Behringer VT999 VINTAGE TUBE MONSTER Overdrive Guitar Pedal - Vacuum Tube Distortion Pedal For Electric Guitar With Built-In Noise Gate Pedal And 3-Band EQ - Premium Guitar Effect Pedals

This is a beast of a pedal and is 3 times the size of a normal ped so beware if you are pushed for space. You can actually piggy back a ped on top of this. It is a great sounding overdrive/distortion with a real authentic vintage 60s - 70s sustain and a rich tone. Like a Big Muff on steroids. The noise gate is a good little feature and reduces noise pretty well. It comes with it's own power supply but you need to let this ped warm up for 5 minutes before playing. Be aware that the type of pickups on your guitar will shape the sound especially if you have high gain ones. It seems to work best with a strat. If you throw a tube screamer clone before or after it in your pedal chain it boosts it really well for gain stacking. Use a wah, vibe/phaser and delay with it and get that big Hendrix lead sound also. Adding another fuzz/distortion after it gives it that nice grungy Fuzzface style distortion. It has to be set up carefully but you can get some awesome rock sounds. This will not work as a metal pedal on it's own as it is a vintage muff type distortion/fuzz pedal so be aware of that. What I really like is you can change the EQ with your foot as the nobs are nice and big. I have many Behringer pedals and I use all of them regularly with other makes for very specific sounds. Most Behringer peds are actually boss clones. This is one is a good alternative to other over priced boutique peds. These analogue ones are good but some of the Behringer digital pedals (Digi-delay & Reverb) have cyclical glitches, so best avoid them. UPDATE: I recently got the Behringer Vintage Tube Overdrive V911. It has basically the same 12AX7 valve powered circuit without the mid and bass EQ control of the V999. It is about half the size and will run off a daisy chain PSU unlike this one. It actually has a more mid focused sound than this that can get flabby in the lower end. A good pedal in my opinion. Similar ehx muff sound but smaller and cheaper. Conclusion - Get the V911 for a pedal board but use the monster as a preamp for home use and recording. The noise gate on the V999 is real useful when multi tracking guitars.

Amazing pedal for the price. Currently using it to slightly warm the sound of my Kemper. Not sure it would work on my board due to size but the sound is outstanding. It looks like the tube is easy to change to make it closer to the original chandler too.

At about £35 ( the price fluctuates ), this is a good starting point, As it comes, the PSU is barely adequate[1] and the tube fitted is vile. Really, a 12ax7?, on that supply?, useful for checking it all works. Which it does. The unit comes alive with a 12au7. I may try a 12at7 if I can obtain one at sensible money, but this isn't the first vt999 I've had. I sold the last one in a state of penury, but took my 12au7 out and refitted the stock ( nasty, and not in a good way ), which left me with the spare valve. When you power these things up, let them run for 10 minutes. Protracted warm up time, then have a play. The noise gate threshold is useful on my single coils, redundant on my humbuckers. The eq section works fine and the master volume is what you think it is. Gain-wise, pre-tube swap, anything over '4' and it sounds like a metal \m/ pedal, harsh and buzzy. Scoop the mids though and metal \m/ heaven for some. I'm not a metaller though. Post swap and creamy-crunch delight. It's also quite nice to use it solely as a pre-amp into the power amp stage via fx return. Just fine through the normal input stages too. Too much gain drives my amps into nasty clip ( I'm an avowed transistor guy usually ), but spend time getting to know just how much gain+master and many, many good sounds issue forth. Fantastic bit of kit. [1]Really, it is inadequate. It does give a sort of 'belly' effect though. Try a 500ma PSU for more consistency and less buzz.

Right out the box this pedal really impresses, I’ve used a number of tube modellers and OD/Distortion effects but always found them fizzy and artificial. The Tube Monster gives thick drive, overtones and dynamics and can run a full cranked tube distortion at very low volumes so ideal for home practice. The fact it acts as a 3 band EQ, a Noise Gate and Overdrive make it incredible value for money. I run this pedal through the FX return of my solid state amp bypassing the preamp and it sounds fantastic. I may experiment with swapping the stock tube out just to see if the sound does improve but I’m more than happy with it as is. Very well made, looks cool, best £40 I’ve spent in a long time!

I just bought this Vintage Tube Monster and am in two minds about it. Like other reviewers I'm going into a solid state amp, this time a Katana 50. I am finding that it only has a small area of low breakup between 7 and 10 o'clock on the gain (it doesn't go down to 6 o'clock so 7 is the lowest) so I'm surprised to find other people saying they thought you could use it for clean Jazz. I couldn't get just clean valviness at all. There is always a kind of background fizziness to the note. I use Behringer's MIC50USB preamp for that and it does it brilliantly. It was about OK for slightly crunchy Blues but, again, I can drive my MIC500USB to do that too. After 10 o'clock it seems to jump drastically into Stonesy territory and on into rather solid state sounding distortion past 12 o'clock. Clean and edge of breakup it doesn't really do. There's always a feeling of fizz about it to me with a definite tendency for any D note to really set things buzzing. I did try comparing it with a Joyo Vintage Overdrive which is supposed to be a Tubescreamer clone and the Tube Monster was definitely better and more dynamic. I really missed not having those three EQ knobs, but at least the Joyo didn't fizz. I also have an OCD clone and it can do what this Tone Monster does - fizz - but it also has a Hi/Lo switch which can cut that toppiness out. Maybe I need to try stacking a few other effects into it or after it, a fuzz or a compressor or a further overdrive, but I was hoping for a low maintenance, minimalist pedal board. With this sizeable slab I wouldn't want too many other pedals. See the pic for a size comparison. I'm not totally off it but I'm not blown away either. I know that a tube swap is recommended and that may indeed be the cause of this fizz. For my needs maybe a lower gain 12AU7 would help. But I just wonder how much the tube is doing the overdriving though on a starved plate 9v circuit like this? If it's all the diodes then the gain characteristic of a tube ought to have little impact. Being a consumable item I also wonder whether just trying a tube swap would invalidate my warranty. The only way to try it is to open up the device as there's no trap door to access the socket. There is also another mod with a few resistors and a switch that you can pick up for just a few pounds that might be worth considering but the three year warranty will certainly bite the dust if I go down that route. Ponder, ponder. What to do?

To be honest, it is a decent overdrive pedal over all. Of course it is not from a more fancy brand and is big so it is affordable, but it performs what promised. When I play on it, it sounds very good. I can change tones, gain and volume as I like. It sounds like a tube amp overdrive and actually it is. It is interesting the possibility to upgrade the valve when I want to; there are a plenty of youtube videos where people changed the tone once changed the tube... Actually, it sounds good also with the standard tube when I play on it; so no really need to hurry to change the valve on it in my opinion. As usual with tube audio device, this overdrive needs to be warmed and used for a while until performs to its best.

I have always been a fan of getting my distortion from the amp. I got one of these for when I have to play over someone else's amp, as it should be similar to the pre amp on my Bugera. This is, without a doubt, the nicest, fattest, most dynamic pedal based distortion I have ever used. It can drive the amp for that bit extra, but it can also go right the way into vintage thrash terriotry in its own right. Pure awesomnity and incredible value for money.

Wow..... that is all.

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...

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.

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.