# Carvin V3 good for brutal death metal?



## DubSacZach (May 21, 2009)

Im thinking about getting the Carvin V3 head soon and eventually getting a Vader cab for it. Before i buy anything though i want to hear some other peoples opinions on it. I mostly play death metal and im goin for a Faceless esque tone, I also play jazz and weird ass experimental shit


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## defchime (May 21, 2009)

DubSacZach said:


> Im thinking about getting the Carvin V3 head soon and eventually getting a Vader cab for it. Before i buy anything though i want to hear some other peoples opinions on it. I mostly play death metal and im goin for a Faceless esque tone, I also play jazz and weird ass experimental shit



if u didnt know, the v3 is used by the popular deathcore bands suicide silence and winds of plague. Not saying deathcore is great but suicide silences tone almost makes me like them. 

i thought of getting the v3 until i heard of madison amps. I went with the divinity 2 b/c i love that low hammer to the face scoopyness lol. 

id say try the v3 for sure and if you like it go for it, its not common to find such brutal tube heads for so cheap. 
if you can up your budget youre in engl fireball & powerball, 6505 range.

happy hunting on your quest for tone


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## DubSacZach (May 21, 2009)

defchime said:


> if u didnt know, the v3 is used by the popular deathcore bands suicide silence and winds of plague. Not saying deathcore is great but suicide silences tone almost makes me like them.
> 
> i thought of getting the v3 until i heard of madison amps. I went with the divinity 2 b/c i love that low hammer to the face scoopyness lol.
> 
> ...


 
thanks for the tip about madison heads those things sound sick now im on the fence


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## auxioluck (May 21, 2009)

I would say with a tubescreamer, there's a good chance. I got to mess around with one of these, and the tone was killer, but the gain was lacking. I would say add a tubescreamer, and you could have one hell of a metal amp.


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## danenachtrieb (May 21, 2009)

suicide silence went from V3 to krankenstein to triple rec. except the krankenstein, good amps all round. they were endorsed by carvin but dropped it for krank, realizing that krank wasnt very good they kept the cabs but switched to mesa heads.


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## budda (May 21, 2009)

doesnt the dude from the faceless use a randall T2 or V2? hop on that


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## danenachtrieb (May 21, 2009)

budda said:


> doesnt the dude from the faceless use a randall T2 or V2? hop on that


 
im a subscriber to guitarworld and the most recent issue had a randall add and the guy from the faceless was on it. however this shit happens all the time, so he probably plays something else haha


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## OrsusMetal (May 21, 2009)

When I saw The Faceless live they were using Randall cabs, but Line 6 Vetta on top. The original Vettas also, not the Vetta II. Awesome tone.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything to add about the Carvin head. I've never used or heard one.


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## defchime (May 22, 2009)

OrsusMetal said:


> When I saw The Faceless live they were using Randall cabs, but Line 6 Vetta on top. The original Vettas also, not the Vetta II. Awesome tone.
> 
> Unfortunately, I don't have anything to add about the Carvin head. I've never used or heard one.



goddammit there using vettas now because they toured with meshuggah(vetta 2). w/e it probably sounds just as sick. 

as for the suicide silence carvin thing thats fucking dumb if i remember correctly they got the v3s in like january when i was still deciding...

to the guy who started the thread. my madison divinity is fucking amazing and im usin a homemade cab with a shitty speaker. id highly recommend it for just about anything. 

if your budget is kind of low and you want a madison check www.shredmuzic.com ...i got a used modded one of a kind divinity 2 for $500 usd, and honestly you cannot compare that to anything, like tone=undefined looks=scream metal and value=just ridiculous.

i love my amp in case you couldnt tell


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## hanachanmaru (May 22, 2009)

Why wouldnt your choice be like ENGL? or perhaps VHT?


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## TMM (May 22, 2009)

hanachanmaru said:


> Why wouldnt your choice be like ENGL? or perhaps VHT?



Budget, I'm guessing.

+1 on checking out the Randall V2 / T2. I had the V2 for a little while, and it's a hell of an amp. I didn't find the SS overdrive channel to be too useful, but the tube overdrive channel was just incredible. It totally changed my opinion of Randall amps.


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## Cheesebuiscut (May 22, 2009)

I was looking at one of these as a mesa rec alternative for budget purposes but I wasn't able to find a single used one ANYWHERE and the price of it new I can find a used dual or triple rec sometimes WITH a cab.


It sounds good from the looks of it but personally I would just wait it out until you find a good deal on a mesa (if you like mesa's) or something else.


