In a forum someone wrote: (quote) "Paul Weller using his Peavey Backstage 30 on this live version of Eton Rifles. he wasn't playing through the Marshalls stacked behind him. I asked him about it on the Paul Weller forum years back and he replied personally and said he used the Peavey on All Mod Cons and Setting Sons. I reckon it's on the lead parts on All Mod Cons and pretty much all of Setting Sons, sounds like it was used on Going Underground as well."
At the majority of rehearsal spaces where I live near NYC, there was a Peavey amp of some kind. They all sounded great, did whatever needed to be done, and lived close to forever. At a studio I use now, the bass amp is a TNT 100 combo that i have personally watched age for 15 years. Still works, still rumbles. Kudos to Hartley Peavey!
Im from Great Britain Barnsley to be precise and hey you're right ...there was always one in the corner ...indestructible ....or a Marshall Valvestate equally un-killer-ble
Peavey were known as Mississippi Marshall’s back in the day. The blaze 158, audition 110, bandit 65 and studio pro 112 are all awesome SS amps. They all had a spring verb tank too!
The FET preamp in the backstage sounds quite good. I have hotrodded mine, and put in a switchmode PSU, a 200W class D output module, and a 300W speaker. It's a "wolf in sheep's clothing" amp. It's LOUD and sounds awesome. Lynyrd Skynyrd tone.
@vdxxxy484 First there is an input stage, then gain and tonestack, then the final preamp stage, master volume, and the output amplifier. This amp doesn't have any disttortion circuit, but you can push it into a nice overdrive.if cranked. My 200w version doesn't distort at all. It's loud and clean, and needs a stomp box to get distortion / overdrive.
Johan plays *everything* on 10, which is good. You should add a clean boost or a simple pedal such as an MXR Distortion+ used as a booster: output volume on 10, dist/gain on 5
It's true, that's why a lot of cats bought peavey backstage amps. Easy to carry with an instant plug in and play...going underground,down in the tube station etc etc. Good work in shining a light on a great little amp.
I have a 1979 peavey vt-classic 2x12. It's 50w and really is a poor boy Marshall lol. My parents got for me in the 1980s and it's built like a tank and will rattle the windows and I think it sounds great!
Criminally unknown and underrated anywhere outside of the UK. I'm an Aussie and can guarantee I would have never heard of him, the Jam, Style Council etc if my dad (a Pom who's childhood was in the 70's) hadn't introduced me. Weller and especially the Jam are probably my second favourite artist/band of all time, after the Beatles
I remember seeing weller at Manchester Apollo ..cannot remember the year..it was the Heliocentric ( and underrated album for some reason ) tour...and he was playing Foot of the mountain ..and he and Steve Craddock were trading solos the song was expanded to about 15-18 minutes .....as a guitar player it was delightful.....he is pretty underrated...in many respects he reminds me of Bruce Springsteen ..a fantastic player ...(if you're in doubt check out the end solo in Candys room off the Darkness on the edge of town album...it rips your head off) who to my knowledge has NEVER done a guitar magazine type interview .or for example Prince who can play like a sexy mother fucker lol...Paul Weller .he doesnt do that sort of thing anymore ...probably due to the criticisms around that time of his music being "dad rock" etc ...well fuck off..im a dad...i like guitar....i enjoy long guitar solos ...its indulgent to some but that's probably because this type of person cannot play guitar themselves so dont really understand music other than been a fan ...or if they can play they're probably not capable enough as a player to play anything tricky or run out of steam after improvising for more than 30 seconds ...I remember reading that Eric Clapton found improvising in Cream exhausting and saying after Cream gigs feeling like hed played every riff hed ever learnt ...yeah Pauls playing is great ...i adore his earthy raw dry organic tone he gets from his Marshall bluesbreaker amps...
@@paulcartwright2810i think its just because people have different tastes. Many good musicians arent popular or famous because most people have to be told whats good or skilled.
Thanks Johan, it sounds insane. You really have a talent of playing the amps, using the best technique to get the sounds you want (pick attack, the way you hold the notes etc.). I am learning so much from your amazing channel!
@@JohanSegeborn how about a video/demo showing the difference between a Marshall running on 220v (UK) and 110v (US)? Just a theory... but there might be a tonal difference..
The secret behind the Paul Weller tone is to use the back of a Marshall 4×12 cab to reflect the open back sound waves from the Peavey backstage 30 while using a sm58 mic that's missing its grill and is taped facing down directly in the middle of the dust cap with gaff tape. I like the tone in your example as well.
Johan, you've transported me back to the early 80's with my first amp! '75 Telecaster Custom -> plastic MXR Chorus -> Peavy Backstage 30...trying like hell to cop some "Permanent Waves" stuff.
Thanks for sharing that video. In the 80s, I started with a Peavey Audition 20 and traded up to a Backstage 30, then on to a Bandit 65. You show time and time again, great sounds can be had with anything….when you know how to play.
This was my first ever amp as a young teenager back in the late 70’s. I ran a Morley Power Wah Boost through it. It was a amazing little amp. Built like a tank. 🤘🤘
This is again proof of the fact that the tone has more to do with the talent and taste of the player than with the gear he‘s using - compliment to your taste and talent! 👏👏👏
Then again, whatever crap I play through my '79 JMP 2203... it doesn't matter. It all sounds like heaven. The amp in this video just sounds like a cheap transistor amp. No matter how well you play it, it lacks the harmonic content of a good tube amp.
The year was 1988 I went and saw an Allman Brothers cover band and both guitar players were using Peavey backstage 30s micd up thru a PA you would have sworn you are at an Allman Brothers concert. The tone was incredible. I picked up one years later used at a guitar center for $30 it's great.
When I was learning guitar in the 90s all of the older kids who played guitar that I looked up to all owned Peavy amps and they sounds great then and fill sound great now . All of those guys played in gigging bands and did the high school gyms fire hall and community center circuit across several towns and counties and their onstage sound was always on point and everyone had peavey amps nice clean and clear guitar towns and great sounding distortion. I remember they seemed to take drive and distortion pedals very well .
