Mesa Boogie Rectifier Preamp or Peavey JSX - Page 5

Darin · #61 04-08-2007, 11:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IbanezGirl

Darin, from your last lot of youtube links, i love the BB Preamp that Andy Timmons is using through the Lone Star.

My friend has one ans says they are amazing. The do exactly what you expect it to do. What you hear on that clip is what it does. Of course the AT300 helps.

I am going to be replacing the pickup in my 2620 bridge pos with the same pickup Timmons is using and putting a Tele pickup in the neck pos.

SimpleMind · #62 04-09-2007, 02:18 PM

Found som other soundclips for the JSX and Roadster on the net:

JSX: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=477269

Roadster:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=666214

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=431533

Darin · #63 04-09-2007, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SimpleMind

Found som other soundclips for the JSX and Roadster on the net:

JSX: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=477269

Roadster:

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=666214

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page...?bandID=431533

Well, that definitely shows that the JS1000 and a JSX will give you Satch tone.

What are your thoughts after hearing the clips?

SimpleMind · #64 04-09-2007, 04:47 PM

Hmmmmmmmmmmm-I became a little bit insecure. Both amps are surely very good. And if the JSX is good enough for Joe Satriani its damn sure that that thing is good enough for me. But stil its a very big investment for me and i don`t want to make compromises especially since the pricedifference between the two amps isn`t that big. Clearly the best would be to have the option to test them side by side and decide then. After all it really is a luxury problem.
Even if i thought i would without doubt go for the JSX i am not so 100% sure anymore. That Roadster beast really doesn`t sound bad either.
So i have to contemplate litt maybe i get some visions that tell me what to do?
But as i said, definitely not the greatest problem on earth but fun to do some research to find the best alternative.

shogun · #65 04-09-2007, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darin

I I'll tell you another amp that I would buy if I were int he market. The new Fender Super Sonic. It's warm and smooth as butter. Not like any Fender I've played before. I use ti to demo guitar when ever I go to the local music store. And very versatile.

I agree that there is something about the "feel" of being cranked. I hate to sound like a JSX salesman, but it's the only head I've owned that you can play with at ANY level with usable tone. Sure it punches harder when cranked, but if you live in a townhouse, or have a wife asleep in the next room, you don't want to have to have a separate practice amp when you spent a thousand bucks on a high watt high gain head.

I used a marshall 1960 a.. it sounded wierd.. and it wasnt that loud.. just above bedroom volume.. it reminded me of what happens when u crank a marshall mg halfstack lol..

i have the supersonic combo.. killer amp.. ill post clips

SimpleMind · #66 04-09-2007, 06:33 PM

Fine, thx a lot.

Darin · #67 04-09-2007, 06:39 PM

Super Sonic clips

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61181

SimpleMind · #68 04-10-2007, 04:21 PM

Thanks for the soundclip. Excellent playing and very fine sound but not what i want. I haven`t ordered yet but must admit i am more and more prone to the Mesa Boogie Roadster. These soundclips especiallly the lead guitar on the song "melodic" (imo leadguitar-sound doesn`t get much better) and the hammer high gain sound on amongst others the Pantera song (flood) made me considering the Roadster more and more.
Best regards Andreas

Drew · #69 04-10-2007, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darin

I talked to a guy that used to carry Mesa's, He said there was alot of Nomads coming back for repairs. Not sure why just that one amp, but it steered me away from that.

I'm a Nomad-45 2x12 user here, and I've never had an issue with mine. I can't speak for more than myself and the 6-8 guys on sevenstring.org I've convinced to buy Nomads over the years, but I've never had a problem with mine and never heard of anyone else having problems with theirs until this. Mesas are notoriously bulletproof, so I'm surprised to hear that.

Also, a Nomad is another amp that doesn;t NEED a HotPlate to sound excellent... but it certainly sounds a little better as you push it. It's not a bad thing to pick up anyway.

