FOREWORD
Dear Customer,
welcome to the team of BEHRINGER users, and thank you very much for expressing your confi- dence in us by pur- chasing the BEHRINGER V-TONE.
Writing this foreword for you gives me great pleasure, because it represents the cul- mination of many months of hard work delivered by our engineering team to achieve a very ambitious goal: to de- velop an outstanding guitar amp that is at the forefront of what is
technically possible and that can be used in many different applications. Our guitar amps offer you strong performance, their sound is amazingly clear, and they are easy to use both as direct recording amps as well as stage amps. The task of designing our new V-TONEs certainly meant a great deal of responsibility, which we assumed by focusing on you, the discerning user and musician. Meeting your expectations also meant a lot of work and night shifts. But it was fun, too. Developing a product usually brings a lot of people together, and what a great feeling it is when all who participated in such a project can be proud of what they’ve achieved.
It is our philosophy to share our enjoyment with you, because you are the most important member of the BEHRINGER team. With your highly competent suggestions for new products you’ve made a significant contribution to shaping our company and making it successful. In return, we guarantee you uncompromising quality as well as excellent technical and audio properties at an extremely reasonable price. All of this will enable you to give free rein to your creativity without being hampered by budget constraints.
We are often asked how we manage to produce such high- quality devices at such unbelievably low prices. The answer is quite simple: it’s you, our customers! Many satisfied customers mean large sales volumes enabling us to get better purchasing terms for components, etc. Isn’t it only fair to pass this benefit on to you? Because we know that your success is our success too!
I would like to thank all of you who have made the V-TONE Series possible. You have all made your own personal contributions, from the developers to the many other employees at this company, and to you, the BEHRINGER user.
My friends, it’s been worth the effort!
Thank you very much,
Uli Behringer
1. INTRODUCTION
Thank you for purchasing the V-TONE GM110. The GM110 is a modern Guitar Workstation that sets new standards in practice amp engineering.
When developing the GM110, our primary objective was to reproduce the authentic sound of analog guitar amplifiers and at the same time provide you with a tool for straightforward recording. The concept of intuitive operation remained a central consideration.
Many people contributed to this intense development project: studio musicians, collectors of vintage guitar amps, music and guitar lovers alike. We even invited guitar amp tuning experts to help us develop an amplifier that unites the very best of both worlds.
The demands placed on a guitar amp are nowadays very broad. A guitarist should offer a wide array of sounds, but at the same time be able to quickly adapt to specific requirements of various applications—be it home recording, studio, live perfor- mances, etc. That’s why it is very important to us to be able to offer you a maximal sound diversity as well as diverse connection possibilities with our V-TONE. Fret not: you will quickly master the V-TONE and will be able to quickly learn how to use all of its capabilities easily and intuitively.
With its up-to-date circuitry, the V-TONE features the functionality and dependability of a truly modern guitar amp. Yet it is user-friendly and problem-free as if it were a classic tube combo. We highly recommend taking your time to truly learn all of the V-TONE’s functions so you can reach its maximum potential.
1.1 The design concept
The philosophy behind BEHRINGER products guarantees a no-compromise circuit design and employs the best choice of components. The operational amplifiers employed by BEHRINGER and used in the V-TONE GM110 are exceptional: they boast extreme linearity and very low distortion characteristics. To complement this, the choice of components includes low-tolerance resistors and capacitors, high-quality potentiometers and switches, and several other carefully selected elements.
The robust housing of your V-TONE, with its oversize power supply, gives you the peace of mind that the V-TONE will hold its own even under the most demanding stage conditions. The housing is made of high-grade, environment-friendly MDF wood consisting of multiply impregnated layers.
1.2DYNAMIZER technology and analog modeling
When an electric instrument is amplified, that’s where you either make it or break it. Unlike the signals that have been mixed and mastered, the signals of electric instruments have extremely high signal peaks, placing the dynamic range of the amp’s circuitry under immense strain. How your amp reacts to these signal peaks is one of its most defining characteristics.
That’s why we’ve equipped all V-TONE Series amps with our unique DYNAMIZER preamplifier circuitry. It guarantees a lively sound with a lot of punch, even when the amp is pushed to its limits. Combine that with our V-TONE analog modeling, and not only do you have amazingly authentic tube sounds at your fingertips, you also get the dynamic performance typical of the respective amp type. Crystal-clear guitar tones come through with transparency, warmth and the compression typical of tube amps. Even as distortion increases, the sound remains lively and full of power, without losing any of its assertiveness.
All along, you have full control over the volume. Plainly talking, you can take the same sound you are used to at your practice room and replicate it in your bedroom at much more reasonable volume levels, or you can even record yourself while playing.
