Behringer VT999 5-stars Reviews

Universal pedal

Good pedal for rock music, it has lot of features and they are all working well. Most well built Behringer pedal, metal case, nicely working buttons. Sounds pretty good too.

If you want to connect your guitar directly to studio monitors, then this pedal fits perfectly between your guitar and your monitors.

Very good stuff

Super cool, just what we needed

Excellent but big

I bought this pedal after hearing a lot of good things about it. I also heard that it comes with a bad tube and a replacement for a JJ 12AU7 would be advised.

Honestly, though, I found the tube (Bugera premium selected 12AX7) to be totally fine and truthfully did not notice this pedal sounding much different or better when replacing the tube, it maybe taimed the gain a bit but that's it. So I don't know what's the whole ordeal about swapping tubes, maybe I luckily got a good one.

You can get a variety of sounds out of this pedal, from mild breakup up to heavy distortion. It has bass, mid and treble knobs with which you can really shape your sound. The inbuilt noise gate is handly if you don't have one already.

The only con I have about this pedal is how big it is, and I really underestimated that. 3 pedals big. Not only that, but if you take a look at the insides you see how unnecessary the size is. The box could have been easily half the size, however, I guess they were going for the vintage look of big pedals... It's fine and no big deal if this is your only OD pedal, but if you're already rocking with 10 pedals, you will have a hard time justifying its real-estate on your pedalboard. When this pedal was still 30€-something, it didn't really matter as you could put it on the shelf and grab it when you needed to, without feeling bad. However, for the money you have to spend now, it's good to think twice about the use case.

Awesome

I bought this because it is easy to swap the tube out for a better one. This is how products should be made.

Only con is that it could be a little smaller

as always fender picks

good heavy pick and as usual fender picks are high quality

Very nice tube drive with a very nice price!

This was bought to add a real tube overdrive channel for my single-channel amp.

I'm using the VT999 as an overdrive-channel for my VHT 44 Special, which is a strong, all-tube, single channel amp.

I had to swap the Bugera 12AX7-tube for a TAD JJ 12AU7-tube, as the AX had way to high gain level. It went from zero to full distortion at level 1 on the gain dial... There was no in-between.

What this box needed was a "milder" tube, and with the AU7 I am now able to dial in exactly the right gain-level, or find "the sweet spot", with incremental rise in gain/drive over the full 1 - 10 scale.

Conclusion: This is a budget friendly priced piece of equipment that's sounding really good, with minor modification (the tube-swap is done in 5 min.). It does add a fully fledged overdrive channel, with a "master" volume control knob, and good EQ capabilities.

With the tube-swap it's a straight 5 - without, it's a 3...

A really good fun effects box.

Worth the money ...

I use this pedal with the TS-9 or other filters and it sounds great. Can be connected directly to a power amp or to cabinet impulses. It turns out great. Another very useful thing is a noise gate.

I also recommend replacing the stock Tube, for example, with Sovtek. The sound becomes more focused and brighter, especially when playing rhythm parts.

One of the first pedals I ever used

Sorry, not going to be very objective with this one. Had one of these in the nineties and it disappeared somewhere along the way. So I just had to get one for the nostalgia. Will install mod though.

Pro: Easy to mod, sturdy casing, probably will survive anything.

Con: Limited features and sound as stock, but hey it doesn't cost much either.

nice box especially for the money

I was skeptical but after some time with it I will probably get another for stereo applications. Totally rad to on a drum bus via sends. For 50 buck why not.

Good alternative for the tube preamp.

I've been using this with solid state amp as an preamp and must say it does work really well.

The "drive" it produces can vary between slight saturation to kind of early 80' heavy metal.

There are two things I would change about this product.

1st: switch between clean and drive or something like boost

2nd: it should have been 18v instead 9v (that would turn this vintage tube monster into modern higain monster:)

Would recomend it to anyone who's looking for cheap and good sounding drive.

Damn!

Seriously, damn! I should have bought this pedal years ago. The cheap price held me off. All the good ratings got me to jump on it. Really, really great sound. Not just "for that price".

Thumbs up!

Real valve overdrive and distortion stompbox

I am using VT999 as my exclusive hi-gain / distortion effect, boosting it using a high-volume compressor and / or a separate tube dirt / overdrive stompbox, for metal riffs and rock / metal leads. I always used it with humbucker pickups.

- Construction: it is sturdy built, metal box, easy to open the bottom for changing the lamp. The pots are very smooth, they are even in action and free of anything reminding of noise. They should not be touched unintentionally, because they may turn a lot at the slightest touch. The switch is also smooth and noise-free. The box is large for the components inside, however, this appears to dissipate the lamp heat better. The metal box of VT999 is not heated compared to other lamp, more cluttered boxes I tried; one barely can feel a higher temperature when touches the area closest to the lamp.

This box is moddable. The lamp, which has a great impact on the sound, can be changed easily. There are mods for it available on the Internet.

