Is Crate the worst of the worst?

Crap
Total votes: 4 (44%)
Just MOSTLY crap...except for...
Total votes: 5 (56%)
Total votes: 9

Crate Amplifiers

1
This was touched on almost 20 years ago in the original forum archive.

Yes, they're bad, but did they have any hidden gems or secret uses, or was this just absolutely the worst w/ no redeeming models/outliers?

Here's a couple personal anecdotes:

Remember those ugly-ass Power Blocks they made? Not that bad actually...when they worked. Not known for their reliability, that's for sure but when I was subbing in on drums for a punk band years ago, their bass player used one of these for a few years - didn't sound bad and never had any problems w/ it.

Once I had a punk band come in and guitar player had one a GX-1200H I think. It was AWFUL but to our ears it was in a good way. We double-tracked it w/ one of my amps and when blended, the two sounded really cool. Uniquely bad-sounding. Way into it. Bought one for pennies just to have around for when that certain something is needed...and still have never used it. I've never gotten quite the same stank out of mine either but I wonder if his was borken because when he had to use it at shows, it was cutting out and usually caught hands at least a couple times at each show to temporarily fix it.

So did Crate actually make anything good? I've heard the original 70s stuff that actually looks like a crate was supposedly good but never heard one in person.

Let's hear your horror stories.

Re: Crate Amplifiers

2
My first loud amp was a Crate 120 watt combo with real spring reverb and a couple few channels. It absolutely wailed.

Jared from Big Biz/ Melvins used one in the early days. Not sure how much of that big sound the Crate had to do with.

Mine served its purpose before I moved on to something less laughable. I sold it to a bass player buddy of mine, and the last time I saw him playing through it, I felt like I wanted it back.

Not crap for being big and loud and shitty.
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Re: Crate Amplifiers

4
First amp, yeah. A GX-15R. About what an eighth grader starting out, whose parents can't be sure he'll stick with it, deserves.

If I had such a kid though I'd try to get him a Fender Super Champ X2 instead (portable but loud enough to function in a band setting, and good enough for tracking).
ZzzZzzZzzz . . .

Re: Crate Amplifiers

5
My amp to play quietly at home is a GX-60, fairly recent but with spring reverb and an external speaker jack. A useful item. Surprisingly decent cleans. Distortion is definitely oriented toward the bees in a can sound, but can be adjusted to sound OK. Better than a Metal Zone, anyway.

Used an MX series at practice that couldn’t be made to sound decent and also hissed like crazy with any amount of overdrive.

Crate’s shitty board mounted pots seem less shitty than the ones Peavy has been using since the 80s. I haven’t had them go crackly or stop doing anything yet, anyway, which every blue-line Peavey I’ve owned has done to me. On the other hand, Crate never has offered anything as sick sounding as the Peavey Supersat distortion with the “bottom” and “edge” controls.

Re: Crate Amplifiers

7
First "band" I was ever in, our guitar player had some half-stack Crate nonsense. He was clearly tricked by the size and price tag. 100% solid state in a bad way. The head was in a full marshall-sized box but the actual unit was like 1u and nothing but empty space in there. Terrible - I wasn't even nearly as loud of a drummer at the time but still could not hear the thing over my drums, although in fairness, he probably scooped it even further from it's already scooped sound.

For this reason, I think it's fair to say a huge chunk of why these amps sound bad is because of inexperience + bad playing.

Also, I worked at Guitar Center for a few months about 15 ago when they touted some tube "palamino" amps or something. Man they did not sound very good to me.

Re: Crate Amplifiers

8
My second guitar amp was some ancient G12 (I think). I later acquired a JCM 800 dual channel, and my buddy said I should have gotten the "superior" Crate Blue Voodoo. Crap. Peavey wins in that price bracket.
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Re: Crate Amplifiers

9
I still have a Crate V18 212 combo. It made for a pretty nice entry level tube amp when I bought it about 15 years ago. The spring reverb has held up, although the pot is a little crackly; likely just needs a good cleaning, I'm sure it's full of gunk. The gain is warm and breaks up nicely without getting overly squealy/screechy when I play my SG through it. Adding a Tube Screamer to the signal chain makes for a great grungy/sludgy tone.

Re: Crate Amplifiers

10
A friend had A Blue Voodoo head. It sounded pretty good, but it was so fricking noisy. It wasn't even old. Like 5 years maybe. Just hissed all the time. He ended up throwing it away because his amp tech said it was so terrible inside it wasn't worth servicing. Ended up on the curb. There are so many Peavey amps I'd rather have that cost almost nothing. I bought our Peavey Classic with a built in phaser for like $125 on craigslist. It's great.

Crap. They own Ampeg.
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