Honestly, the JSX clip didn't sound THAT much like the Bad Horsie tone, though on a budget it might not be a bad way to go - it was middier, and didnt have the growl or grit to it. A few thoughts-

-As you can hear, he's jamming along with the actual CD. So you're hearing his tone doubled up against Vai's.
-partly because of the previous point, the clip sounds remarkably like the tone on the CD. Alien Love Secrets is considered one of the best examples of the tone of a Bogner Exctacy. I'm not sure if you can grab one used in your price range, but it's worth a look.
-in the used department, well, he's using a Marshall 6100 30th Anniversary. It's no Exctacy, but the gain sound is relatively similar on the lead channel. This and a DS-1 will put you into Satriani tone (it was his rig for most of his career) as well as potentially into Vai territory with the right pickups.
-Barring, that, a Exctacy is essentially a hot-rodded 80's marshall. A marshall-y poweramp driven hard with the right overdrive out front could do the trick. If you want to save some serious cash, I was always rather impressed with the DS401 combo - run that through a closed back cab, and it rules. Honestly, it sounds better than the TSL I used to own.
-barring that, well, a JSX is based on the "modded marshall" model. The bass and treble response isn't the same - listen to the clip and to anything Satriani's recorded , it's rounder and less "metal: - but it's not a bad sounding amp by any means and will get you at least ballpark.

SimpleMind · #70 04-11-2007, 06:46 PM

Hello and thank you for sharing your thoughts. Regarding the Bogner Exstacy a guy who played on it for a while told me he had never played on an amp sounding that good before or after (and he has played the most). But that thing is with respect to price absoluteley out of my league. I think the Mesa Nomad is no longer for sale. I tried the F30 and was more pleased with that Amp than with the Express (LACK OF GAIN)or any other small Amp i tried. Do you know the Roadster and the difference between that and the F30?

Drew · #71 04-13-2007, 04:00 PM

Yeah - the Roadster is the Rectifier Road King without all the back panel switching options - channel-assignable poweramp tube types/wattage/rectifier types, channel-assignable speaker outs, etc. It'll sound more like a Road King (which is a seriously tricked out Dual Rectifier) than it will an F-series, and will cost a lot more too.

Seriously, the F-30 isn't a bad bet at all if you want Mesa tone on a budget - re-reading, I'm surprised I didn't mention it, actually. It too is out of production, but only just recently so you may still be able to grab one. It's crunchier than the Nomad, but "feels" more responsive than the Rectifiers, in my experience, and has one of the best cleans I've ever heard from a Mesa.

It's tough to compare the Roadster to the F-30 - I HAVE played them back-to-back, but they're just so radically different. The F-30 is, well, not a one-trick-pony, but maybe a 2 or 3 trick one. It gives you a phenominal clean, and then an excellent distortion channel that lends itself well to both rhythm and lead, although there's not a huge amount of variation to the basic "color" of the distortion - the "contour" mode just juices it a bit, and the EQ justs adds or cuts a bit here and there but doesn't really change the overall character. That's not a bad thing at all, as it's a great sounding distortion. It won't do the Mesa "smooth lead" thing terribly well, but it's a distinct but equally cool solo voice that you can riff with or solo with just as easily - a rare feat from a distortion.

The Roadster, meanwhile, is a four-channel jack of all trades. You have (as I recall) two fairly clean-oriented channels, and two fairly gain-oriented channels, though that's not entirely fair in that any channel is capable of at least giving you a "crunch" tone, and any channel can be set to a relatively clean tone as well. I believe each channel has three selectable preamp modes, as well, with different gain levels and negative feedback. I haven't spent more than maybe a half hour tweaking one, so I'll talk about the concept of channel "modes" as it applies to my Nomad - each channel on the Nomad has two modes. The clean channel has a "clean" and "pushed" mode. In clean, you get a nice tubey clean that, if you crank the channel gain up all the way, will get you into a great SRV-like breakup. Flip it to "pushed," meanwhile, and there's a definite volume jump (you can use the channel volume to balance across channels, however), and the gain increases quite substantially - the lower registers will still stay pretty clean, but by 3 or so you already have more gain than the first mode, and it goes all the way up to a vicious crunch not alltogether unlike the "raw" mode on a rectifier. The two distortion channels, meanwhile, have a "vintage" and "modern" mode on them - Vintage is softer and spongier and not as edgy, while Modern is louder, has negative feedback stripped out for more edge and faster bass tracking, and is way crunchier. One sings, while the other growls and snarls.

