Share your experience on Mark VII settings

[Revelation]

When I put my pedal board through the Mark VII on channel 1 Clean, I was surprised I did not get the sound I was looking for. I quickly went to my Fender Twin, did a little tweak on the pedals and confirmed I got the sound with a little bit of punch I wanted and then switched back to the Mark VII. Needless to say, it did not give me the sound I wanted with either humbucking or single coil. I switched to the Fat setting and BAM, I got some of the best sounds from my pedal board.

In my setup, the Clean mode is best for humbucker guitars, and it can sound quite stunning. But for single coil, the Fat mode is much better as the top end does not have the weak top end I found on the Clean mode. I will have to do more adjustments on the EQ, etc. to confirm, but with spending 5 min's on adjusting the sound the Fat mode is much better. Now with a pedal board, the Fat mode I found is also the better of the two options.

I'm going to review many of the suggestions in the manual and see if I get the same results.

 

[Revelation]

I found with my Silver Sky for clean, I had to reduce the mid control knob and the mid graphic EQ slider. Then boost the 80 and 240 graphic EQ to get a decent sound out of the guitar in the Fat mode. Otherwise the mids are too ice picky and it just not sound good. I have no problem with my Boogie Express 5:25. It sounds great just plugged in and most of the controls in the center. Obviously no problem with my Twin either. I am surprised how different the clean channel sounds compared to the Express. It sounds thin and a little ice picky. On my Fender Stratocaster the issue is a little tamer and the pickups are not as glassy as the Silver Sky. But to be honest, the Mark VII was my least favorite amp out of the 3 for clean sounds with my single coil guitars. Will be spending more time with it and will provide an update later. I will also check the manual for their suggestions.

UPDATE: I had the gain at 9 o'clock originally as on my Boogie Express, it reduced the clean channel from being too forward and giving it a more relaxed sound like my Fender Twin. The Mark VII manual suggest bringing the gain up from 11 to 2 o clock for obtain a warmer tone. Wow, what a difference. Now it sounds a lot better even on the Clean mode for the single coil. Now I am getting the clean sound I was looking for all along. I even had to back off the bass knob and graphic EQ a little. Huge improvement.

 

[Revelation]

I found so far the Mark II B to offer more of an open garbled distortion sound. I had limited use with it until I put a Blues Driver in front of it with the gain on the BD to 12 oclock. It provided more sustained without changing the overall tone of the amp. Made a big difference with it being more useful.

 

[Revelation]

I just did a shoot out between my Fender Twin 65 Reissue and the Mark VII Clean channel. I was amazed that the Mesa held its ground against the Fender really well. Because the Boogie is a single 12 vs the two 12 Twin, it has a little more open sound and with the graphic EQ, you can sculpt the sound a lot more than the Fender.

The Mark VII could easily meet the needs just as good as the Fender Twin and many times, I preferred the sound of the Mark VII when playing a 335 or PRS Silver Sky guitar. I am very surprised.

 

[Revelation]

I have yet to find some good sounds on the Mark II B setting on this amp. It sounds a little hard, by the time I get some ok sound for leads, it has a very garbled sound for rthy. I can get good sounds faster on any other mode.

 

[bandit2013]

I have had good luck dialing in every mode with the Mark VII. The IIB mode is a bit tricky though. It is similar to the mark 1 mode on the Mark V90 but not as dark toned. Even with the suggested settings that make use of the IIB, the mids and bass get dialed out. If it gets too busy with the GEQ turned on, try it without the GEQ. Just with the tube task chart along with some knowledge on the traditional lead drive circuit mesa has used for decades, I looked up a readable Mark IIB schematic, I was surprised it was very much like the Mark VII in the IIB mode. I will assume the plate resistor on the VII is the traditional 270k ohms. the Mark IIB has a 330k ohm plate resistor. What gets bypassed is the V3B circuit which is the primary over drive gain stage. Sure, the voltages will be different and a few bypass caps. Have no clue how close the Mark VII is to the IIB as I never played through one. If you treat it different than the other modes, it may be easier to understand. Since the overdrive is bypassed, you just have a high gain stage. Since there is no signal clipping in front of this gain stage, it will have more of a clean sound and may even sound muddy with too much bass dialed in. At least you do not need to do much to convert it to a IIC+ (just move the mode switch).

I am still exploring the Mark VII. Trying to figure out how it will work for me and how to use the unfamiliar modes (VII and IIB).

