F-100 Blues Sound

Hi there

I'm new to this forum and have a question for you guys

For several years I play a Fender Telecaster on a Mesa Boogie F-100.
I like the "twang" sound the Clean Channel gives me but also like playing that heavy distortion channel.

Times have changed and I'm playing more and more blues licks.
I thought of selling my F-100 and then buying a Fender Blues deville or a Peavey Delta Blues...

Now I read some things on the internet about changing your Power amp tubes for getting a different sound.
Is it possible to "tweak" my mesa boogie to get a more Blues amplifier? (more like a Lonestar or something like that?)
Or should I just get another amp because I won't get the sound I'm looking for?

Also if somebody knows how to tune my amplifier into a more bluesy way... please tell me.
I'm a newbie in this sort of things.

(Also some people don't understand why I play with a Telecaster on a Mesa Boogie... Is this so awkward to do? They always say "If you play a Mesa you should play with humbuckers like a Gibson Les Paul or PRS..." ).

Thanks for the help and comments.

Greetz

Inkz

I don't think tubes would give you a more "Blues sound", but do what Stevie Ray did and go with a 808 Screamer on the clean channel. F100 is a way better built amp than the ones you mentioned so I would go down the pedal route.
By the way, I use a Tele with my Mesa and I like it to!

fishyfishfish said:

I don't think tubes would give you a more "Blues sound", but do what Stevie Ray did and go with a 808 Screamer on the clean channel. F100 is a way better built amp than the ones you mentioned so I would go down the pedal route.
By the way, I use a Tele with my Mesa and I like it to!

Click to expand...

Well I have a Boss Bd2 blues driver and it gives me a bit of that blues tone I'm looking for but not much.

Which 808 Screamer are you referring to?

The Retro Sonic 808 Screamer or the Ibanez TS-808 Tube screamer?

(I once heard of pedals with some sort of preamp tubes which give a very warm sound... Do you know some of those?)

Thanks

Inkz

inkbiegel said:

(I once heard of pedals with some sort of preamp tubes which give a very warm sound... Do you know some of those?)

Click to expand...

The Tonebone Classic or the Hot British from Radial have tubes (12AX7) in their circuits. They sound very good (I've got a Classic) but are not specifically blues overdrive pedals, more distortion pedals that can go very heavy. I can quite duplicate the scream of my F50 on the Classic but I'm not too fond of it's low gain settings, like just on the edge.
By experience and comparison with other pedals without tubes I'm not convinced you need a tube in there.

Fulltone Fulldrive is a extended TS9 very transparent (much more than a TS9) and very dynamic.
Fulltone OCD (my favorite) is fatter than the Fulldrive (thus less transparent) but much more dynamic

On the much cheaper side people speak highly of the Digitech Bad Monkey and the Danelectro CoolCat as blues overdrive.

If the 'blues tone' you're seeking is Robben Ford, Matt Schofield then the Hermida Zendrive might be for you, 'Dumble in a box' pedal by excellence. Never tried one but it's what Robben Ford uses when he has to play on a TwinReverb instead of his Dumble. I still plan to build one though.

Try as many as you can and judge for yourself.

inkbiegel said:

(Also some people don't understand why I play with a Telecaster on a Mesa Boogie... Is this so awkward to do? They always say "If you play a Mesa you should play with humbuckers like a Gibson Les Paul or PRS..." ).

Click to expand...

This is just plain crap. You should play what sounds and feel good to you not what some ******** think because he read it on the web. In the late 70's/early 80's I believe that one of the guitarist of the Eagles used a Tele with a Boogie while the other used a LesPaul just to differentiate the tones (I believe the 2 voiced solo on Hotel California is in this setup but I might be wrong there don't nail me on this one ) So if they did it then why wouldn't you now?

I use my F50 with both a Suhr ProS1 (strat type with SSH pickups) and my custom made axe with HSH and set neck and both sound great.

Cheers
Fabien

Hi Fabien.

Thanks a lot for you comments.

I checked the guitar pedals on www.proguitarshop.com and they all do sound very nice.

Did you ever tried a "Blues tubes" or the "marshall blues breaker"?

The thing is...
I want my F-100 to sound more blues without any overdrive pedal so just the clean channel.

