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Anti Peavey Snobbery


JohnFitzgerald
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Problems with Peavey:
Their stuff never fully dies, so the cheap crap ones don't disappear although semi-knackering a black widow seems quite easy judging by the sound of a lot of them.
Said cheap crap ones fill rehearsal rooms/house amp spots the length and breadth of the country, trashing their reputation.
Weight
They have strange, inconsistent controls that do crazy stuff to your tone unrelated to the name of the control and as a bonus are like stealth controls that you can't easily see are turned on or not.

Played through a house Peavey the other day into a 1x15 and 2x10, and the amp there had 'punch' and 'bright' buttons, on (very) close inspection both were engaged. Band before me the bass sound was awful. This appeared to be the 'punch' button which on experimentation revealed that turning it on was designed to remove all punch, and upper mids from your playing. The bright button was a decoy button that did pretty much nothing. There was a crossover control as well but no indication of what it fed.
Tone after disengaging all the mystery controls and putting a reverse-smiley face* on the graphic was semi-decent, until hitting actual playing volume and then the amp power stage clipped. Into a 1x15+2x10. In a jazz bar. I don't really like Peavey stuff.

*ie a frown

Edited by LawrenceH
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Nah, sorry, voice of dissent here, never heard a decent sounding Peavey rig.

Oh it will last forever, and produce an horrific farty punchless bluuurgh of a noise that in no way relates to what my basses have ever sounded like and absolutely will not keep up with a hard hitting drummer and a couple of loud guitarists.

And that isnt any particular Peavey rig, it is every single one of the joyless misused and abuses piles of rank plop I have ever had the misfortune to find waiting for me at a gig or in a reheasal space. From mark 3s and 4s through 215s, 210s and 115s, 810s, dynabass heads the daft 2x8 +115 thing, all of it. Rubbish to a rig.

I hate every single one....

Edited by 51m0n
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The only new Peavey thing I ever bought was way back in the 80s, a tall, 2x15 cab. Not blackwidows as I actually didn't like the sound of them in the shop. Great cab, never saw the limit of it, always belting out loads of clear bass and it came on castors. When it came to sell a little group came to see it. Despite the ad clearly saying they weren't BWs they thought they were. Anyway gave it a demo and pinned them to the wall with excruciatingly loud but clear and defined volume and they were impressed, but couldn't bring themselves to buy it as it didn't say 'BW' on the front.

Ridiculously it was bought by a disco man who only wanted the drivers. An empty Peavey 215 cab still lingers in my old church (afaik).

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[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1320100761' post='1422467']
Nah, sorry, voice of dissent here, never heard a decent sounding Peavey rig.

Oh it will last forever, and produce an horrific farty punchless bluuurgh of a noise that in no way relates to what my basses have ever sounded like and absolutely will not keep up with a hard hitting drummer and a couple of loud guitarists.

And that isnt any particular Peavey rig, it is every single one of the joyless misused and abuses piles of rank plop I have ever had the misfortune to find waiting for me at a gig or in a reheasal space. From mark 3s and 4s through 215s, 210s and 115s, 810s, dynabass heads the daft 2x8 +115 thing, all of it. Rubbish to a rig.

I hate every single one....
[/quote]


Fair enough, we can't all like the same things.

Shame that so many people end up having to judge kit only based on the skip-worthy stuff that is usually found in most practice rooms. Peavey stuff is omnipresent and cheap, and they get all the flak.
I am equally guilty, having yet to find a piece of Trace Elliot gear i enjoy playing through.

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[quote name='razze06' timestamp='1320141085' post='1422701']


Fair enough, we can't all like the same things.

Shame that so many people end up having to judge kit only based on the skip-worthy stuff that is usually found in most practice rooms. Peavey stuff is omnipresent and cheap, and they get all the flak.
I am equally guilty, having yet to find a piece of Trace Elliot gear i enjoy playing through.
[/quote]

True this is based upon a lot of kit in reheasal rooms, some kit on gigs, and trying out some kit in shpops (where it gave the impression it might do the job to be fair).

Personally I think a reheasal room is a harder space to 'fill' than a pub or stage, its to do with the acoustics, the massive SPLs due to the tiuny room size, the fact that everyone is on top of each other (so you end up way off axis to your cab) etc etc etc

Even then Peavey gear ranks lower than the nasty woefully underpowered Hartke stuff you also find in reheasal spaces.

Yes I am spoilt with my rig, but my opinion of Peavey comes from way back when all I had was a Laney G300 and a couple of 8ohm 410s, which blew away the Peavey kit (for me at least).

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another Peavey fan here, in fact i started out playing bass through the school Peavey combo, and now re kindled the love with a nice collection of peavey gear from the market place :)
A Grind bass...LOVLEY! T-Max head, 115 and 210 cabs which now the band are playing bigger gigs i'll be replacing my Ashdown combo with the Tmax and 115 as my main gig amp, and all with badges :)

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[quote name='razze06' timestamp='1320141085' post='1422701']


Fair enough, we can't all like the same things.

Shame that so many people end up having to judge kit only based on the skip-worthy stuff that is usually found in most practice rooms. Peavey stuff is omnipresent and cheap, and they get all the flak.
I am equally guilty, having yet to find a piece of Trace Elliot gear i enjoy playing through.
[/quote]


Don't forget that Peavey now make Trace.... :)

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Guest bassman7755

[quote name='Nyl' timestamp='1320147393' post='1422808']
another Peavey fan here, in fact i started out playing bass through the school Peavey combo, and now re kindled the love with a nice collection of peavey gear from the market place :)
[/quote]

I think there was a law in the 80s that all potential bass players had to be issued with a TNT combo at birth :-).

