Mesa - 1984 Mk IIc+ DRGX vs JP2C

[Genghis]

I know the talk of the town is the reissue of the Mk IIc+, but I was lucky enough to acquire an old school DRGX Mk IIc+ a few months ago, and it gave me the fever for a similar amp with modern features like the JP2C. I put together this video comparison of a short little thing I put together to see how they are similar and/or different.

I actually started this a few months back with the backing track and rhythm guitars, and just got lazy about finishing up. I finally hooked up a foot pedal to my head switcher and put down a lead in one take just switching between the amps as the rhythm guitars changed.

My method was to lay down three tracks of rhythm guitars mixed identically. No EQ or additional processing besides a bit of compression, EQ, and limiter on the mix bus. I ran each group to a summing folder (bus), and muted one and then the other over different parts of the song. To simplify getting the lead track on video, I just used a foot switch on my head switcher to change the lead amp to coincide with the active rhythm guitars.

Give it a listen and let me know if you have aa preference. I didn’t do any talking with or even an intro, just wanted to show what it sounds like in the context of a mix.

 

[Genghis]

I just received a KHE head switcher and have been playing more with toggling back and forth, and even though you can get close in a lot of ways, there is something just so nice and chewy about the feel of the IIC+. The JP2C sounds a bit more dry and tight. Love them both for different things, but man that IIC+ really seems to deserve that Holy Grail title!

 

[DrewJD82]

Hell yeah!

If I didn't know there were two different amps being used in that I definitely wouldn't have known!

 

[Genghis]

Hell yeah!

If I didn't know there were two different amps being used in that I definitely wouldn't have known!

I know what you mean. I had them marked in Logic for which was which in my rhythm tracks, but was using a head switcher to change tones on the leads as I played the lead while I watched me markers scroll by on my iPad. Then when I put it into Final Cut to edit and put the text and thumbnails in I actually got confused in places and had to watch carefully to see when I was hitting the foot switch.

 

[EOengineer]

I just received a KHE head switcher and have been playing more with toggling back and forth, and even though you can get close in a lot of ways, there is something just so nice and chewy about the feel of the IIC+. The JP2C sounds a bit more dry and tight. Love them both for different things, but man that IIC+ really seems to deserve that Holy Grail title!

It’s hard to quantify a lot of this stuff. If I track my Mark III vs my studio preamp (IIc-ish) through the Mark III power amp I can get nearly identical tones to disk - despite the experience playing in the room being substantially different and very noticeable.

 

[Genghis]

It’s hard to quantify a lot of this stuff. If I track my Mark III vs my studio preamp (IIc-ish) through the Mark III power amp I can get nearly identical tones to disk - despite the experience playing in the room being substantially different and very noticeable.

I know what you mean. The feel when you are playing is different as well. JP2C is fine, but something extra special about the IIC+ that is hard to really put into words. Sound wise you can get close to matching them if you want, but what I do when recording is play to the strengths of each amp. JP2C can get a more modern high gain sound, so I use it for that. Pretty sure the IIC+ will be my main amp for leads, and the slightly dirty cleans out of that amp are the one area the JP2C is lacking in. It’s clean is great, but you can’t get the pushed dirty cleans out of it.