Mesa Boogie Road King II

[MesaMonster]

Hello All. I bought a Mesa Boogie Road King II about 6 years ago. I initially bought it because John Petrucci used them. At the time, I was big into Dream Theater and I wanted his sound. Being as naïve at the time about amps, effects, and switching systems, I regretted buying this very expensive amp. I went from a Laney LC-50 to the Mesa. I still wish I had the Laney. Great little amp that took pedals really well. Anyway. I still have the Mesa and I am learning more about it all the time. I also have an Egnater Rebel 30 Combo. I started playing this more because of convenience. I like the amp but it tends to be a one trick pony. Back to the Mesa. I play mostly in church and we do cover a huge number of songs. Christian, Rock, even some hard rock and heavy metal. Yep. The Mesa gave me the versatility to be able to cover all these songs. It has 4 channels each channel having its own settings. It has two different tube sets that I can assign to each channel. I use the clean channel most of the time with ODs in the front. I have been rearranging my pedal board to try to get the best sound out of it that I can. I have come pretty close but not 100% satisfied. I was noodling around last night and decided to kick in channel two which has more of the close to the edge breakup sound. Wow, talk about nirvana. I heard the tone that I have been chasing for a long time. I never used channel two because I was trying to get the cleanest channel possible. It was pretty close to the Petrucci sound without being obnoxious. There is so much articulation that I was grinning from ear to ear. I have about 4 Ods on my board to include a fuzz box. When I was using the clean channel, the ODs were all over the place and sounded the same. On channel two, they were all at the same level and got some great tones all different. I was looking at the Mark V 25 because I wanted to downsize a bit. The Road King head was about 75 lbs and I am 54. The thing is a beast. After playing around with it last night, I am reconsidering getting rid of it. I'll just have my son haul around my equipment. I will be good exercise for him.