New Member and New amp

[spawnofthesith]

Hey all, my name's Tom. I just recently got me a Mark V so I decided to register up here. I traded my ENGL Steve Morse for this thing, and I am absolutely loving it. This is my favorite amp that I have yet to own, here are some pics of my mesa and my other gear

 

[Heritage Softail]

Welcome to the board. Congrats on your puchase. Nice blonde there.

 

[sted]

welcome mate! nice rigs!

 

[Barry]

I gigged with my Mark V last night and its such an amazing amp . I was looking at your settings . I find the amp to be fairly bright and was wondering how you manage to run your treble so high and the bass almost off ? Just an observation of mine

 

[golfnguitarz]

Barry, first off welcome. I am fairly new here as well. There is an absolute wealth of info here in the threads, it does take a while to absorb it all. Everyone I have talked to here has been very helpful. I have had the same reaction to the amp as you. To my ears, it is voiced very bright. There are others who feel the same and have tried switching out the preamp tubes in V1 and V2 or V3. Some claim success and some don't, but search on "harsh" or "tubes" and I think you find some of these posts. I have a couple of tubes on the way to experiment with next week. I cannot fathom the treble and presence settings I see in the tone settings thread. Humbucker or single coil, some of those settings - to me - make the amp sound shrill and small with a harsh high end. My theory is that possibly some of those settings were from cabs not aimed at the players ears and so the perceived treble wasn't as great to begin with. Maybe darker pickups? Dunno.
I have had the amp for about 3 weeks. I think it is a very articulate amp, it won't hide anything, but it does take time to find the sounds you want.

 

[Barry]

Well said, My amp is on our equipment truck but from memory I think most of my treble controls are at 12:00 or below . I do prefer my Lonestar with my single instruments but I will find the sweet spots for them eventually with the Mark V . I change guitars on my gigs and going from humbuckers to single coils is taking some time to find out what i will have to do to make it work . May go back to my tonebone headbone switcher and use two heads again

 

[borisson]

I gigged with my Mark V last night and its such an amazing amp . I was looking at your settings . I find the amp to be fairly bright and was wondering how you manage to run your treble so high and the bass almost off ? Just an observation of mine

Hi Barry,

i do feel the same, the amp is fairly bright and with 2x12 V30 Recto Vertical standing in the front of the amp i have to run the treble and presence under 9 o clock.
I ve changed the top speaker for an eminence cannabis rex just yesterday but not too much improvement. Lot of people here went for EL34s to eliminate the brightness. I think im gonne give them a try. Or i need a darker speaker for the bottom of my cab. Tried the Marshall 1960A with G12T75 and it was much better regarding the hights but somehow boxy sounding.

 

[spawnofthesith]

Hey on terms of settings, (btw, those were just how things were set when I brought it home, I have changed things up, but treble and bass controls are still pretty similar to me) I have EL34s in there, and I think that has a lot to do with it. Also, what cab and speakers are you running? V30s are pretty bright speakers and that could have something to do with it. I have a Vader 2x12 with Eminence Legends, and those are very clear, and bottom end boosting speakers. I am running the bass low, because as the manual said, much bass on the regular EQ can create flubby sounds at high gain levels, so I compensate for the low bass by boosting it on the GEQ. And finally, I may just be running my presence and treble high because I just came from my ENGL, which was an EXTREMELY EXTREMELY bright amp, and perhaps since my ears have just been used to that, a brighter sound is just what I am gravitating towards. However, I have to say that the Mark V is way less bright and harsh on the ears than my ENGL was