5:50 = Too much bass?

Went to the store today and had a chance to try out the 5:50 and WOW what an amazing amp!!! I had previously only played the 5:25 and almost bought it at the time but held back cause I couldn't quite get an SRV tone out of it(a sound I want in my amp) but the 5:50 seemed to be more open and I could dial in some really nice sounds!

Only problem is; the bass was WAY too overpowering! A part of it was maybe the small amp rooms fault but I had to keep the bass dial on 0-1 on both channels the whole time! And I was playing a sss Strat! I didn't play it very loud but everytime I pushed the master a little, even with the bass all the way down it seemed to start overpower the mids and highs pretty soon.

Is this something that's common for the 5:50? Any "fixes"?

hendrik84 said:

Went to the store today and had a chance to try out the 5:50 and WOW what an amazing amp!!! I had previously only played the 5:25 and almost bought it at the time but held back cause I couldn't quite get an SRV tone out of it(a sound I want in my amp) but the 5:50 seemed to be more open and I could dial in some really nice sounds!

Only problem is; the bass was WAY too overpowering! A part of it was maybe the small amp rooms fault but I had to keep the bass dial on 0-1 on both channels the whole time! And I was playing a sss Strat! I didn't play it very loud but everytime I pushed the master a little, even with the bass all the way down it seemed to start overpower the mids and highs pretty soon.

Is this something that's common for the 5:50? Any "fixes"?

Click to expand...

No - never heard your issue before - I suggest 3 possible reasons for it :mrgreen:
- bass boom acoustics in the room you played in.
- something wrong with the amp
- you hate bass and play super high treble everything

where did you have the tone dial on the Strat ??

What pickups were you using when you tried out that 5:50? Were they powered pickups? I have a buddy of mine that once in a while comes over with his modded guitar with some sort of powered pickups and his guitar rattles my entire house as he plays though my 5:50 & 4x12. That is why he comes over with his guitar; he likes the "feel" of the power and vibration. Personnaly when a guitar amp is causing as much sysmic activity as a base amp you are doing something terribly wrong! Not always the amp's fault......

hendrik84 said:

Went to the store today and had a chance to try out the 5:50 and WOW what an amazing amp!!! I had previously only played the 5:25 and almost bought it at the time but held back cause I couldn't quite get an SRV tone out of it(a sound I want in my amp) but the 5:50 seemed to be more open and I could dial in some really nice sounds!

Only problem is; the bass was WAY too overpowering! A part of it was maybe the small amp rooms fault but I had to keep the bass dial on 0-1 on both channels the whole time! And I was playing a sss Strat! I didn't play it very loud but everytime I pushed the master a little, even with the bass all the way down it seemed to start overpower the mids and highs pretty soon.

Is this something that's common for the 5:50? Any "fixes"?

Click to expand...

What cabinet was this through? That makes all the difference, in particular ones like a Recto 4x12 or similar ones. When I first got my Recto4x12 I thought this is unusable! But as my playing technique adapted I began to think "it isn't too bad I suppose", but after a while "hey this is great - I finally found what I've been looking for". Now when I play through anything else I feel I'm missing something.

But what the other guys said also applies, the room, the condition of tubes, etc ...

My 5:50 is not "too" bassy though it does fill a room with a full spectrum tone. It works really well in a band.

I have the 5:50 1x12 combo and I do find a bass difference between channel 1 & 2, 1 being very full bass, 2 never overly bass even turned all the way up.

I have learned over the years the controls are made to be used and noon is not the baseline. Last night we had a new bass player who is much louder and fuller than our regular bass player. I had to eq less bass/more treble to fit in the mix better.

Thanks for the replies!

I had the tone dial at 10(max)on the Strat and it had Seymour Duncans ssl-5's I believe.

I went again yesterday and positioned the amp in the middle of the small room(5x8) and it was much better.

And I have to say, the clean channel is to die for!!! Pristine Fendery cleans without the ice-picking! Amazing!

The only thing bothering me now is I liked the Clean channel and the Crunch channel the most! By far! The CC channel just seemed so much more open compared to the BB channel. Don't know if that makes sense. I'm sure you could get great tones on the Blues mode if you cranked it but I was already in heaven with the blues leads I was getting from the crunch mode and even without ear-bleeding volume!

...dilemma :?

