Now, Peavey has unveiled a second version of the Vypyr line, the VIP series, as well as an optional pair of foot controllers, dubbed Sanpera I and II. VIP stands for Variable Instrument Performance, and it means this latest iteration of the Vypyr line of amps is designed and built to handle electric 6-string, acoustic, and bass guitars. And after plugging in your weapon of choice, you can simply select guitar, bass, or acoustic settings, and the Vypyr will reconfigure and optimize its performance for that instrument. The onboard modeling engine also includes amps that are tweaked specifically for acoustic guitar and bass.
An Amp for Every Season
The Vypyr VIP 2 reviewed here is a member of a three-amp family that includes the VIP 1, VIP 2, and VIP 3 (rated at 20, 40, and 100 watts, respectively). These amps are designed to accommodate stages and studios of every size. Both the VIP 2 and 3 have a 12" speaker while the VIP 1 sports an 8" driver. The cabinet for each model in the series has a ported, semi-closed back designed to extend the low-end range.
The controls on the back of the amp are basic and simple—just power input, on/off switch, and the Sanpera’s combined data and power MIDI connection. At power up, the LED window on the Sanpera greets you with “Plug in, tune up and rock out!” You’re also treated to a dazzling lightshow from the—no kidding—78 LEDs on the amp’s front control panel. That number of LEDs may seem a bit excessive, but on this amp they are essential for navigating to the effects, amp models, and other features, and selecting and modifying the amp’s sounds. Essentially there’s no menu system to navigate on the Vypyr. That’s a big plus for musicians who favor a simpler control layout.
Apart from the Peavey-related amp models, there are 24 electric guitar amp models in the VIP 2, including 6534, “twin,” “xxx,” “British,” and “butcher” models. The six acoustic amp and six bass amp collections each include a Trace Elliot model (from the Peavey family, of course).
A Trip to the Tone Library
I first explored the Vypyr using a Fender Stratocaster plugged directly into the amp. I pressed the electric guitar button, and spun the amplifier knob to classic (an emulation of the modern all-tube Peavey Classic mentioned earlier). Each electric guitar amp model on the Vypyr has three virtual channels, clean, crunch, and lead. These channels are accessed by pressing the amp selection knob and are indicated by a change in the LED color from green, to orange, to red—so far, so easy.
The Vypyr’s TransTube engine pretty easily belted out solid approximations of the Classic’s tone. There was sparkle to spare in clean mode and a very tube-like sense of pick dynamics, and the amp was very responsive to pickup changes. Its dynamic range is obviously not as pronounced as what you’d hear from a handwired, all-tube combo amp, but at $200, it’s impressive and fairly natural. Each of the Vypyr’s amp channels offers adjustment to the pre-gain, lows, mids, highs, and post-gain settings. And turning up the pre-gain on the Classic’s clean setting produces an articulate overdrive tone with plenty of spank and range for picking nuance. The Classic’s crunch channel can sound a bit harsh with bright single-coils, but dialing back the treble controls on my instrument took care of the harshest overtones and helped give the amp a gritty, sustain- and harmonic-rich distortion.
The original Peavey Classic was never intended to be a big crunchy rock ’n’ roll amp, but the Peavey 6505, which was inspired by Eddie Van Halen’s 5150 signature model, excels at these heavy tones and it’s the foundation for the 6505 model on the Vypyr 2. The 6505 model matched up well with my Gibson SG’s humbuckers and the sound was bubbly, blistering, and retained dynamic response when you rolled back the pre-gain. And like most of the other models on the Vypyr 2, the 6505 responds much like a tube amp when you roll back your instrument’s volume control.
The Teachings of Budda
Peavey aligned with boutique amp company Budda in 2008, and the insights they gained are apparent even in the Budda model included in the Vypyr. The Budda setting packs a big low-mid punch, making it excellent for in-your-face blues soloing, as well as intricate jazz noodling. This Budda model was my favorite amp model on the Vypyr, due in large part to the dynamic range and full-bodied tone. A lot of modeling software tends to struggle with those two very important characteristics, but the Vypyr 2 nails it here in a manner that belies the amp’s price.
