-
That's one reason I loved my Mk 1 - it was a lot simpler than the later models. It could be as clean and jazzy as I wanted it, but it also did gain from barely there to bruisin'. Of course, it wasn't called the Mk 1 when I got it because it was the only Boogie at the time. And it did everything I needed for my "serious" amp, so I never had the desire or felt the need to even try any other big league amp.
Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
This doesn’t mean I didn’t buy any other high power amps. I got a great deal on a new Twin once, so I bought it as a backup…….but I never needed to use it, so it probably played less than a dozen gigs in 20+ years before I sold it.
-
09-21-2021 10:08 AM
-
Mark no-mark was just even nuttier. Presence was on the back too. Along with what they called 'slave': a direct out with an output level adjustment. I still remember the labels. What did they call that gismo that made letters on a peel-and-stick ribbon of plastic? Originally Posted by jim777
-
Originally Posted by ccroft
-
Nuttiest of all was the way the first Boogies were (allegedly) built. The story is that Randall Smith and his wife built them while sitting naked in their potting shed, stoned out of their minds. I can’t confirm this personally, but it’s been told identically by many people over the years. If it’s anywhere close to being true, it beats anything ever done by Lowell George, Gerry Garcia, and Frank Zappa! Originally Posted by ccroft
-
I have never heard that story, but I have played many gigs with a Marin County bass player who is a personal friend of Randy Smith. I have been told that Smith is first and foremost a jazz guitarist. It is one of the ironies of life that a jazz guitarist would make his living making amplifiers for heavy metal guitarists. Life is stranger than fiction indeed! Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
-
Here's a quote from Smith himself about the early days of Boogie production: Originally Posted by Stringswinger
"At one point I was returning from my daily exercise of walking up the mountain behind the house with the dogs and swimming (illegally!) in Kent Lake. As I came back down through the redwoods, I could see the girls sitting on the deck, stuffing circuit boards in the sun with their tops off. I just stood there for a couple of minutes realizing that I had achieved the gig-bliss (for me at least!) and I told myself never to stray too far from the contented, productive and creative feeling of those happy times."
I've never seen any reference to his playing guitar - it's great to hear that he's one of us! He was a drummer in high school, after an earlier start on clarinet and sax (taught by his father, who was a "hotel bandleader" and principal clarinetist in the Oakland Symphony). He's said many times that a major inspiration for the sound of the casacded gain stages he developed was the sax. I find it a curious coincidence that the original inspiration (even used in their early marketing) for the Maestro Fuzz-Tone was the attempt to make the guitar sound more like a bowed instrument, and that both seminal creations found lives in rock rather than the sax- and violin-like roles envisioned by their creators.
I also find it ironic that we spent the first 30 years of the electric guitar era spending money at an increasing rate on trying to minimize harmonic distortion. Then we devoted the next 40 years spending even more money to put it back
-
The MkV25 still does - one knob for each channel. I've learned to adjust it without looking at it. The reverb is OK live but I prefer a Hardwire RV-7 in the loop at home. Originally Posted by jim777
-
I've had a Mark V combo for almost 2 years now.
It does take time to tame the many sounds it can produce.
For jazz, the "fat" setting on Channel 1 is it for me (the manual has all the answers, gotta read it, many many times)
However, it took me to swap the speaker for a Celestion Cream 90W (it's the alnico high power, and nope, it's not "cream back").
(I always found the Black Shadow a bit too neutral for my taste)
That is it... I do love the sound now. I am not a shredder and occasionally go into the Larry Carlton thing and this amp works great for that.
It's honestly overkill, for the moment, but I am in for the long run with this beast... I do want to give it time.Last edited by jazzfrog; 09-27-2021 at 12:03 AM. Reason: typo
-
Take it with a grain of salt because I'm a newbie jazz player, but I'm using a Fillmore 25 and I think it sounds fantastic for jazz. I appreciate that there's actually a lot of usable range in the reverb control, doesn't get too wet too fast, and the low end is strong but clear and articulate. Pretty powerful EQ in general.
