The Mark IV "Metallica mod"?

[Aart]

This is what puzzles me... the sudden surge in popularity for the Mark IV.

Maybe I don't recall it clearly but, when the Mark IV was issued, there were no 5-star reviews... maybe just a lukewarm review at Guitar Player.
I always thought that the Mark IV had not raised to the public expectations and, thus, it was not selling well.

To my surprise, these last years, I started realizing that it was carving a position on its own and becoming more and more popular.

Why do you think this happened?

as BB said, people have come full circle.

In my somewhat related opinion, the age of the dual rectifier as the prominent rock amplifier is starting to fade. People are looking for the new thing and sadly, there's not much out there aside from your Diezels and Bogners...but we all know these amps were ripoffs of the crushing recto gain. The next alternative is the Mark4. It has all the flavor of Mesa that people love, but without that trademark Recto sound people have come to dislike. Plus, you can actually solo on the **** thing.

It is also worth noting that the Mark4 itself never caught on too well because of the rectifier. The rectifier cannibalized sales of the Mark4 and other Mesa amps.

In summary, the musical tastes are changing before us. Which manufacturer is going to set the stage for the next 10 years.....?

The only good high gain amps that sound far different from recto's are the Marks and VHT has a good one with the ultralead(although it is somewhat closer to the recto).

But the Mark IV is the amp for me.

 

[Schmoog]

james uses the recto when hes jamming, and for live shows that are in anything but an arena almost. I saw them at hammerstein ballroom in NYC (small venue, like 3-400 people) and he was using a blackface triple, and kirk was playing a dual. I believe they also recorded that **** covered stanky coaster of an album they called st anger with the recto, but I could be wrong about that one.

the other guitarist in my band came home with a VHT Deliverance about a week ago. its a great amp. its a one trick pony really, even in comparison to my III, but its an awesome awesome amp. I'll take my III, the tone is a little warmer, but the VHT kicks some major ***

 

[temps]

james uses the recto when hes jamming, and for live shows that are in anything but an arena almost. I saw them at hammerstein ballroom in NYC (small venue, like 3-400 people) and he was using a blackface triple, and kirk was playing a dual. I believe they also recorded that sh!t covered stanky coaster of an album they called st anger with the recto, but I could be wrong about that one.

the other guitarist in my band came home with a VHT Deliverance about a week ago. its a great amp. its a one trick pony really, even in comparison to my III, but its an awesome awesome amp. I'll take my III, the tone is a little warmer, but the VHT kicks some major ***

St Anger used a lot of different amps.. they used a Diezel VH4 on one track. Most of the amps that you could see in Some Kind of Monster were used at some point on the album, from what I'm told.

As far as who is going to be next to define the modern sound... well, it was Fender in the beginning, then Marshall, now Mesa... its going to be something stupid, because everything out there is a derivative of the SLO100 right now (even the Recto) and then tons more amps are just small variations on a super saggy saturated gain sound (just like the Recto).

As much as I would like the new cool thing to be amps like the Mark IV, I've got a feeling it'll be something more along the lines of a Lone Star since music seems to be mellowing out again. Hopefully the metal scene will move to Mark IVs.

One thing I would love to see is a Mark V that has 90% the same tone, but handles the low lows better, has totally seperate controls for all three channels, and moves to something more like the Recto 3 chan has (one clean then two slight variations on the lead channel!!). 7 stringin on my Mark isn't much fun because the gain doesn't seem to "reach" down there as well as I would like.

 

[mrd]

One thing I would love to see is a Mark V that has 90% the same tone, but handles the low lows better, has totally seperate controls for all three channels, and moves to something more like the Recto 3 chan has (one clean then two slight variations on the lead channel!!). 7 stringin on my Mark isn't much fun because the gain doesn't seem to "reach" down there as well as I would like.

Really? I find that my 7-stringer sounds better on my MKIV than it does on my RK. Especially when I'm chuggin' away to Meshuggah-style riffs. I can really hear the low string churning away, it's quite defined. On my RK the whole thing just sounds like a big mess no matter how I EQ it.

 

[Platypus]

One thing I would love to see is a Mark V that has 90% the same tone, but handles the low lows better, has totally seperate controls for all three channels, and moves to something more like the Recto 3 chan has (one clean then two slight variations on the lead channel!!). 7 stringin on my Mark isn't much fun because the gain doesn't seem to "reach" down there as well as I would like.

Really? I find that my 7-stringer sounds better on my MKIV than it does on my RK. Especially when I'm chuggin' away to Meshuggah-style riffs. I can really hear the low string churning away, it's quite defined. On my RK the whole thing just sounds like a big mess no matter how I EQ it.

Ditto here, my Mark IV sounds great with my 7 string, even in A#.

Not to split hairs, but aren't the rectos/stilettos based on the Bassman circuit?

I would like to see a Mark V with 3 sep controls for channels though, my biggest challenge so far is getting R2 and R1 to sound good since they're very reliant on each other.

 

[temps]

One thing I would love to see is a Mark V that has 90% the same tone, but handles the low lows better, has totally seperate controls for all three channels, and moves to something more like the Recto 3 chan has (one clean then two slight variations on the lead channel!!). 7 stringin on my Mark isn't much fun because the gain doesn't seem to "reach" down there as well as I would like.

Really? I find that my 7-stringer sounds better on my MKIV than it does on my RK. Especially when I'm chuggin' away to Meshuggah-style riffs. I can really hear the low string churning away, it's quite defined. On my RK the whole thing just sounds like a big mess no matter how I EQ it.

Ditto here, my Mark IV sounds great with my 7 string, even in A#.

Not to split hairs, but aren't the rectos/stilettos based on the Bassman circuit?

I would like to see a Mark V with 3 sep controls for channels though, my biggest challenge so far is getting R2 and R1 to sound good since they're very reliant on each other.

I've given up on the "crunch" channel ever sounding good, especially since what I think makes for a great clean sound (mucho mids) makes for an awful distorted sound.

It might just be my guitar... I noticed my SLSMG with an EMG 81 sounds a lot better in drop A then my COW7 with a 81-7 sounds in drop A. The COW in something like G or F# sounds terrible... really, really bad.

 

[Platypus]

I've been using an OD on R2 to get a nice crunch and just accepted that it will never be 100% perfect for my tastes on its own. Lead and R1 more than make up for it in my book as far as the amp is concerned. 8)

 

[Schmoog]

the stiletto is marshall based which is bassman based, so yea I guess in that sense it is bassman based. the recto preamp is quite nearly a blatant copy of the SLO100, but almost all the amps in that genre are. case and point: 5150. I agree that music is mellowing out a little bit, hence the popularity of the older marshalls. but I also think thats why the IIC+'s and III's are so popular. they do a **** good low gain sound if you eq em right. check out my soundclick and click on have a drink and purple haze. I did both of those with emg's into the lead channel of a mark III. www.soundclick.com/shrek