# Mesa Mark IV Settings?



## DreamSound (Mar 30, 2006)

I just got my Mesa Boogie Mark IV head and is NICE  . However, I can't get enough gain out of this thing. The cleans sounds one can get are phreaking amazing, the lead tone is sweet, the grunge and vintage sounds are good, but I'm looking for that Metallica rythm distortion and Dream Theater (John Pettrucci) lead settings. There's this guy 'Zorran' that has some kick a$$ recordings online, which many of you've heard (http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=147856) He is using a Mark IV for all the songs except Apathy. My goal is to get that exact same tone. 

There's SO many sounds one can get out this head that I'm still lost finding the right distortion that I can just plug and play and use for practicing  

Don't be selfish and share your settings!!


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## nyck (Mar 30, 2006)

Try emailing Zorran.


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## Leon (Mar 30, 2006)

http://www.sweetsilence.com/GearSlutzNotes.htm

many of those settings are for the Mark IIC+, but they may help you start off in the right direction.


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## DreamSound (Mar 30, 2006)

GOT IT!!!!!!!!    It took me a little while but finally I found 'the secret.' To get a lot of heavy distortion I put the master on the lead channel to only "1." That compresses the volume so it lets all the gain out, then just turn up the volume on the amp and you have a bad ass distortion  . After that one can mess with the eq and get all kinds of tones, right now I have the mids all the way up on the lead channel and mids scooped out on the eq and it sounds pretty heavy. I know, I know scooped mids = bad. I'll keep posting my findings


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## Regor (Mar 30, 2006)

I was just about to post that.

Here's some 'info' for ya. The Treble/Presence/Lead Drive/Channel Vol are all 'gain' stages. The higher you put them, the more gain you'll get outta it.


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## Christopher (Mar 31, 2006)

The main thing I found was to get the lows out of the graphic eq and not from the low control. I usually set that to between 3-4 and then the mids in the 5 or 6 zone, the highs around 7 and the gain and drive around 8-9. Experiment to taste. The tricky thing about the IV's is that in order to get such incredible versatility the controls are very touchy.


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## jakeskylyr (Mar 31, 2006)

A few years back, well I guess it's more like 10 years or so back, I was buddy buddy with a salesman at a music store in Tucson who used to work for Mesa. When I got my MKIII, he told me that with Mesas, the "Bass" knob is essentially useless, (and as stated above, add it with the graphic) that it just adds a subsonic "flub" to your tone. However, as Roger said, they ARE gain stages, so you can't turn it all the way down. But you can roll it down to like 1 or 2 and get it's gain, minus it's "flub". I don't know if it applies to Rectos, but he said it's the case with Mark series as well as TriAxis' (plural?) which is what he had. After that, I was able to dial in my MKIII to near perfection. What I thought could've been a tube issue, turned out to be just the bass knob. It was my first tube amp, I didn't know! 

On my MKIII, I set my Bass to 2, Mid to 4, and Treble to 9, Presence 10. My gains stay at 7, and my lead master stays between 2-3. All my pulls are out (shift, bright, and deep). My EQ is usually like an offset U. If all the way down is 0, and all the way up is 100, I'd say from left to right it's 75, 60, 50, 55, 80-85. The mid and the high sliders get the most variation though. These settings on my Mesa = Jake tone  

I don't know if any of that helps, as I don't know how close these settings would carry over to a MKIV, but the principle may help some. Every amp is different, and I can say be patient. It took me a while to realize how much my sound was my sound with my amp.


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## Regor (Mar 31, 2006)

I tried a MKIIB combo at a local GC the other day. Plugged it into a Marshall Mode4 cab (Only thing readily available... unfortunately this store is new so they don't carry M/B anything).
And after some tweaking  This thing had some fucking growl to it! Only problem is there was no 'thud' to the tone. I blame the cab.


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## maliciousteve (Mar 31, 2006)

I've been using my producers Mark IV for my bands new cd that's going to be self released soon. The tone he got out of it was awesome! he didn't even dial in alot of gain but it just sounded huge and gave an awesome thug to the sound


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## Leon (Mar 31, 2006)

someday, i will own a Mark IV. and it will be cool


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## Drew (Mar 31, 2006)

You know, listening to "Vulvacure," that's a rhythm sound I could live with, and I've never suceeded in getting one of those from a Mark-IV. What sort of guitar is he using there?

