NAD - and it's utilitarian....

thecolourbox

So I was out on building inspections yesterday, and driving around always gives me the opportunity to check out the usual places for local collection only stuff as I have a boot in which to hide it

I've not had an amp for about a year, instead using my modelling setup at home through monitors and failing repeatedly to get my spare laptop set up with vst plugins set up to do the same. I don't get to play electric in public so it's not really been a problem. I've considered getting an FRFR speaker just in case (may still get one as an extension) and have kept my eyes open for a cheap but decent normal amp, eg Laney Cub, Laney VC15, Superchamp XD, etc. But nothing quite worked out.

Saw on eBay there was a Peavey Studio Pro 112 (red stripe) listed in Nottingham, I've heard good things from ICBM and others about these previously, and considered them a decent option for a loud clean channel with some ridiculous sounds on the gain channel. A few messages exchanged, seller was hoping for £50 so I made the offer and picked it up yesterday.

Photos to follow, as it's a bit dirty at present. Needs a dust and a bit of buffing I think. It's a bit bigger than I had anticipated, but that's my fault for not checking the dimensions against my list of known dimensions of stuff. Not that heavy though.

Had a quick go last night before the better half came home. Sounds alright, prefer the Vintage clean to the Modern clean but not tried with a drive pedal yet which may change that. The drive channel was hilariously 80s sounding to me, but actually on the "Modern" setting with the mids cut and gain fully up it seemed to do a decent big muff impression which could be interesting with a bit of tweaking. This was as the very minimum volume though to be fair, sounded good though at that volume (kind of less than TV volume).

FX looop on board so I could bypass the preamp if i want. I'm not sure what the valvestate power knob is supposed to offer - I'd assumed it was an output attentuator of sorts but all it seemed to do was dull the tone at lower values so I just left it on full.

It looks hilariously brutalist, and is slightly too big for my spare room storage spot (ie it can't really be hidden), but I think it will be decent and should stop me wanting to spend big bucks on an amp. What could be interesting is if it's big enough to house my modelling preamp thing as well...

I might still get an Alto FRFR speaker at some point, to either use as an extension or whack my vocals through it, but for now it's all good, can justify £50. 

Image from the Internetweb

Jalapeno

Good swag !

ICBM

Great score for £50.

You've already discovered that the best setting on the T-Dynamics control is up full . I don't actually find it very useful - as you say, if you turn it down it just makes the sound progressively 'smaller' and duller as well as a bit quieter. It's actually a complex power amp negative feedback control.

I actually find the low-gain settings on the overdrive channel really good - Vintage mode, with the gain a little lower than you have there - but the Modern mode is certainly hilariously scooped and 1980s. High-Gain is meant to be more of a modern Soldano type of tone I think.

Now what you need is to find someone getting rid of a (preferably not working, it will keep the price down really low) Line 6 Flextone or similar with the Custom G12P-80 speaker - that's what I put in mine and it sounds fantastic. I wasn't expecting it to, but I happened to have a spare one and it did!

I love the slightly brutalist look - the moulded end pieces remind me of an Art Deco cinema or something.

What I really want now is a Revolution - that's the Bandit's even bigger brother, with three channels as well as the Bandit's presence control and resonance switch. And maybe a Line 6 Custom G12H-90 speaker, the bigger version of the G12P-80...

thecolourbox

Cheers IC, I will keep an eye open for a broken Flextone as well then. 

I may, at some point once I've established that it's a keeper, see if there are any visual changes I can make to it to make it a little less brutalist. Changing grill cloths looks interesting, but also see if there's any way for it to accomodate some other stuff like a DI box and a modelling preamp etc. 

But basically I just want to get back to playing it, I've got a couple of albums I want to learn through at present so should be all set now.

The photo isn't mine, just generic internet picture. I need to run through the drive settings a bit more, because basically I just put it on full gain and went from there with the eq as it was quite amusingly OTT. 

EricTheWeary

My experiences with those kind of Peavey's is to have some kind of amp in a box/ pre amp in front and just run the amp as vintage clean. Lower end digital and even other SS amps can be quite poor at handling this but the Peavey's work fine as make louder boxes. 
I've never owned one but having plugged into various Bandits,etc, over the years they've not been disappointing used that way. 
Certainly can't knock that for £50. 

ICBM

thecolourbox said: 

I may, at some point once I've established that it's a keeper, see if there are any visual changes I can make to it to make it a little less brutalist.

Taking the Peavey badge off is about the only easy one...

