Brand new 5:25 Owner, LOVE IT!! quick question!

[steviekool]

Hello all, first post here. A little history:

Until a couple of days ago, I owned a voxac30cc2. One of the new reissue ones made in china. To make a long story short, The amp had its issues lately. It has been giving me all kinds of problems, sound cutting in and out, volume jumps, few other things. I changed the tubes, same thing. Took it to a tech, said he couldnt see anything wrong. Brought it home, again, same deal. Not always, but it happened quite often, and at the end it was getting to be more and more. I cough it up to, "not to be discriminating in any way, but probably the truth', that these amps are now made in China instead of England.

Besides the issues with the amp, I just wasnt happy with the tone. No matter what I did, it just always sounded thin. Didnt matter if it was in clean mode, or top boost with the gain turned up, or even having a reissue tubescreamer in front of it, it just didnt do it for me. Decided to sell it as is, and didnt do to bad on it, considering I paid a little over $600 for it.

I am 33 now, and my favorite amps, ever since I was playing in my first band has always been a boogie. They just had something nothing else has. But it also had one thing that couldnt get me to bite. The pricetags!! They sure do cost some money, but now I realize the true meaning of, "you get what you pay for!"

So I sold the Vox, sold a couple of pedals, and begged the wife for a little bit more funding, and I went out and bought the 2 by 12 combo version of the express 5:25. my wife was happy as it was half the size of the Vox

Now, I have had many amps, but I have to tell you, when I plugged this in, and plugged in my Bill Nash T57 Strat, I almost fell over the floor over the clean sounds I was getting. I mean, it was like night and day, literally for the first time. I switched off to the blues channel, and same deal. I never had a tone like this before in my house. At the end of the night, my wife was questioning herself that now you are gonna be playing a lot more, arent you?! Chances are, yes honey, I will be playing a lot more

Anyway, thats my history. I know I came here to ask a question, hopefully some of you read far enough in my post to get to this part

I do play clean, and love my blues, but I am a metalhead, through and through. I knew I would not get into "Recto" turf with this, but its nothing my $100 metal muff running straight through the clean channel with an 85 Kramer Baretta Resiiue cant handle, and it does it wonderfully. I get sick gains from that pedal, and the amp just makes everything sing so much more. But as far as the burn channel goes, is there any tweaking to actually give it more thump? Meaning more like, if I ran an equalizer pedal through it, would it make much of a difference in getting a little bit more of a "ballsy" sound? I love the sound of the metal muff through the clean, but I would also like to have an alternate with the burn channel, and so far, it seems more like heavy rock, almost 80's metal, but not quite. So the question is, will an equalizer do any justice, or maybe a compressor?

Thanks again all, and you have no idea how happy I am to be part of the Mesa family now.

 

[bobby wasabi]

Here's what I do on the burn channel of my 5:25 head.

Gain: 11 oclock
Treble: 11 oclock
Mid: 12:30
Bass: 9 oclock
Reverb: 8 oclock
Contour: 2 oclock
25 watt mode

With these settings, only a mild overdrive. I then run a Blues Driver in front with the level at 3 oclock (or maxed) and the gain at minimum (i.e. a boost). Slams the front end of the amp and sends it into gain heaven. I'm also running an MXR dyna comp out front, mostly for the cleans, but it does warm up the distortion. I've found the key is to keep the bass down or it gets flabby. I keep the mids up since the contour is countering by scooping some out. This gives me a great 80's rock tone.

 

[soundchaser59]

Here's what I do on the burn channel of my 5:25 head.

Gain: 11 oclock
Treble: 11 oclock
Mid: 12:30
Bass: 9 oclock
Reverb: 8 oclock
Contour: 2 oclock
25 watt mode

With these settings, only a mild overdrive. I then run a Blues Driver in front with the level at 3 oclock (or maxed) and the gain at minimum (i.e. a boost). Slams the front end of the amp and sends it into gain heaven. I'm also running an MXR dyna comp out front, mostly for the cleans, but it does warm up the distortion. I've found the key is to keep the bass down or it gets flabby. I keep the mids up since the contour is countering by scooping some out. This gives me a great 80's rock tone.

Must be somethign wrong with my 5.25 then, cuz if I turn my burn gain up past 8 or 9 o'clock, it is nothing but distortion......waaaaay beyond mere overdrive at that point. I've yet to find a way to make the burn channel useful.

 

[bobby wasabi]

It depends on the guitar. I'm playing a strat with average output pickups. I guess it also depends on our definitions of "overdrive" and "distortion".

 

[steviekool]

Yeah, one of the things I noticed about this amp is that it actually lets you here the little differences in your pickups. On my clean settings, or the blues, I plug in my strat with Lollar pickups, and I never heard cleans like that before in my life. Pure Beauty.Of course, On high gain, its not the case. But then, when I run my Metal muff through the clean, and stick my V in with Active humbuckers, its ridiculiously heavy, high gain singing distortion with mucho balls. BUt that same axe on clean leaves a lot to be desired, rightfully so.