Modeling software brings enormous versatility, and it can be a challenge to make an amp simple to operate. One of the most important breakthroughs with the Vypyr VIP series is the incredibly intuitive control layout. When I bought my first smartphone, an Apple iPhone 4, I was surprised to find no included user manual. With the Vypyr VIP 2, it feels like Peavey took a page from Steve Jobs’ book of minimalism and intuitive operation when they designed the front panel. Your instrument selection determines the amp model selection, which is tweaked with a few tone adjustments (they typically sound great all at noon), and you select your effects by spinning a few lighted rotary knobs. The tuner, effects editing, and basic mixing control are all available within a push and a spin of those same rotary knobs.
Ratings
Pros: Low price. Lightweight design. Easy-to-navigate models and effects. Made for electric, bass, and acoustic guitar.
Cons: Feedback can be a problem at high gain or volume (there’s no noise gate). Lacks the lows you’d expect from an amp marketed for bass.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street: $199
peavey.com
Effects Aplenty
In addition to the well-executed standard effects like phaser, flange, reverb, delay, octaver, tremolo, chorus, and envelope filter, there are also some off-the-wall effects. Synth mode turns your guitar into a cheesy-sounding lead synth, but it tracks the instrument’s pitch exceptionally well. You can also make your electric guitar sound like an acoustic, a 12-string, a 7-string, a sitar, or a bowed violin-like instrument. These models can all be combined with each of the amp models, as well as the previously mentioned effects.
Sanpera—Far Beyond Steppin’
With the accompanying Sanpera foot controller you can access a looper setting. What’s really cool about a looper effect with a multi-instrument modeling amp is that you can lay down a bass line with a bass amp model, and then perform guitar solos over that with a guitar amp model. The Sanpera’s II dual expression pedals are assignable, so you can use them for wah-wah and volume effects, but also for controlling parameters such as the speed of a tremolo effect. The numerous stomp switches let you toggle effects in your virtual effects chain like you would on a typical pedalboard.
The Verdict
If asked what I would expect to pay for something like the Vypyr VIP 2, my honest guess would be about 400 bucks. So I was pleasantly surprised to find the street price was half that. As a guitar amp alone, this device has a ton of value. It’s versatile, the models are convincing, the controls are intuitive, and the lightweight chassis makes it a good practice amp or small stage combo. The additional bass and acoustic inputs, as well as their accompanying amp models, make the VIP 2 even more versatile to anyone who likes to practice and write with more than just a 6-string electric. If you’re looking for a fun and simple modeling amp with easy controls and a wealth of effects at an insanely nice price, I’d strongly suggest taking Peavey’s new Vypyr VIP series for a spin.
Watch our video demo:
It has been 18 years since the Fuzz Factory appeared, yet the pedal continues to be wildly popular amongst experimentalists, noise-makers, and guitarists looking to add more—and more daring—flavors of fuzz to their music. But with the exception of the Theremin-like Fuzz Probe, the Fuzz Factory hasn’t really been updated with any new abilities for generating additional tones. And this explains why the new Fat Fuzz Factory is creating so much excitement.
The Fat Fuzz Factory builds upon the same core components and tone-generating capabilities of the standard Fuzz Factory—using new-old-stock (NOS) ’60s germanium transistors and a highly sensitive set of controls—but also includes a switch that greatly expands the low end and shifts the range of its famous oscillating feedback to much lower registers. This switch not only makes the Fat Fuzz Factory a beastly fuzz generator for guitar, but also helps it enhance the lower-register output of basses with Earth-shattering results.
Boss Hogg
Just like the original Fuzz Factory, the heart of its new portly brother is a pair of high-gain, NOS germanium transistors, which are attached to a hand-assembled and populated circuit board. It also uses true bypass switching and runs on either a 9V battery or a Boss-style power adapter, but because it only pulls 4 mA—which is astonishingly small—it will be a long time before you have to replace the battery. The pedal comes in two flavors—a handpainted version that’s completely assembled in the U.S. and a more affordable Vexter edition that’s partially built in Taiwan and sports a silk-screened motif.
The pedal uses five highly interactive controls for volume, gating, compression, drive, and a menacingly labeled stab knob, which can either change the pitch of the pedal’s oscillating squeal or the tone of the fuzz, depending on where the other controls are set. Because moving one control can have a drastic effect on how the others react, dialing them in can, at first, seem challenging. Thoughtfully though, the manual provides a few sample settings to get you started with high-gain compressed fuzz, Velcro-ripping tones, and cleaner Octavia-type effects. Above the drive and stab knobs lies a three-way switch for setting the low-end frequency range. When set to 1, the pedal is in standard Fuzz Factory mode. Moving it to positions 2 and 3 add more sub-harmonic intensity, and gradually darken and thicken the fuzz to degrees well beyond what the standard Fuzz Factory is capable of.
