TA-30 Combo Sliced My Head Off!

Or that's the way it felt anyways when I set my new Transatlantic Combo Ch1 with similar EQ settings to my AC15C1. "Bright' is an understatement!!! So rolled it back to 8:30 which I have never done on ANY piece of audio equipment, EVER. It was still bright so just rolled off more treble on the strat (bridge PU treble mod). Was feeling kinda weird cuz I usually like to have the treble cranked pretty good and just LOOKING at that dial at 8:30 was freaking me out.

Then today put my AC15 beside the TA-30 to compare tones. This is where it got DOUBLE-WEIRD. To bring the TA anywhere near the amount of treble I was hearing from my AC, I had to roll the treble completely "off". Yet it was still brighter than the AC!!!

I had the top-boost on and using the tone cut knob as the master (not a tone cut). Just a bit of bass and it was still brighter than the AC with its treble at 11:30.

I assume, then, the conversation will mention "active tone stacks" and such. I would welcome anyone to chime in and make me feel better about my TREBLE BEING AT ZERO!

Did you try the TA30 thru the Voxs speaker?

What's your setting on you midrange? Try turning the midrange up.

I'm taking a wild stab at this ...

You see these newer MESA amps (to me) has interactive tone controls. What ever tone control is turn up, that's where most of the gain signals are going to. So if your treble setting is higher than your mid, the treble is getting more of the gain signals.

Now you say you turn the treble is all the way off and its still bright. Well turn up the mids so gain signals are going to midrange.

This interactive tone control makes MESA amps versatile, but could be a curse cause you can't dial in your MESA to your liking.

Well other will chime in confirming or rebuttal what I've just said. :wink:


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aw disregard what I just said. I'm not foo familiar with the TA-30 and its tone control. My above description was some of MESA current model that Ive experience.

By the way,the AC15 is one sweet amp in my opinion.

Yes, I will try the vox speaker... should be interesting.

The TA-30 does not have a mid adjustment so I suppose you adjust the mid by how much highs and lows you have dialled in around it.

Hmmm...that sounds weird to me too.

While I have never owned a Vox AC15 or AC30, I have definitely heard many in my life.
Personally, I feel that my TA30 captures the "Vox Tone" very nicely in Ch1 (clean and top boost modes) while playing through using my strat type guitars! :?:

I know you mentioned that you were using Ch1 in master volume mode (Tone Cut Knob Pulled Out with knob used for Ch1 master volume). Are you absolutely sure the "Tone Cut Knob" was pulled out? If not, and you were accidentally in "Tone Cut Mode" with knob pushed in and you had it set in its lower regions.....it would be VERY Bright!

In the "Tone Cut Mode" with no master volume control of Ch1 (either mode)...this knob acts as a volume and tone knob....the more CCW the setting the brighter and lower volume the amp becomes...the more CW this setting the darker and louder the amp becomes.

If you truly had the "Tone Cut Knob" pulled out.....the amp is fixed at a setting around 11 o'clock for the tone response, but allows the knob to be used as a Ch1 volume knob.

I am thinking that possibly you weren't in the Ch1 master volume mode (Tone cut pulled out) as you thought you were, and the knob setting was set fairly low....say 9 or 10 o'clock. If you were actually set to master volume mode (Ch1 tone cut pulled out) and it still sounded overly bright...then it could be that feature isn't working properly in your amp.

Try this suggestion (when nobody is around and you can crank it)......push the "Tone Cut Knob" in and crank the knob from CCW to CW. You should here it go from super bright low volume to super loud much darker sounds as you continue in the CW direction. Use 15W mode when doing this test unless you don't have family members or neighbors to irritate.

Then pull the Tone Cut Knob out to engage the knob as a Ch1 master volume. It should sound fairly pleasing "brightness wise" and allow you to manage the volume of Ch1 nicely.

BTW...Ch2 also has a pull feature on the gain. Are you sure you had the right knob pulled in Ch1 to engage the master volume control?

Hope this helps.

Had a little jam with it tonight. I am definitely using the master volume in Ch1. But for fun I tried the tone cut as I haven't explored that yet and I was intrigued by this:

MBJunkie, you said: ...push the "Tone Cut Knob" in and crank the knob from CCW to CW. You should here it go from super bright low volume to super loud much darker sounds as you continue in the CW direction.

