I have had the pleasure of playing a lot of amps. I keep coming back to Mesa and I like the odd ball amps. My favorite all time is my 2x10 Blue Angel that I have had since like 96' (its having some problems now, hopefully just tubes). I have been playing 2 amps almost exclusively for the past 2 years one is the TA-15 with a 1x12 cab and the other is a Stiletto Ace head with a Mesa 4x12 traditional cab. I really like vintage style starts. I like low output single coil pickups. I like using my volume knob and attack to determine dynamics and overall tone. I really like analog delays. One thing I noticed about this combination is that low output pick ups don't really play well with analog delays because the delays need a certain level of output from the guitar to "record" onto the delay chips. Solution, I starred using a booster and stacking overdrives. I really want to live in clean world 85% of the time. This brings me to the point of my post. The Ace in particular seems to really like a nice full signal going into the amp (maybe people who use active pickups like EMG don't need a booster, can't comment). My signal chain is fender cs closet classic 63 start - xotic ep booster - fairfield barbershop - caroline olympia - mxr carbon copy - strymon el cap - line 6 m9 used for tuning and looper. These particular pedals play really well together for me. Having a lot of output going into the amp really seems to broaden and fill out the tone, especially at lower volumes. Now I am pretty much using the gain and volume to get a clean tone and using the pedals for grit. I am continually amazed at how much headroom this amp has. I think this is one of the reasons so many people found it to be too bright, they were not hitting the preamp hot enough. As for settings on the amp, I almost never use the hi gain channel, but I really like both clean modes. I actually have pretty normal settings. The gain on channel one is generally between 10 and 2. The treble a little past noon. Mid just past 11, but this knob really adjusts I sit with other players if I need to be more forward I will turn this up, which also affects the gain, if I need to fill more I will turn the miss down a little and increase the bass. Bass 9 - 12 with a 4x12 bass is not a problem, especially playing with a bass player, Presence between 1 and 4. and Master to taste. I have found that even with the master very low I can get a nice full clean sound by pushing the front end.
Hope this is useful to someone.
Hope this is useful to someone.
