Mesa Boogie MkIII - whatever stripe

richardhomer

I used to own an ‘86 Hardwood/wicker Simul Class with graphic, reverb and EV speaker. It had truly superb cleans (and I mean ‘properly’ clean) and a great lead sound. The ‘crunch’ channel was useless.

If ‘really’ clean and fat, singing leads are what you’re after they are truly great amps. If you need something that’s good in ‘edge of break up’ territory, they won’t give you that without a pedal.

welshboyo

Stratavarious said:

I could never connect with the MKV the same way.  The whole interactive, cascading gain design is just so great in the MKIII.  Few bother to understand it and dial it in wrong.  The input and treble set the whole voice and aggressiveness of all the channels.  The rest subtly moulds it.... then you have the amazing 5 band EQ which you can put in a V shape for huge thunderous rhythm or shape as a switchable lead boost.

Very wise words here and I felt the same about the V

Jeez, I'm starting to get GAS myself here...probably the 1st amp that really progressed my playing - not very forgiving, but when you got it right, you knew you'd got it right - same thing for getting it wrong too, but hey lets not mention that...

welshboyo

Also, talking from experience  - don't get clouded by the IIC+ folklore - I had one for a while and I was underwhelmed as it just sounded like any other Boogie I'd had up to that point and was actually very dry sounding one trick pony(if that makes sense?) and I actually preferred the III, I was also bitterly disappointed that it didn't make me into an LA session ace overnight.

Wish I 'd kept it though...

As an aside, my MKIII was apparently owned by Dave Edmunds (the flightcase was full of tour stickers etc so sort of checked out) and was given to him by Keith Richards as a thankyou for some studio work - nice story if it was true!

Wish I'd kept that one too.

Oh shit, here we go...

Bork

richardhomer said:

If ‘really’ clean and fat, singing leads are what you’re after they are truly great amps

Oh god yes, so much yes.

richardhomer

Bork said:

richardhomer said:

If ‘really’ clean and fat, singing leads are what you’re after they are truly great amps

Oh god yes, so much yes.

I should add they have massive headroom and never sound remotely harsh - yet they’re not ‘dull’ either. Unlike things like Two Rocks, they don’t feel ‘stiff’ under the fingers - if that makes sense. Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Lewy

richardhomer said:

 Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Same here… I have to conclude that the red stripe MkIII simul-class I had 10 yrs ago would probably be the perfect amp for the way I’ve ended up playing now. Bit annoying.

welshboyo

richardhomer said:

Bork said:

richardhomer said:

If ‘really’ clean and fat, singing leads are what you’re after they are truly great amps

Oh god yes, so much yes.

Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Lewy said:

richardhomer said:

 Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Same here… I have to conclude that the red stripe MkIII simul-class I had 10 yrs ago would probably be the perfect amp for the way I’ve ended up playing now. Bit annoying.

Word of advice - I went "back" in the form of the MKV thinking that it would satisfy the old cravings and give me something new - it didn't...nothing wrong with the V whatsoever - a true giant of the current Mesa productions - its just not an old MK no matter how much they try and sell the modes as being so. 

Bork

welshboyo said:
Word of advice - I went "back" in the form of the MKV thinking that it would satisfy the old cravings and give me something new - it didn't...nothing wrong with the V whatsoever - a true giant of the current Mesa productions - its just not an old MK no matter how much they try and sell the modes as being so. 

I got that impression by studying some of the YT vids available.  There was a lower mid richness lacking in many of the MkV:35 demos I saw.  No way I can afford a full fat MkV or even need it so I didn't really look at those vids in as much depth.

Lewy

welshboyo said:

richardhomer said:

Bork said:

richardhomer said:

If ‘really’ clean and fat, singing leads are what you’re after they are truly great amps

Oh god yes, so much yes.

Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Lewy said:

richardhomer said:

 Reminiscing about mine is really making me regret selling it…

Same here… I have to conclude that the red stripe MkIII simul-class I had 10 yrs ago would probably be the perfect amp for the way I’ve ended up playing now. Bit annoying.

Word of advice - I went "back" in the form of the MKV thinking that it would satisfy the old cravings and give me something new - it didn't...nothing wrong with the V whatsoever - a true giant of the current Mesa productions - its just not an old MK no matter how much they try and sell the modes as being so. 

Yes I figured that would probably be the case. Oh well! 

TTBZ

Oh no, now I'm looking at the JP2C and wondering how I can raise £3k asap  the other guitarist in my old band had a MkV and he was always faffing about trying to dial it in. It sounded great when he got it right though.

NelsonP

I've got a 50 caliber. Same era as the mk3 and I bought it because it looks identical to the mk 3 on the Appetite for Destruction artwork and it was on sale form the Rocky Road company for £499, a short while ago ;-) It's the big brother to the studio 22 and has the preamp that made Kurt Cobain famous. It's one of the early el84 versions, but with the lead master and switchable eq. See my sig photo.

