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[Anonymous]

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[>Photi G<]

I Think that all Marks before the IV were designed to be bright, by design. Their gain stages thrive off of treble frequencies. If you turn down your treble, or turn off the bright switches, or switch to the neck pickup of your guitar, you will notice a major loss of gain. This is because Boogies were designed to translate brightness into distortion. The Mark IV is voiced more modern though, and is a darker, smoother amp than any of it's predecessors.

I am not happy with this either, as my Mark III sound very shrill and solid-state like in the lead channel. Any suggestions on how to darken it? I'm thinking of replacing V5 with a 12AT7 or a 12AU7 to smooth it out a bit, and putting an SPAX7 in V3 to compensate. Or if you guys have any good dark settings, hit me up!

 

[Anonymous]

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[Direwolf]

I've been experiencing the exact opposite with my Boogie. The cleans have been too bright and the lead too dark. By the time i dial a good clean sound that isn't in the 4k range the lead is too dark. My green stripe seems to be able to compensate this a little better with the GEQ but with my III+ ,which used to be a purple, I can't get the lead to brighten up enough. I use an upside down curve on the GEQ on both amps and is only on in the lead. The 750 slider is set to the next line above the middle. The others taper off towards the middle line except the 6600. I keep it just below the middle because I have the lead brite pulled. I really have to watch for feedback on the iii+. If I don't pull the brite and raise the 6600 slider to where it begins to be effective the high end starts to sound harsh and "fake". My settings btw are;
volume1-8
treble-7.5 pulled
bass-2.5
middle-7
master-2.5/3
lead drive 1.5
lead master-4.5 pulled
verb-almost 3
presence- 3.5

 

[thunda1216]

I recently read somewhere that "You shouldn't read the values of the knobs, just use your ears!", and that's oh so true when it comes to ALL Boogies.

+1 I think this is why my Heartbreaker doesn't even have any numbers on the dials - just a mark at the halfway position...

ty

 

[Anonymous]

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[MrMarkIII]

The Mark III was definitely not designed for "all knobs at noon".
You should start with the Volume and Treble at 7, Bass 0 to 3, Middle at 3-4. The guitar signal hits the tone controls before it goes to the first tube (like a Fender, and exactly reverse of a Marshall), so the tone controls have a greater affect on the gain than they do on a Marshall.
This is all explained in greater detail in the Mark III manual.

 

[sted]

Ive had to completely re-educate myself in EQ now that I own a mesa, they work so differently to other amps, ive read my MV manual over and over and everytime im finding new ways to eek out better tones, the way the gain, treble and bass are inextricably linked is fascinating, totally unlike any other amp, ive never really ran an amp that can give superb tight tone with the bass knob dialled nearly off! Unreal!

 

[>Photi G<]

Ive had to completely re-educate myself in EQ now that I own a mesa, they work so differently to other amps, ive read my MV manual over and over and everytime im finding new ways to eek out better tones, the way the gain, treble and bass are inextricably linked is fascinating, totally unlike any other amp, ive never really ran an amp that can give superb tight tone with the bass knob dialled nearly off! Unreal!

Yeah, I think I've explained earlier somewhere about how interactive the tone stack is on a Mark. Since it is passive, and wired in series, Each knob soaks up the signal it can use, and passes the leftover to the next knob. This is why the TREBLE knob is so dynamic. The higher it's dialed, the less effective the other two knobs are, and vice versa. The opposite holds true for the MID control. Since it comes last in the tone stack, it has the least effect in tone, if the other knobs are dialed high, esp. the TREBLE. This is what happens on an amp with the EQ wired before the gain.

Other Mesa's, however, will never experience this because their EQ's are post-gain. Recto's and Road King's especially. I'm not so sure about the Lone Star though, since it is based off of the Mark series. The ED might be the same way because it's based on a Marshall voicing. The TransAtlantic? Who knows, maybe it is pre-gain, since it only has treble and bass eq's.

 

[sdgiffin]

PS. Not talking about Metallica or 80's Black Sabbath (who surprisingly enough used Mark III's!)

Just comment on Iommi and Boogies... He used 8 300w Coliseums live. What a nut!

 

[chipaudette]

To PhotiG,

There are a number of mods that can be done to move a Mark III lead tone to be more smooth and less sizzling and fizzy. The mods are all pretty easy and a large of number different techs could do it for you. Search this board for "Mark III Mod" and you'll get a number of posts with pictures.

I think that the mod that'll work best is placing a capacitor across the plate resistor of the 2nd lead stage. The Mark IIC+ often have 1000pF at that location and the Mark IV often have 500pF. The Mark III often have no capacitor at all (ie, 0 pF). If you solder in a 500pF or 1000pF cap in there, you'll take away some of the fizz that annoys some people about the Mark III.