Tubby Tone
Even though the Fat Fuzz Factory was designed to add more low-end muscle to the classic Fuzz Factory sound, the fact that you can operate it as a standard Fuzz Factory is one of its best features. Putting the mode switch in position 1 yields the pedal’s brightest and sharpest tones, and its clear and uncluttered tonality make it the best setting for newcomers, as well as the best way to hear how the controls interact and affect the tone.
I found that with a Les Paul and a Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, Z.Vex’s pre-prescribed compressed fuzz setting—gate at 3 o’clock, comp at 9 o’clock, drive and stab maxed, and volume to taste—yields a bright and gated fuzz tone that’s a great place to begin crafting your own sounds.
Pushing up the comp control softens the highs and the attack, which also causes the gate control to squelch the sound harder, resulting in a cool, 8-bit video game-sounding fuzz. Dropping the comp and drive to their lowest settings and turning up the gate to around 2 o’clock applies a low-gain, upper-octave effect to each note. These are only a couple of examples that can be discovered fairly quickly. Deeper tweaking, however, can reveal all sorts of otherworldly tones—smooth fuzzes that drop notes down an octave after holding them for a few moments, motorcycle engine revving, space-age ray gun bursts, and much, much more.
Ratings
Pros: Enormously versatile. Can be run in standard Fuzz Factory mode. Minimal battery draw. Massive volume capability. Can produce warm Moog-like emulations with both guitar and bass.
Cons: Relatively steep learning curve. Finicky with pedal-chain placement. Switching to modes with more low end can introduce sudden oscillation.
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street: $329 (handpainted) or $199 (Vexter)
Moving the switch to position 2 adds considerable lows to the tone and makes the pedal darker sounding. There are still plenty of the Fuzz Factory’s characteristic sizzling highs in the mix, but you’ll hear a meaner, less razor-like edge than before. In this environment, sustained single notes from the Les Paul’s bridge pickup had nearly as much body as full chords, and heavily gated low notes played with the neck pickup shook the room with a fat, synth-like snarl. Lowering the gate control dropped the pitch range of the fuzz oscillation too, making it easy to dial up droning, gut-shaking whines that alternate pitch like a demonic Theremin.
With some settings though, it was pretty obvious that changing modes also had an effect on the range of various controls. Switching to position 2 caused some of my favorite non-oscillating tones from position 1 to instantly oscillate—requiring me to tweak the pedal’s gate and comp controls to get rid of the whine.
The pedal’s most corpulent tones come from the bottom-heavy position 3. This mode works particularly well when matched with a high-gain setting and single-note runs on higher strings, which receive a pronounced bump in presence. Adding more gating to higher-gain settings yields a grinding synth-like tone that dies with a gnarly sputter—almost as if someone directly hard-wired a dual octave-down pedal to a circuit-bent Casio keyboard. Because of the very dense and complex tones you get in this mode, it’s easy for chords to turn into a jumbled mess. It’s best for single notes that need a little extra kick, or bassists who need more depth and intensity in their lines.
The Verdict
The Fat Fuzz Factory offers a huge range of fuzz tones. The mode switch’s position 1 has all the endless fuzz variations of the standard Fuzz Factory. But the switch’s additional positions open the gates to two very different-sounding harmonic ranges that deliver everything from tubby stoner fuzz to total low-end Armageddon. It’s a touchy pedal that requires some patience and willingness to experiment, but with persistence it’ll reward you with a level of flexibility and tone that exceeds its formidable and very influential predecessor.
Over the years, Boss has released several octave effects. The newest addition—the MO-2 Multi-Overtone—uses the company’s multi-dimensional processing (MDP) to create not just your average octave pedal, but a pitch-shifting unit that can accentuate high, low, or midrange octaves with a unique harmonized charm.
