God I love this AMP!! some advice for new buyers

[thalweg]

It just keeps getting better and better. Found some core tones on Channel 2 and 3 that I just love..never paid much attention to channel 1..although its got such a sweet clean tone in the fat mode...but then a band that I play with required some blues tones that I just couldn't quite get with channel 2 and 3 and so I discover tweed!!...and a whole new world opens up for just beautiful blues tone and tube gain.

For 20 years I've been a prog rock and alternative guy most of the time with a spattering of blues in there. My older shred guitars just didn't do the blues justice...but this amp has brought that genre right back into the mix and is so perfect for all the harder stuff.

I experimented with trying to copy the tones of some well known players...SRV to Lifeson to Santana to mark morton etc etc and this thing can literally copy the tone to a T.

It took some time and trial an error. Highly recommend going to youtube and the haggerty music channel which does I believe a 7 or8 part series on the tones of the MarkV. http://www.youtube.com/user/haggertysmusic. This really helped understand the power and capability from an easy to understand perspective.

So I just want to say...this thing rocks...and for new owners congratulations on a GREAT INVESTMENT however I want to offer a bit of advice.

When you first get started you might get frustrated with all the options...and thus this leads you to believe you need new tubes or switch in speakers or an extra cab or new pickups or new guitar etc etc....before you make any decision wait at least a month or two and make sure you put the time into to understanding the capability of the amp. I can almost assure you...that you will find what you are looking for right out of the box and save you a lot of time and money trying to get to where you want to go with external mods and so forth. I'm so glad that I didn't go out there when I was about to and spend a fist load of cash for things I thought I needed to make this amp sing...put the time in...and you'll definitely be rewarded.

Thats all I gotta say on that!

Cheers and good health!

 

[boogieman60]

When you first get started you might get frustrated with all the options...and thus this leads you to believe you need new tubes or switch in speakers or an extra cab or new pickups or new guitar etc etc....before you make any decision wait at least a month or two and make sure you put the time into to understanding the capability of the amp. I can almost assure you...that you will find what you are looking for right out of the box and save you a lot of time and money trying to get to where you want to go with external mods and so forth. I'm so glad that I didn't go out there when I was about to and spend a fist load of cash for things I thought I needed to make this amp sing...put the time in...and you'll definitely be rewarded.

+3 on quote..It really amuses me when a guy go's out spends 2400 bucks on a state of the art amp...comes home and yanks out the tubes.....and replaces them with "better ones"....I love my bone stock MKV....

 

[MBJunkie]

+1000

BTW....I love the tweed mode too as well as many others! :mrgreen:

 

[thalweg]

Glad you fellas feel the same way. I'm just so happy with the purchase and it just continues to get better with new discoveries.

I do have to thank all the great folks on this board that offered such great objective advice on many things.

I'm sure Mesa keeps an eye on this place...if they don't they need to. It such a tremendous way to win over the trust of a new customer.

Cheers and happy strumming!

 

[gag halfrunt]

This is very timely (and appreciated) advice for me, as I am going to pick up a Mark V today. I've never owned a Mark series before, and I admit that I'm a little intimidated by all the knobs and switches. I'll check out the youtube link above for some good starting points

Thanks, and I'm glad to be a new member of this board!

 

[SteveO]

This is very timely (and appreciated) advice for me, as I am going to pick up a Mark V today. I've never owned a Mark series before, and I admit that I'm a little intimidated by all the knobs and switches. I'll check out the youtube link above for some good starting points

Thanks, and I'm glad to be a new member of this board!

It's not tough at all if you look at it as individual channels.

 

[thalweg]

Steveo That's really good advice.

Each individual channel is powerful in its own front. A tough thing to wrap your ahead around is the main channel tone controls in conjunction with the EQ. The choices to make in rectifier switching. Then coming up with three channels tones to make proper use of the foot pedal.

 

[gag halfrunt]

This is very timely (and appreciated) advice for me, as I am going to pick up a Mark V today. I've never owned a Mark series before, and I admit that I'm a little intimidated by all the knobs and switches. I'll check out the youtube link above for some good starting points

Thanks, and I'm glad to be a new member of this board!

It's not tough at all if you look at it as individual channels.

It's true.

Being a Mark series noob, I'm looking at each MODE as its own channel. That video series really helped a lot in thinking about the amp that way. I've historically been a Marshall guy, and using "Marshall-style" EQ intuition doesn't work AT ALL with this amp :mrgreen: So for me, it's imperative to think about each mode independently.

 

[doombie22]

best amp i've ever owned. after 40 years of gigging and recording this amp still amazes me. and i have only owned it for 2 weeks

 

[thalweg]

Totally agree with that statement!

 

[MBJunkie]

I continue to find great new sounds out of my V after owning it for 1-1/2 years.

While I have only been playing for 25 years (compared to others posting 40+ years), the MkV is definitely the best amp that I have owned to suit all of my needs so well!!

For those of you that have only had it a few weeks or months....it only gets better and better IMO!! :mrgreen: