Help Finding a Non Metal Mesa

I'm thinking of potentially picking up a Mesa as I am currently Boogie-less. I'm a metal player, but I'm not looking for a metal amp because I've found one that is perfect for me. That means I'm looking for an amp in unfamiliar territory, and so I'm coming to you guys for help with steering me in the right direction. I want something capable of 4 general tones, clean, blues, rock rhythm and lead. I also have no problem with needing to use an OD to help the amp get the lead tone as I'll probably use one anyway.

When I first thought about going this route I wanted to go with a TA-30, but when I got to try one out it seemed a bit muffled. I was at a little guitar store so volume may have been the issue. I think it may need to be an amp that needs to be turned up to get anything from it. Which brings me to another point. This is primarily going to be at home amp that I mess around with and record with for fun, as it's not what I mainly play. That means it needs to be usable at a decent volume, not bedroom at 2 am volume, more like doesn't need to shake the house to sound good volume a la my old Roadster. I prefer a good master volume with a nice taper to power scaling. I always seem to like the tone of amps at full power the best, but a muilt-watt amp is fine as long as it has a decent volume taper.

The amps I'm currently looking at are:

Express 5:50+
Lone Star
TA-30 (despite bad initial experience)
Electra Dyne
Stiletto

I'm going to go used, and try to trade my ESP for the amp or for most of the amp. That means it would have to be in the $800-$1000 range, so new would be out of the question. Age is a concern though, I don't want to go too old and have to start replacing components. I'd also prefer a head to a combo for space reasons.

TL;DR What amp would you get for everything short of metal?

THe express may whet your whistle...you may want to look at the mini-rec or mini mark or mini rectoverb.

Mesas go both ways, so to speak.

I have gotten great metal tones and great rock tones from F50, Mini Rectifier, Rectoverb 25 and Mark V:25. These are probably your best bet for low volume, though they are not quiet by any stretch and like to run loud.

I got great all-around tone from the Express 5:50.

My favorite amp of all-time is the Electradyne. Not metal, though. And I have to run it through a Rock Crusher at home (though I did finally get a CabClone).

It's been my experience that you can run the 50W amps at bedroom volume, but need to rely completely on the preamp because the power amp is barely ticking. Still, the 6L6 amps are very clear and you rarely push the back-end anyway.

The 100W amps are just too much for home unless you power soak heavily, and then the tone really suffers. Not because the power amp is cold, but because they are really tuned up for pushing the heck of the speakers, and don't sound right when they are not moving the cones.

The TA doesn't really do it for me. I tried a TA-15 and could not live without an FX loop. I can't remember if the TA-30 has one.

Thanks for the input guys. I did own a Mini Rec and I liked it a lot, but for what I want I would prefer to have the Pushed mode on channel 2 as even the vintage mode is a little too metal. The Mini Mark is kind of the same deal, channel 2 it too aggressive.

Also, to clarify I don't need to play at bedroom volumes even though this would be an at home amp. I just don't want an amp like a Dual Rec that needs to be blasting in order to sound good at all. I also think I'll be getting a Rockcrusher at some point for silent recording. Right now I think I'm leaning towards the Electra Dyne or Express+, with the Stiletto being a possibility. The Stiletto may be too bright and tight for this purpose, but the amp does sound pretty killer.

I think the Stiletto could be great for what you want - it can be a bit bright but either cranking the power amp or rolling the treble and presence back keeps it from sounding harsh and doesn't muffle the tone. It's a very versatile amp.

I vote Express 5:50+. I own the head and play through a 2x12 Avatar cab with Vintage 30 and G12H30 speakers, and the amp is awesome. Very versatile, sounds great at lower volumes, esp. at the 5W setting. I prefer the 25W setting on the blues/burn channel. EQ+contour is really a nice feature for changing up the available tones drastically. Better volume sweep than the Mark V:25, too.

Lonestar Special. 30/15/5 watts. Enough gain to get what you want. Some of the sweetest tones from any brand of amplifier.

Other than the occasional Dream Theater or Satriani. noodling, I'm not a metal player. Yet I've gigged my MkIII for almost 25 years. Leveraging the flexible EQ, choice OD pedals, and preamp tube cocktails, I've been really happy with the MkIII being everything but a metal amp..50s/60s, classic rock, country, etc. Add a variety of speaker cabs, and you have a flexible and mighty solution. And if you wake up one morning and want to chug to Metallica, it's right there, too. You can pickup a good MkIII for about $900.

protest said:

Thanks for the input guys. I did own a Mini Rec and I liked it a lot, but for what I want I would prefer to have the Pushed mode on channel 2 as even the vintage mode is a little too metal. The Mini Mark is kind of the same deal, channel 2 it too aggressive.