Boss Basics
The MO-2 Multi-Overtone is housed in the same box as all of its illustrious predecessors. And, like just about every Boss pedal that’s come before it, this thing will likely withstand stage use and abuse for many years without complaint. A 9V battery fits under the footpad, but a standard barrel adapter connects at the crown of the unit. At the top of the sparkled, sky-blue box are four controls that harness and manipulate the output—balance, tone, detune, and mode.
Balance adjusts the wet/dry ratio of your effected output. A fully counterclockwise turn leaves your signal completely dry. Maxing the control saturates your output, with little perceptible dry signal. The tone control colors the effect with a greater bass or treble response, with a balanced, neutral flavor around noon.
The mode knob switches between three settings that deliver different levels of overtone. Rather than selecting specific intervals (such as thirds, fifths, or sevenths) like a harmonizer, the MO-2 targets broader frequencies. Mode 1 accentuates higher frequencies, mode 2 takes the middle road, and mode 3 enhances low end along the lines of a sub-octave pedal.
The detune knob essentially pitch-shifts part of your output, and you’ll notice slightly different performance characteristics, depending on the mode you’ve selected. In mode 1, an increased detune thickens up your entire guitar signal. In mode 2, detune brings out more of a Leslie-like warble, and increasing detune in mode 3 infuses a chorus-like effect—albeit one that’s a little on the darker side of the tonal spectrum. There’s no speed knob to control the detuned swirl, but the speed of the effect seems to increase the more you twist detune clockwise, with a somewhat chaotic feel coming in at higher settings.
Pick a Frequency
Setting up a ’68 Fender Bassman for an essentially clean output, I paired the MO-2 with a Les Paul and started exploring mode 1. Increasing the tone and maxing detune get me pretty close to Jonny Greenwood’s intro lead on Radiohead’s “My Iron Lung,” but with less Whammy-style glitching. And the chord tracking is sharp and accurate enough to deliver a pretty decent-sounding 12-string simulation when you dial back the detune knob. There’s a nice weight to open chords in these settings, too, although I found myself having to roll back the tone to tame some harsh trebles—a little below noon was the best setting for most chord work.
Ratings
Pros:
Multitude of cool rhythm and lead sounds. Tracks chords and leads equally well. Stereo output.
Cons:
No dedicated speed/rate control for the detune effect.
Tones:
Playability/Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
Street:
$129
Company
bossus.com
Mode 2 has a distinct organ-like quality that hums with harmonic gusto when all controls are set to noon. Adding a bit of reverb on top really rounded out the weight of full chords, but when I kept things dry the texture was actually quite effective for adding singing, organ-meets-cello overtones to neoclassical shredding. The single-coils of a Fender Telecaster added a nice sting to bombastic double-note pull-offs, coaxing tones that evoke frenzied Atomic Rooster riffage when you dial in a swirling detune setting. Turning up the Bassman to break-up levels increased this Deep Purple-style, organ-flavored output, although even in these seemingly meaty tone environs you have to roll off the tone when increasing balance to tame the biting high-end that the MO-2 generates.
The lowest octave tones are there for the taking in mode 3, which generates tones a full octave below the fretted note. Rolling off the tone and nixing the detune function makes rhythm chords enormous, not unlike the output you’d get from a chorused baritone guitar. Maxing the detune knob at these settings adds layers of chime to create a slithering, lush experience for chord structures built around open strings. Volume swells in this setup have a choir-like vocal quality and get dramatically more synth-like when you turn up the balance—a very cool effect. I also generated some very cool saturation for leads with all the settings at noon, and with a touch of amp gain the sound turned into a smooth, robotic croon. For heavier riffs, be sure to place your distortion box before the MO-2, otherwise you’ll lose some definition.
The Verdict
It’s a little difficult to categorize the Boss MO-2 Multi-Overtone pedal. Is it an octave pedal? A harmonizer? A modulator? In reality, it’s a bit of each, and the parameters are adjustable and flexible enough to accentuate and blend each of the effects or to enhance their individual voices, which makes the MO-2 a very dynamic pedal.
With a $129 street price, the MO-2 sits in the pricier end of Boss’ compact-pedal line, but it’s a lot cheaper than some of the comparable competition—and you get a lot of sounds that can be molded to rhythm or lead play. If you’re itching to blend some overtones and new textures into your rig and want to avoid some of the larger contraptions, this Boss is a little saddlebag of octave effects overflowing with harmonizing tricks.