Having Trouble Getting A Good Tone With My Mesa Express 550 Options

[leonard478]

So i refuse to give up on this amp!, but I guess ive never been good at tweaking things quite right to get a good tone. i know its possible with this beast of an amp but i just cant seem to do it. Can anybody help me with EQ settings & General settings for cleans, blues, and high gain thanks

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[Mertay]

I'm not sure if anybody here also has that amp but giving more detail would help. Like whats the guitar, if pickups change what are they, what pedals...its tube right? how long have you been playing it? also how big is the room?

You probably noticed the Hone Your Tone workshop topic, if you mic. or direct record through it then we can get into even more detail

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[leonard478]

I'm not sure if anybody here also has that amp but giving more detail would help. Like whats the guitar, if pickups change what are they, what pedals...its tube right? how long have you been playing it? also how big is the room?

You probably noticed the Hone Your Tone workshop topic, if you mic. or direct record through it then we can get into even more detail

Thanks !
Its a tube amp, I am trying to get a good tone straight through the amp no pedals, roooms can range from smaller bars to midsize theatres !!

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[Kristofer Dahl]

Hey Leonard, if you have the possibility to record yourself we will be able to guide you step by step here:
https://www.guitarmasterclass.net/guitar_fo...showtopic=54212

The level of the signal hitting the amp (coming from your guitar) is important, especially if you don't use any pedals. So knowing what guitar and pickups you have will help.

Also, getting other peoples settings is often not that useful unless you have the same guitar/pickups/musical preferences etc. I think you might be able to get some suggestions on the mesa boards though.

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[Mertay]

Thanks !
Its a tube amp, I am trying to get a good tone straight through the amp no pedals, roooms can range from smaller bars to midsize theatres !!

Recently we bought a nice fender tube amp with a friend, we played the one at the store and loved the sound. So we bought a new one and when set it up at his friends house I noticed it was much flatter sounding than the demo amp at the store.

So tubes needs to be cooked a bit in time and not to mention the amp needs to heat-up to sound its best. The store guy told me it can take up to 6 months for the tubes to find their tone depending how often its played.

I looked at youtube to get an idea of the amp and it sounds lovely, can you generalize whats not exactly to your liking? like is it too bright, muddy, doesn't cut through etc...?

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[SpaseMoonkey]

Is it the Standard 550 or Plus model? Do you have the 5 Band EQ?

For High Gain, I know you have so many choices to play with.

Gain: Noon - Bass: 12:30 o'clock - Mids: 11 o'clock - Highs: 2 o'clock (What I have on my Mesa Mark 5:25).
Gain: 11 o'clock - Bass: 11 o'clock - Mids: Noon - Highs: 1 o'clock.
Gain: 1-2' o'clock - Bass: 12-1 o'clock - Mids 9-10 o'clock - Highs 1-2 o'clock.

That's some starting points, the higher the treble goes you may wanna dial the gain/presence back a bit or it will get too tinny.

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[Mertay]

General advice when discover and personalizing an amps tone;

-Adjust the gain to what you need (from super clean to shred level just pick a gain setting)

-turn all eq's to zero, for the mesa make slider eq's flat anddisable them for now. The tone will probably become weak, muddy and master vol. will need to increase.

-Now start increasing the high eq to get rid of mud to your liking and decrease master vol. if needed. Then do the same for mid. and low eq to add body to the tone...This should balance the amp for you and you'll immediatly start to get a hang of it.

-For mesa, now engage the slider eq's to get closer for what you want to add to the tone. Then add reverb and that mesa should fit very close to you tone standard.

but it doesn't end there! even if the amps power alone is enough for a gig many guitar players prefer to use mic.s and are very picky about them. Incase you feel it can be adjusted further, I highly recommend researching mic.s.

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This post has been edited by Mertay: Apr 21 2015, 10:18 AM