KiwiJoe
Well-known member
A while back I posted about my successful use of a 12ay7 in V2 which tamed (took some edge off) the gain on the OD channel with little or no effect on the green/clean channel. The low gain/high volume configuration works really well for me and the style of music that I play in our trio - I run low gain on the red channel (like 9 o'clcok) and run the master as high as I can; the sound is very open and "round" with great sustain and minimal compression. Now I've got other ideas I'd like to explore and was wondering if anybody else has tried them or would have any insight on whether or not it's the right way to go. So...
First, since the channel masters are also the FX send level controls, Mesa says they shouldn't really be set any higher than 3 o'clcok or so to avoid overloading the effects' inputs. Would putting a weaker tube, say a 12at or -au7, in V5 (the FX driver) lower the FX send level enough so that I could dime the channel masters?
Second, since I really like the sound and feel of sending a relatively low-level preamp signal to the power section and driving it hard with cranked masters, would putting another 12ay7 in V4 (the PI) help minimize some clipping in the PI without adversely affecting overall loudness or performance in general?
Mesa made this amp to take advantage of clipping the power section, and I'm really happy with what I've got thus far. I just would like to fine tune things to take full advantage of what I have.
First, since the channel masters are also the FX send level controls, Mesa says they shouldn't really be set any higher than 3 o'clcok or so to avoid overloading the effects' inputs. Would putting a weaker tube, say a 12at or -au7, in V5 (the FX driver) lower the FX send level enough so that I could dime the channel masters?
Second, since I really like the sound and feel of sending a relatively low-level preamp signal to the power section and driving it hard with cranked masters, would putting another 12ay7 in V4 (the PI) help minimize some clipping in the PI without adversely affecting overall loudness or performance in general?
Mesa made this amp to take advantage of clipping the power section, and I'm really happy with what I've got thus far. I just would like to fine tune things to take full advantage of what I have.
