Mesa Mark I

M

metal190

Experienced
Ok gents - sorry if it's been asked before, but is there a good model for getting me close to the old Mesa Mark I sound? I fell in love with that tone in the days of owning my Mark V and am yet to find it in my Axe FX, although I'm sure someone more capable has.
 
Take a clean boogie model and put a Drive Block in front (Tube OD works pretty well - dont use it with much drive - use it also with much output level so the clean preamp will clip too). The Mk1 was different to the later boogies were the clean channel was feeding into an two stage overdrive circuit. The Mk1 had his Overdrive Circuit "before" the clean preamp circuit, pretty unique!
 
reading up on wikipedia, it seems the clean channel was like a fender bassman and we have two flavours of that in the axe. it also says the speaker was an Altec 4178-H, which is one of the speakers included with the James Santiago IR's (which are on axechange - just look for the altec ir's)

no idea what the drive channel is like though, maybe just increase input trim?

the tone controls are after the preamp stages and i don't know if that's how the bassman is set up, but you can change that in the advanced parameters anyway
 
Thanks guys! It's the overdriven lead tone I'd like to dial. I'll start down the path you guys have got me on, and would love any additional pointers or thoughts.
 
try this (i have no idea how close this is, but i watched a couple of vids on youtube)

use the 59 bassguy
drive 10
input trim 10
bass 1
mid, treb, pres 6
master 4
cut on
bright on
bright cap 700pf

cab - altec paper r-121 ava + altec cone r-121 ava

kinda throaty, spongy and very old skool

edit: sag defaults to 4, which makes the attack very slow...i reduced to 2 for slightly more immediacy
increasing damp also helps with the high frequencies
no idea what power valves were in it, btw

second edit: not a great sound, really...cleans are nice with input trim at default, but the drive is a bit "papery"
 
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A bassman 59 has a dc coupled cathode follower and the ts is right after it. The Mk1 Boogie is a pimped Fender Princeton Reverb amp with an additional triode stage cascaded in front (if you use the higain input). No CF at all - so wikipedia is wrong. I'm not Cliff but I know a truckload about tube amps and circuits and how they work..... ;)

PS: Princeton with James Tonestack and tube drive as booster - or FET Booster (since there was a 12AX7 replacement called the fetron
 
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I've requested this before. When I first tried the Mark V I actually preferred the Mark I mode to any other mode on the amp. It's really that good... and you don't need the GEQ to make it work.

Then someone told me that the Axe-Fx was not created to have all amps and channels but so that people could use it as a tool to create whatever tone there is and we have enough Mesas. I don't quite understand why we need over 50 Plexi clones in the Axe-Fx but fine that's the answer I'm going to accept. :D

Actually... I think we might aswell get all the channels from the Mark V since they are not the same as the real IIC+, Mark IV or Mark I. They are different.
 
Clark Kent said:
I've requested this before. When I first tried the Mark V I actually preferred the Mark I mode to any other mode on the amp. It's really that good... and you don't need the GEQ to make it work.

Then someone told me that the Axe-Fx was not created to have all amps and channels but so that people could use it as a tool to create whatever tone there is and we have enough Mesas. I don't quite understand why we need over 50 Plexi clones in the Axe-Fx but fine that's the answer I'm going to accept. :D

Actually... I think we might aswell get all the channels from the Mark V since they are not the same as the real IIC+, Mark IV or Mark I. They are different.
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Agreed - the Mark I tone was the one I was least interested in when I bought the V. But it became my favorite. As much as I wanted to get back to thrashy IIC+ style tones, I couldn't stop playing that thick, drippy Mark I mode!

I'm sure everyone has got a couple dozen amps in the Axe FX they feel aren't needed and that they'd trade for something else. I'd just love to have the Mark I (or Mark V version of the Mark I) in there, or at least figure out a way to recreate it with the tools already in the axe.
 
True but the Mark I is such a nightmare to dial in on Mark V.Still give it a try almost every time I run the V

Roland

Still I think Paco is partially right.Its based on a Princeton with Bassman transformers
 
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I had a MkIIC combo decked out and a MKI head w/no reverb , Loved the MKI wound up playing it and the IIc stayed home ! I'd like to find that in the Ax also!!!
 
I read the wiki-article, well not bad...but unfortunately just another legend story....

Randall had a request for a preamp from a guitarist who wanted to use a guitar preamp together with a new (at this time) big solid sate crown amplifier for PA applications at end of 60s. So he build him a fender style preamp with another cascaded gain stage in front, which amplified the incoming signal approx. a hundert times more and put the following input gain stage into saturation. Basically it was two controllable gain stages in series....they run into a tonestack which was more of a "james type tonestack" than a fender tonestack. It's correct - Randall talks a lot about the Tweed Bassman, but his design was not a copy of the bassman circuit. The classic tweed bassman was somehow more of an accident, since Fender believed this was a most stable 60W strong bass amplifier. Since it had a 3 gain stages in series and a DC coupled CF which is more of a clipping stage than what they always thinking off being a impedance converter (read my article -> http://forum.fractalaudio.com/axe-f...thode-follower-again-;-no-rocket-science.html ) it was a perfect match for guitarists who wanted a rich saturated sound. Fender always thinking of HiFi-super clean amps with a lot of headroom.....

Later he build this preamp concept into a princeton chassis, and added a 100W power amp with a strong 12" speaker to it. Carlos Santana used this amp on the abraxas album and made Mesa Engineering a world wide respected company!

PS: The fetron device was a JFET module which was plugged into the amp instead of the first 12AX7 dual triode tube. This because the higher amount of gain often causes microphonic and feedback problems for the so called 1st gain stage , which a JFET doesn't have.....
 
PacoCasanovas said:
Here is one for you!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/100561953/mbmk1.mp3 (shitty playing sorry....)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/100561953/MesaBoogieMk1.syx.zip (adjust the MK 5 Band EQ to personal taste).....

if you need a more middish stable tone, take the Hot Kitty Mix IR......but honestly, I like the Altec IR......maybe you can roll down the tone a bit.....
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Awesome. Thanks Paco. Sounds great, and should be a great starting point for what I've got in mind. I'll load this bad boy up and try tweaking to taste.
 
I find the Lonestar amp sim can get close to that dark thick mark I tone. The Lonestar is the successor to that amp in my opinion. Ymmv
 
I've mentioned before that the thing I missed the most from my Triaxis is the LD 1 mode. According to the Triaxis manual the LD1 green (which is the one I want) and yellow are based on the Mark I. I don't know if there is an important difference between the Mark I and Triaxis LD 1 mode but with Cliff being an old Triaxis user I hope that it would show up one day. I know he has been busy with other things these days but it sure would make my day if it became available.

Paco, I'm writing this before I check out your dropbox link. I may have to post later.
 
RoshRoslin said:
I find the Lonestar amp sim can get close to that dark thick mark I tone. The Lonestar is the successor to that amp in my opinion. Ymmv
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My last rig before I went full Axe FX had a Road King II and a Mark V and I often found myself using the Lonestar (channel II of the RK) and the Mark I (Channel II of the Mark V) as lead tones for pretty similar sounds and sections, although I found the voicing, harmonic content and feel to be pretty different. But I'd agree that they can cop a very similar vibe, especially in that saturated but not metal vein.
 
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