I remember those amps. Peavey made a lot of great stuff back then, but always got a bad reputation. I think it was because Peavey had just gotten down the Plexi sounds, right as everyone was abandoning that sound in favor of modded and/or boosted 800s and 900s, and later the Mesa Mark series,... which Peavey's could not come close to in sound. I remember having a silver stripe Bandit 20 as a teenager, and I loved it for cleans and for classic sounds but I couldn't get what I considered a decent metal sound of it to save my life, so I never cared for it until years later. I used to use the recording output of a Marshall Lead 12 into the power-amp input of the Bandit,.... now that was a sound. Hahaha!
I’ve got an early 80’s Bandit 65 that I am more than confident I could gig with and be totally good with it. Old solid state Peavey amps for sure have a thing.
I've seen many people use that 65 Peavey amp with great results. Myself,I have used a Peavey valveking50 12 combo and an old Peavey bravo 18 watt all tube 12 combo and they both kick serious ass in NY opinion.
I've played out so much with my Peavey Bandit (solo series) this one was before the Bandit 65. They are very similar, but the original I think is 40 instead of 65.....anyway, I ran a Zoom 505 multi effects and it sounded great!
in general solid state amps in the eighties and nineties were of higher quality then today especially the speakers , but there are always exceptions , they also cost about the same as today so with inflation figured in they were much more expensive ...
wow cool amp and story, when I worked on 48th Street in the late 70s and early 80s we sold hundred of these and also the smaller Decade amp and Pacer, Studio Pro and Artist and many more. They were reliable and very inexpensive back then.
I sort of looked into it after I scored a couple V125 Leads, but I think that he just dialled up whatever amp they gave him. He went from the Vox to the Marshall for the reliability, probably. I like to run the V125s along with a JC120 on Tremolo. The Cerberus Chorus. Oh, and I use MRB type pedals in front of everything, SP-1s or White Pedals, I like the screech.
Paul was associated with AC30s before going to Marshall, I heard. I have a few 10" speakers that I am going to try blending into the mix, probably on a Solid State Vox.
These old Peaveys (particularly the Bandit) are some of the best sounding (and vibey) solid state amps to this day. On the recent modern modelling side of Peavey, the Peavey Vypyr 15 -1st edition - from a decade ago is a bedroom practice gem of an amp as well. Shh...they're only 50 to 75 bucks on the used market.
I was just looking up the Ibanez Mostortion, Nashville guys love the thing... ..."tone stack is Fender/Marshall style...but values are *identical to Peavey tone stacks" Lol Nashville dudes love a pedal that makes their Fender tube amp sound like a Peavey solid state. Can't make it up. Love the Peavey content!
You have a knack for tasty riffage to show of any affordable amp. Peavey made some incredible bang for the buck stuff a while back. Thanks for another hidden gem. God bless and rock on 🎸😎👍
Perfect balance between crunch and clarity! Amazing. I remember 'Something Else' really well. Just disappointed you didn't break into Going Underground Johan.
Hi, Johan! I love Peavey, because that was my first big amp I was working with in 1993 when I was very young and that was my first band. This company is very underrated. Their products are excellent! Every 30 watt is not bad! See you! S.
I used to have a Peavey Studio Pro 50 that sounded great, I sold it only to get Peavey's Envoy amp with three tones of distortion, 70's classic rock, 80's hard rock and 90's metal. Once it was fitted with a Celestion Creamback it became astronomical. Their Transtube all-circuit system is more natural than the software simulations, and needs no maintenance unlike tubes.
I read somewhere that a concert organizer was asked by the monsters of rock tour back in the 80s to furnish a Peavey backstage 35! Walls of Marshall stacks and all the sound was coming from a little solid state combo amp for bands like priest, ac/dc, Motörhead, etc.
You’ve got to try a Peavey Mace dude. It’s THE Lynyrd Skynyrd tone. Loud as hell. They’re actually capable of driving 320 valve watts into 2 ohms if you use an external cab.
Part of that great sound comes from the CTS speakers. Fender used many variations of CTS speakers, Alnico and ceramic magnets. The last variation were the square magnets. One of my favorite amps is a 68 Super Reverb with CTS Alnico. Peace!
Yep, the first notes conjured up memories of my old Peavey solid states. They would rip. Heavy and loud too. I had one that was actually a hybrid with power tubes and was a 2x12 combo. The other was a 112 all ss. Both had the built in phaser. Put a TS in front and they would do Skynyrd no problem. I can’t remember what models they were to save my life, but the 112 was a 30w and the 212 was a 50 or 60w. Both had way more volume than I ever needed. They also both quit working eventually.
Truely Johan..Hats off..Once i..see a Peawey..skip//skip..skip//such a Mind Set//i//AM MADE BY THE SELLERS..you have saved a thousand Buyers..by showing the way..Kind Regards Dear Johan..DrNanda//India
This one isn't a high gain amp, but gets nice overdriven tones with a booster driving the input. I use a graphic EQ pedal, cut the extreme lows and boost everything else as desired. With single coils, and the grind is nice and smooth.
I have a Peavey Backstage Plus, (and a Fender Champion II0 amp.) and I get a brilliant sound from both, crystal cleans, and a nice bit of crunch in the gain channels, I`ve never been a massive fan of the Marshall sound, and have used Peavey`s since 1980. I`m also a fan of Mr Weller`s music.
Paul Weller used a Vox AC30 for the most part in The Jam. Live he was spotted with Super Leads, but his main tone then was the Vox. In the Style Council he’d opt for a Roland Jazz, but since his solo career around 1990 he has used the rare Marshall Lead and Bass 50 combos. Marshall issued a signature amp in 1999 with the RAF roundel.
Not exactly. I mean, it will be a pre 1977 model 😄 The story is that he bought a Vox and Rickenbacker because they were cheap. Nobody wanted Beatles in the punk-fuelled mid 70s. So he stockpiled these 10-15 year old Voxes to preserve his sound. I’d reckon the Voxes were modern for the time though. There was still May/Gallagher vintage GAS most likely.
