NEW! (to me anyway) Mesa Tremoverb (Blonde)

[hal9000]

I'm loving the T-verb so far. I had a chance to really crank it over the weekend and I liked what I heard. All my testing was through my F-100's Celestion Century Vintages. I didn't really feel that the T-verb was loose on orange-vintage, especially with the bass around 9 - 10:00 on the dial. Even at that setting though, there was a ton of bass.

Where I keep the gain (roughly 1:30) there was no fizz/buzz at all. At around 2:00 the fizz starts up pretty quick, but it's not a problem to tame with the presence. It's kind of funny, but I basically ended up with very similar EQ settings to my F-100 for the high gain side with orange-vintage. The clean channel with a bit of verb and my Fat Strat was very good. It's not quite as sparkling as my F-100, but still very good and the tremolo is a bit of fun.

As soon as I switched into red-modern, I heard all the recognizable Recto tones from past and current albums. Again, I usually leave the gain around 1:30, so it isn't buzzy, but it's got a nicely aggressive voice even in medium gain ranges. I haven't spent as much time with red-blues yet, but for SRV and Hendrix stuff so far it's pretty sweet.

I don't know if there is something different about this T-verb, but it sounds better than every Recto I've ever tried. I never really got great high gain tone like this from anything other than the Rectoverb series I, but the options on the T-verb just put it over the top. For my band, orange-clean, red-cloned vintage would be the ticket. I also ran my F-100 through the same workout and I think both together would be amazing. BTW, the F-100 has roughly the same amount of gain as the T-verb, but the F-100 doesn't get buzzy like red-modern.

As for tubes, I've got a Tung-sol reissue 12ax7 in V1, the rest up to the PI are JJ ECC83s, the PI is a balanced EH 12ax7, the power tubes are JJ 6L6GC, and the rectifiers are Mesa 5U4G. I'm going to have almost the same setup in my F-100, with the exception of Ruby 6L6GCMASTRs in the power section as soon as I get around to the retube.

Here's a rendering I made:

 

[4nkam]

Very nice man, congrats! From what I understand, in addition to having the 2 channel dual tone(s), the tverb's sound a bit more refined due to the tremolo circuit. I'm not exactly sure what's happening but I know I love the tone

mJ

 

[macmax]

I have been waiting for this, i am glad you are enjoying it.

If you want the cleans to be as sparkly as the F series, clone the org channel to Modern, also use the diode rectifier.

The one i have here can't have the treble past 12 if i use it that way, guitar and everything counts,heehhehehe.

Use the presence to tame the fizz and also try different speakers and tubes,
I am using mine with el34's and two Gz34 rectifiers, but then again it is in diode, not rectifiers.Only because i bought it like that, but i will change that soon.

I was going to give you very bad settings so you wouldn't like it and would end up selling it to me, but you are too cool for me to do that to you my friend, hehehehhehe

Just let me know how it all goes and enjoy that beautiful amp you have!

And i am telling you something else, if you find it's sweet spots maybe , maybe then yuo will join a bunch of people that swear by their Tremoverbs and think this is the Best Mesa Ever.

 

[macmax]

you will all say i am nuts, while i don't dig the Rectos that much, i still think Tremoverbs are the Best amps ever, ehheheheh, strange huh?

They have soemthing that you can't really put your fingers on , and that is the way in which they create some heavenly tone!!!!!

 

[RR]

I was playing a Road King II at a shop. Great versatile amp by the way. But I did more tone - pre-amp volumes tweaking trying to "chasing" down what my Trem-o-Verb capabilities tone than tweaking for new tones.

Road King owners, don't get me wrong, I love that amp as well but when you are in a dilemma : "buy Road KingII and ride my bicycle to work because I don't have vehicle" or "Trem-o-Verb suit me great, buy yourself a vehicle". I chose the latter.

 

[tele_jas]

I had one almost identical to it at one time, except it had a whicker grill.... It was my favorite Boogie (next to my Road King):

 

[alejandro]

All this makes me want to save up to get another, I don't why. I'd keep it in the freezer and not tell the original about the evil twin named, "Parts."

