Mesa Lonestar Special - Beautiful but too dark, recommended mods?

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fingersfingers Frets: 45
Hi folks,

After a lot of trial and error and a lot of amps I finally found my holy grail amplifier, the Mesa LSS. It sounds great at home practice levels but when I take it out with the band it sounds too dark and a little muddy at times.

I've heard some people swap the speaker out for a Celestion Gold (currently fitted with a stock black shadow). Any thoughts on this? Are speaker swaps best left to a proper tech as I've never changed one out myself before?

Any other ideas? Maybe I should just put an EQ pedal in the chain?

My usual set up is an LP standard (all stock) through occasionally used wampler echo, fulltone wah, fulltone dejavibe. Our music style is funk/jazz/blues fusion.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Phil.
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Comments

  • ecc83ecc83 Frets: 1589

    Could you not beg, borrow or hire in a cab to try another speaker?

    The EQ is a good idea but put it in the FX loop*. The Blackstar HT series benefit from this technique as well.

    *Unless of course they have made an electronic dog's breakfast of the loop levels/headroom! No doubt ICBM will have finished his Wheaty Bangs by now and be along......

    Dave.

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  • Luckily the LSS has a fully adjustable loop level on the back so an EQ may well be worth a go.
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  • ecc83 said:
    No doubt ICBM will have finished his Wheaty Bangs by now and be along......

    Dave.

    Sounds painful.

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  • koss59koss59 Frets: 845
    Strat or a Tele ;-)
    Facebook.com/nashvillesounduk/
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  • stonevibestonevibe Frets: 7080
    I gigged mine for ages and would never say it was dark. Using mainly a Kotzen Tele and a Gibson LP with a set of Mules in and I have recorded with it loads as well, same wouldn't describe it as dark at all.

    Was in a punk band though...


    Its on here






    Win a Cort G250 SE Guitar in our Guitar Bomb Free UK Giveaway 


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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71953
    If it's just the dirty channel you find too dark, swap the gain and master pots - they're different tapers which really messes up the tone response at lower gain settings for some reason. Why they deliberately made it different from the clean channel, I don't know - it sounds much better swapped. There are documented step-by-step instructions for this somewhere, but it's very simple.

    If it's both channels, I also think the Black Shadow is too dark for it. A Gold would be good I think, although I haven't tried it, but I've also heard good results with a Celestion Century - which is normally a bit bass-light for my liking, but seems to be just right in this amp. It also knocks several pounds off the weight and makes a noticeable difference to how much of a lump it is...

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • Excellent, thank you ICBM!

    I'll search for some guidance on the pot swap and do some speaker research. The idea of reducing the weight of this beast is very interesting indeed!
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71953
    edited February 2016
    Ah… found it :). The "Reeder mod".


    The other supposed mod for these - linking the unused tab on the mid pot to the centre - does nothing at all despite being described by the same chap, so don't bother with that. (Although it does marginally improve reliability.)

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • Check the mids/bass interaction 
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  • or... it could be that it is not your holy grail amp :)
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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71953
    Check the mids/bass interaction 
    You mean for linking the third terminal on the mid pot? 

    No, the third terminal is unused because the mid pot is used as a simple variable resistor. If you connect it to the middle terminal, all you're doing is paralleling the contact via the wiper - making sure a bad contact can't cause an open circuit - it makes no difference to the normal operation at all. That said, connecting the third terminal is always good practice, so you should anyway really, but it won't change the sound.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • Wazmeister;960985" said:
    or... it could be that it is not your holy grail amp :)
    That's my view.

    I've had one for about 10 years now and I reckon it's a 'decent' as opposed an 'outstanding' amp. Its certainly not comparable to the top of the boutique tree....
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  • Wazmeister;960985" said:
    or... it could be that it is not your holy grail amp :)
    That's my view.

    I've had one for about 10 years now and I reckon it's a 'decent' as opposed an 'outstanding' amp. Its certainly not comparable to the top of the boutique tree....
    Maybe so. It's close enough that I feel like it's worth making a bit of effort for. A bit off topic but as a 10 year user what do you consider an outstanding amp compared to an LSS?
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  • CatthanCatthan Frets: 355
    edited February 2016
    I had one, the clean was ok but the lead was dark indeed. Pleasing but borderline unusable.
    I used to boost it with the mid section of the koko boost or a BB preamp which tightened it.

