like either but that's how I would compare. I used to have a Marshall but not enough gain of course, it needed a distortion pedal over the Marshall gain. Then I went to a Dual Rect. It had the gain but it needed and eq unit because of the lack of tone shapping ability. Plus, I don't care what anyone says, the clean is only ok. Both the Marshall and Dual Rect. were noisy. Especially the Dual Rect. You MUST have a noise gate for a Dual Rect. The Diezel on channel three with the gain all the way up is completely quiet. No unnessassary feedback. That is important to me becase I play heavy, high gain music with precise chops. All the notes come out perfectly crisp and clear on the highest gain settings. This channel has sweet dynamics, very responsive to your pick attack. I never thought I would find an amp that has the cruchy, dynamic, high gain sound straight through. So many other amps claim they have that metal crunch right out the box, but you and I know that is crap. This amp is it. I found my sound. Channel four has even more gain. Scary! At 2/3 gain setting it has more gain than channel 3 maxed out. This channel is definely geared toward lead work. It is a little noisy but not like a Boogie. The channel feels and sounds slightly compressed. This channel doesn't have the individual note clarity that channel 3 has, but it isn't muddy. To put it plainly, channel 3 feels better when play rythm than 4, but 4 feels oh so nice when playing leads. Even with all the gain the channel still has this smooth feel. This amp is unbelievable! I don't know what that one guy who said he couldn't get a tight, crunchy metal sound out of this amp is thinking. Yes channel 3 and 4 will make you sound like crap if your chops aren't there. On channel 3, with the note clarity and depth, not only do all of your nuances of playing come through loud and proud so does every little mistake. You will sound muddy on channel 4 if you aren't tight. If you have tight chops you can't beat this amp. I personally have never played an amp more suited for very tight, crunchy, high gain metal (and it can everything else too)! Don't play this amp if you can't buy it. Once you play an amp that feels like this you can't go back.

I haven't had it long enough to say, but it is builty rock solid.

I went through Gene at Ultra Sound Studios. This guy gets an A++ on help and knowledge. He spent plenty of time explaining and discussing everything about this amp and speaker cabs to me. And I ask alot of questions too. Uwe at Salwender International is great too. I didn't talk directly to him, but was always very quick to respond to my emails with very infomative answers. I will do business with these guys again.

I've been playing 11 years and played many different amps. If lost I would buy again. You can't go back after you play an amp that feels like this. If stolen and I found the guy I'd probably serve some jail time for putting him in the hospital, but when I got out I would still stick with the Diezel. I love how versatile this amp is. It does everything, and does it second to none. The first time I played live with this thing all the other band members and even a few people in the audience commented on how amazing my amp sounded. The guitarist were blwwn away. I just wish it wasn't so expensive. But to get the all the sounds that this amp has you would end up spending just as much on separate amps, rack stuff, and amp switching units. Plus it's all in one. I also wish that both the fx loops were switchable, but that really is not a big deal at all. Even though this amp is expensive it makes up that cost in features, tone, and feel. Buy this amp!

The Diezel VH4 is a 100 watt mono version of the now famous Stereo VH4S amp that many signed bands are now using. It is a 4 channel amp with independent tone controls on each channel and is set up with midi standard that allows channel switching and many other functions. What amazed me was the quantity and quality of the features. Both a parallel and series effect loop and both can be use at the same time, mute function, independent channel inserts for each of the 4 channels, midi store functions, and much more. Another great feature is the independent power tube fuses and fail lights which tell you at a glance which power tube went bad if one fails. No more hassle trouble shooting and finding the bad tube with this amp - If a tube goes bad just put in a new tube that is matched to the others in the socket that has the led lit and a new fuse and you are ready to go. What a great feature (I get 6 power tubes matched and keep the 2 matched spares in my gig bag so I never run into a problem. It will also run on almost any type of power tubes and has a bias switch for 6L6 or EL34s. The only thing missing is reverb but with the way built in reverb degrades the tone of many amps, and with all the effect loops,I think not building in reverb was a good call.

I use both humbuckers and single coil guitars with a bias toward older Gibson and Fenders that are original and unaltered. I am from the old school of great guitar / great amp and a good cable - thats it. I feel many of the effect boxes and rack units rob tone. Before the Diezel I had never found a multichannel amp that sounded anywhere near as good as a single channel hand wired amp. I always wished for the versitility of multichannel but was not willing to sacrifice tone to get it. I play in a very popular cover band and while that is looked down on by many players it pays the bills quite well. Needless to say I need to cover many musical styles and the Diezel is the first amp I found to have killer clean tones, great crunch, metal gain, and crazy over the top high gain all with gobs of tone and harmonic complexity.

