Just bought a used Mark V 90w. I own a Mark V 35.

[Jyoung]

Hi, Congrats on your new amp! I have a mk V 90 that I was never 100% happy with the high gain sound. I tried a BBE sonic stomp in the loop and this thing absolutely rips now. I have a MK IV also, and eq's in its loop work amazing, but my same eq tricks on my IV never worked on my V. It tightens up the bass frequencies to where they sound right to my ear now. All I am running is a noise gate in front, and a BBE in the loop, and now it's one of my favorite amps finally.

 

[Ascendance]

Empress makes a 3-band fully parametric pedal, the ParaEQ. And a version with a switch with 3 fixed bandwidths instead of a knob with the full range of adjustable bandwidth.

Hope I dont regret it and hope i got the right one my budget is caped gonna sell my 10 band mxr and a few other pedels I dont use and for sure im selling my mark V:35W. Any tips on using it with the mark V?

 

[DECEMBER]

The Mark V 90w makes you wish you had a GEQ for each amp lol. On channel 2 I feel Edge needs a completly diff GEQ setting than the other amps and on edge I feal the tone shapes like sort of like a marshal, the complete oposite of mark 1, 2c+, mark IV, Extream and even some of the cleans.

Also for the first time in my life my tone nobs dont sound like complete crap. Im still going to get the caps changed on the tone nob on my guitar to .014 uf or whatever on the neck.

Are EL34 like a hybrid of EL 84 and 6L6?

EL84 is like the smaller, lower wattage version of EL34. 6V6 would be the smaller 6L6 counterpart. I had a couple Peaveys with EL84 and they were really boxy.
Yeah, the JP2C having two GEQ's is nice. The Mark I mode especially needs completely different settings. That's what I use the Source Audio EQ2 for - so I can keep the 5 band on the amp and the 10 band parametric in the loop on the same settings for every channel, then use presets on the EQ2 to make further adjustments. The Mark I mode is so dark and bass-heavy, but I can get it to sound great with the right EQ.

 

[rarebitusa]

Also its almost like the Mark V:35W and The Mark V:90w are completly diffrent amps. I can tell im gonna be able to get what I want with it but im gonna have to spend some serious time figuring it out.

Hey Congrats... had mine for a number of years now and still discovering new settings even today.

 

[Don McNevin]

The best way to change/shape the tone of any amp into the sound you want is to run parametric EQ in the FX loop. I've never met an amp that didn't need it to get the thick, sharp, chuggy sound I need. Even with my Mark V 90W, I run a 10 band parametric EQ in the loop, an analog Ashly rack unit. I also have a Source Audio EQ2 (2-channel 10-band parametric pedal). The preset capability is very convenient, but it does make the signal digital, so I only use it if I can't get a sound from the analog rack unit. It has so many knobs, I just keep it set & forget, because it's too difficult to get the same sound twice.
I got the Ashly PQX 572 for the price of that 3-band Empress pedal.

I love the sound of my Mark V 90W, but it does take the extra EQ in the loop to get it there.
I like it better with 6L6GC's, they have more bass, a little more high end, and more balanced mids than EL34's.

That's a lot of EQ for one amp! Are you sure there isn't something wrong with the amp?

 

[DECEMBER]

That's a lot of EQ for one amp! Are you sure there isn't something wrong with the amp?

There's something wrong with my electricity. There is extreme noise in everything in my apartment. I try out amps in stores and they sound great without EQ, then I get them home and it's always muddy, harsh, fizzy, undefined. I'm considering a real balanced power conditioner ($1000-2000), but I'm already deep in debt and I don't have much faith that it would even make much of a difference.