Tweaked, Read and Tweaked Again... Please help...

[gtrplayer]

Ok everyone... I've had her since November and have gigged & tweaked & gigged & tweaked and I have read extensively through this wonderful forum trying many different settings and recommendations from folks.

I also had the opportunity to spend about 2hrs with a nice Mesa engineer guy at a show who put a hot guitar in my hands, sat me in front of the amp and ran me through all the settings and "taught" me the amp etc... This was VERY beneficial and I learned quite a lot regarding what some things were and were not etc... He also dialed in some rockin sounds (AS WE SAT THERE) however, when I took those sounds live with he mix of the band....they didn't appeal to "my" ear at all.

So what am I looking for?? Hmmmm....

I want three solid sounds of which should be easy to get with this awesome amp... just a matter of MORE tweaking.

Clean - The cleanest and prettiest ringing clean I can get that won't wimp out when live. I use a chorus and a delay through the loop.

Dirty - A good, solid bluesy dirty sound that will do three things.
1. When the guitar vol is full on, I get a good solid ROCK / Blues tone nicely saturated, but not TOO much... yet, more rocky/saturated than most would consider "blues" tone... I guess I want to be more "rock" than blues...But when I ease back on the guitar volume taking the edge off I do, in fact, get that bluesy tone etc...

2. When guitar is full on and I hit the solo it really ROCKS... Although I DO understand that "solo" is simply just a volume boost.

3. When I roll the guitar way down, it cleans up nice...

Metal/Rock
Solid, nicely saturated and not edgy,... smooth yet powerful and will NOT get lost in the mix... sort of rip your face off. NOT thin sounding. Full and rockin yet not flabby and over-toned with bottom end.

I have gotten close to these sounds, but what seems to always be the underlying issue is, things sound too "middy" and also "thin"... not THICK and FULL and WHAM like I would like.

I LOVE the Orange distortion/saturation and how it still maintains smoothness yet will rip your face off... same with HiWatt or others....

But I need the versatility of the Mark V and I'm confident that it can and WILL work for me like I have described. I just need some more input/guidance on how to get it there....

I also know that pups and cabinet can and will make a huge difference, but I still want what I've described above to be the "core" sound of "my" sound....

OR.... OR??? Go with an Electro Dyne and a TC Electronics G-System and be ALL done with it?? Or not?

Thank you all in advance for your input!!!

Rock on!

 

[gtrplayer]

So 43 views and no ideas??? Maybe I'm a but too eager!!!

 

[Heritage Softail]

Usually more mids and less bass. Scooped too much can blend in with the bass and get lost. I take it you have recorded this and listened to it and have found it to be lacking? I practice with too much bass and not enough mids when I play at home. At practice it has to get adjusted down on bass and up on mids in order to put frequency space between guitar and bass.

People make lots of things work though.

 

[SteveO]

In my experience, what sounds good at home sounds terrible on stage with a band, and vice-versa. For a band situation, more mids and less gain always works for me. At home, crank the gain and scoop it a touch for a fuller sound by itself at lower volumes.

 

[sted]

Well my thoughts wuld be as follows:

Clean: I like the fat clean for Live use, the "Clean" clean is very good too but I find it gets picked on a lot in the mix by the other guitar and the bass, the fat clean with a healthy dose of mids in the EQ (Not the pot, thats useless!) is good enough to hold its own.

Rock/Blues: kind of stuck between Crunch and tweed mode for this, I think the Tweed mode could be the sleeper killer tone in this amp that everyone overlooks, especially for blues. Try the gain fairly high and the master down for a bit of compression through a strat, really nice. The Crunch mode is superb too, my mate has got single channel marshall plexi style amp and we were able to replicate the sound really well through this mode, responds nicley on the volume knob too, though it depends on your taper.

Full on rock: Easy, Crucnch mode, Gain about 3.30, decent mids on the EQ, Les Paul! Sorted!

Lead: I dont play metal :shock: But for nice saturated leads the MIV mode is good to go, I like the triode setting with this, makes it a bit more silky feeling, rarey have the gain above 2 o'clock for this, no point really! The IIC+ mode is another fave of mine, again, I never dime the gain but I do tend to favour Pentode for this (The purists will shriek at me for this!) although it can sound very agressive, I always recommend a little delay for lead tone, it just opens it up immeasurably!

I also use EL34's and tend to favour an EQ setting that accentuates the mids rather than scooping them. Im a new Mesa owner, im not a fanatic but this is one of the most powerful amps ive ever used in terms of tone shaping, as such it is also incredibly frustrating at times, but the rewards are there!

