[Hinrich]

I have a question for anyone else who uses the Mesa Boogie F-series. This is my first tube amp and I bought it for the sound quality (I graduated from the Peavey Bandit) I've always been a bit "iffy" about the distortion channel even though it was far better than the bandit. But our new bassist who has a lot of sound experience seems to feel it's not a very good sound even though the clean channel is beautiful. I guess I need to experience hearing sounds from other amps before I can decide to believe him.

I tend to turn the pregain up to about the 3:00 position for the new rock sound. I also read that it's not a good high gain amp.

Anyone know anything about this?

 

[SCREEM]

I have a MarkII combo and although it has a awesome warm fendery clean, the distortion is flabby poo, just a nasty disto sound. Try hitting the clean channel with a good overdrive pedal....mine is killer this way evilGuitar:

 

[Hinrich]

I'm considering an overdrive pedal but I'm not familiar with anything other than Boss pedals (I sold my metal zone and don't miss it one bit!).

Long and McQuade's pedal selection is a disgrace, do you know of any place in Toronto where I can try out better pedals than Boss? I'm looking for more of a modern rock gain - sort of like 3 Days Grace.

 

[david henman]

I'm considering an overdrive pedal but I'm not familiar with anything other than Boss pedals (I sold my metal zone and don't miss it one bit!).
Long and McQuade's pedal selection is a disgrace, do you know of any place in Toronto where I can try out better pedals than Boss? I'm looking for more of a modern rock gain - sort of like 3 Days Grace.

...try the radial tonebone pedals, especially the hot british.

-dh

 

[-TJ-]

I have an F-30 head that I run into a Fender Supersonic 4*12 cab. Its a closeback with V-30's. I love this amps tone. It has a great distortion as well but its different to dial in. The EQ does not respond like you would expect from your old peavey. As far as high gain? I dont really know what your overall musical frame of reference is, but I can nail the tones off Iced Earth - Horror Show, especialy the tone to Damien. Personaly that is more gain than I ever need, I usualy keep the preamp gain at no more than 1 o clock. (Otherwise I'm mainly a fusion guitarist)

If you are patient and learn to dial in properly you can get great santana type tones, great classic rock, and with a delay even get the EJ bluesy stuff. Mesa amps take more patience dialing in, but thats what makes them tonaly versatile.
If you want a good tight sound, a nice closeback cab will help. Vintage 30's seem to work particularly well because of their mid presence. As well, a good practice with mesa amps (which all tend to be dark and spongy for lack of a better word) is to use a Tubescreamer or Tubescreamer clone pedal such as the Maxon OD808 (my recommendation). Keep this pedal on when you are using the gain, it provides a slight boost in gain and volume, but also has a very small bass and mid cut which tightens up the bottom end. You may also try EQ's in the loop, etc....

As far as letting your bass player decide what good tone is? Well thats rather silly, tone is subjective. You have to decide on your own.

 

[Baconator]

Mesa amps take more patience dialing in, but thats what makes them tonaly versatile.

+1 on that!

I've got a Mark IIC+ and although it's a phenominal amp it does take a lot of experimenting with to get the sounds you want from it. Mesa Boogie does a pretty decent job of sketching out some good settings to start with. I don't know if you have checked out the settings in the manual or if you even have a manual, but if you don't, check out http://mesaboogie.com/manuals/F-Series.pdf . There have definitely been times when I wished my amp was more 'plug and play', but I have loved the capabilities of this amp when take the time to find the right sounds.

That said, I still like using distortion pedals with my boogie for certain sounds. Songbird Music ( http://www.songbirdmusic.com/ ) probably has a few dozen different distortion pedals to check out even if they aren't all listed online. I'm sure Twelfth Fret ( http://www.12fret.com/ ) would also have some interesting options too.

Good luck and have fun with the journey to great tone.