-
Originally Posted by IanW
-
Most boogie players have what I call the 'boogie bend'.... they're always bending over to tweak the amp
-
I brought home a Mesa Express 5:50 Plus head from Guitar Center last night. Price was good and there's a 45-day return policy. People are not kidding when they say Mesas are for knob fiddlers. There are good sounds in this head—playing through my Gries 35's cab with Eminence GA-SC64, I was eventually able to figure out the interactivity between all the knobs to get the Mesa into the same ballpark. Thing is, the Mesa is very noisy. With higher power master volume amps, there always seems to be a battle between clean headroom and keeping the noise floor quiet enough not to be a chore at home practice volumes. I just put all new preamp tubes in the Gries 35, and the Mesa is nowhere near as quiet as the Gries at my usual playing volume. And neither amp is as quiet as my Ampeg Gemini II with 15" speaker—this is, I think, the perfect jazz amp if you don't need to lug it around. I think it's likely I'll be sending the Mesa back.
-
I think the circuits in the newer Mesa's are quieter than the older ones! For example, my Mark Five 35 has much less noise than my Nomad 45 of years ago! Also, most noise is present in in the 6600 HZ range on my amp, so lowering that slider mitigates noise nicely! Having said this, I don't play at high volume levels--this is my experience at lower volumes. Also, I don't change playing environments, so my setting stay put!
-
The noticeable noise from my Mark III was the fan, not the electronics. It was loud enough to annoy a sensitive bassist in rehearsal. In a bar gig (which is mostly what I used it for back in the day) the noise was not an issue.
As far as knob twiddling, it takes some experience to get it dialed in, but you can. The problem is when you need to adjust it, for example, to accommodate to a song in a different style, or the room filling up, or something. The controls are very interactive, so if you want to, say, increase treble, or gain, or some other aspect of the sound, it's probably not just turning one knob.
All that said, when you've got it dialed in, it sounds awesome.
-
Express 5:50s are apparently known for a bit (or more) of hissing. Most owners minimize it with a set of top quality tubes. You might want to do a little web searching for a consistent recommendation, since a quick Google search turns up many posts about this on multiple forums. If it's really noisier than normal, you might well be able to get a new set of tubes from GC. But if satisfaction isn't easily obtained, returning it is probably the best idea. You can always find another good amp. Originally Posted by wzpgsr
I used an original Mk 1 "hunree" for about 30 years and never had a noise issue at any reasonable stage volume. It got a lttle hissy when cranked at a few blues shows in large venues without sound reinforcement, but you couldn't hear it whle playing. I've also had a 50 Caliber, a Subway Blues, and a Walkabout head, none of which were particularly noisy. A few weeks ago, I had a rehearsal in a local studio that had a 50 watt Single Rectifier head into a 4x12 Egnater cabinet and was very surprised that I could get a decent jazz tone from it. It was quiet as could be - I could easily live with it if I were 35 again,could carry it, and had some place to put it
-
I have had a Mark IV, a Mark V, a .50 Caliber and a Subway Blues. None were any more noisy than any Fender tube amp that I have owned. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
Express 5:50s are apparently known for a bit (or more) of hissing. Most owners minimize it with a set of top quality tubes. You might want to do a little web searching for a consistent recommendation, since a quick Google search turns up many posts about this on multiple forums. If it's really noisier than normal, you might well be able to get a new set of tubes from GC. But if satisfaction isn't easily obtained, returning it is probably the best idea. You can always find another good amp.
I used an original Mk 1 "hunree" for about 30 years and never had a noise issue at any reasonable stage volume. It got a lttle hissy when cranked at a few blues shows in large venues without sound reinforcement, but you couldn't hear it whle playing. I've also had a 50 Caliber, a Subway Blues, and a Walkabout head, none of which were particularly noisy. A few weeks ago, I had a rehearsal in a local studio that had a 50 watt Single Rectifier head into a 4x12 Egnater cabinet and was very surprised that I could get a decent jazz tone from it. It was quiet as could be - I could easily live with it if I were 35 again,could carry it, and had some place to put it
-
Some earlier posts mention the long-discontinued TA-15. Among my too-many amps is an equally long-discontinued TA-30, which is a total Swiss Army Knife head, made for live playing. 4xEL84 tubes, Class A, Class AB, 15/30/40 watts, reverb, effects loop, Vox AC-30/AC-30 Top Boost/Fender Tweedish/Marshall/Mesa voicings. Very easy to get a jazz sound out of it IMO. Lightweight and works great. Downside: fan noise (not an issue for live playing), bad graphics on front panel (should be black or lit), no headphone / recording outs.