I have been focusing more on the modes that blend with the Badlander: Clean/clean, Crunch/crunch and Seven/crush. (MkVII/BAD). Sure the IIC and IV work well together with the BAD crush.

 

[Revelation]

I find the Fat setting on channel 1 is providing my combo amp a much closer sound of working with a 2 twelve cabinet. I compared it to my Fender Twin with my Les Paul this evening and was surprised how close they got. In addition, the Fender Twin sounded flatter vs the more dynamic Boogie Mark VII

 

[Throttlegtr]

I found with my Silver Sky for clean, I had to reduce the mid control knob and the mid graphic EQ slider. Then boost the 80 and 240 graphic EQ to get a decent sound out of the guitar in the Fat mode. Otherwise the mids are too ice picky and it just not sound good. I have no problem with my Boogie Express 5:25. It sounds great just plugged in and most of the controls in the center. Obviously no problem with my Twin either. I am surprised how different the clean channel sounds compared to the Express. It sounds thin and a little ice picky. On my Fender Stratocaster the issue is a little tamer and the pickups are not as glassy as the Silver Sky. But to be honest, the Mark VII was my least favorite amp out of the 3 for clean sounds with my single coil guitars. Will be spending more time with it and will provide an update later. I will also check the manual for their suggestions.

UPDATE: I had the gain at 9 o'clock originally as on my Boogie Express, it reduced the clean channel from being too forward and giving it a more relaxed sound like my Fender Twin. The Mark VII manual suggest bringing the gain up from 11 to 2 o clock for obtain a warmer tone. Wow, what a difference. Now it sounds a lot better even on the Clean mode for the single coil. Now I am getting the clean sound I was looking for all along. I even had to back off the bass knob and graphic EQ a little. Huge improvement.

I'm going to try this! I too, have a Mark VII and a Silver Sky (along with two other humbucker PRS guitars) and boy, do I know what you mean by ice-picky! My Custom 24 had a McCarty mod with a push-pull pot to change the 'buckers to single coils, and it's definitely not that harsh in single coil mode compared with the Sky. Thanks for the suggestion - I'll give it a try!

 

[bandit2013]

Yeah, I found that the Mark VII can be very bright. I generally cut back on the presence control, dial back on the Treble, boost the bass just enough. The preamp parametric controls work good as does the GEQ. I can get a good match to the Badlander crunch and crush with the Mark VII crunch and VII modes. I set up the Badlander first and then dialed in the Mark VII to replicate the sound. I also compared the cleand and fat to the clean of the Badlander. I believe that is what I did last, did not change the controls on either amp after setting up a good grind with the other modes. I also dialed in CH3 IIC and IV to be a good blend with the Badlander crush mode. The 6600 slider at the center point. If it gets too bright, I can back off on the tone control on the guitar. I found that the crunch and crush were almost identical to the BAD the way it was dialed in. Different preamp circuit and power tubes but the sound is convincing enough.

Here is a closer look at each amp for better reference.

The face plate was borrowed from the JP2C in case you were wondering what was up with that. I have two faceplates for the JP2C, the stock black one and the one in the image. I only swapped the faceplate due to my OCD issue of not matching the cab.

 

[Throttlegtr]

Yeah - at first glance, I saw the JP2C plate in the bottom right corner before reading and was thinking wow - they shorted you an EQ! (LOL). I'll give your ideas a shot., bandit. Thanks!

 

[bandit2013]

I have not explored the depths of driving the BAD with more gain to see if that can be replicated. That was as close to the BAD as I could get. Also the clean and fat is a good match for the clean on the BAD. I did not have to change anything. The Mark VII gets nice and crunchy when you boost the gain while using the clean or fat mode.

Note that the BAD will need to be run in the bold power and not in variac power. Once the amp is switched to variac power (aka spongy on a Recto) it takes on more of a MWDR character more notable in the crunch mode. The crush mode still has that mark tone to it. I have not tried to replicate that effect with the Mark VII. Good to know that crunch on both amps will be in phase so if you like running more than one amp, it will sound really good.

The BAD is loaded with the STR447 EL34 tubes whereas the Mark VII is the STR445 yellow bias in the center positions and a pair of STR448 red bias in the outer position. I like to experiment. This combination added more note definition I was not hearing when I had the stock STR445 green bias tubes. Actually the full quad of STR445 yellows did just as good a job. I started off with the 445 greens and it was also great but the BAD and JP2C had an edge on note definition that I was missing in the Mark VII. Just one step down for more headroom improved performance at gig level.