thinkdontpray
Member
- Joined
- Mar 18, 2007
- Messages
- 17
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- 0
Hey guys, I'll make this as short as possible. About a year ago I purchased a Triple Rec and Mesa 4x12 cab, it was love as first strum. I know that it may have been a bit excessive but I fell in love with the balls and crunch of the Triple. Anyways, I bought the head used and about 3 months ago I started to experience loss of bass response and basically the thing just sounded gutless. So I swapped out of my power tubes and it was back in business. But heres where my stupidity comes in to play. I play an Epiphone Gothic which I swapped in KFK EMG's into it, which has a 20db gain booster switch. In the past week my sound is starting to lack again, and now I have questions out the *** here. You guys are my only hope as the place I bought it from (a name brand chain in Canda) are absolute morons and know nothing about Mesa products (for example, not one, but two guys there told me that the colour coding on the power tubes indicated quality. I told them it was for matching purposes only but of course, I was wrong to them)
1. I love the extra bit of crunch I get from having the gain booster switch engaged all the time. I've adjusted by channel gain to bring the hot signal back a bit and it sounded great. I could squeal perfectly and it just kicked you in the nuts. But, is this switch killing my power tubes? Should I just use the switch for soloing (which I know its designated for) and adjust the Triple to find the sound I am looking for?
2. How can you tell by looking at a power tube if its failed? I know that if it was completely blown it would trip the fuse and your sound gets quite muddy and has no balls. But I am looking at my power tubes (while the amp is on, signal is hot) and a few of them have purple tinges to them. One of them is a matched pair while the other is just a single one and its match looks fine. Is this normal?
3. Something is wrong with my FX loop and I know it was working fine when I first bought the thing. I run a noise suppressor pedal as well as a reflecter reverb, which should be ran through the back but I just cant them to work. Heres what happens. With the noise supressor, the indicator light which shows that its reducing the signal, is not lit up. In fact when I click the pedal down, I hear more hum than when its off. With the reverb, theres nothing there and when I click over to channel 3 it just screams feedback. Ive tried EVERYTHING, and I am left wondering if my input jacks in the FX loop are dirty or dead? I swapped out the pre amp that drives the loop and still no go. Changed cables, read the book hundreds of times and I just cant figure this one out boys. And this is key to know because running those pedals through my front arent doing their job, especially the supressor. Its just supressing the singal from my guitar.
Thats about it for now, I am sure I have more questions but they will come in due time. I appreciate anyones help who takes the time to help a fairly newbie Mesa user become an advanced Mesa user. Pardon my stupidity but you guys are my only hope!
Thanks again!
thinkdontpray
1. I love the extra bit of crunch I get from having the gain booster switch engaged all the time. I've adjusted by channel gain to bring the hot signal back a bit and it sounded great. I could squeal perfectly and it just kicked you in the nuts. But, is this switch killing my power tubes? Should I just use the switch for soloing (which I know its designated for) and adjust the Triple to find the sound I am looking for?
2. How can you tell by looking at a power tube if its failed? I know that if it was completely blown it would trip the fuse and your sound gets quite muddy and has no balls. But I am looking at my power tubes (while the amp is on, signal is hot) and a few of them have purple tinges to them. One of them is a matched pair while the other is just a single one and its match looks fine. Is this normal?
3. Something is wrong with my FX loop and I know it was working fine when I first bought the thing. I run a noise suppressor pedal as well as a reflecter reverb, which should be ran through the back but I just cant them to work. Heres what happens. With the noise supressor, the indicator light which shows that its reducing the signal, is not lit up. In fact when I click the pedal down, I hear more hum than when its off. With the reverb, theres nothing there and when I click over to channel 3 it just screams feedback. Ive tried EVERYTHING, and I am left wondering if my input jacks in the FX loop are dirty or dead? I swapped out the pre amp that drives the loop and still no go. Changed cables, read the book hundreds of times and I just cant figure this one out boys. And this is key to know because running those pedals through my front arent doing their job, especially the supressor. Its just supressing the singal from my guitar.
Thats about it for now, I am sure I have more questions but they will come in due time. I appreciate anyones help who takes the time to help a fairly newbie Mesa user become an advanced Mesa user. Pardon my stupidity but you guys are my only hope!
Thanks again!
thinkdontpray