I wondered why the volume would change when using the tone cut? I would assume just the tone would change using the tone cut. So, I verified that on my TA-30, it operates as I thought it would... the tone cut just cuts the tone without volume change.

Incidentally, in Ch2 Tweed setting, "boost" (pulling the knob) doesn't seem to change anything.

So now I have even more questions.

I misspoke in my reply. Sorry about that!
Honestly, it has been quite a while since I played my TA30 112 combo.
However, I have never considered it nearly as bright as you describe.
The Top Boost of Ch1 is my favorite mode in the entire amp.
Best of luck resolving your issues.

Ah! No problemo!

I went back and watched Vids on the amp to see what settings were commonly being used and indeed they had the treble higher than what I can stand. HOWEVER, they also had the bass turned up to around 11 or 12:00. My bass setting is around 8 to 9:00. So maybe because of the lack of bass, I PERCIEVE the amp to be bright.

More tone searching tonight!

Yes, definitely turn the bass up....
I do hope that you are able to find sounds to your liking with the TA30.
If not, it just may not be the amp for you.
Btw....the gain pull feature on Ch2 just adds a bit more sustain....not a big difference in volume or sound IMO.

Best of luck to you!

Had an all day jam/recording session (for fun) today. Cranked the bass. Then rolled it back some as it was playing havock with the acoustic guitar. And the acoustic guitar is always fighting for frequencies with the bass guitar. So I have to sacrifice the lower frequencies that I would normally want to hear from my rig.

Anyways, both bass and treble are around 8:30 and I am getting wicked good sounds from the Voxish and Tweedish channels. I just have to get used to how the TA-30 EQs out.

Incidently, I am using Ch1 for the grittier sounds and Ch2 for sparkling cleans. This is backwards from other users I have talked to. Just, I can't give up that Voxish "hair". Certainly, there are easily a couple years of experimentation ahead. One thing I noticed is this amp welcomes gain types of pedals where as the AC15 kinda craps out or something when using the same. (I rarely use any gain pedals, though)

relakst,

Hey, I am glad to hear that you were able to achieve "better" sounds out of your TA30 today during your jam/recording session!

No problem using Ch1 Top Boost as your "dirty" and Ch2 "tweed" as your clean. I have certainly used that approach before! :lol:

I must say that your post intrigued me to bring out my TA30 112 combo and give it a run through again. Well, my run through lasted about 2 hours, and during that time I discovered sounds that I hadn't heard from it before...or at least didn't remember hearing from it!

Firstly, my primary guitar is a Suhr S3 (super strat HSS) guitar that offers me a wide pallet of versatile single coil sounds, yet has a humbucker in the bridge position (which I find very useful for high gain lead sounds).

Anyway, I have digressed. Personally, I find the clean sounds offered in my TA30 (Ch1 Normal, Top Boost, and Ch2 Tweed) to sound the best with single coil guitars....or at least in a position where my HSS is in between the bridge HB and middle single coil pickups.

I used to think that the best sounds offered in my TA30 were at 30W. Clearly, some great sounds in all modes of both channels can be achieved at 30W....no doubt. I definitely do like the TA30 Ch1 sound offerings in 30W.

However, tonight, I realised how great the 40W setting can sound for both channels. For example, Channel 1 "Normal" sounds beautiful at 40w (single coil setting of my guitar), and the Top boost mode can too. The 40W mode really got my attention in Ch2 for the high gain stuff offered in H1 especially! I had this very tight, focused high gain crunch sound that sounded terrific and at the 40W setting.....also allowed me to increase the bass quite a bit without flubbiness in H1 mode. Pulling the gain knob also resulted in goodness in the H1 mode of Ch2 at the 40W setting.....yes, it did get more aggressive than I had remembered, but honestly, in the past....I really didn't explore the 40W setting so much.

Anyway, I had a great time re-acquainting myself with the TA30 tonight, and really enjoyed the experience!!

Ya, the different options on this amp can keep one entertained for a long while. This week prolly check out Hi1 and Hi2.
That Suhr stuff is mighty fine, too. My favourite, this month, is a 60s Roadworn Strat. Throaty!

An actual 60's Roadworn Strat? Cool!! :mrgreen:

Ya, a brand new messed-up guitar! :mrgreen:

Gotcha.....good just the same. Enjoy!