I could conceivably see myself going amp shopping again.


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## The Dark Wolf (Mar 31, 2006)

Drew said:


> You know, listening to "Vulvacure," that's a rhythm sound I could live with, and I've never suceeded in getting one of those from a Mark-IV. What sort of guitar is he using there?
> 
> I could conceivably see myself going amp shopping again.


Dude, don't you know it. That Zorran cat has just got a monster sound. It's one of the most awesome rhythm sounds I've ever heard.


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## Drew (Mar 31, 2006)

> *Equipment used:*
> Guitars : Yamaha Pacifica Sereis 4,ESP MH201,Fender '97 US Strat,Fender Mex Strat,ESP h201,Ibanez SZ 320,Ibanez SZ 520 Walden and Takamine Acoustics.Soon to come : LTD HB 400 and Schecter C1 classic.
> 
> FX : Sansamp PSA 1,Alesis Midiverb 4, TC Electronic G Major,POD XT Pro,Digitech Whammy,Boss SD-1, Boss Ns 2, Boss LS 2, Boss CH 1, Boss DD5, Korg DT 10, Dunlop GCB 95.
> ...



Interesting. I think those are all passive-equipped, right?


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## zimbloth (Mar 31, 2006)

I love the MK4 setting on the Triaxis. I see why people love these so much now.


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## jamesboyd (Apr 1, 2006)

yeah.... zorran is the man, and a good mate \m/

The key is having a nice gat, and cab in with with the markiv head.
The treble and presence control a bit of gain and dist/saturation try the bass on 0,mids on 0, treble on 7-8, and presence on 6-7. have the gain pulled and on around 8, with the graphic in the typical 'V' shape. Have the mid gain switch on, and have it in pentode mode on the back.

Zorran did that clip with a genz benz g-flex 2x12 and some condensor mike at fairly conservative levels (hence the condensor)

A lot has to do with the playing as much as the amp........ the man has the skillz yo \m/

fyi- a lot of zorran's tunes where done with a podxt pro as well.


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## Zorran (Apr 1, 2006)

Thank you all for your comments, i am both surprised  and glad  you enjoyed it . I havent put up anything in close to 6 or 7 months so its quite surprising to hear of people finding it now  

Atm, im digging active EMGs, some of those songs were recorded with a couple of tracks of active pickups. the amp used to belong to the above james boyd, who swapped it with me for a 5150 and $1000 NZ which is a bragain and james bro, sorry to say it but you got ripped


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## jamesboyd (Apr 1, 2006)




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## The Dark Wolf (Apr 1, 2006)

Zorran said:


> Thank you all for your comments, i am both surprised  and glad  you enjoyed it . I havent put up anything in close to 6 or 7 months so its quite surprising to hear of people finding it now
> 
> Atm, im digging active EMGs, some of those songs were recorded with a couple of tracks of active pickups. the amp used to belong to the above james boyd, who swapped it with me for a 5150 and $1000 NZ which is a bragain and james bro, sorry to say it but you got ripped


Awesome, you showed up.  Welcome, dude. Your tone just fucking RULES. (Your playing is great, too.)

I'm the cat who e-mailed you. Glad to see you around here.

Spefically tone-wise, what did you use for say 'Surrounded' (probably the best metal tone I've ever heard). Vulvacure and Release are also top notch. Hell, everything was cool.

Guitar? We know the amp is Mark IV and the G-Major. How about some settings? And how did you record this song? Software, plug-ins, mics, etc. Dish, man!  The finished product is just awesome. 

These songs are so smooth I was tempted to take them to my studio and have my singer sing over them, to see how vox would work with them, ha ha.

Great work. Absolutely fantastic.


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## Zorran (Apr 1, 2006)

Hey DarkWolf,

As far as recording goes on that clip,i used an LTD h201 emg 81 through my mark IV with the gmajor in the loop through a genz benz 2x12 (a killer 2x12 with the mark IV) and 2 tracks of an ibanez sz 320 with a duncan JB.dean markley 13-56s in drop C.

