VINTAGE TUBE MONSTER VT999 Classic Vacuum Tube Overdrive Instrument Effects Pedal

This is a GREAT tube OD pedal...but not out of the box. Surprisingly...just kidding...the stock tube is awful. Like every other review...my stock tube sucked. I didn't hate the tones with the stock tubes...but they're plain, sterile, and a little thin. Some pedals do sound like garbage with the stock tube...watch some YouTube reviews and you'll hear the great possibilities this pedal can offer if you do the following 2 things: This is the first add on you need to get...a good 12AU7 tube. I'm using a 60's NOS RCA 12AU7A...but any decent tube from Tung Sol, JJ...etc will work just as well. Why not replace it will another 12AX7? You can...but pedal does generate a lot of overdrive. So unless you're after a real saturated metal distortion...a very low gain works best. It'll still OD a lot with a 12AU7, but you get a wider scope of clean to dirt with the low gain tube. I tried the following tubes in descending order of gain: A better 12AX7 gain rating 100% 5751, and exact match to a 12AX7 with a gain rating of 70% 12AT7 gain rating 60% 12AY7 gain rating 45% 12AV7 gain rating 41% 12AU7 gain rating 19% All of the tubes sounded MUCH better than the stock....but the 12AU7 gave the wide scope of overdrive and a fuller tone that responded the best to the tone controls. The "A" in the 12AU7A tube I used just means it's lower noise than a regular 12AU7.. if you're new to tubes, any type of tube that ends with an "A" is a lower noise version of a 12AX7, 12AY7....etc. Secondly...a new power adapter. The supplied adapter works just fine...but if you install a lower gain tube it's not going to function as well. A lower gain tube runs hotter...I know that sounds counterintuitive but it's the way the tubes function. The stock adapter is 9v 300 mV...you need an adapter than runs 9v 500 mV. They're a several good adapters on Amazon that run $7-15...so it's not an expensive add on. Do these two things and the pedal kills. I can use this pedal to get REAL tube OD thru my tube amps, 50's Tweed Deluxe clone, 65 Princeton Reverb or even a 50's Champ clone...at low volume. The tone controls are good...it ALWAYS a plus to have the high, low and mids separately controlled. The Noise Gate actually works too. Set it to the threshold you want and the pedal is DEAD QUIET when you're not playing. There are high-end tube driven OD pedals out there...but this one can go toe to toe with them. Will the pedal last long? I have no idea. The chassis is well made and quality...but I can't begin to guess about the longevity of the interior components. For well under $100, if it dies after three years, so be it. If your looking for a OD pedal that is an actual tube driven circuit...this is a good one. But ONLY if you spend a few extra bucks for a good 12AU7 & power adapter to match the tube.

My experience with the Behringer brand has been generally a positive one, and this monster is no exception. Behringer would not be a brand I would choose for any type of instrument/power amp and probably not for a mixing console either. But some of their rack processing products are an exceptional value, most have a nice clean signal path and I have had good reliability as well. I think their rep as a junk brand is not a good assessment. Just when it comes to power amps, mixers and instrument amps, they are "heavy duty appliances" and you should pay more for something better and more reliable there. This little starved plate Vintage Tube Monster is an amazing gain stage in a box- for 50 bucks!! Out of the box stock feeding my clean tube amp it was very aggressive/Marshally and over the top fun! Sounds and feels organic, warm and tub-ey. All of the other reviewers are spot on with the info that this is a great unit to roll tubes in, each tube swap really changes the tonal character of this beast. Some of the NOS military tubes of the 12AX family tamed it down to very American-vintage sounding, I ended up with a crusty old RCA 12 AU7A in it that made it sing and snarl in a nice dynamic way. Weirdly enough, the output was way higher with this old used tube I have had laying around for 20 years even though it is a AU7? Hmm? I thought that this unit is good enough to be considered as an amp expander on a great single channel tube amp, which is what I am using it for. Only cons: GIANT!!! but it works so great who cares, make room for it as it's worth it of you love quality gain flavors to choose from. Again we forgive this for $50.00, but the engineered design is a bit lacking with 5 giant knobs that will easily get kicked and turned every other time you stomp. I will probably lock them in place with a small bead of silicone caulk once I feel tonal Nirvana is dialed in. I can't comment on the noise gate functionality, if you need that there are better ways to address those issues at the source. Not a perfect product but 5 full stars for sound + value!

