Newbie Questions

[guitarfish]

Hi - first post, so be gentle ;-)

I've been a bass player for many years, but am not playing in a band at the moment and so decided to try my hand on the six string. Having wasted many $s over the years on progressively upgrading my bass rig in small steps, I decided I may as well start off with something decent, so picked up an Express 5:50 1x12 combo. For complicated life reasons I won't bore you with, I didn't really get to use it much for a couple of months but have finally spent a couple of days playing with it, and have some questions.

First off, there is a vinyl bag that more or less runs across the bottom of the cab. It's held down across the middle by a webbing strap that's screwed down. It doesn't look like it's meant to be removed. WTF is it? A weight to stop the combo becoming top heavy? Kinda trivial, but seems an odd way of doing it if so...

More importantly, to be honest it's not sounding the way I expected, or remember from the shop. As soon as I increase the gain enough to start breaking up, there is a harsh edge to the sound that just isn't that pleasant to my ear - almost 'rattley'. I'm not finding any 'smooth' distortion if that makes any sense. I even wondered if the speaker was somehow damaged, but it sounds great on the clean setting, so that seems unlikely.

I read loads of reviews and opinions before settling on this, and really want to like it! Could it be a dodgy valve?
Or is my ear to used to hearing the 'produced' end product, and will the roughness disappear in a mix?

Any advice appreciated...

 

[MrMarkIII]

The vinyl bag contains the reverb tank, a metal box with fragile springs inside, running the length of the box, which produce the reverb sound.
The Mesa website has downloadable manuals with sample settings.
Welcome to the club!

 

[guitarfish]

The vinyl bag contains the reverb tank, a metal box with fragile springs inside, running the length of the box, which produce the reverb sound.
The Mesa website has downloadable manuals with sample settings.
Welcome to the club!

Doh!
That's a blinding flash of the obvious now you've explained it! You don't often get reverb units in bass amps, so I've never had one before...

 

[jmontgomery]

Give the speaker time to break in. That'll smooth things out nicely.
Your user manual provides some good user settings, try them out then tweek till you find a sound your looking for.

 

[THE TUBENATOR]

Guitarfish, welcome to the club! Your 5:50 has a broad spectrum of tones it can deliver. It does require a lot of experimentation with the settings and that means it requires a world of patience from you at first. If you want suggestions lots of members here could help out but you need to give us some insight as to what genre of music you are playing and what guitar (s) are you using. Hollow, semi-hollow, solid body, single coil, Humbucker something for us to work with. For example; I like humbuckers and solid body and I play hard rock, classic rock & metal. If you are into County music and play let's say a Tele, I would be the last person you want suggestions from! :shock:

 

[guitarfish]

you need to give us some insight as to what genre of music you are playing and what guitar (s) are you using. :shock:

Just added a sig to give some info. The Berlin is a solid mahogany body with maple top, twin humbuckers with coil tap.

'Styles' is harder to answer, but I guess 'classic rock' through to more recent 'alternative rock / pop' (e.g. Muse / Radiohead).
Would love to be able to get somewhere near a Dave Gilmore sound (I know I need to start with the coils 'tapped'...) but don't seem to be able to get anywhere near that 'smooth' overdriven sound...

I also have a Tech 21 (SansAmp) PSA1.1 pre-amp which I use for DI recording which doesn't give me the 'harsh' characteristics that I'm getting with the same guitar through the express :?

 

[Bob Womack]

One tip I can recommend is to switch off the contour on the gained-up channel and see if it isn't much smoother. If it is smooth but is too dark with the contour off, turn the contour knob all the way left, switch it back in, and slowly add contour to brighten it up again. Another tip is to set the treble and gain at the same time because the treble affects the gain heavily. Another is to make sure the amp is in 50 watt mode because 5 watt, class A mode is brasher and brattier.

Have fun!

Bob

 

[Newysurfer]

you need to give us some insight as to what genre of music you are playing and what guitar (s) are you using. :shock:

Just added a sig to give some info. The Berlin is a solid mahogany body with maple top, twin humbuckers with coil tap.

'Styles' is harder to answer, but I guess 'classic rock' through to more recent 'alternative rock / pop' (e.g. Muse / Radiohead).
Would love to be able to get somewhere near a Dave Gilmore sound (I know I need to start with the coils 'tapped'...) but don't seem to be able to get anywhere near that 'smooth' overdriven sound...

I also have a Tech 21 (SansAmp) PSA1.1 pre-amp which I use for DI recording which doesn't give me the 'harsh' characteristics that I'm getting with the same guitar through the express :?

Hi Guitarfish
I'm a Bass player also.
If this is your 1st guitar tube amp you'll find they're much different to SS Bass amps.
Keep the Bass dial on the Express always under 11 oclock.
The speakers will need time to break in also.

Gilmour uses a Hywatt amp with Fender Strats and lots of pedals so Mesa's with Humbucker guitars won't get real close to his tones.
To nail specific artist tones on guitar you gotta use mostly what they do down to the last detail.
It's much more complex than Bass guitar so experiment lot's and you'll find your tones in the 5:50

 

[guitarfish]

Ok, had another few good workouts and I'm still not convinced that my 5:50 is working as intended . I happened to see another in a shop last week (not very common here) so thought I would give it a go. I definately couldn't hear the kind of harsh, grating quality that I hear on my mine when overdriven. The guy in the shop was really helpful and suggested I bring mine in to do an A/B test. I might well take him up on that, but have now found my receipt, and confirmed that I bought the amp 14 months ago so I'm out of warranty and if there is a manufacture problem it's going be hassle / expensive to ship it back.

