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I love my new Mesa Boogie Mark V, but...


docjeffrey

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It's a nightmare for people like me who are ADD. The amp has so many tweakable settings. 

45 knobs, switches and sliders. And that's just on the front panel.

There are 14 more round back, and 13 output/input jacks. That makes 73 things to mess with if my math is right (I'm including the input jack on the front).

I've tried pretty much everything by now--10 watts, 45 watts, 90 watts, tube rectifiers, diode rectifiers, variac power, bold, bright, thick, fat "preset" presets, sliders (graphic eq), solo boost, Mark I, Mark IIIc+, Mark IV, Lone Star, Tweed, effects loop engaged, effects loop bypassed, tone controls bypassed, on and on. Here's how I feel:

brain

And I'm not even sure what good tone sounds like anymore.

But, when it all comes together and I have a sweet clean, gnarly blues and tight gain tone dialed in...

 

 

 

 

who am I kidding. I haven't gotten that far yet.

It looks killer though!

rig.jpg

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onelife wrote:

Get out there and start gigging with it and you will find what you are looking for.

I use one of these...

subway

It's 20W but I set it on half power and turn it all the way up - sound engineers love it. 

 

Damn, that looks so freaking cool. 8 knobs and switches. That's, like, 37 fewer than I have. 

I have gigged the head once--10 watt setting thru a Celestion Alnico Blue 1 x 12 cab. Used the Clean and Edge settings with a tele. Sounded great, but it takes a long time to dial in. I've been taking photos with my iPad so I can keep track of settings when I gig. The clean channel has so much range, you could use an acoustic guitar or an electric with a piezo, and since you have individual control over the reverb for each channel, it's supremely flexible. The reverb is superb. Not surfy, but very hi-fi with a nicely judged depth and decay. 

One of the best things about the amp is that it sounds fantastic at low (ish) volume levels. Even in the 90 watt mode, you can adjust the master for each channel and the global output along with the effects loop level to get excellent results. 

 

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