Come late spring or early summer, guitarists will be chopping it up with the new Peavey Butcher guitar amplifier ($1,499.99 MSRP), a 100W all-tube head amp specially designed to deliver brutal British tone.

The two-channel Butcher features not one, but five 12AX7 preamp tubes and four EL34 power amp tubes. Both the Clean and Crunch channels feature independent three-band EQ, plus master volume and preamp gain controls, which let you adjust the interplay between the preamp and power amp on each channel. Both channels include a separate, footswitchable gain boost, while the Crunch channel also has a 12-way Punch selector that adjusts the low-end attack of the amplifier. This convenient feature helps match the head to various speaker enclosures.

Likewise, the Master section widens the range of possibilities with two footswitchable master volumes, allowing you to set one as a default and use the second as a solo boost. A patented Presence control boosts the extreme high frequencies and in turn provides the amp with extra cut and high- and low-gain inputs.

On the rear panel, the built-in Peavey MSDI microphone-simulated XLR direct interface eliminates the need for miking by allowing you to send the amp's signal directly to a recording device or mixing console. Additional controls include a line out with level control; an active effects loop with send and return level control; an impedance selector; a half-power switch; and a tube bias adjustment jack.

Features at a glance:

• Two independent channels: Clean and Crunch
• 100W into 16, 8, or 4 ohms
• Half-power switch drops the output to 50W
• Four EL34 power amp tubes
• Five 12AX7 preamp tubes
• Three-band EQ on each channel
• Global Presence
• Two Master Volume controls
• Global Master Volume Boost with switch and level control
• 12-way Punch attack control on Crunch channel
• Pre-gain Boost switch on both channels
• Built-in MSDI microphone-simulated direct XLR output
• Line out with level control
• Active effects loop with send and return level control
• Tube bias adjustments on back panel
• Four-button footswitch included

Peavey expects to ship the Butcher in the second quarter of 2010. For more information, please visit the Peavey Web site.