I've also done a bit of catching up now on previous posts here and realised that quite a lot of issues are resolved by replacing tubes so figured I'd give that a go first. 'Dougs' seem to have a pretty good rep, so I've ordered a full repacement set - pre and power. They should be on their way...

So the next challenge - I've never replaced tubes before! I've watched a couple of Youtubes on the subject so think I've got the gist of it, and I've just had a trial run at pulling and replacing V1. The amp still works as before so I guess I must have done it right, but it's really hard to see what you're doing and those pins look pretty fragile. Some of you guys seem to change tubes more often than some drummers change their shirts :wink: - do you just do it by feel, or somehow drop the amp out of the combo so you can see what you're doing? :?

Any other tricks to doing it an Express?

 

[THE TUBENATOR]

Hi Guitarfish, tubes are very often the culprit when a tube amp's tonal quality diminishes. Many of the members on this site love the tube cocktail offered by Doug's Tubes. I have read so many good things that I keep telling myself "one day I'm going to buy a complete set of Doug's Tubes and try them out". So far I've been using Masa Tubes, 6L6 and (5) SPAX7's. I'm very happy!
Replacing the tubes is actually quite simple. Begin by removing the tube sleeves and realizing that only a slight turn locks and/or unlocks the sleeves from the chassis. Then firmly hold the tube in your fingers and gently rock the tube in a circular motion as you pull the tube out. Once the tube is free notice the tube pin orientation. Tubes can only be inserted one way. Carefully align the tube to the socket and use the same rocking motion that you used to remove the tube to gently push the new tube into position. Align the tube sleeve spring on the glass tip of the pre-amp tube before you try to lock in the sleeve. The 6L6's are very easy as they have a center alignment peg and they are also out front. The five pre-amp tubes are buried in the back but with good lighting and a little care you will change those out easily as well. Another option is for you to turn your Express amp upside down on carpet or on towels on a counter top and deal with the chassis "right side up". Most important, you do not need to pull the chassis out to replace the tubes!
I look forward to reading you future posts and hope that your amp will deliver heavenly tone with the new tubes.

 

[kahawe]

Hey guitarfish. I also have a 5:50 Express 1x12 and what you are describing does not sound familiar. The Express (as all Mesas?) is in general a bit "lighter" or glassier, at least to my ear in comparison to, say, a 6505 and with singlecoils and depending on the speaker, it can get very glassy and plucking strings can sound crystal-clear or almost like an ice-pick. Maybe that is just too light for your ears used to dark bass grooves?

The EQs on Mesa work a bit different than most amps, at least on the Express the Treble surely influences the tone the most so if you want something more mellow, roll back on the amp Treble first of all. Mid and Bass do not do as much as Treble. Also play with your guitar treble and does it still sound like that on a humbucker neck PU? Also, switch to 50 Watt class A/B, the 5 W class a setting sounds more "pissed off" and trebley.

You are saying the Express you tried in the shop the other day sounded alright - did you try it with the same guitar that your own 5:50 sounds like crap with? If you used a different guitar there, don't rule your guitar out of the equation... maybe something is wrong with it? Try other 5:50s with that guitar if you want a reference.

And since the amp is 14 months old, you should still be very well covered under Mesa's warranty and what not, since it goes for 2 years here in Germany. I don't know about way up north in Berlin but around here, Meinl Distribution are the guys to talk to about Mesa - they are the "Generalimporteur" as far as I know. If the shop you bought it at is not helpful, just give them a call or email them, they are helpful and respond rather quickly: http://www.meinldistribution.com/

Hope that helps!

 

[Don]

I like to place the amp face down on a clean carpet to change the tubes. It makes access a lot easier.

Make sure the carpet is clean first- any screws or other items on it will damage the grill or tolex covering.

 

[guitarfish]

Thanks to all for the info. Following Kahawe's suggestion that the warranty may be 2 years I checked out the Aussie importer and found this news story:

Mesa/Boogie Warranty Extended!
Pro Audio Supplies are pleased to announce that Mesa/Boogie's warranty terms have been extended! As of 5/4/11, all Mesa amplifiers and cabinets are now subject to a five year, transferrable warranty (previously covered for one year).

Ah well, it was worth a shot - nice for new buyers but no help for me! And it might be irrelevant if the new tubes sort things out...

 

[guitarfish]

Tubes have arrived so I can get down to business at the weekend! 8)

I ordered Doug's 5 piece pre-amp tone kit, listed as:
V1 - Tung 12AX7
V2 - High Gain JJ ECC83 (out of stock - Ruby 12AX7ACZ HG received instead)
V3 - Penta 12AX7
V4 - Penta 12AX7
V5 - Sovtek 12AX7 LPS

Also got a JAN GE 5751 Doug suggested I try in place of the Hi Gain, and a pair of TAD 6L6WGC-STR's to complete the job- may as rule power tube problems while I'm at it!

From reading up on some old posts I think I should be reversing V1 & V2 in an Express. Have I got this right? :?