I picked up this VIP2 for almost nothing at a pawn shop. As far as I can tell, nothing wrong with it except for one knob replaced.
Verdict? Decent sounds... but not all that fun to use. The way it models seems to be half digital, half analog, relying on the TransTube circuit for all purpose drive/amplification, and a dsp for eq modeling. This part really isn't that bad. If anything, it proves how good the TransTube fundamentally is. If Peavey wanted to, they could probably do all analog modeling a la Sansamp and probably come up with a really good product.
The effects seem to generally be grouped in two ways: before the amp and after the amp. It's an interesting, if somewhat modest, collection of effects. Despite my interest pedals in general, I'm not much of a big effect user outside reverb and maybe tremolo.
Which brings us to weird thing #1: There is only one kind of reverb, and it's got only one control. I'm guessing it's supposed to function like a normal spring amp reverb. It functions fine for me, but I would have expected an amp with a slew of effects to offer a bit more in the way of reverb. Similarly, delay has two semi dedicated knobs separate from the effect controls.
Weird thing #2: It seems to have a non tweakable noise gate that's always on. No choice in the matter whether you like it or not, noise gate is always there. It functions ok, I guess, but I find it distracting sometimes.
Weird thing #3: It's got a million multi color LEDs on the front panel to indicate everything. It's quite a light show, especially when there's nothing plugged in, it gets kind of obnoxious. But for someone like me, who's color blind, multi color LEDs tend to look more like multi dimming LEDs.
It's got multi preset buttons, but some are dedicated to acoustic guitar use and bass use. Which are pretty useless to me. The graphical computer interface seems to work OK, but for my needs, doesn't do anything that can't be done on the front panel. Overall use of the amp can be fiddly due to the encoders being somewhat sluggish (which seems to be a thing on many encoder equipped amps), and having multiple functions. Being color blind doesn't help. Are the amp models good? I dunno, they just have to sound good. And most of them do. This amp is theoretically very flexible. But it has a strange combination of too many options, and not enough, that make it feel really gimmicky to me. There are some reports that trying to do a firmware update bricked some amps. It's not clear that the update would offer all that much, anyhow.
These weren't expensive amps brand new. They do seem ambitious. But ultimately not really my cup of tea. I don't regret buying it, as it was so cheap, but I may end up gifting it to an interested youngster.
Verdict? Decent sounds... but not all that fun to use. The way it models seems to be half digital, half analog, relying on the TransTube circuit for all purpose drive/amplification, and a dsp for eq modeling. This part really isn't that bad. If anything, it proves how good the TransTube fundamentally is. If Peavey wanted to, they could probably do all analog modeling a la Sansamp and probably come up with a really good product.
The effects seem to generally be grouped in two ways: before the amp and after the amp. It's an interesting, if somewhat modest, collection of effects. Despite my interest pedals in general, I'm not much of a big effect user outside reverb and maybe tremolo.
Which brings us to weird thing #1: There is only one kind of reverb, and it's got only one control. I'm guessing it's supposed to function like a normal spring amp reverb. It functions fine for me, but I would have expected an amp with a slew of effects to offer a bit more in the way of reverb. Similarly, delay has two semi dedicated knobs separate from the effect controls.
Weird thing #2: It seems to have a non tweakable noise gate that's always on. No choice in the matter whether you like it or not, noise gate is always there. It functions ok, I guess, but I find it distracting sometimes.
Weird thing #3: It's got a million multi color LEDs on the front panel to indicate everything. It's quite a light show, especially when there's nothing plugged in, it gets kind of obnoxious. But for someone like me, who's color blind, multi color LEDs tend to look more like multi dimming LEDs.
It's got multi preset buttons, but some are dedicated to acoustic guitar use and bass use. Which are pretty useless to me. The graphical computer interface seems to work OK, but for my needs, doesn't do anything that can't be done on the front panel. Overall use of the amp can be fiddly due to the encoders being somewhat sluggish (which seems to be a thing on many encoder equipped amps), and having multiple functions. Being color blind doesn't help. Are the amp models good? I dunno, they just have to sound good. And most of them do. This amp is theoretically very flexible. But it has a strange combination of too many options, and not enough, that make it feel really gimmicky to me. There are some reports that trying to do a firmware update bricked some amps. It's not clear that the update would offer all that much, anyhow.
These weren't expensive amps brand new. They do seem ambitious. But ultimately not really my cup of tea. I don't regret buying it, as it was so cheap, but I may end up gifting it to an interested youngster.