Mesa Boogie Triaxis

[GandLMan]

Any words on this guy? likes? dislikes? Hows the clean tone?

Ty

[vinterland]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

Likes, Likes, and Likes some more. But as with all the mesa stuff you have to get your hands dirty and start playing with the knobs to find your tone.

[Robert S.]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

I absolutely love my Triaxis! MkI and MkIV cleans in the same box and they are both killer sounding. The MkI clean channel is fat and warm with character to die for. The MkI (rhythm green) has a tone of gain and you can get anything from a fat clean to a killer Vox type pushed tone right up to a very passable brown sound by pushing up the gain. The MkIV clean is bright and spanky and lends itself to many styles. Want to play passable country on a Mesa, the MkIV (rhythm yellow) will do it easily. Want to play funky rythms, it's all over that as well.

The Lead I channels are a ton of fun if you like that early Santana MKI type of tone and the Lead I green and yellow are variations of the Mark I lead tones. They are very mid strong and punchy with a singing quality that gets very addictive.

Lead I red is my go to channel. I have a V2 triaxis with the phat mod and it does a very passable Recto thing though thats not always how I run it. I usually abandon the Recto sound and run the gain at 10 with the drive down to 2 and I get more of a punchy, somewhat vintage hot type of tone compared to the typical recto thing. It's more throaty and vocal instead of just being brutal. That being said, the last couple of days I have been running the factory Lead I red settings through a BBE 482 and the tone is really killer. Maybe when I grow up I'll do the metal thing after all since the tone is definately there.

The Lead II voices are all Mark II, III and IV and they are definately smokin. Mettalica, In Living Colour, Prince (eeks!) and any of the other high gain Boogie tones from the 80s and 90s are in there. There are just a ton of brutal, searing high gain tones available in the Lead II channels.

I run my Triaxis into a 2:90 with JJs all around and EL34s in the simul-class sockets and with the addition of the voicing options on the 2:90 that are switchable from the Triaxis there aren't too many tones I can't get from the Triaxis/2:90 rig. The only thing it doesn't do is a dead on Marshall crunch, though the Mark I clean setting pushed with the EL34s does get into the ballpark.

Thats ok, I have a 2203 1/2 stack for the Marshall thing.

Yep, I dig my Triaxis a lot and I haven't even gotten into midi/real time control yet. Ever have two tones that you wanted to use in the same song but had to re-dial the amp to get them? Say from a clean to a pushed or maybe a lead tone that needed a mid push and a step up in the mids and a drop in bass to keep out of the mud? Sweeping the controls in real time with an expression makes that possible.

It really is like having 8 different amps on stage with complete control of all of them and their parameters from the floor. It's more than eight different voices or settings as each channel really does operate as a seperate amp with many different gain and response options. Its a big learning curve but the payoff is huge once you get the hang of it.

[Faraday]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

I absolutely love my Triaxis! MkI and MkIV cleans in the same box and they are both killer sounding. The MkI clean channel is fat and warm with character to die for. The MkI (rhythm green) has a tone of gain and you can get anything from a fat clean to a killer Vox type pushed tone right up to a very passable brown sound by pushing up the gain. The MkIV clean is bright and spanky and lends itself to many styles. Want to play passable country on a Mesa, the MkIV (rhythm yellow) will do it easily. Want to play funky rythms, it's all over that as well.

The Lead I channels are a ton of fun if you like that early Santana MKI type of tone and the Lead I green and yellow are variations of the Mark I lead tones. They are very mid strong and punchy with a singing quality that gets very addictive.

Lead I red is my go to channel. I have a V2 triaxis with the phat mod and it does a very passable Recto thing though thats not always how I run it. I usually abandon the Recto sound and run the gain at 10 with the drive down to 2 and I get more of a punchy, somewhat vintage hot type of tone compared to the typical recto thing. It's more throaty and vocal instead of just being brutal. That being said, the last couple of days I have been running the factory Lead I red settings through a BBE 482 and the tone is really killer. Maybe when I grow up I'll do the metal thing after all since the tone is definately there.

The Lead II voices are all Mark II, III and IV and they are definately smokin. Mettalica, In Living Colour, Prince (eeks!) and any of the other high gain Boogie tones from the 80s and 90s are in there. There are just a ton of brutal, searing high gain tones available in the Lead II channels.

I run my Triaxis into a 2:90 with JJs all around and EL34s in the simul-class sockets and with the addition of the voicing options on the 2:90 that are switchable from the Triaxis there aren't too many tones I can't get from the Triaxis/2:90 rig. The only thing it doesn't do is a dead on Marshall crunch, though the Mark I clean setting pushed with the EL34s does get into the ballpark.

Thats ok, I have a 2203 1/2 stack for the Marshall thing.

Yep, I dig my Triaxis a lot and I haven't even gotten into midi/real time control yet. Ever have two tones that you wanted to use in the same song but had to re-dial the amp to get them? Say from a clean to a pushed or maybe a lead tone that needed a mid push and a step up in the mids and a drop in bass to keep out of the mud? Sweeping the controls in real time with an expression makes that possible.

It really is like having 8 different amps on stage with complete control of all of them and their parameters from the floor. It's more than eight different voices or settings as each channel really does operate as a seperate amp with many different gain and response options. Its a big learning curve but the payoff is huge once you get the hang of it.

Sweet, I have a Triaxis also, and highly recommend it. I use the continous controller with a foot pedal to sweep through tone controls. It's insane, if you want to turn any or all controls on the amp while you're playing. All the tones are awesome. I run the triaxis into a THD Univalve and use that as the power amp distortion, then through a mini mass and processing then through a rocktron velocity 300 solid state amp in stereo. Stop reading this and go get the Triaxis. By the way, I have version 2 but without the phat mode, I don't like that. If you are a tube junky you'll have fun experimenting with different tubes in the triaxis. Currently I am using all 12au7's (extremely low gain) in every slot and love it!

[Robert S.]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

The V2 triaxis is different from V1 because they added an additional board that Mesa called the phat mod. If you have a V2 Triaxis striaght from the factory, the phat mod board is in there. From what I understand there are components that Mesa can no longer get for that board and that is why V3 was released with more of a Lonestar lead voice instead of the Recto.

I too run the continous controller using an Ernie Ball volume pedal through a Rocktron MidiMate MIDI controller. I have had my eye on one of the Rocktron All Access units but I haven't needed to spend the dough on it as of yet.

[GandLMan]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

How does 1100 CD used sound?

[Robert S.]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

I believe they retail at $1599 and $1100 is 75% of new. The two listings I saw on Ebay were at $899 a piece.

$1100 would be a deceint price for a used V3 Triaxis, they haven't been out that long. $1100 might be a little steep for a V2 from the looks of Ebay.

A V1 will be at least 15 years old and I wouldn't pay a lot for one. There is nothing wrong with the V1 Triaxis, they are just older.

[Robert S.]

Re: Mesa Boogie Triaxis

$1100 Canadian would be a good price for a V2 if my US to Canadian conversion is right.