Congratulations hal9000. Your Tremoverb is a perfect ten, even over an all black cabinet.

 

[Platypus]

Gorgeous, congrats!

 

[hal9000]

Very nice man, congrats! From what I understand, in addition to having the 2 channel dual tone(s), the tverb's sound a bit more refined due to the tremolo circuit. I'm not exactly sure what's happening but I know I love the tone

mJ

mJ, thanks. I believe yours is like this, yes?

 

[Guitarzan]

NICE AMPS GUYS!!!!!!

 

[hal9000]

I had one almost identical to it at one time, except it had a whicker grill.... It was my favorite Boogie (next to my Road King):

That's a real beauty! I have the Mesa tan Jute on my F-100 combo. I think cybil from HCAF has one just like that now, or perhaps it's the same one.

 

[hal9000]

Gorgeous, congrats!

Thanks. It sounds as good as it looks!

 

[Platypus]

Nice green light too btw, that's how I run all my amps (except the Orange which almost MUST have an orange jewel for better tone )

 

[mbmesa]

Wow ! nice one. I have the T-Verb combo with the tan grille and the leather cladding. Heavy SOB but the tones are super sweet. I bought it new when they just came out. Mine died on me last night (see other thread). I am interested in the tubes your are running. Does the Tung-Sol in V1 enhance the clean tones as well or does it optimise the high gain tones at the expense of the cleans ? One of reasons I bought the T-verb was for its versatility from Clean to Blues to palm muted chunk. Are you sticking with the tube set you have now as optimal for that amp ?

 

[ned]

Hal- that thing is beautiful. What does it sound like compared to your F-100?

 

[hal9000]

Wow ! nice one. I have the T-Verb combo with the tan grille and the leather cladding. Heavy SOB but the tones are super sweet. I bought it new when they just came out. Mine died on me last night (see other thread). I am interested in the tubes your are running. Does the Tung-Sol in V1 enhance the clean tones as well or does it optimise the high gain tones at the expense of the cleans ? One of reasons I bought the T-verb was for its versatility from Clean to Blues to palm muted chunk. Are you sticking with the tube set you have now as optimal for that amp ?

Thanks. Yeah, my F-100 2x12 combo is heavy enough, so I'm sure the T-verb is ridiculous.

I like the Tung-Sol in V1 because it's a little brighter than the JJs so the clean channel has more sparkle. If you like darker heavy sounds, I would recommend a JJ in the first position. Other than that, the Tung-sol is really just a good stable, low noise tube for V1. I don't think it's inherently better than the JJ because neither tube type exhibited much noise or any microphonics in V1. It's just a matter of taste how they're arranged.

Macmax has told me to clone orange to red so that the clean channel will have more sparkle to compete with my F-100's stunning cleans. I haven't done that yet, but I can certainly see where the red channel has more high end available. The T-verb's orange-clean is still very good, and I would have no problem gigging the beast with my band's music being roughly 50% clean.

 

[hal9000]

Hal- that thing is beautiful. What does it sound like compared to your F-100?

Hi Ned.

Well, that's a complicated question because they cover similar ground, be are different enough to warrant keeping both.

CLEAN: Hands down, the F-100 is hard to beat by almost any amp made, save for a Fender Blackface Twin. So, the T-verb gets second place, but the clean is still very good. I wouldn't have a problem using the T-verb in my band which plays roughly 50% of our music clean.

BLUES/OVERDRIVE:
This one's tied because both of them have a sweet blues tone to them. On the F-100 and T-verb the clean channel can be cranked up to get some great overdrive tones, and channel 2 on the F-100 or Red-Blues on the T-verb can really sing. The F-100 has a slight edge in that you can lose to aggressive high gain voicing with low gain settings of channel 2. The T-verb still retains a bit of it's heavy voicing even in blues.

