Newbie crisis -No headroom on my DC-5

[Rhythmmaker]

Just got my first Boogie: A used DC-5 in what appears to be excellent condition. The problem is it seems to hate one of my favorite guitars. With my American Strat with TexMex pickup, the amp is unbelievable; gorgeous, lush, rich, bright, with fabulous clean sounds great blues/mild overdrive sounds and great crunch. Even in the distortion channel with high gain I can hear every note of even wierd, complex chords. I can't even find a bad sound.

My other guitar is not like that. It's a 1980 Yamaha SA 2000 with an older ('70's?) Gibson humbucker at the neck and a WCR Darkburst in the the bridge; basically it's a 335. A really nice 335. It sounds great through my old Fender Montreax. This guitar sounds like absolute crap through this amp. I basically can't get a clean sound from the clean channel; even with the gain at 1 it still breaks up if I hit a chord hard, and it's not a subtle overdrive, it's a nasty, gravelly mess. I've resorted to turning everything WAY down EQ wise and I basically can't get rid of this nasty breakup that isn't there at all with my Strat. Is it because that old Gibson p/up is too hot? That's hard to believe.

Does this amp just hate this guitar? Is there anything I can do? Different tubes? I LOVE this guitar.

Paul

 

[Boogiebabies]

Mesa's, Humbuckers and your bass being over 2 is usually a flabby mess.

 

[mike58]

Don't mean to sound too simplistic... does the messy sound clean up when you turn the guitar vol down? It really should do this as taking the humbucked vol to 4 -7 should equate to the output of a single coil.
You may of course loose some treble unless you have a treble bleed cap setup on the guitar.
I always like to try super simple things first

Mike

 

[mike58]

Don't mean to sound too simplistic... does the messy sound clean up when you turn the guitar vol down? It really should do this as taking the humbucked vol to 4 -7 should equate to the output of a single coil.
You may of course loose some treble unless you have a treble bleed cap setup on the guitar.
I always like to try super simple things first

Mike

 

[Elpelotero]

hmm...couple of small tidbits from my (very) limited experience with mesa...

first, for humbucker cleans, i would use the neck pickup. they're slightly less hot and the harmonic modes on the strings in my opinion seem to prefer the neck for clean...unless you're shooting for a bluesy overdrive sound, then use the bridge.

second, obviously turn down the gain. the trick is the treble also!! mesa amps use treble to dump some extra gain. to get the chime you're gonna have to use the presence.
lastly, as the above poster noted, turn down guitar volume knob. instant cleanup

 

[Rhythmmaker]

Thanks so much for the help.

The sound does clean up if I turn the guitar volume down, but the tone suffers tremendously; when it's low enough to get rid of the gravel-crunch I've lost so much of the highs that it it sounds really muddy, and then I'm cranking the presence and turning up the treble to make up for the lost signal and it starts to sound really...well wierd.

Two things seem really wierd to me about this: First, if anything, this guitar has always been a bit too bright and cutting with a lot of articulation between the strings. I was always trying to warm it up. Through the DC-5 it's flubby and bassy with no definition, so I'm turning the bass and mids WAY down, turning the gain WAY down, turning my guitar volume down, and then it's not making the gravel noise but the sound is really wierd. I feel like like I'm chasing something that just doesn't exist with this guitar / amp combination.
Second, the Strat just blows me away. OMG EVERYTHING I do sounds GREAT through the DC-5. It's got a Diamondback Humbucker in the bridge and that pickup doesn't do the wierd gravel-crunch. The cleans sparkle, the overdrive is so subtle and controlable, and so smooth it's incredible. The gravel-crunch sound from the other guitar is not like overdrive, it's like headache material. It almost sounds like something wrong, like something being vibrated in a bad way, but if that was true, wouldn't it do it with the Strat also?

 

[Brewski]

Have you tried lowering your pickups? I have a semi-hollow with humbuckers and it was just too hot, so I lowered the pickups and it cleaned up a bit and didn't sound so harsh.

 

[Rhythmmaker]

Now I feel stupid; why didn't I think of that ?!?! Great suggestion, thanks!

PAul

 

[Brewski]

Sometimes, it's the simplest of things that are the hardest to see. I hope that it helps.

 

[Rhythmmaker]

I lowered the pickup quite a bit; now the guitar sounds GREAT! I don't know why I didn't think of that -probably because I've been playing that guitar through the same amp for 20+ years. Boy am I happy now!

Paul