 

[Mr. Kite]

What changed from when the Mesa guy and you were getting great tone to when you got home and playing out? Are you using the same guitar?

 

[Hendog]

I dont know how or why you would be having trouble getting what you described.

CH1: Hell, FAT mode, 90 watts with all the knobs at noon... start there

CH2: Any mode, but EDGE is a good place to start with what you are looking for. Turn up the gain till you find what you want and as the gain goes up, the bass must come down.

CH3: Are you kidding me?!? Mark IV, gain at 2, bass at 10, treble and presence close to noon or just over. Bright off, 90 watts EQ on in a slight V... **** man, you cant go wrong.

 

[mejoshee]

I dont know how or why you would be having trouble getting what you described.

CH1: Hell, FAT mode, 90 watts with all the knobs at noon... start there

CH2: Any mode, but EDGE is a good place to start with what you are looking for. Turn up the gain till you find what you want and as the gain goes up, the bass must come down.

CH3: Are you kidding me?!? Mark IV, gain at 2, bass at 10, treble and presence close to noon or just over. Bright off, 90 watts EQ on in a slight V... sh!t man, you cant go wrong.

you forgot "tweak mids till eargasm"

 

[BrownieD2W]

I am still tweaking left and right my self with the Mark V, but I have been able to get a lot of good tones that kind of let me play a variety of things, more with Channel 2 as far as versatility, Channel 3 I have set up mainly for Metallica stuff, I don't do a whole lot with Channel 1 other than cleans and bluesy tones.

Channel 2: I really love Channel 2, just switching through the modes enables me to go through a variety of 70's Hard Rock and Early Metal. Edge gets me in the range of early Led Zeppelin and even Ted Nugent and stuff like that, granted I keep the gain around 12-1:30 o'clock, some times even lower if I want a drier sound, kind of, well I can only describe it as "whiskey" not like the alcohol but like the sound a metal whisk makes, kind of dry and scratchy. Then a simple switch to the Mark I mode and you are in the range for Master of Reality era Black Sabbath, kind of fuzzy and bassy. Settings for Channel 2: Gain, Master and Presence all around noon, maybe in the 11-2 range depending on what you need, Treble 2:30-3, Mid 12:30-1:30, Bass 9:30-11, EQ to preference, I usually scoop the mids a bit even though that contradicts the dialed in mids with the knob but whatever, I like my tones so far.

Channel 3: All I can say about this Channel is I love it, especially when I get to play it really loud. I usually dial this channel in for Metallica type stuff and really the only knob I mess with is usually the presence to kind of maneuver through Metallica's various sounds, Less Presence for the Justice and Black Album tones, More for Master of Puppets and Ride The Lightning even Death Magnetic stuff as well. To get the balls to the wall punch you sound like you want from this channel, I would recommend an additional EQ like a 10 band or something, this made a world of difference for me personally. I dial in the added Bass and Treble with the EQ and further scoop the mids with it and I get really really close to the Justice and MoP album tones. I won't bother listing all my settings for that, I just approximated the Mark III Metallica settings over to the Mark V the best I could and dialed in the other EQ frequencies to taste with the additional EQ. But that's really all I can say about Channel 3, the additional EQ for this channel made a HUGE difference and really took that channel over the top with Thundering tones, the kind of tones that knock paintings off the walls while still cutting through well. Switching through the modes helps as well, for pre-Black Album stuff I use the Mark IIC+ setting, and then Black Album and after I use the Mark IV usually, depends on the song.

 

[gtrplayer]

I just spent an hour posting my thoughts on my new awesome settings and was logged OUT for some reason! LOST all that I posted! WTF!

 

[Heritage Softail]

What changed from when the Mesa guy and you were getting great tone to when you got home and playing out? Are you using the same guitar?

Same gear.

Just saying that when you play at home, you own the entire frequency spectrum. In a band context, there are other people competing for the same frequency turf. You have to 'dominate' or own an area that will make the song sound good. You eventually need to EQ to the song, not to your guitar ear only. The best song mix may not be your personal fav guitar tone. Give and take, so unlike the rest of life :lol:

 

[Hendog]

What changed from when the Mesa guy and you were getting great tone to when you got home and playing out? Are you using the same guitar?

Same gear.

Just saying that when you play at home, you own the entire frequency spectrum. In a band context, there are other people competing for the same frequency turf. You have to 'dominate' or own an area that will make the song sound good. You eventually need to EQ to the song, not to your guitar ear only. The best song mix may not be your personal fav guitar tone. Give and take, so unlike the rest of life :lol:

Very good point.