Seems to be a really common thing with the Expresses. I guess the Blues and Burn channels just take a little bit of warming up. You'll come to love them in time like many others have, hopefully.

I was playing marshalls which I got sick off cuz here in Ireland and Uk they are your standard workhorse of amplifiers. They are good value. One thing I noticed about the express was how powerful the EQ is. With marshalls u gotta dime the treble and bass but the express is completely different. The bass is really powerful and needs to be used sparingly. It's what gives the amp THAT HUGE LITTLE AMP sound! I love mesa. It did mean rethinking how I EQ my sound but any experienced boogie owner will tell u that. Mesa EQ is really sensitive and powerful. It means the amp can cater for all guitars like my fender jaguar, I run the bass pretty high. The express is unique in the Mesa line as you can actually achieve a fuzz like distortion that's so smooth and thick! Enjoy!

Ok, this is my first post on the boogie board so bare with me. I recently purchased the express 5:50 and could not be more pleased. I have worked with it for many many hours and am still finding new sounds.

That being said, in response to the original poster, I there is really only two explanations for your issue and it isn't directly related to to bass knob. If you look at the amp's circuit, it passes your guitar's signal through each control in the order they appear (from left to right). The gain is the preamp boost of sorts, preparing the signal for the EQ. On the contrary, the treble/middle/bass portion of the circuit actually draws from the signal coming from the gain. Think of a series of filters. The treble is first; If turned up, most of your mids and bass will be filtered out of the signal... if down, your high (treble) frequencies will be the ones filtered. You can apply this logic to the other two "filters" as well. Anyway, all that to say that if you had both the treble and the mid knobs down low, even a small increase to the bass knob could make a huge difference. The other possibility is one that I experience quite frequently. If I dial in a tone in the C/C channel but later decide I want to add some flavor by cranking the gain, I always get overwhelmed with bass and have to turn it down about 90 degrees to maintain my original tone with the increased gain. So in short, make sure that the treble and mid are set to at least around 50% and remember that more gain means more of everything... the most noticeable being bass.

To the person having trouble with channel 2, don't give up on it. It's more like a cat while channel 1 is like a dog. You instantly fall in love with channel 1 and it always loves you back while channel 2 makes you spend time trying to figure it out. At first I thought there was a bad tube or blown fuse in channel 2 because of its lack of fullness but now I wouldn't use anything else for solos. Heck, I even gave away my $200 rizzafratsis distortion pedal because it pales in comparison to channel 2. I suggest using the suggested settings in the manual as a basis to work off of then increasing gain and master to your liking then tweaking the EQ/reverb as needed, good luck!

Yeah I had the treble around one o'clock but I went again and I'm pretty sure it was the rooms acoustic and the amp was all the up to the wall. When I played it again I took it out and placed it in the middle of the room and it was a whole different deal.

I'm actually craving for this amp right now.

Where do you guys think this amp shines the most? I pretty much never took the master over 25% but I was able to get some amazing sounds, but how hard do you guys push it to get it to its sweet spot?

Usually on whatever channel I'm on, I find that the gain and master controls sound good at noonish, and everything else set to taste. Yes, it is loud.

Good posts there guys. Would agree. Set everything at noon and reduce bass as required (same applies to other eq knobs). The manual states this as a good reference point. Don't be afraid to have the bass knob barely on at all. There is an interesting video on endorsee Andy Timmons and he states how surprised he was doing this. It means rethinking how you eq your settings but whatever sounds good stick with it. Mr Timmons in the video barely has the bass on when he runs the gain up fully on his loan star. So, listen and don't let your eyes deceive you like they did me!

hendrik84 said:

Went to the store today and had a chance to try out the 5:50 and WOW what an amazing amp!!! I had previously only played the 5:25 and almost bought it at the time but held back cause I couldn't quite get an SRV tone out of it(a sound I want in my amp) but the 5:50 seemed to be more open and I could dial in some really nice sounds!

Only problem is; the bass was WAY too overpowering! A part of it was maybe the small amp rooms fault but I had to keep the bass dial on 0-1 on both channels the whole time! And I was playing a sss Strat! I didn't play it very loud but everytime I pushed the master a little, even with the bass all the way down it seemed to start overpower the mids and highs pretty soon.

Is this something that's common for the 5:50? Any "fixes"?

Click to expand...

SRV did not use Mesa's...