Mesa Express 5:50 Help

[GCMESA]

Hi all,

Just recently purchased a new mesa express 5:50 amp, when I plug my strat in and turn the gain up I get a funny sound coming through the amp like water running or the sound of bacon frying up, this is only when each single pick-up is selected, I know there is a hum but this sound is behind the hum, anyone know what it could be?

I find also that I can't really get a good overdrive sound through my strat, it sounds very muddy, any advice?

 

[MikeW]

The single coils are gonna talk to you on this amp with all the gain it has. You may want to get the tubes checked as well. If it is brand new take it back and have the dealer re-tube it to see if that works out. Tubes can get damaged in transit.

If that is not the issue you may want to look at some 'noiseless' pickups for the Strat.

 

[Don]

Mine doesn't do that.

Either you're picking up some electronic noise through the single coil pickups, are plugging into dirty power or something's wrong with the amp.

If you have a CRT nearby, neon or flouresent lamps, electric motors, dimmer switch, etc... in the same circuit, they'll cause a lot of noise with single coils.

Mine is also not muddy at all. The most crisp overdriven sounds are available in the Crunch mode.

 

[Newysurfer]

Mine doesn't do that.

Either you're picking up some electronic noise through the single coil pickups, are plugging into dirty power or something's wrong with the amp.

If you have a CRT nearby, neon or flouresent lamps, electric motors, dimmer switch, etc... in the same circuit, they'll cause a lot of noise with single coils.

Mine is also not muddy at all. The most crisp overdriven sounds are available in the Crunch mode.

+1 with Don

 

[GCMESA]

Thanks for the replys guys.

Well I turned off my laptop and its stopped the noise for now, could of been some interference.

Do any of you Express owners have some settings you'd like to share on some good overdrive/gain?

 

[floaty83]

Honestly, my favorite tone so far on my 5:50 is the crunch mode with the gain all the way up and master anywhere over 10 o'clock. I started with the instant gratification setting from the manual and tweaked it ever so slightly.

I've recorded this tone and it reminds me a lot of Adam Jones' from Tool's tone. Freakin sweet.

 

[Don]

I like the crunch mode with the gain at around 1:00. treble at 11:00, mid at 1:00 and bass at 11:00. I use the contour on and off with this setting. It's set at 2-3:00.

 

[GCMESA]

Do any of you guys play a strat through your express?
I just can't get my 08 Standard to sound any good on any of the gain channels, for blues and cleans etc it sounds awesome.

But for rock sounds my strat sounds either harsh and trebly or really muddy, I just can't get the express to deliver any good gain sounds

 

[Don]

I hardly play a Strat at all anymore

I bought a tweed Deluxe (5E3) clone a while back and started playing a USACG Tele clone most of the time.

The Tele, my Les Paul, ES-135, '82 Iceman and PRS SE Soapbar II all sound great with my tweed Deluxe clone and my 5:50.

My poor Strat just sits unlees I need a stereotypical "Strat" tone!

It sounds fine through the 5:50, though. Not harsh or muddy.

 

[Room3]

I play my strat through the crunch channel with some kind of o.d. or boost pedal when I want rock tones. Many of the greats who played strats usually had either a boost, preamp, overdrive or fuzz unit in front of their amps (many of which were modified) to give more body/drive to the sound.

There may be amps more suited to a strong hard rock/metal sound with a strat straight into the amp, but this is not taking anything away from the 5:50 because it sounds and feels great in all modes - imho.

 

[Room3]

I play my strat through the crunch channel with some kind of o.d. or boost pedal when I want rock tones. Many of the greats who played strats usually had either a boost, preamp, overdrive or fuzz unit in front of their amps (many of which were modified) to give more body/drive to the sound.

There may be amps more suited to a strong hard rock/metal sound with a strat straight into the amp, but this is not taking anything away from the 5:50 because it sounds and feels great in all modes - imho.

 

[Newysurfer]

My 5:50 burn channel Strat setting with PUP in 2nd position

gain @ 3 oclock
treble @ 1:30 oclock
mid @ 10 oclock
bass @ 9 oclock
Reverb @ 2 oclock
Contour - on or off

The 5:50 is a bassy amp so I never dial the bass pot past 11 oclock.
Get's boomy/muddy otherwise

 

[floaty83]

I play a strat through my 5:50. My suggestion is swap your bridge pickup with a stacked humbucker like a DiMarzio Pro Track or Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. It makes all the difference when finding good gain sounds.

 

[Skully]

I play a strat through my 5:50. My suggestion is swap your bridge pickup with a stacked humbucker like a DiMarzio Pro Track or Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. It makes all the difference when finding good gain sounds.

I try and play my Custom Shop Strat and it just doesn't do it, I'm also considering replacing all the pickups with Hot Rails ala Dave Murray. The best results I've had with my 5:50 is with my Stealth and JBjr JBjr Super Distortion combo, bass around 9 o'clock running a MT-2. On the clean with the pedal it does good modern sounding metal and when on the burn channel (no contour) with the pedal a very compressed Master of Puppets sound.

 

[Newysurfer]

I play a strat through my 5:50. My suggestion is swap your bridge pickup with a stacked humbucker like a DiMarzio Pro Track or Seymour Duncan Hot Rails. It makes all the difference when finding good gain sounds.

I've never been able to understand the logic of that. If you put Humbuckers in a Strat you don't have a Strat anymore do ya. You've got a Strat that's trying to sound like a Gibson but can't do it as well because the whole guitar has been designed around single coils. If you wanna sound like an SG - get an SG. I like Strats cause they sound like Strats. Cause I like single coil PUP's in that guitar design. And there's plenty of guitarists who get great mid/high gain tones from Strats - Dave Gilmour for one. Plus I never use the bridge PUP on a Strat anyway - always sound too thin to me. There's 4 other better positions to choose from though

 

[floaty83]

Which is exactly why I've only replaced the bridge pickup. With the humbucker in the bridge, you can get great rock tones with lots of gain, but still have the other two single-coils to get great strat sounds. Makes sense to me.