Maybe I should replace my tubes first because I have my F-100 now for 4 years and I never changed them.
So maybe if I put some other tubes in it, the clean channel without guitar pedals will sound more "Bluesy" if I change the tones.

If that does the trick I'm gonna search for a good blues overdrive.

but first I want to have a warm blues sound on my clean channel.

Greetz
Inkz

Sorry, never tried a Blues Tube or a Bluesbreaker.

Changing your tubes (power tubes that is, the preamp tubes should be able to last much longer) is always a good idea after a few years. You'll regenerate your tone, more dynamic and headroom and maybe more life in it. But not exactly more 'bluesy'.
Mesa's in general aren't blues amps except maybe a few old models like the subway, Heartbreaker and maybe the new ElectroDyne.

What you could try on the clean channel is to raise your gain to about 2:00 this warms up the tone considerably (providing it's not your setting already) and you'll probably have to reduce your bass to about 9:00 to avoid mud.
But what you will not get on the F Series is the spongey tone that could be associated with blues, The F is a typical Mesa tone, bold and direct.
On the lead channel with lower gain settings (about 9:00/10:00) I can get some bluesier tones with a Strat neck pup but it will still sound quite rock because of the amp gain structure.

If you wnat that spongey tone you'll need an overdrive pedal.

Hpe this helps!

Cheers
Fabien

I got an email back from eurotubes.com and they said the same thing.
It's always nice to change your tubes to get more warmth, more grit, more low end and so forth.
But a Mesa will sound like a Mesa.

Good to finally know about that.

About the tones you said...
I set my Gain at 8:30 so I can crank up the volume otherwise if I set the Gain at 2:00 I have to turn my volume down and that sounds kind of muddy.
But this morning I tried some things with my blues driver and I'm getting a bit of a spongey tone like you said.
But Like I said my Mesa will always be a Rock Amp and that's good because when I don't play the blues I play Rock and the F-100 is very versatile in some different kind of Rock styles (AC/DC, Arctic Monkeys, Tool).

So maybe I'm gonna buy a blues amp just to have that blues sound
Do you know some brands or models which are blues amps?
I know Fender has Blues deluxe and Bassman but what about Rivera or other brands?

Thanks again.

Groeten
Maarten

inkbiegel said:

...I set my Gain at 8:30 so I can crank up the volume otherwise if I set the Gain at 2:00 I have to turn my volume down and that sounds kind of muddy.

Click to expand...

As I said watch your bass setting. With the gain set high, the bass increases considerably in the tone so you must lower the bass on the EQ. The gain between 11:00 and 2:00 changes the tone dramatically from spanky to fat.

inkbiegel said:

...Do you know some brands or models which are blues amps?
I know Fender has Blues deluxe and Bassman but what about Rivera or other brands?

Click to expand...

Blues Deluxe is Fender clean and warm but if it's really a blues tone I don't know.
Bassman is the father of almost all classic amp circuit and is the epitome of vintage tone. All those low gain amps, when pushed , will get raunchy, fat and 'bluesy', same with some Marshalls.
Rivera (who's built a whole generation of Fender amps in the Early '80s) is a bit like Mesa as it has a specific tone: Fender clean and Marshall lead (a bit of a generalisation but you see my point).

Cheers
Fabien

I get a decent bluesy breakup running a Strat-esque G&L Comanche straight into the F-30, channel 2 w/Contour on(!?!) but with the gain backed off to 7 or MAYBE 8 o'clock. The Comanche's Z coil pickups are quite a bit more hot than standard Strat Alincos, so maybe at around 8-9 o'clock you'd begin to hear what I'm talking about. I've messed with channel 2 without Contour in search of guitar-volume-control-sensitive blues sounds but haven't managed to find what I'm looking for. It seems we're all aware of the F series "Channel 2 Poo".

Ryann said:

I get a decent bluesy breakup running a Strat-esque G&L Comanche straight into the F-30, channel 2 w/Contour on(!?!) but with the gain backed off to 7 or MAYBE 8 o'clock. The Comanche's Z coil pickups are quite a bit more hot than standard Strat Alincos, so maybe at around 8-9 o'clock you'd begin to hear what I'm talking about. I've messed with channel 2 without Contour in search of guitar-volume-control-sensitive blues sounds but haven't managed to find what I'm looking for. It seems we're all aware of the F series "Channel 2 Poo".