It is very good, but the taper on the master is very on/off, so I have an Atomic Amplifire and Marshall DSL20C for 'home use'

Bork

Lukather toured with Calibre heads around 93-94,  before switching to Rivera. 

welshboyo

Bork said:

Lukather toured with Calibre heads around 93-94,  before switching to Rivera. 

Hmm, would love to hear where you picked that up from? He was on the CAE/VHT setup before the Rivera’s and then moved back to them after he fell out with Paul Sr.

MKIIC+ yes, well documented throughout the Isolation era - but Calibres I’m not sure unless he was given them as hired backline?

ICBM

Stratavarious said:

killer R2 crunch.. hit R2 with a boost for even more fab Marshallesque tones...

I never heard anything remotely 'Marshall' out of R2. It can't be done - the circuit topology is completely wrong. Marshalls have the distortion before the tone stack, Boogies have the tone stack before the distortion... which is why they're so touchy to dial in and why you can't have the bass up high when there's any significant amount of gain. Marshalls also use a cathode-follower tone stack which Boogies don't have.

Rectifiers are Marshall-derived though, via Soldano. Totally different sound - as soon as I heard the crunch sound on one I knew that was the type of Mesa I really like .

Bork

welshboyo said:

Bork said:

Lukather toured with Calibre heads around 93-94,  before switching to Rivera. 

Hmm, would love to hear where you picked that up from?

There's an eyewitness account of him using either DC50's or DC100's live on TGP.  They could have been rented I guess,  He doesn't seem that particular about his amps over the years.  I heard he started off with dimed Fender amps on here somewhere. 

What were the circumstances around him falling out with Rivera Sr. ..? 

normula1

Bork said:

welshboyo said:

Loud as f**k too, and heavy with the EV in it

Even with the lower power setting?  I was thinking about a Studio .22+ combo as well but I understand there was a component failure common to them...or maybe I'm confusing it with the Studio preamp.  I'm sure @ICBM will be along here at some point to correct me.

I already have a Burman Pro501,  Rivera era PRII and  Concert II so old amps...well, I'm kind of stuck with them. Getting them serviced would probably involve international travel unless I happen to find someone closer to home.

Every time I see one of the hardwood / whicker Boogies I get serious GAS without caring in the slightest what is in the chassis
My Studio 22+ has a lovely clean channel, the lead channel is OK but very driven and square sounding (if you can imagine that) even with the official lead mod that calms it down a bit. The graphic helps a bit but I still find a drive pedal better. In fact the best drive sound is the clean channel with a good boost in front of it, which is kind of weird as that's essentially what the lead channel is.

Bork

normula1 said:

Bork said:

welshboyo said:

Loud as f**k too, and heavy with the EV in it

Even with the lower power setting?  I was thinking about a Studio .22+ combo as well but I understand there was a component failure common to them...or maybe I'm confusing it with the Studio preamp.  I'm sure @ICBM will be along here at some point to correct me.

I already have a Burman Pro501,  Rivera era PRII and  Concert II so old amps...well, I'm kind of stuck with them. Getting them serviced would probably involve international travel unless I happen to find someone closer to home.

Every time I see one of the hardwood / whicker Boogies I get serious GAS without caring in the slightest what is in the chassis
My Studio 22+ has a lovely clean channel, the lead channel is OK but very driven and square sounding (if you can imagine that) even with the official lead mod that calms it down a bit. The graphic helps a bit but I still find a drive pedal better. In fact the best drive sound is the clean channel with a good boost in front of it, which is kind of weird as that's essentially what the lead channel is.

I've seen at least one other set of comments on another forum saying the clean channel was too gritty but the leads were sublime.  Maybe that's down to preamp valves.  .? 

welshboyo

Bork said:

welshboyo said:

Bork said:

Lukather toured with Calibre heads around 93-94,  before switching to Rivera. 

Hmm, would love to hear where you picked that up from?

There's an eyewitness account of him using either DC50's or DC100's live on TGP.  They could have been rented I guess,  He doesn't seem that particular about his amps over the years.  I heard he started off with dimed Fender amps on here somewhere. 

What were the circumstances around him falling out with Rivera Sr. ..? 

It was over the Bonehead in the end and the way it was marketed etc etc - went very sour and the Rivera's were dropped pretty sharpish and he went back to the CAE/VHT - the Rivera was a very strange amp though - I played one and it sounded a little off and almost unLukather to me.

He did start on Rivera modded Deluxes and probably did up to Toto IV using that setup - Toto IV was a bit more Marshall JMP mixed in too and then after IV he started getting into the full on rack stuff.

Bork

I've heard some suggest that, like the MkIII black and red stripe, the Studio .22 Caliber gets close to a Mark IIc+. . .I'm wondering if there's any truth to that..  

ICBM

Bork said:

I've heard some suggest that, like the MkIII black and red stripe, the Studio .22 Caliber gets close to a Mark IIc+. . .I'm wondering if there's any truth to that..  

Other than both being roughly Mark series Boogies, no.

The Studio .22 is a nice amp but doesn’t come close to the huge punch and depth of the full-size Marks.

Although to be fair, I’ve never tried putting an EV in a Studio... but I don’t think it would do it.