Dreamin90s
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- Feb 2, 2025
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Sorry, this is going to be real long but I need to give some background and context about me to try and get the help I need.
In 1995-96 i bought a mesa dual rectifier with the matching oversized slant cab 4x12v30’s. We didn’t even know revisions back then. The only thing I did to it was change the 6l6s to el34’s. My own band’s tone was a mix between Alice in chains and early foo fighters, like the heavier riffs on the colour and the shape. I played Les Paul’s in standard, drop d and drop c#. 498t pups. I played a lot of full chords with all 6 strings, great note definition and clarity. I don’t know if I ran it on bold or spongy but I did run the rectifier tubes vs the diodes I’m pretty sure I used the orange / vintage on channel 2 with the gain around 2pm but a side of me thinks I may have ran it on the top clean channel with the gain cranked? but I could be wrong. It was so long ago… never used red / modern for my own stuff.
I also was a engineer and producer. To this day I can hear my old rig with some bands I worked with back then on Apple Music and Spotify lol… I was known for great drum tones, but guitar tone was what really drew people to me. I made everyone use my rig. I could dial that thing in for everything from nu metal, death metal, thrash metal, grunge era heavy, blues to even a jazz band I did! We had a old vox in the studio we used time to time for some clean tones… signal path was very simple - sm57 into a api mic pre right into the console. Sure there would be some parametric eq going on depending on the settings and type of music, layers etc.. Marshall’s, fenders even a mesa triple rec, I talked them all into using my rig… sometimes there would be arguments in pre production, but once we layed down some tracks everyone would say “damn, that’s the tone I was looking for”… what was so special about my rev g? I don’t know it was like any other accept I put the mesa brand el34’s in it. I’m not even sure why I did that. I feel like a guy may have biased them for me, but don’t know.
Around 2003 I had my second kid, I was now early 30s and burned out… i sold everything and got out of music, moved on to corporate America. Shortly after a divorce happened - I left that entire part of my life behind.
Fast forward 20 years later, my current wife knows of my music background & history. She’s heard stuff I played on, knows records i did… she was always encouraging me to play again.. I just dismissed it…then a old friend gave her a cheap Washburn acoustic and said make him play again lol… after all those years, I didn’t want to but hey… picked it up and noddled around… I thought my playing was bad, it felt like trying to learn to walk again or something but my wife was blown away, I was half ass ripping through some zep, soundgarden, my own stuff etc… then the itch came back… I’m not the player I was, but after a few months I’m getting it back… I picked up a few Les Paul’s, a 2002 with the good ol 498t and a new 2024 studio with burst bucker pros…
Now it’s time to get an amp. I will never play out again, I’ll never do studio work or work in a studio again. It’s just me playing at home, by myself for myself but tone is inspiring. Remeber I was basically in a 20 year music coma. I started out looking at lunch box heads and a 2x12 cabs… meh.. none really impressed me much, but the PRs mt15 reminded me a little bit of my old tone, more than the mini mesa - it had to much fizzle.
So I started looking for v30 cabs… everything I tried sounded like ice picks to my ears with moderate or high gain, regardless of the amp head. Did I out grow v30s? Don’t like them anymore at my age? I don’t know. I settled on a archon 2x12 v type cab. Speakers sounded more smooth. No ice picks…
At this point, the tone was ok. I wasn’t going to spend the money on a rev g then have to pay a fortune to have it re done and re tubed… then on market place a 2018 MW DR popped up. Very cheap.You wouldn’t believe what paid for there head and cab. Guy was a bassist who hasn’t played for a few years, his guitarist Owed him money so left his head and the 4x12v30 cab…. It supposedly has been sitting since covid…’Well I had to go look at it.. sure enough, much better tone than what I was using, while not the same, it was close. Brought it home. Turns out the cab is a 2001 traditional 4x12v30 with 1999 speakers. so I put the mt15 on it first, it changed that tone big time. Made the amp sing!! No ice picks! (Turns out, I’ve found out around 2004 celestion moved there production to China and produced some bad v30s, it’s like a lottery to get a decent one but everything I tried new or used sounded bad, has that nasty 4-5k ish push) so I sell that DR knock off because now I have the real thing!
I know it’s not my old rev g, i know the transformers, tone stack and other things are not the same, the eq sweep is very different but surely, for my current usage I should be able to get a decent tone that’s similar. I’m running it on bold and recto tubes for all 3 Chanel’s. The tubes all appear to still be stock mesa tubes with 6L6’s. I have no ideal the milage on the head, nothing sounds strange. Channel 2 I have setup on vintage, channel 3 is modern. Still get a pop sometimes switching channels with the foot switch, it’s not often but does happen. Thought they fixed that? My rev g did this.
This amp is so bright! I’m fighting the presence and treble, I can’t find the right mix. Chan 2 & 3 are either to bright, or sound like a blanket is over the cab. I have a pic where my old rev g is in the background. It appears I was running the presence around 1 o’clock, mids around 2 o’clock, treble around 1 o’clock….that doesn’t work for this head..’ On this 2018 MW DR I’m running the presence at 9 o’clock treble at noon. Both channels are to bright or to dark no matter what I do. The mids - in vintage they are a bit boxy with no bite. Modern when i try to compensate for the mid scoop it introduces some high mids, not mid growl / bite. Both Chanel’s I’m running the gain around 2 o’clock, this amp definitely has less gain at the same setting I ran my old rev g on.
Operator error? Something I need to learn? El34’s make that big of a difference? Need re tubed? I’ve read everyone say you need to boost these new DR’s we never boster amps back in the day. I’m not looking for that 1987 speed metal bar chord tone.
Sorry for such a long post, I hope someone can guide me.
