buffers in front of mesa marks

[newholland]

Anybody out there ever run just a buffer in front of a mesa mark?

im not talking about a boost- i mean just a straight clean boost at unity.

been workin on getting my mark iib to do what i want- and not sure if its an idiosyncrasy of the amp- but im running into two problems running it as a single channel gain amp at volumes i can negotiate in a neighborhood- and the dumb problems are:

#1- the tone stack with the treble can go either too bitey and upper mid heavy, and if you drop it even a nudge, it goes too dark. too much available throw to dial it in.

#2 it can be too thick and it gets fuzzy if you try to counterbalance the bright with the mids and bass. again- all the rotary eq is so sensitive, its tough to just nail down.

i dont have a graphic onboard- so thats not an option to fix it. so on a whim, i put an mxr micro amp in front. if ya havent met em.. they add a little treble and bass, nothing crazy, but just a nudge. with added gain ... too much- just blows the preamp all out and goes full fuzz bass even if bass is on xero. but basically just ON at zero on the micro amp.. everything is stable, sounds amazing, and kinda just works. even riding the volume knob works way better.

im thinkin, mebbe its just stabilizing impedance, with just the little eq tweak on the MA providing just enough treble?

just wondered if anyone with an elderly mesa has run into this phenomenon? i aint complaining- it works awesome, and the pedals paid for - so free wins aint bad.

 

[RaceU4her]

i have an old DOD FX10 bi-fet preamp i believe is just a slight clean boost, ive not tried it in front of my mark though, next time ill give it a whirl. i know the JHS dude talks about them often as being a secret weapon on his board

 

[newholland]

i have an old DOD FX10 bi-fet preamp i believe is just a slight clean boost, ive not tried it in front of my mark though, next time ill give it a whirl. i know the JHS dude talks about them often as being a secret weapon on his board

i was shocked that it did that! all the benefits of boosting... but... no boost?

yeah, report back!

my use case is basically running it like a blackface bassman (v1 at 7, tmb at 7,7,0) with the master at like 4, and lead gain at 9, which makes your lead volume the master volume.

 

[TubeStack]

Would be worth looking at a Mesa Stowaway. I’ve used one at the front of my pedalboard for a while now, love it. Currently have the Mk VII and it’s great in front of that, too.

(Have never run just the Stowaway, though.)

 

[newholland]

Would be worth looking at a Mesa Stowaway. I’ve used one at the front of my pedalboard for a while now, love it. Currently have the Mk VII and it’s great in front of that, too.

(Have never run just the Stowaway, though.)

oo damn- i dont even know what that is! ill have a look, thanks!

i also found that i could achieve a similar balance by, duh, pulling presence down a scoch and dialing treble up marginally- but ive never really run this thing quite like this before, and presence acts differently with the mids WAY up, so all part of the learning process.

 

[TubeStack]

oo damn- i dont even know what that is! ill have a look, thanks!

i also found that i could achieve a similar balance by, duh, pulling presence down a scoch and dialing treble up marginally- but ive never really run this thing quite like this before, and presence acts differently with the mids WAY up, so all part of the learning process.

Yeah, I’m still getting a feel for the Treble/Presence interplay on the VII, too.

 

[newholland]

Yeah, I’m still getting a feel for the Treble/Presence interplay on the VII, too.

sometimes i feel like its a graduate level seminar my biggest issue with presence has always been how much it messes with touch sensitivity- and with mids cranked way up, its less apparent. always something new to learn.

looks like the stowaway is exactly the same scenario as what i ran into with the micro amp! that seems like a relatively newish addition at mesa- and while ive sure seen em used in pedalboard scenarios, i just plug straight in- so maybe its just the eq of the pedal doing the work. this one confuses me a bit.. hrm.

 

[EOengineer]

I’ve used the buffered bypass on my HXFX and Helix into a Mark III for years and haven’t noticed any weird tonal interactions. I love how well the Mark III clean channel takes a tubescreamer style drive too.

Come to think of it, most buffers, boosts, and drives have worked well. Maybe I should check again.