Crate blue voodoo

DankStar

DankStar

Her Little Mojo Minion
Seeing the CC thread and thinking about crates makes me wonder:

Does anyone use a blue voodoo? When they came out, I saw a few bands using them, but then everyone seemed to diss them and they became the amp you always saw used in the pawn shop and music store.

I recall they had a fair amount of gain, kinda fuzzy/woolly. They had kind of a neat look.

So.....anyone rock one?
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

I once saw a program showing Judas Priest's rehearsal room, and they had two of them. Sounded like Priest.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

Yeah, you'd think they'd have Marshalls, but they probably don't tour with the Crates.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

I've seen them around used and usually go for about $350. Never really played them but yeah I remember they always had a fuzzy distortion sound as with most crate amps. Made in America. I remember Sammy Hagar had his own blue voodoo line. Shame what happened to that company. a bit better quality and better business decisions and they coulda been a good company.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

I've got a Vintage Club Combo that kicks butt, even with old tubes and speakers. Can't wait to put a pair of 6CA7's in the power section and a set of Tung-Sols in the preamp.

I played in a band where the guitar player (I was playing drums) used a Blue Voodoo head and it sounded nice. I thought it sounded better than his Mesa.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

Haven't seen a thread about these in awhile. I was actually going to buy one last weekend but the dude flaked on me at the last minute. The use to be the cats arse back in the day, but they were plagued with reliability problems. Sammy Hagar had his red voodoo line as mentioned earlier. Marty Friedman used them for a couple Megadeth albums. I'm wanting to say Youthnasia and Cryptic Writings, but I'm not 100% on either. I owned the 60 watt head about 10 years ago. It was modded by Voodoo Amps when I bought it, it crapped out, so I sent it back to Trace and had him fix it and mod it some more.

They're decent amps for what you pay now. I wouldn't spend more than a few hundred on one if you're in the market.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

9finger said:
Haven't seen a thread about these in awhile. I was actually going to buy one last weekend but the dude flaked on me at the last minute. The use to be the cats arse back in the day, but they were plagued with reliability problems. Sammy Hagar had his red voodoo line as mentioned earlier. Marty Friedman used them for a couple Megadeth albums. I'm wanting to say Youthnasia and Cryptic Writings, but I'm not 100% on either. I owned the 60 watt head about 10 years ago. It was modded by Voodoo Amps when I bought it, it crapped out, so I sent it back to Trace and had him fix it and mod it some more.

They're decent amps for what you pay now. I wouldn't spend more than a few hundred on one if you're in the market.
Click to expand...

Actually Friedmans Crate deal was only for cabinets not for amps despite what was in the promo pictures. The albums were recorded with a mixture of Bogner and CAA stuff. Seeing rows of Crate cabs on stage is enough to rope in the muppets.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

The few times I played through them, I was terribly unimpressed. This was at gig levels, first time at a 300 capacity venue, 2nd time at a 1500 capacity venue, both times with pro sound systems.

I like my distortion to be quite saturated and have a good amount of low end oomph and high end sizzle. the blue voodoo sounded extremely stiff in the mids, harsh in the high end, and pretty much nonexistent in the lows. the distortion was gritty and buzzy, not in a good way either. Saturation is just not there. Note, I'm not saying it is a clean amp, it just doesn't get any good saturation, despite cranking the gain.

to sum up, I found it to be a very sterile, lifeless amp with no character at all. It just sounded like something that was cobbled together on the cheap with no care put into the process.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

^^^ They had some big problems with the circuit board. I forget what, but it might have been something with a tube socket? When the problem arose, they sounded like what you described, The cabinets came with either Crate speakers or Vintage 30s and the Crate speakers stunk. You can tell the difference because when you look straight ahead at the cab, the V30s have the small circle at the rear of the cone, and the Crate speakers have a big one, almost four or five inches in diameter. I used to see them on eBay advertised with the V30s, but you could tell by the pics that it had the Crate speakers. I had a 60 watt Blue Voodoo head for many years and never had a problem with it. The Crate speakers were horrible, so I swapped them out for G12H30s and V30s in the old X pattern and the amp just flat out rocked. It had that Mesa type of sound with a bit of JCM 800 mixed in, if you can imagine that. The clean channel was nothing to write home about, but the gain channel was fantastic imo. It had nice bottom, and the mids and highs were very ballsy. To be honest, I wish I had that amp back. I sold it to fund a Marshall purchase a few years back.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

