Electra Dyne Videos - Live

[SgtThump]

Here are a couple of live videos from last night with my Mesa Electra-Dyne 1x12" combo... I put most of the gear info in the comments section of the videos, so check that out for more info.

Feel free to comment about any of it (tone, playing, clams, etc...)

Barracuda > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNtZh3MdJ18

Rooster > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa3vL00MQwQ

Chris

 

[Birdy]

Great tones and playing Chris !
Have to check back on "Rooster"....
"This video is not yet processed. " from the site.

You were a little unsure about the ED as far as keeping it in some of your previous posts...whats the decision you've come to ?

Again...good stuff man.

 

[Bullseye]

Killer tone...sounded great...Thanx for Posting man

Cheers
Bill

 

[Sixstringpsycho]

Thanks for making me want an ED even more than I already do lol. Great tones great playing

 

[SgtThump]

Great tones and playing Chris !
Have to check back on "Rooster"....
"This video is not yet processed. " from the site.

You were a little unsure about the ED as far as keeping it in some of your previous posts...whats the decision you've come to ?

Again...good stuff man.

Hey thanks man! I definitely like the amp! I have no plans to sell/trade it, but that can change at a moments notice with ANY piece of gear I have. LOL... I go through stuff pretty quickly, which is silly, but true.

Neither one of these performances were the best from the band or anything, but these are the only two videos I have of me using the Electra Dyne live, so I wanted to get them up there. This was from last night's gig. They tried to keep us pretty quiet with new neighbors of the bar calling cops and stuff lately with noise complaints.

I had the ED down in the 45-watt setting to help with that. It's still a freaking LOUD amp. I bet I only had the master volume at 9:00 o'clock or something. Not high at all and I was plenty loud enough on stage.

Chris

 

[SgtThump]

And thanks for the nice comments!

 

[theweatherman]

You cut through better than the marshall halfstack, and sound better tone wise.

 

[SgtThump]

You cut through better than the marshall halfstack, and sound better tone wise.

I'm always louder than the other guitar players I play with. LOL... But yeah, I would say this amp cut through better. His Marshall halfstack is from 1981 and freaking killer. That's a VERY good example of that amp. I wouldn't say at all that this ED kills his amp in person!

 

[danyeo1]

You cut through better than the marshall halfstack, and sound better tone wise.

Of course you can hear the ED better, the camera is right smack in front of the ED. Walk over to the Marshall and you wouldn't hear the ED.

 

[SgtThump]

You cut through better than the marshall halfstack, and sound better tone wise.

Of course you can hear the ED better, the camera is right smack in front of the ED. Walk over to the Marshall and you wouldn't hear the ED.

The cameraman does make it's way over to the Marshall side, but still. Like I said, I'm always a little louder on stage than the other guys I play with anyway. LOL

And to be honest, I'm not really ever blaring loud. It's just that everyone else is too quiet.

 

[SgtThump]

Here's another one...

Blue on Black > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tboEdQzdFi4

That was last night.

 

[cragginshred]

very cool man! Is the axe you are playing the newly released Charvels? What is your take? Which model/pups ect? Break it down if you don't mind.

 

[SgtThump]

very cool man! Is the axe you are playing the newly released Charvels? What is your take? Which model/pups ect? Break it down if you don't mind.

Yeah, that yellow Charvel of mine was from a couple of batches ago. I wanted one, because I wanted a guitar with a Floyd and don't like pointy guitars. I wanted one with the Strat body and headstock.

I went into the store originally wanting the "SoCal" model with the black pickguard and DiMarzios. I ended up trying a good handful of various models and this yellow one played and sounded better to me than the others. I like more "traditional" colors like black, white, gold, sunburst, etc... and didn't really want yellow. But I couldn't deny the fact that this guitar spoke to me, so I bought it.

I wondered if I did the right thing for a few days (yellow), but man, I absolutely love this guitar now. It gets every bit as much play time as my Les Paul, which has been my #1 for a few years now.

I'm not saying I like it more than the Les Paul, because I don't. But this particular "San Dimas" model sounds ALOT better than I ever expected. Even though it has Duncan pickups (JB and '59 Model), a maple neck, and a Floyd, this guitar is surprisingly smooth and thick sounding. It's not bright AT ALL. It's actually darker than my Les Paul or SG. I have no idea why that is either.