I have to say I really like the look of them as they are.

thecolourbox said:

The photo isn't mine, just generic internet picture. I need to run through the drive settings a bit more, because basically I just put it on full gain and went from there with the eq as it was quite amusingly OTT. 

It's interesting that nearly everyone seems to just turn the T-Dynamics up full then .

thecolourbox

EricTheWeary said:

My experiences with those kind of Peavey's is to have some kind of amp in a box/ pre amp in front and just run the amp as vintage clean. Lower end digital and even other SS amps can be quite poor at handling this but the Peavey's work fine as make louder boxes. 
I've never owned one but having plugged into various Bandits,etc, over the years they've not been disappointing used that way. 
Certainly can't knock that for £50. 

Hopefully this is the case. At present I'm trying to get to a point of a consistent set of sounds (usual clean, drive, fuzz, solo) which I should be able to mangle straight into the clean channel with a few pedals (Pure Sky, Gonkulator, Whammy), but I do have a Joyo American Sound thing which might help. Seems to have enough bass to handle my octave-down pedal, but might still get a cheap bass preamp to run in parallel at some point to oompf it out a bit more, which would just go DI.

I may have a few opportunities to play in public this year (fingers crossed) so will be great being able to do electric rather than having to dredge out the acoustic.

ICBM said:

Taking the Peavey badge off is about the only easy one...

Yes the Peavey logo will come off as soon as, not a visually appealing logo at all. I think that plus I fancy trying to do a cool grill cloth for it, the other half is quite good with arty techniques and stuff so I reckon something with a stencil image on the front would look at least a little bit more sympathetic. (not sure if sympathetic is the word, I sometimes get a bit confused using German ways to describe things, perhaps "agreeable" is what I mean). 

Jetsam1

Very nice. I still would like a Transtube back. Had a silver stripe Envoy in the late 90s. Yet another thing I wish I had kept. I think there is a little variation between the red/silver stripe versions other than just where they were made?

thecolourbox

I have no idea, I just remember ICBM lauding this particular model saying it had a fender inspired clean channel and the gain channel did Mesa/soldano type gain which isn't a million miles away from two of the three basic sounds I go for. And I usually agree with Sir ICBM's opinions of stuff that sounds good! 

Hopefully be able to give it a buff this evening to clean it and play through it done more with pedals

Jetsam1

Had a look on Reverb and jeez is it over priced!! Nearly €200 for Bandits!!  So a bargain has been had!

Someone somewhere is trying to "Vintage" these perhaps.

ICBM

Jetsam1 said:

Had a look on Reverb and jeez is it over priced!! Nearly €200 for Bandits!!  So a bargain has been had!

Someone somewhere is trying to "Vintage" these perhaps.

Well, they are 20 years old now...

They're also among the best-sounding modern amps I know of, and it's ridiculous that they're so undervalued compared to a lot of old crap that seems to be worth far more just because it has valves in and these don't.

That said I have no particular desire to see them go up in price, I'm not selling mine.

thecolourbox

Tried it with pedals tonight, a few different combinations in fact, and bizarrely couldn't get it to sound that good. I find the Lace Sensors in my Mustang have quite an unusual sound and mix of sounds that take some dialling in so that could be it.

But my modelling preamp (Digitech gsp1101) into the FX return....boom! Once I'd adjusted the output levels (as the front panel controls are seemingly completely disabled) it sounded great. 

I stupidly wondered if the modelling preamp might fit inside the amp cabinet but whilst it's plenty wide enough even though the internet told me otherwise, it's obviously not deep enough with the speaker in it so that was a bit dumb on my part

p90fool

thecolourbox said:

Tried it with pedals tonight, a few different combinations in fact, and bizarrely couldn't get it to sound that good. I find the Lace Sensors in my Mustang have quite an unusual sound and mix of sounds that take some dialling in so that could be it.

But my modelling preamp (Digitech gsp1101) into the FX return....boom! Once I'd adjusted the output levels (as the front panel controls are seemingly completely disabled) it sounded great. 

I stupidly wondered if the modelling preamp might fit inside the amp cabinet but whilst it's plenty wide enough even though the internet told me otherwise, it's obviously not deep enough with the speaker in it so that was a bit dumb on my part

Be careful with that anyway, I used to used a Zoom multi-FX tucked into the back of a Pro Junior and it used to randomly change patches, I assume due its proximity to the speaker magnet?
It certainly didn't do it any other time and I could provoke easily by putting it in there.