Updated Mark V after 2 months

Bought a 412 from avatar cabinets, overstock, wanted a 212 but the price to my door was actually 50$ cheaper for a half stack, somehow I will live (in Canada no less). Blue with black metal grill, Celestion G12T100s (would have gone with 75s if I had orderred, once again nothing majorly different)

Then I put down a deposit on a Mesa Mark V head to go with that cab, as soon as it comes in (shipped today or yesterday) from the factory to the store, it is mine. I can't wait to get evicted from my apartment .

The fact that I now have purchased this means the next thing on my list is a custom ASAT specials. Trans orange, G&L wide C neck, locking tuners, satin neck option, graphite nut, hopefully they start offering SS frets before I order, also wish they would build it without a pickguard, but they only do that for Deluxes, and I want trans on swamp ash. Can't 'downgrade' the top unfortunately either, and I refuse to paint solid over a flame top.

Last edited by sirmyghin on Thu Aug 19, 2010 4:46 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Wow, I guess you did! Should be able to get some great tones out of that Mark V. As for G12T-100s, I've never heard them before...hope you like them.

Wow am I jealous.... that Boogie is on the top of my list. We are expecting detail feedback on all aspects of tone, and what G&L's yer runnin' through her. Now I will go back to my F-50 an dream of bigger things.

Rock on!!

Now I will go back to my F-50 an dream of bigger things.

Not to de-rail this thread, but I used to have an F50...had it for four years. It was a decent amp, but there were two issues I had with it. First off, the drive channel had to be fairly loud to really sound good...louder than was practical for playing in my basement. And most of all, it wasn't a Marshall...after several years of trying other amps I realized I just needed to get a Marshall. But if money wasn't an issue, I would have held onto the F50.

Wow am I jealous.... that Boogie is on the top of my list. We are expecting detail feedback on all aspects of tone, and what G&L's yer runnin' through her. Now I will go back to my F-50 an dream of bigger things.

Rock on!!

I don't have a G&L unfortunately, I want one badly but the amp had to come first. I have been itching for one of these since they came out as I play everything and it claims to do it (with good support from its users)


The update on the cab was it was an experiment by Avatar using Line X coating instead of tolex (as in the spray on truck bed liner). Really looking forward to seeing it as I think that is freaking cool. The G12T100s were not my first choice, I would have gone with the G12T75s, the 100s are supposedly a bit less scooped, the G12s sound less raw, little more compressed than a celestion vintage 30. I think given that the amp is a Mesa and a lot of players like their 'V' shaped Eq's that they two should play very nice together. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-DKXg6AcDE[/youtube] is a speaker demo I found, I guess it would help if I knew what the amp 'sounded' like otherwise

DOG!

Oooh, a big box (that was lugged 1.5 hours on public transit, the guys at the store told me that's the sign of a real musician haha)


a cloth cover, a ltitle overkill for that big box, let us throw the rest away


Hmmm a large white bag


holy crap there was an amp in there!



My first day settings.


The amp is the Mark V I have been waiting for. The cabinet is a blue line X coated (not tolex) 8 ohm cabinet from avatar, with a metal grill. It is 4 G12t100's. I am really digging them.

First hour I sat down and fiddled channel by channel. The only things I have no explored fully are most of channel 2 (I quickly gravitated to the crunch setting) and the Mark IIC+ mode of channel 3. I picked up a 10 ft planet waves speaker cable to go from amp to cab, and recently build some good patched with neutrik ends and Redco home brand 18 Ga O2 free wire (seems to be a almost identical product to the mogami 2524, but 30c cheaper a foot). Tried a neutrik silent end on my guitar lead too, very cool, can hot swap guitars w/o speaker burst as the cable shorts/goes dead. I made 2x 14 and a 12' cable for 40$.

I have been playing through a freaking modeler and my bass amp for about the last 3 years. The modeler was a GNX3000 (digitech). Things are very different here. This is the first time I have really got to sit, undisturbed and fiddle with a tube amp.

Direct comparison says the modeler overemphasized a bunch of things. The fake gain could never get a good pinch harmonic, they would always promptly die. It would also create a lot of artificial feedback that was just impossible at the volume levels. Hand noise (for killing a chord right hand etc) was extremely emphasized. With all these things gone I feel more natural playing, this is more forgiving as its not emphasizing parts of the signal artificially that should not really be there.