I have only owned it for a few months now - long enough to be comfortable in speaking about the amps tone but not long enough to give an opinion on reliability. I will post another listing in a year or so.

So far customer support has been very good although I have not really needed any. The dealer was well informed and knew all the functions of the amp which I found quite refreshing after shopping at Guitar Center or Sam Ash in the past.

I can't call this a fantastic value because it is expensive. What I can say is every channel sounds good and with so many features it is worth every penny. Seperate amps that would cover the tonal ground of this one amp would cost much more and the setup would be much more trouble. I would buy this amp again in a heartbeat for it's unique combination of features, tone, and simplicity of use.

This amp does it all.Not a bad sound in the head,and if you don't like
something about it,Peter Diezel himself will will make it sound the way you want it to.

I use it with mostly Strats.I play everything from Merle Haggard
to Metallica,it covers all styles

Seems bulletproof

The best. Uwe Salwender has bend over backwards to make sure that I am happy.I have been a pro musician for all of my adult life(I'm 43
now)and this is the best service I have ever had,and I used to getting good service most of the time,but,this is exceptional.

the best costs money,but it replaces mt twin,Bogner 101B and SLO 100

same as descibed in other reviews

I tried it out in a music music store with my otherwise thight and crunchy sounding gibson SG , but with the diezel it was pure mud , he amp had a lot of bass for shure ,but it wasn't tight, and I could see bands like Korn,or other so called nu-metal bands like Limp Biskit use an amp like this since they have a bassy muddy tone. this amp is absolutely not suited for fast speedmetal ala megadeth , or judas priest tones , early metallica. I'll stick with my steavens poundcake 100 for that , still the best amp for metal (real metal)
I still like the concept of the amp thought , if it only had a tight crunchy metal rithm tone in it ,where you can still hear seperate notes , and not blur .

I don't own the amp but it looked very reliable

it's not a bad amp in general , just not suited for my style of music

I am BLOWN AWY!! It's has 4 independent channels, 4 being loudest! It's power ranges from 80watts to 160watts (wow!). I had this amp for 2 years, built in 1999. I just recently found out that Adam Jones, from Tool, uses this amp, and I don't blame the guy. Anyway, no hissing here, or noise while channel switching. The first TRUE 4 channel amp.

Amazing, I personally use the 3rd, and 4th channel. It's not real muddy like the marshalls, and is has depth beyond a boogie.

I would rate it top 3, in the best sounding amp in the world = Diezel/VHT/Soldano

This think is bult stronger than a TANK! I have more than abused it, and it sounds better each time I play. When I recieved it from germany, I gave it to a good friend who knows alot about amps, and also makes custom boutique amps, that sound amazing (but he sells them for over 5 grand). He opened it and juiced it up a little, and was amazed at the craftmenship. I bet if I shot this thing it will still sound great, let alone work!

Never Need it! Peter Diezel, has one diamond here. It's to bad I paid an arm and a leg. Anyway I live in NYC, so if I did, i would bring it to UltraSound, they are a direct dealer, and know inside out about diezel amps.

What more can I say. This has to be one of the greatest amps made! I mainly now play with this amp, with VHT 4x12 cabinets. I also have a Mesa/boogie triple rectifier, Marshall JCM 800, a Soldano SLO-100, and a VHT Pitbull, but this is becoming my fav. next to my soldano and vht.

I use this amp with a custom Les Paul, and a custom Telecaster, with a Lexicon MPX G2 with MPX R1, and it sounds great! With out a doubt your best bang for your buck.

If stolen, I would hunt own the fucker and beat him over the head with this amp, and it would still sound good. One turn-off is the look of the amp, it's not that appealing, but just wait untill you hear this baby...you wouldn't care if it had opra's picture on it!

This VH4 amplifier was shipped to me in October of 2000. After 6 months of DAILY use, I am truly in awe! The amp has four completely discrete preamp channels. This covers every style of music you could imagine. The channel switching is midi and works with any midi controller.(ch. switching also on front of amp) Two global effects loops.. one parallel and one series. Also, the amp has 4 separate channel inserts so you can put your favourite pedals in and call them up via midi whenever you want. Amazing! ONE tap on the footswitch and you've changed channels and effects... very simple to program. I had it up and running in about 25 minutes after opening the box, with channels and effects programmed on my midi cotroller. The amp has more power than you will ever need...period. The channel switching is completely silent as well as the amp itself, even at the highest gain settings, this thing is VERY, VERY quiet. Mine was shipped with 6L6 tubes (4) and 7 12AX7's in the preamp. I have since tried a number of different tube combinations and have stuck with the Seimens EL34's and the Chinese 12AX7's in the preamp. You can use EL34's, 6L6's, 6550's, KT66's or 6V6's ....I've chosen the German Seimens. Each channel has it's OWN TONE CONTROLS which work very well, meaning they actually do something! No more compromising the blue and red channel on the Bogner with the shared EQ!! The presence and deep controls work well together(in the power section) Some amps are feature heavy and tone light. This thing has BOTH!

