LSC/LSS owners; are you happy with channel2?Want to fix it?

[medwards1969]

Well here is another comment about channel 2 that I bet gets a response. What popular song tones is channel 2 a perfect fit for, stock? I think most people find that there aren't that many, if any, and thus the frustration and continuous tinkering that seems to be going on with these amps.

By the way, in my opinion, the early Santana tone and SRV tones is best gotten from Channel 1, by far. Wolf Marshall's Santana book said the Abraxas Album tones were gotten with a cranked Fender, before he started playing the Boogie, which came later. That makes me think that thousands of people with Boogies are actually trying to cop the Fender Black Face tone, and they don't even realize it! Of course, the Boogie is a much better made amp than the Fender, I think, but that is beside the point. This is a crucial subject to know the truth about.

 

[Charles Reeder]

medwards1969:

I believe you are hitting all 'bulls-eyes' with your above comments!

to one and all:

BTW. I am leaving shortly to go play (unfortunately not with the Lone Star)...as it is a really small place. As I am playing tomorrow night as well...I will probably not be posting any responses for several days...(although I will take a peek at any new postings by others).

Hopefully...by then someone will have actually TRIED the pot 'swap' and will post their opinion...and I can quit 'flapping my internet jaws' about it!

Just A Reminder: Anyone who wants to know what we're talking about and read how to do this 'swap' or 'mod'...go to my first posting. It's pretty easy and doesn't require buying anything... except solder (if you happen to be out)!

Regards: Charles

 

[RocksOff]

What popular song tones is channel 2 capable of??? Who cares? It sounds great with my original music... AND with the proper guitar I can get it to cover alot of 'popular' areas. I have no problem getting early and later AC/DC with it. I have no problem getting Humble Pie with it. Led Zeppelin can be aped by BOTH channels. I can get pretty close to some Brad Paisley with it. I can fling out some great jazz tones with it. When you say popular tones, what sort of popular are you referring to?

 

[medwards1969]

Hey, whatever music and tones someone likes I have no problem with that at all. It's just that many people want their amp channels to be able to get similar tones of their favorite artists, even if they know their artists use a different brand of amp. If the amp won't do it, they get frustrated and go out and buy another amp (of course anybody who has played electric guitars very long becomes aware of this gear syndrome, I understand that). The originators of signature tones, of course, are doing something totally different. They are creating and not copying. Much fewer people are actually doing that. By the way, creating is very admirable.

I bought my Lonestar hoping to get the Black Face Fender tone out of channel 1 (thus enabling me to cop songs originally played on Fenders) and a Boogie tone out of Channel 2. Channel 1 does what I was hoping, and has exceeded my expectations. Since I don't really recognize fully the stereotypical Boogie tone, I really don't know how to set the lead channel or to judge it. So far, basically, no matter how I set it I don't recognize it with any kind of confidence, which is unlike what happened when I first played a Marshall.

You guys are the Boogie tone experts, help me out here. What is the Boogie tone say back from the '70's that was the original defining Boogie tone? I think Santana's are from his later records after the first couple, such as Moonflower, and so forth. But there are lots of artists playing Boogie's that I am just not familiar that this is what they were using. I keep thinking of Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years" as the tone I would like to be able to get with Channel 2. But I don't know how to set my amp to do it and what type guitar would be required. I presume a strat is the guitar to use, but the Lonestar Channel 2 doesn't seem to be able to get that close a '70's Boogie lead tone for me to say that it is instantly recognizable. I've tried suggested settings for channel 2 and it sounds OK but doesn't seem to nail any particular tone I recognize.

What is the stereotypical lead tone from the '70's and can the stock Lonestar Channel 2 make a similar tone? How would the controls be set to do that? Or is this mod we are discussing something that would need to be tried?

 

[djw]

What is the Boogie tone say back from the '70's that was the original defining Boogie tone? ...
What is the stereotypical lead tone from the '70's and can the stock Lonestar Channel 2 make a similar tone? How would the controls be set to do that? Or is this mod we are discussing something that would need to be tried?

I love this thread, and these are really good questions, medwards, and an excellent post. I've always kinda wondered about the classic, "signature" Boogie tone myself. Nowadays, it seems like there are at least a few; the DRs seem to have the most recognizable Boogie tone in the modern sense, at least to my ears (they don't sound like Marshalls or Fenders, anyway); maybe the MkIVs have a thing too.

But that's not really what you're talking about, is it? Nor is it what I'm after, tone-wise. And, truthfully, Santana's sounds from recent, oh, decades don't seem to be the thing I'd want either: too fizzy, or too much of a thin veneer or crispiness on top (like dried paint on a water balloon). So what is it?

