The one tone I can’t seem to get

I’m in love with my Mark V, and I pretty much agree with the ‘It’s You’ thread. However, after a solid year and a half of working with the V, there’s one important tone I’m about to give up on trying to dial in.

It’s that vintage low-gain, smooth transition into breakup, clear upper mids, for-lack-of-a-better-word ‘blues’ tone. And I know what it sounds like because I have a Lonestar Special and a Cali Tweed that both do it with zero effort.

I need my clean and my big lead sound, so channels 1 and 3 are accounted for. I need to get my low-to-mid gain from channel 2. I’m defaulting to Edge mode, which is almost like a Vox, but it’s a bit brash for what I’m talking about. The transition into clip is pretty obvious, and the upper frequency distortion is very crunchy.

Speaking of crunch... Crunch mode is great at mid gain settings, but it doesn’t have much life down around 9:00 on the gain knob. And Mark I mode seems to want to get dirty right away too, much more than an actual Mark I. They also blast into heavy distortion with even the slightest amount of boost. I even tried going clean and using low power to break up the power section. It was just OK, more of a Stones rhythm than a thick, clear blues tone.

So am I stuck with using a pedal for low gain? With all the options in front of us, that does seem a little weird.

I wouldn't be surprised if you benefited from using a clean boost out in front of the amp, and I don't think that's much of a sin. It may help with both the blues tone you want from channel 1 as well as spruce up your gain in crunch mode.

I use them frequently and think they help a lot.

Also, Pete Thorn posted a vid on using a boost for SRV's tone awhile back that was great: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ8UMHODKuU&feature=youtu.be

Anyway, I'm interested to hear what you find. Hang in there.

The Mink said:

I’m in love with my Mark V, and I pretty much agree with the ‘It’s You’ thread. However, after a solid year and a half of working with the V, there’s one important tone I’m about to give up on trying to dial in.

It’s that vintage low-gain, smooth transition into breakup, clear upper mids, for-lack-of-a-better-word ‘blues’ tone. And I know what it sounds like because I have a Lonestar Special and a Cali Tweed that both do it with zero effort.

I need my clean and my big lead sound, so channels 1 and 3 are accounted for. I need to get my low-to-mid gain from channel 2. I’m defaulting to Edge mode, which is almost like a Vox, but it’s a bit brash for what I’m talking about. The transition into clip is pretty obvious, and the upper frequency distortion is very crunchy.

Speaking of crunch... Crunch mode is great at mid gain settings, but it doesn’t have much life down around 9:00 on the gain knob. And Mark I mode seems to want to get dirty right away too, much more than an actual Mark I. They also blast into heavy distortion with even the slightest amount of boost. I even tried going clean and using low power to break up the power section. It was just OK, more of a Stones rhythm than a thick, clear blues tone.

So am I stuck with using a pedal for low gain? With all the options in front of us, that does seem a little weird.

Click to expand...

Closest I can get to low gain bluesy tubescreamer type overdrive is on Fat Clean cranking the mid and gain dials - EQs to suit.

Otherwise I use a Maxon OD-9 tubescreamer pedal for classic SRV style bluesy overdrive

Channel 2 was never really intended for that "edge of breakup" Fender Blackface thing you're after.
Ch2 is your straight ahead rock 'n roll rhythm crunch channel and you will be much better served if you use it for what it was intended for.
If you need your regular cleans to be pristine but you still want the option for that slightly pushed BF tone then you're going to need to find a fairly transparent overdrive pedal. That will rule out a Tubescreamer type or a Klon Klone type, probably the two most commonly sought after OD sounds. The TS is far too opaque and mid heavy. The Klones are more transparent but still mid heavy. The answer is extremely pricey but I think your best best might be the AnalogMan King Of Tone. The tone you're after is the very thing they do best and I don't know if anything else does it quite as well.

Channel 2 seems to be the odd one when trying to get tones it was not designed for. I always have to remember this amp was not designed like an amp with three channels. It's nine amps three at a time. My first thought would be guitar. Single coilpickups maybe some that are on the low power side. Tweak one of the amps on channel two like the C+ that seems closest or just try all of them. Try bringing the presence up about half, turn the gain way down and push the Mids and Highs past noon probably not much bass either. Push the volume of the channel up. Then start adding gain and adjusting EQ. The mark V is designed with a 0 to 10 thought process. Most amps are designed in a more -5+ as in 5 (half) of what ever sounds good and you remove or add starting at 5 (half). Since a blues sound is kind of a pushed type of sound the EQ can push a bit of signal. That may get you into the area you are looking for

I put things the way I did as guitars are all different and that is where it all starts. You will never dial in a sound like another amp but you may find something that shines.

On one of my recordings I did a slide guitar part for a country song I wrote. To get the tone I was looking for on the amp (mesa DC-5) I turned everything exactly the oposite of what my normal guitar sound was. I used an Ibanez 7 string, on the middle pickup, a glass slide, I didn't mute behind the slide, I hit record, played it back and it sounded like a dobro. It was freakin awesome.

I thought tweed captured this tone pretty well. Another option you could try is to use tweed for the dirty clean and then use unconventional settings on channel 2 for that to serve as your clean clean. It’s been a while but I think Clean can be achieved on any of the modes in channel 2 with the right settings.

I wish that were true. There are some ‘OK’ cleanish tones on channel 2 but they all want to break up pretty quick.

I have been experimenting some more with lower gain on Crunch mode, as well as adding a Klon or Zendrive type pedal on Channel 1. I have a Black Country Customs Tony Iommi boost that might work really well.

Just curious if you ever solved this riddle? I'm very close to picking up a Mark V (not sure which version yet 90 watt or 35). And that tone you describe "It’s that vintage low-gain, smooth transition into breakup, clear upper mids, for-lack-of-a-better-word ‘blues’ tone." is definitely something I'd need. I have some seriously choice low gain pedals that I could probably use to get me there if the Mark V doesn't do it...like my Timmy or JRockett Blue Note.

Was just wondering if you'd come up with a solution yet.

DanL said:

Just curious if you ever solved this riddle? I'm very close to picking up a Mark V (not sure which version yet 90 watt or 35). And that tone you describe "It’s that vintage low-gain, smooth transition into breakup, clear upper mids, for-lack-of-a-better-word ‘blues’ tone." is definitely something I'd need. I have some seriously choice low gain pedals that I could probably use to get me there if the Mark V doesn't do it...like my Timmy or JRockett Blue Note.

Was just wondering if you'd come up with a solution yet.

Click to expand...

Not the OP, but while I had the 90W Mark V head my go-to edge-of-breakup was always ch1 tweed mode in the lowest wattage setting (was it 10w or 5w ). Every time it just worked for me and that mode/wattage combination had some serious pissed-off small-amp tones in it..

I’m actually missing the Mark V on some occasions ...

Cool thanks man.

I thought that Edge in 45w with the tube rectifier, gain low volume high, but my idea of a blues tone may be a little different (and I might have had El34s at the time). Nowadays I run a clean boost always on and get that out of channel 1 on Fat w/Bold on