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## renzoip (May 22, 2009)

Looks like a pretty nice amp. The clips I've seen in youtube although not brutal, they sound good I would think it should do the job fine.

Have you considered going for a rack set up?? You could get a Marshall JMP-1 and a Mesa 2:95 for a pretty good price. Marcel Coenen and my guitar player have this combo and they get a great heavy tone!


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## ove (May 22, 2009)

It depends on what kind of death metal you're looking for. If it's fast tremolos and stuff then it could work but if you need a really tight sound then probably not. We had to record our album with the V3 and we ended up running on the clean channel with a Boss Metal Zone (yes, the Boss Metal Zone. Crazy, huh?) in front of it. If it is of any interest you can find clips here: Aeon Aethereal (PARASITE HALLS out now!) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads
I hope you'll be able to here it because the sound is quite eq'd post recording.

Perhaps Peavey would be more your thing? Or you might be able to find a good deal on a Mesa, Engl or something other similar amps.

Hope this helps.


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## danenachtrieb (May 22, 2009)

ove said:


> It depends on what kind of death metal you're looking for. If it's fast tremolos and stuff then it could work but if you need a really tight sound then probably not. We had to record our album with the V3 and we ended up running on the clean channel with a Boss Metal Zone (yes, the Boss Metal Zone. Crazy, huh?) in front of it. If it is of any interest you can find clips here: Aeon Aethereal (PARASITE HALLS out now!) on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads
> I hope you'll be able to here it because the sound is quite eq'd post recording.
> 
> Perhaps Peavey would be more your thing? Or you might be able to find a good deal on a Mesa, Engl or something other similar amps.
> ...


 
first of all i really like your shit. black/death goodness. second, im actually considering getting a V3, anybody know how it sounds through an orange 4x12?


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## Bevo (May 23, 2009)

ove

That was some fresh goodness as said above!!

Nice work, will track down your album out here.

Bev


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## redstar audio (May 23, 2009)

This is a really interesting thread to us because we used to have a V3 in our shop as a test rig. We felt the clean channel was pretty good, but we didn't like the others very much, and we ended up getting rid of it. Specifically, we thought the other channels sounded too "loose". Didn't seem to have great attack, crispness, or focus to the sound.

We typically don't run any pedals in front of the amps when we play test, demo, A/B test, etc. because then the variables get too hard to track. But, straight into the amp, we were not as nearly as impressed as we expected based on some other reviews.



TMM said:


> Budget, I'm guessing.
> 
> +1 on checking out the Randall V2 / T2. I had the V2 for a little while, and it's a hell of an amp. I didn't find the SS overdrive channel to be too useful, but the tube overdrive channel was just incredible. It totally changed my opinion of Randall amps.


 
When we have somebody play testing and they like/play more modern metal genres, we run them through our T2. It is a great amp, like you say. Usually takes them about 30 seconds to lock in on a tone and then they never look back. And it's got a lot of power headroom. So yeah, agreed, that T2 was one of our best purchases.


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## ove (May 23, 2009)

The Carvin is indeed loose, but it's designed that way. It's a rock amp and excels at that. The cleans are good, the overdrives and solo sounds as well but for tight and exact death metal it isn't very good.
It all depends what you use it for .

And thanks much for the compliments!


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## groph (May 23, 2009)

A Peavey 5150 II will do tight brutal death metal like nobody's business. And I'd also kill someone for a Randall V2, that can do those sorts of tones perfectly as well. I've only heard two good clips of a Carvin V3 and even those sounded a bit too loose. Great for big sounding metal like Strapping Young Lad or stuff with enormous chords, but the tone isn't percussive enough. Every other clip I've heard, the amp sounds messy.


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## DubSacZach (May 25, 2009)

ik The Faceless and Messhuggah use the Vetta, and ik they are good for recording but how do they sound in a live situation?

o and by the way im looking for a tight, high gain amp that is good for low tunings aswell as high squeals and solos, i need a decent clean channel, good individual note articulation and it needs to be able to handle an 8 string cuz im getting an agile intrepid 8 for 1000 or under


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## metalmachine (May 2, 2010)

i have a v 3 

you can get a tight brutal tone from it. but you gotta work with it


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## Necrogrinder (May 2, 2010)

i love brutal death metal and if i was in the usa i would be jumping on a madison amp faster than you can say "a"


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## iff (May 2, 2010)

I'm just going to KO the discussion about which amps the Faceless use - Vetta II for cleans and leads and Randall V2 for rhythms.

Info courtesy of Mr. Keene himself.


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