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[Dante]

I'm not proud of this, but i had to do what I had to do. Both my main preamp and my backup are fubar right now, so I had to get something to hold me over until I get them in shape. I found a Behringer V-amp Pro on Craigslist for the price of a stompbox ($60), so I pulled the trigger. All I need are a few basic tones, I can get by with a minimal number of patches.

By itself, the Behringer is not fantastic. The MicroTube 200 helps a great deal. Together, I managed to get 5 good tones to get me through any gig - I may have to adjust the overall volume on a guitar-by-guitar basis, but that's it. I have:

10 = Clean/dry tone
11 = Clean/wet tone
12 = Classic Rock (brown) tone
13 = Modern Rock tone
14 = Dirty solo with some delay
Heel switch in my Wah pedal is a clean boost = clean solos with patches 10 or 11

Can't wait to get my shit fixed

[rnolan]

Hey Dante, well better than nothing and very cheap.  I thought your MP-2 was working again ??

[Systematic Chaos]

Blast from the past!!! I used to have that thingy many moons ago when my MP-1 was in maintenance.
If paired with a good poweramp the amp models are not too bad. I had the best results with the "Savage Beast" for mid- and hi-gain stuff and either the "Classic Clean" or "California Clean" for cleans and sounds with a slight break-up.
The trick is to pair the V-Amp Pro with an external FX unit (e.g. your GX-700) and with a tad bit of tweaking you're more than good to go as a redundancy 'til your real Pre's are back up and running.
You can even set it up in 4-c-m with the GX-700...just make sure you only use the Amp Sim (no SpeakerSim - set to BYPASS!!) and the external FX, You'll be surprised

[van Sinn]

Well, at least it's blue..
Never played one, but heard sounds from it; not too bad.
I bet someone must have created some tone-mods for it..

EDIT: Nope, didn't find any mods, not even on the analog pre/post-end.

[Dante]

Well, at least it's blue..

I thought the same thing - lol!

Y'know, after writing this post, I did hook it up to my GX-700 via the 4CM. It sounds pretty good, at least, better than I expected. What's more, now that I'm hooked into my GX-700, I can toggle the solo boost (EQ), chorus, delay, and any other effect in the GX-700 with my quad switch. I have five patches instead of ten, but it'll work. The cleans are not as clean as I expected, but I found a couple good gain combinations by playing with the speaker sims.

I also hit up a guy selling a Peavey TubeFEX Pro preamp on Craigslist and may be trading a guitar for that. He's getting the better end of that deal for sure, but I always regretted getting rid of my Peavey preamp, that thing rivals the MP2.

Richard; I thought it was working too, but no, it's a shell of itself. The tones are there, but sound like they're being choked by an overzealous noise gate. Something is definitely not right with that unit. BTW: I did check the ribbon cable & it's fine.

[Iperfungus]

Hey Dante, what happened to your preamps? 

BTW, if you're looking for a damn' good "general purpose plug-and-play" complete backup, look for a Zoom 9150.
It's cheap and better than any cheap digital modeling unit.
To my ears, the 9150 is a better stand alone unit than GX-700 or Voodu Valve units....they are similar (preamp + digital fx), but the 9150's tone is a winner.

Pair it with a good power amp and a good stereo cab and you're done.
Use a good overdrive in its mono loop in the preamp section (turn Turbo OFF!!!) and you'll be blown away.

[Dante]

Hey Dante, what happened to your preamps? 

BTW, if you're looking for a damn' good "general purpose plug-and-play" complete backup, look for a Zoom 9150.
It's cheap and better than any cheap digital modeling unit.
To my ears, the 9150 is a better stand alone unit than GX-700 or Voodu Valve units....they are similar (preamp + digital fx), but the 9150's tone is a winner.

Pair it with a good power amp and a good stereo cab and you're done.
Use a good overdrive in its mono loop in the preamp section (turn Turbo OFF!!!) and you'll be blown away.

Thanks for the advice, I'll keep my eyes open. As for what happened to my preamps, my Classic got really noisy, then my MP2 died on arrival to a gig. I played with the entire 4 hour set of cover tunes with one tone at a time....awesome. The gains were not fantastic, but I had a tube screamer pedal for solo boosts and I had a crybaby. That was it. It was rough.

