I am not a normal guitar player. When I started I was so much better with my fingers than with a pick that my friends smartly suggest me to play bass, so I only became a proficient guitarist during/after playing bass in metal bands for 4 years. When I quit my last band I decided to invest more in playing guitar and, after realizing that my Fender Rumble 150 bass amp with a distortion pedal could sound like a convincing guitar amp, I used that set up for 6 years.
In those years I acquired a variety of pedals and I kept my amp's EQ sacredly protected for any minimal change. When I had it back after sending it to repair a noisy volume pot and messed with the EQ while playing bass I realized that I needed to free the amp to bass duties and buy a guitar amp, since my first guitar amp was not good enough.
I really wanted an amp with lead and distortion channels with dedicated EQs, an FX loop and I didn't need much FX fanfare since I had a wide arsenal of pedals that I used before to complement my Fender Rumble's lack of them. I also had to learn about tube and solid state amp, and realized that a Tube amp would be much too expensive and with extra repair costs to my liking and budget.
I was initially interested in the Peavey 6505 line, and during my research to find a good solid state alternative I read about the Bandit. I heard every online demo of it and I realized it was the best option to fulfill my needs. There were lots of Bandit lovers, specially of the older versions, and I really felt that I could trust Peavey due to the number of Metal bands that use their amps.
I really like the amp, its 3 voicings per channel really are versatile. I was afraid of noticing a lack of low end after coming from playing guitar on a Bass amp but I didn't, in the clean warm setting the sound is very full and rich, in the distorted heavy setting the palm mutes can shake walls like I was used to. I was very found of my old distortion pedal's sound and this amp really opened up the definition of great distortion for me, its mid range is what I have been lacking while playing through a bass amp.
The footswitch is a must have and the boost switch is an smart idea to solo boosts, although I don't use it since I have a pedal that creates a parallel loop in the FX loop and I use it to turn on a delay and an EQ pedal (with a EQ and volume boost). The presence (lose/tight) and power % controls are great additions, as well as the simulated mic out jack.
I never tried a tube amp before, but a colleague told me that the unique thing about tube amps was when the guitar volume was cut or increased it affects the drive from the amp, and I realized that this amp does exactly that. The cleanest setting can clip with a boost before it and the heaviest setting can become almost clean if I cut the volume from the guitar or volume pedal.
It only had one issue: even in the Lowest watt percentage with minimal volume the sound was too loud. I solved it by putting a passive volume control in the fx loop to act as a master volume, I can get as loud or heavy as I want in each channels setting and make that great sound very quiet without losing its character... `I don't know how orthodox it is, or if it works on all amps, but it really worked for me.
Overall I think this is a great amp, with character on its distortion and warmness on its cleans. It hasn't got FX (besides a reverb to give some ambience) but is a straight forward solid, reliable and amazing sounding amp! For someone needing an amp with lots of features and FXs this is not the best choice, but for someone with simple needs or that has his/her pedals already this is the best choice, and not only for Metal.
