Early Mark 1

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Thanks, PM sent on my conversation with Mesa.

Should I be worried about the missing resistor and take it to my tech?

Thanks again.
Grid
Best person to speak to at Mesa is Mike Bendinelli who has been there almost since the beginning. You could also send the amp to them, just the chassis, for cost, and they can go through and restore it to it's original state. The Mark series of amps may even be able to retro fit your amp into a new cabinet. (worth checking out) Or even a solid wood cabinet could be a choice. Those Mark one series are a keeper! Fix it up and play it for the next 50years. :)
 
The boost lifts the earth off the mid pot or in this case the mid resistor in the tone stack which removes the load presented by the tone stack and changes the tone of the amp.
I thought that the boost took the amp from 60 watts to 100 watts. I does sound better to my ears with it on.
 
That's what I assumed, but I couldn't quite follow the wire.
Okay, I was talking with reference to my original Mark 1 amp. Given the position of the switch on your amp, I would agree that it is the 60/100 watt switch. This works by open circuiting the cathode to ground connection of two of the output valves.

Regards

Mark
 
I am really liking the amp, I switched power around (matched sets inner and outer) tubes per Mesa’s comments and cleaned the reverb tank connections.

I would think with a band, I would probably only need an OD pedal for leads. Nice edge of break up tones with a little volume.
 
2 nearly the same amps from 1977.


1977 BL Boogie.22.jpg
 
I am really liking the amp, I switched power around (matched sets inner and outer) tubes per Mesa’s comments and cleaned the reverb tank connections.

I would think with a band, I would probably only need an OD pedal for leads. Nice edge of break up tones with a little volume.
Santana didn’t use an overdrive pedal with these amps. I don’t know what settings he used, but he could get the amp to feedback on various notes.

Regards

Mark
 
Santana didn’t use an overdrive pedal with these amps. I don’t know what settings he used, but he could get the amp to feedback on various notes.

Regards

Mark
there are some posts online taken from magazine of that time that state that he and many other were using the magic
" 7 7 7" values,
vol 1 = 7, vol 2 = 7, master = 7.
With this setting not only is the amp LOUD, and with the master this high distortion is also added by power section (old marshall style).
 
there are some posts online taken from magazine of that time that state that he and many other were using the magic
" 7 7 7" values,
vol 1 = 7, vol 2 = 7, master = 7.
With this setting not only is the amp LOUD, and with the master this high distortion is also added by power section (old marshall style).
I’m not sure what you mean by “power section (old Marshall style).”
Is that a reference to the P.I. stage?

Regards

Mark
 
I’m not sure what you mean by “power section (old Marshall style).”
Is that a reference to the P.I. stage?

Regards

Mark
The early Mark 1 had the Tweed Bassman/Marshall PI, Santana and others said it was too shrill so Randall changed the PI to Blackface Twin style PI and the Presence control then became the a high cut or treble roll off at the master volume before the PI input seen in the re-issue. The King Snake had a switchable Tweed/Blackface presence control.
As a footnote, Santana's original snakeskin Mark 1 did not have cascaded gain staging according to Randall Smith, it also did not have the PI negative feedback loop resistor, Carlos said "that amp really pops!"
Though it had the PRE AMP BOOST that was a push/pull pot and had a foot switch jack and got a really nice boost, without being so muddy like the later version.
 
The early Mark 1 had the Tweed Bassman/Marshall PI, Santana and others said it was too shrill so Randall changed the PI to Blackface Twin style PI and the Presence control then became the a high cut or treble roll off at the master volume before the PI input seen in the re-issue. The King Snake had a switchable Tweed/Blackface presence control.
As a footnote, Santana's original snakeskin Mark 1 did not have cascaded gain staging according to Randall Smith, it also did not have the PI negative feedback loop resistor, Carlos said "that amp really pops!"
Though it had the PRE AMP BOOST that was a push/pull pot and had a foot switch jack and got a really nice boost, without being so muddy like the later version.
 
I’m not sure what you mean by “power section (old Marshall style).”
Is that a reference to the P.I. stage?

Regards

Mark
Old marshall style, I was actually referring that only plexi marshall you needed to make the power amp saturate in order to have a thicker tone.
Same with the mark 1.
You need to make the power amp saturate in order to have that singing lead tone.
 
The early Mark 1 had the Tweed Bassman/Marshall PI, Santana and others said it was too shrill so Randall changed the PI to Blackface Twin style PI and the Presence control then became the a high cut or treble roll off at the master volume before the PI input seen in the re-issue. The King Snake had a switchable Tweed/Blackface presence control.
As a footnote, Santana's original snakeskin Mark 1 did not have cascaded gain staging according to Randall Smith, it also did not have the PI negative feedback loop resistor, Carlos said "that amp really pops!"
Though it had the PRE AMP BOOST that was a push/pull pot and had a foot switch jack and got a really nice boost, without being so muddy like the later version.
I would like
Old marshall style, I was actually referring that only plexi marshall you needed to make the power amp saturate in order to have a thicker tone.
Same with the mark 1.
You need to make the power amp saturate in order to have that singing lead tone.
if the output stage needs to be pushed then what’s the point of having a master volume?

In my SOB it has a LIMIT control, I replaced the P.I. stage as the solid state device went bad. I turned the LIMIT control into a resonance control, it’s not a bad mod for this amp. If your amp has plenty of bass then this won’t work for your amp.

Regards

Mark
 

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