I'm waiting on some parts for both units, then I'll get them patched up by a friend. Until then, I have the V-amp thingy and possibly a Peavey tube pre. I'll know more about that in about an hour.

[Iperfungus]

The Peavey TubeFEX seems to be an interesting unit as well...but not so easy to be found...
Better than Marshall JMP1 for sure...

Did you attempt already to use a GX700 as preamp, by the way?
I assume it's better a lot than the V-AMP Pro, even if the Zoom 9150 has even better tones...

[Dante]

I tried the GX-700 by itself and was not impressed, the V-Amp is much better, although limiting. I have a solid "classic rock" tone, "modern rock" an ultra clean/dry and clean/wet patch and one dedicated solo patch just in case - that's 5 patches per bank in the V-Amp. My Quad switch allows me to toggle FX in the GX-700 for a solo boost, chorus, delay, or ?

I can get through gigs with this setup until my ADAs are fixed.

Oh, and I did trade for the Peavey, it's in another rack waiting to be explored. Got the original footswitch with it, a cache card that slides into the front like an old computer card, and it's had a battery mod done. Just popping through patches, that thing sounds great, but I need to write a bank of patches in the GX-700 before I can use the two together. Should be pretty adequate, once I unravel the puzzle.

[rabidgerry]

Hands down the TubeFEX beats all that stuff for a "complete" unit.

If It was good enough for Tony Iommi it's good enough for you.................and me

I just scored one today    I have been on the look out for a while now.  What I have read is it's a Peavey Rockmaster with built in FX.  And given I am a dual Peavey Rockmaster owner, this thing could suit me very well, and be particularly handy when I have to travel on a plane to play abroad.

Apparently the Batter-less mod is the way to go as the old batteries are known to leak and damage internals.  The battery-less mod allows the battery to be removed and a new ram chip inserted capable of holding setting even when powered down.  Pretty cool!

[Iperfungus]

Where did you find those TubeFEX units, guys?

I've seen one on UK Ebay for 250 euros...is it a good price?

[Dante]

They are rare, even rarer, one in good shape. I looked everywhere for months with no results.

The fact that I got a clean one WITH the foot controller was pretty much the only reason I traded a guitar for it. That guy got the better end of the deal, but as Gerry said, this is a great all-in-one unit. If I had a deeper 2u rack, I'd just pair it with an amp and call it good. However, all my 2u racks are shallow and the TubeFEX is deep  So, it's in a 4u rack...

Dante

[rabidgerry]

Where did you find those TubeFEX units, guys?

I've seen one on UK Ebay for 250 euros...is it a good price?

Well I have waited over a year for mine, they are rare.  250Euros is a good price, where did you see this?  I managed to bargain my guy down to 205euros.  He had it for sale at £235 (205euro) but had the "best offer" option available on ebay.  I chanced my arm and thre out £190 expecting the guy to hit back with £200 or £210, but he accepted the £190.  Unit has been serviced as recent as June and seems in great shape.  He bought it on sunset boulevard apparently, and when coming back to UK he had Peavey change the voltage on it.  Seems in good shape to me.

rap yer eyeballs around this and tell me what you think of the condition of the unit in the photos

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-PEAVEY-TUBEFEX-guitar-rack-preamp-/142486547964?nma=true&si=DzGC7TcsBWPVof3WsJL4foUCuG8%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

[Iperfungus]

Where did you find those TubeFEX units, guys?

I've seen one on UK Ebay for 250 euros...is it a good price?

250Euros is a good price, where did you see this? 

Here! 

£235 = 254 euro...



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Rare-PEAVEY-TUBEFEX-guitar-rack-preamp-/142486547964?nma=true&si=DzGC7TcsBWPVof3WsJL4foUCuG8%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

So now I know WHO "stole" it...   
Very good score, mate! 
Very hard to find one...

It looks in very good shape...just the display back light is reported to be not working (minor issue).

I do not remember: are you from UK?

[rabidgerry]

 

I didn't realize you were watching it, and I didn't even read this thread until I bought it yesterday morning.  I can't believe he took my offer of £190, that's £45 less than he was asking.

Yes I technically I live in Northern Ireland which is part of the UK.  I identify as Irish and hold an Irish passport however.