New Mesa Mark amp coming?

[norminal]

Damn you Randall!

 

[Sascha Franck]

They removed the master volume.

The lack of an overall master volume is pretty bad in my book. But then, I'm not going to by any real amp ever again, so I'm absolutely fine with others doing their workarounds.

 

[James Freeman]

I am not impressed.
They removed most of the unique features of the V.

Mark 1 and Tweed
Channel Voicing Switches
Solo+Mute, Output Master, Tuner Output
True Class A 10W single ended mode
Triode/Pentode in 45W mode
Diode/Tube Rectifier
Variac Power
Loop Send Level and Hard Bypass
Slave Output+Level at speaker jack
Graphic EQ Presets

All the above features are gone, these features made the V super versatile beyond just crunch and metal.
This is basically a redacted V with far less tonal options but with MIDI and CabClone IR.

And the price...

 

[la szum]

That's where I am at. Leads me to the Gibson conspiracy that they wanted
to put out of production the MKV, and make the stripped down MKVII, that
maybe is cheaper to build, and has a better profit margin.

 

[James Freeman]

stripped down MKVII... cheaper to build, and has a better profit margin.

Which is exactly what this is.
Add to that an opportunity to increase prices.

It's not a conspiracy, it's plain old corporate greed, for some reason the music industry is particularly full of it.
I feel zero shame calling things as I see them, even if it deflates someones GAS and hype.

 

[JerEvil]

Well… as I expected, nothing in that official vid that made me even raise an eyebrow.

 

[Orvillain]

I think it sounds lovely. Probably wouldn't buy one, but it does sound lovely. I'm still leaning towards a Revv 100R.

 

[laxu]

I don't get why they didn't try to do anything better with the graphic EQ. That has always been the weak part of these amps when you need to compromise to make it work well between all channels (or disable it on some). I mean they tried to solve that with the preset EQ options on the Mark V and the JP2C solves it with two graphic EQs. Putting the JP2C setup on this amp would have been great even if it would have made it larger.

The power scaling options are basically "really loud, loud and slightly less loud" so they aren't that useful for controlling volume. The lack of a global output volume is terrible, there isn't even a loop level you could use for this, you would have to put a pot in a box in the loop for this.

Seems that getting a bit of drive out of the clean settings is hard with single coil guitars even at high gain settings while P90s got some breakup. It's a shame that the Mark VII mode is limited to just one channel, I would have probably replaced the IIB mode with it on the 3rd channel so you can have two "kinda Rectoish" sounds if you want.

Weirdly this seems like a worse amp on paper than the Mark V apart from the MIDI control and cab clone IR. I feel like they cut out the wrong features, I would have ditched the reverb first because there's so many options to replace that and most of them are better than a basic spring reverb tank. The tuner out, rectifier options and slave output were fine to remove as I don't think many used them.

It does sound pretty good in the demo to me so maybe it all works just fine anyway. But overall definitely disappointing as it doesn't really do anything better than the Mark V except the MIDI and IRs.

 

[JerEvil]

I don't get why they didn't try to do anything better with the graphic EQ. That has always been the weak part of these amps when you need to compromise to make it work well between all channels (or disable it on some). I mean they tried to solve that with the preset EQ options on the Mark V and the JP2C solves it with two graphic EQs. Putting the JP2C setup on this amp would have been great even if it would have made it larger.

The power scaling options are basically "really loud, loud and slightly less loud" so they aren't that useful for controlling volume. The lack of a global output volume is terrible, there isn't even a loop level you could use for this, you would have to put a pot in a box in the loop for this.

Seems that getting a bit of drive out of the clean settings is hard with single coil guitars even at high gain settings while P90s got some breakup. It's a shame that the Mark VII mode is limited to just one channel, I would have probably replaced the IIB mode with it on the 3rd channel so you can have two "kinda Rectoish" sounds if you want.

Weirdly this seems like a worse amp on paper than the Mark V apart from the MIDI control and cab clone IR. I feel like they cut out the wrong features, I would have ditched the reverb first because there's so many options to replace that and most of them are better than a basic spring reverb tank. The tuner out, rectifier options and slave output were fine to remove as I don't think many used them.

It does sound pretty good in the demo to me so maybe it all works just fine anyway. But overall definitely disappointing as it doesn't really do anything better than the Mark V except the MIDI and IRs.

Yeah I really didn’t hear any actual tones in there you couldn’t get out of the V

 

[Orvillain]

Mesa really need to sort out their EU + UK distribution.

 

[laxu]

Mesa really need to sort out their EU + UK distribution.

At least we no longer pay hugely inflated prices. I once calculated I could buy a cheap flight to New York, buy a JP2C, fly back to Finland, buy a step down transformer and still have money left over compared to buying a JP2C in Europe. Now the pricing is more sensible after Mesa changed distributors.

Atm it seems like Mesas are close to unobtainium everywhere in Europe. Thomann doesn't list them at all, my local store only has an Express 5:50 and a Rectoverb 25.

 

[Orvillain]

At least we no longer pay hugely inflated prices. I once calculated I could buy a cheap flight to New York, buy a JP2C, fly back to Finland, buy a step down transformer and still have money left over compared to buying a JP2C in Europe. Now the pricing is more sensible after Mesa changed distributors.

Atm it seems like Mesas are close to unobtainium everywhere in Europe. Thomann doesn't list them at all, my local store only has an Express 5:50 and a Rectoverb 25.

Yeah same here. UK is bone dry. In 2021 I put down a deposit on a Badlander. Was really excited for one of those. Anyway... over a year later, I cancelled my order. *sigh*

 

[Sascha Franck]

I think it sounds lovely.

Absolutely agreed. And I defenitely love it that they didn't concentrate too much on modern high gain but rather tried to cover a pretty broad spectrum of classic to modern tones, all with a pretty decent to kickass quality.
Along with some pedals, that'd make up for a killer recording amp, offering huge flexibility.

Also makes me sort of miss my MkIV. The tone controls an gain stacking options are pretty much like no others.

 

[Sascha Franck]

The lack of a global output volume is terrible, there isn't even a loop level you could use for this, you would have to put a pot in a box in the loop for this.

Yeah, most horrible design decision.
Sure, in case you're using it along with any MFX pedal, you could use the master out of that one to finetune overall stage levels (I think that's where a global master volume is most important), but on a traditional pedalboard you don't have anything like that. Pretty stupid.

 

[the-trooper]

UK

Laney Ironheart. Poor man's Mesa.

 

[James Freeman]

The lack of a global output volume is terrible, there isn't even a loop level you could use for this, you would have to put a pot in a box in the loop for this.

Yep, they done fucked it up.

Channel Volume = 0.01

 

[Orvillain]

Laney Ironheart. Poor man's Mesa.

I had one of these before. I didn't really dig it tbh. Maybe I'll go and try another one out at some point. I like the Laney VH100R and GH100 amps. I never got to try the old Iommi signature.

 

[the-trooper]

I had one of these before. I didn't really dig it tbh.

They got the "difficult to dial in" part of Mesa real good

 

[James Freeman]

People are starting to comment on YT.

 

[Orvillain]

Side question - What do the preset controls on the Mark V actually do???