When I do a sound check before the band starts playing it sounds questionable but then... yes! That's it!

It's like Vintage 30's... they sound terrible when you play alone. Then, in a band setting they seem to be the best speaker you can buy.

 

[gtrplayer]

Ok, so I dragged my whole rig into the house, set it up and sat with it for three hours at show volume! Amazing what I leaned!

I feel MUCH more comfortable with this a$$ kickin amp & what it can & will do. I'm confident now that I have some KILLER sounds!

There are a few things that I learned that I believe are important when tweaking this awesome monster...

The mid and presence knobs are EXTREMELY dynamic!! They work both together AND against each other in an interesting way. AND they aren't "necessarily" what they are labeled in my opinion (mid/presence). What I found important is what they do & how they shape the sound. A LOT of mids will add that awesome saturation I was looking for... the presence seems to "define" or sharpen the attack on the stings and this, in turn will allow that saturated sound to still have the ability to "cut through" the mix!

You can reverse this as well and get more of a bluesy sound that is less saturated and well defined... Although as described above, I want the saturation and believe me I found it!

The bass knob is as most all say... just leave below 10am and you're fine. Treble can really fire things up so be careful here... too much will give that "toyish" thin sound... you see where I have it in the pics.

Below is a run through of all three channels and my EQ settings and my short commentary on what it gives.

Ch1 - Clean - I use "Fat" as "Clean" sounds a lot more "open" to me and the Fat setting keeps things a bit more tighter. "Tweed" give too much for me and is not quite as clear/clean. More break up/blues and it's also WIDE open to me.

I have the mids dimed here because I really want that full ballsy clean that doesn't break up... So when I'm playing soft pretty intros etc... the balls are there and its not whimpy, yet it remain pretty and ringy clean for me. If I could I would take more gain out of it still... but I lose balls doing that. This though can be remedied with the Master vol... just kick it up and tweak the other ch volumes down.

The EQ is preset at 2pm and works very well like that for me... the normal/bold switch gives a "little" difference. I use normal to keep it more tight. Not that much difference though.

Ch 2 - Ch2 ROCKIN - Cleans up Nice w/Vol - Rises up and Rips ur Head off!
Again, notice the mid/presence config.

This REALLY ROCKS! And it cleans up super nice with guitar volume... a lot of versitility here. "Crunch" and "Edge" are pretty close, but give different sounds... Edge is more open to me... kinda a little bit flabby... open airy and rocky... Crunch is more tight and solid and saturates better to my ears with how I have the settings. This gives "me" that Texas Rock/Blues sound, but when guitar vol rises up, it turns into a rip your head off powerful rock tone that can still be used with blues to rock it... Carries itself VERY well with many other rock songs. EQ is preset at 2pm. Normal/Thick switch really makes no difference.

The MarkI setting is WAYYYY different! A Totally different amp in this setting...and requires all the knobs to be different to include the EQ... MarkI WILL give you that super saturated Santana sound... that's sweet and awesome... not so much a "bluesy" sound though... hence I have it where I have it.

Ch 3 - Super SATURATE Rock - Face Ripper - Metal

I wanted saturation with solid face ripping metal tone... well here it is!
Again, with the presence and mids as described... I use Extreme as it has the most balls to me... The mode IS as described "Extreme" and it works VERY well! The mids dimed really saturate things out... presence defines it well... EQ is sliders in a "V"... normal/bright switch really doesn't change anything here to my ears. Again, GREAT chunk, well defined and awesome sound here.

I can also flip the EQ switch to preset here and change things up a bit... still with the solid metal rock sound, just takes some of the scoop out of it if ya want...
My EQ settings:

Again, all of what I heard and tweaked was done at volume with just me in the room. Tonight is the real test... once we play tonight I will come back with any changes that I made and how I felt about what I heard!

I know this is long, but I wanted to get it ALL out there for everyone. Maybe this will also help others.
Thanks again!!

 

[gtrplayer]

Ok... So here it is... the review of the above settings as they held up live last night in the mix.

O M G! THE absolute BEST sound I think I have EVER had as a guitar player. My ears were in heaven all night! Wow! AMAZING! Absolutely amazing! My sound ROCKED! I even had compliments from the crowd... "Man, your guitar sounds awesome...what all are you using?"

As we all know, when we have confidence in our sound and it pleases our own ears to eargasms... we play SO much better! Wow! I just really can't get over how good it truly sounded!