... and as I type this, I'm remembering: one good place to get an idea might be this clip that I think is from Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mD8q18-zcY -- very entertaining) It looks like Keith is playing an old Mark I or II or something... hijinx aside, his sound is pretty snappy and rich. Not sure if Chuck is playing through the other one.

 

[jjboogie]

Hey, whatever music and tones someone likes I have no problem with that at all. It's just that many people want their amp channels to be able to get similar tones of their favorite artists, even if they know their artists use a different brand of amp. If the amp won't do it, they get frustrated and go out and buy another amp (of course anybody who has played electric guitars very long becomes aware of this gear syndrome, I understand that). The originators of signature tones, of course, are doing something totally different. They are creating and not copying. Much fewer people are actually doing that. By the way, creating is very admirable.

I bought my Lonestar hoping to get the Black Face Fender tone out of channel 1 (thus enabling me to cop songs originally played on Fenders) and a Boogie tone out of Channel 2. Channel 1 does what I was hoping, and has exceeded my expectations. Since I don't really recognize fully the stereotypical Boogie tone, I really don't know how to set the lead channel or to judge it. So far, basically, no matter how I set it I don't recognize it with any kind of confidence, which is unlike what happened when I first played a Marshall.

You guys are the Boogie tone experts, help me out here. What is the Boogie tone say back from the '70's that was the original defining Boogie tone? I think Santana's are from his later records after the first couple, such as Moonflower, and so forth. But there are lots of artists playing Boogie's that I am just not familiar that this is what they were using. I keep thinking of Steely Dan's "Reeling in the Years" as the tone I would like to be able to get with Channel 2. But I don't know how to set my amp to do it and what type guitar would be required. I presume a strat is the guitar to use, but the Lonestar Channel 2 doesn't seem to be able to get that close a '70's Boogie lead tone for me to say that it is instantly recognizable. I've tried suggested settings for channel 2 and it sounds OK but doesn't seem to nail any particular tone I recognize.

What is the stereotypical lead tone from the '70's and can the stock Lonestar Channel 2 make a similar tone? How would the controls be set to do that? Or is this mod we are discussing something that would need to be tried?

The stereotypical singing lead tone from the 70's was a Mark 1 that Santana used and the Abraxas album Santana used a 100W Boogie that had four 6L6's.

The Lonestar Special touches upon that sound but doesn't necessarily capture it. It uses EL84's which is a completely different animal.

The LSS does have the Drive control switch so that you can bybass a triode stage for a slightly higher clone of CH1.

Here is a little comparison between the Mark 1 Reissue and the Lonestar that touches this subject.

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Reviews/ToneQuest-LoneStar/ToneQuest-Mark1-LSReview.htm

 

[JoeVFR]

... and as I type this, I'm remembering: one good place to get an idea might be this clip that I think is from Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mD8q18-zcY -- very entertaining) It looks like Keith is playing an old Mark I or II or something... hijinx aside, his sound is pretty snappy and rich. Not sure if Chuck is playing through the other one.

Great clip, Chuck Berry, the original diva...

 

[medwards1969]

Yes I agree the Abraxas Album probably was the Mark I and not what Wolf Marshall had said in his book.

The Lonestar Channel 1 is more like a Blackface Fender than the Mark I is, I presume (I guess it depends maybe on how you set the Mark I, I would not know).

By the way, what was Clapton's amp with his Santana appearance in that Crossroads blues festival? Was Clapton playing a Fender there?

 

[djw]

Okay, so.... I'm now watching this thread carefully. Who's going to do this first? I want to do it myself, but I'm afraid of electrocuting my arse. My friend the amp tech is busy, so I won't be able to try it for a little while.

Who's going to do it?

 

[medwards1969]

It probably won't be me for a few months anyway, but if even one person besides Charles does this mod and comments really favorably, the floodgates are gonna open on this thread for sure! I dig this thread because it is drilling into the heart of a serious amp question.

 

[thirstypirate]

I really don't want to void my warranty already since there is so much time left on it, but if someone else has success with this mod I might not be able to resist.

 

[plan-x]

Need a Guinea pig huh!? I intend to do it. When, is the question. Maybe this week. I figure I need the amp by Thurs. so...well see. Changing pots doesn't scare me, done a few on my guitars. Getting electrocuted shouldn't be a problem, I'll unplug the amp and try to avoid touching and discharging the caps. The problem is the time to tear it down and putting back together. :shock:

 

[djw]

Getting electrocuted shouldn't be a problem, I'll unplug the amp and try to avoid touching and discharging the caps.

