The MARK IV has arrived!!!

[Random Hero]

There's one more thing I think should be mentioned, the distortion on this amp is not the same as most, it's very smooth and unless you cut the mids drastically on the GEQ it's not going to sound overly saturated,

Finally I found someone who agree with me.
I told we have to cut mids or our guitars will sound nasal and mix it up with the voice.Even more,with a lot of mids,distortion sound weak.
Cut mids and bass around 240 as you see in its graphic equalizer.Cuting mids and bass around 240 your tone will sound killer and won't mix it up with other members of the band such as bass player and singer :wink:
When we're playing alone,we add too much bass because we miss bass frequencies from BASS. Cut bass untill you feel that the bass player was gone :lol:

I personally think it's the other way around. Cutting the mids make distortion sound weak, whereas adding them adds power and girth to the tone. To me, anyway.

 

[18&Life]

So I think you don't know what you're talking about.Why ?
Because mids are = low- mid mid- mid treble- mid.
When you cut mids you're cutting just some frequencies (750) not all the mids .
You'll cut exactly the frequencies wich mix it up with bass , vocals and make your tone nasal !
Cut mids doesn't mean all mids will be cutted,not at all.
Just a few frequencies between 700-2000 KHz.
This frequencies are the ones wich give to our voice its definition,they are the frequencies of a
telephone,very nasal ones.
You've to cut bass frequencies wich a bass player should be doing,if you won't cut mid- mids your will sound nasal,
bassy and weak.
I'm talking about in a full band mix,obviously as I said,if WE're playing alone,WE used to add too much bass
to compensate the lack of frequencies wich a BASS should give :wink:

 

[ToneAddictJon]

I run my presence at about 4 pushed in on the lead channel, not exactly petrucci tone, but that's not what I'm going for, and it works well with my guitars. As far as mids go, I cut them a lot because my guitar is very, very, very full of mids and so are my pickups (evo 7's), so I should clarify, depending on your guitar and pickups cutting the mids can help make it sound heavier, other guitars need the midrange boost though. That's one thing about the Mark IV, it reacts completely different to every guitar and pickup combination, which is one reason I love it. My DR reacts different to each guitar, but not to the extreme the Mark IV does. When I hit a lead though I pull the GEQ out of the circuit and get a nice mid boost to really cut through.

 

[18&Life]

Evos and boogies are full of mids. :wink:
Meaning full as hell :lol:

 

[Random Hero]

So I think you don't know what you're talking about.Why ?
Because mids are = low- mid mid- mid treble- mid.
When you cut mids you're cutting just some frequencies (750) not all the mids .
You'll cut exactly the frequencies wich mix it up with bass , vocals and make your tone nasal !
Cut mids doesn't mean all mids will be cutted,not at all.
Just a few frequencies between 700-2000 KHz.
This frequencies are the ones wich give to our voice its definition,they are the frequencies of a
telephone,very nasal ones.
You've to cut bass frequencies wich a bass player should be doing,if you won't cut mid- mids your will sound nasal,
bassy and weak.
I'm talking about in a full band mix,obviously as I said,if WE're playing alone,WE used to add too much bass
to compensate the lack of frequencies wich a BASS should give :wink:

I hear your point about it being low mid/mid mid/high mid, but you can't deny, if you cut the 750 too much, you end up with a very scooped sounding tone?

I happen to think mids add power, that's all, and I don't really like the sound of the 750 slider much lower than halfway between the middle and bottom lines.

 

[18&Life]

I hear your point about it being low mid/mid mid/high mid, but you can't deny, if you cut the 750 too much, you end up with a very scooped sounding tone?

But I never said that you HAVE to cut too much,you'll cut them to your tastes :wink:

 

[Random Hero]

I hear your point about it being low mid/mid mid/high mid, but you can't deny, if you cut the 750 too much, you end up with a very scooped sounding tone?

But I never said that you HAVE to cut too much,you'll cut them to your tastes :wink:

True, but you said mids make your tone weak, which I disagree with.

 

[18&Life]

I told we have to cut mids or our guitars will sound nasal and mix it up with the voice.Even more,with a lot of mids,distortion sound weak.

