New Mark V Combo Owner- PRS CE 22 Maple Top with Dragon II

[thalweg]

Excited to say the least...!!

Been researching for 6 months...read the manual 100 times. May not dial in the sound...but I sure do know what the knobs do! hahaha

My main guitar is a PRS CE22 Mahog with Maple Carved top with Dragon II's

Anyone in the forum use PRS with Dragon II's? I play mainly blues, alternative rock, prog rock and the occasional metal shred.

I ordered HFS pup as potential replacements to have on standby just in case the Dragon II's don't give me enough versatility.

Any feedback on the above would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers and good health.

 

[Tucker44]

Congratulations,

I have a new Mark V combo that I am extemely happy with.
The CE22 is my favorite PRS. I foolishly sold mine but it and my RKII were made for each other.
Together it would cut right thru any mix clean or dirty.
I never got to try it with the V but I'm sure its a great match. The V seems to cut thru with any guitar.

 

[Boognoob]

"You have chosen wisely..."









Yeah man.... congratulations....!!

 

[thalweg]

Thanks for the feedback tucker.

I've been playing with it for just about an hour and LOVE IT!!...Highly recommend a thorough review of the manual to help you get to speed faster.

My approach was to zero out all tone controls and EQ, set the gain and master at the half way point and just get a sense of the flat response of each of the channels and sub channel settings. Highly recommend that for first timers just to get a feel of the different core sounds. I then got a feel for each of the power settings, knowing that the different 10w to 90w switches would ultimately impact gain settings. So far so good...

After fooling around for that a while, started grabbing some channel tone controls and immediately got to dialing in some wicked clean, dirt and lead sounds. Then to fine tune calibrate decided to try the Para EQ and it continued to blow me away.

I'm a real believer in the guitar volume and tone controls to really be a part of my tone shaping exercise. Once I got a good setting on the V I then do final adjustments on the guitar and voila...I'm good to go in record time. I have to admit I was kinda intimidated with all the "takes months" to figure out thing so I studied the manual like I was cramming for a sat test. Best thing I could of done to ensure an enjoyable first strum experience!!!

I paired my combo with a 2X12 with some older broken in G12S-50's and the tone is absolutely amazing. When doing so I saw the casters and new I had to remove them...before even checking I spend an hour digging my tool bag out of the garage only to be even more pleased to discover the push button caster removal. I know a little thing..but love it when designers make my life easier.

The only slight draw back is that my dragon II's just don't quite make the mark in the channel 3 high gain Metal shredding department. They are ohh so close...but just not quite enough. I expected that...so likely gonna put in my standby HFS's after spending a little more time getting intimate with that channel.

Overall...a very happy camper!!!

Cheers

 

[Boognoob]

You may still discover the beast within those pickups though, as you get more familiar with the preamp section:
Even my stock pickups in my Epiphone LP roar, scream and sustain through the amp...
For full tonal orgasm, bypass the FX loop and hear that bad boy grow extra balls..

Theres nothing quite like that first night of MarkV-ness.....enjoy.

 

[thalweg]

OMFG!!!!

Just when I think I've peaked!!! JHC!

 

[thalweg]

Hey Boognoob, I just posted this on the main forum..but if you know...that would be awesome:

{
But can someone explain to me why hard bypassing the FX LOOP suddenly added more harmonic distortion and zing to my tone?

I don't fully understand the reasoning provided in the manual?

And I certainly don't want to be fooled by fletcher munson effect whereby things that initially appear louder suddenly sounds better.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do like the output balance of all channels and the solo feature }

 

[UsrName]

Congrats on the new MV! I just picked up a combo but haven't plugged in just yet. I have a CE24 with the hfs, so when I've had a chance to do a proper test drive, I'll let you know what I hear.

 

[Boognoob]

Hey Boognoob, I just posted this on the main forum..but if you know...that would be awesome:

{
But can someone explain to me why hard bypassing the FX LOOP suddenly added more harmonic distortion and zing to my tone?

I don't fully understand the reasoning provided in the manual?