Edgecrusher said:
Actually Friedmans Crate deal was only for cabinets not for amps despite what was in the promo pictures. The albums were recorded with a mixture of Bogner and CAA stuff. Seeing rows of Crate cabs on stage is enough to rope in the muppets.
Click to expand...

I was not aware of that, so thanks for correcting me. I know the deal didn't last very long though!


The quality on them were hit and miss. It had something to do with the coating on the PCB and the filter caps not being rated for a high enough voltage IIRC. I never had that problem with mine. Mine ran fine for a long time and then started blowing power tubes. Also mine didn't sound anything like what was described earlier, but mine had been modded prior to me purchasing it and I played through a Marshall cabinet. Have no idea what speakers were in it.

FWIW, if you find one that is still running now, it probably a safe bet that they aren't going to have the PCB or Filter cap problem they were plagued with. That was something that supposedly came on pretty quickly. Some people actually like the gain channel on them and there are some mods available for them. Brian Wampler use to have a Youtube vid of one he modded and it sounds really good to me.

If I found another 60 watt head for a good price, I wouldn't hesitate to pick it up. That being said, it would go to a tech to have it thoroughly checked over before logging any serious time on it as well.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

Heard one at a gig...sounded killer with a emg axe...sucked with
Hb's? Fizzy bad...
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

When I see those now, I cringe, and I like some Crates, like the late Vintage series and Club series. Those blue doodoos were bad though. I had a 120 head and the thing blew up on me 3 times. I finally said screw it after the 3rd time, got it fixed under warranty and promptly sold it then went and bought a Marshall. Haven't looked back since.

It got some decent tones out of the BV120 when it was working right, but it couldn't even keep up with a Marshall 2204 in the same room if it wanted to. It just didn't get any louder past 5.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

I knew a guy a few years ago that had his modded to run EL34's instead of the 6L6's (I think they came stock with 6l6's anyhow). He had a couple of other things done to it, and ran it though a Crate cab with Greenbacks. It sounded really good. Not actually Marshally, but it had a decent roar to it. It was one of the 60 watt heads though. Not sure I would want one of the 120w heads....same problem with other 100 watt heads, too much headroom for most folks.

I would give one a try if I got a good deal on a 60W head.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

Jeff_H said:
I knew a guy a few years ago that had his modded to run EL34's instead of the 6L6's (I think they came stock with 6l6's anyhow). He had a couple of other things done to it, and ran it though a Crate cab with Greenbacks. It sounded really good. Not actually Marshally, but it had a decent roar to it. It was one of the 60 watt heads though. Not sure I would want one of the 120w heads....same problem with other 100 watt heads, too much headroom for most folks.

I would give one a try if I got a good deal on a 60W head.
Click to expand...

Come to think of it, I think that was one of the mods that was done to mine.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

I have the 300w, 3 channel version. It doesn't sound like the bv120s or 60s at all. The BV300h is basically an SVT Classic (same company owned Ampeg and Crate: St. Louis Music) with the clean channel being from the SVT, the 2nd channel being the "vintage" dirty channel (actually, just low middy and fizzy to all hell), and the 3rd being the "modern" voiced dirty channel. I can get some pretty brutal tones from channel 3 and the clean channel is nice and warm. Overall, I dig the amp except for the head weighing 85 lbs (just like a real SVT!!! lol) and the 2nd channel being mush. It's a neat oddball amp to have laying around. I've been wanting to throw it on top of an 8x10 fridge for years and rock some fuzz bass through it...
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

85 lbs?
I've carried some heavy gear over the years but nothing like that.
 
Re: Crate blue voodoo

16 mother****in' tubes??

Massimo.jpg
 
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