Compound that on the Roadster by saying, I believe, there are three modes per channel (based on the Rectifiers, for the gain channels - "Raw," "Vintage," and "Modern" as I recall, and the clean channels I think off memory are set up similar to the Nomad's, but with a "tweed" mode as well that I think is based off the Lone Star clean), and you can see why it gets pretty dizzying.

I guess to add a little more in the way of an example, here's a demo I cut through my Nomad. The lead is Channel 3 Vintage, and the rhythm is Channel 3 modern. Gain was at a similar position for both tracks (about halfway up, maybe as high as 6), and while I don't remember the EQ settings exactly, they're probably relatively similar. Most of the change in "tone" and response is due to the different amp modes, though to be fair the lead was a UV7PWH and the rhythm was a Schecter C7 Blackjack,

Dont mind all the mistakes and rough mix, this was a quickly recorded demo - the lead was a one-take improv.

http://www.drewpeterson.org/music/new_idea.mp3

Not sure if the clip or the descriptions will help or not. The gist is, the F-30 is a relatively straightforward, good sounding amp that's about as plug-and-play as a Mesa can get. The Roadster, meanwhile, has four channels with twelve distinct "preamps" contained within, and I believe has the normal "rectifier" bold/spongy and tube/solid state rectification switches in the back. The Roadster is capable of delivering a much wider palate of tones than the F-30, but you have to be prepared to spend some SERIOUS tme tweaking it (like, I didn't really get into it, but the "channel volume" knobs on the Nomad's gain channel have a huge impact on tone - it gets way creamier and more saturated if you run it higher, whereas it's crunchier and more present if you run it about halfway - this actually works out nicely, as cranking Vintage and running Modern at about half gives you roughly equivalent volumes, and both channels sound better at those respective settings).

So, both amps are capable of delivering great tones. It's just how MANY great tones you want, and how long you're willing to spend learning to get them, that's the question.

To be fair, of the two for the sort of stuff I play, I actually slightly prefer the F-30, but the flexibility of the Roadster is tough to argue with, and if I kept tweaking it I may have found "my" lead tone within it. It's tough to say...

SimpleMind · #72 04-14-2007, 07:38 PM

Thanks a lot for the informations and the soundclip. Very helpfull. I really love this forum. Really a lot very kind persons out here. I listened to the other tracks on your myspace site. Your sound remains me strongly of Andy Timmons sound. Thanks again for your help. Do you think the Mesa Boogies er capable of getting a Malmsteen like sound too. I always thought of Petruccis sound as being a little too less defined to get a god shredding tone- sounds kind of a little unclear when he plays fast- or with other words you can`t hear single notes as good as when Malmsteen is playing. Just my humble opinion.

Andy43 · #73 04-14-2007, 11:26 PM

Cesar's tone is good, but it's nothing special. I find it very buzzy. I think it's mostly his playing that's good. Forget new Mesa's, go old.

SimpleMind · #74 04-15-2007, 08:05 PM

Hei, what exactly do you mean with go old?
Best regards Andreas

David McCarroll · #75 04-15-2007, 08:36 PM

Bear in mind that a huge part of a recorded guitar tone is the effects, compression, post recording EQ and mixing - any amp is going to sound like a big dry loud box until you add some processing, so if the loose change allows it, the TC G-Major is a stupendously good all purpose effects system for not a huge amount of money.