Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe Amplifier – Solid State Glory!
Peavey Bandit Red Stripe Amplifier
I recently purchased my third Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe amplifier! That’s right, I’ve had two of these in the past, and this is my third! I was lucky to score one of these in mint condition on the used market in Melbourne, Australia. I got this for $275, which is a great deal considering the current version of the Bandits sells for up to $999 (Australian Dollars).
What Makes the Peavey Red Strip Bandit Special?
The Peavey Bandit 112 has been around for years, but there’s something special about the tone and value of the Red Stripe edition. This amplifier will do the “Fender Clean” thing and lets you dial in a range of dirty tones depending on your needs.
The Teal-Stripe Bandit amps are also very good. I first used one of those at a blues jam in San Francisco back in the day, and I was shocked at how great it felt to play and how well it handled my DeltaLab TO1 Overdrive at the time. The Red Strip is very similar on the clean channel, but it offers a wider range of usable drive tones.
An Update on My Bandit Article
This post updates the original Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe article I posted many years ago. I will discuss why I got one, which speaker I installed, and what to expect from this 24-year-old amplifier. Is the Bandit perfect? No, but no amp is.
The Red Stripe Bandit wipes the floor with many of the popular and more expensive amps you can find in stores in 2024, and I will explain why. If you want information on what the controls do, check the article linked above.
Things I Like about the Red Stripe Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe
Loud Enough for Gigs
The Red Stripe Peavey Bandit is plenty loud! It’s an 80-watt solid-state amp with a quality speaker, so it’s loud. When people think of solid-state amps, they usually think they won’t cut it in the mix, but this does.
Much like the Roland Jazz Chorus or Blues Cube, the Bandit has a quality speaker that will allow you to be heard in almost any situation. If you need more power, you can run a second extension cab, which raises the amp’s power handling to 100 watts.
Clean Channels
There are a few things I love about this amp. First, this edition of the Peavey Bandit 112 is one you can use with or without pedals with great success. Included are two unique clean channel voicings, vintage and modern, which allow you to find a very usable clean tone. Vintage sounds more like a Fender Amp, and Modern has more mids, which is great for fattening out a single-coil guitar.
Great Pedal Platform
Both clean channels handle pedals well, and if you are already using a pedalboard for a tube amp setup, you can plug it in and get a great tone. The Transtube technology (solid-state) helps recreate a similar feel to a tube amp, meaning it doesn’t get fizzy or shrill when you have the amp cranked. You’ll find the amp very warm and round on the clean channels while never getting too bright.
Usable Drive Tones
If you’re not a fan of using external dirt pedals, the vintage drive channel is your first of three drive channels. This is reminiscent of the vintage clean channel but with a gain circuit. It sounds like you’ve got a low-gain, full-range overdrive pedal on the clean channel. The Vintage clean channel is great for blues and classic rock.
Secondly, the High-Gain channel is killer! While its noise floor is higher than that of the vintage drive channel, it’s extremely usable for lead solos or chunky rhythm guitar. This channel is similar to if you stack two separate overdrive pedals on a clean channel, meaning it still has the mid-frequency punch you would expect.
Lastly, there’s a higher-gain channel called ‘modern,’ which I am not a huge fan of personally. However, if you’re into 80s/90s metal, you might get a kick out of it. This channel is too mid-scooped for me, but it’s worth mentioning if you’re into heavier rock styles.
Onboard Effects Loop (FX Loop) & Real Spring Reverb
Unlike many solid-state amps, the Red Stripe bandit has a proper FX loop on the amplifier’s rear. This opens up the opportunity to get the best possible sound from time or modulation effects.
Unlike the new bandit, which utilizes a digital reverb, the Red Strip uses a large spring reverb, allowing you to get beautiful “Fender-esque” reverb levels. The spring reverb sounds and feels great and is a good point of difference from the modern version.
Changing the Speaker
You can easily upgrade the internal speaker if you’re unhappy with the Bandit’s tone. My speaker choice is the Eminence Texas Heat, and I’ll explain why. The Texas heat makes the amp perceivably louder and causes less speaker distortion, which gives the amps a bigger and cleaner overall sound.
The Eminence Texas Heat also removes the sizzle of the stock speaker’s high frequency and gives you a much fatter mid-tone. If you want to learn more about the best speakers for the Peavey Bandit 112, check out the linked article. The result is a solid-state amp that feels and sounds much more like a tube amplifier.
A Real Spring Reverb
A real spring reverb tank is loaded into the back of the Red Stripe Bandit! This spring reverb tank contributes to the niceness of the tone. Peavey eventually went to a digital spring reverb, but this sounds wild. This was the one thing that needed to be replaced on this used amp, as the original spring reverb was highly microphonic. A cheap Acutronics spring reverb tank (Sweetwater affiliate link) fixed the reverb issue, and it sounds magic now.
Final Thoughts
I am happy to have a Peavey Bandit 112 Red Stripe in the collection again! This amplifier is not only in excellent condition but also has tones and versatility, making it a great choice for my blues and blues rock style. The Red Stripe bandit is still one of the best solid-state amplifiers you can find, and this red stripe is right up there with the best of the best. Subscribe on my intheblues YouTube channel for more updates and videos on this amp.
