Mesa Boogie Mark V too smooth?

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I tell this story a lot, but my friend has a V:25 and didn't bond with it at all. He got a Mark IV and eventually a TriAxis and was a much, much happy camper.

...I miss my Mark III and IV. Those amps, while able to be smooth, could be dialed in to be aggressive beasts.

 

[Seamus McFlanery]

I tell this story a lot, but my friend has a V:25 and didn't bond with it at all. He got a Mark IV and eventually a TriAxis and was a much, much happy camper.

...I miss my Mark III and IV. Those amps, while able to be smooth, could be dialed in to be aggressive beasts.

I'm hoping Randall puts out a Mark VI before he retires and he makes an amp that stands on its own and does its own thing instead of trying to be a greatest hits amp like the V.

 

[cardinal]

I'd try lowering the mids and bass. I've not played a V, but 11 and 9 o'clock for mid and bass seems somewhat high for a Mark lead channel

 

[Dog Boy]

I'm sure you guys know this but switching the "Loop Out" makes the amp a bit more in your face.

 

[Marked Man]

I am A/Bing my amps right now, thinking of selling a few. My Mark V might be on the chopping block for the main reason that it is too smooth and lacks that aggressive character that both my Mark IV and JP-2C have. It can approximate their tones, but lacks the feeling of those two.

Is this a common issue people have with this amp, and is there anything I can do to add some nastiness to the Mark V? I love how versatile this amp is but it comes off as a jack of all trades, master of none type amp.

Can a tube swap add some meanness to it or is it by design a smooth amp? How about different speakers? I am using a 2x12 KSR cab with 75H creambacks in it.

I have a MkIII+, MkIVb and a Quad. The III is definitely more aggressive than the IV, and the Quad even MORE aggressive when paried with the 2:90 in Modern mode. The most perfect Lead channel I have ever heard in fact, both of them (the IIC and III Lead channels on the Quad). I describe the MkIII Lead channel as HOSTILE!!

Also here is wisdom:

I think any Mark amps sounds its best when played through the original metal grill Mark cabs with open top (Celestion C90s) and closed bottom (EVM12Ls). You could try that before giving up on the V, although the relative differences are still there. I know everyone seems to play the Recto style cabs with Vs, but I simply don't get it. The Mark cabs sound 3X as good to me. Ultimately, if you love the IV and 2C, you are overlapping with the V.

 

[Seamus McFlanery]

I have a MkIII+, MkIVb and a Quad. The III is definitely more aggressive than the IV, and the Quad even MORE aggressive when paried with the 2:90 in Modern mode. The most perfect Lead channel I have ever heard in fact, both of them (the IIC and III Lead channels on the Quad). I describe the MkIII Lead channel as HOSTILE!!

Also here is wisdom:

I think any Mark amps sounds its best when played through the original metal grill Mark cabs with open top (Celestion C90s) and closed bottom (EVM12Ls). You could try that before giving up on the V, although the relative differences are still there. I know everyone seems to play the Recto style cabs with Vs, but I simply don't get it. The Mark cabs sound 3X as good to me. Ultimately, if you love the IV and 2C, you are overlapping with the V.

I agree that my speakers might be the issue here, I've been eqing things on my computer using IRs of other speaker types and while I love my creambacks with my KSR, Mesa really work best with either V30s or a high wattage speaker like the C90 or K100s. Guess I'll need to pick up a Mesa cab at some point.

 

[HeHasTheJazzHands]

I agree that my speakers might be the issue here, I've been eqing things on my computer using IRs of other speaker types and while I love my creambacks with my KSR, Mesa really work best with either V30s or a high wattage speaker like the C90 or K100s. Guess I'll need to pick up a Mesa cab at some point.

How do the speakers sound with your other Mesas? It sounds like they're fine.

 

[Seamus McFlanery]

How do the speakers sound with your other Mesas? It sounds like they're fine.

Better but the Mark IV and JP2C I feel are voiced more aggressively (that or I have a couple of lemons). Both amps sound best with a V30s cabinet. I've tried my Mark IV with a friend's Mesa Trad 4x12 and it sounded better. Unfortunately the only V30 cab I own is a crappy Avatar Contemporary 2x12 that is almost ten years old at this point and I think the speakers were damaged during one of the several moves I've made over the past five years.

I am using the speaker eq on my Rivera Rockcrusher Recording unit and I've noticed that all my amps prefer different cabs lol. My KSR like the KSR cab with 75H creambacks, the Friedman JJ seems to favor Greenbacks and the Mesas like V30s.

 

[Grindspine]

Seriously, I feel like I need a rack eq just to remove some of those mids. I've noticed the amp needs a decent amount of volume to open up as well.

Running my Mark 525, I generally use the MkIV setting. I do not EQ the traditional V, but go for a dip at 80 hz and 750hz with 6600 boosted, gain 7, treble 6, mid, 8, bass 1, presence 6. Recording, I use Fabfilter Pro Q 3 to drop the mids further though. I have used it with some various Celestion speakers, but totally have to re EQ if I use it in front of a V30 cab. I typically use a Triaxis though, so am used to the Lead 2 Red "searing Boogie" Mark III/MkIV voicing in that.

The one thing I have not seen mentioned so far with pedals and such, I use a buffer and Decimator II before any signal hits the front end. If you are using a longer, higher capacitance cable, or have your tone control rolled off at all, that can dull the tone quite a bit.

 

[Seamus McFlanery]

Running my Mark 525, I generally use the MkIV setting. I do not EQ the traditional V, but go for a dip at 80 hz and 750hz with 6600 boosted, gain 7, treble 6, mid, 8, bass 1, presence 6. Recording, I use Fabfilter Pro Q 3 to drop the mids further though. I have used it with some various Celestion speakers, but totally have to re EQ if I use it in front of a V30 cab. I typically use a Triaxis though, so am used to the Lead 2 Red "searing Boogie" Mark III/MkIV voicing in that.

The one thing I have not seen mentioned so far with pedals and such, I use a buffer and Decimator II before any signal hits the front end. If you are using a longer, higher capacitance cable, or have your tone control rolled off at all, that can dull the tone quite a bit.

I also use a Decimator II and the only other pedals I have in front are a tuner and occasionally an overdrive set up for either lead boost or as a grit pedal for lower gain modes. Aside from those, I have a delay in the loop and I am messing with a separate 5 band eq in the loop for another tone.