And I certainly don't want to be fooled by fletcher munson effect whereby things that initially appear louder suddenly sounds better.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I do like the output balance of all channels and the solo feature }

Well youre gonna get tone suck a little, with it in non-bypass...all I'd say is re-EQ to suit and turn the volumes up, run it in pentode and 90 watts for headroom....an use your shortest, most shielded lead going into the amp as poss, which is always common sense I guess.... making sure that loop levels are right on the FX you use too. (....youknow, 'db' wise...) Thats about all I can think of, like I say I usually avoid fx now..

 

[thalweg]

Boognoob: dude...I am so dialed in...thank you so much for that advice on the fx loop. If it gets any better than this...I'm quitting my JOB!!

Usrname: I was worried the Dragon II's wasn't going to drive enough gain. All I can say is I got more sweet gain than I can handle...and its just perfect. With the high output of the HFS's you'll be so rocking!

 

[MBJunkie]

thalweg:

First of all.....congratulations on the purchase of your V!

This is such a refreshing post in my opinion! Somebody that actually took the time to research the V (manual) and set it up in a very "neutral" configuration as a starting point....and adjusting from there. Personally, I feel most of the "naysayers of the V" have really not taken this same approach.

I can't speak for the sounds of PRS guitars through my V combo becuase I no longer own any PRS guitars, however, I can say that I love the sounds I achieve using my Suhr S3 and Standard through my MkV combo!! I am sure that PRS guitars and many others would sound fantastic through this great amp when set accordingly!

One thing I would like to add during your exploration is to engage the effects loop (even with no effects connected to the loop) to allow for the master volume and footswitchable solo boost feature to be enabled. The included footswitchable solo boost feature of the V is something that wasn't offered in the previous Mark Series I-IV (hadn't been developed yet) and I find it to be VERY benefitial while playing live! Just something for you to consider.

Enjoy!

 

[thalweg]

Thanks Junkie:

I'm just glad it all worked out for me. I'm getting such beautiful tones so early on in my experience and I'm hoping it only gets better. After several years of recording engineering you learn the true meaning of level matching to test out the core aspects of any gear and its been beneficial to really understand the frequency spectrum and how that relates to the tone controls and gain staging. Heck even understanding how your listening environment and room plays a big part of the sound makes a huge difference.

I think some folks who are having trouble just simply have too many options that they don't fully understand yet. This amp really isn't your straightforward job you can just twiddle a knob or two out of the gate. It was designed in my opinion for super versatility in enabling you to seek out your core tones as accurately as commercially possible and with that comes alot of choice and options.

Just think of it...switches to change the tube settings, 3 separate voicing on three separate gain channels with channel tone controls that can be tied into a para EQ. All that being influenced by three separate power stages plus a variac...I dunno..I'm kinda new to the latest and greatest in AMP design...but that sure does blow me away all things considered. And we're not talking digital interfacing either. All analog controls (I'm assuming anyways).

I'm also wondering if folks are adding their effects units too early in the learning process and that just compounds everything 10 fold.

thalweg:

First of all.....congratulations on the purchase of your V!

This is such a refreshing post in my opinion! Somebody that actually took the time to research the V (manual) and set it up in a very "neutral" configuration as a starting point....and adjusting from there. Personally, I feel most of the "naysayers of the V" have really not taken this same approach.

I can't speak for the sounds of PRS guitars through my V combo becuase I no longer own any PRS guitars, however, I can say that I love the sounds I achieve using my Suhr S3 and Standard through my MkV combo!! I am sure that PRS guitars and many others would sound fantastic through this great amp when set accordingly!

One thing I would like to add during your exploration is to engage the effects loop (even with no effects connected to the loop) to allow for the master volume and footswitchable solo boost feature to be enabled. The included footswitchable solo boost feature of the V is something that wasn't offered in the previous Mark Series I-IV (hadn't been developed yet) and I find it to be VERY benefitial while playing live! Just something for you to consider.

Enjoy!

 

[MBJunkie]

+100 thalweg!! :mrgreen: