The Ace - I'll admit it, I'm hooked

[dstefani]

I've been playing about 38 years.

Back in the day it was only Les Pauls and modded Fenders.

My first Mesa was a DC-5, but I'd been playing a MK1 and 2 in the studio, a buddy of mine worked at mesa, like 15 or 20 years ago and he kept his amps in the studio for us to use.

I sold the DC-5 after a pretty long time to pay some tax bills, I wasn't gigging, newly married... yatta, yatta, yatta.. a few years later I get a Nomad 45 1x12, it's OK. Start gigging again, hmm, time to go bigger, add a vert 2x12 recto cab. OK, but not it.

1980 Marshall JMP + 4x12 cab - wow, big jump, it's great but I'm REALLY loud, people are making faces.

OK, 66 Super Reverb, good, but...

OK, 100 Nomad head on the Marshall 4x12

3D Surround sound!!! Killer!!!

Move family from city to country, don't need giant amp...

Mesa Lone Star Special... OK, but a bit on the spongy side for a Les Paul neck pickup... sold ( I wish I had kept that one )

Start playing strat more, find a 67 super reverb in pieces in a basement.
Purchase, rebuild - killer.

Local music store has ace on the floor, looks NICE, smells nice to! ;-)
Trade a Martin D28 for it, go back and forth between the super and the ace. Having that, this sounds good one day, this sounds better another...

After a few months with the ace I've come to these conclusions...
The super sounds great, but the ace sounds better. (I could be killed in certain company for saying that!) I don't know what it would take to make the old super sound as good as this Mesa. I have allot done to it by some great techs.

With the 3 electrics that I play:
58 Les Paul reissue
G&L ASAT Classic
Am Deluxe Strat

I can get most any tone I go after, I am not exaggerating.

Today I was playing the Strat, I cut the volume on ch2 crunch with the variac to spongy and tube recto with vols 50/50, total Robert Cray clean strat sound, killer blues.

One of my favorites is the 2nd crunch on ch2 gain 50%, with the ASAT.
TOTAL Black Crows Tele through a 50 watt Marshall, on the money!

That's just the tip of the iceberg as to the variety of sounds I get from this thing, I've just typed enough already.

Gets a great Clapton Derek & Da' Dominos + 461 Ocean blvd. sound.
Duane Allman type 50 watt Marshall tones, just beautiful stuff.

With the LP, ch1, spongy, tube recto, a bit less gain, a bit less treble, presence on 1, a very Dumbly sound. Clear with some bite, stands out front of everything. You hear everything, after playing as long as I have, I love an amp and guitar that force me to watch every little sound I make, then after a while you forget about that once you get into the groove real deep.

Perhaps some of you younger cat and kittens may be looking at this as just a Marshall done right, but from my point of view, it goes WAY beyond that. It's an amazing amp.

You can see I've been through a few amps looking for something.
I never say never, but I hope to continue to find out more of what this amp has to offer. Mesa is really onto something here.

My budget maxes out at Mesa levels these days, so in that budget, I can't imagine a better amp. With the 2x12 horz recto cab I have ( I only really use it for larger rooms ) Here in Boise Idaho, there isn't really anywhere this amp won't work.

So, that's my review. I'm probably preaching to the choir. - TESTIFY!!!

- dstefani

(the keeper gear)

 

[shnapper]

Nice review, Oh and I like the Fender strat you have, color and all :wink:

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[dstefani]

Does yours have the light flake in the paint?

 

[Platypus]

Nice.. I play a 58LP into my Ace

It's a keeper.

 

[shnapper]

Does yours have the light flake in the paint?

Ya it does, Olympic white pearl.........I've only had her a few months........

 

[dstefani]

Way cool.

I had an am std v-neck, same sr1 set up, but it made me play too hard.
After a trip to my tech, this plays So nice. I can play almost as smoothly as my Paul,.. almost

I had to go through 3 G&L Legacy's and the v-neck before I found a keeper Strat. My poor wife! 8)
- dstefani

 

[Platypus]

We have a very similar rig it looks like.. I have a 2x12 recto cab, an Ace, and an R8 (I imagine that's what that is?)

LP into Ace = tone for days, I've almost forgotten about my other gear.

 

[dstefani]

R8? I've got to assume you hit the 8 instead of 'I' ? ;-)

Yep, I've bought allot of gear, but the dough for a real one would buy allot of... cars?

They do sound great through the ace.
They all do... scary.

 

[Platypus]

R8 = reissue 58 custom shop LP

I'm jonsing for a single coil guitar right now like a Strat, the one I played at the shop sounded killer through the Ace, how do you like yours compared to the LP? Do you get more snarl?

 

[Guitarzan]

Geez I keep hearing praise about this amp! After reading this testimony and seeing Al Di Meola playing one about a week ago, I'm sold! I officially have GAS and this will be my next amp!