So, what's the deal with this exactly? If that's all there is to it, that sounds easy...

So just don't touch this thiBZZZTZZZZ-ZZTZZZTZTZZZZT

 

[jjboogie]

Yes I agree the Abraxas Album probably was the Mark I and not what Wolf Marshall had said in his book.

The Lonestar Channel 1 is more like a Blackface Fender than the Mark I is, I presume (I guess it depends maybe on how you set the Mark I, I would not know).

By the way, what was Clapton's amp with his Santana appearance in that Crossroads blues festival? Was Clapton playing a Fender there?

If Clapton was sitting in with Santana's band then Clapton might have actually been playing through a Fender Cybertwin. Santana brings one on the road with him specifically for people who may sit in with him.....

 

[jjboogie]

I really don't want to void my warranty already since there is so much time left on it, but if someone else has success with this mod I might not be able to resist.

Yeah I would wait if I were you!

 

[plan-x]

Hero! I did the mod & it works. I set all my knobs identical & the sound was identical, I added some gain & here's the hitch .. it became muddier in the bottom end. With a few adjustments you can overcome some of that, it gets worse with the drive on, lowering the bass & kicking in the thick switch helps again. That's probably why Mesa did what they did. I would probably modify if further & use different values for all the tone pots on ch. 2 & modify their frequency centers, but that would take away the clone. I'm sure it could be done but that would cost alot more money. As for low to medium gain its managable, which is better than it was, cause I didn't even bother with it before. I invested in some OD's. The LSC is renown for being pedal friendly. On the old ch. 2 it was horrible, but now its like using the clean ch. Making it pedal friendly on both ch's. Overall, if you're like me & just gave up on ch. 2, this mod will bring it back the way it should have been from the start. I might have been able to shape my sound around this new ch. sound, rather than the five or six OD pedals I have. Anyways, Thanks Charles for giving me back my second ch. I'm still a little suspicious about the part # discrepancy. The part # on the pot is the same as in the manual. It's as if there was some inside info passed along? Thats all folks! The guinea pig has survived.

 

[jjboogie]

Greetings to all the Boogie-Folks; and to Lone Star owners in particular:

As either a LSC or LSS owner/user would you say that you are/were less pleased with channel-2 than with channel-1? I will tell you why I ask after I tell you of my experience with it.

I bought my LSC about 2 years ago. I read the available Mesa literature and I fully expected channel-2 to quite literally be a 'clone' of channel-1 if I didn't engage the 'Drive' or the 'thick/thicker' options.

But it wasn't...(a clone that is)...it has a more ragged response...and I have read endless 'tweaking' suggestions which were supposed to help get the response I sought.

Now let me ask you a question...would you like your 2nd channel better if it were an absolutely identical clone of channel-1? Assuming that you were to set all tone, volume and gain controls on both channels identically; and didn't engage either the 'drive' or 'thick/thicker' options; would you prefer the 2 channels to be identical? Can you mentally envision having the tone shaping abilities of the 'drive' and 'thick/thicker' available on a channel that sounded exactly like channel-1? Wouldn't that sound better? Isn't that what you wanted...it's what I wanted...and now have.

I never could figure for sure why Mesa didn't just build the amp that way in the first place...but I have a theory. I believe that they felt they would be criticized for building an amp with two identical channels...fearing some people would say that they could have just built a 1-channel amp with the 'drive' and 'thick/thicker' options foot-switchable and sold it cheaper. They probably would have gotten some such criticism. Me; I prefer the options afforded by having 2 separate but identical channels. I can vary tone and gain settings as well as adding the 'drive' and 'thick/thicker' too.
How many times I was 'torn' trying to decide which gain setting to use on channel-1; because there are several I really like.

Now I can set channel-2 for my alternate channel-1 gain setting and/or add the 'drive' and 'thick/thicker' as well. Let's face it; as the amp comes stock, channel-1 is smoother and more transparent than channel-2. Do I really get any disagreement with that statement?


I would like to hear from anyone who shares/shared my dissatisfaction with channel-2...and from anyone who does this simple swap...I would love to hear from you and see if this swap thrilled you as much as it did me.

Regards in 'Boogiedom': Charles

Still not sure why you would want both channels identical....Forgive me for my ignorance but to me I would not want both channels the same.....Isn't a little variety in tone a good thing? I dial in a killer lead tone on ch 2 of my LSS....Love it!

 

[Charles Reeder]

I'm Back!

