I now know...

Why all of you who own DR's and TR's use the "vintage" mode on your amps on the distortion channels. Today at practice, before we started going through our songs, I made the switch from Modern to Vintage on my Triple, re-eq'd the amp, turned the channel volumes up....and WOW. I love my amp!!!! I thought the Modern modes were amazing, until I changed to Vintage. I think they are going to be staying on this setting for a long time. I didn't look to see if I had the Diodes or Tube Rectifiers selected, I think I had the diodes activated though, and the sound was just brutal, and it no longer has the over the top harshness that the Modern modes had. Just thought I'd share this revelation I had today, and would encourage anyone who uses modern mode on the distortion channels to give the vintage mode a shot. And this is coming from a guitarist in a Metal/Hardcore band, and strictly stuck to the modern modes for the heavy tones.


-AJH

When I had a DR, all I used was the Vintage mode on both CH2 and 3.. so much better to my ears.

^Exactly.

Funny dude....you're on an indentical path that I was....first I loved Modern....then switched to vintage and loved it more (couldn't stand modern anymore)....then I started hating the recto in general :lol:

I'll be the first to give you an early welcome to the Mark IV family :wink:

Same for the ROV when I owned it,, 95% of the time I was switching between the vintage and raw channels.. Sweet.

ibanez4life SZ! said:

^Exactly.

I'll be the first to give you an early welcome to the Mark IV family :wink:

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Haha funny you should say that, because the Mk IV is going to be the next amp I purchase when I get the funds to do so. Going to run them in unison and make waste of my other guitarist's Krank Rev 1 and Hughes and Kettner TriAmp stack that he has.
:twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
-AJH

I liked Vintage first. Got curious and switched to Modern. Then I tried Raw with the OD gain and level maxed. Back to Modern. Now I'm thinking of switching back to Vintage. Truthfully I can find tones I enjoy in all gain stages, on all channels.

ibanez4life SZ! said:

^Exactly.

I'll be the first to give you an early welcome to the Mark IV family :wink:

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Thats funny, I just picked up a Quad Pre today. Oh what sweet sounds!

MesaENGR412 - You've had that TR for a while and are just finding this warmer sweeter tone (IMO) that the amp offers. It's nice when you own a piece of equipment and years later find things about it that make you fall in love all over again.

I'm just a "garage" hobbyist and I enjoy going back and forth from Vintage to Modern for differnet songs.

i use the modern setting but on channel 2 not channel 3 of my dual rectifier. i discovered this also about a year after getting my amp.

i guess it's only natural to use the highest distortion setting possible when getting a new amp, especially if you play heavy crunchy metal-type music. but IMO, with mesa's the best tones are found not at the extreme settings but somewhere in-between.

I always used vintage on ch. 3 and modern in ch. 4o n my Roadster. I really dig the modern tone, but I think it's because I use it sparingly, 90% of the time I am on ch3. Vintage.

i also use modern on channel 2 and vintage or raw on channel 3 (depending on my mood). i think modern is much more manageable on channel 2 and i get some great crushing distortion out of it. then i can switch to channel 3 to do our ac/dc stuff. doesn't quite nail ac/dc, but it gets close enough for me.

I must be tone deaf but I hear absolutely no difference between modern and vintage besides a monumental loss of headroom. I use the setting for rehearsals for volume issues but never thought for a moment that the sound was any different. Raw just sounds like the gain is rolled back even more with the same loss of headroom. I personally have always wondered why Mesa bothers to put these modes on the amp.

Worst of all is the clean channel which already breaks up on the clean setting. Putting it in the the raw mode or whatever it is just makes it worse. I guess I need to experiment with these modes some more but I just don't see them as being much more musically diverse than rolling back the gain and turning the volume down.

That being said, I played though some guys Marshall half stack at an audition this weekend and the thing had no roar whatsoever. I'd rather play a DR with 10 year old tubes through Hitachi speakers then ever play through a Marshall again.

I gotta get that Mark IV............

pjrake said:

but IMO, with mesa's the best tones are found not at the extreme settings but somewhere in-between.

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...the seemingly endless in-between. Add changes to guitar settings, and there's a lifetime of tone!