Members BryanMichael Posted June 23, 2011 Members Share Posted June 23, 2011 What are the opinions of this preamp? Anyone using it in their rigs? How does it compare to say, the Mesa V Twin rackmount or the studio pres? Any info is appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sleewell Posted June 23, 2011 Members Share Posted June 23, 2011 will be interesting to hear what people say, this one of the mesa's i have yet to play. i have owned the quad pre, it was good but way too heavy. i currently have the studio and really love it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members George Djentson Posted June 23, 2011 Members Share Posted June 23, 2011 gain channel sucks. muddy flubby undefined garbage.clean channel is amazing though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cougar Hunter Posted June 23, 2011 Members Share Posted June 23, 2011 V-twin rackmount destroys the Formula. Studio DESTROYS the V-twin rackmount. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shask Posted June 23, 2011 Members Share Posted June 23, 2011 Formula and vtwin both horrible for any gain higher than light blues crunch. Ok clean sounds, but useless for.metal... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BryanMichael Posted June 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 V-twin rackmount destroys the Formula.Studio DESTROYS the V-twin rackmount. In what ways? I don't play metal or Teh Brootz. Do you like the solid state clipping of the V Twin over the Formula's overdriven tube sound? I've heard them both but haven't played them both. The Formula seems less "focused" and "tubey" (which makes sense because it has 5 tubes in it for the various gain stages as opposed to the V Twin's single tube per channel plus clipping diodes for the distortion) ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cougar Hunter Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 In what ways? I don't play metal or Teh Brootz. Do you like the solid state clipping of the V Twin over the Formula's overdriven tube sound? I've heard them both but haven't played them both. The Formula seems less "focused" and "tubey" (which makes sense because it has 5 tubes in it for the various gain stages as opposed to the V Twin's single tube per channel plus clipping diodes for the distortion) ? I don't play brootz. I owned the v-twin rack, and it sounded "pretty good". I played a Formula at the store, and HATED it. Weird, flubby, bizzarre dirty channel. dreadful. The studio just sounds awesome. Awe-inspiring, really. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Duesentrieb Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 The studio just sounds awesome. Awe-inspiring, really. +1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cougar Hunter Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 +1 I forget, do you sell Black Tiger premapz? or, are they just for personal use? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 +1 for the studio preamp and the formula preamp just isn't cheap enough to justify it. But it is a two + channel design whereas the studio is two channel with shared eq. You could try the quad but the price and weight is not exactly ideal and it requires a 4U space! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 Has both Formula and VT. My Formula is an early model and apparently they went through various voicing incarnations. The first one I tried at the store had a killer drive on the clean channel. The one I bought doesn't. I've gotten dozens of usable tones from clean to monster metal - the graphic, yes scooped mids, is a major factor and is crucial in getting good (to my ears -) sound. The VTwin has a fairly decent blues and solo lead mode but I use mostly the 3 clean modes and stick an assortment of drives in it. Also very good results. Course none of this is for live use yet. I'm mostly a drummer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BryanMichael Posted June 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 Thanks for the more detailed responses guys. I am still interested in the Formula because: 1. It is one rack space 2. it is two discreet channels with their own EQ plus the switchable graphic EQ 3. Because of the design with the 5 tubes, it looks like you could REALLY change the nature of the drive with different tubes, which may improve some of the issues you all have brought up, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members George Djentson Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 nope, hate to rain on your parade but you aren't going to be the 1st person since whenever they introduced, and subsequently discontinued, to change out the tubes and "fix it"the gain channel is inherently not good and aside from modding it extensively I don't expect you can tweak it into something you'll like.also, unlike many mesa products that you may be familiar with this gain channel has very little saturation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 Thanks for the more detailed responses guys. I am still interested in the Formula because: 1. It is one rack space 2. it is two discreet channels with their own EQ plus the switchable graphic EQ 3. Because of the design with the 5 tubes, it looks like you could REALLY change the nature of the drive with different tubes, which may improve some of the issues you all have brought up, If you find a schematic you can experiment with it until you bring it up to your taste, it isn't exactly a collectors item that you will hurt its value or something. Look for the andrew mods on the boogie board and try to cut down as much bass as you can pre distortion to avoid flubbiness. The way it is layout, it can far more versatile than a studio preamp live...the sound? It is up to you. Try to get a lower price!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 I tried different types of tubes and finally settled on Sovteks - ax7 b IIRC. Those because they had a darkness and soft attack that dealt with the hard edge inherent in my unit. GTs of the day produced that fat filter sweep tone which I could never get used to. The tube HAD to do that thing every time you dug in. The Sovteks were drier and more neutral in that regard. So Yeah, different tubes will obviously sound different. The "problem" may be that the tone is circuit biased as opposed to tube purity. This I believe to tie in with the recording circuitry. Basically if you can't get close to the tones you crave, you'll have to mod the board.I used to hate the limitations of the unit but as I learned, I found it to be musically satisfying and quite a useful tool besides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Duesentrieb Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 I forget, do you sell Black Tiger premapz? or, are they just for personal use? Sometimes I do sell them. But due to the exchange rate they are not cheap over at yours . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Sixtonoize Posted June 24, 2011 Members Share Posted June 24, 2011 ... The "problem" may be that the tone is circuit biased as opposed to tube purity. ... Care to clarify? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Care to clarify? George Djentson back there says no amount of tube swapping will help. True I believe. I'm guessing that the tone is so extensively shaped by the board, that many of the characteristics that I - and other players it seems have found lacking or even missing, wont be addressed by a simple tube swap.Regardless, I got mine sounding good to me. Most of it was developing the touch to stay within the dynamics of the unit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BillyCorgan Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Garbage Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Care to clarify? Maybe something like "...the recording circuit loads the whole board somehow". I can't explain it technically? You had a studio preamp sixtonoize, I think you knew that one of the mods that mike B at mesa boogie proposed to get it as pure and as close to the IIC+ was to actually "take out" the recording outs of the path? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Maybe something like "...the recording circuit loads the whole board somehow". I can't explain it technically? You had a studio preamp sixtonoize, I think you knew that one of the mods that mike B at mesa boogie proposed to get it as pure and as close to the IIC+ was to actually "take out" the recording outs of the path? I wouldn't know that the recording circuit is responsible but there certainly is enough board in there to suck tone. In that regard the clean/cleans, is/am terrific - like the Mark series. The lead tones however, are somewhat lacking in life and pizazz - no Eddie VH in there whatsoever. This could also approximate the Mark series, IDK. My solutions were get the reverb right (I use a Quadraverb lol) and tweak the 5 band as best possible. That done it became a good lab to learn toan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 No, the studio preamp and the mark series have "plenty of life"! The tone is ...almost ready to jump out of the speakers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 No, the studio preamp and the mark series have "plenty of life"! The tone is ...almost ready to jump out of the speakers. I've not tried the recto pre - heard nothing about raves about it. The Mark comment was inspired by that thick reverbless vintage (nasal/speaker coney) tone that comes standard on it lol. Anyway sans graphic, the Formula (I call it the 4 moolah) leads have a similar quality. Dead, almost lofi ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tech21man Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Plug in a strat or p-90 SG, try different settings than the usual thrash ones and you will be surprised by a mark on the right hands and cab. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted June 25, 2011 Members Share Posted June 25, 2011 Yeah, P90s would put some juiciness into it. That's one thing I've discovered about the Boogie products I have, single coils get through that thickness better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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