    I now play the LSC 100 Watter which I sold my trusty MkV for. 
    After gigging the MkV extensively for 2 years tho I went and bought a mxr 10-band eq for the LSC's loop before even unboxing it but I knew what to expect. 
    (I don't think I could play a MB again without adding GEQ after the owining MkV)
    It does open it up a bit and you can also remove some of the honk (750hz)

    Also, try running bass really low and presence really high. At gig volume it should be OK, at low volumes it can be unpleasant.
    Re speakers, I tried the century vintage and found it raspy. a WGS ET65 would work much better as will a Jensen Jet tornado if you want to go with Neos and shave some weight off.
    I never considered the gold as AFAIK they are expensive.

    I didn't do the Reeder mod in neither the LSS or the LSC. With the former I decided I needed smth bigger and didn't bother and the latter is still under warranty. Apparently it does make  diff. but I got no personal experience. 

    The LSS is not boutique but I did find it had smth special.
    Also, the 2nd channel is imho falsely marketed. Although it's defs more a lead than a rhythm dirty channel, it's strongest point is not so much the high gain but the mid gain Texas blues-y sounds. 
    I kept thinking that if I played in a blues-rock power trio that's the amp I'd play. 

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  • ICBMICBM Frets: 71953
    Catthan said:
    Also, the 2nd channel is imho falsely marketed. Although it's defs more a lead than a rhythm dirty channel, it's strongest point is not so much the high gain but the mid gain Texas blues-y sounds.

    I assumed that's why it was called a Lone Star - I've never associated it with high gain at all.

    I'm also not sure exactly how you define 'boutique', but however you do I don't think I've ever come across one with the feature set of most modern Mesas, at almost any price and certainly nothing close to it.

    "Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski

    "Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson

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  • camfcamf Frets: 1190
    It was my LSS that @ICBM modded and I agree that the Celestion Vintage Century did sound great with it. I used it in a jam/rehearsal with @ICBM and he was standing straight across from it and mentioned how good it sounded in a band setting. This was getting the pre-Reeder mod done, which I thought transformed it from a good amp to a great amp. It was just a bit too heavy for me, but I thought it sounded really excellent with the speaker upgrade and Reeder mod. A top amp. :) I like the Jensen Tornado too, and I think it might have sounded just as good, possibly even better than the Celestion, but I never got the chance to try it out. But I'd be happy with either, to be honest.
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  • Thank you Catthan. Great info!

    I'd definitely prefer ch2 to be a clone of ch1. Just so that I can have the same kind of tone but with a little more gain so the pot swap could be good for me.

    I tried a 2x12 LSC before I went with the LSS. Lovely amp but incredibly heavy! 

    I do tend to run the bass really low and the presence really high to compensate but it just feels like it's not quite there yet.

    I think the pot swap to fix ch2 and a speaker swap could be the way forward. 
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  • fingers;961053" said:
    Maybe so. It's close enough that I feel like it's worth making a bit of effort for. A bit off topic but as a 10 year user what do you consider an outstanding amp compared to an LSS?
    Difficult one. There are quite a few amps I've played which do certain things much better to my ears - but haven't yet found one that I'd class as 'perfect'.

    For clean to slightly driven sounds, Matchless and Bad Cats are superb; for gainier sounds, I like the Fuchs ODS I tried.

    I think the conclusion I've come to is that no amp that allows switching between clean and driven sounds seems to convincingly nail both.

    I don't gig anymore, so I'm not planning to replace the LSS - but I'd be lying if I said it has convinced me in the long term.
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  • camfcamf Frets: 1190
    edited February 2016
    I don't own it now, so I don't have a vested interested but I thought the LSS was a great channel changer after the mod. I love the Bogner Shiva but the two channels on that sound pretty far apart... a real Fender clean and Marshall overdrive. The LSS, on the otherhand gave you a very flexible clean sound and you could then go from an almost cloned drive sound, through to all kinds of variations by boosting or cutting the mids or the other channels. Two completely seperate channels and great reverb gave outstanding flexibility over what was just a really good core tone.

    I'd have happily kept it if I'd been able to sell the Bogner. I'd definitely consider buying a LSS head if I saw one for sale. If it had a seperate reverb option on each channel, I think it would have been close to perfect. :)

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  • camfcamf Frets: 1190
    edited February 2016
    When I did the post above, I knew there was a slight niggle I had with it but I couldn't remember what it was. I thought it was the lack of a solo boost (but it has a great solo boost) but then remembered that the reverb could only be controlled globally where I'd have liked if it could be assigned to a specific channel.... it was such a nit-picky issue, even I couldn't remember what it was. :)

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