toneocaster said:
The volume was between 11 and 1 o-clock , treble was straight up 12, mid 10 or 11, bass 12 to 10, presence 10 to 1. and the master at 9. The reverb was set on for all modes and the rear "clean level" was on hi-low, but from what I understand, as the volume increases, this function bypasses?....Fairly straight ahead settings. I gotta tell ya, the owner's manual confuses the dog out of me. I've been through it many times while experimenting and honestly, a simple amp my ***! Maybe it's all me and I was expecting something different, but the amp sounds way better to me at low house volumes? I was going to change the speakers to Weber's, Thames or a blue, silver mix, but kept the greenie's in place. After last night I know that it's not a speaker issue, but rather the amp itself..........I really don't want to give up so quickly?? Help! lol!.......my wife and some friends told me that my sound was totally different last night. They either hear me with my Fuchs or for some smaller gigs a Hot Rod Deluxe and all could tell a difference, but then again, I had top use a pedal to get the bite I needed. Like I said, the clean was to die for, any attempt to overdrive sucked and was muddy.
Weird.
OK.
Here's your problem.
TURN THE MIDS UP!!!!!
That is my first piece of advice. Mids at 10:00 is great for bedroom tones as it phattens up the tone while simultaneously lowering the perceived volume of the amp. The mids on this amp act like a second volume knob and they really add a lot of cut to the tone. To cut bass, you CAN roll the bass knob back, but turning up the treble will feed less bass into the signal, thereby also dialing out muddiness. To get more cut, turn mids up. The Presence adds clarity to the tone.
My general cheat sheet for Mesa amps is that for gigs, bass goes down and mids go up and volume (gain) goes down. It says in the manual that if the low end gets too thick and boomy, you can turn down the volume and it will thin out the tone. That is worth trying as well.
Live, I was running a little less hot than you last night but I had the treble up at 1:00, Mids at 1:00, Presence at 1:00 and bass back at 9:00. This was with the volume at 1:30 and the master at about 8:30 on 45watts. (gain trim switch set to normal)
Second piece of advice: I never thought I'd say this but ditch the greenbacks. They tend to be very bass heavy / muddy sounding speakers with this sort of an amp. You want something like a v30 that has a similar overall tone but with more clarity and cut in the midrange, at least for gigging. I like the c90 / v30 combination mostly since it gives better lead tones. Honestly though, soundguys just mic the v30 so the c90 is more there to keep me happy and playing well. Screamingdaisy says that a v30 2 x 12 has cut and clarity but he likes the c90s because they provide a more unique tone. All preference, I guess.
You're running a combo though, right? I find I prefer a close back cab since this gives less booming in the bass as well. Just a thought.
jeffp said:
you`re scaring me. I love mine but haven`t been above 10 on the volume and that was only for a minute.
I've never gigged this thing above 10 yet. Loud amp is LOUD!
DWAKO said:
I'm sure you'll hear this from many others on the forum, but as you turn up the volume the bass response on the ED GREATLY increases, it's an extremely bass heavy amp. Many run their bass knob as low as 9 o clock to get a balanced tone. I know I play a very different style than you but at times I use a Tube Screamer to tighten up the low end response. But I would start out by dialing back the bass more the you usually would, it should fill out even on the clean channel as you turn up.
This is mostly because of how we 'perceive' loudness.
http://community.calrec.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Equal-Loudness-Contours.gif
As sound gets louder, our perception of it changes.
Cradlefish and I have had numerous discussions about this. He turns up the mids even for practice because he wants to be 'used' to mid heavy tunes. I just set 'bedroom tone' for practice since I want to sound good to myself and because I don't want to go deaf prematurely. I always re-eq my amp for gigging because I understand both how psychoacoustics work and how a guitar blends with a bass. So ya, live I set my tone and then put in ear plugs afterwords. I also angle my cab up at me so I can hear it. If you have a semi - decent sounddouche, it is profitable to keep stage volume as low as possible so they can get a better mix.
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