Channel 1 :

The clean setting is a little thin for me at the moment, I am gravitating to fat for cleans. I really like the fat with bold engaged, very rich. The reverb can add a lot of character here and I find it quite usable. My favourite thing about this channel is that if you flip from fat to clean, you can instantly go from Pink Floyd style cleans, to ZZ top crunch like la grange. I was experimenting with this at the 45W setting, more than enough gain in the channel for the Top. Channel 1 is the only channel I have really fully explored so far, the rest were more glazed over so I could play some. In between sessions it will be time to RTFM (its like 50 pages!)

Channel 2:

As I said I quickly gravitated to the crunch, it seems to be the loudest of the 3 settings in this channel, and are we not supposed to generally prefer the louder of 2 options instinctively? I quickly got this channel set up to do some good chugging, with a lot more bite/highs than marshall metal (such as Iron Maiden) would typically be heard to have. It got there with the gain at about 2 o clock too... This amp has far too much gain for me, but that is a good thing imo. As I said previously, much cleaner, more precise, fuller than the modeler. Unfortunately I will still need to set up said modeler in the effects loop (with modeling disabled) until I can get delay, chorus, phaser, and wah pedals. This channel is currently in 10W setting

Channel 3:
I dialed this in quickly on Mark IV mode, I prefer the voicing to the extreme voicing, the other is a bit much to me. I got a nice smooth feeling, slightly treble biased sound out of it. I maxed the master here, gain once again at 2 and I get what I would consider convincing Satriani style tone/gain. Extremely smooth sounding. This channel is currently in 10W setting, with the bright switch engaged ( I am a bright junky, but fortunately note mars volta bright ((no offense to those talented folks, but they are so very trebbly it is hard to listen to sometimes)) )


Graphic EQ: I like it, but it is a flavour to me, not a staple. I find there is enough give in the channel EQ (bass, mid , treb) so I can use the graphic EQ as a second voice for each channel. I am using a bit of the preset V with channel 1, an augmented bass and treble boost with sliders (and very very slight mid drop) for channel 2 and 3, to give it a bit more chugga as needed.

The output is currently at about 8 o clock, I had to turn it down from 9 in my room to make it more comfortable for my ears.


This is Day 1. I am loving this thing already, I can get some great cleans, some sweet southern rock style crunch all and back off the gain in tweed and go to country. Channel 1 seems the most versatile of them in terms of different voices, but channel 2 was quite variant also, just haven't explored that one as much. The metal channel is probably the most similar voice wise for this 'metal amp' ((I realize it is ridiculous to shove it as a solely metal amp but lots of people do)).

nice rig!! I have a mesa mark IV and its been very good to me. I actually have little stickers on the front knobs just so I know my perfect settings and which knobs should be pulled out.

I wish I could see a pic of the foot switch you had there.

Is that a 'cheat sheet' on top of the amp?

One more thing, you may want to seriously look at the Digitech RP1000. It works great with an amp! Especially if you like the way your amp sounds already and just need some stop boxes to throw in once in a while. One step on a button and the rp1000 does a complete bypass so you here only your amp's true sound, no modeling. Check it out, I just got one a week or two ago. I had a Pod line6 x3 live which i did like and used mostly at church running it through the pa and having my own powered monitor in front of me so I could hear myself. However I like the whole idea of the rp1000 better. My x3 live got stolen or I probably wouldn't have been looking at another product, but I am glad i did. I guess that is the silver lining of getting my equipment stolen. Good luck.

geo

nice rig!! I have a mesa mark IV and its been very good to me. I actually have little stickers on the front knobs just so I know my perfect settings and which knobs should be pulled out.

This is my first run in with mesa, mostly as it is a do anything amp. The catch I guess is , it does everything but it does it all extremely well. Great cleans, the crunch channel is stellar, edge isn't really me but I might warm up to it with tweaking. And of course the dreaded high gains. The differences is there is no 'deep' for mark IV mode, and Mark IV mode is voices warm, as extreme and Mark IIC+ are voiced bright. So you might not be able to recreate your favourite Mark IV modes, even though the circuitry for each is a recreation, effectively due to which part they chose to emphasize and streamlined controls. Picky things those controls, the only channel you can get away with not tweaking on a voice switch is clean, and even then you are pushing it. I expect this amp to give me years of flawless service (granted I will baby it and re-tube it every year or so, I don't play out or drive it to the max or anything, it is for my home recording projects and enjoyment) My friends question was why spend that much for an amp that's way bigger than you need, when a practice amp is 100$. Recording, and the fact a good amp is at least inspiring . Btw, this amp is great at any volume, not much change between master levels, or overall output level adjustment aside what you actually feel bodily (and I like not stuffy feeling ears when I am done) so it is a treat. Even on 10W settings my output is down around 8, this amp is LOUD. Any higher prolonged playing may cause funny feeling ears.

