Why are mesas mids vocied on the lower frequency range?

[Chris McKinley]

mikey383,

You went smartass first, kiddo. I just returned fire. As to 6L6's and EL34's, I'm glad you're happy with your sound, and having played through a large variety of both types of tubes and switched them here and there I will confirm that there is a large tonal difference between the two types of power tube, but merely running 6L6's does not automatically put the emphasis on the low mids the way a Recto does.

Again, the primary reason for this is not an arbitrary byproduct of a choice of which power amp tube to put in it, but a purposeful choice on Randall's part to tune the tone stack of the amp that way, specifically to sound a) different and b) heavier than the Marshall JCM-800 which was the industry standard for heavy metal at the time.

While it's true that you can mitigate some of that emphasis merely by swapping for some EL34's (which I've done before), you could provide a much more dramatic change by swapping the Recto's tone stack for that found in a Marshall and using the same 12AX7's that Marshall does, all while leaving the 6L6's in place.

The choice to go with a 6LC platform was part of the strategy in creating the Rectos, but it was because those tubes were capable of lower and more powerful lows than EL34's (and higher highs, for that matter), not because they automatically provided an unavoidable emphasis on the low mids.

 

[Charles Reeder]

quote from "JW123"

"Charles Im not as intellegent as Chris, but isnt there another pot that you can exchange for your mid to change the voicing. Im sure Chris can chime in. I think my Roadster has different mid pots on channel 1-2 than channel 3-4. They have a totally different flavor. Just call Mesa and tell them what you want, Im sure there is a cure, if you want to put all that effort in."


hey "JW123":

Am I the 'Charles' you were addressing? I'm going to answer as if I was...and you can disregard...if I wasn't.

I have been following this thread to see if someone would make a suggestion that would help 'countrybluesman'...other than one or both of my 'mods'.

"JW123" to answer your question directly...I don't personally know which pot to recommend to replace his midrange pot...although a different pot might help. But I do know that the 'midrange-pot-mod' which I recently posted helps tremendously.

Now regarding my 'mod'...'Flabby/Muddy' Bass on the Lonestar? Want to change it?

'Loudguitars' did the mod and suggests that it would be quite suitable for 'twangy' guitar players. The 'mod' uses the existing midrange pots on both channels of the Lonestar....and is so easy to do it's almost sinful!

I PM-d 'countrybluesman' to suggest that he read 'loudguitar's' 2 posts and possibly PM 'loudguitars', 'djw' and 'plan-x' (all who have done the mod) and see if the mod might perhaps be what he needs.

Also I might add: If anyone were to want to change the sound of the Lonestar dramatically to make it suitable for 'Country-Twangers' just get a few Eminence Legend speakers! I use my Lonestars for several different styles of music...so I use speakers that will do crossover-styles...but in my experimentations I tried a few of the Eminence-12s (such as come in Hot Rod Deluxes etc.)...and I was able to get a sound that was 'CAWNTRY' To The Max folks! There are several other Eminence Legends 12s (with greater wattage capacity) which would be quite suitable as well.

Either (or both) my midrange-mod and the Eminence Legend Speakers will enable someone to get some 'hardcore' country 'spank-&-twang'.

Regards: Charles

 

[Pageburst]

I wouldn't call the LSC dark by any stretch. It has an articulate and sparkly clean tone that is as good as any of of my BF Fenders. Also, with a bit of tweaking it has a very nice gain channel as well.

Throw in some el34s and you get more pronounced upper mid juice with touch sensisitivty that is equal to many of the higher priced boutique pieces I've had.

Chris with all do respect while your entitled to your opinion, dismissing an entire genre of music as toneless sloppy playing noise is quite antagonisitc and purely subjective.

Frankly I find the intro to smells like teen spirit more inspiring then anything Robben Ford's done with his Dumble amps Still I probably would not lead off a thread on the GP forum stating that I think RF's overought drively soft blues playing through an over compressed and too smooth sounding dumble amp is to blues what Kenny G is to Jazz.

But hell I'm old fashioned.

 

[JW123]

Hell I just play the **** things, currently my live rig is wireless into a POD PRO, I took the preset setting for a JCM 800 and tweaked it using our pa system, so our soundman has this signal that just kills in the mix, the POD PRO has a line thru that gives you an unaffected signal, I think this was intended for recording so you can reamp, but I take the uaffected signal and send it into my pedal board and then on to my Mesa(Triple, Roadster, or Subway Rocket depending on the venue) and mic this with a SM 57.

My soundman has the JCM 800 sound and my live Mesa, which I swicth from clean to dirty and solo depending on what I am playing. I dont have any soundclips, but all my guitarist friends just freak out at how big sounding it is.

Now on the Recto sound, when I use the POD and use the Recto setting it sounds horrible, I just cant get it to sound like the real thing, just all mud.

Anyway I dont know what this has to do with the thread, just thought I would share my tone secrets. Im liking preamps more and more these days. We have started turning our backline down so low that it doesnt hardle function, but I still love the look.

 

[JW123]

Heres the backline from a recent gig.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Heres the backline from a recent gig.

I'd definitely move one of those guitar cabs to other side of the stage :!:

 

[Chris McKinley]

Pageburst,

RE: "Chris with all do respect while your entitled to your opinion, dismissing an entire genre of music as toneless sloppy playing noise is quite antagonisitc and purely subjective.". Purely subjective? Yes. Antagonistic? Nah...music is art. Art is subjective. Therefore, there's gonna be some stuff that's great, some stuff that sucks, and a whole lot that's somewhere in the middle, just like with any art form. We're all gonna have our opinions. I'm not going to be pressured into claiming to like this or that subjective artistic output by anybody just to avoid hurting their feelings. Frankly, one person's opinion doesn't hold that kind of power.

If you want to pretend that art is yet another venue for the application of political correctness where there is no competition of ideas and all musical output by everone is exactly equal to all other musical output, where no one's feelings get hurt and no discerning judgment is tolerated, be my guest. I'm not going to play that intellectually dishonest game.

Frankly, I don't care if you don't like Robben Ford, nor should I. I'm not Robben, so why should I care? Even if I were, I would need to be prepared to face the reality that not everybody's gonna like what I'm doing artistically.

If you'll notice, I haven't singled out any member of this board for personal criticism....I have expressed a subjective preference opinion regarding a genre of music. Please tell me that we haven't become so fascist that doing so is no longer tolerated.

Maybe I, too, am old-fashioned because I remember a time when grown men and women could share their opinions about a purely subjective topic like adults and not have to worry that maybe someone else might not share that exact same opinion.

 

[JW123]

Dude, Did you not read the above post? The only speaker I have hooked up is the Mesa cab, and for this gig I am only using 2 speakers. I use the Weber you see on top of the amp to turn it down to a manageable level. Do you really think the big bands you see are using all those amps on stage turned up? Ive roadied for a couple of big name bands at one time or the other and most of the amps you see are for stage props. I listen to the monitors not the amp cabs, I can walk across our stage and hear everything as clear as a bell.

The way I run my rig it sounds like a million bucks. The Triple in the picture doesnt get muddy at all. Maybe all you guys on here complaining about your mids are just playing to loud.

I dont know but Ive been doing it a long time and Im finally happy with my live tone and it has nothing to do with volume.

Just my 2 cents.

Heres the backline from a recent gig.

I'd definitely move one of those guitar cabs to other side of the stage :!:

 

[Pageburst]

Pageburst,

RE: "Chris with all do respect while your entitled to your opinion, dismissing an entire genre of music as toneless sloppy playing noise is quite antagonisitc and purely subjective.". Purely subjective? Yes. Antagonistic? Nah...music is art. Art is subjective. Therefore, there's gonna be some stuff that's great, some stuff that sucks, and a whole lot that's somewhere in the middle, just like with any art form. We're all gonna have our opinions. I'm not going to be pressured into claiming to like this or that subjective artistic output by anybody just to avoid hurting their feelings. Frankly, one person's opinion doesn't hold that kind of power.

If you want to pretend that art is yet another venue for the application of political correctness where there is no competition of ideas and all musical output by everone is exactly equal to all other musical output, where no one's feelings get hurt and no discerning judgment is tolerated, be my guest. I'm not going to play that intellectually dishonest game.

Frankly, I don't care if you don't like Robben Ford, nor should I. I'm not Robben, so why should I care? Even if I were, I would need to be prepared to face the reality that not everybody's gonna like what I'm doing artistically.

If you'll notice, I haven't singled out any member of this board for personal criticism....I have expressed a subjective preference opinion regarding a genre of music. Please tell me that we haven't become so fascist that doing so is no longer tolerated.

Maybe I, too, am old-fashioned because I remember a time when grown men and women could share their opinions about a purely subjective topic like adults and not have to worry that maybe someone else might not share that exact same opinion.

Chris I agree with you completely that the free exchange of ideas is great -that's what these boards are all about but extreme hyperbole ie: "this genere of music sucks or is without musical merit " isn't the foundation of a credible argument or opinion. Rather it comes of as a rant.