Solid, Tight... Rockin, Ripping... hit the Solo and WHAM! I play a solo that ALWAYS gets lost in the mix due to a bunch of cymbals crashing through... I also use the wah during the solo and because of that I typically lose "punch" and "cut through during the solo" and I always get burried/muffeld into the mix. Last night there was a new sheriff in town! Wow.... That solo came up... I hit the Solo button kicked to the way and I was BAM! Right out front where it needed to be! Kicked off the solo button and right back into it perfectly!

I was worried about the clean channel, but those worries were crushed easily! I'm serious... just everything worked VERY well.

I feel like I truly used the amp for what it was made for last night. So Kudos to the makers and lovers of the Mark V!

On another note.... and I plan on posting this in a new/separate thread.
I got there early to ensure a good solid set up and guitar sound check etc... And I learned yet ANOTHER valuable lesson. This will be very fundamental to most out there, but... USE A CORD!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the longest time I've always been wireless. My most recent of about 6 months is the an fairly decent Seinhauser system... around $600 or so. Well, last night I kept getting a buzzing. I've had this before and can cure it by adjusting the sensitivity. After tooling around with it for awhile I thought... let me try something here. So I pulled out the old Monster Cable and just went with a cable instead of wireless. HOLY CRAPOLA!!!! I never thought it made THAT much difference. THIS is the culprit of my clean channel sounding "weak" or "whimpy" as I described in the initial post here!! It just REALLY takes away from the "umph" and power of it all... DUH!

We don't play big stadiums or large stages for that matter... just local bars/clubs. There is no real "need" for wireless... AND I'm excited cause it's one less thing to set up, run wires, plug in, change batteries, control the settings etc...

Just thought I'd share...
Thanks again!

 

[ixoye777]

Right on! Great to see you found the tones you have been looking for - feels good

 

[Barry]

Were you tweaking at home ? When you surround your amp with a band that changes everything . Glad you are dialed in now !

 

[eudaimonia02912]

Cranking the mids sure does sound good. It seems to change the feel somewhat, too, making it a bit stiffer. Overall, I like it.

 

[boogieman60]

When I got my V in November, The first thing I did was set the knobs at noon (except the master output ) and see what I had. You will Quickly see the diff. in the 3 voicings of each channel and where they sit in the gain structure of the amp. THEN you can tweak..This amp has soooooo many variations it warms the heart... giging I use the center voice of each channel Fat, Edge and MKIV all on 90 watts , eq at preset,
Chan1 G 12 Mas 12 P 12 T1 Mid 11 B10 preset 10
Chan2 10 10 2 2 10 10 preset 10
Chan3 12 10 11 12 10 10 preset 12 pentode output 10 to 11 or so
I run a diditech rp 155 though the loop volume at 1:00
ibenez tube screamer, crybaby, tremolo,comp,chorus, octivider all through the front end. Thats where I am at the moment....VERY happy with the sound. This amp sounds better with the band because the sound is so focused. I was using a Fender deville and there is no comparison.

 

[MBJunkie]

gtrplayer,

I am glad that you have been able to hone in some fantastic sounds with your V! I do have a couple of additional suggestions if you choose to partake.

The fat mode of the channel 1 is fantastic, but so is the clean and tweed mode. Do not overlook the fantastic sounds available in the tweed mode....especially set to 10W or 45W. I like it as much if not more than the fat and clean modes of channel 1. You just have to experiment with your guitar and ears when dialing in the amount of gain, treble, mid, bass, presence.

You have the gain cranked in channel 2 crunch (which adds nice grind), but there are very good sounds in crunch with the gain dialed back. IMO everywhere from 10 - 4 o'clock. The crunch mode of channel 2 can cover the widest range of excellent tones in the entire amplifier as far as I am concerned. Folks, I am not saying that it is my preferred mode overall, but very versatile indeed. Set the gain lower 12 - 1, lower the volume knob on your guitar and you are immediately in great classic blues land. The higher the gain in the crunch mode, the more grind you get, but still have nice focus. Couple this with the GEQ and wow!

You also have selected a very high gain position for channel 3. Personally, I prefer lower gain settings in channel 3 for the best lead sounds without overly saturating the sound. Once again, I like to add the GEQ to really provide a focused sound and I'll hit the solo boost when I want to really cut through for solos!

My overall suggestion is for you to experiment with all the modes/features of this amp, and you will likely see the true awesomeness of this fine amp.

Best of luck!