Ive been playing 23 years. I've gone through dozens of OD pedals both cheap and outraegeously expensive. For the last decade ive been using a tube screamer clone from BBE. It sounds great and ill keep it around. But this Beringer Tube monster is another level. Im playing though a Fender Strat and the amp is a Fender Bassbreaker 15. First the sound. Sound is at the end of the day what we get a pedal for so to me its most important. This unit has 3 tone controls and the volume/gain as well as a built in noise gate. The controls make it easy to dial in a specific tone with a light OD or full blast gain which gives you close to a violin like sustain. My amp has a fairly dirty gain so sustain results may vary by amp. Overall a very versatile pedal whose tone controls should let you dial in anything from blues to metal. The noise gate didnt seem to do much other than kill sustain when the level knob was a at max. Now the quality. It is a Beringer. Most beringer products ive tried have been solid and ive never had problems but they are on the cheaper side of construction quality. The knobs all feel a little loose when you turn them.And the 2 switches for power(yes pedal has its own power switch besided the on/off foot button) and the other switch for noise gate lack that satisfying click. The case for the pedal is solid steel. The tube housing also seems sturdy and well built. In short id call this a must buy for home and studio players and id put the sound you can get against any pedal that cost 3 times as much. If youre a road player it may not last for the frequent setups and breakdowns a gigging player has to do, but ive not tried gigging with this pedal so it may surprise.

I have heard them all... every sort of distortion pedal from the cheapest, to the widely proliferated, to the outrageously overpriced high-end Boutique "all tube analog jesus christ in a box". This pedal need bow it's metaphorical head to no one. This review is written on an out of the box version of the pedal, I have not upgraded the tube, no at some point in the future I likely will purchase other tubes just to see how they sound. Long story short, this paddle gives you the gain stage of a hot rodded Marshall amplifier. (Tonally) Pick your poison, be it NWOBHM, Ozzy Era Zakk Wylde, Randy Rhoads and dozens of other tones that made heavy metal great. You will find it. My target sound, is the punchy snarl of an overdriven Marshall. It is here and it sounds huge. But wait, theres's more.... If you dial it down, you can play anything, blues to jazz to classic rock, and very low gain settings it serves to fantastically just warm up the signal of a clean guitar.... or vocals for that matter. A couple unexpected bonuses: -Heavy duty construction, all metal case. -included 9v power supply. (RAD!) - a built in 3 band EQ let's you have it your way. - the built-in noise gate, can render this beast dead quiet at the highest gain settings. Pedalboard space comes at a premium, and this one will allow you to entirely eliminate a noise gate. And of course the noise gate is switchable, so if you want the squeals and other heartwarming noise associated with a tube amplifier, you can keep them. And best of all, I paid $50 for this pedal. It almost isn't fair. So if you're a guitarist just starting out, and you want to distortion pedal that'll do anything you need it to, look no further. If you're a pro, and you're looking for another color for your Distortion palette, this one deserves a place among the pantheon of the gods. If you have an amplifier that has a fantastic clean tone but just doesn't bring the fire when it's time to turn up the heat, this one can bring Hell. I've said a lot, but I still don't feel that I've said enough. Just buy the damn thing.

This was a VERY big surprise, from someone who is very knit picky about tone, this thing actually seems to do what it says more or less. The tone this thing produces is unequivocal tube tone, no doubt about it. The downside, more or less, is that it is kind of hard to tweak right, and sounds a little brittle. That said, I'm optimistic because I've only used a Groove Tube 12ax7, but I have a few other tubes on the way in the see if they can smoothen out the tone a little more, but even now it's totally usable. Another massive plus to this thing, it really sounds BETTER than the freaking solid state pedals marketed today. I have deluxe reverb, and have struggled with overdrive since I purchased it, solid state or analog pedals just don't cut it, they always sound like pedals even the best of them. This is my conclusion after trying some of the top of the line pedals there are. So, even if this doesn't cut it in the long run, I'm very pleased with my initial observations. Now, as addressed by everyone, the stock tube is not an accurate representation of what this pedal is, I can't describe how terrible that stock tube sounded. You can throw a tampon in there and it will sound better than the stock tube, so just get rid of it if you plan on keeping this, it has no business inside a musical device. I'm also giving this 5 stars, not because it's the best sounding overdrive I've ever heard, but because it gives "enough" to where I'm genuinely impressed, and feel that there's potential given the right tube and tweaking, maybe even slight mods in the future. Definitely worth checking out. Edit: (How to get the most out of this pedal) Okay, so I've used this pedal for about a week now, and I just so happened to buy new tubes for my amp, which were all JJ. I popped on one of the JJ 12ax7's in the pedal and THAT made a massive difference versus the groove tube. The differences were a smoother tone, more articulate & clear tone with the JJ 12ax7, and the biggest difference believe it or not was that the pedal was able to clean up. I don't know how this was possible because before it was just impossible fizz that never cleaned up, the volume just lessened, but with the JJ it actually dramatically altered this and I'm able to get that "off-clean" to Marshall annihillation with just the volume knob! This wasn't without a special ingredient though, which is what I found to be... A ts808 before the vt999 and BAM! This thing goes from an awesome sounding metal-esque sounding pedal, to a hybrid overdriven-lead tone that's very tight and adjustable. I'm extremely pleased, I know the BK Butler is supposed to be a better version sounding tube pedal, but honestly, I don't feel the need. The fuzzy-fizzy quality that was initially had with this pedal has transformed into a pleasant, heavy-driven lead tone that's quite adjustable. It stacks well with other pedals, and to my ears doesn't suck tone. I'd say if you have a clean amp and are ripping your hair out, then with a little patience and experimentation you may find just what you're looking for in this pedal. I can sort of pull of a bluesy-off-clean tone, but I'd say this pedal does the Marshall "annihilation" overdrive much better than anything else. I'd highly recommend!

