To anyone reading this in 2022: This amp is fucking awesome, go get one! I bought it for 50 bucks to replace my shitty Line 6 Spider and it comes with SO many different tones, effects, and amp emulations. Also the tube sound rocks.
I ended up buying this used VT20+ over a new Katana and a new Fender Champion after playing all 3 at the store. The Katana has a grainy distortion that everything seemed to be constructed with, and no i didn't go into the software settings, not interested in going there, couldn't get rid of that subtle metalzonish fizz. The Champion was alot warmer and smoother, but when the notes decayed and reverb decayed i could hear some weird electronic noises and a builtin noisegate effect was too obvious in the presets and could not be adjusted. After trying that old used dusty VT20+ i was kind of laughing at at first, then holyshit! Yes i understand the bad comments here. The highgain fizz and noise. The presets are awefull and everything seems terrible. But it has a wide spectrum of settings. If one takes time to tweak with it, you'll find what you're looking for. I also own a Line 6 SpiderIV 30 with a Celestion speaker, but it sounds like shit and still an icepick in the ear. This Vox20+ is way better and even sounding louder. I actually liked it so much that i actually wanted a louder version to gig with. Since it was a discontinued limited edition i posted "Looking for" in used gear pages and got me the cadillac of that Vox serie. The Valvetronix Pro VTX150 It has the very same interface panel as the VT20+ and 150WattsRMS , an effect loop and even an external speaker output. My full tube Peavey Valveking50 MKII is actually accumulating dust so much i prefer that Vox modeler hybrid over it.. You get alot of shitty sounds, but good ones also if you take the time to tweak it, it quite unlimited as setting goes. That's why the 8 presets are usefull, and even more with the VS5 footswitch. Otherwise starting fresh everytime you'll get overwhelmed trying to find your sound. They are good modelers and there are reasons i chose them before Line6s,Katanas and Champions.
Thanks for your input. That’s what I like about this channel... bonus review by viewers to answer user concerns. It is hard to put tone comparison into words, but your descriptions of all three amps are superb. Y’know, I wonder if there is a reason an amp company would create “shitty” presets. So many modeling amps are like this.... maybe they leave it to engineers to create them. In order to find something useful, you end up with tedious and endless editing and altering. I’m certain some users who have edited presets on early and late multi effects pedals, rack mounts,even synths- only to find out that there are no “non-shite” tones to get to. They’d never get past the loads of awful to get to the good.
..... I use one of these for practice, keep it on clean, hooked up to my pedalboard and it sounds great.......bonus you can hook up to wireless devices and jam along to whatever you want without loss of tone..............as a said as long as you skip the naff sounding on board effects it's a great amp for a good base tone to build on with decent pedals.......
I haven't actually tried running pedals into it - does it take drives well? I don't mind the on-board effects for practice, but I agree that they may not hold up so well in a live gig (mind you, you'd probably want more than a 20W hybrid solid-state amp for a gig unless it was in a broom cupboard and a solo gig! 😂). It does sound great on the clean amps!
Fender hh custom Tele Demeter Compulator compressor Cry Baby Boss bd2 Xvive Dynarock MXR Chorus Mooer Reecho delay Ditto looper Tuner I used the "Cali Clean" as a starting point, added a bit of reverb to some saved channels, some term or phaser to others, mostly I just use a bit of reverb effect wise from the amp. (All values in o'clock terms) Gain 9 Volume 12 Treble 1 Mid 4 Bass 11 MV 3 PL 10 I have all saved channels and pedals more or less unity gain apart from the compressor pedal which gives me a bit of boost when kicked on, no hiss issues and crystal clear tone for me with this set up.
...I meant to add earlier I lined the inside of the cab with that acoustic foam gear which seemed to give me a more "focused" sound from the amp, it's a mod that's worth a try as there's nothing to it, few screws off with the back, foam and spray glue............I also swapped out the original tube but off the top of my head I can't remember what's in it now, only it's a lot smoother than the stock.........
I just discovered the beauty that is Vox. If this thing even sounds remotely like a vox guitar amp then I’m happy. I picked it up sound unheard today 😂
@@JonBakerMusic it is. I didn’t mind it, but I returned it. It was complicated, but I had a budget for the amp when I bought a certain guitar, but the guitar wasn’t for me, and I had to return it for the guitar I wanted. Funny, now I have the foot switch I ordered for the Vox, but not the amp! I might order one of their more powerful ones to stand alongside my Mesa and blend into it at some point. I like Vox, and I liked their take on the modeling amp. Possibly more than the Boss Katana. I wanted something that could do a few things including a Marshall, and the VT did it well enough. I also think it’s super rad that they made it a hybrid tube amp. I’ll be getting one of the bigger ones-at least a 12” speaker!
