F-50 owners?

[no soul]

The F-50 sounded good but just didn't have that over the top gain. Ironically I'm not really a metal player

Thats funny, because I am a "meta player," and I mean the modern death metal stuff, and I would take an F over a Recto for metal any day of the week. Matter of fact my recto doesent get much attention anymore, so Im probably going to sell it.

 

[no soul]

Don't mean to argue, but the F-50 has no where near the gain the Rectoverb combo has. Now I could've been playing a bad F-50, but I tried one at Guitar Center and the ROV easily out-gained it.

Gonna have to disagree big time with this one. Did you play the F in the contour mode? Contour being the F series version of the modern Recto channel. If anything the Recto has a hair more gain, but its far from usable over that of the F series.

 

[TheRazMeister]

No soul....to be honest, I didn't care for the tone of the contour mode as I don't particularily like the modern voicing on the ROV. Granted I haven;t spent a lot of time tweaking those modes but I thought the difference in sound of the F-50 was not worth the gain that the contour gave it. I'm looking at this from the standpoint of a gain/tone combination and the F-50's best tones (non-contour) cannot get the gain that the ROV gets in vintage mode. Once again I'll state that I've only tried 1 F-50 and who knows what condition it was in. When I bought my ROV, I made them change a pre-amp tube because the thing squealed like a pig.

Don't mean to argue, but the F-50 has no where near the gain the Rectoverb combo has. Now I could've been playing a bad F-50, but I tried one at Guitar Center and the ROV easily out-gained it.

Gonna have to disagree big time with this one. Did you play the F in the contour mode? Contour being the F series version of the modern Recto channel. If anything the Recto has a hair more gain, but its far from usable over that of the F series.

 

[no soul]

No soul....to be honest, I didn't care for the tone of the contour mode as I don't particularily like the modern voicing on the ROV. Granted I haven;t spent a lot of time tweaking those modes but I thought the difference in sound of the F-50 was not worth the gain that the contour gave it. I'm looking at this from the standpoint of a gain/tone combination and the F-50's best tones (non-contour) cannot get the gain that the ROV gets in vintage mode. Once again I'll state that I've only tried 1 F-50 and who knows what condition it was in. When I bought my ROV, I made them change a pre-amp tube because the thing squealed like a pig.

I wish I kept these clips my band recorded of the recto vs. the F...

Anywho, I do find that in the vintage mode the recto has a bit more gain than an F in normal mode, but its not even a large difference. However, I find the vintage mode of the recto to be really really dark compared to the F. Im not trying to insult anyone (keep in mind I own both amps) but I honestly find that the F series trumps rectos in most areas easily.

 

[pau_leader]

Honestly, Last night I was just thinking how The F-50 has a Tone of its own.
It just sounds differant from a lot of amps out there Yet the same character as all Mesa's including the Recto's(of course)

As for the contour switch, imo it sounds better than the normal mode.
The normal mode sounds muddy.

You have to tweak before
you get nice distortion. I have heard the F-50 pump out some real nice Metal tones. I guess I want more High gain. The amp is a tone monster regardless.

 

[no soul]

I guess I want more High gain. The amp is a tone monster regardless.

If you think you really need an extra push, go out and get yourself a good overdrive pedal (not distortion) and use it as a boost.

 

[fdesalvo]

Or, you could tweak the preamp a bit. You know, play around with some plate and cathode resistors for more gain.

~F

 

[Surfcaster]

I just found this forum, though I've had my F-50 for nearly two years now. My F-50 was one of the first production models...before they went with the wide body...so no LEDs on the faceplate for me, but I saved $100 over the wide body version, so I don't complain!!

Boy, some of you must be hardcore if the F-50 doesn't have enough gain for you. Most of the stuff I play is 70's and 80's rock and hard rock and I feel like the F-50 has more than enough gain on tap...even for 80's metal I rarely crank the gain up past 1 or 2 o'clock. Even for doing modern high gain, I find that 3 o'clock is usually plenty.

My biggest complaint about this amp (well, apart from the cold sterile reverb--I like the wet, swirling Fendery kind much better--and the lousy line-out) is that I can't get enough warmth for my medium and low gain tones...it still retains that scooped modern sound at lower levels...I guess the tone controls don't cover the right frequencies for me...sometimes I use an EQ pedal in the effects loop to compensate. Anyway, I've given up on that and am having an 18W Plexi style head built for me to fill that bill. But I love the clean and high gain sounds of the F-50.

Clean:
Gain 1 o'clock
Treble 1 o'clock
Mid 11 o'clock
Bass 11 o'clock
Reverb 11 o'clock
Bright engaged

High Gain:
Gain 10 o'clock - 1 o'clock
Treble 2 o'clock
Mid 11 o'clock
Bass 12 o'clock
Reverb 10 o'clock
Contour Engaged

Actually, I generally use the same EQ for lower gain settings, too...sometimes push up the mids, though. And at really low gain settings I may disengage the contour.

I plan to get a Weber Mini Mass here before too long...one that I can use both with the F-50 and the 18W Plexi style head (18W can still get spanking loud when cranked! At least for basement playing, which is mostly what I'm doing now...quit gigging around the time I got the F-50) Anyway, anyone here tried the Weber Mini Mass or Standard Mass?

 

[prsisbest]

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to this forum, but have been a Mesa player for some time.
I've been following the cnversation about the F-50, and it's gain vs. a Recto, and I have this to add. I recently purchased an F-50 Head, and though I have not had alot of time to dial in "The tone", I can say this. I sold an early 90's Dual recto head, and bought the F-50. My band plays cover tunes ranging from modern rock such as Green Day, Blink 182,etc. to 80's classics such as Ozzy,Poison,Bon Jovi,Motley Crue,etc. and the F has sufficient gain in my opinion to cover all this, and even the occasional blues jam at my local open mic night. I am going to experiment with an overdrive pedal, just to add something different to my leads. The F has a much more useable gain to it compared to the Recto, you can have a high gain setting, and still hear the notes cut through. The Recto was always muddy to my ears, and all that gain really masked the notes being played, and there was alot of noise as a bonus. The other downfall of the Recto was that it was just too **** loud, you couldn't turn it up to get good tube breakup, and stay in the same room(Don't get me wrong the Recto is still a killer machine!).
Another bonus to the F is it's clean sounds - They are great(even though I don't often use the cleans, it's nice to have). Another plus is the signifigantly cheaper price vs. the Recto. More cash saved is more toys bought!!

 

[no soul]

Hey guys, I'm relatively new to this forum, but have been a Mesa player for some time.
I've been following the cnversation about the F-50, and it's gain vs. a Recto, and I have this to add. I recently purchased an F-50 Head, and though I have not had alot of time to dial in "The tone", I can say this. I sold an early 90's Dual recto head, and bought the F-50. My band plays cover tunes ranging from modern rock such as Green Day, Blink 182,etc. to 80's classics such as Ozzy,Poison,Bon Jovi,Motley Crue,etc. and the F has sufficient gain in my opinion to cover all this, and even the occasional blues jam at my local open mic night. I am going to experiment with an overdrive pedal, just to add something different to my leads. The F has a much more useable gain to it compared to the Recto, you can have a high gain setting, and still hear the notes cut through. The Recto was always muddy to my ears, and all that gain really masked the notes being played, and there was alot of noise as a bonus. The other downfall of the Recto was that it was just too **** loud, you couldn't turn it up to get good tube breakup, and stay in the same room(Don't get me wrong the Recto is still a killer machine!).
Another bonus to the F is it's clean sounds - They are great(even though I don't often use the cleans, it's nice to have). Another plus is the signifigantly cheaper price vs. the Recto. More cash saved is more toys bought!!

I agree save the thing about the volume vs that of a DR. Fact of the matter is you CAN cut a DR down to just 50w, and it has both a channel and master output volume, which the F series does not have, which if used correctly can help to get good sounds at lower volumes, however I think the F-series just wins out period.
I dont buy expensive tube amps to sound good in my bedroom.