Mesa Triaxis Fat Mod Truth: 2 Decades Later

  • Thread starter Thread starter japetus
  • Start date Start date

Was the Fat Mod worth it?

  • Yes, I liked it modded

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No, I liked it without it.

    Votes: 7 100.0%
  • Total voters
    7
With the phat mod, the lead red sounds too wooly and bassy (for my taste at least), no cut and muddy palm-mutes. Without it, it sounds more agressive, tighter, closer to a dual rec red channel. My Triaxis is a 2.0 model I bought new in the 90s with the factory phat mod, and I had it removed by a local tech with a small schematic I found on the net at the time about 25 years ago.
 
The phat mod was primarily meant for single coils and added a ton of low end to the input gain stages.

Years ago I sprung for a Triaxis (with the TX2 Recto board for Lead 1) and phat mod removed, and I couldn't be happier with it. Wouldn't change a thing about it.
 
I can't compare them myself; never had a Fat Mod version. But I love the sear and thump I get from my nonfat Recto channel. Early ones like mine have a Bass control with a split personality: up to 5 it's normal, but above that it shifts frequencies to complement the massive low end in the Lead 1 Red mode. I'm assuming that persisted through the Phat Mod years, until they finally discontinued the piggyback circuit board.

Ages ago I wrote a long, rambling post to the Triaxis Users Group forum (on the long-defunct Yahoo Clubs) listing the things I love about Triaxis. One of them was this mode. Here's some of that section - pardon my embarrassing enthusiasm.


The full-blooded nonfat Rectifier preamp in my Red One lead mode. It's a freight train. And a death ray. Bears no resemblance to the other seven channels and stands alone out in left field, frothing at the mouth.
This thing is unique & wonderful & almost out of control. At high gain with elevated Mid settings it's just too much- sometimes in a very good way, other times quite literally. The insane grind of a chainsaw spewing sparks in some demented slasher film; you can almost see the blood spatter...

I back off the Treble and Mid some, bump up the lows and it delivers a chunk that'd knock the breath out of Godzilla. Huge. Devastating. Especially with the DV/EQ anywhere over two or three. Delivers the Recto's distinctive hollow-log vibe on the middle strings. Pretty amazing.
Yet when I reduce the Drive and scoop the Mids way down there's a fantastic elastic sustain, feeling (just like my manual mentions) as if the guitar suddenly has lighter gauge strings on it. An odd sensation.
And with the Gain at 6 and the Drive all the way down at zero it delivers this unique grainy quality with a kind of warm, slightly wooly crispness that makes the engineer in me think of vintage ribbon mics - I used to have an old RCA Type 77 that had a character somewhat like this, though I'd never have dared to put it in front of a loud guitar amp.

Sure, with high Mid settings Lead 1 Red can be ferocious - incendiary even. Waaaay over the top. Do I still use it as my primary tone? No. But when I want something that - whether it's set to sag, to wail, to gutpunch or to incinerate - doesn't sound at all like the other channels, bang! There it is. My secret weapon. Straining at its chains, just waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world.
The mode seriously kicks ass. As others mentioned in previous posts, I too keep the presence on my power amp set fairly low for it, since Triaxis' peculiar touch-sensitive Presence control by itself can't really keep this monster's searing high end restrained. I relied on it heavily (pardon the bad pun) in the early 90s, when I was playing mostly heavy underground and hard edge. This is one dangerous sound, a five man blade.
I call it Salamander. Not for the orange lizard. For the flamethrowing tank.
 
Tone Monster said:
Phat Mod sucks moose cock. Tubby and worthless IMO. Non phat Lead 1 Red is damn sweet.
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Agreed.

@TheGreatGreen I even played on it with single coils and it was still too soft sounding. I know you didn’t say otherwise but was just chiming in on that.

I don’t know too much of the history of it but when I bought my TA, I figured I had to have it. Yuck is all I can say LOL
 
Back ITD when I was a Boogie Man, I wanted to record every Mode on the Tri. I used the Dogshit Mod for the Heavy Rhythms on this tune.. I used the Mark IV for leads. Wait for the Lead to come in and cut Dogshit into ribbons.. The tune would have been a lot better if I stuck with the IV Mode but it's what I wanted to do at the time..

This is 20 years old easy..



IMG_10122.JPG
 
midnightlaundry said:
Back ITD when I was a Boogie Man, I wanted to record every Mode on the Tri. I used the Dogshit Mod for the Heavy Rhythms on this tune.. I used the Mark IV for leads. Wait for the Lead to come in and cut Dogshit into ribbons.. The tune would have been a lot better if I stuck with the IV Mode but it's what I wanted to do at the time..

This is 20 years old easy..



View attachment 258078
Click to expand...

cool tune :yes:
 
I imagine quite a few of the Phat Mod era Triaxises (can we say Triaxes?) have been de-fatted by now.
 
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