NAD - Mark V

[aryasridhar]

Hey Guys,

I am new to this forum and also new to Mesa amps, so I finally made the move and the Mark V is home, had thought of the Mark V:25 & Mark V:35, but after trying those amps, I just could not get the feel that I had off the Full Mark V.

I loved what I heard, although I am still trying to get my head around the several options and switches and knobs this amp has 

Any quick settings for great metal/petrucci/EVH/Timmons sounds would be greatly appreciate please 

 

[Wayno]

Hey, welcome.

Congrats on your Mark V. Hope you grow to love it as much as I love mine. It truly is a great amp. Search you tube for petrucci's tone tips. He does a great three part video on his philosophy of dialling in the Mark V. Also, look through the settings thread at the top of the Mark V sub forum of this site. Bit of a long thread but there's some great advice and settings in there for a variety of different tones.

My 2c worth would be Ch 3 EQ off, set gain and treble balance first( treble adds gain more than actual treble) then roll in just enough bass to thicken up. Mids to taste. You will more than likely need to go back to gain and treble now and re-balance them, think of it as zeroing in on your desired tone. Then add in either sliders or preset EQ and balance the two high sliders or amount of preset with the presence control. Balance between all controls is key here as they are very codependant on each other. Watch the high end too as it can easily get ice picky and cold sounding. iiC+ or MK iv for petrucci / Metallica type tones, extreme for more modern tones. Lower gain settings with clean boost can get you into some pretty nasty territory too if you wanna go over the top full bore hehe. Don't forget to play with power settings and triode / pentode switch as it can be the difference between a great tone and an incredible tone. I have EL34's in mine and love CH3 in variac 90w triode.

Ch2 can get convincing boosted marshall tones, it won't nail it but only a marshall would anyway. Much closer to marshall than any marshall would get to a boogie Mark tone that I've ever played! I flip between edge and crunch depending on what I'm after. Edge for plexi stuff, then clean boost pushes it into guns and roses areas. All controls about noon other than bass which needs to be quite high. Keep presence low and beware the brightness of edge mode. Again set it up with EQ off, you might not even need the EQ. I use very little preset on ch2 just to suit the room or venue I'm in. Crunch with similar settings but much lower bass knob will get very indie 90's type sounds then with clean boost again gives me an acceptable EVH sound. You can get very close to the brown sound and there is a very good video on you tube a forum member here I believe posted using Mark I mode which sounds awesome, he also posted a video of The Mark V doing country which is great too if that's your bag. Ch 2 can be a bit awkward as it's different to dial in than CH3 which is different from any other brand of amp I've ever played. Haven't played much with Mark I mode myself but there is some sound advice in the settings thread I mentioned earlier if you find the time to look through it.

Ch 1 I don't usually have EQ on, only tone knobs all around noon, apart from mids a little lower. Kinda hard to get a bad tone here really. It's the greatest clean channel in any modern amp I think. It's that good. Tweed is nice cranked up in 10w mode.

Overall, best advice is tweak with your ears rather than your eyes. And try to get in the ball park before you turn on the EQ other wise it will sort of take over before you've properly dialled in the foundation of your tone. Some very strange looking settings are actually quite normal for these amps. And remember how one adjustment will nearly always affect another controls response as well. Also read and then re-read the manual. It's very helpful.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much, had a jack and coke, actually maybe 5, so got a bit carried away haha.

Hope this helps.

Wayno.

 

[aryasridhar]

Hey, welcome.

Congrats on your Mark V. Hope you grow to love it as much as I love mine. It truly is a great amp. Search you tube for petrucci's tone tips. He does a great three part video on his philosophy of dialling in the Mark V. Also, look through the settings thread at the top of the Mark V sub forum of this site. Bit of a long thread but there's some great advice and settings in there for a variety of different tones.

My 2c worth would be Ch 3 EQ off, set gain and treble balance first( treble adds gain more than actual treble) then roll in just enough bass to thicken up. Mids to taste. You will more than likely need to go back to gain and treble now and re-balance them, think of it as zeroing in on your desired tone. Then add in either sliders or preset EQ and balance the two high sliders or amount of preset with the presence control. Balance between all controls is key here as they are very codependant on each other. Watch the high end too as it can easily get ice picky and cold sounding. iiC+ or MK iv for petrucci / Metallica type tones, extreme for more modern tones. Lower gain settings with clean boost can get you into some pretty nasty territory too if you wanna go over the top full bore hehe. Don't forget to play with power settings and triode / pentode switch as it can be the difference between a great tone and an incredible tone. I have EL34's in mine and love CH3 in variac 90w triode.

Ch2 can get convincing boosted marshall tones, it won't nail it but only a marshall would anyway. Much closer to marshall than any marshall would get to a boogie Mark tone that I've ever played! I flip between edge and crunch depending on what I'm after. Edge for plexi stuff, then clean boost pushes it into guns and roses areas. All controls about noon other than bass which needs to be quite high. Keep presence low and beware the brightness of edge mode. Again set it up with EQ off, you might not even need the EQ. I use very little preset on ch2 just to suit the room or venue I'm in. Crunch with similar settings but much lower bass knob will get very indie 90's type sounds then with clean boost again gives me an acceptable EVH sound. You can get very close to the brown sound and there is a very good video on you tube a forum member here I believe posted using Mark I mode which sounds awesome, he also posted a video of The Mark V doing country which is great too if that's your bag. Ch 2 can be a bit awkward as it's different to dial in than CH3 which is different from any other brand of amp I've ever played. Haven't played much with Mark I mode myself but there is some sound advice in the settings thread I mentioned earlier if you find the time to look through it.

Ch 1 I don't usually have EQ on, only tone knobs all around noon, apart from mids a little lower. Kinda hard to get a bad tone here really. It's the greatest clean channel in any modern amp I think. It's that good. Tweed is nice cranked up in 10w mode.

Overall, best advice is tweak with your ears rather than your eyes. And try to get in the ball park before you turn on the EQ other wise it will sort of take over before you've properly dialled in the foundation of your tone. Some very strange looking settings are actually quite normal for these amps. And remember how one adjustment will nearly always affect another controls response as well. Also read and then re-read the manual. It's very helpful.

Hope I didn't ramble on too much, had a jack and coke, actually maybe 5, so got a bit carried away haha.

Hope this helps.

Wayno.

WOW, Thank You so much for the info, I quickly looked up the clips you mentioned on YouTube, I am currently in the process of reading the manual to understand how this amp really works, and the first thing I did even before getting the amp was to note the JP settings he explains in his video That's how the amp is dialed in right now, and man, it is kickass....

I thought my Peavey Valveking cab would sound terrible, after having tried the amp with a Mesa 412 in the store, but I am pleasantly surprised at how well this cab handles the Mesa, infact it suits the Mesa better than my DSL100H.

I sure am also going through the settings post on this forum, just into page 4 at the moment, I want to try the settings as i go along, that way I won't miss out on a particular setting.

Thank You so much once again Wayno!!

 

[Wayno]

No worries, glad i was of help.

Here's my current settings to try if you want to. Haven't had a chance to get together with my band for ages so have tweaked them for home use. Have to be very quiet so as not to disturb my baby. I have the loop active and the send level on the back turned right down to allow me to open up the master volume a bit as I feel this adds a little more girth than when the masters below noon. All channels on 10w and using variac for EL34's.


http://waynogeoff.tumblr.com/post/155217917673

I will need to tweak these when I do get together with the band, probably drop the 80hz slider a bit as I'll be running through a vert 2 x 12 and switching up to 90w.

CH2 looks weird with the mids so high but seems to really work at 10w especially using a Danelectro Fab Overdrive set at gain 9 o'clock, tone noon and level 3 o'clock. Gets a nice early marshall grind unboosted and in the ball park of Tom morello with Overdrive on. Sure it would sound much better still with a higher quality Overdrive but suits me for my needs. No EQ on CH2.

CH1 is very clean and open and dynamic and loves the reverb set a little over noon.

CH3 is nice and crunchy. Lots of bass with the 80hz slider so high and chugs along nicely on the bridge pickup. Neck pickup is creamy and bold and sings with single notes. Love this channel haha. Triode selected on the back, I find pentode a little brash for iic+ mode but you may disagree.

These settings are for use with my Schecter xxx diamond with emg 81/85's. Which is a bold sounding guitar.

I should note that I've not got stock preamp tubes in either but they won't be making a world of difference to the tones, only to the character of the amp. It's a little smoother to my ears than the stock tubes but only slightly. Still going to experiment here as I believe it could be fine tuned a little more.

 

[aryasridhar]

No worries, glad i was of help.

Here's my current settings to try if you want to. Haven't had a chance to get together with my band for ages so have tweaked them for home use. Have to be very quiet so as not to disturb my baby. I have the loop active and the send level on the back turned right down to allow me to open up the master volume a bit as I feel this adds a little more girth than when the masters below noon. All channels on 10w and using variac for EL34's.


http://waynogeoff.tumblr.com/post/155217917673

I will need to tweak these when I do get together with the band, probably drop the 80hz slider a bit as I'll be running through a vert 2 x 12 and switching up to 90w.

CH2 looks weird with the mids so high but seems to really work at 10w especially using a Danelectro Fab Overdrive set at gain 9 o'clock, tone noon and level 3 o'clock. Gets a nice early marshall grind unboosted and in the ball park of Tom morello with Overdrive on. Sure it would sound much better still with a higher quality Overdrive but suits me for my needs. No EQ on CH2.

CH1 is very clean and open and dynamic and loves the reverb set a little over noon.

CH3 is nice and crunchy. Lots of bass with the 80hz slider so high and chugs along nicely on the bridge pickup. Neck pickup is creamy and bold and sings with single notes. Love this channel haha. Triode selected on the back, I find pentode a little brash for iic+ mode but you may disagree.

These settings are for use with my Schecter xxx diamond with emg 81/85's. Which is a bold sounding guitar.

I should note that I've not got stock preamp tubes in either but they won't be making a world of difference to the tones, only to the character of the amp. It's a little smoother to my ears than the stock tubes but only slightly. Still going to experiment here as I believe it could be fine tuned a little more.

Hey, Thanks a ton for the settings man, I sure am going to try these today....still figuring out the stuff, went through the manual twice already!!

 

[OldTelecasterMan]

Here's one. When dialing tone in treat each knob... Treble, bass etc. like you do a volume. One doesn't turn on a stereo and set the volume to 5 and adjust from there, one starts at 0 (Zero). LOL...

 

[aryasridhar]

http://youtu.be/NnVHvGUU6QU

Please pardon the terrible playing though!!

 

[Nicklotsaguitars]

What you got that set to? Sounds nice.
Love my LP and MKv for that sort of sound. Particularly on the mark 1 mode. If only dialling out all that bass wasn't such a problem.

 

[aryasridhar]

What you got that set to? Sounds nice.
Love my LP and MKv for that sort of sound. Particularly on the mark 1 mode. If only dialling out all that bass wasn't such a problem.

I do not recall the settings now, but i will click a picture, of the channel settings and share it here with you!!

 

[aryasridhar]

Dialed in some blues tones using Channel 1, Tweed mode....sounds nice to my ears....

http://youtu.be/oyd5D-MnQ-c

 

[aryasridhar]

and some more crunch, blues rock!! Crunchy Crunchy....blues!! I am loving it....

http://youtu.be/6ay0cFD8FJU