Pedal-itis
New member
My friends, this is an amp!. when i got this in, it didnt work. it was old and cranky. didnt get ANYTHING out of it. so i sent it to an Amp 'Shaman' and a couple of weeks/ and trips later, it was ready. i didnt expect much out of it. always been an Orange fan anyways. so when i plugged it in and it was working, on really old tubes mind you, i was unenthusiastically 'yay it works'. lots and lots of knobs on it. so i started tweaking ... and tweaking... (on the modern channel cause what else are mesa's 'good' for right??... it sounded ok.. plugged my TC Electronics G-Force through the complicated efx loop and used it as a 'master volume'. so i had more room to crank the amp and not get kicked out of my house. once the volume of the channel 2 hit 1 o'clock, something happened.
(played through Orange PPC 4X12)
(played in spongy mode on tubes selection)
(guitar used was Gibson 61 Reissue SG stock pickups)
Channel 2 (modern):
On the channel 2, it gives two options, Blues, and Modern. on the modern channel, after cranking and tweaking it, i found a sweet spot, and oh my god was it sweeet!!!.. i was getting raw bitey modern tones. a tone that would inspire nu metal, modern rock or even post rock/stoner metal. the bass response on this amp was AMAZING!!. my cabinet was pulsating like a love machine!. it was bassy, but not boomy. there was a certain articulation bout it. the mids and treble(once tweaked right) made my hair stand on end. it was absolutely brilliant!. it was this raw cutting tone yet balanced out with a nice bass overlay that didnt clash but flowed in one unison. it was, not too gainy, like the old incubus albums or porcupine tree ya know??
(Boosted with an Analogman King of Tone ver 4)
now the chase for a massive gainy 'Deftones' or 'Killswitch Engage' like tone. the K.O.T has two drive sections to it. on mine, one is set to mild drive the other to mid od. with the boost of the channel one of the K.O.T, the amp bounced into massiveness!!. the chugga that was moving the air from my cab was immense!!. with every riff that was flowing, i could hear every damn note. be it a palm muted melodic metal styled riff, a deftones draggy chord (with amp reverb) or korn in ya face punch, this amp could do it all and within 25mins of turning it on, warming it up a little, tweaking it a little, and VOILA!!! i was sticking every damn guitar i had into it at this point from my 7-string universe, to my mild mannered jap tele. this baby was churning out bags of goodness and making me play harder than ever. it was pristine and every damn mistake i was making was coming out nice and clear. i knew it was gonna make practice. but i was in love.
so the inevitable happened, i knew i had to try to like channel 1 'CLEAN'
there were two modes to this too. clean and vintage drive. i aint no vintage player so lets try the cleans.
Channel 1 (clean)
flick the switch to clean and turned my pedal off. got the volume knob up to bout 3 o clock and started messing with the settings. got lots of headroom out of it and tried the different gain stages on it. stopped at gain knob at 12 and suddenly my eyes lit up. holy moly, it had a clean channel, a pristine awesome 'slightly broken up' clean channel. it sounded great!!!.. had my PRS Custom 22 with Stan Hinsley Vipers in em' plugged in and wow, it was amazing. it had again a beautiful bassy touch to it with inspirational mids and treble to it. it was nice and balanced. ive owned a Fender Custom Shop Vibroverb and a Marshall Artiste 100 and this babyfelt right!. it felt like how cleans should be. bluesy? sure, modern? damn sure.. man i cant stop praising this amp! my band mates are sick of me!.
but i love efx, hows that on this amp?
EFX Loop:
ok this took a little longer to set up. with the complicated knobs on both the amp and my TC G-Force i took a little longer to get a balance with both signal and efx. but it happened, after awhile i was psyched. the only other time i was so excited bout an amp was the Orange Rockerverb 50 and the H&k Triamp MKI. the triamp however didnt take my pedals as well as this amp. i had no issues with the amp!! i could not find a flaw!
i didnt get round to the vintage and blues channels to be honest, i was stuck in my own world with these channels. and my neighbours have never hated me more. i plugged in the Orange RV50 straight after i drew the energy to turn the Trem-O-Verb off, and for the first time, i switched right back to the Mesa. a mesa??? better than an Orange>>?? ppl who know me know im an Orange fanatic and still am, but Mesa Boogie got this amp on the money!. the only thing i like better on the RV50 was the reverb and the efx loop. but the crunch and cleans, id say 60% votes to the mesa and 40% to the Orange. both great amps but im in love all over again, only with a different chick. by the way, entire reveiew was based on 4 year old tubes stuck in this baby. imagine when i get new ones,... cant wait!.
Thanks for Reading my ranting
Marc (pedalitis)
glad you loved it bro