Rant all you like. You're completely entitled but rants are a bit like empty calories they don't do much to add to the body of knowledge that is the forum. Rather, they tend to make some folks upset, so don't feel bad when some folks feathers get ruffled.

 

[Chris McKinley]

Pageburst,

I appreciate your seeing it for what it is. It is ranting. In fact, I'd go so far as to call it useless blather, since it's not intended to convince anyone to join me in my opinion, and it's completely subjective anyway, so it's not really debatable on concrete, objective terms.

People rant on this forum constantly; mine is no more or less worth paying attention to than any of the other 'sux/rulz' comments that happen regularly. The thing is, we all like something within music that somebody else will find worthy of ridicule. It's unavoidable, and ultimately, they're probably right. After all, it is only rock n' roll, but I like it, as the man said. We shouldn't take ourselves too seriously or we risk losing some of the spirit of the musical form.

In any event, a history of my posts will show that I have been both quite generous and quite specific with objective, immediately useable information. So, if I let rip with some personal opinions now and again (as everyone else on this board seems to do), I generally do penance for it by providing as much useful information in precise terms as I can.

 

[abe]

I don't know why I keep going back and reading this post because it is getting to be really annoying. I was not going to contribute to what is going back and forth, but how does any of this arguing that you guys are doing answer the question "Why are Mesas Voiced in the Low Mid Frequency Range?"

I see a lot of well written arguments going back and forth, but after the 1st page or so, they have gotten completely off topic......

 

[Chris McKinley]

abe,

Mea culpa. But understand, we already answered that question in full on page one. We've also offered up solutions to the problem as well. IOW, it wasn't an open-ended question and the question has been answered.

 

[TremoJem]

How long is your total cable length? This is a common issue with a totally true-bypass signal chain -- once your total cable length, counting your guitar cables, patch cables between your pedals, and the internal wiring in your pedals, gets to more than 25 feet or so, the capacitance of the cable starts to get into the audio range, and your highs start to roll off noticeably.

Personally, I like having a buffered pedal or two in the chain somewhere so I don't have to worry about cable length if I'm running a lot of pedals. You seem to want to keep things simple -- you might get good results using a couple of good-quality ten-foot cables (you don't have to go overboard, just avoid the really cheap ones). This is a little unorthodox, and it may not work well (it won't hurt anything, it just might be noisy), but you might try using a speaker cable between your pedal and your amp. Speaker cables have very little capacitance. Lacking shielding, it will certainly be too noisy using it between your guitar and your pedals, but it may be okay further along the chain.

I get the 25' limit, but am confused with buffered or true bypass.

I thought true bypass was supposed to be good and I thought buffered meant limited or toned down.

Can you please educate me on this, thanks.

 

[MrMarkIII]

Holy crap! *NEVER* use speaker cable for anything other than it's specific purpose: to hook up an amp to a speaker. (Or some Mesa foot switches,)
Any other use is bone-head wrong.
Speaker cables are NOT shielded. This means tons of buzz and noise.

True bypass means that when the pedal is "off", the input is connected directly to the output. Buffered means that even with the pedal "off", the guitar signal still passes through some, if not all, of the circuitry. The circuit "buffers" the signal by making it low impedance at the output, which makes the mostly high impedance inputs of pedals and amps accept the signal better.

Having all true bypass pedals may be fine if you only have two or three pedals.
But using a 20' cable from guitar to first pedal, two one-foot cables between three pedals, and another 20' cable to the amp equals 42 feet of cable.
You may perceive a loss of high end with this hook-up.

(OTOH, you may not, which is why you need to perform these tests yourself, and not rely totally on interweb experts. Everybody's set-up is different.)

Some actually like the high-end roll-off of long cables, because it "rounds off" the tone, especially on bright guitars like Telecasters.

Generally speaking, having a buffered pedal at the beginning and end of a long chain of pedals helps to sort of "push" the guitar signal through to the amp, and helps to preserve the treble frequencies.
Again, generally speaking. A whole lot depends on which guitar, strings, pickups, cables, effects, and amp you're using. In short, everything.

 

[TremoJem]

Very cool and informative answer.

I have the following setup.

Guitar > 10' Mogami/Neutrick cable > Morley Wah pedal > 12" Mogami/Neutrick cable > BBP-AT pedal > 12" Mogami/Neutrick cable > Radial ToneBone JX-2 A/B/Y Switch > 15' or 20' Mogami/Neutrick cables, one going to the front of each Tremoverb.

