Mesa-Boogie Mark V

[darkknight]

Lots of cool features, but Boogies don't work for everything. They have their uses, but I prefer older amps. They seem to cut through the mix better.

[GAR]

I recently saw a Stryper video on youtube, they clearly have JCM800's heads up front.

They're playing a church service, and they have black-n-yellow striped cabinets stacked up to the ceiling almost, but they don't sound like Marshalls they sound like beefy Boogie's but with some chorusey shimmer on the upper range that might be an Eventide harmonizer.

While the equipment is clearly shown, the sound doesn't match the picture it's a head scratcher.

[jhale667]

Stryper used to be Boogie endorsers, I'm pretty sure...to be fair, it's not unheard of for someone to have something else running behind the PC sponsored backline....

Actually I remember seeing a show with them and Loudness in the early 90s, they were also Boogie users...stage looked like a freaking advertisement...lol

[ELVIS]

You KNOW quite a few JCM 800's sounded like high-end sizzle crap...

No telling what they ran in front of their marshalls or if they used them for power at all...

And they probably had cabs filled with 75-T's...

BTW, that's Yngwie's favorite speaker...

[ELVIS]

stage looked like a freaking advertisement...lol

That reminds me of another act...

Hmmm...

[jhale667]

That reminds me of another act...

Hmmm...

Yeah, before they even knew it was cool...

[GAR]

Stryper used to be Boogie endorsers

It would make sense to run a Boogie as a pre-out to the two JCM100s if you had one!

I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of them were dummy cabs, and I'm usually pretty good about ID'ing a sound and I can't because the vid says Marshall heads but the tone says Boogie.

Boogies sound great full open, but you go to the Hollywood store and the dicks who work there are like, stalking you to turn the volume down and so you never get to hear what it can really do.

Boogies sound awful at 1 or 2 volume. They're designed to burn loud, and if you cant turn up you never hear how good they can be.

[GAR]

And they probably had cabs filled with 75-T's...

BTW, that's Yngwie's favorite speaker...

Yeah I saw the recent advertisement page in GP, however in the same issue George Lynch also likes the T75 mixed with the Vintage 30 which is what I'm doing in 4 of my cabinets: two 75's and two V30s, in place of the cabinets I lost with the Altecs for clean channel.

It's a compromise where you really don't like the idea of playing out with speakers that are now ebaying around $200-350 each, maybe one of the other bands snatch a cab off you and you don't wanna even think about the time involved hunting down antique cones to replace let alone the $1000-1500 to put another cab together.

The V30 and the T75 sound good together: a Treble and a Midrange pair.. I think that's what T and M stand for! And they're very common speakers to replace, no hunting for months, no ebaying, no premium price to pay, you just order and wait for the Fedex guy if you blow one or have a theft.

[GAR]

I'm still open minded about the Boogie though.

I'd like to try one thru it's paces, but the folks that work for Boogie including and especially the artist relations dude carry huge attitude.. like what they offer to sell is molten buttered lightning crapped from the asses of the Godz, and it is NOT!

I've heard some poor tones, but also some frightening tones from Boogie and my mind's not made up yet bout em.

[ELVIS]

Well like you said, on 1 or 2 they sound like crap. They need to be on like 8 or 9, EVERY KNOB, and that's just not doable for almost anybody...

Even when I see a headline act at like the House Of Blues, the sound is just way too loud, distorted and way to out of control to hardly stand it...

The only guitarist (and band) i've heard recently up close and LOUD with great tone was Ted Nugent a few years ago, and he was using 5150 II amps...

I don't know who he had working the magic on those amps, but his sound was terrific!

Especially with his old black Byrdland, I would sey he had more of an early Van Halen rhythm tone than I thought those amps were capable of...

But it was loud, clear, raw and really fun to listen to...

Even though Ted has some not-so-great songs that you wouldn't think of wanting to hear, he made them all sound good, but he does have some gems in there to play with killer riffs...

[GAR]

Well like you said, on 1 or 2 they sound like crap.

They're not optimized for low-volume efficiency but I still would like to play with one for a week or so, just to see them thru.

I saw some clips with Buckethead and his Rectos last year which got me rethinking that not all Boogie's could be so bad if he's getting acceptable tones off his setup, and that I should find the time to check 'em out.

But the Sunset store help are bastards, I tried a few times in the last 3 years .. I go in there and they come up to turn me down, wanna know who I am, and am I gonna buy, what am I looking for - and not in the prospective-qualifying sales way, but a condescending way and I've been down that street a thousand times before these guys were even born so I won't take that brand of bullshit when I got one 50 watt head that will tear the face off anything they probably have on the shelf!

If only I could be happy with off the shelf amps I'd buy or like to buy four 100 watt heads, right now, that sound just like my 50.

[GAR]

btw my 50 watt 2203 sounds very wide, and balanced throughout the volume range I just won't let it out of my sight unsecured because too much time went into it to sound the way it does.

I also have a modded 100 watt 1959 JCM800, but its just a good old tube sound yet not quite modern.

One thing to be said about Boogies no matter what, it's a modern sound they have.

[jhale667]

Uh, no.

Well like you said, on 1 or 2 they sound like crap. They need to be on like 8 or 9, EVERY KNOB, and that's just not doable for almost anybody...

Agreed they don't start opening up until you get past 3 or 4 at least on the master, but completely untrue ALL the knobs need to be on 8 or 9...

I'm referring to the Boogie Mark series exclusively, however...not a fan of the Rectos whatsoever.

