[1960strat]

I am looking for advice in two areas:

1) High gain, pre-amp tube saturation. It seems like alot of the jam band guys are using this type of amp these days, I know Warren uses a Soldano SLO100, but what do the guys from the Heavy Pets, Umphreys, Umelt and others using? Are they footswitchable between clean and saturated.

2) What kind of recording amps are the pros using. I have heard great things about the orange tiny terror which is 15watts. i have also heard people use 10 and 5 watters. What is the best to use?

[Crazy 9.5 Fingers]

Personally I am pretty partial to Mesa Boogie. It's really hard to find an amp that gets you serious tube saturation, including ghost tones, harmonics and all that glorious shit while at the same time it has an amazing vintage blackface tone one footswitch hit away. I can sound like Santana circa 1968, Trey 1991, and sound crystal glassy clean all with just switching the channel selector on the foot board and without needing a drive pedal.

Boogies IMO nail that kind of versatitlity better than anyone. I have a Mark IV combo that I will never part with. Boogies are a tad more complex than most other amps out there, way more complex than a Fender but they are very user friendly in that when you hit a switch or tweak a knob, you can hear the difference immediately. I never said, "hmm, what did that do." You can hear the nuances very easily, so while they are more complex, they are worth the effort and dollars if you are serious about tone.

The versatility of the power amp section of the Mark IV is very impressive, and I had always thought it was the saturation of the power tube section that really gives the amp the growl. Your post seems to be going for something different and maybe you are just looking for a tube pre amp. I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time, but I definitely LOVE the tones from my Mark IV. Personally I think you have to have tube power and tube pre.

As far as part 2 of your question, depending on who it is, many pros bring an arsenal of amps into the studio with them, or even better they record at a studio with a nasty arsenal of vintage gear in house. A lot of times they will run the signal into a variety of amps, each on its own channel strip so they have the option of listening to all of them in playback and then blending the channels together if they want. It really depends on what you want the guitar track(s) to sound like. I record with a '67 Princeton Reverb for clean tracking, only 15 watts but you can't beat the clean with anything. I also record with the Boogie as it has always sounded much better to tape than my Twin Reverb.

[RiverRat]

X

[KCJones]

I also love my Mesa Boogie Mark IV for all the reasons stated above. There is some negative things to note about this amp, none of which would lead me not to recommend this amp, its a beautiful amp that I've had for about 20 years. The downsides....It's increadibly loud and powerful. So much so that the ovedrive channel is touchy between being barely audible to ear killing loud with little middle ground. It's also next to impossible to fully utilize and achieve pure overdriven tube tones at normal barable stage and rehearsal volumes, but the amp sounds sweet none-the-less. Also, the reverb is just OK.

[1960strat]

Funny everybody loves the boogies. I am actually using an 86 Mesa Mark III Combo. Funny thing about this amp is that although it is supposed to be a three channel amp, with the footswitch, there are only 2 channels. The clean channel and the lead channel.. So i am missing that middle ground the Mark 4 must have.... interesting, maybe i should just stick with my boogie.

I do have to admit, i got some sick tones out of it by running my custom shop reissue 59 historic les paul thru a ts9 into the lead channel with preamp on 10. very creamy on the neck pick up

[Hajimemashite!!!]

1) High gain, pre-amp tube saturation. It seems like alot of the jam band guys are using this type of amp these days, I know Warren uses a Soldano SLO100, but what do the guys from the Heavy Pets, Umphreys, Umelt and others using? Are they footswitchable between clean and saturated.

i know umphreys gears, no idea about the other tho

jake uses a fuchs overdrive supreme and a marshall vintage modern. i think he uses the fuchs as a clean base for pedals and the marshall for heavy drive. Bayliss seems to change it up but recently hes been using a matchless. he also used a mesa lonestar for a long time and vox ac50 back in the fall/winter.

[Crazy 9.5 Fingers]

A shop in my town has a Lonestar in their store. I played through it. I knew I should have just walked away.

I may have to buy it now.

[strumminsix]

A shop in my town has a Lonestar in their store. I played through it. I knew I should have just walked away.

I may have to buy it now.

Which one? Classic or Special?

Would not actually recommend either.

The OD channel on the classic is lame.

The Special doesn't have enough headroom for unmic'd gigs.

Now earlier IIs and IIIS = drool

[Crazy 9.5 Fingers]

It was the regular one, not the special. I dialed up a pretty nice lead tone with it. I really liked channel 2 with the clean feature switched on, basically gave me a grittier version of what I had with channel 1. It took some tweaking but it's a Boogie.

I thought channel 1 was absolutely stellar to be honest. Had some Jerry Live Dead vibe to it.

The reverb is definitely a little more lush than that of my Mark IV. But I don't like my tone swimming in it so the Mark is perfect for me.

In the end, I would never replace the Mark IV with it on stage. It took a long time to get the Mark IV just right to my liking.

I Just thought the Lonestar sounded really really nice overall. Played a G + L tele I grabbed off the rack at the store. Pretty impressive guitar as well.

[strumminsix]

Hmmm, maybe it plays better with singles than hums.

I got very nice cleans at all levels with mine.

The OD channel:
- nice rhythm at low levels
- nice leads at low levels
- nice leads at gig levels
- bland and yucky rhythm crunchy at gig levels

[1960strat]

Maybe the key here is to blend a couple of amps together...