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Topic: My review of the Peavy Transformer amp |
Earnest Bovine
From:
Los Angeles CA USA
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Posted 4 Feb 2001 9:58 pm |
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I was impressed with the Peavey Transformer 112 amp when I tried it in the Peavey room at Scotty's show in St. Louis. It emulates 16 different amps, mostly (all?) tube amps that guitar players love. I wanted something little (for recording) with a lot of variety of sounds and none of the hassle of maintaining an old tube amp.
You can read the Peavey blurb here: http://www.peavey.com/mi/transformer_series.html http://www.peavey.com/mi/transformer_212.html http://www.peavey.com/mi/transformer_112.html
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I bought it for a tryout at home and on a gig.
results :
I think Peavey did a great job with this amp, but it's not a good steel guitar amp.
IMHO most of the amp models color the sound (weird EQ) in ways that may be cool for guitar, but I hated the steel sound. Most of the models seem designed for overdrive (distortion) (useless for steel unless you are Dan Tyack) only, but about 3 of them can be played with a clean sound. Even when it was clean, I still didn't like it. They emulate a Peavey Classic 30 (or 50?) and I thgouht they did that very well. It reminded me of when I played my steel thru a Classic 30, and I didn't like the sound either.
Of course I'm not knocking Peavey here. It's a guitar amp, and I really didn't expect it to sound good for steel, but it was worth trying (and returning). |
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Olli Haavisto
From:
Jarvenpaa,Finland
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Posted 5 Feb 2001 12:59 pm
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I have a Rocktron Prophesy preamp/effects processor in my rack.It has four different amp models and they all sound great with guitar(clean or overdriven),overdriven lap steel etc. but they don`t work well with the PSG.I`ve ended up bypassing the preamp section when playing steel and plugging a Furman PQ-3 in the loop returns. The amp models are designed for gtr and the steel is a different beast...So,how come a REAL`65 Twin sounds good with steel and the model doesn`t?Why does the model work perfectly with guitar?I`ve had similar experiences with other modeling amps also.Beats me....
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Olli Haavisto
Polar steeler
Finland
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Donny Hinson
From:
Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.
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Posted 5 Feb 2001 2:47 pm
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| I would imagine that "modeling" amps are still in their infancy (like transistor amps were back in the early '70s). It will probably be awhile before they are really "refined" enough to do what we really want for the PSG. (I haven't tried a Session 2000 yet.) |
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Mike Brown
From:
Meridian, Mississippi USA
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Posted 6 Feb 2001 7:21 am
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At the 2000 Scotty show, Peavey rep Robin Venters and I went out on a limb by showing and demo'ing the Peavey Transformer 112 amp for steel. It was a first for us too at that time and we didn't know what to expect from the amp in this application. Actually, I brought the amp because it was a new product for us and many convention attendees also play guitar. No, it's not a steel amp, but neither was the Twin. But, the Twin just happened to be the best at the time. Now there are better products offered for steel guitar applications.
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Danny Hullihen
From:
Harrison, Michigan
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Posted 7 Feb 2001 3:53 pm
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Earnest, give me a call sometime. I have been playing around with the Transformer amp for a while and I found some things to do that work real well for steel guitar with this amp. I'll give you some settings to try and a few tips to bring out the best in this amp. Don't sell it short yet, it really is an amazing amplifier!
517-539-4715 |
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