I am currently using a Wojick handmade guitar with a Seymour Duncan Seth Lover in the neck and a JB in the bridge. I play all kinds of styles from Van Morrison to Van Halen and the amp does each style better than four amps put together.
Channel one is like the sweetest '65 Fender Twin you've ever heard...only better, with much more headroom. The loudest clean channel on any amp I've played. You can push it to a slight breakup but it stays pretty clean. You can tailor your tone further with the bright switch to really bring out some rich, sweet sparkle on top.
Channel two is the SRV...ACDC...Stones channel with a great crunch and tons of balls. I don't quite understand how Peter Diezel designed it but this is the most versatile crunch channel... sounds incredible with single coils or humbuckers, neck... bridge, whatever you give it turns to pure tone!
Channel three is "VAN HALEN 1"... with more bottom. Take your best Marshall, any year, any model.. Ch 3 will put it to shame! Very dynamic with lots of gain and sustainnnnnnnnn. This channel sold me on the amp. I realize "brown" is such an overused term in amps but this is really it!! ...THE BROWN SOUND.
Channel four will sustain for days but is not that "Soldano brittle tone" at all. Full bodied gain even at 4 or 5, it really sings. You can get an Eric Johnson singing tone or the most brutal death metal tone imaginable...and everything in between with the excellent tone shaping available. The gain on this amp is truly in a class of its own...like I say, whatever you want, its there!

Built like a Brick Shit House!! Very well designed with all top notch electronics inside. The reason why this amp is worth the bucks is what's inside... Just take a look, and you'll agree! This is not some cheap mass produced amp. Its hand made to last a lifetime!

Uwe Salwender in CA is the most professional gentleman you could ever think of as a Distributer. Peter Diezel is VERY interested in his client's needs and concerns. I've spoken with him and he is very caring and sincere. Both of these guys are friendly and have been quite helpful with my questions. VERY PROFESSIONAL!! Thanx guys!

I've been playing guitar for 10 years. I've owned Bogners, Soldano 100's, Boogies, Fenders, '65 Marshall plexi 100's... This thing does all the best tones from each of these. Until you plug in and try one out, don't whine about the price. Mnay people laugh at what I paid for a guitar amp... until they hear it! Go ahead...Try one and I guarantee you'll wet yourself. The best guitar amp...PERIOD.

OK, I haven't bought it yet, but tried it in the store for several hours today. The features are clearly explained in the other reviews so check 'em out, or visit www.salwender.com. I don't think that an amp in this categorie should have a crappy spring reverb, so I'm glad it isn't there. All unnecessary features are absent, so the amp remains very clear and easy to use, and still it has all the features you'll ever need. That diagonal setting of the knobs is pretty genial. The cab has a removable front, a handy feature in the studio.
Stock, the VH4 comes with a bias switch for five different types of poweramp tubes. It is modelled to use it both at 220V/50Hz AND 110V/60Hz.

I tried a lot of guitars on this amp; the better the guitar, the better the sound. This amp really has 4 excellent channels, try it out to hear it yourself or visit http://www.proguitar.de/ProGuitarPreisliste/Amps/AmpPreisliste.html. This site has some audio samples of a strat & LP-type guitar played through a VH4. I'm sure it would have been better if they used the diezel cabinet. But it gives an indication.
This thing deserves a 10. Believe me!

The VH4 is completely handmade. Inside, it's a piece of art. If you like to throw amps from the stage, regret what you did, and decide to keep it anyway, this one's for you.

How many amp manufacturers read this reviews and mail you to help you? Peter Diezel does. Read one of the other reviews on this site; it's all in there. It is so well-built that I don't think you'll need customer support afterwards.

I play since '93. I'm 21 now and not a great player, but I have a good pair of ears. The Diezel company makes 100 amps a year so they're really exclusive. I heard Limp Bizkit, Guns 'n Roses and Korn also bought a VH4. Now me. I may be wrong, but I think the VH4 is the best amp in the world.
I know giving 10's in all categorys affects your believe in the accuracy of my review, but this really deserves it.
Excusez-moi my English BTW.

This is only the first part of my review. I have played this beauty for a couple of hours now. I have to admit I havent played it in my band yet. So I will give you comments on the "Real World" later. How it cuts through the overall sound...