I am laying out a new pedal board and will be checking on cable lengths to confirm length of cable from JX-2 Switch to Tremoverbs, but, and I may be wrong, but I think that from the JX-2 switch my signal strength is as if it was directly from my guitar. In other words, the circuitry in the JX-2 is splitting and then bumping my signal when it sends it to the amps so that it was as if I was plugged directly into the amps with nothing else in the chain. I may be wrong.

Thanks again and let me know what you think.

 

[YellowJacket]

Best thing you can do with a Mesa is to get a guitar / pickup combination that compliments the natural voicing of the amp. i.e. use a pickup that has a tighter bass response with an upper mid spike. (Bare Knuckle Rebel Yells, Seymour Duncan JB, etc)

 

[TremoJem]

Very cool...makes sense, thanks.

 

[screamingdaisy]

Very cool and informative answer.

I have the following setup.

Guitar > 10' Mogami/Neutrick cable > Morley Wah pedal > 12" Mogami/Neutrick cable > BBP-AT pedal > 12" Mogami/Neutrick cable > Radial ToneBone JX-2 A/B/Y Switch > 15' or 20' Mogami/Neutrick cables, one going to the front of each Tremoverb.

I am laying out a new pedal board and will be checking on cable lengths to confirm length of cable from JX-2 Switch to Tremoverbs, but, and I may be wrong, but I think that from the JX-2 switch my signal strength is as if it was directly from my guitar. In other words, the circuitry in the JX-2 is splitting and then bumping my signal when it sends it to the amps so that it was as if I was plugged directly into the amps with nothing else in the chain. I may be wrong.

Thanks again and let me know what you think.

The JX-2 is buffered, so for all intents and purposes the length of cable between the JX-2 and the amp(s) is inconsequential. I'll explain why...

To nerd it up a bit, the signal output from your pickups is high impedance. High impedances signals are extremely sensitive to cable capacitance. As cable length increases the effect of the capacitance increases.

Conversely, low impedance signals aren't as sensitive to capacitance and can be transmitted through long lengths of cable with little effect on the sound.

In the guitar world a buffer typically converts high impedance to low impedance. The idea is to preserve your high end, and in a perfect world plugging a 20 foot cable into a buffered pedal would sound exactly the same as if you plugged your 20 foot cable straight into the front of your amp. However, the world isn't perfect and nothing in audio is transparent. What you do gain is the freedom to have a pedalboard at the front of the stage without having 40 feet (2x20 foot cables) of unbuffered cable hanging off the end of your pickup, loading the signal down and bleeding off a lot of top end.

This is the issue with true bypass. If you have a single true bypass pedal and a couple of 20 foot guitar leads you effectively have just a little over 40 feet of cable loading down your pickups and bleeding off high end when that pedal is bypassed. Worse is that when you turn the pedal on you now only have 20 feet of unbuffered cable bleeding off top end. This is really noticeable with true bypass delays as the dry signal will significantly brighten when you engage the effect.

The solution in this case is to add a basic buffer somewhere in the signal path. It'll make it so you can run a long cable back to your amp without worry about capacitance, and it'll help keep your sound more consistent as you turn effects on and off.

That said, I actually prefer the way my guitar sounds with the pickups loaded down by about 30 feet of cable. I only use a couple of pedals, and in my gig bag I carry a couple of 15 foot cables. The extra brightness added when a wah or OD pedal is kicked on isn't a big deal.

 

[TremoJem]

Write a book.

Really.

I can't thank you enough for that explanation.

I lot of you "talented", "educated", "experienced" contributors/members on this forum are simply irreplaceable.

I know...I know I sound like I am kissing ***.

But, I am not.

The information available on this forum and the several individuals (you know who you are) that are willing to provide this information (over and over & again and again) are incredible and irreplaceable.

Seriously...I have printed many pages of great information and placed them into a binder for quick reference.

I can't thank you enough screamingdaisy for that very easy "read" that completely answered all my questions, in fact as I was reading more questions came to mind and you efficiently answered those questions as well.

Great response to a very important issue, thanks Brother.

 

[YellowJacket]

Very cool...makes sense, thanks.

You are playing Tremoverb combos?

I have some other ideas: If you are playing heads through cabs, you can look into some other cabinet options. I have a Mills Mach212B copy and I find the tone is very clear, far less muddy than most cabs. You could also look into other guitar speaker options, especially if you are running combos. Mesa spec V30s put out more low mids than your standard Garden variety v30. Something to consider...