I had fun playing this weekend...would have had more fun if I'd been able to use the LSC instead of a small amp and go 'direct' from it into board! Oh well...this isn't a perfect world.

Plan-X:

I'm glad to hear you did it and it works for you! From reading your posts I figured your 'target-tone' might be much like mine and you'd get the most from it. Yeah...you do have to play with the tone controls some...the old rules still apply...when you add gain-you cut bass. I have read of some people switching some cap values...haven't tried it...as I admittedly don't have much technical knowledge and don't know which caps to work with...besides I'm pretty happy now.

There is one other thing I did to my LSC (on both channels) which I did even before I ever thought of trying the 'gain/master pot-swap...It also helped (in my opinion)...but it didn't have near the dramatic effect as the pot switch.

I added 'bright-switches' to both channels. Right between the gain and treble pots(on each channel)...I added a little 3-way toggle switch (identical to the one for 'thick/normal/thicker'). This switch has a center-off position and 2-on positions. I put a 22mfd cap on 1-on-position and a 44mfd on the other on-position. (But a 33mfd works well too-a matter of taste). That way I can switch the bright off-or have 2 choices of brightness. Everyone remembers the bright-switches on old Fenders...they served a useful purpose. When the 'gain' knob is in any range below 3:00; some of the treble is being 'bled' to ground...and the amp 'may' not be as bright as desired. This allows the treble to bypass that ground and brightens up the amp some. This does seem to help a bit with the muddiness you mentioned...instead of cutting as much bass I add treble. Info on bright caps can be 'googled' if anyone is interested. It is wired into the center and far right tab on pots when viewed from the rear.

I seldom use any extreme gain settings; never above 2:30...so I don't have a lot of muddiness issues...but try this too... (You may or may not like it). On channel-2; reverse the 'drive' and 'gain' settings. I sometimes use 'drive' at about 2:00 and ‘gain’ at about 10:30. This seems to thin out the muddiness a bit while still giving a sustained high gain sound. BTW...I've found I can get some very convincing Santana-like 'singing tones' now too!

I'm glad you took the plunge. I'm glad you liked the results. I'm also Very Very Glad that you were careful and are still with us! No bzzzzt-bzzzzt Yeow!

Yeah...I'm still a little suspicious about that pot...the expression: 'throw in a red herring' comes to mind. Possibly to ‘throw people off the scent’? I think the 2 pots with 1 different part#1 are actually the same pot...just 1 of them 'labeled' to go to channel-2.

Maybe you can share some tone settings with others...

jjboogie:

The desire to have a 'cloned tone' on channel-2 is born in the fact that channel-1 is so expressive...and well...channel-2 really isn't! I don't leave channel-2 settings the same as channel-1...plus I add the 'drive' and/or the 'thicker' into the circuit as needed. I just use channel-2 as a platform to 'build on'.
I frequently have wished to use channel-1 with gain at about 12:00 (relatively clean) and wished I had the ability to switch to a 2:30 'gain' setting at will. (Nice breakup). Channel-2 wouldn't do that smoothly...it sounded 'nasty'...but now I can quite literally achieve a higher gain setting of channel-1 (as originally hinted at in the Mesa Boogie write-ups for this amp) which had a hand in my purchase of the amp in the first place.

Regards to all: Charles

 

[plan-x]

Yeah Charles, I was planning on the drive higher than gain trick later on today to see what results I could yeild. As a matter of fact, that was the only setting I could live with before the mod. Some of these nay sayer's who don't embrace change, must have not experienced the great 6l6 based amps of yesteryear. Like the Dual Showman etc. While the LSC has the clean ch good(maybe one of the best), some of us knew the gain ch lacked something. This mod definately brings it more into focus. I've seen tons of threads of guys using 2 amps just to get a 2nd ch. I'll give some more reviews and settings later on, Thanks again Charles!

 

[ja22y]

So I spent a couple hours over the weekend to check this out. Mine is a LSS.
With all pots at 12 and both ch set to the exact level, ch2 has more gain than ch1, but puts out the same volume. Meaning it's a little more compressed and loose some high.
By turning down the gain on ch2 to about 10:30 and turning the master up to compensate for the lost of volume, around 1:00, I got both ch to sound the same. I can't say identical but I would say that I couldn't tell (I didn't look at the amp or foot sw, I just step on the foot sw randomly). I did this test with a friend and he can't tell the diff either.
Which suggests to me that the pots are of different values so the gain curve is different.
Before swapping any pots, check it out and let us know your results.
BTW what 'popular' tone you can get out of ch2? The Kinks' "you really got me". Just put it on the 5w mode and crank the master (output tube). and voila.