# Carvin V3M Tone Report (kind of lengthy)



## krovx (Oct 5, 2011)

I have finally been able to jam about 6-8 hours on the V3M through a variety of cabs. Below are my opinions. I admit my tone goals may not be as gain seeking as others here, but I will try to explain where I am coming from. I am far from a technical player or sound engineer but I will try to explain the best way I can, feel free to ask questions and take it easy on me and my word choice  The guitar I mostly used was my Carvin DC150 maple neck/ ebony board, alder body, maple top with a Dimarzio D Activator in the bridge and a Dimarzio HFH in the neck. I used a Tele for the 212V, along with an EMG81 loaded Strat. I only took the DC150 with me to other shops. I am more of a high gain guy, my previous amp experiences are in order of time played, Peavey 5150, Carvin V3, Dual Rectifier, & JCM900. A few years ago I was more after a high gain sound of Killswitch Engaged or All That Remains. Now I am more in the realm of Funeral For a Friend, Underoath, Chevelle. Not nearly as hi gain, but still powerful and able to cut. I have been debating about this head since it came out, but also have considered the Mini Recto head and the Mini 5150 III. The price and options on the V3M are silly, I had to try it first. Plus, I had great experience with its bigger brother in the past. I ordered it with the killer deal 212V. (which I am not happy with, more below.)

Summary so far: I realized I never could identify what the bigger V3 was like... is it more of a Marshall or Mesa sound? This little guy is in a similar boat. It sounds VERY different depending on the speaker cab you use. I forgot when I owned the bigger brother I actually preferred my Celestion G12T-75 loaded Marshall 1960A cab ( which I think then the V3 cab came stock with those speakers, and you could order vin30s as an option) over my Mesa Rectifier 412. What does it sound like? To me it is a &#8216;dark&#8217; British sound with way more gain on tap. When I was able to play it side by side to an Orange I realized I could replicate the Orange Rocker 30 and Tiny Terror tone through the Orange cabs, even the sales person was surprised. Yet, the V3M has far more tone shaping capabilities and is in no way limited like the simple Orange heads are, but it definitely shares that dark British character to my ears. PurpleDC&#8217;s assessment about the &#8216;greasy&#8217; lose feeling of the EL84s is right on par. Sounds good for clean and classic crunch, but for hi gain it gets flubby. Still sounds good, but not nearly as tight as I want. I plan on ordering JJ tubes when I can afford to do so. PurpleDC's tube post

OVERALL: This is an incredible head for the money. All the sales reps were blown away by the tone I was getting and the price I paid for this lil thing with all of these options. Even when buying different tubes it is a killer deal. I am blown away with all the variety I can get in this small of a package for such a low price. My only true complaint is the reverb (ha! most of these sized heads don&#8217;t even come with it.) Anything after 2 sounds so fake and ridiculous I could never see myself using it. Although I rarely use reverb, maybe just a touch on a clean channel, so take that for what its worth. 

Bonus - this thing plugged into my GK 115 bass cab sounds great with my Warwick. I was surprised at all the great tubey bass sounds I was able to get out of the great Carvin clean channel. Using the bright and soak options along with the EQX made some great rock and slap tones. Dialed in a nice motown sound as well. I am not sure I would gig with it but if you want to jam in your room and already have a bass cab give it a shot. It is good enough that I am going to sell my GK MB200 that I use for practicing and small gigs, the V3M can do what I want for my bass needs in those applications. 

Onto the cabs!

Carvin 212V: 

I had minimal experience with the G212, but it was open backed and I really am not a fan of those. With the current sale I figured why not give this new one a try? I think I scored it for around 250.00, only 50 more than the 112V. I didn&#8217;t like the fact that the Carvin 212 cab was only 10&#8221; deep, when the Orange and Mesa cabs I am used to are 14+&#8221; deep. I knew something was going to happen but the dollar signs blinded me. The sales rep convinced me to give the Carvin G12&#8217;s a try over the up cost of the Vin30s. I was feeling cheap so I figured why not? I totally forgot about the G12T-75 preference for the older brother at this point. In my opinion, the G12 is the more nuanced version of what I don&#8217;t LIKE about the Vintage 30. I dig Vintage 30s, but they can have a darker lo-mid tone quality that doesn&#8217;t work for me for some applications. Yet, in the right cab they can get the job done with power and cut. I don&#8217;t know what it is about the voice of the G12 but it is dark and VERY mid focused. I wonder how much the 100 watt rating effects this in comparison to the Vintage 30&#8217;s lower 60 watt rating but overall I hate the Carvin G12. It is the ugly step brother of the Vintage 30. Keep in mind, I am not a die hard Vintage 30 guy by any means, and for some of you prefer the darker mid focus, this might be your speaker. I imagine it might be successful for open back users, but for me, YUCK. 