Nice video. I had one of these amps a while back and personally didnt rate it. I swapped it for a marshall code which i also hated. Ive finally settled on a blackstar id tvp as a practice amp. The blackstars and boss katana are in a league of their own for digital combos.
Jon Baker for the price its not bad at all. I feel the speaker is the weakpoint of the vox. If your try a blackstar the tvp ones are much better than the core models.
I've just picked one up for £20, haven't got it yet (arriving Tuesday), I didn't realise it was a modelling amp and honestly I'm not going to use the inbuilt effects so I just hope that it has a good clean tone and works well with my pedals
Should be fine if you switch it to manual mode (you can get a hold of the instructions on the web) and select on of the clean models on the green channel (will make sense when you get it!). It's got some lovely clean tones.
Hey Jon ;) I had a VT (or AD)15 Vox that I used for ages before I got my first tube amp :) Sounded ok clean, but I'm not a big fan of the distortion... Great vid!
Rock yes, with plenty of crunch and higher gain models. But for metal not really, no... It will just about do metal (has Dual Rec and other high gain models) but the noise gate isn't fantastic so you might struggle to get the really tight metal chug (I guess you could stick a noise gate pedal in front and disable the internal noise gate which might work). If it's just for home practice it would be fine, but if you want something for playing in a band you might want to look elsewhere - maybe a Boss Katana (although they're probably best at rock more than thrash metal) or Blackstar ID or Silverline series. If you can afford it something like a Laney Ironheart and can or Line6 helix modeller and a powered speaker (like the Line6 powercab) would probably be a much better thrash metal setup.
Depends on your personal requirements... The Katana is a good amp, but they can be quite dark sounding, so if you want Fender glassy cleans or Vox AC chime I'd say no. But if you want a Marshall-type crunch then the Katana is very good! I'm still pretty happy with my Vox, but it wouldn't be loud enough to gig with a heavy drummer... The Katana 100 would.
Hmmmm I had one of these and I must say, I hated the thing. No matter how much you knocked the treble down and bass up it just screamed out top end noise on every effect setting which hurt my ears. It was sort of ok just clean. Anyway I sold it after a day and bought a Blackstar 30 TVP which is fuckin awesome.
I haven't had a chance to try the TVP series myself... There is definitely a bit of noise with the VT+ - not one of it's better qualities. It's much worse on the high gain amps, but I mostly noodle with a clean tone and reverb which it's great for. I am contemplating a new amp at some point this year so I'll probably try a TVP along with others then.
@@JonBakerMusic you will definitely be very happy with a TVP pal. In my opinion it is the best tube amp emulation I have ever heard on an amp. The effects are superb, the various amp models are superb. The only gripe about it is the lack of effects loop, however I think there sorted this with a firmware update which utilises the Mic in and out connections. You could argue that it doesn't need an effects loop coz its own effects are THAT good.
I’ve had this amp for years. I never could bond with it. It’s so artificial sounding. It’s soulless. It has tons of amp models and effects and presets, but they’re mostly terrible. None are very good to my ears. I guess it’s better than nothing, but a small budget tube amp is infinitely better. You can do an awful lot with the knobs on a simple tube amp and those on your guitar, and of course you can use pedals on a tube amp and this Vox VT20+ sounds horrible with pedals like most modeling amps. It’s just terrible in general. I wish it had an effects loop. I wish there was a way to bypass all the amp models and use it as just a powered PA or something. I was thinking about what I should do with it and looking at videos to see if I missed some killer tone I hadn’t figured out how to dial in, but all I ever do with it is cycle through sounds hoping to find something I really like and it never happens. I wonder if I could get somebody to buy this thing from me? I actually paid about the same for my little 15 watt tube amp from Monoprice that I did for this thing when I bought it new because I lucked out and got the tube amp on sale and then was able to use a 20% off promo code on top of that. It’s basically a Laney 12R with a spring reverb instead of a digital reverb and I think it uses a different Celestion speaker, but costs way lass than half the price of a Laney 12R. My advice is stay away from modeling amps, especially budget amps with no effects loop, no way to bypass the artificial amp models. You’ll learn more dialing in tones on a tube amp and using your volume and tone controls on your guitar, and you can add pedals later. There are a lot of cheap Chinese pedals that are surprisingly good, but you can do a whole lot without them too. It’s less overwhelming without a gazillion effects. The tones are natural and warm and real sounding. Yeah, I really hate my Vox VT20+.