- Sound: in the first place, this *is* a distortion pedal. The only vintage thing I can find about it is, perhaps, the design and the fact it is using a real lamp. Whoever tells it is no more than an overdrive either does not drive it sufficiently (low guitar volume, weak pickups, no booster) or uses low gain tube in it. With moderate input signal, gain between 0 and 1 gives a tube-ish warm sound; beginning with gain at 1, the clipping buzz starts occurring discreetly. No middle ground for round, crunch sound. It goes from overdrive to high-gain distortion; for crunch to fuzzy sounds I am using a different tube pedal.

To mention that the Tube Monster's distortion is raw. The sound is not tweaked to be listenable without an amp or amp / speaker simulator, but that's what it should be, in my opinion: with the proper setup, the distortion sounds good and it is very defined, clear, not muddy. The stock, Bugera tube sounds good, just I found it better for my taste, fuller and subjectively more balanced using Ruby Tubes and Electro Harmonics 12AX7 valves. They sound neither too bassy or too treble in this device, and, looking at the waveform in an editor, their attack is neither cut nor oversized against the sustain.

- Features: the noise gate works all the way. It can be set so high it cuts off all sound. Turning the EQ pots makes a real difference and they are not too extreme, neither in range nor in the bandwidths they affect, in my opinion. The sound with the effect engaged and all EQ pots set to middle has more highs and mids, and less bass than the bypassed signal, but it can be tweaked to get close to it, with some differences in the midrange area.

- Cons: the only minuses I could find with this stompbox are almost insignificant. They are: the the lack of tone neutrality I talked about above, which probably might not be possible to keep in order to obtain a proper distortion sound, then it's the non-resistant pots and, finally, the bending open of the lamp holding spring ends, when the lamp is changed often.

GOOD BUY

This high-quality stomp box has the warm sound of a hand-selected 12AX7 vacuum tube. In addition, this product offers an integrated and switchable noise gate with adjustable threshold that keeps your sound noise-free.

plus there is a true hard-wire bypass for ultimate signal integrity.

Very satisfied!

For this price I didn't find any similar product. It sounds great, I use it mostly with synths. Tried it with 2 other tubes (JJ NN003 & TAD RT001), but i prefer the original one (Bugera), it sounds more crunchy at lower gain - better for distorting acid lines.

EQ and noise gate are also very useful. I bought 2 of them to use in stereo signal chains. Awesome! :D

Behringer VT999

I use the Behringer VT999 Vintage Tube Monster to overdrive my Bugera V5. This works very well. After replacing the original tube by a little less distorting EH 12AY7 I get from nice crunch to hearty rock all set. The tonestack of Behringer works very effectively, so that for each guitar optimum sound can be found. Noteworthy is the built-in Noise Gate. It works very effectively as long as you do not turning up too far. If it is set too high, soft sounds disappear or be cut off. The VT999 has a true bypass, which really does not change the sound in my opinion. Conclusion: strong buy recommendation.

Great Tube pedal

This is a good sounding pedal . I have been using it for some time , and i really love this pedal . Maybe it would sound better by swapping the tube , but the one you get with pedal is good too . I would definitely buy it again .

Great for bass!

I bought this to use as a preamp for a bass guitar setup. Plugged it into a poweramp and then a 2x15 cab. A perfect dirty rock bass sound.

Haven't really used the noise gate function, so I can't vouch for that.

Also, people say they sound even better with a better tube. Haven't had the opportunity to try that though.

Tube Monster

This is a great device. It comes boxed in a huge protective box. Comes with power supply. Yes, it has a Bugera 12AX7 vacuum tube in it. It takes a couple of minutes to warm up.

Its a big device, takes up a lot of room, that is ok by me.

The sound is really fantastic from this pedal. Overdrive - from the blues to hard overdrive. The treble, mid and bass controls are very good at altering the tone. The gain starts at dial setting 1 and goes to extreme very quickly when turning up the dial.

Its best to use a compressor before the Vintage Tube Monster VT999 - then the tone and sustain is really something else. On the higher notes, for me, it shines out clear. Chords are of course very overdriven. It sounds great without using a compressor before it, depends on what sort of sustain & overdrive sound you are wanting.

This VT999 does give that tube sound distortion.

The Noise Gate does work very well, it cuts out the natural overdrive noise between notes/phrases when not playing.

This is great fun to have one of these boxes even if you already have an overdrive, just to try out the vacuum tube sound. This box is really a tube pre-amp that functions as a tube overdrive pedal.

On the web there is info on modifying this box by swapping around the vacuum tube with a different one to get less overdrive or different sounds. I am happy with the present overdrive sound.

The subtle differences around the lower drive settings are very nice, dynamic and responsive to all types of playing.

Behringer delivers.

Behringer is of course known for making lots of low-priced pedals but who tought that they would make such a good-sounding valve-distortion pedal at such a low price?

The sound of Behringer's VT999 is better than any effect pedal I've tried so far, offering an unbeatable soundquality that is suitable for both studio- and live usage.

It collaborates well when combined with other pedals, such as sustainers, delay pedals etc. making it a dream-product for a guitarist who does not have the money to buy the more expensive stuff on the market.

The pedal features a noisegate, but it's not necessary unless the gain is turned up to the highest levels. The noise production is unusually low for a distortion pedal, also when using a sustainer.

Recommended for usage with both valve- and transistor amps.

By the way: Thank you Behringer, for including a power adapter!