My initial impression of the drive settings were not positive. I could get all the bluesy, classic rock, 80s sounds, but not the modern hi gain I wanted.

The clean channel is more Vox than Fender, think darker. Yet, the bright channel in conjunction with the EQX was giving me some great country twang with my Standard Telecaster think in the ballpark of a Lonestar. I even used the soak channel with great success with the tele. Overall, I think the Carvin clean channel on this amp is amazing, no matter what cab I played it through. 

At this point I regretted choosing these speakers. I was debating about returning everything but figured I owed it to this versatile head to try some different cabs.

Orange Cabs: 1x12, 2x12, 4x12

Went to one of the local shops that is an Orange dealer. He was slow and offered to set me up in a room (what a great guy!) with these three cabs and let me jam out for a few hours. They were all closed back. If you do not know, these cabs are built like brick you-know-whats! I realized that I had always played bright heads through these cabs previously, so the Orange cabs which have a darker sound kind of tamed them. I enjoyed the fuller and crisper sound of these cabs in comparison to the 212V. Yet, after playing a Rectifier 412 and Marshall 1960A, the Orange is still dark, and combined with the already darker voiced V3M, wasn&#8217;t really making me excited, although it still sounded great, and was FAR better than the 212V. Geez, I am going to be so hard on this cab and it probably isn&#8217;t that bad, but it just isn&#8217;t working for me. 

Having these cabs side by side I was able to realize that the physics of a 4x12 sound cannot be replicated by a 1x12 or a 2x12. I am sure some of you are thinking no duh, but I honestly was hoping to maybe just have a 2x12 to move back and forth from jamming, gigs, etc.. well...that isn&#8217;t going to happen after listening to the 4x12 and 2x12 side by side with the V3M. I plan on keeping a 4x12 for live stuff but a 1x12 for at home practice.

Marshall 1960A:

Wow, the darker voice of this head really brightened up through this cab. Night and day difference from the Orange cabs. I could dial in great EVH brown sound (thick mode) to a hi gain early Trivium chug (middle mode to intense mode). When I turned the treble and presence up on the amp the sound cut like a razor, I think some classic rock preferring folk would even describe it as &#8216;ice pickish&#8217; but I was digging it. I felt like I dialed in that sweet spot on a Plexi-style amp where you retain the power and cut but if you pushed it just a little more it would be ice-pick-to-the-ear annoying? Geez, wish I could describe sound better. The clean channel sounded great too. I was really hoping my experience with this cab would put the nail in the coffin on Vintage 30s and I would just go back to the Marshall setup like I preferred with the bigger brother. Lo and behold there was a Rectifier 412 right next to the 1960a. For the next hour I kept switching back and forth noting the differences. 


Rectifier Slant 412: 

I was pleasantly surprised to plug into this cab because I was expecting the dark sound that the Vintage 30 loaded Orange cab had, but it wasn&#8217;t. It wasn&#8217;t as bright as the 1960a, but it was far from dark. It had a fuller sound than the Marshall, but wasn&#8217;t as articulate. The clean channel was great, not as detailed and over the top as it came out the Marshall, but no slouch at all. Does the clean channel on this amp sound bad through any cab? Wow! I noticed I could push the presence and treble on the OD channels further before I reached the ice pick region like the 1960a. I even messed around with the intense mode and EQX and was dialing in some convincing Rectifier tones. Lower gain (thick mode) stuff sounded way better through the Marshall IMO but the other tones I was dialing in on the Mesa cab were great in their own right as well.