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Is your gain knob stuck? Just turn it down.

Alternatively, you might try a Blue Angel.

Any mesa amp can be used for rock, such bands as The Darkness has used a roadking, Adam Levine from Maroon 5 uses a Rectifier. My friends band who are a cover band and they play anything from 70's to current, well he uses a Mini Rec on Vintage and gets great rock tones. I have also seen some 80's bands take rectifiers and use them and they sound great.

I think part of your problem is the same problem I had for years, we are metal players so we are so use to that tight bottom that when we play a rock amp the bottom end sounds flubby to us, but honestly that is what a good rock tone is about.

Don't be afraid to take a mini rec, use vintage with lower gain and still boost it, you would be surprised the great tone you get. On a dual rec the secret is the raw, take that channel and put gain pretty high and boost it, that mode has more mid's then the vintage and modern.

Oh yeah not sure what speakers are you using, but I have found that most modern V30's make your amp sound very modern, for a rock tone I much prefer Greenback type speakers with my mesa amps.

kdorsey said:

Other than the occasional Dream Theater or Satriani. noodling, I'm not a metal player. Yet I've gigged my MkIII for almost 25 years. Leveraging the flexible EQ, choice OD pedals, and preamp tube cocktails, I've been really happy with the MkIII being everything but a metal amp..50s/60s, classic rock, country, etc. Add a variety of speaker cabs, and you have a flexible and mighty solution. And if you wake up one morning and want to chug to Metallica, it's right there, too. You can pickup a good MkIII for about $900.

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I owned a Mark IV for a little while, and I didn't really get a long with R2. I could probably get the lead channel to do what I'm looking to do now, but I never tried it when I had it because i was looking for metal tones. My concern with Mark III's is that they're 30 years old at this point, so I might be flipping my guitar for an amp that's going to need another couple hundred dollars of work done in the near future.

elvis said:

Is your gain knob stuck? Just turn it down.

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It's not the amount of gain, it's the gain structure. A lot of guys ask "will X amp work for metal" and get the response "it has more gain than you'll ever need." Problem is that's not a sufficient answer because gain structure is more important than amount of gain. While you can find ways to make an amp more aggressive with boosts or EQ's it's a little harder when you're trying to reduce aggressiveness. I'm just not a fan of the Recto high end even with the gain turned down in Vintage, it doesn't seem sweet enough.

Maybe I would think differently if I tried it again with a guitar more suited to what I'm looking for, or with a non Recto cab.

siggy14 said:

Any mesa amp can be used for rock, such bands as The Darkness has used a roadking, Adam Levine from Maroon 5 uses a Rectifier. My friends band who are a cover band and they play anything from 70's to current, well he uses a Mini Rec on Vintage and gets great rock tones. I have also seen some 80's bands take rectifiers and use them and they sound great.

I think part of your problem is the same problem I had for years, we are metal players so we are so use to that tight bottom that when we play a rock amp the bottom end sounds flubby to us, but honestly that is what a good rock tone is about.

Don't be afraid to take a mini rec, use vintage with lower gain and still boost it, you would be surprised the great tone you get. On a dual rec the secret is the raw, take that channel and put gain pretty high and boost it, that mode has more mid's then the vintage and modern.

Oh yeah not sure what speakers are you using, but I have found that most modern V30's make your amp sound very modern, for a rock tone I much prefer Greenback type speakers with my mesa amps.

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I have a Recto 2x12 at home, and yes I know always looking for tight, tight, tight. I'm in foreign territory now :lol: I actually really like Rectos for the huge rock sound, but not so much cleans and mid gain. The biggest problem with full sized Rectos is that they just don't do reasonable volumes, and the ones in my price range won't be the newer Multi-Watts with the better cleans. Maybe I'll look at another Mini Rec and see if I can tweak it to my liking.

siggy14 said:

On a dual rec the secret is the raw

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I agree. My go to rhythm rock tone is my 3 channel dual rec, channel 2 on raw. Great low gain crunch!

The other guitar player in my band plays a Fender deluxe 4x10 combo and for classic rock/indie low gain, even the fender is no match for my Dual Rec when recording.

