ilovefuzz.com

I've always been a 50W kind of guy - it's just the right amount of headroom and breakup. I've got a 68 Bassman and an Egnater SW45 that have served me well for a while now. So when I picked up a Mesa Stiletto Ace combo earlier this year, I figured it'd be perfect for me - I'm a big fan of Mesa amps, but I also love marshall gain. Plus, I've wanted one since I was a kid and played one in guitar center.

But unfortunately, it just wasn't enough for me, specifically the clean channel - it just wasn't loud enough. So I was planning on selling it and paying off some bills/pedals and getting a new amp later... but then I got hit with an offer that was too good to pass up. So I drove out to San Jose today and I traded my Stiletto Ace combo straight across for this beast:



A Mesa Mark IIB Coliseum. 180W of all American grunt and grind, powered by 6 6L6s.

Unfortunately, my only cab is wired exclusively for 16 ohms, so I can't use it at the moment as the head only has taps for 4 and 8 ohms. But I ordered a jack plate from Avatar that will let me use this amp and my cab together, and I can't wait. This is my third mesa in the last year and a half (the first one I only had for a few days before I traded for a guitar) and hopefully this one will stick. Obviously it's got a shit ton of volume, but more importantly it's got headroom for days. It should sound FUCKING MASSIVE AND DESTROY SMALL ASTEROIDS with my big muff. I'm actually thinking of building a small but effective rig around it - TS type for the dirt channel to get more gain, big muff for the clean channel for fuzz, plus my reverb unit and space echo. Sounds like a plan.

Oh yeah and I can't not share this picture because it's just so awesome.

I think you won

Fucking Excellent.

If you need to rewire your cab for the new jack keep in mind the wiring diagram for a 4x12 on Avatar's website is incorrect.

that's awesome!

That's fucking badass mang, hnad.

If you haven't played the Mark series stuff, it's worth lurking places like the Grailtone Boogie forum to get ideas on how to dial them. The tone knobs are pre-eq so very sensitive, especially when in the lead mode. Think of bass as mud/floppy and mids as body-to-boxy. The graphic eq is where you fix your spectral balance after you have set the pre's basic behavior. If you want loud cleans, you should be in luck.

I've played Mark Vs before but never the earlier stuff. I actually found it pretty easy to dial in. Granted, the graphic eq was doing most of the heavy lifting, but I'm cool with that. I'm sure I'll be able to dial in a good tone without the graphic eventually.

How's the master volume work?

Can you get it down to reasonable volumes?

that's a fucking rig.

casecandy wrote:How's the master volume work?

Can you get it down to reasonable volumes?

Oh definitely. I can get great (loud) bedroom tones out of it, and at gigging volume it's just perfect.

Just because you have 180W doesn't mean you need to use all of them to get killer tone. Or even most of them.

saweeeet

Agileguy_101 wrote:

casecandy wrote:How's the master volume work?

Can you get it down to reasonable volumes?

Oh definitely. I can get great (loud) bedroom tones out of it, and at gigging volume it's just perfect.

Just because you have 180W doesn't mean you need to use all of them to get killer tone. Or even most of them.

Yeah... you don't have to use 180w.

But you should.



I'm a recent convert to the Mesa camp. Definitely enjoying the flexibility of it all.