Your Take on the Peavey Vypyr Amps

Wanting to hear from those who have played on these, what is your opinion/impression, what did you plug in when you played on it. Strengths, weaknesses?

I'm looking for something to plug in both my uBass and my Blackbird Clara.

I tried a kala ka-tem on one of the smaller non-tube ones, and I had trouble getting a clean clean channel.
It could be that I was unfamiliar with the controls, but everything I tried sounded a bit overdrive/distortion.
There were tons and tons of effects, but I was looking for a more acoustic sound and passed.
It would probably be fine if you were looking for more effects type sounds.

I've not played ukulele through an amp, but for guitar I have a Fender Mustang III v2. It does admirably on Fender models and on Vox, but you definitely want to ditch most of the factory presets. The guy that does the Into The Blues YouTube channel has great presets for blues guitar. Minor tweaking of gain to get fully clean Deluxe Reverb sounds. There is a pre-amp model, which should be pretty much like straight to the board, but I can't vouch for it.

I never liked the way my ukes sounded in any amp including some high end Fender so I tried out the Fishman SA-220 PA system and loved the clean natural sound....it's a whole differs price point at almost $1,000 but it was worth it to me.

That makes sense. I have seen recommendations for Fishman from keyboardists, acoustic guitarists, and the Chapman Stick crowd.

DO NOT use a guitar speaker for a bass. it will kill the speaker over time. bass amps are designed to get a clean sound in the bass register. ukes play in the upper register. your best bet is to look at keyboard or bass amps known to function as keyboard amps...or look into a PA speaker.

I should have read closer. I didn't see about the uBass. I've never heard of them -- they play in the bass guitar range? This is a bit off-topic, but what's the string tension like? One of my reasons for playing uke is that it doesn't aggravate my hand problems the way that steel stringed guitars do.

Tuirgin said:

I should have read closer. I didn't see about the uBass. I've never heard of them -- they play in the bass guitar range? This is a bit off-topic, but what's the string tension like? One of my reasons for playing uke is that it doesn't aggravate my hand problems the way that steel stringed guitars do.

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One good thing about ubass for folks with hand problems is the unbelievably light touch necessary for a good, clean, bass sound. Many folks have problems with them because they are just too aggressive with them.

If I had a Clara, I'd want to plug it into a great amp, something like the Roland or Fishman's. I got a Peavy 12" bass amp on craigslist for $65. No featherweight, but manageable and will do everything I will ever need it to do with my bass uke.

Ukejenny said:

Wanting to hear from those who have played on these, what is your opinion/impression, what did you plug in when you played on it. Strengths, weaknesses?
I'm looking for something to plug in both my uBass and my Blackbird Clara.

Click to expand...

I owned the smallest Peavey Vypyr amp for a little while. I was drawn to it because of the claim of being able to do everything - Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and bass - all with one small amp.

The smallest Vypre was a failure for my application.

Strengths: Heavily processed sounds for electric instruments.

Weaknesses:
1. Poor bass reproduction. Despite the claim of being designed to handle low frequencies the actual bass amp tone was very farty and distorted at any audible volume level. This was with a standard bass guitar. The U-Bass seems to present a more URB tone - bottom heavy with less upper harmonics - than a standard bass guitar, so I would not expect the Vypyr to sound very good.
2. Poor acoustic guitar reproduction. I could not find an acoustic guitar setting that sounded like my acoustic guitar. Over-processed, and I did not care for the tone. Call me narrow minded, but I want my plugged in sound to be just like the acoustic sound.
3. Usability. My Vypyr always started on the same heavily processed electric guitar setting. Then I had to navigate to something that sounded better. This may be OK if you like over-processed sounds, but it was not a good fit for me. I also found it difficult to get a good electric guitar sound.

I had previously owned a Fender Mustang 1, a small amp that I enjoyed every time I used it (however infrequent). Sadly I sold the Mustang 1 too soon after getting the Vypyr. I did not try to re-program the Vypyr - I was too frustrated with not being able to find the sounds I wanted. Then I sold the Vypyr. Cheap.

My advice is that you try the Vypyr before you buy. Guitar Center used to stock them. Use an electric bass and an acoustic guitar (or ukulele) in your tests. Turn the amp off, then turn it back on and see if it comes back to the previous control settings.

I have pretty good luck finding sounds I like from a Roland Cube 100 bass amp, both with bass and with acoustic instruments (guitar, ukulele, violin). It has a few effects built in and a DI, making it very handy for a stage monitor when you have a PA. I also use the smaller micro-Cube (battery powered) which sounds pretty good with a U-Bass considering it's size. I think both are a bit over-priced, but they work well for me.

Good luck, and please let us know what you decide after trying a few amps.

I guess I should offer what I currently have.
I use an ampeg ba108 for playing bass, its a bit on the quiet side but would work with all acoustic instruments.
I have a kustom pa50 I use for messing with a clip on pickup.

I run my casio px150 digital piano into the pa50, and plug the ba108 into the subwoofer section.
The pa50 is the weak link in that it gets a bit harsh sounding when I start to push the volume up with the DP.

For a short while I had a roland keyboard amp, the stereo one, I think KC110. The bass on that was shockingly poor so I returned it.

Carvin has an amp, the MB12 which is a 3 way setup. The woofer is down firing so it likes to sit on the floor:

http://www.carvinaudio.com/products/mb12

We went to Guitar Center and looked at all three models. I liked the controls on the2, but the 3 sounded better and was on sale, so we went ahead and got it. It has a ton of special effects that I will rarely use, but there are some nice clean acoustic and bass modes that allow me to get a very nice sound. I will be using this during our ukulele meetings and switching back and fourth between bass and uke quite a bit, so I think this will work for me. Thank for all the input! The Fishman SA220 sure looks nice, but since I'm not a performer, I don't want to spend that kind of money - at least not yet.