No I never said mids will make your guitar weak,I said with a lot of mids,meaning too much mids in the house :wink:
With a good equalization of mids,guitar distortion will sound more agressive.

 

[Random Hero]

I told we have to cut mids or our guitars will sound nasal and mix it up with the voice.Even more,with a lot of mids,distortion sound weak.

No I never said mids will make your guitar weak,I said with a lot of mids,meaning too much mids in the house :wink:
With a good equalization of mids,guitar distortion will sound more agressive.

 

[fpoon]

What would you guys suggest a guitar player do in a band when he has a really bright sounding guitar (Alder, Rosewood, EMG's). Should I turn up the bass and increase the mids? I'm getting kind of confused with all your posts.

 

[18&Life]

If you already know that your guitar is treble,well cut treble !!!!!
bass frequencies is for the bass.Less treble :wink:
80 Hz is a frequency of the bass,guitar has nothing to do with that.
I know people will say If it is wrong why mesa put 80 Hz in a guitar's amp ?
I don't know :shock:

 

[fpoon]

oh ok, thanks man

 

[devilrob1979]

If you already know that your guitar is treble,well cut treble !!!!!
bass frequencies is for the bass.Less treble :wink:
80 Hz is a frequency of the bass,guitar has nothing to do with that.
I know people will say If it is wrong why mesa put 80 Hz in a guitar's amp ?
I don't know :shock:

If this were the case there would be no audible difference when the slider was moved. However, there is. An example of something that will produce 80hz is a palm muted E string.

 

[Hailstorm350]

the 80 hz adjuster makes a difference solely because it creates and alters a curve in the EQ. Having operated sound for several years now, eqing 80 hz in on a voice (even a soprano one) obviously should have no effect, but it does because it curves the lower presence nodes of the particular voice into the mix more.

Personally, I think the mix on a single guitar should (in a band setting) have a decent amount of mids to accentuate the style of music. The mids are where "it's" at for guitar, only I find that I dont like the sound of mids on my guitar. The sound that you get in regards to mids is highly specific to your guitar's unique material/electronic makeup. With a LesPaul wiring setup, my custom Really Heavy Solid Mahogany/1/2"Maple carved top Ebony Fretboard/ Flamed Maple Neckbody sounds heavy, and when I changed my bridge pickup to a dimarzio tonezone from a generic $20 PAF covered 'bucker I gained a lot of trebles, and really defined my mix, yet I noticed it removed a lot of mids from the sound of that pickup setting. I personally like the new sound I get because I switched to something with less mids.

Every person will comment on mids with regards to their own experiences, which are obviously based on what they have had access to in the past.

If you made sense of all that clutter, then I salute you.. lol


in a nutshell, it varies from person to person, but having a wider and more unbiased view than most, I would have to say that mids should be a little on the lower scooped side for something more rock-oriented and higher for jazzy or bluesy sounds. Basically it depends on the sound you're trying to reach. On a whole...in the whole mix... well that's an entirely different story, and I can illuminate that if you really want but I'm not going to now.

 

[Random Hero]

Following on from Hailstorm's post;

In my posts, I'm not trying to suggest you run the 750 slider to the very top. That sounds like a radio, and bad. But by the same token, I personally never understand people totally slamming the mid slider to the bottom. IMO, the whole body of the tone is lost. Hell, you can see where I run mine in the pic in this thread, and it's not exactly cranked, but the IV is a middy amp :wink:

 

[18&Life]

I've never said 80 Hz won't be a difference,I SAID that 80Hz is a frequency from bass.If you add it you will muddy your guitar and stomp on your bass player.
Pal muted with a lot of bass frequencies are muddy.
Guitar is a mid instrument,let bass to the bass player.
Why when you hear a dream theater song instruments seem like they are all separated,even if guitars are too loud,still you can hear what singer is saying ?
Because each instrument contribute to a full mix,bass=bass frequencies,guitar=mid frequencies.
Obvously if you ad +5 or 10 of 80Hz your guitar will messed up with bass.All will became muddy.
Who doesn't know that should search for some sound engineering books in the net or took some classes,that's the only way to understand how our brains react to sounds :wink:
Physics and sound engineering isn't about personal tastes.
:wink:

 

[Hailstorm350]

The IV is a middy amp, but I've adjusted mine to have a flatter response range from the top down until about 200 where it starts to get lower and make room for the bass like 18&life is saying.

