Greetings, and Lonestar bright mods?

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dspiffy

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Glad to be in the number!

Here's my Lonestar story:

I was on tour years ago, and the kind of tours I normally do, they have backline, but you cross your fingers and pray the backline is what you asked for. I would always request a Fender Twin, because I love Fender Cleans, and have pedals for gain, and it's a pretty safe request-- if they cant get you a Twin they'll get you a Deluxe, or a Princeton Chorus, or a Frontman, or a Champion, or maybe they'll leave Fender entirely and give you a Jazz Chorus, or a Peavey. But something loud and clean.

I got to this stop on a tour where we were playing a really, really nice arena, with really really nice gear, but the guitar amp was a Mesa. I'd never had good luck getting a nice clean out of Mesa. I noticed one of the smaller rooms had a Twin, and we were the headliner, so I asked if they could swap the amps. The backline guy says, try it first. I got that especially for you. Put it on the Tweed setting it will sound like a Fender.

Well low and behold, this amp sounded amazing. The cleans were beautiful, BUT it sounded way better with my gain pedals than any Fender ever did. Truly the best of both worlds. I said, I'm buying this amp.

Then I went home and researched and found out that a 2x12 Lonestar cost more than a Twin and was heavier than a Twin. Well, never mind, but maybe I'll be able to justify it one day. I later found out that it was my guitar hero, Prince's favorite amp.

That was 5-10 years ago. Before the pandemic, I was trying to find the best lightweight, solid state amp to gig with. I cycled through a Carvin, a Quilter, the Eric Gales signature amp, and bought a Fender Tonemaster RIGHT before the pandemic.

A few weeks ago I was talking with another touring guitar player on my podcast and we were talking gear. I mentioned that my holy grail amp was the (2x12) Mesa Lonestar, and I always figured I'd buy one one day. After the podcast, I decided to look up what they were selling for and discovered they were discontinued. HEARTBREAK! It's like finding out the girl you always thought about settling down with got married to someone else.

So I decided to look at used prices. Low and behold, there was one a couple hours from me for the second lowest price I saw listed (the lowest price one was a beater) with only a few hours bedroom playing time on it. Talked to the wife, figured if it was meant to be, it would come together. It came together and the seller went out of their way to get it to me. It stayed in my truck for a few days (my health isnt so great and they are HEAVY) and I just brought it in to the home studio today.

Still not sure what I'm going to do with it-- I already have my gigging rig (Tonemaster) studio rig (a series of preamps and DIs) and fooling around at home amp (Twin) but it deserves to be loved.

SO. It sounded great in the arena, great in the music store where I tested mine when buying it, but when I bring it into my carpeted, acoustically dead home studio, it is lacking a little liveliness next to the Twin. When I have the treble (and presence) high enough that it comes close to the Fender sparkle, it's a little honky in the upper mids.

I've never been a fan of Celestions, and so my first thought was to drop in some Jensens, but that might lose the beautiful gain sound. I have a cabinet with two 10" Jensens I play to try once I pull it out of storage. I am almost certain I could nail the sound with an outboard EQ, but I have a hard rule about outboard gear for clean. Guitar > Cable > Amp.

Most of the mods I've read about improve the drive channel, and frankly, I dont plan to use the drive channel much, but if I do, I like it just fine as it is.

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting even more Fendery cleans out of it without sacrificing how well it does with gain? Settings, speakers, mods, etc.

Lastly, does anyone have a favorite tiltback stand for such a heavy amp?
 
Welcome... IMHO cabs/speakers will provide the best option to tailor the tone for what you're looking for. Currently have a LSS and a few Marks (heads) and a number of cabs... to get that shimmer/sparkle with the LSS I have found that a 2x10 open back cab with G10N-40s works best in my studio, sometimes will pair it with a 1x12 EVM in live settings for a more rounded tone that cuts thru. To blend the vol levels experimenting with the different outputs and cab impedances can tweak the vols of the cabs and blending is possible that way. The 2nd option is I run a Mesa 5 band GEQ in the fx loop. Surprisingly it doesn't take much, but dialing out a little bass and adding some treble in the GEQ makes a big difference. YMMV

There's also alot of informative posts in this forum with alternate approaches.
 

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