I was truly stuck. I liked different things about each cab. I had two sales reps listening to me and when I asked them what they thought, each one preferred a different cab for different reasons. Not sure what to do for cab choice, I know I just need something simple for my 112 need, but I am not sure what to do for a 412. Perhaps I might do the Uberschall idea and order an Avatar cab with a cross pattern of Vintage 30s and G12T-75s? Not sure, would appreciate your insights. I really want to do revaluate the cabinets after I retube the head with the JJs. 

I apologize for how incomplete my descriptions are. I know I should have included my settings but I can&#8217;t honestly remember. I usually run bass and treble between 11&#8217; o clock and 2&#8217; o clock with mid changing from 10 o&#8217;clock to 3&#8217;o clock depending on taste. I messed around with other settings but found myself coming back to this basic setup. I never stayed with the EQX very long. This amp has a lot of gain, I rarely went over 12&#8217; o clock on the drive channels, 3&#8217;o clock was pretty intense. I think extreme players might need some additional pedals or may look into the 5150 III mini, but for the rest of the tone spectrum, this baby delivers. Now to only figure out my cab conundrum...

I hope to add or modify things as I discover and test more. Feel free to provoke some dialogue, just remember I suck at describing this stuff!


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## Inazone (Oct 5, 2011)

Great review, especially with the cab comparisons. I pre-ordered a V3M during winter NAMM and have really only put a couple hours into it so far. I bought it to pair with a Mesa 2x12 vertical cab for out-of-town gigs, but haven't needed it for that purpose yet, so it has sat in my basement vitually untouched for months! In any case, I agree that it's really versatile but heavily influenced by the speaker cab it's running through, possbily more so than any other amp I've owned.

I play a variety of thrash/death/black metal and have to really push the gain as far as the amp will allow, but I am able to get the tone I want without boosting with a pedal. I think of it as a very "clean" distortion in the sense that it lacks the midrange grind I associate with Peavey amps, of which I've owned quite a few over the years. My advice for anyone considering a V3M is that they shouldn't buy this amp expecting it to sound like something else, but rather as an amp that can get "in the ballpark" of various other amps. Can it do extreme metal? Yes. Nice, shimmering cleans? Yes. Will it sound exactly like ________? No.

One of these days, I'll do a YouTube demo of the V3M, but today is not that day.


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## Darkanus (Oct 5, 2011)

http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/gear-equipment/173471-carvin-mesa-nad-ncd.html



Wish I found a review thorough as that back when I was desperately looking for some info about that amp, though either way, I'm satisfied with my purchase. [= 
Great review!


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## krovx (Oct 5, 2011)

Inazone said:


> I bought it to pair with a Mesa 2x12 vertical cab In any case, I agree that it's* really versatile but heavily influenced by the speaker cab it's running through, possbily more so than any other amp I've owned.*
> 
> I play a variety of thrash/death/black metal and have to really push the gain as far as the amp will allow, but I am able to get the tone I want *without boosting with a pedal.* I think of it as a very "clean" distortion in the sense that it lacks the midrange grind I associate with Peavey amps, of which I've owned quite a few over the years. _ My advice for anyone considering a V3M is that they shouldn't buy this amp expecting it to sound like something else, but rather as an amp that can get "in the ballpark" of various other amps. Can it do extreme metal? Yes. Nice, shimmering cleans? Yes. Will it sound exactly like ________? No._



I agree with everything here, thanks for replying. I added bold for emphasis on some points.

The speakers greatly influence what this amp will sound like, I really would love to hear it with an Uberschall style cab, I think it could be amazing.

Regards to the boost pedal, other guys like Purpledc insist that a boost pedal along with the head brings metal bliss. The tube swap really helps tighten up the sound and low end, a must for modern gain needs.

This head does not remind me a Peavey at all, I agree. For the most part that is a good thing, but there will always be a spot in my heart for a 5150.

Question, I have always wanted one of those vertical 2x12 recto cabs, how do they sound compared to a 4x12? I know the physics are not there, but does it get close or is it just a neat looking 2x12?


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## krovx (Oct 5, 2011)

Just realized I still have the settings on the amp as I tested them:








Channel 1 is my Marshall (thick) sound, notice the bumped mids. Channel two was last used on the Mesa, so I had the treble and presence a bit higher than I would have on the Marshall cab. I alternated from center to intense mode. The EQX switches are not on either, and the clean channel is set to center position.


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