Other amps I have owned, you couldnt really distinguish that much. My strat sounds ok in cleans, and ok with humbuckers, nothing to freak out about, and the same with gain channels, seemed like no matter what humbucker I ran, it all sounded the same. That is probably the greatest feature about this amp, in my personal opinion. It lets your guitar do what its supposed to do.

 

[bobby wasabi]

Yeah, I'm really liking this amp. I agree, the cleans are unbelievable. I noticed that the first time I gigged with it. Really nice character to the clean - shimmery, spanky. I've used the burn channel on its own too and it sounded just fine. Same settings as above but with the gain on about 3oclock. I just find I get a little more chunkiness by lowering the gain and using a boost out front.

 

[bobby wasabi]

It depends on the guitar. I'm playing a strat with average output pickups. I guess it also depends on our definitions of "overdrive" and "distortion".

Ah yeah, I was playing again tonight and I have to say the burn channel with my above settings is more like a mild distortion rather than a mild overdrive. Almost AC/DC.

 

[smd24fan]

Hello all, first post here. A little history:

Until a couple of days ago, I owned a voxac30cc2. One of the new reissue ones made in china. To make a long story short, The amp had its issues lately. It has been giving me all kinds of problems, sound cutting in and out, volume jumps, few other things. I changed the tubes, same thing. Took it to a tech, said he couldnt see anything wrong. Brought it home, again, same deal. Not always, but it happened quite often, and at the end it was getting to be more and more. I cough it up to, "not to be discriminating in any way, but probably the truth', that these amps are now made in China instead of England.

Besides the issues with the amp, I just wasnt happy with the tone. No matter what I did, it just always sounded thin. Didnt matter if it was in clean mode, or top boost with the gain turned up, or even having a reissue tubescreamer in front of it, it just didnt do it for me. Decided to sell it as is, and didnt do to bad on it, considering I paid a little over $600 for it.

I am 33 now, and my favorite amps, ever since I was playing in my first band has always been a boogie. They just had something nothing else has. But it also had one thing that couldnt get me to bite. The pricetags!! They sure do cost some money, but now I realize the true meaning of, "you get what you pay for!"

So I sold the Vox, sold a couple of pedals, and begged the wife for a little bit more funding, and I went out and bought the 2 by 12 combo version of the express 5:25. my wife was happy as it was half the size of the Vox

Now, I have had many amps, but I have to tell you, when I plugged this in, and plugged in my Bill Nash T57 Strat, I almost fell over the floor over the clean sounds I was getting. I mean, it was like night and day, literally for the first time. I switched off to the blues channel, and same deal. I never had a tone like this before in my house. At the end of the night, my wife was questioning herself that now you are gonna be playing a lot more, arent you?! Chances are, yes honey, I will be playing a lot more

Anyway, thats my history. I know I came here to ask a question, hopefully some of you read far enough in my post to get to this part

I do play clean, and love my blues, but I am a metalhead, through and through. I knew I would not get into "Recto" turf with this, but its nothing my $100 metal muff running straight through the clean channel with an 85 Kramer Baretta Resiiue cant handle, and it does it wonderfully. I get sick gains from that pedal, and the amp just makes everything sing so much more. But as far as the burn channel goes, is there any tweaking to actually give it more thump? Meaning more like, if I ran an equalizer pedal through it, would it make much of a difference in getting a little bit more of a "ballsy" sound? I love the sound of the metal muff through the clean, but I would also like to have an alternate with the burn channel, and so far, it seems more like heavy rock, almost 80's metal, but not quite. So the question is, will an equalizer do any justice, or maybe a compressor?

Thanks again all, and you have no idea how happy I am to be part of the Mesa family now.

Ran an MXR M-108 through the effects loop on my 5:50 and it pushed it over the top for the metal tones you are seeking. To me it's one of the best EQ's on the market. I have it hooked to my Mark V, but I am bypassing it currently as the V is just a monster on it's own. Try it, it's like a totally different amp all together.

 

[steviekool]

Thanks for the response about the eq. It does sound like a good idea, but one question. I know in the manual it says to really only use the fx loop for racks, and to keep pedals running through the front of the guitar. Whats your take on this? does it really matter either way? In any way would it damage the amp, if the pedal is ran through the loop instead of the front? Thanks and excuse me for my ignorance to this topic.

 

[cptbollock]

Here's what I do on the burn channel of my 5:25 head.

Gain: 11 oclock
Treble: 11 oclock
Mid: 12:30
Bass: 9 oclock
Reverb: 8 oclock
Contour: 2 oclock
25 watt mode

With these settings, only a mild overdrive. I then run a Blues Driver in front with the level at 3 oclock (or maxed) and the gain at minimum (i.e. a boost). Slams the front end of the amp and sends it into gain heaven. I'm also running an MXR dyna comp out front, mostly for the cleans, but it does warm up the distortion. I've found the key is to keep the bass down or it gets flabby. I keep the mids up since the contour is countering by scooping some out. This gives me a great 80's rock tone.

More or less the same settings i use but i use a tube screamer for the a boost