Micd up with a studio projects c1 through a behringer mic200. yes, a behringer.
to my audiophiles 2496 card. recorded in nuendo 2.i do believe it is the condenser that lets you get that a more in your face sound at lower levels. i didnt use any plugins on those guitars, just blended them in with each other.

as for eq, its generally the V shape. although people say scooping is bad etc, the mark IV on a flat eq sounds like a car horn. gotta take some of them mids out..i hardly ever let the 750 hz slider move above the very bottom marker. the 80hz slider for that song was a wee bit over half, the second slider really close, and very last slider was a bit over half as well. and the 2nd to last slider from the right, was a centimetre or so below it.
both my gains were pulled. and the bass and mids taken out from the pre eq section. rreble on 9. prescence was on 1 or 2.

bear in mind that these setting wont work on most other cabs..the genz benz was distinctive. on a regular cab (like my current mesa std with v 30s) , the 80 hz and 6600 hz sliders are alot higher, and the prescence knob is about 5. 

to get a thick kinda sound..id definately recco 4 tracks with 2 different sounding guitars, but that could get sloppy if you dont exactly know what to do with all the frequencies.

that being said vulvacure was only doubletracked. its sloppy as is, but i was hella stoned in my defense  

hope this helps


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## nyck (Apr 1, 2006)

Hey Zorran, which amp model did you use on the PodXT on Apathy?


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## The Dark Wolf (Apr 1, 2006)

Awesome, Zorran. That's cool. I never realized those Mark IV amps could sound so brutal. It sounds sorta low gain, in that it's real clear, but it sounds abolutely super tight and heavy. I'm gonna be chasing this one for awhile, lol.

You rock. Keep posting, bud, and maybe some more clips. Your stuff is terrific.


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## jamesboyd (Apr 1, 2006)

yeah like zorran said having both gain knobs pulled, in pentode mode and with the mid gain on helps. I personally found that the pre-gain stage of the e.q wasn't that useful except for the treble and presence, which I usually had around the 7-8 area with my mesa v30 4x12 (remeber these knobs effect the gain)

Also for 7 stringer stuff, boost the 80hz slider while cutting the low mid slider (240hz i think) That tightens the amp up a lot as the low-mids are a major problem with modern metal guitar tones.

Apathy was done with a triple xxx, and a mesa 4x12 with v30's.

I'm now using a triple recto and getting better tones, but the triple xxx is great bang for the buck


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## DSS3 (Apr 1, 2006)

jamesboyd said:


> yeah like zorran said having both gain knobs pulled, in pentode mode and with the mid gain on helps. I personally found that the pre-gain stage of the e.q wasn't that useful except for the treble and presence, which I usually had around the 7-8 area with my mesa v30 4x12 (remeber these knobs effect the gain)
> 
> Also for 7 stringer stuff, boost the 80hz slider while cutting the low mid slider (240hz i think) That tightens the amp up a lot as the low-mids are a major problem with modern metal guitar tones.
> 
> ...



Presence on 0, OD level and treble up =    


I still want a JSX tho


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## jamesboyd (Apr 1, 2006)

that setup with my alder/emg 81 strat is just tight as a witches cleft  
goddamn


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## DreamSound (Apr 1, 2006)

Oooh Master Zorran you have replied to my post, show me the way in the quest for a perfect tone!!!   If you get a chance keep posting your settings on the rest of your songs. 

I've found very good metal tones on the lead (ultra) channel on the Mark IV, but I haven't find a so good tone for the Rhythm 2 (crunch)  , that way I can configure the lead channels for leads and rhythm 2 for rhythm. All input is greatly appreciated.


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## jamesboyd (Apr 1, 2006)

it's considered a crunch channel for a reason, it's not even vaguely set up for anything metal.

just take the graphic out of the equation and voila nice midrangey lead sound


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## DreamSound (Apr 2, 2006)

I have found my new love, oh Mark IV I LOVE YOU.   

Using Mr. Zorran's settings and tweaking from there I've found the lead tone I was looking for that crisp clean liquid distortion (Is like a heavier fender vintage sound). I'm getting a much closer tone to Images & Words the best album in the world   . I can use those same settings for a good rhythm sound, yet I wish I had another 'ultra' channel for that. I also wish there was on-off reverb on the pedal. 

James Boyd could you tell me how you have your set up in the back of the amp?


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## DreamSound (Apr 2, 2006)

Oh, and the direct recording output sucks. I guess I'm gonna have to keep the over priced Koch LoadBox II


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## jamesboyd (Apr 2, 2006)

As zorran mentioned he bought the amp off me.
As far as I remeber for heavy stuff I had it in simul-class (I only had 6l6's in there)

And with the pentode option engaged.


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