I wish I could see a pic of the foot switch you had there.
[/quote] ask and you shall receive



The channel buttons are not click on/off they are just pressure switches, very sensitive. Eq, reverb, effects loop, solo and mute are on/off switches. The foot switch comes with the amp and about a 25-30' 8 pin cable to connect it.

Is that a 'cheat sheet' on top of the amp?

Effectively yes, it came with it and I have no reason to remove it, don't really need it anymore, still slugging through the manual.

Currently I have it set up wit ha sweet tweed setting clean, mark I voice for rhythm and a smooth mark IIC+ for leads. It is essentially my Iron Maiden setup, but it lends well to RUSH, other types of metal etc. I essentially comb the internet for other peoples settings, fiddle and tweak to taste and then started a 'book' of voices I like in an excel sheet.

One more thing, you may want to seriously look at the Digitech RP1000. It works great with an amp! Especially if you like the way your amp sounds already and just need some stop boxes to throw in once in a while. One step on a button and the rp1000 does a complete bypass so you here only your amp's true sound, no modeling. Check it out, I just got one a week or two ago. I had a Pod line6 x3 live which i did like and used mostly at church running it through the pa and having my own powered monitor in front of me so I could hear myself. However I like the whole idea of the rp1000 better. My x3 live got stolen or I probably wouldn't have been looking at another product, but I am glad i did. I guess that is the silver lining of getting my equipment stolen. Good luck.

geo

I actually have a GNX3000 that was run into my bass amp and was my previous guitar amp effectively. I haven't used effects yet with this amp, as I want to have a really good handle on it before I start adding things to it, but with the entire effects loops footswitchable, I can throw it in the loop, switch the loop off, and bam, bypassed. I plan to use it for chorus/delay/wah/phaser until I get said other pedals. I am a little skeptical about a wah in the loop not before the amp though, so I will likely outmode the feature first. I am really not fond of modelers though due to the intangibility of settings quickly. If I need to fiddle something fast, I like dials/sliders. Really loved some of the stuff I could do with my EH Bass Microsynth like that, could manually sweep the frequency and make a cascading down for an intro or something fun. The switching on the GNX3k is also a little slow from bank to bank, although pedals toggle fairly smoothly.

Look at all those knobs and switches... I could never be happy with that, I'd be forever playing with the settings! I'll stick to my 5E3 - one volume knob, one tone!

Seriously though, that is one nice rig you have there, congrats. That will make your modeler redundant for sure. I like the colour of that cabinet too. Mesa know how to make a good, solid amp. I used to have an F30, it sounded great and was damn loud. I'm not surprised that the poster who mentioned the F50 found it too loud for bedroom practice.

Now get back to playing with those knobs!!!

:o
Look at all those knobs and switches... I could never be happy with that, I'd be forever playing with the settings! I'll stick to my 5E3 - one volume knob, one tone!

Seriously though, that is one nice rig you have there, congrats. That will make your modeler redundant for sure. I like the colour of that cabinet too. Mesa know how to make a good, solid amp. I used to have an F30, it sounded great and was damn loud. I'm not surprised that the poster who mentioned the F50 found it too loud for bedroom practice.

Now get back to playing with those knobs!!!

I know what you mean with the tweaking, currently I gravitate between playing Iron Maiden rhythm parts in Channel 2 Crunch, or Channel 2 Mark I (EQing req'd when switching) it is a mood thing. Sometimes I like fat clean, others tweed clean. Channel 3 is mostly limited to my lead playing, and I like to keep it smooth, currently it is in Mark IV mode. Despite a high learning curve I am starting to become comfortable with the controls and whatnot. I play a lot of Maiden to relax

One thing I have not explored/warmed up to is the 'variac power' it gives brown out sound, spongy, scooped mids. I don't much like heavily scooped mids though, sounds almost empty to my ears. Maybe just needs some more tweaking to balance it, but I have not spend the time there yet. I tend to force myself to do my exercises at whatever clean I have at the time, after those then I can play.

Really need a wah though, I rarely use delay/chorus but like them for flavour, I really miss not having a wah though as the modellers effects used direct DO NOT play nice with this amp, so I am trying to unload it.

Damn! Now you REALLY need a G&L!

Congratulations! - ed

Damn! Now you REALLY need a G&L!