I started to regret buying this guitar new at $1,099 when they can be had used all day long for $700 or so. But since I got to compare several versions and pick the best one, I'm totally happy paying the full retail price.

I've owned several nice GMW Charvel style guitars and I can honestly say that I like this Charvel more.

 

[satch5150]

really nice sound!! Do you remember your settings? I still struggle to get a nice distorted tone out of my electradyne at stage volume (it's either to shrill or dark), thanks

 

[primal]

really nice sound!! Do you remember your settings? I still struggle to get a nice distorted tone out of my electradyne at stage volume (it's either to shrill or dark), thanks

Hmm. That is rather surprising. I get my best sound at stage volume. Are you running the combo or a head and cab.

If you are running the head and cab, what cab you using?

Not looking at the amp now, but if I am going for a van halen type sound, I do something like this
Volume 3:00
treble 3:00
mid 9:00
bass 10:00
presence 9:00
Master 9:00
Gain trim set to off.

I can take it and dime the volume to get a real nice distortion as well. Killer for muted palm chugga.

 

[satch5150]

hey primal, I'm running a combo through a Music Man Silhouette Special (it has dimarzio pups and the humbucker is a Vintage PAF so pretty low output). Maybe that's why it gets a bit buzzy on full gain. Judging from your settings you keep the mids pretty low. Maybe I should try that too. Also I suspect dodgy tubes in my Dyne. With Master at 9 o clock the amp really gets noisy (without cable plugged in) I guess it's coming from the preamp section (kinda loud white noise), maybe I shoud try some nooise gate too?

 

[primal]

yeah, it shouldn't be noisy with no cables plugged in.

Mine is very quiet even with the guitar plugged in. Definately checkout new tubes. I have bought new tubes from Guitar Center for other amps and when they didn't fix the problem Guitar Center took them back.

you may be on to something with the pups.

This amp is very sensitive to the guitar plugged in.

I have a made in Japan ESP and a Highway 1 running a Seymour Duncan JB 4 in the bridge and it sounds killer with both.

But I have grabbed some guitars off the rack at GC that didn't sound so hot through it. In a lot of those cases they had the pickup way to low (far away from the strings)

 

[SgtThump]

I've had pretty darn good luck with my ED combo live. I used it again last night (and will tonight at another gig) and it sounded really freaking good. I don't remember my settings exactly, but it's something like this:

Gain - 2:00 o'clock
Treble - 1:00
Mid - 10:00 or 11:00
Bass - 11:00 or 12:00
Presence - 12:00 or so

Something like that.

 

[SgtThump]

Two things...

1 - I'm still really enjoying this amp. I've probably used it on 8-10 gigs now and it delivers everytime. Through the right PA system, it sounds MASSIVE! I plan to keep using it live for a while.

2 - One thing that kind of bugs me is how the amp can "fight" you when you play. What I mean is that sometimes I find that notes die out a little, instead of sustaining. The amp is a little stiff to play. When I first got it, my fingers would actually feel like they've been worked out when I was done playing. I've adjusted to that, though, and don't consider this much of an issue anymore. But I definitely noticed it.

I have a quad of Mesa STR 442 EL34s on the way to me (SED - Winged C) to try in the Electra-Dyne. Now that I feel like I know the amp really well, I may experiment a bit with preamp and poweramp tubes.

 

[theweatherman]

Two things...

1 - I'm still really enjoying this amp. I've probably used it on 8-10 gigs now and it delivers everytime. Through the right PA system, it sounds MASSIVE! I plan to keep using it live for a while.

2 - One thing that kind of bugs me is how the amp can "fight" you when you play. What I mean is that sometimes I find that notes die out a little, instead of sustaining. The amp is a little stiff to play. When I first got it, my fingers would actually feel like they've been worked out when I was done playing. I've adjusted to that, though, and don't consider this much of an issue anymore. But I definitely noticed it.

I have a quad of Mesa STR 442 EL34s on the way to me (SED - Winged C) to try in the Electra-Dyne. Now that I feel like I know the amp really well, I may experiment a bit with preamp and poweramp tubes.

Try dropping your mids a tad, maybe to 9 oclock and raise the gain to about 3 oclock, that loosens the tightness a little, but im withh ya, it is a little stiff, but sounds incredible nonetheless