Just purchased a Mark IV. Wich tubes for Petrucci tone?

[panturnio]

Hi to everyone!
I write from italy and this is my first post.

I've just purchased a used Mark IV short head.
It seams to be 15 years old, and it has its original tube set.

Which tubes are suggested for the Mark IV to have a grat Petrucci sound?
I'm using the graph EQ in classic V shape to have my rhythm sound, and I shout it off to have my solos sounds.

About the clean I love that one Petrucci has in This Dying Soul... I think it comes from a Lonestar... would be grat to have something similar.

I've spent about an hour reeding lot of treads in this amazing forum searching the answers that would fit for me, but most of the users talk 'bout replacing 6L6 with El34, or are searchin' the way to have a more vintage tone. Instead I definitelly need a classic mesa tone and a lot of gain
So thanks a lot to everyone that could give me help!

Gianfranco

 

[panturnio]

No suggestion, folks?

 

[topcat0399]

Let me say welcome here panturnio.



Congratulations on getting for yourself a Mark IV. I have a long term love affair with mine.

I don't listen to Petrucci ( :shock: ), and just because I have a Les Paul doesn't mean I listen to Slash :roll: either! :lol:

I think I do better by listening to others less; because when I listen too much I find I copy them too much and lose my own originality.

If no one around here has an answer for you then my suggestion is to play with your amp alot. Every knob, different settings. Start a tube collection that you build on forever and experiment. Make that boogie be your magic.

At first I hated that **** Mark IV....


Keep hanging around and asking questions!

 

[panturnio]

Thanks for your message, Topcat.

Sure I don't want to emulate Petrucci, even if I've a Mark and a Ernie Ball guitar... but for sure that one is my favourite sound.
I've mentioned Petrucci just to intend that te sound I'm seraching for has to be pretty fat and high gain, not, just to talk, a bluesy one.

The Mark I've purchased comes with original tubes that are more or less 15 years old, and I can hear that the amp isn't sounding like it could be. It's a good idea to experiment with a lot of tubes, and I hope to do it with a lot of different ones, but for now I just need a good tube set to start.

It's for that reason that I'm asking for suggestions round here.
Many guys here in the forum love GT, JJ, or Mesa...
Many others tell that Mesa are (or used to be) JJ...
It's really a mess

 

[topcat0399]

Thanks for your message, Topcat.

Sure I don't want to emulate Petrucci, even if I've a Mark and a Ernie Ball guitar... but for sure that one is my favourite sound.
I've mentioned Petrucci just to intend that te sound I'm seraching for has to be pretty fat and high gain, not, just to talk, a bluesy one.

The Mark I've purchased comes with original tubes that are more or less 15 years old, and I can hear that the amp isn't sounding like it could be. It's a good idea to experiment with a lot of tubes, and I hope to do it with a lot of different ones, but for now I just need a good tube set to start.

It's for that reason that I'm asking for suggestions round here.
Many guys here in the forum love GT, JJ, or Mesa...
Many others tell that Mesa are (or used to be) JJ...
It's really a mess

A mess is right! Its an endless morass of tubefunkery.

Perhaps you could post the settings you are trying to use. What speaker and cab do you use?

If I were you I would pull every tube from your amp and either write down what they are or my take a photo of each one.

Then put them all back where they were.

Also, you could start moving around your pre-amp tubes to different slots to see if there's a difference to you. If you hit on a good combo keep it.

My band plays a wide variety of rock music from the 50's to the present so I don't use extreme high gain much. When I do its channel 3 all the way. I use the Graphic EQ mainly for solo boost, the opposite of what it seems you are doing.

 

[ryjan]

Tung-Sol pre's and =C= SED EL34 and 6L6 combo for the power. Smooth as a freshly waxed stripper. :wink:

 

[panturnio]

It's a good suggestion, Topcat! Unfortunatelly my amp come with are really down.... maybe it make no sense to do some experiments with these ones.

hi, Ryan! I'd rather prefer 4 6l6... I'm not to much into el34. Will have a look at Tung Sol, thanks!!

 

[dodger916]

I prefer Mesa STR420s (the tube the Mark IV was designed around) or =C= 6L6s. The 420s are hard to find as they no longer make them. I currently run a pair of Mesa 5881s in the outside sockets with 420s in the inner sockets. You could also run a quad of 5881s. For preamps I use a mixture of vintage Tung Sols, an Amperex and a Mesa. I think vintage American tubes (Tung Sol, Sylvania, RCA, GE, etc.) sound good in a Mark IV.

By the way, Mesa STR 440s sound good too, but I prefer the 420s and the =C=s.

 

[j.d.hall]

If you look at the pictures of his "Chaos in Motion" live rig on his website (http://johnpetrucci.com/images/gear/IMG_0888.jpg) with the Mark IV's, you'll see that the power section has two 6L6GC's in the center sockets and two EL-34's in the outer sockets. All four of these tubes are Mesa/Boogie's tubes. I'm not sure about which tubes he uses in the preamplifier however.
The Mark IV user's manual mentions this EL-34/6L6GC/6L6GC/EL-34 power tube scenario as a suggestion even.

 

[SonicProvocateur]

I've heard around the campfire that John uses only Mesa replacement tubes. Which would make his power tubes either STR-430's (EH/Sovtek) on older albums tracked with 6L6s and the Mark IV or STR-420's, and STR-440's possibly on the newest newest tones. No clue on the IIC+ stuff, but I don't know if he ever had Sylvania's in his rig. The preamp tubes would have been either Chinese 1/2 or Russian 1/2 tubes, or the SPAX7 / 7025s which are Chinese square plates (older versions, often called "silver specials").

Edit: John's signature tone is in his settings combined with the EBMM.

 

[AXEnGEAR4J]

My suggestions would be to either go stock....
or
Winged C's