I have been having a hard time getting this amp to sound the way I knew it it could. There are a ton of tone options and I've been following the settings on line and in the manual but they just hadn't been working for me. It's always been a bit thin and ear piercingly trebly some times.
I have found that on my setup (Avatar Open back 2x12 with V30 and G12h30 speaker/Fender Texas special strat with pearly gates) I need to go against some of the conventional wisdom regarding these amps to get the tone I wanted. I never had the sustaing and thick single lead notes that I liked with it. I figured it needed more treble since the manual says keep the treble high for more gain, but it always sounded thin and piercing at high volume.
I've learned that lowering the treble, and increasing the mids and bass really adds fatness and warmth to the tone. I also lowered the lead gain and drive settings on the lead channel and with the combinations of settings I was finally able to achieve that fat thick mesa lead tone I knew was in the amp. Doing the same to the r2 mids and bass, but leaving the gain high gave me a beautiful warm, fat 80's metal/classic rock crunch that cleaned up nice for some SRV type blues when I rolled back the volume and switched to single coils. I'm in love again.
Lead Settings: Tweed, triode, Simul, harmonics. Lead gain 7, Treble 7, bass 5, mid 7, lead drive 6, presence pushed in on 3, channel volume 3, lead volume 3. Eq engaged with a shallower v on the ends. Bridge pickup.
R2 (same tweed etc.) Treble 6, bass 5, mids 7 lead drive 7 pulled(fat) Presence pushed in on 5, channel and master volume 3. This also gives a very nice clean too on R1. Adding some delay and reverb in the loop was tonal heaven.
These settings may not work for you, it seems the Mark IV is very picky about cabs and guitars and settings need to be changed for your speakers and type of cab. I have a closed back for the Avatar cab, but prefer the open back because in the band it cuts better and has too much bass that I was getting frequency clashes with the bass guitar.
I have found that on my setup (Avatar Open back 2x12 with V30 and G12h30 speaker/Fender Texas special strat with pearly gates) I need to go against some of the conventional wisdom regarding these amps to get the tone I wanted. I never had the sustaing and thick single lead notes that I liked with it. I figured it needed more treble since the manual says keep the treble high for more gain, but it always sounded thin and piercing at high volume.
I've learned that lowering the treble, and increasing the mids and bass really adds fatness and warmth to the tone. I also lowered the lead gain and drive settings on the lead channel and with the combinations of settings I was finally able to achieve that fat thick mesa lead tone I knew was in the amp. Doing the same to the r2 mids and bass, but leaving the gain high gave me a beautiful warm, fat 80's metal/classic rock crunch that cleaned up nice for some SRV type blues when I rolled back the volume and switched to single coils. I'm in love again.
Lead Settings: Tweed, triode, Simul, harmonics. Lead gain 7, Treble 7, bass 5, mid 7, lead drive 6, presence pushed in on 3, channel volume 3, lead volume 3. Eq engaged with a shallower v on the ends. Bridge pickup.
R2 (same tweed etc.) Treble 6, bass 5, mids 7 lead drive 7 pulled(fat) Presence pushed in on 5, channel and master volume 3. This also gives a very nice clean too on R1. Adding some delay and reverb in the loop was tonal heaven.
These settings may not work for you, it seems the Mark IV is very picky about cabs and guitars and settings need to be changed for your speakers and type of cab. I have a closed back for the Avatar cab, but prefer the open back because in the band it cuts better and has too much bass that I was getting frequency clashes with the bass guitar.
