Post by The Lord of the StringsI've been doing a lot of tweaking with this amp and wanted to share my
settings and my impression of how the controls work.
http://youtu.be/HpCc7_0Cmuc
http://youtu.be/IiYIkO7kCxs
(Feel free to rate and/or comment on YouTube.)
First of all, some technical comments. Better lighting would help on the
videos. It also looks out of focus to me, but I'm running it full screen. I
don't know if focus is bad at your end, or through You Tube's compression. If
your camera has a macro mode, try using it for the close shots. Manual focus
using a TV or monitor for fine focus, if available.
Comments on your experience vs. mine (an owner of a Mark III).
On your explanation of the preamp, some of it makes sense to me as an owner of a
Mark III blue stripe (the blue stripe means some mods back to Mark IIc specs).
Some of it doesn't match my experience. Or course, I get three "channels" out
of my preamp. Your preamp has two main tones, clean and lead. You can switch
between them, right? So, your explanation of the volume control seems to be a
bit simplistic.
If it's like my Mark III, and you hope to use both tones simultaneously, you'll
need to set the volume for the best sounding gain level when clean, THEN adjust
the lead gain. If you go back and play with the volume, you'll change your
clean tone (maybe just slightly, maybe much more noticeable if you're away from
the center of the pot).
On the Mark III, it's even tougher to dial in if you want three SIMULTANEOUS
gain levels (clean, rhythm and lead). If I want three simultaneous good tones,
it takes a bit of tweaking! I posted a LONG dissertation on this at some point
in the past, but... Basically you need to balance the volume between the clean
and rhythm, using just enough "volume" to get the rhythm crunch you're looking
for. And don't forget that this is also controlled by pickup output and guitar
volume. After getting the clean/rhythm tones where you're happy, then you can
move to dialing in the lead gain and lead master. It's much easier to dial in
if you're just looking for two basic tones (clean/lead or rhythm/lead).
The Mark III also has a MESS of push/pulls, in addition to the graphic EQ and
reverb (offered as "options," but most have both). Some of them obviously
translate to some of your switches, but the Mark III is even more "tweakable."
If you are interested, you can check out the differences here:
http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/Mark%20III.pdf
I like lots of control, so I love my Mark III. Guitarist that get frustrated
easily might not like it. They tend to be easy to get a BAD tone out of, and
need tweaking for the best tones.