Mesa Mark V - Nasal Sound with Low-End Loss with FX8

SonVolt

SonVolt

Inspired
When I engage the Mark V loop with the FX8 in 4CM I seem to be losing my low-end. I'm getting very mild nasaly/cocked-wah sound which I guess is because of the low-end disappearing. If I engage the loop on the Mark V footswitch but set the FX8 to bypass it sounds fine... but once I kick bypass back off the nasal sound comes back, even with no effect blocks engaged. My loop send is at 12oclock.

What's weird is that I don't remember this happening until recently. I may have just not been paying attention, but now that I've been A/Bing with the loop on/off it's definitely noticeable.

Do I need to change any settings to Mono instead of Stereo? I don't see why that would matter though if it's happening with no effect blocks engaged.

Any ideas?
 
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Go into your wah block and right click on center of control yellow part and see if the pedal is completely off. Dot will be on very bottom typically.
 
Upload your preset to take a look. FYI when ever you have issue with a preset upload it with question 9 out of 10 times someone will find your problem pretty quick. That should be a sticky on all forums..
 
Well it doesn't seem to be limited to a particular preset. I notice the same issue on empty/blank presets. If that's the case, should I still upload one of my presets?
 
Try a factory preset and see if it fixes it, and it does not do this when in bypass? don't forget there is a pre, post ans all for bypass. Pre only by pass the front, post by pass the loop, and all by pass loop and pre. If I remember right.
 
Here's a sound clip of me continuously strumming an A chord while the Mark V's loop footswitch it turned on and off. The initial sound is with the loop OFF. You can hear me click it on and off every 4 strums.

 
That is weird! Check your global eq. and make sure nothing is wacky there. They should be in the middle all the way across.
on the FX8 click setup hit #1 switch and page over to global eq. pre and post. That's all I got.
You may have to put the bat signal out for Chris:)
 
The Global EQ is all normal. I'm really only noticing this on channel 2 and not channel 1 and 3. Maybe there's something funky with my Mark V's loop in Channel 2. I don't use channel 2 that often so it's not a deal breaker.
 
I use ch#2 crunch most of the time. Maybe a preamp tube is your issue or mids up to high or graphic eq is not to your liking.. ?
 
did you post about this on the facebook group? if it wasn't you, then another chap had exactly the same problem. i think it's because the mesa loop isn't totally 100% wet and you're hearing the dry signal and the AD/DA converted signal simultaneously. because they're slightly out of phase, you'll hear this as a nasal sound with less bass

easy to test - create a patch on the fx8 that is just shunts all the way through, except place a volume block somewhere on the line and turn the "volume" parameter down to zero.. if the mesa loop is 100% wet, you should hear nothing at all.
 
simeon said:
did you post about this on the facebook group? if it wasn't you, then another chap had exactly the same problem. i think it's because the mesa loop isn't totally 100% wet and you're hearing the dry signal and the AD/DA converted signal simultaneously. because they're slightly out of phase, you'll hear this as a nasal sound with less bass

easy to test - create a patch on the fx8 that is just shunts all the way through, except place a volume block somewhere on the line and turn the "volume" parameter down to zero.. if the mesa loop is 100% wet, you should hear nothing at all.
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I didn't not post anything to Facebook... interesting. So I'm wondering why this seems to be affecting Channel 2 more than 1 and 3. The only drastic EQ settings I have for Channel 2 is Crunch mode with the Gain Max and Bass at 0 with GEQ engaged in V-ish shape to bump the bass back up.

Is there a workaround for this "out of phase" issue I'm hearing?
 
simeon said:
did you try the test i suggested? amp settings are irrelevant, btw
Click to expand...

Not yet, I'm at work at the moment and will try later this evening. My amp settings comment was in reply to ATR1 who who was asking if my mids were up too high.
 
Have you tried taking all effects out of the path, plugging into the front of the amp, putting a patch cable from the amp's send to its return, and doing an a/b test of all channels with and without the FX loop bypassed? Might help isolate the issue.
 
Deadpool_25 said:
Have you tried taking all effects out of the path, plugging into the front of the amp, putting a patch cable from the amp's send to its return, and doing an a/b test of all channels with and without the FX loop bypassed? Might help isolate the issue.
Click to expand...


I haven't tried that specifically, but when the FX8 is set to true bypass mode the issue goes away, even with the Mark V's loop still engaged from the footswitch. I'm assuming it's essentially one big patch cable at that point.
 
That seems to imply it's an FX8 issue (at least with that specific amp) but it might be worth trying it with a short patch cable anyway. Seems so strange.
 
It is the loop. My Mark V does it but not the JP-2C. I had 2x Carol Ann's that both did it- badly. The FX8 highlights a not so good loop big time. I posted on this when I first got the unit, thinking it was the FX8 but it never was.
I solve this by running a mixer in the amp loop and run the fx mixes at 100% using the input gain to feed the amount of effect. The post effects are all run through the mixer. Suhr mimimix is superb - I know it means extra cost. The only thing I lose is being able to change volume levels for solos however their is a solo boost on the MKV and I use Ch3 for solos on the JP-2C so not an issue.
This is where it gets interesting. I have amps with loops that do not NEED the mixer but the sound is better with one - I have always done this and only used delays with Killdry and 100% mix functions for this reason.
Instead of your guitar signal being split, and going through a parallel routing of delay and reverb your guitar signal is running along side both delay and reverb. This way there is no out of phase sound which I think is what you are hearing.
In summary, I need the mixer on my Mark V's. I don't need it on the JP-2C or Friedman loops but I choose to use it as the improvement is substantial.

Cheers Rich
 
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