Tremoverb help!

[jimidle1980]

Hi,

I have a tremoverb combo, but unfortunately no matter how much I try to love the amp, it sounds lifeless to me. Now I keep hearing online that the tremoverb is considered one of mesa's finest, so I'm thinking maybe the amp just isn't to my taste or I'm not doing something right. I bought it 2nd hand so do u think it may be worth swapping the valves? Crushing gain seems to sound great, but crunch and clean just sounds dull.

Of course a new set of valves is expensive so I wouldn't want to splash out if it is simply the amp that I don't like!! In which case I may be better off selling the amp. It may even be my approach to setting the amps dials (it's pretty complex compared to my jcm800 and orange rockerverb!!) but I have already spent months twiddling knobs and still the amp only sounds a bit dull. What do u guys reckon??

Cheers!

 

[afu]

Post your settings.

 

[jimidle1980]

I haven't got any settings as such, as I'm constantly tweaking

 

[afu]

It's a dark amp. Most of the content over 1600 Hz is being shelved to cut the harmonics off. The brightest crunch settings are Bold and Silicon Diode with the Gain below 11:30 on Vintage or Modern.

Modern is brighter than Vintage, unless Vintage is cloned to Red. In that case, you get two Presence controls for Red and you can tailor the top a bit differently.

Blues is mostly like Raw on the 3 Channels. You can push the Treble a little if you care to and use the Presence to take the "ouch" out.

Clean... dial the Bass out and bring it back in up to the point it fills the bottom, but doesn't get murky. It might be low, but use your ears; don't look at the dial while you do it.

 

[jimidle1980]

Thanks for the tone tips..will give these a try before either swapping the tubes

 

[tremoverb nick]

Mine's the same!!!

I'm gonna send it to dennis marshall after xmas.

I really miss the massive tremoverb sound.

 

[jimidle1980]

Hi tremoverb Nick,

So you are saying that yours used to sound massive, but doesn't anymore???

 

[tremoverb nick]

yes.
I've had mine from new in the mid 90's and it was truly untouchable at the time. I sounded hifi compared to other bands/guitarists. The bottom end sometimes drowned out the bass player we were using who had a trace elliot 4x10, 1x15!
Then a few years back it just kinda lost it's spark. It was still loud but just not the same. I tried a few sets of tubes - out put and preamp...still no good.
So I bought a soldano slo 100...which is awesome but I still felt frustrated with the mesa underperforming and kept wondering if it was just my ears...seeing as it still worked but just wasn't "right".

Earlier in the year I was using the mesa in my living room to have a good play with all the settings to see what was wrong and one of the output tubes glowed realllllly orange! and it started making a loud hum noise, i swapped the tubes - same thing. Then sent it to MJW amps in the uk and martin replaced capacitor (i think he said it was an output cap. I could see that the one swapped was a small orange one). when the amp came back it was amazing again. punishing gain and cut - seriously awesome again.
So I gigged it for a while and again, whilst at home noodling around there was a sudded drop in volume by about a third, then went back to normal, then dropped and stayed dropped. I tried 2 new sets of tubes - output and input...no change.
If you hadn't heard the amp as it should be you'd probably think it was just how a tremoverb sounds cos it's still loud but very toppy and hardly any gain.

So this time it's going to Dennis Marshall for a total overhaul.
I have to have it back to normal and reliable.

 

[stephen sawall]

What do you mean by dull ????

Are you saying to it does not have as much highend as your Marshall and Orange ? It doesn't.

 

[jimidle1980]

Nick...I would be interested to find out how it sounds when you get the amp back from Dennis Marshall.

Stephen it's kind of hard to describe...but it sounds kind of boxy, and the gain is quite harsh and fizzy when turned up...not smooth.