Mackie HD1531

mortega76

mortega76

Fractal Fanatic
I just got back from going to Sam Ash with a buddy of mine, and had a chance to demo the Mackie HD1531... An Australian fella from the Rig-Talk forums was raving about how great it sounded and how he replaced his VHT (Fryette) 2/90/2 and VHT Fat Bottom cab with the Mackie HD1531.

Well, we plugged it in and my buddy (Paul) started jamming on it... well, it sounded pretty good but we couldn't initially turn it up very loud (we were about 4 feet from the cab)... but one of the retail guys let us move further into the PA department and we had a chance to crank the Axe-fx on the Mackie HD1531. We turned the Axe-fx up (while having the back of the Mackie on "unity") and we couldn't tell that we were clipping the cab... so we kicked on a distorted patch and noticed that it sounded good... but as soon as I started kicking up the palm mutes it was farting and cutting out (almost completely) the low end thump. So we set up the Axe-fx's output to just below clipping on the Mackie and for it being a 1000 watt cab... I moved about 10 feet from the cab and it definitely wasn't as loud as I had expected... Nowhere near as loud as just one of my Marshall 4x12's pushed by my Peavey PV1500 at 4 ohm (500 watts) even turned up half as much! I will say that it sounded very clear but still lacked something in the mids that I've heard some of the tube amps I've had experience with. The hunt continues... :(
 
Did you do any tuning in the preset you were demoing to try to limit the low end fart ? You should have been able to EQ that problem out.
 
We started with my live distortion patch but it was a bit dark... no problem... so we started down some of the higher gain factory patches and bypassing the effects (delays, reverbs, etc)... Patch 101 sounded pretty good (offset 1). Then I default the amp block and started from scratch by kicking up the Recto Red, Das Metall then the Hi Power (2 I think) sounded pretty good... Then we messed around on one of my recording patches and that sounded really good... except for the farting out on heavy palm mutes. I did the low cut to 160 and then I lower both the gain and the low end but it still flubbed out. I'm sure it was because it was clipping the Mackie which in turn flubbed out... but as I said... it was nowhere near as loud as I thought it would be. I'm really hoping to sell my power amp and buy one of the Matrix amps and see if that will do the trick.
 
Mortega

I am impressed! Flubbing a 700 Watts RMS speaker is by no mean an easy job with a well adjusted Axe-FX. So this goes really really loud. Maybe it is not a bad idea to meet up with claxor and test the Matrix with your cabinet before ordering the thing. Now I understand your questions about the more powerfull Matrix amps. :mrgreen You guys really have A PA on stage :mrgreen

Thanks for the info on the mackie
 
Well... I also have two Peavey PV215 speakers rated the same and being pushed by a Peavey PV2600 at 900 watts per channel at 4 ohm and I don't think that sucker is loud enough!!! ;)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I would want to play at "ear bleeding" levels... I just want to be able to get there if I ever need to, especially at some of these gigs where they may not even have a PA... it's been a while but I never want to be in that type of situation. I can get to "ear bleeding" levels with my PV1500 and with my buddies Marshall 9200 (which didn't have as much low end as with the PV1500, but it was looooud!!!)
 
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mortega76 said:
Well... I also have two Peavey PV215 speakers rated the same and being pushed by a Peavey PV2600 at 900 watts per channel at 4 ohm and I don't think that sucker is loud enough!!! ;)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I would want to play at "ear bleeding" levels... I just want to be able to get there if I ever need to, especially at some of these gigs where they may not even have a PA... it's been a while but I never want to be in that type of situation. I can get to "ear bleeding" levels with my PV1500 and with my buddies Marshall 9200 (which didn't have as much low end as with the PV1500, but it was looooud!!!)
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Hey Mo, you say that like it's a bad thing LOL...

Let's chat about your findings when you find the right solution, I've been watching things over at RT too, sounds as though you're on a mission.

Peace,
V. (the "other" Mo :) )
 
ventura said:
Hey Mo, you say that like it's a bad thing LOL...

Let's chat about your findings when you find the right solution, I've been watching things over at RT too, sounds as though you're on a mission.

Peace,
V. (the "other" Mo :) )
Click to expand...

Mo ain't gonna be happy till he gets a tube amp and a Mills Afterburner. lol
 
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