Sorry to hear that... I've only gotten good tones from it personally (and yep, I've played several tube amps too so know how they sound and respond). That sounds like a great deal from monoprice though! I'd agree about the lack of an FX loop being a problem - Vox seems to have a thing about not adding in FX loops to a lot of its amps... Not sure why, because it's pretty common elsewhere 😀
A Beginner Guitarist's View I played with it more after I wrote that and did get it to sound better. It had been in my garage a couple of years unused and getting hot and cold. It needed to be broken in again. The presets are less than awesome, but in manual mode I was able to coax some sounds I like out of it. It’s definitely better than nothing but it’s pretty artificial/digital sounding especially with a lot of effects on it.
I find it's quite organic in manual mode - but the high gain stuff is rubbish... I agree that quite a few of the effects are full of digital artifacts, but I tend to run quite a simple setup of a bit if reverb, a drive pedal to boost the gain if needed, and either the tape echo or analog delay and that soynds alright. If I need anything more complex for recording I'll be doing it via more professional VST effects on a dry(ish) signal 😀. I think it's a fine amp for practicing or home use, or an occasional jam/open mic night, but yeah I wouldn't have it as a main amp if you're gigging regularly.
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To anyone reading this in 2022: This amp is fucking awesome, go get one!
I bought it for 50 bucks to replace my shitty Line 6 Spider and it comes with SO many different tones, effects, and amp emulations. Also the tube sound rocks.
I ended up buying this used VT20+ over a new Katana and a new Fender Champion after playing all 3 at the store. The Katana has a grainy distortion that everything seemed to be constructed with, and no i didn't go into the software settings, not interested in going there, couldn't get rid of that subtle metalzonish fizz. The Champion was alot warmer and smoother, but when the notes decayed and reverb decayed i could hear some weird electronic noises and a builtin noisegate effect was too obvious in the presets and could not be adjusted. After trying that old used dusty VT20+ i was kind of laughing at at first, then holyshit!
Yes i understand the bad comments here. The highgain fizz and noise. The presets are awefull and everything seems terrible.
But it has a wide spectrum of settings. If one takes time to tweak with it, you'll find what you're looking for.
I also own a
Line 6 SpiderIV 30 with a Celestion speaker, but it sounds like shit and still an icepick in the ear. This Vox20+ is way better and even sounding louder.
I actually liked it so much that i actually wanted a louder version to gig with. Since it was a discontinued limited edition i posted "Looking for" in used gear pages and got me the cadillac of that Vox serie.
The Valvetronix Pro VTX150
It has the very same interface panel as the VT20+ and 150WattsRMS , an effect loop and even an external speaker output. My full tube Peavey Valveking50 MKII is actually accumulating dust so much i prefer that Vox modeler hybrid over it..
You get alot of shitty sounds, but good ones also if you take the time to tweak it, it quite unlimited as setting goes. That's why the 8 presets are usefull, and even more with the VS5 footswitch. Otherwise starting fresh everytime you'll get overwhelmed trying to find your sound.
They are good modelers and there are reasons i chose them before Line6s,Katanas and Champions.
Thanks for your input. That’s what I like about this channel... bonus review by viewers to answer user concerns. It is hard to put tone comparison into words, but your descriptions of all three amps are superb.
Y’know, I wonder if there is a reason an amp company would create “shitty” presets. So many modeling amps are like this.... maybe they leave it to engineers to create them.
In order to find something useful, you end up with tedious and endless editing and altering. I’m certain some users who have edited presets on early and late multi effects pedals, rack mounts,even synths- only to find out that there are no “non-shite” tones to get to. They’d never get past the loads of awful to get to the good.
..... I use one of these for practice, keep it on clean, hooked up to my pedalboard and it sounds great.......bonus you can hook up to wireless devices and jam along to whatever you want without loss of tone..............as a said as long as you skip the naff sounding on board effects it's a great amp for a good base tone to build on with decent pedals.......