 

[dstefani]

To me the LP and the Strat are so apples and oranges.

The LP has such high output compared to the Strat.
I grew up playing a LP, from when I was pretty young, so it's like part of me. It ook me years to get my hands to play a Strat and enjoy it, and get a beautiful tone out of it. It's an interesting instrument.

Bill Lawrence designed the pickups in the SR1 Strats as a medium output pickup per Fenders request. Because of that, I find that there is allot of color and detail in the sound. I find this true at crazy volumes (Super Reverb almost dimed with an analog man silver mod TS-9). Mine puts out about 50 watts with NOS Sylvania power tubes!:twisted:

The LP has beautiful tone, but I surprise myself and find myself gravitating back to the Strat.

I didn't care for the plastic type finish of the Strat, especialy after playing the lacquered LP & G&L's, but now I don't notice it. This is the nicest playing Strat I've ever played, and I've played some old ones as well. I'd recommend checking one out.

The ace loves the Strat, it has such balls. The cleans can cut your hair. In fact, today I was trying to get a Tele sound with the Strat, I was playing kind of loud for being at home, so I upped the treble and presence a touch and cut the volume on the guitar, on the neck PU with the treble at 10, killer Tele sound.

One other thing about the Ace and the Strat, becuse of the low output of the SR1 PU's, when you cut the volume on the guitar, you can loose all fun sounds below 6 on the guitar vol., but the ace has so much of what ever it has, that even a lower output PU shows it's colors throughout the volume spectrum.

This is so important, at least to me. I read an interview with Robin Trower a long time ago, where he said he never plays his Strat at 10 on the guitar vol. You'll notice it get's kind of squirrelly there.

I usually play around 6 or 7 max. So I like the amp loud. The Ace loves this world, beautiful stuff. The Ace allows the Strat to be used to get wide, wide spectrum of tones, from many different era's of Rock. I'm talking Dick Dale clean, Richy Blackmore, and on, and on...

I has the feel of quality in your hands and around your neck.

I'm monologin', woh!

- dstefani

XXX Strat Porn XXX - Gassing Adults only!!!

Mmm sparkles...

 

[Platypus]

pretty sweet axe, now my GAS for a strat went up... you enabler!!

 

[dstefani]

Gotcha!!!

I know, I'm cruel. But I could only do that to ya' because I KNOW how it works. I've been got sooooo many times.

Uh, makes me think of... hmm, oh yea, RANDAL SMITH thank you very much!

The "Amp Porn" king of the world!!!

Porn is so addictive. I keep going back to the mesa site just to... read the articles. ;-)

- dstefani

 

[Platypus]

I really have been wanting a P90 style guitar but I feel like it'd be more limited tonally than a strat.. I know the amp sounds killer on its own but I'm interested in running a few of my fuzz's on the clean channel with a strat for pumpkins style guitar and then tracking over it with an LP into the amp with no effects.

gah it never ends

guitarzan.. go buy this amp now

 

[dstefani]

Yea, I know. The next thing I want to get is a Gibson 335, but after a while it's a balance, am I playing, or buying?

Right now, I just want to gig sometimes, but mostly write.
I've got parts of a ton of songs on paper, computer and head and I've got to get them together. With this gear I can let the sound in my head out. Now I feel like I can really create again.

It's funny, when I started playing regularly for money (12yr's old - 1972 - way back when) I had a guild jazz guitar with a single P90 and an old pro reverb. Then in 73 I got my Les Paul and a Twin Reverb. I gigged regularly with the same guitar and amp for years. A few mods along the way, and a showman 2x15 cab, but that was it. It was more about playing than the gear.
Gear made sound, people made rock. There is so much to choose from now, maybe too much.

I like the guy with the sig, "shut up and play your guitar".8)

Have a good one!

- dstefani

 

[shnapper]

After reading the specs per fender site I now know our strats are worlds apart.

I thought the only difference in the two was the humbucker, but it appears my singles are hotter to match the bucker. This maybe the reason I'm finding the tweed setting on the roadster starting to come around to sounds of my liking the more I tweek and fiddle with the settings.......I plan on getting a LP one of these days, I love them LP's too.

One thing that amazes me is the case your guitar came in, fender must just pick a case blind folded and ship it out. My strat came in a black fender case, my two basses came in C&G cases one brown like yours the other silver with the 60th logo inside. Who is and why does C & G supply cases for some and not for all and visa-versa??

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[dstefani]

Looking at your strat, where the cut in the body starts, you can see the pearl real nice. For such a simple instrument, they sure are pretty! 8)

- dstefani

 

[CudBucket]

Getting the RKII ended all amp GAS for me. Till now. I really want an Ace or a Marshall DSL 100.