I go back and forth on whether or not I like my head or not. the sound I'm looking for is getting more low end on my head and having it sound crisper. do you think using el84's instead of 6l6's will help with this a little bit? are there any mods I could have done on this head? when I listened to the recorded sound of my head as opposed to the sound in a room to my ears, it was night and day. anyone have any good settings they can offer up? I had a friend mess with my settings to get it to sound a little bit more like his marshall tsl60, but it still sounds weak. I'm also running a digitech bad monkey with the lead channel to attempt to give it more oomph, but it didn't help much. does anyone have a good recording of one of these heads that they can show me so I know what I'm doing wrong? do I just hate my head?
mesa .50 caliber+ head issues
- Thread starter CDMAmutt
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dodger916
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I think the opposite is true. 6L6s will give more bottom and highs, like a Fender. EL84s are more Vox-ish.CDMAmutt said:
If you're recording with a Mic, the type of mic and it's placement are very important.CDMAmutt said:
I don't know how close you will get this to a Marshall. Maybe it's the wriong head for you.
bartchamdoh
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I know where your coming from as i have a .50 caliber (the el84 version of your amp head).I normally use mark 2,s and 3,s and this is definately not in that ball park!The main thing to know is that this amp will not give you the high gain of these other amps and is voiced more for mid gain rock type stuff.Like these amps though you cannot go from crystal clean to all out high gain without some break up in the clean channel, however unlike these amps i like the break up as its very cranked fender/tubescreamer like get to know this amp for what it is and you might like what you have...just dont expect the high gain you get with some other mesa,s lol.
scottcrud
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I dunno, I've owned 3 MKIII's and I'll take the lead channel on my .50Cal+ anyday, but all I play is high gain metal, in fact my clean channel sounds like AC/DC's main tone.
see and thats the thing. I'm not looking for extremely high gain. I play experimental rock and hardcore punk. I want it to be the perfect inbetween to the general mesa tone and marshall. preferably I'd want a mesa heartbreaker for that foo fighters tone (someone told me that that was the only amp used on the color and the shape). also, yeah, we messed with the mic placement alot, but it just didn't help. I ended up switching it to the clean channel (which has more the sound I want, but not the gain) and using a pedal. any settings that would work?
bartchamdoh
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Have you played a .50 caliber back to back with a mark 3 or a dual rec...ARE YOU SERIOUS!!!
bartchamdoh
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Dear rote i,m a fender(strat or tele) through boogie kinda guy who likes to rock out a la Walter Trout, Gary Moore etc i,m sure you get the picture!With a Mark 3 i can play palm muted chuga,chuga rhytmn and high gain lead that sustains for days and still hear that i am indeed playing a fender guitar.Although i get a good classic rock tone from the caliber.50 it doesn,t sustain for days and palm muted rhthmn work doesn,t cut it either! I dont doubt that with high output humbuckers this would not be the case!I would class the .50 caliber as medium high gain suitable for rockTHERE IS NO WAY ON THIS PLANET THAT A.50 CALIBER HAS THE GAIN ON TAP OF A MARK 3 !!!........PERIOD though i note your opinion lol.
rotebass
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Fair enough, but to say that a .50 Cal isn't capable of high-gain metal tones is IMO misleading. FWIW, my head has 6l6's as opposed to the 84's in your head, and I play a PRS Baritone tuned to A, those facts alone are going to affect the results we get from the amp. On top of that you seem to want a fat and warm tone, I prefer a more aggressive tone, which the .50 excels at as many people will attest to.
P.S. .50 Caliber slaved into a Recto's power section is godly, I plan on picking up a Recto 2:100 next year if funds allow.
P.S. .50 Caliber slaved into a Recto's power section is godly, I plan on picking up a Recto 2:100 next year if funds allow.
bartchamdoh
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Hi again rote my opinion was a general cross the board one meant to cover this amp when all types of guitar are used ie single coils/humbuckers,p 90s etc and in general i still hold the opinion this amp has gain levels for rock/heavy rock type stuff.I concede that with the right geetar it can do metal(and indeed several board members use it for just that...check their posts!)Although i like this amp i find it to be a very quirky animal indeed eg...why is the clean channel so much louder than the lead channel when foot switching?I personally like this amp as a clean/blues amp with the volume between 1 or 2 or crunch/rock with the volume maxed but have to say this is my back up amp as my mark 3,s are what cut it for me.
bartchamdoh
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In reply to your last question yes i have the version with the lead master....as with all mesa,s it seems there are several mods to hot rod these amps to what you would think mesa should have done at the factory! One of these is a volume mod to correct the imbalance of the clean/lead channel ie when the two respective channels are turned up the clean channel is very noticably louder than the lead channel another mod is to give the lead channel a seperate gain control(very,very sensible!)The lack of volume on the lead channel is particularly annoying to me as it limits the volume for what i want to do which is rawk owt(thats rock out lol)Maybe the .50+ had these problems ironed out but i have seen many other posts on this forum gripeing about these two issues.
rotebass
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bartchamdoh said:
Thought about this one today at work, I would guess that most amps come from the factory the way they are because they were tuned that way to meet the needs of the largest customer base. Look at the Dual Rec, you see threads all the time on the internet about people trying to get rid of the buzzy top end, so it seems like it is a common problem. But I would wager that for every one person that complains about buzz there are a hundred people that love their DR stock.
I think people like us are probably the minority.
bartchamdoh
Well-known member
Maybe so but i often get the feeling that all mesa,s are a work in progress! i mean there in such a hurry to get the latest model out that they iron any problems out after it,s in production.Take the .50 caliber as an example on the original you couldn,t access the lead channel without a foot switch on the .50+ they added a pull switch to do this.Every model it seems to me has a number of revisions to fine tune and tweak the models to what you would think the original model should have been in the first place....THEY DON,T ALWAYS IRON OUT ALL THE HICCUP,S AND PROBLEMS!!!....imo lol.Despite this no other product sounds and plays like a mesa and i guess it,s all part of the mojo and part of the reason you,ll either love them or hate them.
bartchamdoh
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`Hi although each of these two amps have their own unique character i think once you buy a mark 3 you,ll be using it(your .50 +caliber )for back up like me or selling it to get another good mark series amp.I,m not putting the .50 caliber down because it,s a good amp but from the 2c+ on the mark series amps are just the best amps around imo.