I haven't actually tried running pedals into it - does it take drives well? I don't mind the on-board effects for practice, but I agree that they may not hold up so well in a live gig (mind you, you'd probably want more than a 20W hybrid solid-state amp for a gig unless it was in a broom cupboard and a solo gig! 😂). It does sound great on the clean amps!
Fender hh custom Tele
Demeter Compulator compressor
Cry Baby
Boss bd2
Xvive Dynarock
MXR Chorus
Mooer Reecho delay
Ditto looper
Tuner
I used the "Cali Clean" as a starting point, added a bit of reverb to some saved channels, some term or phaser to others, mostly I just use a bit of reverb effect wise from the amp.
(All values in o'clock terms)
Gain 9
Volume 12
Treble 1
Mid 4
Bass 11
MV 3
PL 10
I have all saved channels and pedals more or less unity gain apart from the compressor pedal which gives me a bit of boost when kicked on, no hiss issues and crystal clear tone for me with this set up.
Nice rig! In that case I may need to start a pedalboard again 😀
...I meant to add earlier I lined the inside of the cab with that acoustic foam gear which seemed to give me a more "focused" sound from the amp, it's a mod that's worth a try as there's nothing to it, few screws off with the back, foam and spray glue............I also swapped out the original tube but off the top of my head I can't remember what's in it now, only it's a lot smoother than the stock.........
Just picked one up for £40. Not tried it yet. Lot of settings and presets.
will probably download instructions too.
Great video btw.😉
Thanks! £40 is good value for it!
good review, thanks buddy
I just discovered the beauty that is Vox. If this thing even sounds remotely like a vox guitar amp then I’m happy. I picked it up sound unheard today 😂
How are you getting on with it - I think it sounds plenty Vox-y (obviously not quite as good as a real AC15 or 30 but definitely Vox-y)?
@@JonBakerMusic it is. I didn’t mind it, but I returned it. It was complicated, but I had a budget for the amp when I bought a certain guitar, but the guitar wasn’t for me, and I had to return it for the guitar I wanted. Funny, now I have the foot switch I ordered for the Vox, but not the amp! I might order one of their more powerful ones to stand alongside my Mesa and blend into it at some point. I like Vox, and I liked their take on the modeling amp. Possibly more than the Boss Katana. I wanted something that could do a few things including a Marshall, and the VT did it well enough.
I also think it’s super rad that they made it a hybrid tube amp. I’ll be getting one of the bigger ones-at least a 12” speaker!
Nice video. I had one of these amps a while back and personally didnt rate it. I swapped it for a marshall code which i also hated. Ive finally settled on a blackstar id tvp as a practice amp. The blackstars and boss katana are in a league of their own for digital combos.
Jon Baker for the price its not bad at all. I feel the speaker is the weakpoint of the vox. If your try a blackstar the tvp ones are much better than the core models.
Can the valvetronix record via USB? I use mine Line6 to record that way, not sure can I do the same here?
I don't think the valvetronix models can output audio via USB, but I'm sure I read that the newer Cambridge model can.
I've just picked one up for £20, haven't got it yet (arriving Tuesday), I didn't realise it was a modelling amp and honestly I'm not going to use the inbuilt effects so I just hope that it has a good clean tone and works well with my pedals
Should be fine if you switch it to manual mode (you can get a hold of the instructions on the web) and select on of the clean models on the green channel (will make sense when you get it!). It's got some lovely clean tones.
Hey Jon ;) I had a VT (or AD)15 Vox that I used for ages before I got my first tube amp :) Sounded ok clean, but I'm not a big fan of the distortion... Great vid!
Do you recomend this amp for metal music like metallica megadeth and rock?
Rock yes, with plenty of crunch and higher gain models. But for metal not really, no... It will just about do metal (has Dual Rec and other high gain models) but the noise gate isn't fantastic so you might struggle to get the really tight metal chug (I guess you could stick a noise gate pedal in front and disable the internal noise gate which might work). If it's just for home practice it would be fine, but if you want something for playing in a band you might want to look elsewhere - maybe a Boss Katana (although they're probably best at rock more than thrash metal) or Blackstar ID or Silverline series. If you can afford it something like a Laney Ironheart and can or Line6 helix modeller and a powered speaker (like the Line6 powercab) would probably be a much better thrash metal setup.
@@JonBakerMusic thanks dude!
Woof woof fizz fizz. Run.
I don't think it's that bad... 😂
Seen one of these used for $94. Should i go for the katana instead?
