Just bought my first Mesa, a Quad Preamp, struggling to get diverse tones from it.

I've read up on the tone stack controls, treble makes mids and bass knobs redundant at high settings etc.

Channel 1, the MK IIC, the only thing I've been able to get out of it is a very convincing Metallica lead tone. Channel 2 lead is very lacklustre. Ive read these amps are like chamaleons and can do a big variety of tones, Im not getting that so far. Ive tried dialling in different high gain tones, but since you need the treble and volume knobs high for that, and the bass and mid knobs dont have much affect at that point, where is all this versatility supposed to come from in the pre-gain tone stack?

I just bought a Quad Preamp but it is in the repair shop getting a tune up. I also bought a TriAxis Preamp, which is the chameleon you mentioned. The TriAxis has eight different preamps in it. It has really great clean tones and a variety of heavy tones, digitally controlled buttons instead of knobs, but analogue audio signal through five 12ax7 tubes. You can preset the parameters per channel to go up or down while playing, gradually or instantly with a foot controller like a volume pedal. You can dial in a tone for a certain song and store it in the memory, up to 128 times!

All that said, I can't wait for the Quad!!! It had "my" tone coming from it. The TriAxis is great, but not my thing, I think. I fired up my Mark IV last night and spent about two minutes with it before going back to the TriAxis and I love my IV which is a Swiss Army knife of an amp. I haven't been able to Jam out at band level with the TriAxis yet which is driving me crazy.

I can get by with one great tone, I grew up a long time ago with amps that had zero gain where I had to use a MRX Distortion + for dirt. I have a guitar that has a million tones in it, a Steinberger GR4 with coil splitting.

Why do you feel the need to have the Treble Knob set high always ???

Is the rest of you gear extremely dark ???

A lot of the versatility is push-pull knobs,Treble Shift, Lead Bright, Bright, Bass Shift and Deep. Different GEQ settings. Setting the Gain and Drive levels at very different settings. The four different modes, Clean, Rhythm, Lead I, Lead II.

The Quad can cover any type of music - jazz, country, hip hop, disco, funk, rock, blues, heavy metal, R&B, punk, indie, alternative, psychedelic, world, grunge, progressive, Latin, hard rock, etc.

What exactly is it not doing that you want to accomplish ?

If I could be Dimebag/Jimi at once, that's the way I play my axe! Take no prisoners style, hard and fast, breath taking style, no laid back bluesy bro w/beer here. I play Metallica, Pantera and Slayer type music and I'm not interested in getting any other tone. Not my bag, every other guitar player can have that stuff. If you want to talk about haunting mids or pristine clean or any clean tone, my ears won't have it, waste of time. Tone knob on a guitar? For what, a suck the life out of me tone knob? Black Sabbath, Jimi Hendrix for me. I have literally played "Master of Puppets" and "Cowboys from Hell" as wake up, first songs of the day for warm up. I'm a sprinter, no jogging ever! Sometimes I get home, crank up my amp and just chug out, because I like it and can do it and it makes me happy. Pinch harmonics don't do well in stoner rock sound. I'm combining my TriAxis into my rig for clean and will have the Quad dedicated to heavy tone to the maximum allowed by law.

Markedman you and i have very similar taste mate... are you saying you prefer your Triaxis to your mkiv? Ive got a mkiii blue stripe, triaxis and a Quad (you might remember from your 3 pre amps thread)... and all 3 are phenomenal... i still long for a mkiv though... is it worth it?

To the OP you really should be able to get a good tone for any genre out of your Quad... they can be finicky units though maybe it just needs a service... on most Quads ch2 is roughly half the vol of ch1 at the same settings (design flaw) which could be why you think it sounds weak... this can be fixed... send it to Mesa and it will come back breathing fire... i cab assure you ch2 is not weak its tight and chunky but can be fizzy if the vol and lead drive is above 8 and bright switches are pulled... ch2 rhy is a bit of an odd tone but its usable still... ch1 cleans are as good as it gets and ch1 lead is as close as you will come to a C+ (Mike B has stated a few times its more similar to a C+ than a C despite what the manual says)... get it serviced and get some new tubes in it... i was a bit underwhelmed at first too but after a service and fresh set of JJs i wouldnt be without it.