The Roadster is THE ultimate rock machine..........as long as you can play loud as a f@#$. It just never sounded good to me at less than rehearsal volumes.

ryjan said:

The Roadster is THE ultimate rock machine..........as long as you can play loud as a f@#$. It just never sounded good to me at less than rehearsal volumes.

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I love my Roadster and don't mind the changes as you drop the volume. I almost always use the Spongy and 50 watt settings and don't really have an issue getting a decent tone at a reasonable volume. The biggest issue is that you do need to change some settings when you turn up or down, the same settings will not work after a significant change in volume. A friend of mine used to combat his need for cranking his amp by putting a heavy blanket over the amp/mic to cut down on stage volume.

The Tweed setting is absurdly versatile too, much like the Raw setting.

I'm on board with the roadster, but it's a but much. I say lonestar. Channel 1 takes petals great for rock tones and just about anything else.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Yea the Roadster is a bit too much, and really just too loud. I owned one for a while and it's an incredible rock amp, and definitely fits what I'm looking for now but it's overkill.

I played a bunch of stuff this weekend. Heaertbreaker, Electra Dyne, Royal Atlantic, Mark V:25, Express 5:50+, and a Rectoverb 25. I narrowed it down to the Royal and Express. The Royal seems a bit like overkill because a small wattage head would work for my purposes, but the Clean and Lo are just really great sounds. The Hi seemed to lack top end to me, but it could have been the volume I was playing at in the store. I definitely did not like the attenuator on the Hi mode. I think I may have also just been using it for the wrong thing.

I'm also interested in a LSS and a Maverick

I have had both a 5:25, an ED and the RA for years now. The RA is my number one even for home practice at low volume and I don't use the attenuator. The vintage high mode does have less highs than vintage lo, but I don't think they are really meant to be thought of as separate channels. It more like a rhythm and lead mode on one channel. Lo gives great crunch and punch and hi thick lead tones with more mids. You can tweet hi for more top end.

The manual mentions that the power soak has limited use with vintage hi so I'm not surprised you didn't love it.

The other thing to think about is what you are going to run for a cab. While I do like V30s I like greenbacks better with the RA. I have recently picked up a 4x10 mainly for clean Fender tones, but it also delivers some great tones with the vintage modes.

As for the Express I keep it for convenience to take to rehearsals and jams as it is relatively light and compact. It does sound good, but as far as tone goes I always prefer my other Mesa amps.

J.J said:

I have had both a 5:25, an ED and the RA for years now. The RA is my number one even for home practice at low volume and I don't use the attenuator. The vintage high mode does have less highs than vintage lo, but I don't think they are really meant to be thought of as separate channels. It more like a rhythm and lead mode on one channel. Lo gives great crunch and punch and hi thick lead tones with more mids. You can tweet hi for more top end.

The manual mentions that the power soak has limited use with vintage hi so I'm not surprised you didn't love it.

The other thing to think about is what you are going to run for a cab. While I do like V30s I like greenbacks better with the RA. I have recently picked up a 4x10 mainly for clean Fender tones, but it also delivers some great tones with the vintage modes.

As for the Express I keep it for convenience to take to rehearsals and jams as it is relatively light and compact. It does sound good, but as far as tone goes I always prefer my other Mesa amps.

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Thanks for the input!

I agree. I realized towards the end of playing the RA, that I was trying too hard to do two different things with the Lo and Hi. I just used the Hi as a lead tone and it worked much better that way. I think the Express Plus sounds a bit better than the original Express, but I agree I think I would prefer a RA or LSS to the Express. I'm not sure about the Maverick. It sounds really nice from the clips I've heard, but it's hard to trust clips.

Can't comment on the Mav as I've never had the chance to try one.

The new express would be more versatile with the EQ, but I don't think much else was changed. The RA on vintage lo is much more dynamic and responds to how you play. Even with the gain down in crunch mode on the express remains less dynamic and more compressed. I guess the Express is just more modern sounding to me.

The LSS is a good alternate and can do many things as well as it's unique flavour.

A local music store had a floor model Royal Atlantic up for auction on Ebay. I sent them a few messages trying to get in touch with someone to see if they'd do a trade + some cash because there were no bids on the amp. No response until after the amp sold, with 1 bid, for $1000 and free shipping. They could have sold the guitar I wanted to trade for like $950 in their store, which alone would have been more than they got for the amp. Kind of annoying.