I had the second version of this amp with the plastic knobs and could not get it to distort no matter the settings. As usual, sounds like gold when you play through it.
The amp demo'd is version 1. As far as I know they did 2 more 30w versions after that in the 80's, the Backstage with the addition of the saturation circuit and the Backstage Plus with saturation and added reverb. These features are foot switchable so dual channel effectively. Both have the white, grey, blue knobs. They can replicate the sound of the mk 1 just by ignoring the saturation knob and turning up the pre amp. (That is also a good trick with the Bandit too). Great sounding amps. I have the Plus. Picked it up for under GBP30. Grab one while you can! 🖖
It’s true. In 2019 I picked up an all original Peavey Backstage Plus for $10 from a lady clearing out her garage. It did a great 70s Marshall Plexi tone at bedroom volume. I probably should have kept it for exactly that.
I had a Bandit exactly like this one as my first real amp. That was after playing through a tape recorder for a while. Anyway, I liked the sound but one of the guys a band I played with had a late 70s twin and played really loud. So that little Peavey was always dimed. I also pushed it with a Aria Pro Super Fuzz Sustainer. Glorious! It then I jumped on the war of who has the biggest amp…
A solid state pedal can do a good JMP crunch, so no surprise a solid state amp can too. It would not surprise me if the Bluesbreaker and Guv'nor pedals were inspired by Marshall's early attempts at trying to make solid state amps sound like a valve amp. P.S. I usually use either a Marshall 2525H or a 1987 replica with a Freyette Power Station and IRs. Yesterday I tried a plugin from Sweden. A JMP 2203 in Softube Amp Room using their Greenback cab. I am quite amazed by it. It might sound more like an old Marshall than my amps with IRs. By front loading the amp sim with some boost I was in Angus lead territory very easily, because that treble thing JMP amps do was there, plus the low end had the heft instead of flubbing out. Dialing the guitar volume back a tad is what Angus' tech says he does. Seems to work. Retains the clarity in chords. Still a way to go to really nail the tone, but I was closer than ever before. BTW. When listening to the Highway To hell album yesterday I noticed the guitars are not dry like I always thought. I could hear it best in the opening chords of the title track. There is a few hundred milliseconds of reverb or slap back trails. I used a EMT 'room' plate emulation with some pre delay to get close. It made the tone more fun to play too.
Really cool! I have seen the most famous Peavy Bandit 112 in Sweden at Tomas Skogsbergs Sunlight Studios 2003. Ulf Cederlund Entombed use record with a Bandit and Boss HM2 and maybe created the hardest guitarsound of them all. He told me once that he owned 14 HM2 pedals. I think he also used Gibson Sg. This maybe has not so much with The Jam to do. The Jam is a great band! If you have time Johan. You must try out Uffes sound and gear!
Sorry Johan! A shame on me! I havent seen all your episodes yet! I though I was a little bit innovative, creative and stay one step ahead of you! But that is not possible? Everybody is one step behind you! So my next challange to you is Steve Jones gear that he used on Nevermind the bollocks or the raw tone on Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power. I think James Williamson did the guitarstuff!
I never thought to back the bass off that much on my Bandit Teal Stripe. I rather like the full warm sound of the bass set to 12 o'clock with the mid and treble boosted.
Your playing shows a bit of something I always thought that the Backstage 30 was good for: fake Santana lead tones (minus the volume, of course). I used to plug my then-girlfriend's Teisco into her Backstage 70s or 80s Backstage, and it would inexplicably give me Santana tones. It was hilarious.
The difference is that they used actual transistors in the circuits. Now days, solid state is a completely different thing, transistors are on microchips and microscopic in size. I had a Kustom amp back in the 70's that actually sounded really good for what it was. I never kept it because it wasn't very loud and with a gain pedal it didn't sound as good as a tube amplifier. The Peavey sounds pretty good, but it still lacks compared to an actual tube amplifier. There's just a little too much brittle treble for me.
Wow this is surprising Johan. My first amp was a Peavy Audition 20. I will have to take it out of retirement and try it. It’s been sleeping for 30 years. Hope you are well my friend. 🎸🤘🏻- K
Many years ago I was at several concerts with the big stacks of Marshalls lining the back of the stage, it was pretty impressive. Then I saw a smaller band who had the bare minimum of amps and their sound was just as big as the other bands. That got me to wondering if all the rows of amps were just for show. Cut to recently I saw a cover band at an outdoor concert who had massive speakers for their mains. The sound man in my opinion did a terrible job because he was running the volume way too high that all the music was distorted and the further you got away the worse it got. I tried filming just a little bit of the concert and the sound completely overwhelmed the audio on my phone so all you got was garble and that was standing back about 100 feet from the stage. Then I noticed on either side of the stage were 2 monitor speakers on tripods that were being used strictly as vocal mains. These 2 were identical to the ones I own and every bit of the vocals was being run through them. Anyway, that is just a story about how much is just for show. I personally have an old Peavey Musician that I still use on occasion that I bought back in 1974 used that gave me great tones, the speaker cabinet was a beast to move. (I think it weighted more then I did at the time.) Friends of mine borrowed that amp for a while and they used it for all kinds of different roles. They even used it as the main power amp for their PA and it traveled all across the US without me. The original Peaveys were tough but I guess they made them too good because most of the ones they made are still in service and people aren't needing new ones as much so Peavey moved the bulk of their operations to China to save money. I loved the demo you did with that amp, the sounds were great and it is something that they would use the smaller amps microphoned for their concert. (That seems to be the trend today and the bulk of the volume comes from the mains.)
I remember reading a Vintage Guitar magazine article many years ago about someone telling the story of a Kiss concert with a wall of Marshall stacks on stage, and backstage they had a little Fender Champ with a mic. Ha Ha.