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: The Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster is indeed a monster of a pedal. Those seeking a hot rodded sound to your amp would be wise to check this product out, as the level of boost and gain derived from the Bugera 12AX7C is enough to push any tube amp's clean channel into saturated overdrive. Featuring 3-band EQ that ranges from barely noticeable to perhaps "too much", I was surprised that I actually found myself backing off some of the knobs because I expected this to be a cheap pedal that needed it's EQ to be pushed to max in order to get any playable tone out of it. I was wrong. The Master and Gain knobs work exactly like a tube amp channel. The Noise Suppressor is a nifty feature that drastically reduces white noise. Roughly taking up the space of 3 standard pedals on your pedalboard, many probably wonder if it's even worth the real estate compared to other overdrives. However, when it comes to tube-based pedals, big is par for the course. The stock tube is decent to the point where you can get some musical tones out of the pedal. I personally don't plan on changing the stock tube any time soon because I want to test its limits, but the gain range is effectively Boss OD-1 to DS-1, so YES - it is possible to get some metal tones out of this pedal, especially those late 80s/early 90s Marshall-driven metal tones. I honestly can't say anything overtly bad or wrong with this pedal. I judge gear with my EARS and by its VALUE, not by PRICE, but honestly... for $50, you literally can't go wrong. There are worse pedals you could buy for more money quite honestly. Even with a $10-$15 mod to change the tube to something more your preference, you're still looking at a relatively inexpensive pedal with an amazing value. But if you're looking for other tube overdrives, check these out: Effectrode Tube Drive ($350), Maxon TBO-9 True Tube Boost/Overdrive ($263), and the Ibanez Tube King ($170). If you're on the fence with this thing, go ahead and jump over and get one. UPDATE: After utilizing this pedal extensively for the past few months, I decided that the Bugera 12AX7 onboard was effectively put through its paces enough for me to make a qualified review. I finally decided to replace the tube socket with a spare Sovtek 12AX7WA that I had on hand... and what a massive difference it made! The EQ curves are smoother, more balanced, and the overdriven gain tones had far less "snap, crackle, and pop" than the Bugera in comparison. I run this pedal through the FX loop of my Marshall JCM2000 DSL50/English, and it gives me a completely different and distinct (VOX-ish) overdrive tone to use compared to the Marshall ECC83 flavored overdrive. I am now recommending this pedal to all my guitarist buddies. It's just that good. A NOTE ON THE VIDEO: I made the video for YouTube, but it's a short full-band song of how the VT999 sounds in the mix for studio recording. All guitars and even the bass were ran through the pedal.

