wastoid
Well-known member
Thanks to Mesa taking forever to build my Roadster, I got impatient and picked up something else in the meantime: a 1990 Mark IVa combo! It's in pretty good condition and so far it's been a blast to play. It's got some EV black shadow in it but I'm not sure which one.
Initial observations:
- wow that's a lot of knobs!
- Rhythm 1 can produce some pretty incredible cleans-- much better than I had expected. Haven't really messed with overdriving this channel yet.
- Rhythm 2 seems muddy no matter what I do so far, and if I go to higher gain settings it sounds like a fat ball of **** with razor blades sticking out of it. I'll have to work on the settings for this one
- Lead is pretty bad ***. It was pretty easy to dial in those old metallica tones. I was trying to find the Petrucci tones in it but I have a feeling that I won't really hear them well until I turn it way up.
- It's way heavier than I expected! Smaller than my FBDR but definitely more of a back breaker. Now I'll definitely have to buy a dolly.
- I ran it with my 3/4 back cab as an extension and it filled out pretty impressively. My bath that I was filling up actually started to overflow because I got so hooked on this sound I forgot to stop the water.
I still haven't finished reading the manual, but I expect that'll help me understand some of the (very plentiful) features of this little guy. Do you guys have any "must know" tips that you would impart upon a Mark4 owner newbie?
Also, are there any notorious problems with the very early Mark IVAs? Like stuff that may be worth considering getting modded?
thanks!
Initial observations:
- wow that's a lot of knobs!
- Rhythm 1 can produce some pretty incredible cleans-- much better than I had expected. Haven't really messed with overdriving this channel yet.
- Rhythm 2 seems muddy no matter what I do so far, and if I go to higher gain settings it sounds like a fat ball of **** with razor blades sticking out of it. I'll have to work on the settings for this one
- Lead is pretty bad ***. It was pretty easy to dial in those old metallica tones. I was trying to find the Petrucci tones in it but I have a feeling that I won't really hear them well until I turn it way up.
- It's way heavier than I expected! Smaller than my FBDR but definitely more of a back breaker. Now I'll definitely have to buy a dolly.
- I ran it with my 3/4 back cab as an extension and it filled out pretty impressively. My bath that I was filling up actually started to overflow because I got so hooked on this sound I forgot to stop the water.
I still haven't finished reading the manual, but I expect that'll help me understand some of the (very plentiful) features of this little guy. Do you guys have any "must know" tips that you would impart upon a Mark4 owner newbie?
Also, are there any notorious problems with the very early Mark IVAs? Like stuff that may be worth considering getting modded?
thanks!