The main reason old peaveys sound good was because of the speakers they used! They even had one called the black widow, that people used to pull out and use with more expensive amp brands
They still make Black Widows, and they are pretty decent! I still have several 18’s, 15’s, and a few 12’s in various cabinets, and they always do a good job whenever I need them. A few years ago, I was doing a gig with Black Widow subs, and Peavey RX 22’s for highs, and this guy was raving about how good they sounded. When I told him what they were, he said “Oh, that stuff is junk!” Uh…….ok! Didn’t you just say…… never mind!😊
Peavey is how young poor kids rocked for a long time. Even now, these amps can be picked up used for peanuts compared to more popular brand names. What is never discussed is how many gems the Peavey line produced that aren't 5150 or 6505 amps. Peavey was everywhere for a good reason. They sounded awesome, all the big stars didn't stick with them because the brand never seemed to ever be cool in the same way that Fender or Marshall was cool. At least until the 5150 was released. Still, unlike those old Fender or Marshalls, most of the old Peavey amps still work without much attention. They were built like tanks. Mostly because they were treated like tanks too. When all the other old amps die from age, Peavey amps will still be blasting away. BTW, they actually sound pretty good too. Most of them anyways.
Yeah, I can hear a slight Old-School early Marshall tone there but it's no where near a JCM800 or any of the 1970's Marshalls with a Pre-amp/Gain control. The VT series Classic and Deuce weren't to bad sounding and had some ok "balls/crunch" but they all still have that "shrill" sound that we used to call the "Squevy Squeal". The other problem with these old amps is the fact that they are so old and being as they where the object of less serious players they may not have been taken care of and just be a pile of junk.
sounds great! the sound is very 60 early 70s like neil young or like buffalo springfield, tom petty, fleetwood mac ! warm with bite and not much bottom end
Definitely some very nice tones outta that little amp. It's Marshall'ish but I wouldn't say sounds exactly like a JMP (I have a 1977 50 watt JMP 4-hole). Did a quick availability check of these on Reverb -- one available that was made into a head and another chassis that's not working. Anyway,...cool demo.
Hi Johan, great video. long time no see. How are you? As to the amp, needless to say that thanks to your video their price doubled on Reverb and Ebay. Cheers. 😅
Funkin’ greatest amplifiers made… don’t stop hating on peaveys people. I need them all. They say there will only be three things that will survive the end of the world and that’s cockroaches Keith Richards and Peavey amplifiers. You need to do a video on the butcher and the standard 260
In the future Johan…. When you say the price of a “cheap” amp you happen to be reviewing… Will you please always just say-…. “I think you can get them for like a dollar $1”…🤔 still....? So that when they all are listed on the market sites, even if they are marked up by 90% ... I can still afford one.... 😂😂😂👍🏻 Ps- @ 2:26 a bit of 'since ive been loving you' sounding soloish from zep movie song remains the same
In a forum someone wrote: (quote)
"Paul Weller using his Peavey Backstage 30 on this live version of Eton Rifles. he wasn't playing through the Marshalls stacked behind him. I asked him about it on the Paul Weller forum years back and he replied personally and said he used the Peavey on All Mod Cons and Setting Sons. I reckon it's on the lead parts on All Mod Cons and pretty much all of Setting Sons, sounds like it was used on Going Underground as well."
Wow! Really interesting. Thanks
Maybe that's why In The City is my favorite Jam album!
At the majority of rehearsal spaces where I live near NYC, there was a Peavey amp of some kind. They all sounded great, did whatever needed to be done, and lived close to forever. At a studio I use now, the bass amp is a TNT 100 combo that i have personally watched age for 15 years. Still works, still rumbles. Kudos to Hartley Peavey!
Still have my TNT and l still have my 5150 too.
Im from Great Britain Barnsley to be precise and hey you're right ...there was always one in the corner ...indestructible ....or a Marshall Valvestate equally un-killer-ble
Peavey were known as Mississippi Marshall’s back in the day. The blaze 158, audition 110, bandit 65 and studio pro 112 are all awesome SS amps. They all had a spring verb tank too!
Stereo Chorus 212 is awesome too !
That's a great name, Mississippi Marshall, I don't know the idea of a swamp Marshall is just so funny to me.
Lynyrd Skynyrd used Peaveys back in the day
@@aleksik4028 , many players have used them.
@@roderickbalt8993peavey is based out of Mississippi
The FET preamp in the backstage sounds quite good. I have hotrodded mine, and put in a switchmode PSU, a 200W class D output module, and a 300W speaker. It's a "wolf in sheep's clothing" amp. It's LOUD and sounds awesome. Lynyrd Skynyrd tone.
@vdxxxy484 First there is an input stage, then gain and tonestack, then the final preamp stage, master volume, and the output amplifier. This amp doesn't have any disttortion circuit, but you can push it into a nice overdrive.if cranked. My 200w version doesn't distort at all. It's loud and clean, and needs a stomp box to get distortion / overdrive.
Johan plays *everything* on 10, which is good. You should add a clean boost or a simple pedal such as an MXR Distortion+ used as a booster: output volume on 10, dist/gain on 5
Great sound! Peavey amps are underrated. And solid state amps are also underrated. But many many guitarists know, how good a Peavey Bandit is.
Bandit is an ok amp at best. Stop spreading disinformation...you just repeat what you've heard.
I've had it and it wasn't at all this good.
It's true, that's why a lot of cats bought peavey backstage amps. Easy to carry with an instant plug in and play...going underground,down in the tube station etc etc. Good work in shining a light on a great little amp.
I have a 1979 peavey vt-classic 2x12. It's 50w and really is a poor boy Marshall lol. My parents got for me in the 1980s and it's built like a tank and will rattle the windows and I think it sounds great!
I had a Bandit 75 back in 84' and I used it for recording, practicing and playing live. To this day it's still one of my favorite amps. Loved it.
Paul Weller always manages to get great tones but is still largely underrated especially as a guitarist
Agreed, great tone, very tasteful player.
Absolutely!
