Hi,
Being able to go from my hot rodded Marshall head to the Mesa Mark V in a few minutes cable change, I finally managed to get as close to a Marshall tone as possible out of the crunch mode of channel 2 in my Mark V and I want to share this to you.
Gain must be set as max, as this pot doesn’t have a bright cap on it, so as soon as you deviate from max the highs get dull. Also, as there’s not a lot of gain in this channel, this helps to get the most out of it.
Presence at 9.30 o’clock
Treble at 1.00 o’clock
Mids at noon
Bass just a hair before noon
Then, the key is to use the EQ taking advantage of the preset knobs: this will let you still use the best graphic eq curve for channel 3, while perfecting your channel 2 tone. Start with the knob all the way down, which is already quite effective in taking you to the right direction. You might raise it just a little bit more, most of all to get a little more bass down there at the end at the preamp (if you raise the bass knob, instead, you get too much bass in the early stages of the preamp, as known in Mesa designs, which will make your tone boomy in an unpleasant way). You won’t ever need to go over 8 o’clock, as the eq would make your tone scooped, which is not what Marshall tone is!
Final thoughts: the Mark V is really a beast of an amp, it’s not easy, but the extra features it has (the preset eq knobs, the global volume and the solo volume) IMO make it a superior and more versatile product over the Mark VII.
I hope this will help some of you!
Giulio
Being able to go from my hot rodded Marshall head to the Mesa Mark V in a few minutes cable change, I finally managed to get as close to a Marshall tone as possible out of the crunch mode of channel 2 in my Mark V and I want to share this to you.
Gain must be set as max, as this pot doesn’t have a bright cap on it, so as soon as you deviate from max the highs get dull. Also, as there’s not a lot of gain in this channel, this helps to get the most out of it.
Presence at 9.30 o’clock
Treble at 1.00 o’clock
Mids at noon
Bass just a hair before noon
Then, the key is to use the EQ taking advantage of the preset knobs: this will let you still use the best graphic eq curve for channel 3, while perfecting your channel 2 tone. Start with the knob all the way down, which is already quite effective in taking you to the right direction. You might raise it just a little bit more, most of all to get a little more bass down there at the end at the preamp (if you raise the bass knob, instead, you get too much bass in the early stages of the preamp, as known in Mesa designs, which will make your tone boomy in an unpleasant way). You won’t ever need to go over 8 o’clock, as the eq would make your tone scooped, which is not what Marshall tone is!
Final thoughts: the Mark V is really a beast of an amp, it’s not easy, but the extra features it has (the preset eq knobs, the global volume and the solo volume) IMO make it a superior and more versatile product over the Mark VII.
I hope this will help some of you!
Giulio