Of course, that particular fizz is also what a lot of people love about their Mark III. YMMV.

Chip

 

[CoG]

In terms of voicing for the era remember that guitar tone in 1987 was about the solo and lead licks, and having definition between multiple guitar tracks when you played the song on the radio. You wanted a lead sound that jumped to the front and really cut, and rhythm sounds were a lot cleaner. The Mark III's lead channel was supposed to blow away the hotrodded Marshall with a tubescreamer in front of it that was pretty much the defining lead sound of the era.

Starting basically with Nirvana and Soundgarden and going through to "modern rock" you have a new emphasis on open, distorted rhythm guitar sounds, where you want a big huge guitar sound but the lead instrument is actually the vocal. This is where the Recto excels.

The modern retro/stoner/heavy sounds you're going for come from 70s hard rock where you wanted a pronounced midrange and lows or you wouldn't hear anything because the PA sucked (or you might not even be going through the PA) and the most common lineup was a power trio so there was lots of room for the guitar to stomp all over the midrange. It's a crappy sound for making complex multitracked recordings unless you *want* your record to sound like "Witchcult Today" :lol:

 

[Tuna141]

I am not happy with this either, as my Mark III sound very shrill and solid-state like in the lead channel. Any suggestions on how to darken it? I'm thinking of replacing V5 with a 12AT7 or a 12AU7 to smooth it out a bit, and putting an SPAX7 in V3 to compensate. Or if you guys have any good dark settings, hit me up!

I hated the tone of my Mark III lead, when I first got the amp, due to its harsh fizziness. Luckily, IMO, it can be easily cured by rolling back the Presence to around 1-2. Now the amp sounds awesome - more organic. Give it a try, if you haven't already.

 

[willrock]

i have the presence on 0 on my III.

 

[Anonymous]

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[fishyfishfish]

Mesa "Voiced" their amps for the types of music as far as the Lead Channel/High Gain. Back then guitar players used a lot of non-digital rack gear with wireless units and a lot of lead work was done in the music. My Mark III does sound bright and a little harsh, but opened up on a big stage with a little delay and some 20+30 feet of cord and the sizzle goes away. Tonight I put in some Mesa 5881's I bought for a back up and they seem to tame a little of the harshness.

 

[THTH]

Don't forget during the 80's we were tuning to A=440 or just down a semitone, not massively detuning except for maybe the low E to D for some tunes. That along with the sizzly top end could get bright with the super strat guitars(Charvels and Jacksons) of the period. When playing at high volume unlike most gigs today we would use 2 4x12 cabs minimum in a small club and the high end would diminished because you could really feel the bass and 4x12 speakers moving.

 

[Neptical]

Don't forget during the 80's we were tuning to A=440 or just down a semitone, not massively detuning except for maybe the low E to D for some tunes. That along with the sizzly top end could get bright with the super strat guitars(Charvels and Jacksons) of the period. When playing at high volume unlike most gigs today we would use 2 4x12 cabs minimum in a small club and the high end would diminished because you could really feel the bass and 4x12 speakers moving.

Back in the good ole days when you could get away with melting the walls with your amps. :twisted:

Hardly could that happen today without getting thrown right outta the club. :lol:

Always made me wonder why they even thought of making the Mark Series Coliseums. I understand they were made for arena ( or festival ) type events, but the power of the regular Mark series were already overkill at stage volume before even hitting the board.

All the Best,
~Nep~

 

[dodger916]

Always made me wonder why they even thought of making the Mark Series Coliseums. I understand they were made for arena ( or festival ) type events, but the power of the regular Mark series were already overkill at stage volume before even hitting the board.

The 80's was THE time of popular excess, Nep. Makes perfect sense to me. 8)

 

[EleventhHour2139]

Don't forget during the 80's we were tuning to A=440 or just down a semitone, not massively detuning except for maybe the low E to D for some tunes. That along with the sizzly top end could get bright with the super strat guitars(Charvels and Jacksons) of the period. When playing at high volume unlike most gigs today we would use 2 4x12 cabs minimum in a small club and the high end would diminished because you could really feel the bass and 4x12 speakers moving.

This is one thing I have DEFINITELY noticed about my III. It really doesn't like to do down tunings any lower than say D standard or so. For me the quality of tone just goes out the window if I go too much lower than that. It just seems to miss some of the aspects that I love the most about the tone when I go any lower i.e. crunch, singing notes, palm mutes, harmonics etc.

IMO it sounds like the frequency "voice" (for lack of a better term) of the amp really wasn't designed with those type of tunings in mind. I suppose one could look to the frequencies Mesa chose for the equalizer to see that idea in action, what with 80hz being the lowest.

Which is ok, I like half a step down just fine :twisted: