New Lonestar Special owner

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SweetPickleSalad

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New to this forum and new to Mesa Boogies as well.


Traded in my Fender Blues Deluxe and my Marshall 1962 Bluesbreaker RI at the local dealer the other day and went home with a 1*12 Lonestar Special.
So far I am a happy hippie,the Mesa is to me a totally different animal than the amps I traded in. Don't get me wrong, the Blues Deluxe and the Bluesbreaker are fine amps and sweet sounding but somewhat one dimensional IMO.

The Lonestar on the other hand is way more versatile, and the reverb doesn't hurt either. Don't think I've ever heard a built in reverb circuit sound as sweet as the one in the Special. Maybe not up to par with the 63 Fender reverb unit, but to find this in a combo, wow!
I have been fiddling around with settings quite a bit, and so far I have found (quite obvious) a good clean setting but also really nice settings for Rockabilly and Blues. Today I'll try to dial in a good Rock n Roll sound, somewhere down the lines of the Black Crowes tone, Marc's, Rich's or Luther's it doesn't matter, I'll be happy if I find either one.
Tried to find nice basic settings for country and delta blues without any luck the other day, anyone have any good starting points?

I will keep this amp stock, I've been down the modding roads before, spent fortunes on tubes, speakers etc trying to find "The" tone. While modding is a lot of fun, it is (for me) also a neverending quest finding the tone I have been looking for anyway, I have never come across the result I was looking for, I have come across good and bad tones and overall improvements, but never what I was looking for exactly. And also, there are never any mods (or amps, speakers etc) that will satisfy us all, what sounds like a great tone to me may sound like crap to others. With the Lonestar though it feels it is possible to find great tones without spending money (that is if the initial acquisition cost is ignored :eek:), just have to spend some/plenty of time fiddling with the tone controls and all the other parameters to consider.


Right now I run my Lonestar with a Fulltone Fulldrive II Custom Shop and an Analogman Sunlion in front of the amp and I use a Jam Delay LLama in the F/X loop.

The guitars I am playing are a Gibson Les Paul Standard and a Fender Esquire 60th Anniversary. .....and I am a happy amateur player, playing at home, learning stuff more or less every time I plug the guitar in, whether it be a new lick, technique or a new tone setting.


Anyhow, just figured I should stop by and say hi.

/Fredrik
 
Those were some real nice amps you traded in! I think you got a better/more usable one in return though, what finish is it?
Health to enjoy her man!!!
 
Welcome.I am a fairly new member here as well.Bought a LSS a couple of months ago and have never been happier with my sound in my 30+ years of gigging.I posted a live video of me using one and also posted a pic of my settings.Feel free to contact me if you ever need any tips.That goes for anyone else as well.
 
Hey John

I have never understood the Eric Clapton thing (my problem). John I think your version of Cocaine is fantastic, you got some nice inverted chords or something going on in there that sound way better than the original to my humble ears. Rock on dude!
 
Hey Pickles, the most useful discovery I've made in getting the right ratio of drive/compression/spank/clarity is getting to know the relationship between the Gain, Treble and Presence controls. The Treble really does add a lot of gain to the signal as it goes up, while the Presence reduces compression as it goes up. I've found some nice spanking cleans with the Gain up higher than I'd normally go, but backing the Treble off and then increasing the Presence to get some highs back with more bark and bite. Then you can kind of fill in the body with Mid and Bass to taste.

That's all on Ch1. The same basic rules apply on Ch2, but you have some more variables there around the Drive and Thick settings. Just remember that the tone controls' affect on the output is diminished as the Gain/Drive go up (true for both channels), so use that volume and see what you can get by keeping things closer to 12:00 than out in the extremes. Good luck!
 
Welcome aboard!

I think you will find this to be quite the versatile amp that takes pedals very well. Had mine since they started making them and have not even contemplated getting a different amp.

I know you said you wanted to keep it stock, but I would really endorse retubing with JJ's from Eurotubes. The effect those had in my mind were to give me more of everything: clarity, headroom, gain, bloom, etc. The one thing they took away, which I am happy about, was mud at higher gain settings on Channel 2. Everything else is stock.

Enjoy!
 

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