This right here. What an amazing 'big little' Vintage Tube Monster box from Behringer at an amazing price. I would have to say, this has made me want to play guitar even more now. While I would have given this fewer than five stars as it came in the box, I just have to give it five stars. The tube it comes with - toss it. I was forewarned by the other reviewers on here, and on various other sites...at first I thought it was a bit funky, because the stock tube sounded almost digital and just plain horrible. I've used a variety of different tubes, and I gotta say, the Electro-Harmonix 12AX7EH tube sounds the sweetest to my ears. I have a ton of pedals, but of all irony, found that feeding this from my guitar first, then chained to a Behringer Vintage Tube Overdrive (To800), makes my guitars sound incredible. Now granted, you gotta have some soul and skill playing, cause putting lipstick on a pig just don't cut it...but when combined this way, your chops will sound incredible. General settings through my Gibson 335, or a few other semi-hollow bodies: Master 2, Gain 4, Treble 2, Mid 3, Bass 7, Noise Gate Threshold high noon.......settings on the To800: Level 1 o'clock position, Tone 9 o'clock, Drive 9 o'clock. After that, tweak your tone knobs and you can go insane throughout the fretboard. And I have no clue why I'm putting my settings on here, but heck, maybe you'll agree? Plus I figure if I lose my settings, I can come back to this review and dial everything back in.. ;) I'm going to buy another one or two of these before they discontinue them for backup purposes and to put a different tube in future ones I buy for a different color. Play thirsty my friends and buy this monster!

It’s good as an OD and works well with modelers but don’t expect the touch sensitivity and sustain of a tube amp.

Da un overdrive/distorsión muy interesante generada por un auténtico bulbo 12AX7. Puedes obtener un sonido desde rock clásico (varios niveles de OD) hasta distorsión de heavy metal de inicios de los 80 (suena más a Motley Crue que a Metallica, por decirlo de alguna manera). Tiene además de un EQ de tres bandas, una puerta de ruido (noise gate) que resulta muy útil cuando aumentas mucho el nivel de ganancia, aunque en general no es ruidoso. Es el doble de voluminoso que un pedal tipo Boss (para tomar en cuenta) y viene con su propio adaptador incluido. Llegó rápido, en perfecto estado y está sólidamente construido. Sí lo recomiendo muchísimo si buscas versatilidad de distorsiones y OD clásicos en un solo pedal.

The pedal is solid. The EQ is very versatile and the gain can go from sweet overdrive to big distortion. The only con is the pedal size, it takes a lot of space on pedal boards.

overdrive qui vire au fuzz en fin de gain sublime!!! enorme palette de disto, les potards corrigent bien. un noise gate en prime bref deja dingue de cet pedale a lampe bref de quoi me faire oublier ma dod preamp 250 que jai vendu. les yeux fermes enjoy...

Lo he probado con mi amplificador a válvulas harley benton tube 15 al cual le cambié el altavoz de origen por un celestion greenback, este amplificador es mono canal, lo tengo para que suene limpio con el gain bajo,he probado muchos pedales y pedaleras, de precios bajos y altos, debo ser muy maniático pero casi ninguno me gustaba como sonaba, yo quiero sonido analógico, he visto este pedal y las opiniones de el, casi todas 5 estrellas, digo lo voy a probar, probado está, he flipado, sonido increíble, desde crunch suaves hasta distorsiones para heavy metal,para sonidos más duros ya no da, pero es igual, por el precio es un regalo, además viene con puerta de ruido que funciona muy bien y además se puede regular,hay gente que le ha cambiado la válvula,pero con la que lleva, para mi suena genial, el único inconveniente del pedal es el tamaño y peso, espero que me dure muchos años.

マーシャルのＭＧ１５ＤＦＸにブースター的に使ってみましたが、まさにチューブサウンドです。 ＭＧのＦＤＤの効きも良いですが、これをかます事でリアルな真空管のマーシャルサウンドに変ります。 クリーンチャンネルでクラッシックな艶と深みのあるオーバードライブサウンドも良し。 クリーンチャンネルでＶＴ９９９のゲインをＭＡＸにしてもドンシャリなハイゲインにはならないので、ハードロック向けです。 ゲインを絞ってブースターとして使えば、艶と深みのあるクリーンサウンドになります。 ＭＧの硬い感じのクリーンサウンドが、真空管アンプのまろやかな音に変りますね。 オーバードライブチャンネルでＶＴ９９９のゲインを下げてブースターとして使えばかなりのハイゲインが作れます。 オーバードライブチャンネルでＶＴ９９９のゲインを上げると、ノイズゲートでノイズをカットしてもノイジーで使えません。 ゲインは少なめで、ブースターとして使った方が厚みの有るハイゲインのメタルサウンドになりますね。 自宅の練習用小型アンプにＶＴ９９９があれば、高価な真空管アンプはしばらくいらないですね。 Blackstarの１ＷフルチューブアンプHT-1Rでも試してみましたが、 物足りなかった音の厚みをＶＴ９９９が補完してくれて、小音量でも音抜けの良い重厚な歪みが得られます。 これは、かなりの優れものです。