[jhale667]

Boogie BUMP.

Amazing review from the Seymour Duncan forum, thought it was worth reposting here...kinda makes me want one...

For lack of a better word it was - impressive.

I'll jot things down kinda hap hazard like... I has a Mark III so I'll use that as a reference.

R1 - Did the Mark III cleans, but then it also had fat clean and tweed. Fat cleans were killer... seriously F-A-T. Lots of headroom. I dialed the gain to half and had no breakup with a neck humbucker on full. Tweed was good too, but not a tone I'd normally use. Did the fast breakup on clean thing well. I could see using fat cleans if I was the only guitarist, and regular cleans if I needed to cut.

R2 - Both excellent and better than I expected. R2 on the Mark III blew chunks, so there's no comparison. Not sure how it'd compare to a Mark IV. All three R2 voices can be dialled in to remain quite articulate, even with a fair bit of dirt on them.

Crunch mode is no Marshall, but it does mid-gain well and gave me enough AC/DC to get the job done live, and would do much heavier gain tones if required. One guy described crunch as being almost Hiwatt-ish... it crunches, but you have to work it hard. If you're used to using an amp that's 'easy to play' then you might find crunch to be somewhat frustrating at first.

Edge - Edge sounds useless if you're switching from crunch or Mk I to it as the EQ is totally different. Tuned like a Marshall (bass way up, mids cut, treble somewhere in the middle) it actually sounds really nice. Unfortunately I didn't figure this out until near the end, so I don't really remember the details of it beyond thinking it was really good.

Mark I - Great tone that can cover lead or rhythm duties. Doubles as an alternate to LD. I was generally setting it up as a lower gain, more rock and roll version of the classic high gain Mark tone, which it did excellently. I believe the 'thick' switch is meant for lead work as it adds density but at the cost of some articulation.
F*ckin' A!

I think the catch with this channel is to approach the amp as a live head. If you're looking for Metallica's recorded tones you're going to frustrate yourself. If you're looking for the amp that Metallica used to create their recorded tones then it's all there. You just need to approach those tones with an ear towards live sound and you'll understand it. The frequency spread was such that even deeply scooped metal tones had plenty of punch and presence (just don't get carried away and zero the mid slider)

Mk IIC+ - Touch lower gain with less bottom end extension and more mid presence than the Mk IV voice. This channel felt cleaner even when I'm pretty sure it was technically dirtier than Mk IV. I think this channel tended to crunch more and thump a little less. A little rounder feeling.

Mk IV - More gain, meaner sounding. Deeper bottom end. A little bigger sounding. Mid peak shifted down in frequency. A little tighter/stiffer feeling. Both give great rhythm tones, but both have a different vibe. C+ nails Master of Puppets, and IV sounds like everything after Master of Puppets.

Both the Mk IIC+ and Mk IV leads sounded great. MkIIC+ having more midrange clarity and Mk IV having more sizzle and bite.

Extreme - I'm going to call this voice Mk V, because I think it has the potential to become a classic. It's like a cross between the Mark and the Rectifier, but maybe 80% Mark vs 20% Rectifier. Compared to the Mk II/IV voices the gain is more open and more aggressive. Engaging it feels like it opened up the power amp in the same way that Recto Modern opens up the Recto's power amp. Deeper response, more active bottom end. Slightly looser tracking, but way tighter than any Recto. It's like they took classic Mark rhythm tone, and added just enough "Recto bigness" to it to give it a touch of that 'huge' rhythm tone that Rectos have.

I found the EQ presets in channels 2 and 3 to be extremely useful (never used them in channel 1). They're not as extreme as you'd think, and are generally somewhat moderate and seem dialled in for live use. If you need a more extreme shape, like the classic Metallica "V" you need to go to the sliders. And like all previous Marks, even with the mid slider dropped 75% the amp still has plenty of mids but sounded clear and tight.

The reverb was nice, but I only tested it on channel 1. It was similar to the Lonestar on bright, so it was lush but not as lush as it could've been. Still, it wasn't thin or clangy. Not sure why they didn't include the 'warm' switch as it would've been the icing on the reverb cake. Still, it's a really great reverb.

One of the things that's selling me on this amp is the low volume sound... it's excellent. I think you could easily dial this amp to sound good on those gigs where you can't play as loud as you'd like. I never even cracked 9 o'clock on any of the masters and the tone was brilliant. I more or less stayed on the 90w settings the whole time as I preferred their response/feel to that of the 45w settings. As an example, when I tried playing rhythm on MkIV/45w the low E string just felt soft and I couldn't dial it out. Switching back to 90w stiffened it right back up and brought on the metal.


Finally...

THIS AMP DOES NOT HIDE YOUR MISTAKES.

It schooled me some good and made me look the amateur. The amp is tight and it responds fast... so fast that it threw off my timing as the amp felt like it was running away from me and I was stumbling to keep up. Even with the gain poured on uneven picking shows through, as do poorly disciplined 'muting' fingers going astray and brushing against strings. The Recto has made me lazy and the Mark V b*tched me for it.


My experiences with this amp kind of make me wonder how many people who're disappointed with the Mark V just haven't come to terms with their own inadequacies as a player? It's a great sounding amp if you're into that style of tone... just don't expect it to work miracles as it will make you sound like the sh*tty player you really are if you come to it lacking chops.

Really, Boogies not hiding mistakes...DUH...

[GAR]

uh huh.. he's thinking about a move.. uh huh..