Depends on your personal requirements... The Katana is a good amp, but they can be quite dark sounding, so if you want Fender glassy cleans or Vox AC chime I'd say no. But if you want a Marshall-type crunch then the Katana is very good! I'm still pretty happy with my Vox, but it wouldn't be loud enough to gig with a heavy drummer... The Katana 100 would.
@@JonBakerMusic thanks!
I have a Mustang III that is better IMO. I've consistently heard good things about Katana and liked the guitar store Katanas I've played.
Michael Natsariym I bought today for $70 used. It’s fantastic! Extremely versatile and great sound choices. Definitely recommend the Vox VT20+
Ethereum 🎸
Hmmmm I had one of these and I must say, I hated the thing. No matter how much you knocked the treble down and bass up it just screamed out top end noise on every effect setting which hurt my ears. It was sort of ok just clean.
Anyway I sold it after a day and bought a Blackstar 30 TVP which is fuckin awesome.
I haven't had a chance to try the TVP series myself... There is definitely a bit of noise with the VT+ - not one of it's better qualities. It's much worse on the high gain amps, but I mostly noodle with a clean tone and reverb which it's great for. I am contemplating a new amp at some point this year so I'll probably try a TVP along with others then.
@@JonBakerMusic you will definitely be very happy with a TVP pal. In my opinion it is the best tube amp emulation I have ever heard on an amp. The effects are superb, the various amp models are superb. The only gripe about it is the lack of effects loop, however I think there sorted this with a firmware update which utilises the Mic in and out connections. You could argue that it doesn't need an effects loop coz its own effects are THAT good.
I’ve had this amp for years. I never could bond with it. It’s so artificial sounding. It’s soulless. It has tons of amp models and effects and presets, but they’re mostly terrible. None are very good to my ears. I guess it’s better than nothing, but a small budget tube amp is infinitely better. You can do an awful lot with the knobs on a simple tube amp and those on your guitar, and of course you can use pedals on a tube amp and this Vox VT20+ sounds horrible with pedals like most modeling amps. It’s just terrible in general. I wish it had an effects loop. I wish there was a way to bypass all the amp models and use it as just a powered PA or something. I was thinking about what I should do with it and looking at videos to see if I missed some killer tone I hadn’t figured out how to dial in, but all I ever do with it is cycle through sounds hoping to find something I really like and it never happens. I wonder if I could get somebody to buy this thing from me? I actually paid about the same for my little 15 watt tube amp from Monoprice that I did for this thing when I bought it new because I lucked out and got the tube amp on sale and then was able to use a 20% off promo code on top of that. It’s basically a Laney 12R with a spring reverb instead of a digital reverb and I think it uses a different Celestion speaker, but costs way lass than half the price of a Laney 12R.
My advice is stay away from modeling amps, especially budget amps with no effects loop, no way to bypass the artificial amp models. You’ll learn more dialing in tones on a tube amp and using your volume and tone controls on your guitar, and you can add pedals later. There are a lot of cheap Chinese pedals that are surprisingly good, but you can do a whole lot without them too. It’s less overwhelming without a gazillion effects. The tones are natural and warm and real sounding. Yeah, I really hate my Vox VT20+.
Sorry to hear that... I've only gotten good tones from it personally (and yep, I've played several tube amps too so know how they sound and respond). That sounds like a great deal from monoprice though! I'd agree about the lack of an FX loop being a problem - Vox seems to have a thing about not adding in FX loops to a lot of its amps... Not sure why, because it's pretty common elsewhere 😀
A Beginner Guitarist's View I played with it more after I wrote that and did get it to sound better. It had been in my garage a couple of years unused and getting hot and cold. It needed to be broken in again. The presets are less than awesome, but in manual mode I was able to coax some sounds I like out of it. It’s definitely better than nothing but it’s pretty artificial/digital sounding especially with a lot of effects on it.
I find it's quite organic in manual mode - but the high gain stuff is rubbish... I agree that quite a few of the effects are full of digital artifacts, but I tend to run quite a simple setup of a bit if reverb, a drive pedal to boost the gain if needed, and either the tape echo or analog delay and that soynds alright. If I need anything more complex for recording I'll be doing it via more professional VST effects on a dry(ish) signal 😀. I think it's a fine amp for practicing or home use, or an occasional jam/open mic night, but yeah I wouldn't have it as a main amp if you're gigging regularly.
Shame you cant play.
Yeah well, as the guitar is my 5th instrument I think I'll cope.