Oh my god, so many useful features.
You can read all the features below. My favourites are: MIDI-switchable parallel Send/Return. Great for boosting the signal. MIDI-switchable (I guess serial) effects Send/Return, one per channel! "Deep" knob for pushing bass @80Hz like on the 5150 (Peavey). This fantastic amp only gets 9, because it doesn't have a reverb. The reason I am going for amp heads instead of Pre/Power-amp is because I like to have everything in one box.
With the standard 6L6GC equipment, this guy has way too much power for practicing. Oh my god! And you can even go higher in power, putting in some KT88. That will probably crush the walls of that air-raid shelter, where my practicing room is in.
The tube fault detection is a nice feature. I am also technician, who likes this extra information.

Ok, there is no big discussion on that. It seems to be a clear 10! Custom Shop '58 with Custom Shop single Coils is my main guitar. The other guitar is a Mexiko Strat with HSS pickups. I like to play Rock, Hardrock, Blues Rock sometimes and I also like to play some really funky tunes every now and then. Wow, what a sound. I played it through 2x12" Vintage 30 and 4X12" GT12-75. Channel 1: The Clean Channel. Goes from very, very sparkling clean with a rather hard "edge" in the sound to a nice and warm clean. Can be overdriven, but just a bit. This really is a classic clean tone. Even without using the bright switch, this is almost too bright.But then you can always use your guitar's tone control to bring the brightness down. The Gain1 does control the total character of the Clean channel. Channel 2: I call it the Raw Channel. Think of "Highway to Hell" sound. That comes into my mind when played with humbucker. Very dynamic low to medium gain distortion. Can produce a very warm and round clean sound when using the guitar's volume control. I think the intention was to create a great rock'n'roll sound. Channel 3: Hard as a rock. Great for Hard/Heavy riffs and chords. Again great dynamics. I love to play with the "Deep" control to get a wall of sound. I am getting a bit enthusiastic here. Channel 4: The Juice. I think is what people would call "liquid". You can play a super-overdriven Mega leadsound. But still some cool dynamics and no fuzz when playing brutal palm-muted chords. I hope this channel does have enough treble when played in the band. But I will give you more information later on that as I said. Playing some tappings in this channel feels like being in heaven for me. Sound Conclusion: You have 4 VERY usable sounds with a very different character. And you have it in one box!!! I was so impressed, when I played it at Beyer's Music in Bochum (I dont get paid for that statement!) that I didnt bother comparing it to ENGL, Boogie, Marshall, etc. Before this Diezel amp, it took me a good amount of effort and time before I had finally decided to buy/not to buy one of these not really cheap amps like the Dual Rectifier. But when I heard the VH-4, I didnt need any more comparison.
Another important feature for the overdriven channels: Unlike the Dual Rectifier, you don't have to crank the power amp in order to get a decent distortion and some "balls". Diezel has managed to produce great overdrive/distortion/lead killer tone at reasonable band practicing level! My drummer is sometimes very unhappy about the band being too loud. I was always sad to turn down the power amp of the Recto, because I lost quite an amount of sound. But not with the VH-4!

Can't say. Still brandnew. But it looks very, very stable and reliable. We will see how long the MIDI interface can handle the tube heat inside the amp. That seemed to be a weak spot with MIDI-fied amps.

I am 31 years old, and I have a decent job, which gives me the money for buying this VH-4. It is very expensive, but even cheaper than an Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier (the new 3-channel will cost about 5000DM?). Compared to any American brand amplifier I only pay for quality and not for currency conversion offset! I play for 15 years and I have had some amps. I have to admit that I am a Tube Amp addict. I have had the Framus Dragon, which was also MIDI-switchable, but the Dragon cannot remotely compare to the sound, even though it is a good amp. I cannot get rid of a certain brutaliy and harshness in the sound of the Dual Rectifier, I am please with the VH-4 sound. The clean sound of the ENGL Savage S.E. is thinner and just not as flexible as on this amp. On the other hand the S.E. features Triode/Pentode switching and switching between two different speakers. But to be honest with you readers, that's chickenfeed! I dont unterstand why Diezel dont deliver a simple footboard with 4 switches with this amp. But that's the supercritical bad things. I am really extra-picky now.

I love to be able to switch so many different features/channels/sounds through the built-in MIDI interface. Unlike ENGL, here it is built in! Fantastic. I would like to have some reverb. Then I could go out, take the VH-4 and my 2x12" and rock without fiddling with other gear. Due to the incredible gain I probably wont need the TS9 TubeScreamer anymore.

Damn, still one week before I can play this baby in the band.