Mr.Buu said:

Channel 1, the MK IIC, the only thing I've been able to get out of it is a very convincing Metallica lead tone. Channel 2 lead is very lacklustre. Ive read these amps are like chamaleons and can do a big variety of tones, Im not getting that so far. Ive tried dialling in different high gain tones, but since you need the treble and volume knobs high for that, and the bass and mid knobs dont have much affect at that point, where is all this versatility supposed to come from in the pre-gain tone stack?

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I had the same experience. Very narrow sounding and uninspiring.

More like the preamp for the '80s LA session guitarist whereas, you have this full on fx clean ch.1 and the same full on fx lead sound on ch.2
Other than that, it's distortion has this signature gain, only good for metallica, theater or whatever '80s thrash sound.
Studio pre was fatter in sound and had a better clean or lead sound. You just need 2 of them..

But again, no preamp/poweramp combination compares to the equivalent tube head frm my experience.

If you want the mesa sound, without making a collection of amps, you're better off with a Mark V or a Recto Reborn.
Or get both. That's what i did anyway

There are other amps with a variety of sounds, if you're not fan of mesa, like the EVH 5150 III 100 watt head for example. Actually, 3 versions of them to choose from. There are others as well.

Just jumping in here to subscribe to this thread. Have been looking at the Quad myself as a way to theoretically satisfy my craving for both a III and II+ and then run the preamp in a IV, that I would also have to buy to try to cover off on everything I am interested in. Interesting discussion so far, but nothing to add on my end, yet at least.

Also, anyone thinking of selling their Quad? I am interested...

My Quad does it all! If yours doesn't, it is more than likely in need of service or do like I did and use Deoxit to clean the pots. Some of my pots weren't working so I sent it in to get service but the guy was covid crazed and it sat in his shop for months. I finally got sick of waiting so I got a can of Deoxit and sprayed out the pots and it worked, all pots are good and there is monster tone coming out of it.

I also wanted to have the volumes match between the channels, but Mesa advised against it.

Of course I use a Mesa power amp and that makes a difference IMO.

My pair of Quads sound immaculate... Big, Bold, and unapologetic in the Lead channels. Thousands of players went to these, each establishing their own sounds, yet I see so many people on the message boards who can't seem discuss them without making Metallica references, following up with abrupt dismissal in cases where the particular player simply isn't going for a Metallica type sound. Of course, the Quad was never designed to do nu-metal with the brutalz that some of the younger ones are seeking. The RHY channels are beautiful, dynamic, and very workable for achieving a lot of great sounds. I sent both units to the Petaluma factory for a health check up, where they replaced some of the LDRs, which is not an uncommon procedure for the older Boogies. I've never played them through a Mesa power amp, opting instead for a VHT 2150, which I have found to be a fantastic match up.

Tiger1016 said:

Just jumping in here to subscribe to this thread. Have been looking at the Quad myself as a way to theoretically satisfy my craving for both a III and II+ and then run the preamp in a IV, that I would also have to buy to try to cover off on everything I am interested in. Interesting discussion so far, but nothing to add on my end, yet at least.

Also, anyone thinking of selling their Quad? I am interested...

Click to expand...

Im back now after playing with the Quad for a while. My sentiments have changed.

A 4 band parametric EQ is an absolute requirement for this thing for it to sound good imo, if you are using it for distortion at least. Nothing less.

I got a crushing Chaos A.D. era Sepultura tone on Channel 2 and an absolutely fiersome grinding Metallica tone, more like their live tone, from Channel 1. Both these tones use a parametric EQ, without the EQ'ing it sounds like **** and has none of the ferocity, there is no comparison.

The clean on Channel 1 is to die for, ive got a pretty good interpretation of John Mayers clean, scooping 1.2k out with my EQ.
All in all, im very happy with it. A little studio magic was all that was needed to coax the magic out. This is home base for me, for sure, unless I really need my Rockman setup for that saturated 80's Marshall sound.