Roadster Channel 4 issues

Hello all,

New to the board, hope to learn lots.

Purchased a new Mesa Roadster head about 2 weeks ago and I must say I am blow away buy it. I am having an issue with channel four and was hoping to get some input for you all.

I have the back set to 50w & Diode mode. I am using the Bold & Modern setting on the front with the following tone settings:

Master: 7
Presence: 7
Bass: 5
Mid: 7
Treble: 8
Gain: 7

The main issue I am having is no matter what I do, the sound is ultra-deep and muddy - the best way I can describe it is it sounds like I am listening to it with ear plugs in. If I switch it to vintage, it gets even deeper bass with less distortion. When I go to channel 3 (vintage) and the same Master volume setting on that channel it comes to life and sound purely awesome.

I guess the question is channel 4 suppose to be that bassy / deep / dark / muddy or is it something else? I was think maybe it's a tube issue for that channel but looking in the manual everything that the 12ax7 tubes has listed for channel 4 shares something with channel 3 and my logic says if it were a tube issue, both channel 3 and 4 would be having issues.

If this is normal, I can live with it and just use channel 3 but I would think channel 4 would pick up where channel 3 left off.

Thanks for any help!
Jason J

Channel 4 is optimized for modern. Vintage and raw will tend to sound muddy with it.

Is your effects loop bypassed?

Are those settings out of 10? If they are I'd start by turning down the gain, treble, midrange, presence and master.

Part of it might be the 50W setting. As the headroom comes down, the clarity also comes down and it's a darker sound.

+1 to pulling the Gain back just a touch. Alternately, pull the bass back to 4 if you are using Gain on 7. The Gain control begins adding more low end around that point.

Ya, it was the 50w setting - all good now, other than it's very loud now - lol.

Thank you!

I would also suggest dropping the gain, but you already found that out.

There is another trick to the Roadster, and when you are ready to do this perhaps you will remember.
Change V1 to a Tung Sol, or other (EH, Svetlana, Mullard ) the frequency response of the Mesa 12ax7 (jj ECC83s) can really enhance the low bottom end. Even with V2 it has an influence but not as much as the V1 position. At the moment, I am using a Mullard CV4004 in V1 and a JJ ECC803s (long plate) in V2 which keep the amp out of the mudd on CH4. I like to do a lot of palm muting and found it difficult to manage with the stock tubes in V1 and V2.