Last edited by Hammertone; 06-13-2022 at 01:40 PM.
-
This is the Express 5:50 Plus which has apparently some design changes that make it less hissy overall. It’s not terrible, but I am sensitive to it because I play at such quiet volumes. I did swap in some brand new matched / balanced / low microphonic tubes but it didn’t make much of a difference. From what I’ve read, this noise floor on this model varies from amp to amp. Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
Express 5:50s are apparently known for a bit (or more) of hissing. Most owners minimize it with a set of top quality tubes. You might want to do a little web searching for a consistent recommendation, since a quick Google search turns up many posts about this on multiple forums. If it's really noisier than normal, you might well be able to get a new set of tubes from GC. But if satisfaction isn't easily obtained, returning it is probably the best idea. You can always find another good amp.
I used an original Mk 1 "hunree" for about 30 years and never had a noise issue at any reasonable stage volume. It got a lttle hissy when cranked at a few blues shows in large venues without sound reinforcement, but you couldn't hear it whle playing. I've also had a 50 Caliber, a Subway Blues, and a Walkabout head, none of which were particularly noisy. A few weeks ago, I had a rehearsal in a local studio that had a 50 watt Single Rectifier head into a 4x12 Egnater cabinet and was very surprised that I could get a decent jazz tone from it. It was quiet as could be - I could easily live with it if I were 35 again,could carry it, and had some place to put it
That said, the amp is growing on me. The Gries 35 is soooo good at what it does, but with my preferred EQ settings, 35 watts doesn’t yield as much headroom as you’d think. Anyways, I have around 40 days to decide!
-
Did you try lowering the 6600 HZ slider? My 6600HZ slider set at the mid-way mark, above that=hiss. My amp hiss is centered there, and this action helped my situation. If you do this, you can adjust the guitar tone & amp treble to compensate, any you won't notice a loss of highs! Simple & worth a try!
-
I did, thanks—it definitely improved the situation. The post pre-amp EQ is a great feature for refining the sound. Originally Posted by helios
-
I've gotten some good sounds out of my mark IV. I have a fryette power station load and reamp box that I use with my silverface Fenders to crank them and get them to break up a bit and play at reasonable volumes. I've tried it with the mark IV on the R1 channel running the preamp really clean and then fattening it up by cranking the master and it sounds amazing, more of a midrangey tweed fender vibe. What also probably helps is the mesas flexibility with tubes; they run 6l6 or a mix of 6l6 and el34 as standard, but they can be set to run 6v6 by flipping a few switches on the back, further into tweed fender land. I probably still gravitate more towards my fenders than the mesa but whenever I do plug in I'm pleasantly surprised.
-
Back when I switched to 7s in the '90s, I sold all of my standard 6s. I ran into an old friend who told me he wanted my D-28 and would love to trade a few things of equal value from his collection for it. He really wanted to swap me a like new Mk IV for the Martin, since he was retired after decades of recording, engineering, producing, and writing. My first response to that proposal was that I didn't want to drag a 91 pound amplifier around. Originally Posted by BreckerFan
His response was "The roadies never complained."
-
Yeah I have the narrow body combo and by swapping the lead brick EV speaker for a neo magnet it's down to 'only' 55 lbs. The same as my 2x12 pro reverb Originally Posted by nevershouldhavesoldit
-
I'd trade my Mark IV for a Fillmore 50 (head or combo, either lol) in a heartbeat. Originally Posted by IanW
-
The Clean on the newer and some older Mesa’s are top notch! The 1x12” small cans don’t help get a non midrange tone either.
Remember Mesa Boogie was intended for an Overdrive/Distortion audience not the older Fender Scooped Twin Reverb tones .
That said, the older Nomad and F series combos with wide cabs are great bargains, and make great back line Clean Tone in the Fender Camp.
Reply With Quote
“Shearing style”
Today, 05:26 PM in Comping, Chords & Chord Progressions