Congratulations! - ed

Next on the list Ed, I have 2 TA positions (fall and winter) coming up and I should be able to get one sometime during that. By that point I should be good enough at country playing to justify a tricked out ASAT classic. The Tweed channel on this thing can spank like you would not believe, that with the Carvin C22B bridge pickup split too, not a full blown single.

Sweet.

You may wish to consider a Bluesboy as well. - ed

Sweet.

You may wish to consider a Bluesboy as well. - ed

Why is that? [Was leaning towards a classic or special for both country playing and the sense that my other 2 guitars are humbucker equipped, classic has more traditional twang sound, but those special pickups really grabbed me.]

In short, the middle position is uniquely wonderful. Try one if you have the opportunity. Of course, you can't go wrong with a Classic or Special either.... - ed

In short, the middle position is uniquely wonderful. Try one if you have the opportunity. Of course, you can't go wrong with a Classic or Special either.... - ed

I have trouble affiliating myself with anything 'blues' though. It is a natural aversion to the 12 bar structure I guess. I never use it, I feel it has been done to death, and is stagnant. Blues just has far too much rehash for me , so naturally a bluesboy by name alone repels me.

:o
Look at all those knobs and switches... I could never be happy with that, I'd be forever playing with the settings! I'll stick to my 5E3 - one volume knob, one tone!
!

That was my thought as well. Then again, I object to master volume knobs.

Nah, I never had much to do with Mesa amps but I have heard nothing but good about them.

Congrats and enjoy

:o
Look at all those knobs and switches... I could never be happy with that, I'd be forever playing with the settings! I'll stick to my 5E3 - one volume knob, one tone!
!

That was my thought as well. Then again, I object to master volume knobs.

These masters are of a particularly good design, the in channel one can have a slight effect on the channel, but it is minimal. I have experienced no change (aside from what you bodily feel) when using the main master. For what I do (play in, record) this does the trick well. The overall sound of the channel is most dependant on the EQ, presence and Gain than the masters by far. Some of the channel voices are more sensitive to the internal master also. When I have time I tweak a lot, but lately I have so much schooling to do, it is sit down, shut up, and play the guitar.

My next experiment is using the tweed (ch1) as a fuzz channel and the edge (ch2) as a clean/ rhythm channel (it can be done so I am told). I actually keep a spreadsheet of settings I found and like, so when recording time rolls around I have reference points to depart from.

It has been a few months now I guess. I feel like I have a good handle on the amp nowadays. I recently started experimenting with the edge channel and am getting some nice, if different sounds out of it. I find the way I tend to EQ ch 3, makes the crunch channel sound very similar to it (except gainier) which makes for a good rhythm to solo EQ change type thing going on. Or that little bit more gain /presence lower for a more compressed singing solo.

This amp has really made me explore pickup/config choices. I love using split buckers (c22s) with it. When I use splits I can clean up the clean channel, and ch2 on edge very nicely, and then pop the bucker back on for more edge and grit. I find this a very useful tool. I am also really digging neck tones on it (now that I fixed the switch and am actually getting the neck bucker).

Still mostly using fat clean and tweed, I have no need for 'skinny' clean. I have been picking up claw style playing, and it is starting to come out more in my style, the tweed channel is really good for broken up stripped down rock sounds. Edge also seems to be an older rock type sound, compared to the much more gainy crunch and Mk1 in channel 2. Lately I have been needing that, and once again this amp delivers. I cannot complain in the slightest it has yet to leave me hanging.

I am wondering how it will respond to the Tele I am orderring this weekend (well custom order G&L ASAT, should be about 90 days turn around). I may need to add an EQ pedal to the mix in order to not need to tweak the amp much.

I'd like to hear a high quality audio sample of this amp. I can't find anything online that sounds worth a darn.

I've played in bands with guys that had MB amps and it seems these amps with so many switches, knobs, and doodads can easily defeat a person.

Ieso, if the weather holds for a bit I might be breaking out the condenser mic in the near future to do a bit of recording, I have a song on the shelf for a while the heat has prevented me from working on. If I have the mic out and have time / want to dinker I will make you a sort of sound pallett. Keep in mind I am new to micing amps, so that may influence sound one bit. I cannot guarantee timeline however. I think the best example would be the one in context of a song however.

The mic is a Carvin CTM100 tube multi pattern condenser. Gives a nice airy quality, fairly warm.

If you are in southern ontario I would say drop by and drive it for yourself, nothing beats hands on.