Ancient Secrets of the Peavey Cvlt

A celebration of Peavey’s cheap, rock-solid music equipment written for the sadly defunct Distortion LTD that appeared in issue 038. It was previously available here, but in case that link no longer works, here’s the full text of the original article:

That pointy logo has been burned into my brain since childhood: emblazoned on the floor monitors at every church I ever went to, on the headstock of my first guitar, on the mixer I liberated from my college radio station. Maybe it’s because I grew up just two hours away from their headquarters in Meridian, Mississippi, but Peavey gear has been an unwavering constant in my life — inexpensive, utilitarian, and everywhere.

When I started playing guitar in the early 2000s, Peavey wasn’t cool. My friends got Squier Strats and practice amps, but I scratched together all my Christmas and birthday cash to buy a Peavey Raptor in sunburst with a Rage 158. Maybe it was the company’s association with aging rockers like Eddie Van Halen, the brand’s overwhelming ubiquity, or maybe just plain old snobbery, but back then it wasn’t unusual to hear Peavey lumped in with budget brands like Behringer or Crate (both of which arguably warrant re-evaluation as well — but that’s another article). Peavey gear was just Peavey gear, you know? It worked fine, but wasn’t anything special; no one was going to drool over your tone. When it came time to buy my first tube amp I had my heart set on a Classic 50 — and got talked into a Hot Rod Deville instead.

But it’s 2018 and the world has changed: Gibson is bankrupt, we’ve nearly reached peak boutique pedal, and Peavey — well, Peavey is a cult. For a long time, Peavey meant ugly and loud, but over the last decade punk and metal musicians on the hunt for high wattage and bulletproof construction have propelled pawnshop mainstays like the Mark III amplifiers and T-series guitars to drool-worthy collector status. This growing, vocal fanbase has declared itself the Peavey Cvlt (yep, that’s cult with a v) and it makes sense: Peavey amps have truly earned their place alongside Sunn, Laney, and Sound City in the cult classic pantheon. If the Super Festival F-800b were a movie, it’d be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre — cheap, brutal, and wildly popular among a niche audience. The Cvlt perpetuates itself in online gear groups and grimy bars, its acolytes cranking out a steady stream of bootleg t-shirts, pedal versions of the F-800 and Rage 158 preamp circuits, and crushingly heavy music.

Even as the company faces layoffs, plant closures, and outsourced labor, vintage Peaveys are fetching surprisingly high prices in a market where the T-40 is cool instead of just heavy, and solid state means so much more than Line6. Today’s underground musicians are drawn to Peavey for the same reasons as their 70s forebears: price, reliability, and — perhaps most importantly — volume. Though they’re climbing in price, there’s an affordable, vintage Peavey amplifier perfectly tailored for just about any application. While the company has produced dozens of excellent amplifiers in its long history — and certainly a few duds — there are some true standouts that should not go overlooked.

Hartley Peavey and his engineers (particularly James Brown, later of Kustom and Amptweaker) designed some of the most profoundly loud amplifiers of all time, starting with the 200-watt VTA-400 and continuing the legendary Super Festival series with the first version of the Roadmaster and the 400-watt, solid-state F-800g/b — holy grails for any cvltist. Come for the headroom, stay for the unique, squishy overdrive circuits. A word of warning: these amps were built to fill stadiums without sound reinforcement, so crank with extreme caution!

While many players draw a hard distinction between tube and solid-state amplification, Hartley always worked with both. When the hard-touring Lynyrd Skynyrd found their Marshalls too finicky for the road, Peavey set them up with a full backline of 150-watt Maces, which coupled a crystal-clear SS preamp with a punishing 6x6L6GC power section. Along with the F-800, several of Peavey’s 70s fully SS models have carved out enduring legacies, and I’m not alone in my affinity for the Vulcan and Mark III/IV lines — particularly Peavey’s Mark III 400BH, which might be my all-time favorite bass amp. Each of the amp’s two channels feature different EQ controls, and both can run through another parametric EQ stage, with an “automix” input that runs both channels at once. The Mark series even offer patchbays, allowing for effects loops and bi-amping. Massive, growly tone awaits — put these on top of one of those oversized cabs with Black Widows and you’re set for life.

