The Vypyr VIP 3 Modeling Combo & Sanpera II Controller Pedal

The Company Line

Peavey Electronics Corporation has been around a long time. We’re all familiar with them, but let’s revisit a little history, here. They were founded back in 1965 as a one-man show by Hartley Peavey, himself, and have grown to an international corporation that spans over 130 countries with more than 2000 products. They’re known mainly for innovation (holding over 180 patents), feature-packed products at a particularly competitive price, and for manufacturing many of their products right here in the USA (though the products in this review are not). Hartley started tinkering back in 1955, builds his first amp in 1957, conceptualizes his first guitar in 1958, builds his first Peavey branded amplifier in 1961, gets his first patent in 1964, and establishes Peavey Electronics Corporation in 1965. It sits above Peavey’s Melody Music in Meridian, MS. His slogan is: “quality gear at a fair price.”

First Impressions

I bet if you spoke to Hartley back in the ‘60s, when he was first getting started, and even topically described a product like the VIP 3 and said that his company would be responsible for it, he would probably not be surprised. Looking at his forward-thinking designs (dating back to that first guitar, and even his logo), innovation has always been at his core. Innovation, and, well, “condensation” would probably be two great words to describe this pair of products. I’ve been doing the gear thing for a long time, and I’m amazed at what all is packed into this economically priced package. This $300 combo amp is lightweight, powerful, and contains both amplifier AND instrument modeling, as well as a plethora of effects – some of which require the optional foot controllers. The included Vypyr Edit software opens up more possibilities, and Peavey even throws in a free copy of Reaper, a software digital audio workstation package. *WHEW* What can’t it do? Slice bread? Clean the kitchen sink? Maybe that’s in the next product revision …

A Closer Look

The VIP is the second series (the “next generation”) in the Vypyr® product line. VIP stands for Variable Instrument Performance™. It was introduced at the 2013 NAMM show and immediately earned the best in show “Gotta Stock It” award (in addition to a Bass Gear Magazine 2013 NAMM Best of Show Award). The biggest new feature is the instrument modeling. This feature is not the amp modeling itself to best suit different instruments. No; this is actual instrument modeling. That means you can make your guitar sound not only like an acoustic guitar (which I’ve seen other products do fairly well), but also a bass guitar (this is the first I’ve seen of this). Honestly, as a bass player, I have to say they’ve done a good job of tonal emulation on that. Now, given this is a bass-specific publication, you say, “But what about basses?” I would say the instrument modeling is still interesting and useful, but not as much as for guitar. For bassists, the amp modeling and effects are probably the more applicable and useful features.

Keep in mind that this is a 1×12, 100-watt, open-back combo amp, and not designed to be extendable (it has no ability to drive any external cabinet(s) or chain/link with other amps). As such, for a bassist, this combo is fairly specifically targeted at the smaller gigs. However, Peavey tells us that the semi-ported back and the speaker (which was intended not only to sound natural with guitar, but to also be able to handle the expanded tonal range of an electric bass) were both designed in such a way that a bass player could use the amp in a practice situation with a band and still keep up.

There is no input pad switch, and the manual mentions if you have a particularly hot instrument, you may simply have to turn the instrument down to avoid overdriving the input. It also does not have an XLR output, which surprised me a little bit. With all this advanced processing, I would imagine it could be an excellent recording interface. It does have support for using the USB interface as a digital audio recording output, and there is also an unbalanced recording output that doubles as a headphone output (which is live as a headphone monitoring output when USB is being used for audio out), so it’s not really an issue. And before we get too nitpicky, keep in mind this is an amp that streets for only around $300, and has a ton of other features to offer.

Let’s start with the controls. The first is an alpha wheel and push/select control for presets. This thing has 400(!) user-programmable presets, with banks targeted at specific instrument types. Next, you have the instrument/stomp, amplifiers, and effects alpha wheel/select controls. All the feedback is given in a two-line LCD display (unique to the VIP 3 – the 1 and 2 do not have this). Next, you have five alpha wheel controls that do double duty between gain/EQ settings and effects controls, depending on a mode setting. The settings are saved when presets are created or altered. Next is the Master volume control (which goes to 13, which will appeal to the This is Spinal Tap fans out there … you know who you are, and yes, I know, that one only went to 11), and a “power sponge” control. The power sponge is essentially there to serve the same purpose as the old power soak devices from days gone by, though implemented differently. The idea is you can push the power section hard for tonal goals, but still reduce the output volume of the amp by reducing the amount of power the power section has to work with … all the way from the full 100 watts down to a single watt.