Click to expand...

I'm not sure to understand what you mean by 'Channel 2 poo' but I'm quite happy with my channel 2 on my F50 and I never use the contour. With the gain at about 11:00 the tone cleans up quite nicely when turning down the guitar volume (Suhr strat) though you still have to pick lightly to keep it really clean. But it's a Mesa so the tone will never get too spongey. That's why I bought the F50, for the 'directness' of the lead tone (and the great clean channel).

Lately I tried a relatively new amp called The Valve (http://www.the-valve.com) made in Italy. EL34 based, absolutely stunning clean channel, so warm I thought it was 6L6s. But the lead channel was the most amazing, going from almost clean to heavy vintage Marshall overdrive and with a healthy dose of singing sustainy gain set at about 1:00/2:00 (read: a bloody great solo tone), turn down your guitar volume to 4 or 5 and even the crunch is gone leaving only a marvelous fat warm clean tone.
Well this I would call a blues amp!

Cheers
Fabien

Well

I almost have my blues sound on my F100

I switch it to 100 watts and use channel 1
Gain: 9:00
Treble: 11:00
Middle: 3:00
Bass: 9:00
Reverb: 11:30
Volume: 9:30

I do use a Boss BD2 blues driver to get that extra blues tone without getting to much overdrive.

But I'm still planning on changing the tubes.
I went to the store the other day and played a fender bassman, blues deluxe and blues Jr.
Now they all sounded great and they are definitely more bluesy then my F100.

Maybe later I'm gonna buy a used blues Jr.
they are like 350 euros and more portable then my F-100 which weighs like a ton.

Greetz
Inkz

you can certainly mess with pedals... but other than the clean channels headroom and clean voicing to accept the coloring of those blues pedals, I see no blues tones coming from an f-100. the gain section is voiced all mesa and my 100 was a flame thrower.
I too find myself gravitating to that cleaner blues crunch today, though I like to throw things into meltdown mode for soloing.

again you can play around with whatever you want... but I think in the end a second or another amp is what you'll opt for.
there is no one amp that nails everything... unless doing one thing, I find 4-5 amps is a must.


the fender vibro king is a great blues amp, nice early break up, fantastic blues crunch with or without a sparkle drive , but you'll have to attenuate it as they are inherently loud like the f-100.

though off the radar in the blues circles I've always thought that the marshall 2558 jubilee combos have that blues crunch in their normal channel. you can even dial them back in gain mode...same with the 2550 head . its really more that the cleans are so abismol lending a hand to that bluesy sound .
and those amps are not so loud off the line...

my 70s marshall master amps are way louder on the same settings than my jubilee's.
and with that said... its hard to beat a 50 watt marshall master 2x12 combo for the blues. tubes and the right speakers will aid some...I used to run both of my rigs while doing an SRV show back about 8 yrs ago.... old blues guys would constantly ask what I mods I was running and tube compliments..they'd gawk at the amps all night long.
I dont believe in mods! its just tube and speaker combinations that nailed the sound.

come to think of it I dont know why I dont pull them out of the closet and run them today...Ive been a big mesa hater all of my playing life, but am having a ton of fun with my f-series gear so maybe I have seen the light, that or lost my mind & ear.

I agree that the F100 can spit a nasty growl, I've been playing one I just picked up.
I'm running it through greenbacks which do help alot.

Just swapping between a strat and an LP I was able to dial in some great blues tones.
The clean is a really great starting point and can cover alot of territory...sweet.
The next range of twang, crunch all the way to a smooth sustaining lead is on ch2 with gain at 3 or less with the volume at 4 or better.

Just tweaking the various strat pickup positions, volume and tone got me there and back using those two channels. The LP did fine as well but if you are looking for SRV or the like, a strat is the ticket.
I'm not very big on using od pedals...and with this amp I won't need to.
I bet a milder 12AT7 in the pre would also help.

The contour channel is another animal...all good though.

i have been use in a bd-2 with the keeley mod and phat switch
channel 1
gain 3 o'clock
treb 12o'clock
mid 1o'clock
bass 10 o'clock.

http://www.robertkeeley.com/product.php?id=14