If you’re after 80s-style gain and tube saturation, look no further than the Butcher and James Brown-designed VTM series. Earning favorable comparisons to the Marshall JCM800, the Butcher’s brutally loud 6L6 power section — conservatively rated at 120 watts — shaves off some of that brittle Marshall top end for a darker, throatier tone. Try running a bass guitar through a cranked Butcher; you’ll thank me later. While based on the same circuit as the Butcher, the VTM-60 and VTM-120 come loaded with dip switches for quick hot-rodding, offering two additional gain stages, compression, and an infinitely tweakable EQ. Marshall comparisons aside, these really are the gold standard of 80s-era Peavey innovation — and good luck finding a 2203 for $500.

Modern metalheads might be the only folks who have always stuck with Peavey, with the 5150/6505 and XXX series offering multiple channels and loads of gain on tap. The 5150 began as a collaboration between James Brown and Eddie Van Halen, building on the VTM platform and piling on the distortion. Want more headroom? Grab a 5150 II (or 6505+). The XXX was initially built for Dokken’s George Lynch, and later became the basis for the Joe Satriani signature JSX. While these amps were the epitome of “uncool” when I was a kid, these 90s-era high-gain monsters have made a serious comeback among shredders, doomers, and shoegazers alike, thanks to their sparkling cleans and versatile gain channels.

You don’t have to be a metalhead to play a Peavey, though. I’ve always stood by a sharp, slightly overdriven tone for anything from chiming indie rock to thrashy garage punk. The Classic series nails that tweed tone, with nice cleans and beautiful breakup. The drive channel on my Delta Blues 115 (essentially a Classic 30 with tremolo circuit) is so much nicer than my old Hot Rod Deville’s, with a warmth and girth unmatched by other amps in this price range. Though the Classic amps are still in production, manufacturing has moved overseas and quality control has gone downhill — find a US-made one if you can.

Though they’re obviously known more for their amps and live sound gear than anything else, Peavey has also turned out some truly fantastic guitars. You can’t go wrong with the cvlt-favorite, Chip Todd-designed T series, especially the in-demand T-40 bass and T-60 six-string. These were some of the very first CNC-machined guitars around, and what they lack in aesthetics they make up for in playability, tone, and weight. Once you get used to the 12 pounds of wood hanging off your shoulder, the comfortable neck and killer humbucking pickups make the pain worth it. Other models worth mentioning are the strat-style Falcon, tele-style Reactor, and a whole slew of over-the-top “pointy” guitars like the Mystic, Mantis, and Vandenburg. Many of these guitars can be found for astonishingly low prices on the used market, and are well worth a try if you’re in the market for a quality US-made instrument.

Finally, no Peavey completist should overlook the late-80s line of colorful effect pedals, which share some functional similarities to Boss classics, but go in some different directions. The HFD-2 Hotfoot Distortion is an LM308-powered beast that will give any Rat a run for its money, and the CMC-1 Companded Chorus is a bit smoother and has wider range than the coveted Boss CE-2. Looking for a reverb, compressor/sustainer, digital delay, or bass chorus? Peavey made them all, and it goes without saying that the build quality of these pedals totally lives up to Peavey’s typical tank-like standards.

While Peavey’s reputation has taken plenty of hits over the years, the company has never left the market and continues to compete with bigger, pricier competitors. Even before they had a name, the Peavey Cvlt has been singing Hartley’s praises for decades, cheerfully making the point that you don’t need a pile of cash to play good, reliable gear. Next time you’re trawling Craigslist, don’t ignore that solid-state behemoth or 12-pound slab just because the logo was designed by a teenager in 1959. You might only put down a couple of bills, but they’re worth their weight in gold. Lift some weights, crank the volume, and join the cult.