Criminally unknown and underrated anywhere outside of the UK. I'm an Aussie and can guarantee I would have never heard of him, the Jam, Style Council etc if my dad (a Pom who's childhood was in the 70's) hadn't introduced me. Weller and especially the Jam are probably my second favourite artist/band of all time, after the Beatles
I remember seeing weller at Manchester Apollo ..cannot remember the year..it was the Heliocentric ( and underrated album for some reason ) tour...and he was playing Foot of the mountain ..and he and Steve Craddock were trading solos the song was expanded to about 15-18 minutes .....as a guitar player it was delightful.....he is pretty underrated...in many respects he reminds me of Bruce Springsteen ..a fantastic player ...(if you're in doubt check out the end solo in Candys room off the Darkness on the edge of town album...it rips your head off) who to my knowledge has NEVER done a guitar magazine type interview .or for example Prince who can play like a sexy mother fucker lol...Paul Weller .he doesnt do that sort of thing anymore ...probably due to the criticisms around that time of his music being "dad rock" etc ...well fuck off..im a dad...i like guitar....i enjoy long guitar solos ...its indulgent to some but that's probably because this type of person cannot play guitar themselves so dont really understand music other than been a fan ...or if they can play they're probably not capable enough as a player to play anything tricky or run out of steam after improvising for more than 30 seconds ...I remember reading that Eric Clapton found improvising in Cream exhausting and saying after Cream gigs feeling like hed played every riff hed ever learnt ...yeah Pauls playing is great ...i adore his earthy raw dry organic tone he gets from his Marshall bluesbreaker amps...
@@paulcartwright2810i think its just because people have different tastes. Many good musicians arent popular or famous because most people have to be told whats good or skilled.
Thanks Johan, it sounds insane. You really have a talent of playing the amps, using the best technique to get the sounds you want (pick attack, the way you hold the notes etc.). I am learning so much from your amazing channel!
Thanks Paul, makes my day to hear that!
@@JohanSegeborn how about a video/demo showing the difference between a Marshall running on 220v (UK) and 110v (US)?
Just a theory... but there might be a tonal difference..
The secret behind the Paul Weller tone is to use the back of a Marshall 4×12 cab to reflect the open back sound waves from the Peavey backstage 30 while using a sm58 mic that's missing its grill and is taped facing down directly in the middle of the dust cap with gaff tape. I like the tone in your example as well.
😀 don't forget the lino too, it smooths out the odd-order harmonics
Johan, you've transported me back to the early 80's with my first amp! '75 Telecaster Custom -> plastic MXR Chorus -> Peavy Backstage 30...trying like hell to cop some "Permanent Waves" stuff.
Peavey amps from the 80's and even now are great amps. they certainly made some great ones.
Love it. Thanks. Those square speakers big part of the sound. I buy um when ever I find um
Thanks! I love those too
Wow...Didn't see that one coming .....sounds superb......I'm astonished !
Thanks man glad you like it!
Thanks for sharing that video. In the 80s, I started with a Peavey Audition 20 and traded up to a Backstage 30, then on to a Bandit 65. You show time and time again, great sounds can be had with anything….when you know how to play.
This was my first ever amp as a young teenager back in the late 70’s. I ran a Morley Power Wah Boost through it. It was a amazing little amp. Built like a tank. 🤘🤘
This is again proof of the fact that the tone has more to do with the talent and taste of the player than with the gear he‘s using - compliment to your taste and talent! 👏👏👏
Then again, whatever crap I play through my '79 JMP 2203... it doesn't matter. It all sounds like heaven. The amp in this video just sounds like a cheap transistor amp. No matter how well you play it, it lacks the harmonic content of a good tube amp.
The year was 1988 I went and saw an Allman Brothers cover band and both guitar players were using Peavey backstage 30s micd up thru a PA you would have sworn you are at an Allman Brothers concert. The tone was incredible. I picked up one years later used at a guitar center for $30 it's great.
Interesting!
The bite of that old speaker has so much character and texture! Great sound
Thanks Anthony!
When I was learning guitar in the 90s all of the older kids who played guitar that I looked up to all owned Peavy amps and they sounds great then and fill sound great now . All of those guys played in gigging bands and did the high school gyms fire hall and community center circuit across several towns and counties and their onstage sound was always on point and everyone had peavey amps nice clean and clear guitar towns and great sounding distortion. I remember they seemed to take drive and distortion pedals very well .
I remember those amps. Peavey made a lot of great stuff back then, but always got a bad reputation.
I think it was because Peavey had just gotten down the Plexi sounds, right as everyone was abandoning that sound in favor of modded and/or boosted 800s and 900s, and later the Mesa Mark series,... which Peavey's could not come close to in sound.
I remember having a silver stripe Bandit 20 as a teenager, and I loved it for cleans and for classic sounds but I couldn't get what I considered a decent metal sound of it to save my life, so I never cared for it until years later. I used to use the recording output of a Marshall Lead 12 into the power-amp input of the Bandit,.... now that was a sound. Hahaha!
I’ve got an early 80’s Bandit 65 that I am more than confident I could gig with and be totally good with it. Old solid state Peavey amps for sure have a thing.
I've seen many people use that 65 Peavey amp with great results.
Myself,I have used a Peavey valveking50 12 combo and an old Peavey bravo 18 watt all tube 12 combo and they both kick serious ass in NY opinion.
I've played out so much with my Peavey Bandit (solo series) this one was before the Bandit 65. They are very similar, but the original I think is 40 instead of 65.....anyway, I ran a Zoom 505 multi effects and it sounded great!
These were seriously underrated SS amps for their day! Even the various, red/silver/teal stripe Bandits were amazing amps!
Bandit was AMAZING!
in general solid state amps in the eighties and nineties were of higher quality then today especially the speakers , but there are always exceptions , they also cost about the same as today so with inflation figured in they were much more expensive ...
I've got one SS amp, in my collection; a Red Stripe Bandit.It punches well beyond it's weight
@@what1864 Than.
