I've heard much about how the Mesa Mark III has massive amounts of gain, much more than most people would use. Well I finally got one a few months ago curing 6 years of GAS. While I absolutely love the amp it's got me wondering. There's not near the gain I expected, I can definitely live with what it has but it's nice to always have more than needed just in case there's the desire for more. Compared to say MOP or AJFA it's much lower. I know both those albums are double tracked with 6 mics each and some post EQing so I know there's more to it than just a single amp live. I'm comparing more to other clips and youtube videos.
Here's a small clip I just did to try and show what I mean. My setup is a guitar- mark III- rivera rockcrusher- egnater tourmaster 2x12- sm57- maudio mobile pre. My settings are prevolume 9, treble 7 (pulled), bass 1.75, mid 3.75, master 2 (pulled), lead drive 6 (pulled), lead master 5, presence 2, full power. Graphic EQ is in the normal V shape, 80hz just above middle line, 240hz just below middle, 750 halfway between middle and lower, 2200 just below middle, 6600 just above middle. I have the rockcrusher set to max with the output pretty low. So I know there's no speaker distortion and without really cranking the amp it's hard to get a good idea but I'm still curious. I've played with the amp at 2 (without attenuator) and it's pretty much the same gain wise. Also I recorded with the master at 4 (with the attenuator) and it was slightly mushy with same amount of gain, so I reduced it to 2 which was a bit clearer. With the gain much higher it starts to squeal so this is about the highest it'll go.
So here's the clip. Is this about how much gain a Mark III has or does it sound low? All tubes are Winged C's.
https://soundcloud.com/jkkkjkhk/mark-iii-gain-test
Thanks
Here's a small clip I just did to try and show what I mean. My setup is a guitar- mark III- rivera rockcrusher- egnater tourmaster 2x12- sm57- maudio mobile pre. My settings are prevolume 9, treble 7 (pulled), bass 1.75, mid 3.75, master 2 (pulled), lead drive 6 (pulled), lead master 5, presence 2, full power. Graphic EQ is in the normal V shape, 80hz just above middle line, 240hz just below middle, 750 halfway between middle and lower, 2200 just below middle, 6600 just above middle. I have the rockcrusher set to max with the output pretty low. So I know there's no speaker distortion and without really cranking the amp it's hard to get a good idea but I'm still curious. I've played with the amp at 2 (without attenuator) and it's pretty much the same gain wise. Also I recorded with the master at 4 (with the attenuator) and it was slightly mushy with same amount of gain, so I reduced it to 2 which was a bit clearer. With the gain much higher it starts to squeal so this is about the highest it'll go.
So here's the clip. Is this about how much gain a Mark III has or does it sound low? All tubes are Winged C's.
https://soundcloud.com/jkkkjkhk/mark-iii-gain-test
Thanks