Below the controls, you have the looper indicator for the built-in 30-second (max) looper (only accessible with a Sanpera or Sanpera-II pedal), a tap tempo, the USB interface, aux input (for things like MP3 players to practice with), and the dual-function headphone/analog recording output. When something is plugged into the headphone/recording output, the speaker is muted, so it’s good for practice or recording where mic’ing the cab is not desired or needed. If the USB interface is being used for recording, the headphone output is live for monitoring, as well. Around the back there’s not much to look at. You just have the Sanpera pedal input DIN jack, power cord jack, an on/off switch, and the ported back, where you can see the speaker.

This amp has 36 amp models, including six acoustic amp models and six bass amp models. It has 26 total effects available. One interesting fact about effects is that Peavey discerns between “stomp boxes” and “rack effects,” so different effects will behave as if they were before the preamp (stomp box) or in an effects loop (rack effects). But this is where it gets interesting and where the amp gets its name. It also has ten instrument models, and I’m going to list them, because at least a couple may take you by surprise. They are: acoustic guitar, 12-string guitar, sitar, 7-string guitar, baritone guitar, resonator guitar, electric violin, and bass guitar.

The output section supporting all this processing incorporates Peavey’s patented TransTube® technology and a 32-bit SHARC processor. TransTube technology does what you would expect: emulate the behaviors of tubes. But, it emulates the behaviors of tubes not only in the preamp gain stages, but also in the natural compression that happens in the power section at higher volumes, increasing as volume also increases.

The Sanpera™ II controller has two expression pedals with tap switches that are each assignable. It also sports switches for tap tempo, looper controls, preset access, “pre-amp stomp-box” effects, and “post-amp rack” effects (delay and reverb). It’s housed in a durable, cast-metal casing and features high-quality metal switches. There is also the Sanpera I, which has fewer options and only one expression pedal. The bag they offer (sold separately) is made from heavy duty nylon material and includes a padded carrying handle, shoulder strap, and front accessory pouch.

If all this wasn’t enough, Peavey also has software available to give the user even more powerful editing tools over all of the features this amp has to offer. It’s called Vypyr Edit. The side benefit of this software is that Peavey has built an online community for people to share their Vypyr customizations with each other. Finally, it also comes with a copy of Reaper (http://www.cockos.com/reaper/), which is a digital audio workstation software package. This software is not specifically tied to the Vypyr in any way, it’s just a bundled value-add. But it is a further indication that this amp is strongly targeted at the recording market.

Lasting Impressions

As I mentioned before, my initial inclination is to look at this amp primarily as a guitar amp that has “some” applicability to bass guitar. And while I did find that the majority of effects and modeling options didn’t apply well to bass guitar, I also have to remind myself that even with that said, this amp still offers an amazing set of features and capabilities for bass. I found the instrument modeling more useful for special effects, as opposed to mainstream play, but the “stomp boxes” and “rack effects” were really, really nice. The processing in this amp is very clean, which is probably more important to bassists than guitar players, since most of the time, we live in a clean “Hi-Fi” world to cover the wide spectrum of frequencies that apply to our instrument. An interesting note on the instrument modeling: I found that using the bass guitar instrument model on a bass guitar to be an interesting take on an octave divider effect. The time domain stuff (delay, chorus, etc) is very usable, and the looper is also addictive. I do think it’d be nice if you didn’t have to get the pedal use the looper, but given the Sanpera I is not all that expensive (though the Sanpera II is almost as expensive as the amp), it’s not a huge issue.

With this much functionality packed into a relative few number of controls, it does take a while to get used to how to get to stuff and make best use of it. But honestly, I’m at a loss for any better way to do it … For the amp itself, yeah, it’s a 100-watt, open-back 1×12 combo. It’s plenty loud for bass, but won’t keep up with a loud rock band. For smaller, more modest gigs, or for filling more space with effects and such, it works great. If I had one suggestion for Peavey, given the huge value in technology they’re providing here, is to offer some kind of ability to directly drive a powered “sub” or extension cabinet of some kind for larger gigs and/or louder bands.