Thank you.
In 1995-96 i bought a mesa dual rectifier with the matching oversized slant cab 4x12v30’s. We didn’t even know revisions back then. The only thing I did to it was change the 6l6s to el34’s. My own band’s tone was a mix between Alice in chains and early foo fighters, like the heavier riffs on the colour and the shape. I played Les Paul’s in standard, drop d and drop c#. 498t pups. I played a lot of full chords with all 6 strings, great note definition and clarity. I don’t know if I ran it on bold or spongy but I did run the rectifier tubes vs the diodes I’m pretty sure I used the orange / vintage on channel 2 with the gain around 2pm but a side of me thinks I may have ran it on the top clean channel with the gain cranked? but I could be wrong. It was so long ago… never used red / modern for my own stuff.
I also was a engineer and producer. To this day I can hear my old rig with some bands I worked with back then on Apple Music and Spotify lol… I was known for great drum tones, but guitar tone was what really drew people to me. I made everyone use my rig. I could dial that thing in for everything from nu metal, death metal, thrash metal, grunge era heavy, blues to even a jazz band I did! We had a old vox in the studio we used time to time for some clean tones… signal path was very simple - sm57 into a api mic pre right into the console. Sure there would be some parametric eq going on depending on the settings and type of music, layers etc.. Marshall’s, fenders even a mesa triple rec, I talked them all into using my rig… sometimes there would be arguments in pre production, but once we layed down some tracks everyone would say “damn, that’s the tone I was looking for”… what was so special about my rev g? I don’t know it was like any other accept I put the mesa brand el34’s in it. I’m not even sure why I did that. I feel like a guy may have biased them for me, but don’t know.
Around 2003 I had my second kid, I was now early 30s and burned out… i sold everything and got out of music, moved on to corporate America. Shortly after a divorce happened - I left that entire part of my life behind.
Fast forward 20 years later, my current wife knows of my music background & history. She’s heard stuff I played on, knows records i did… she was always encouraging me to play again.. I just dismissed it…then a old friend gave her a cheap Washburn acoustic and said make him play again lol… after all those years, I didn’t want to but hey… picked it up and noddled around… I thought my playing was bad, it felt like trying to learn to walk again or something but my wife was blown away, I was half ass ripping through some zep, soundgarden, my own stuff etc… then the itch came back… I’m not the player I was, but after a few months I’m getting it back… I picked up a few Les Paul’s, a 2002 with the good ol 498t and a new 2024 studio with burst bucker pros…
Now it’s time to get an amp. I will never play out again, I’ll never do studio work or work in a studio again. It’s just me playing at home, by myself for myself but tone is inspiring. Remeber I was basically in a 20 year music coma. I started out looking at lunch box heads and a 2x12 cabs… meh.. none really impressed me much, but the PRs mt15 reminded me a little bit of my old tone, more than the mini mesa - it had to much fizzle.
So I started looking for v30 cabs… everything I tried sounded like ice picks to my ears with moderate or high gain, regardless of the amp head. Did I out grow v30s? Don’t like them anymore at my age? I don’t know. I settled on a archon 2x12 v type cab. Speakers sounded more smooth. No ice picks…
At this point, the tone was ok. I wasn’t going to spend the money on a rev g then have to pay a fortune to have it re done and re tubed… then on market place a 2018 MW DR popped up. Very cheap.You wouldn’t believe what paid for there head and cab. Guy was a bassist who hasn’t played for a few years, his guitarist Owed him money so left his head and the 4x12v30 cab…. It supposedly has been sitting since covid…’Well I had to go look at it.. sure enough, much better tone than what I was using, while not the same, it was close. Brought it home. Turns out the cab is a 2001 traditional 4x12v30 with 1999 speakers. so I put the mt15 on it first, it changed that tone big time. Made the amp sing!! No ice picks! (Turns out, I’ve found out around 2004 celestion moved there production to China and produced some bad v30s, it’s like a lottery to get a decent one but everything I tried new or used sounded bad, has that nasty 4-5k ish push) so I sell that DR knock off because now I have the real thing!
I know it’s not my old rev g, i know the transformers, tone stack and other things are not the same, the eq sweep is very different but surely, for my current usage I should be able to get a decent tone that’s similar. I’m running it on bold and recto tubes for all 3 Chanel’s. The tubes all appear to still be stock mesa tubes with 6L6’s. I have no ideal the milage on the head, nothing sounds strange. Channel 2 I have setup on vintage, channel 3 is modern. Still get a pop sometimes switching channels with the foot switch, it’s not often but does happen. Thought they fixed that? My rev g did this.
This amp is so bright! I’m fighting the presence and treble, I can’t find the right mix. Chan 2 & 3 are either to bright, or sound like a blanket is over the cab. I have a pic where my old rev g is in the background. It appears I was running the presence around 1 o’clock, mids around 2 o’clock, treble around 1 o’clock….that doesn’t work for this head..’ On this 2018 MW DR I’m running the presence at 9 o’clock treble at noon. Both channels are to bright or to dark no matter what I do. The mids - in vintage they are a bit boxy with no bite. Modern when i try to compensate for the mid scoop it introduces some high mids, not mid growl / bite. Both Chanel’s I’m running the gain around 2 o’clock, this amp definitely has less gain at the same setting I ran my old rev g on.
Operator error? Something I need to learn? El34’s make that big of a difference? Need re tubed? I’ve read everyone say you need to boost these new DR’s we never boster amps back in the day. I’m not looking for that 1987 speed metal bar chord tone.
Sorry for such a long post, I hope someone can guide me.
Thank you.
except a tremoverb has still a place in my bucket list of gear yet I am afraid it would be a disappointment.