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I adore my Peavey rig. It consists of a T-Max 500 and a 410TX. The only reason the TX doesn't have it's badge is because its previous owner painted flames up the front of it. It is incredibly versatile and very loud. I suffer with a bad spine but that means that any gear is really too heavy for me, so, if I have to have someone help shift it anyway it doesn't really matter how much it weighs, if you see what I mean.

I did buy a new Peavey Guitar combo about 8 years ago and that was pretty nasty. I ended up sticking with my Laney Linebacker until I got my Boss GX-700.

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[quote name='51m0n' timestamp='1320141944' post='1422722']
Personally I think a reheasal room is a harder space to 'fill' than a pub or stage, its to do with the acoustics, the massive SPLs due to the tiuny room size, the fact that everyone is on top of each other [size=4][b](so you end up way off axis to your cab)[/b][/size] etc etc etc
[/quote]
Not sure if you're having this issue with your current rig at rehearsal, but it's one reason why vertical arrays (such as a 2x10 or two) are a better option than something like a 4x10.
So when you are off axis, you still get a decent volume.

I dare say you probably know this, but it might come in useful for those that don't. :)

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[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=1423364"][/url]KingBollock, on 01 November 2011 - 06:45 PM, said:

I adore my Peavey rig. It consists of a T-Max 500 and a 410TX. The only reason the TX doesn't have it's badge is because its previous owner painted flames up the front of it.


Have you got my old Peavey?!? :) awesome...

I likes Peavey stuff, I does; had a 115BW cab, a 410TX, 2x10 of some variety (no badge) and a T-Max during my proper gigging days, heavy as f*** but not an issue with a van and people to help you get it up stairs...sounded great and practically indestructable!
Currently got a Classic 4x10" guitar cab as well as the Milestone III bass and Microbass practise amp (which I'm currently trying to move on to finish my P-project, incidentally :)), nice kit.

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I'm actually just putting my slightly old school Peavey based home practice rig together at the moment; a 'TB Raxx' preamp into a 'Classic Series 60' power amp into my Eden 112EX. Put it together for the first time this evening and it sounds absolutely great.

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[quote name='Ian Savage' timestamp='1320178338' post='1423480']
[url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&section=findpost&pid=1423364"][/url]KingBollock, on 01 November 2011 - 06:45 PM, said:

I adore my Peavey rig. It consists of a T-Max 500 and a 410TX. The only reason the TX doesn't have it's badge is because its previous owner painted flames up the front of it.


Have you got my old Peavey?!? :) awesome...

I likes Peavey stuff, I does; had a 115BW cab, a 410TX, 2x10 of some variety (no badge) and a T-Max during my proper gigging days, heavy as f*** but not an issue with a van and people to help you get it up stairs...sounded great and practically indestructable!
Currently got a Classic 4x10" guitar cab as well as the Milestone III bass and Microbass practise amp (which I'm currently trying to move on to finish my P-project, incidentally :)), nice kit.
[/quote]
I got it off Ebay and my wife picked it up from Pembroke. I don't know how long he'd had it, or if it was you and you've moved? I'm going to make it look even cheesier by painting a Mudflap Girl on it in silver...

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[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1320176818' post='1423445']
Not sure if you're having this issue with your current rig at rehearsal, but it's one reason why vertical arrays (such as a 2x10 or two) are a better option than something like a 4x10.
So when you are off axis, you still get a decent volume.

I dare say you probably know this, but it might come in useful for those that don't. :)
[/quote]

Absolutely, but for various reasons of practicality I went with the 410. However my current rig has no isssues in a reheasal room because its just immensely punchy and louder than the loudest loud things... :)

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[quote name='KingBollock' timestamp='1320188826' post='1423687']
I got it off Ebay and my wife picked it up from Pembroke. I don't know how long he'd had it, or if it was you and you've moved? I'm going to make it look even cheesier by painting a Mudflap Girl on it in silver...
[/quote]

Good man :) probably wasn't mine unless it's moved around a lot in the last couple of years then - I did make silver flames out of sticky-back plastic which went directly onto the baffle of my 1x15 as well, they looked particularly cool under stage lights :)

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hmmm... IMO..and IME..Peavy was decent enough at a time when there wasn't much else...

Ampeg and Fender were too expensive and pretty rare and along came PV with high powered rigs..for the time..at decent money
and it was a step up for most
The gear was solid but basic but being able to put out a reasonable sound around 200watts was the main thing.
It had volume...and the BW wasn't a bad speaker.

By the late 80's things had moved on..but PV's bang for buck was still ok.
Sound had been woefully left behind though.

Peavey ..AFAIK..always knew where their core market lay...
Decent-ish stuff at an affordable price. They probably stuck to that mantra better than most.

But, just like HH and other stuff from that sort of era... it can't stack up..and neither should anyone really expect it to.

If it does a job, then that is ok.

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christ i have had shed loads of Peavey stuff back in the day. Started with a Sessionbass head with a 1x15 black widow cab, then added another one, then had a 2x10, then a 4x10, then a 4x12 and also a PV900 power amp and also a Maxx Pre amp. Rock solid stuff! Great for touring as like you say, it never bloody breaks.

Chopped it all in during that search for the Holy Grail of sounds and lots of GAS. Would defo buy more of it, especially the cabs.

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