My itch as been itched for now...............NAD! Mark V content.

Deijavoo

Oh no!

Ha ha, I actually liked the Bigfoot with my Dual Rec so let's see how we go. James at Bright Onion might get another call if any issue. 

Deijavoo

Deijavoo

First impressions:

1. Bloody hard to dial in how I wanted it. Took literally hours to get something I was totally happy with.
   
2. Multi-watt was no big deal in the end really. Master volume low and it still had some awesome sounds.
   
3. The third channel gave me most of my troubles as everything sounded quite fizzy/fuzzy, eventually got it right though.
4. Switching channels if one is set at 90w and another at 10w caused a massive click sound from the amp.
5. It's a noisy amp, one of the noisiest I've used I'd say. Even on the clean channel it's got a bit going on.
6. I'm in love. It does sound fucking fantastic. The big fat clean tone, the low gain Mark I tone and the brutal Mark IV tones are just exactly what I was after. I may well still add a SHO if I can find space but once I get this at full volume I'll know if I need one or not.
7. I tried out the effects loop, and actually think I might keep my delay and reverb in there now.....never been happy setting up like that before.

richardhomer

Hope this doesn't sound patronising but years ago I had major noise problems with a brand new MkIII Boogie.

The cure simply was reading the manual and in particular understanding the complex interaction between the various gain controls and channel masters.

Once correctly dialled in, it was very quiet. I now have a Lonestar Special which exhibits no noise issues either.

I have never tried a MkV but I would be surprised if the brand's flagship amp were inherently noisy.

It may be a valve issue - but in my experience using the settings suggested in the manual for various sounds is the best starting point.

Deijavoo

Cheers Richard, I had so much fun yesterday I had no time for any manual reading. 

Better get studying  

richardhomer

^
Looking at all the controls on that thing, it may well be a lengthy process.

I'd be amazed if you're anything but thrilled with it, once you get fully up to speed with driving it.

Mesa make great amps.

Deijavoo

 I always did love my dual rec that I had, and so far I'm bowled over by this amp too but I just need to get it cranked and see if the noise is still there. It's very minimal but still.  

It has just over a year on the warranty still anyhow but I'm sure that it is just me. 

Perhaps my speaker lead could be on the way out, the noise was present guitar plugged in or not but cuts when you hit te mute button. 

richardhomer

I'm not familiar with the control layout on the MkV, but on earlier Mk series amps, the clean channel's gain control set the level of gain for the whole amp. The 'drive' channel was another gain stage, switched in after the clean channel - so low gain on the clean channel, resulted in less signal level going into the drive channel. If, in an effort to coax more gain you increased the 'Lead' gain, it became noisier.

The recommendation was to have the clean gain at around 7 - this worked brilliantly.

I'm not sure how this would relate to your amp but Mesa manuals are usually very good and in my experience help you to understand their complexity easily.

Deijavoo

Ah, that would make sense. My gain on ch1 is at 1. The same with ch2. However ch3 has gain at about 7 or 8.

Will need further testing, I have found a few sites with people having the same issue. Pre-amp valves seem to be consistent culprits.  

richardhomer

Deijavoo;298930" said:

Ah, that would make sense. My gain on ch1 is at 1. The same with ch2. However ch3 has gain at about 7 or 8.

Will need further testing, I have found a few sites with people having the same issue. Pre-amp valves seem to be consistent culprits.  

All you will be doing is amplifying noise with the gains that low.

You will probably find the cleans sound much better at higher gain settings.

Drew_TNBD

richardhomer said:

I'm not familiar with the control layout on the MkV, but on earlier Mk series amps, the clean channel's gain control set the level of gain for the whole amp. The 'drive' channel was another gain stage, switched in after the clean channel - so low gain on the clean channel, resulted in less signal level going into the drive channel. If, in an effort to coax more gain you increased the 'Lead' gain, it became noisier.

The recommendation was to have the clean gain at around 7 - this worked brilliantly.

I'm not sure how this would relate to your amp but Mesa manuals are usually very good and in my experience help you to understand their complexity easily.

That's really interesting! I never knew that was how these amps worked!

Deijavoo

I suppose as well, playing at home volume won't be a real life test like it will when I get in our venue. 

Deijavoo

I dunno if this is new or not but when did you change your signature Drew??

richardhomer

Drew_fx;298942" said:

That's really interesting! I never knew that was how these amps worked!

Boogie used to refer to it as 'cascading gain', where the higher the gain is on the clean (ie the first gain stage), the more it drives the second (which was labeled 'Lead Gain' on the Mk111).

Not understanding the relationship between the two is why a lot of people can't dial Boogies in and don't like them.

Some Two Rocks and Fuchs have the same set up (presumably copied from the Dumble ODS).

As far as I'm aware, Boogie did it first.

Dual Recs (and many other Mesa amps) have no interaction between the two sets of channel controls at all - the Mark Series are very different.

I've made the assumption this holds true for the MkV - I don't know for fact.

Deijavoo

That's some wisdom right there. 

Drew_TNBD

Deijavoo said:

I dunno if this is new or not but when did you change your signature Drew??

I go through phases.

Deijavoo

Ha ha ha!!! Awesome. 

guitarfishbay

Cool looking Telecaster man.

Catthan

what kind of noise are you getting on the clean channel?hum, hiss, buzz?

 Mine hisses a bit in ch.2 and a bit more in ch.3 but you would expect that from dirt channels

Clean can hiss a bit too if you crank the volumes but not unreasonably imho. Fan can be noisy too if you re not used to one but I guess your dual rec had one

Deijavoo

I suppose the fan could be an issue, but it sounds like something else. Almost like static. 

Not a huge issue but certainly more noisy than my SLO Clone.