@ 18&life I actually completely understand what you're saying and it's also what I've been taught, I'm just saying that by adding bass to the guitar you're not going to muddy the entire mix. You're making things too drastic, and instead of making it really muddy, it will add presence to something that could have sounded like it would be a bumble bee or something really annoying flying past your head.

My main point is that after working with sound for quite some time, I find that the only times you should completely (or even mostly) remove frequencies from a particular channel/instrument is when it's something like an overhead when you don't want it picking up the kick, OR when there is a feedback issue due to poor stage positioning when a certain frequency is causing havoc.

As for your mix analogy, I completely and whole-heartedly agree with it, only you're making it too simple, I guarantee if you go into one of those dream-theater recordings and look at every single eq, they won't have completely or even mostly cut out the 80hz frequencies on the guitar, the guitar already does that for you, the guitar is NOT a bass, and the only reason that you might have more lower frequencies on your guitar than other guitars is due to its material makeup.
When it comes to fitting things into a mix, it's like a puzzle which I'm sure you can understand as a good analogy. Only thing is, you will never (unless you're stupid or just being funny) find a puzzle where you're given a bunch of square blocks to put together, there will be parts of certain pieces that will overlap and that will help blend the pieces together more. All in all, the instruments should do the work all on their own.

I had more to say, but I forget
:roll:

edit: oh yea, the mix is a matter of personal taste, if the artist wants their guitar or mix sounding heavier they might scoop the mids out a little bit, if not they could make it flatter and more well-rounded sounding, especially in the bass department for jazz.

 

[18&Life]

I guarantee if you go into one of those dream-theater recordings and look at every single eq, they won't have completely or even mostly cut out the 80hz frequencies on the guitar.

No they don't but the recording engineer did :wink:
I agree with you I can see you know what you're talking about,you're not a newbie saying stupid things.
Thank god is very difficult finding people who knows about what they're talking about :shock: :lol:

 

[Elpelotero]

Hailstorm350 has got the right train of thought going...

What you guys are missing is a simple thing that's easy to overlook.

I play bass as well, so I'll talk about this first. My low B string pumps out at something like 30 hz, which is ridiculously low and bordering on in-audible for the human ear. However, my bass cab does not even have a frequency range for 30hz; it only goes to about 50 or so.

Why is this? Because when I hit the low B on my bass, the fundamental frequency is the first to go in the harmonic makeup of the note, so the 30hz goes out the window. What you actually hear is hundreds of harmonic nodes and antinodes etc. that together comprise themselves to sound like a low B. A large portion of the nodes you hear are very low frequencies because it is a bass (the nodes of that low B are naturally going to have many low frequencies).

Now apply this to guitar and the Mesa EQ. The guitar on its own produces lots of low mids, mids, and highs (depending on the fret and string). An E string on its own is something around 120 hz, or that area...This is a frequency dominated by bass, but why is it found on a guitar...? Well, that's just the way it is. But side by side, the bass hitting that same note and frequency will chew up the guitar in the lows due to all of the nodes that follow that 120. The guitar will never truly spit out the 120, because it's a fundamental. The guitar will instead spit out a plethora of nodes located in the mids. Thus, you have a naturally occurring band mix.

When you slide up the 80hz on the EQ, yes you are introducing a frequency that only exists in the guitar as an afterthought in the content of its nodes, but you have now emphasized it so that the nodes of the 80hz are emphasized even more than previously. These may be, for example, 90hz, 95, etc (plus many many others). Even though you have boosted this frequency, the bass is still pumping out its 80hz stronger than you are if the volumes are set correctly. Heaven forbid that the bass player should choose to boost something around 30 hz and some low mids...The result will be total ownership of that frequency range and the only frequencies you will hear coming out of the guitar are mostly mids.

I hope I said all this properly, if not someone please correct me. It's been over a year since I looked at musical physics (and I'm not physics guy!).

 

[trem]

Lead… uhhh… this is really bothering me. There must be something wrong because I am just NOT getting the gain I expect.

Have you found the cause of this? I had a similar problem with my A. It was the preamp tube. Just wondering what causes yours. Thanks.

~trem