Mesa Boogie - Current Market Buzz?

[JimAnsell]

i know its too late, but I want to see a 7 band EQ moving forward. with sliders for 400hz and maybe 1.2 or 1.6khz. I mean my ge-7 works for that just fine, but it would be cool to have it where the current GEQ is in the amps circuit. ya know...mark 7, 7 bands of eq. marketing!

 

[Code001]

It's on Reverb now: https://reverb.com/item/66606466-mesa-boogie-mark-vii-all-tube-amplifier-head

 

[braintheory]

All Marks are pretty complex amps, and if you look at the features of a Mark III for example, those pull pots, the tone gets better with pretty much all of them pulled (except the bass control). All of that extra circuitry adds to the tone in this case. So it's just not ALWAYS true. Older, simpler amps are not ALWAYS going to be better. Maybe in a lot of cases it's true, but not ALWAYS, lol.

Think about when you add a pedal in front of your amp, you're adding circuitry and it's enhancing your tone... making it tighter, more saturated, whatever. Simpler does not ALWAYS mean better.

I never said “Always” for a reason (the previous poster said always). Disagree also on the pedal part. With the pedal you’re rarely enhancing the core quality of the tone (unless it’s a Klon or rangemaster lol), but more so shaping it to work better functionally by tightening it up & adding saturation. If anything 99%+ of pedals out there made these days have a plastic-y, sterile sound that I’d argue makes the core tone worse (aka tone suck), but I think most metal guys overlook this for the desired tightness & feel they want. I think many don’t listen enough to the quality of tone itself. Those details/complexities in tone are to me what separates “nice” from something actually special

With those mark amps also, I agree about liking those same knobs pulled (besides the bass too), but again they’re not making the quality of tone better or more 3D/complex, they’re just shaping the voicing to be functionally better. I’d argue the amp could maybe even hypothetically sound slightly better if those knobs were just like that by default without any push-pulls. We can all agree that having the options to shape the sound to work for all types of scenarios is fantastic functionally speaking, but if it’s at the expense of quality of tone it’s a lousy trade imo. I’m in the camp of tone vs practicality. Others feel differently

 

[MetalThrasher]

All I have to say is... out of all the amps in my stable, a Mark series amp sounds best just plugged in without any pedals.

 

[anomaly]

I never said “Always” for a reason (the previous poster said always). Disagree also on the pedal part. With the pedal you’re rarely enhancing the core quality of the tone (unless it’s a Klon or rangemaster lol), but more so shaping it to work better functionally by tightening it up & adding saturation. If anything 99%+ of pedals out there made these days have a plastic-y, sterile sound that I’d argue makes the core tone worse (aka tone suck), but I think most metal guys overlook this for the desired tightness & feel they want. I think many don’t listen enough to the quality of tone itself. Those details/complexities in tone are to me what separates “nice” from something actually special

With those mark amps also, I agree about liking those same knobs pulled (besides the bass too), but again they’re not making the quality of tone better or more 3D/complex, they’re just shaping the voicing to be functionally better. I’d argue the amp could maybe even hypothetically sound slightly better if those knobs were just like that by default without any push-pulls. We can all agree that having the options to shape the sound to work for all types of scenarios is fantastic functionally speaking, but if it’s at the expense of quality of tone it’s a lousy trade imo. I’m in the camp of tone vs practicality. Others feel differently

Dude, I'm all about tone. I just need a lot of control to get what I hear in my head most of the time. Well, at least in the case of the Mark series... like the Mark IV for example, it's basically my favorite amp ever. That lead channel, I can fine tune it to get exactly what i want out of it. I can't do that with a lot of the more simple amps. There's always something that bothers me that I can't dial out because of a lack of control over the tone.

 

[anomaly]

All I have to say is... out of all the amps in my stable, a Mark series amp sounds best just plugged in without any pedals.

I tend to agree with you. It's one of the few amplifiers that doesn't need a boost or some tightening up front.

You can dial in a Mark series to be more recto like though, and then throw a OD in front to tighten it (well you can with the IV) back up. That's something that very few players do, but it's a tone I go for sometimes. Like... have your pre-gain tone stack at treble 5, Bass - 3 mids - 4 and then throw a tubesceamer in front to get the saturation and tightness you want. Those are some settings that not a lot of players would even think of using. You get a different gain structure that way.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

I tend to agree with you. It's one of the few amplifiers that doesn't need a boost or some tightening up front.

You can dial in a Mark series to be more recto like though, and then throw a OD in front to tighten it (well you can with the IV) back up. That's something that very few players do, but it's a tone I go for sometimes. Like... have your pre-gain tone stack at treble 5, Bass - 3 mids - 4 and then throw a tubesceamer in front to get the saturation and tightness you want. Those are some settings that not a lot of players would even think of using. You get a different gain structure that way.

Yeah, the Mark series really does have probably the most widely tweakable sounds of pretty much any amp.

I've always wondered why other amps don't build multi-band pre-distortion EQ controls into their amps, or 5 / 7 band post EQs as opposed to the standard 3 band post EQ and that's it.

I think it really says something about how knuckle dragging, mouth breathing stupid most amp makers must think the average guitar player is.

 

[braintheory]

Dude, I'm all about tone. I just need a lot of control to get what I hear in my head most of the time. Well, at least in the case of the Mark series... like the Mark IV for example, it's basically my favorite amp ever. That lead channel, I can fine tune it to get exactly what i want out of it. I can't do that with a lot of the more simple amps. There's always something that bothers me that I can't dial out because of a lack of control over the tone.

Yeah the marks are one of the few not simple amps that still imo maintain great tones, which is partly why I didn’t say always. It’s definitely great to have so much control to shape the amp, no argument there. I basically have my amps dialed in how I like and then nailing the sound in my head for me really comes down more to things like the right speakers, cab, guitar, pickups, etc and for very fine tuning the tubes