HIGH GAIN:
This is where it get tougher to compare because their designs are pretty different. The F-100 has a similar sound to a Mark Series on regular channel 2, so it excels at fat solo sounds and liquid leads. I use this channel most of all in my band because with my Fat Strat I can go from a heavy blues sound up on the neck single coil, to all-out hard rock on the bridge SD Custom. If I were to setup the T-verb like this, it would be on Red-Modern, but with quite a bit of mids. I can replicate most of the tones on either amp, but the T-verb has that Recto voicing that you really can't dial out on Red-modern. Luckily, I like it a lot, but I can see how people might prefer the F-Series' voicing a bit more.

One of the things that really separates the F-series from Mesa's other amps is that the second mode of channel 2 called Contour is footswitchable. So, that would be like having both Orange-Vintage and Red-Modern footswitchable. Which of course you could do easily if you didn't need a clean channel or rolled the volume back on the guitar. Anyway, Contour has a volume boost of about 3 dB so it's really good as a solo boost, but in my rig, I equalize the channels with my G-Major's patch levels. So, with my full setup, I run the F-100 like it has three channels, where I get clean, high-gain + solo on channel 2, and metal on Contour.

If I were to just run the amps by themselves with no other devices in the loop, the T-verb has more control on the high gain channels over the final sound since the EQ controls are after major preamp distortion. The F-series on the other hand has the EQ controls after the first two gain stages, so its controls affect the feel and texture of the distortion more than the frequency content in the final signal. So, to tighten the bass, simply turning the bass control down to 9:00 or so is easy with the F-100. The T-verb really needs a pedal of some sort to do the same. Conversely, if you drop the bass on the F-series, there aren't any controls post distortion to put it back, so it's best to have some sort of EQ in the loop, which I accomplish with my G-Major. The F-100 is a bit tighter than Red-Modern, but I don't have a problem with either personally.

Of course, the T-verb has a lot more features than the F-100 since it was once the flagship Mesa amp. I have to say that with all the problems people report in using the Recto loops, I haven't had any problem with my T-verb. The G-Major sounds sweet in the loop and I no phasing problems like those reported on the three-channel modern Rectos. I also have had good results putting my Tonelab into the T-verb just as a power amp. That sounds really good.

So, in summary, both amps are really sweet and have great tones to offer. I think the F-100 excels at cleans and liquid solo sounds, whereas the T-verb has that Recto crunch that almost no other amp can cop. I could use both in my band easily, but I'm going to stick with my F-100 for now as its voicing fits my music best.

BTW, I hear that the F-series is going to be discontinued to make room for a new model in the Mesa Line. So, if anyone's interested, I think we're going to see an F-series blowout sale coming up.

 

[mbmesa]

Well, for all the hype in the manual about the loop in the T-verb being "state of the art" I was not that impressed with it. I must reserve judgment however since I only tried it with my POD XT Live (as an effects only) processor and on another occasion , a Boss Chorus and Delay.

The manual says that the loop is designed to compensate for even the worst "tone suck" effects boxes but I found it to be OK but not stellar.

I am sure the TC G series racks are of much higher quality than the effects I tried so I will not judge until I try something in that league.

 

[hal9000]

Well, for all the hype in the manual about the loop in the T-verb being "state of the art" I was not that impressed with it. I must reserve judgment however since I only tried it with my POD XT Live (as an effects only) processor and on another occasion , a Boss Chorus and Delay.

The manual says that the loop is designed to compensate for even the worst "tone suck" effects boxes but I found it to be OK but not stellar.

I am sure the TC G series racks are of much higher quality than the effects I tried so I will not judge until I try something in that league.

Yeah, well, there are lots of ways to run FX devices and consequently lot of ways to hose the tone at the same time. Stomp boxes have a harder time dealing with the impedance and level of the Mesa loop, but with the XTL's input pad, you shouldn't have a problem at all. Also, there are quite a few adjustments to make, especially because the channel masters, FX send strength and FX mix all affect the tone.