@@tomasjones3755 Shane used to use them a lot.
My early 90’s Peavey Bravo is a killer amp. All tube (EL84’s) 25W with spring reverb .
That was my 1st valve (tube) amp. Active eq. Killer tones.
I had a Peavey Backstage Plus back in the 80’s when I started playing guitar. Wish I still had it, it was a great sounding amp.
wow cool amp and story, when I worked on 48th Street in the late 70s and early 80s we sold hundred of these and also the smaller Decade amp and Pacer, Studio Pro and Artist and many more. They were reliable and very inexpensive back then.
Cool! I love the Pacer too
Great demo of the peavey backstage,i have Peavey backstage plus with reverb
Thanks Michel! Glad to hear it!
I just missed the live show!!! I’m a big Paul Weller fan and assumed he used Vox amps being from England. I’ll have to watch the replay.
I sort of looked into it after I scored a couple V125 Leads, but I think that he just dialled up whatever amp they gave him. He went from the Vox to the Marshall for the reliability, probably. I like to run the V125s along with a JC120 on Tremolo. The Cerberus Chorus.
Oh, and I use MRB type pedals in front of everything, SP-1s or White Pedals, I like the screech.
Paul was associated with AC30s before going to Marshall, I heard. I have a few 10" speakers that I am going to try blending into the mix, probably on a Solid State Vox.
These old Peaveys (particularly the Bandit) are some of the best sounding (and vibey) solid state amps to this day. On the recent modern modelling side of Peavey, the Peavey Vypyr 15 -1st edition - from a decade ago is a bedroom practice gem of an amp as well. Shh...they're only 50 to 75 bucks on the used market.
I was just looking up the Ibanez Mostortion, Nashville guys love the thing...
..."tone stack is Fender/Marshall style...but values are *identical to Peavey tone stacks"
Lol Nashville dudes love a pedal that makes their Fender tube amp sound like a Peavey solid state. Can't make it up.
Love the Peavey content!
Johan your voice is so comforting it’s like ASMR it helps with my anxiety thank you
You have a knack for tasty riffage to show of any affordable amp. Peavey made some incredible bang for the buck stuff a while back. Thanks for another hidden gem. God bless and rock on 🎸😎👍
What a wonderful variety of useful tones! Inspirational. Thanks
Perfect balance between crunch and clarity! Amazing. I remember 'Something Else' really well. Just disappointed you didn't break into Going Underground Johan.
Hahaha! Thanks Eddie! I don’t have the youthful energy of the jam Im afraid though. Cheers!
Yeah, clearly visible on that programme during "Eton Rifles" 👍
Hi, Johan!
I love Peavey, because that was my first big amp I was working with in 1993 when I was very young and that was my first band. This company is very underrated. Their products are excellent! Every 30 watt is not bad!
See you!
S.
Thanks man, See you!
I used to have a Peavey Studio Pro 50 that sounded great, I sold it only to get Peavey's Envoy amp with three tones of distortion, 70's classic rock, 80's hard rock and 90's metal. Once it was fitted with a Celestion Creamback it became astronomical. Their Transtube all-circuit system is more natural than the software simulations, and needs no maintenance unlike tubes.
Picked one up in a pawnshop couple years ago , awesome little amp
I picked up a 95 Transtube for free off Freecycle originally intended for my students to borrow, but it sounds so good I've kept it for me only!
I love Peavey gear. It's relatively inexpensive and gets the job done.
Also that Selmer TnB looks great! Syd Barrett tone!
Cool little Amp with a great Tone. 👍👏🎼🎸🙂
I read somewhere that a concert organizer was asked by the monsters of rock tour back in the 80s to furnish a Peavey backstage 35! Walls of Marshall stacks and all the sound was coming from a little solid state combo amp for bands like priest, ac/dc, Motörhead, etc.
I still have my original Peavey Special "solos series" I bought in the early 80's.
Great tones , I did not resist and I got blackstage plus after watching your video :)
You’ve got to try a Peavey Mace dude. It’s THE Lynyrd Skynyrd tone. Loud as hell. They’re actually capable of driving 320 valve watts into 2 ohms if you use an external cab.
Part of that great sound comes from the CTS speakers. Fender used many variations of CTS speakers, Alnico and ceramic magnets. The last variation were the square magnets. One of my favorite amps is a 68 Super Reverb with CTS Alnico. Peace!
So good John! As always; intriguing and wonderful tones and gear.
Yep, the first notes conjured up memories of my old Peavey solid states. They would rip. Heavy and loud too. I had one that was actually a hybrid with power tubes and was a 2x12 combo. The other was a 112 all ss. Both had the built in phaser. Put a TS in front and they would do Skynyrd no problem. I can’t remember what models they were to save my life, but the 112 was a 30w and the 212 was a 50 or 60w. Both had way more volume than I ever needed. They also both quit working eventually.
Truely Johan..Hats off..Once i..see a Peawey..skip//skip..skip//such a Mind Set//i//AM MADE BY THE SELLERS..you have saved a thousand Buyers..by showing the way..Kind Regards Dear Johan..DrNanda//India
This one isn't a high gain amp, but gets nice overdriven tones with a booster driving the input. I use a graphic EQ pedal, cut the extreme lows and boost everything else as desired. With single coils, and the grind is nice and smooth.
I have a Peavey Backstage Plus, (and a Fender Champion II0 amp.) and I get a brilliant sound from both, crystal cleans, and a nice bit of crunch in the gain channels,
I`ve never been a massive fan of the Marshall sound, and have used Peavey`s since 1980. I`m also a fan of Mr Weller`s music.
Paul Weller used a Vox AC30 for the most part in The Jam. Live he was spotted with Super Leads, but his main tone then was the Vox. In the Style Council he’d opt for a Roland Jazz, but since his solo career around 1990 he has used the rare Marshall Lead and Bass 50 combos. Marshall issued a signature amp in 1999 with the RAF roundel.
Thanks, interesting! Do you know which vintage and model Vox AC30 he used?
Not exactly. I mean, it will be a pre 1977 model 😄 The story is that he bought a Vox and Rickenbacker because they were cheap. Nobody wanted Beatles in the punk-fuelled mid 70s. So he stockpiled these 10-15 year old Voxes to preserve his sound. I’d reckon the Voxes were modern for the time though. There was still May/Gallagher vintage GAS most likely.
Sounds great. Very dynamic.
I had the second version of this amp with the plastic knobs and could not get it to distort no matter the settings. As usual, sounds like gold when you play through it.
Thanks! Glad to hear it
The amp demo'd is version 1. As far as I know they did 2 more 30w versions after that in the 80's, the Backstage with the addition of the saturation circuit and the Backstage Plus with saturation and added reverb. These features are foot switchable so dual channel effectively. Both have the white, grey, blue knobs. They can replicate the sound of the mk 1 just by ignoring the saturation knob and turning up the pre amp. (That is also a good trick with the Bandit too). Great sounding amps. I have the Plus. Picked it up for under GBP30. Grab one while you can! 🖖
It’s true. In 2019 I picked up an all original Peavey Backstage Plus for $10 from a lady clearing out her garage. It did a great 70s Marshall Plexi tone at bedroom volume. I probably should have kept it for exactly that.
the first peavey bandit65 in the 80s and backstage, backstage plus in the 80s killer amps
I have one of these and it is an excellent amp.
I had a Bandit exactly like this one as my first real amp. That was after playing through a tape recorder for a while. Anyway, I liked the sound but one of the guys a band I played with had a late 70s twin and played really loud. So that little Peavey was always dimed. I also pushed it with a Aria Pro Super Fuzz Sustainer. Glorious! It then I jumped on the war of who has the biggest amp…
Nice amp and great playing always from the king.⚘⚘❤❤👍👍👍👍🌷🌷
A solid state pedal can do a good JMP crunch, so no surprise a solid state amp can too. It would not surprise me if the Bluesbreaker and Guv'nor pedals were inspired by Marshall's early attempts at trying to make solid state amps sound like a valve amp.
P.S. I usually use either a Marshall 2525H or a 1987 replica with a Freyette Power Station and IRs. Yesterday I tried a plugin from Sweden. A JMP 2203 in Softube Amp Room using their Greenback cab. I am quite amazed by it. It might sound more like an old Marshall than my amps with IRs. By front loading the amp sim with some boost I was in Angus lead territory very easily, because that treble thing JMP amps do was there, plus the low end had the heft instead of flubbing out. Dialing the guitar volume back a tad is what Angus' tech says he does. Seems to work. Retains the clarity in chords. Still a way to go to really nail the tone, but I was closer than ever before.
BTW. When listening to the Highway To hell album yesterday I noticed the guitars are not dry like I always thought. I could hear it best in the opening chords of the title track. There is a few hundred milliseconds of reverb or slap back trails. I used a EMT 'room' plate emulation with some pre delay to get close. It made the tone more fun to play too.
All of us had a Peavey Rage back in the day. It seemed like a half stack compared to my Gorilla GG20
Really cool! I have seen the most famous Peavy Bandit 112 in Sweden at Tomas Skogsbergs Sunlight Studios 2003. Ulf Cederlund Entombed use record with a Bandit and Boss HM2 and maybe created the hardest guitarsound of them all. He told me once that he owned 14 HM2 pedals. I think he also used Gibson Sg. This maybe has not so much with The Jam to do. The Jam is a great band! If you have time Johan. You must try out Uffes sound and gear!
Thanks Rickard! I tried the Skogsberg tone here, but I’m probably a bit too soft to nail that one.. 😉 th-cam.com/video/dTAup1namSU/w-d-xo.html
Sorry Johan! A shame on me! I havent seen all your episodes yet! I though I was a little bit innovative, creative and stay one step ahead of you! But that is not possible? Everybody is one step behind you! So my next challange to you is Steve Jones gear that he used on Nevermind the bollocks or the raw tone on Iggy & The Stooges Raw Power. I think James Williamson did the guitarstuff!
I never thought to back the bass off that much on my Bandit Teal Stripe. I rather like the full warm sound of the bass set to 12 o'clock with the mid and treble boosted.
Haha! You can see it at 1:32-love it! 😍
I’ve always loved Weller’s tone with his treble and bass 50 on Wild Wood and Stanley Road
Did he use the 50W or 20W?
@@JohanSegeborn I believe it’s the 50watt
@@JohanSegeborn th-cam.com/video/1QMIb5UpwvY/w-d-xo.html
I picked up a peavey artist combo. Pretty nice tone and LOUD.
Somebody should do a video on the old black widows. They were beasts
Your playing shows a bit of something I always thought that the Backstage 30 was good for: fake Santana lead tones (minus the volume, of course). I used to plug my then-girlfriend's Teisco into her Backstage 70s or 80s Backstage, and it would inexplicably give me Santana tones. It was hilarious.
I use a 90s Peavey Classic 30 for shows. It sounds amazing.
@@jdmarti100 a Line 6 pod x3 live
I had an early Backstage amp. as my first amplifier back in '81. It had a Saturation knob. I thought it sounded good at the time.
The difference is that they used actual transistors in the circuits. Now days, solid state is a completely different thing, transistors are on microchips and microscopic in size. I had a Kustom amp back in the 70's that actually sounded really good for what it was. I never kept it because it wasn't very loud and with a gain pedal it didn't sound as good as a tube amplifier. The Peavey sounds pretty good, but it still lacks compared to an actual tube amplifier. There's just a little too much brittle treble for me.
That’s why your guitar has a tone knob to break that brittle
😂 Absolutely crazy, it sounds fantastic 👍
Thanks Bob! :-)
Wow this is surprising Johan. My first amp was a Peavy Audition 20. I will have to take it out of retirement and try it. It’s been sleeping for 30 years. Hope you are well my friend. 🎸🤘🏻- K
Thanks my friend! Cheers
Heavily underrated Amps !! Spread the word ❤ see if you can get hold of a little studio. Pro ! Also fantastic breakup for solid state !!
Many years ago I was at several concerts with the big stacks of Marshalls lining the back of the stage, it was pretty impressive. Then I saw a smaller band who had the bare minimum of amps and their sound was just as big as the other bands. That got me to wondering if all the rows of amps were just for show. Cut to recently I saw a cover band at an outdoor concert who had massive speakers for their mains. The sound man in my opinion did a terrible job because he was running the volume way too high that all the music was distorted and the further you got away the worse it got. I tried filming just a little bit of the concert and the sound completely overwhelmed the audio on my phone so all you got was garble and that was standing back about 100 feet from the stage. Then I noticed on either side of the stage were 2 monitor speakers on tripods that were being used strictly as vocal mains. These 2 were identical to the ones I own and every bit of the vocals was being run through them. Anyway, that is just a story about how much is just for show. I personally have an old Peavey Musician that I still use on occasion that I bought back in 1974 used that gave me great tones, the speaker cabinet was a beast to move. (I think it weighted more then I did at the time.) Friends of mine borrowed that amp for a while and they used it for all kinds of different roles. They even used it as the main power amp for their PA and it traveled all across the US without me. The original Peaveys were tough but I guess they made them too good because most of the ones they made are still in service and people aren't needing new ones as much so Peavey moved the bulk of their operations to China to save money. I loved the demo you did with that amp, the sounds were great and it is something that they would use the smaller amps microphoned for their concert. (That seems to be the trend today and the bulk of the volume comes from the mains.)
I had one many years ago. It got left at a friend's house and I never saw it again. The stupid things we do when young...
I remember reading a Vintage Guitar magazine article many years ago about someone telling the story of a Kiss concert with a wall of Marshall stacks on stage, and backstage they had a little Fender Champ with a mic. Ha Ha.
The main reason old peaveys sound good was because of the speakers they used! They even had one called the black widow, that people used to pull out and use with more expensive amp brands
They still make Black Widows, and they are pretty decent! I still have several 18’s, 15’s, and a few 12’s in various cabinets, and they always do a good job whenever I need them. A few years ago, I was doing a gig with Black Widow subs, and Peavey RX 22’s for highs, and this guy was raving about how good they sounded. When I told him what they were, he said “Oh, that stuff is junk!” Uh…….ok! Didn’t you just say…… never mind!😊
And there the prices on these goes through the roof!
Classic rock tone.
Thanks!
I have the same amp. Please do a speaker shootout, both clean and dirty sounds.
Peavey is how young poor kids rocked for a long time. Even now, these amps can be picked up used for peanuts compared to more popular brand names. What is never discussed is how many gems the Peavey line produced that aren't 5150 or 6505 amps. Peavey was everywhere for a good reason. They sounded awesome, all the big stars didn't stick with them because the brand never seemed to ever be cool in the same way that Fender or Marshall was cool. At least until the 5150 was released. Still, unlike those old Fender or Marshalls, most of the old Peavey amps still work without much attention. They were built like tanks. Mostly because they were treated like tanks too. When all the other old amps die from age, Peavey amps will still be blasting away. BTW, they actually sound pretty good too. Most of them anyways.
Peavey Decade lets go
Yeah, I can hear a slight Old-School early Marshall tone there but it's no where near a JCM800 or any of the 1970's Marshalls with a Pre-amp/Gain control. The VT series Classic and Deuce weren't to bad sounding and had some ok "balls/crunch" but they all still have that "shrill" sound that we used to call the "Squevy Squeal". The other problem with these old amps is the fact that they are so old and being as they where the object of less serious players they may not have been taken care of and just be a pile of junk.
Yeap have a peavey teal stripe special 112 160 watts .. I think the speaker is modeled after ev12ml !
That sounds great. Have you heard of the Backstage Plus? I am buying one tomorrow
sounds great! the sound is very 60 early 70s like neil young or like buffalo springfield, tom petty, fleetwood mac ! warm with bite and not much bottom end
Interesting, Josh homme from Queens of the Stone age also uses cheap peavey decade.
amazing! johan do you think that the speaker is a sort of eminence made?
Definitely some very nice tones outta that little amp. It's Marshall'ish but I wouldn't say sounds exactly like a JMP (I have a 1977 50 watt JMP 4-hole). Did a quick availability check of these on Reverb -- one available that was made into a head and another chassis that's not working. Anyway,...cool demo.
Croc ‘n’ roll!!
Mississippi Marshall is what we call em
Had two between 77 and 93. Both sounded like sh.t. Glad somebody made them sound good. Best Regards!
Hi Johan, great video. long time no see. How are you? As to the amp, needless to say that thanks to your video their price doubled on Reverb and Ebay. Cheers. 😅
when the volume turned down i was thinking i lost my hearing or something lmfao
Funkin’ greatest amplifiers made… don’t stop hating on peaveys people. I need them all. They say there will only be three things that will survive the end of the world and that’s cockroaches Keith Richards and Peavey amplifiers. You need to do a video on the butcher and the standard 260
The butcher and vtm are crazy amps. Kim Thayil of Soundgarden used a butcher in the early days before he got the dual rectifier.
This was my first amp, I think mine might’ve been the 80W but it was a tonne of fun! Cool to see these old Peavey’s getting some love now
Another great Peavey! When are you going to do the Deuce?!
First chance I get! I’d love to demo a Deuce and a Mace
In the future Johan…. When you say the price of a “cheap” amp you happen to be reviewing…
Will you please always just say-….
“I think you can get them for like a dollar $1”…🤔 still....?
So that when they all are listed on the market sites, even if they are marked up by 90% ...
I can still afford one....
😂😂😂👍🏻
Ps- @ 2:26 a bit of 'since ive been loving you' sounding soloish from zep movie song remains the same
Thanks Jamie! 😉 And yeah I love that Zep II solo
Im a tube guy through and through but that sounds great!