Bought a new amp!

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bought a new amp!

After reading this thread I am going out this morning and try out one of these contraptions. I have played for years through a fender champ 12 tube amp and love the beautiful warm clean tone and the natural tube overdrive it produces. I also play through a Marshall AVT50 with a tube preamp and am pleased with it as well. I had a Spider III 75W for a short time but with its 400 presets I could never find a sound I cared for. From what I've read here I think maybe it's time for this old codger to give the new technology another shot.

Congrats on your new amp. Play long and prosper!

Great! The presets are good. But it's when you get a grip on how to tweak those presets and assign a different amp to a given preset that things really get interesting. And for me that didn't start until I got the amp home.

One more thing: it really does LOVE a nice Stratocaster.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Bought a new amp!

The Mustangs are the best of the new batch of lower priced Modelers from what I have experienced. I also have one of the Vox Valvetronix Pro VTX150's that came out about the same time. It sounds great as well, but the build quality is absolute crap. Inside, the tube is held in place by a small block of pine wood that looks like someone chopped it into a squarish shape with a hatchet and then screwed it into the side panel. On mine, one of the pots that controls effects bleeds setting together often and feels like it has gravel in the mechanism after less than a year's use. The tolex is very fragile and comes loose easily. Pretty sorry for what was supposed to be a higher end amp. I see why the prices fell so fast. The cheaper original Vox VT series were MUCH better quality.

My Mustang has been running perfectly since day 1. Great tones at lower volumes too.

 

[HTT]

Re: Bought a new amp!

Bummer. They do come with a 5 year warranty that's transferable. Couldn't use it?

I bought the amp at a store-closing clearance. It was a steal! The cost I paid for the amp wasn't worth the multiple-hour drive necessary to take it to an "authorized" Fender repair shop. The newer generation of Mustangs are much, much better for reliability, I hear.

 

[Diego]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I also have to say I've played a Line 6 Spider before and didn't really like what came out of it.
I didn't even like the high-gain sounds. The Mustang V I recently tried slays the Line 6 alternatives, in my experience.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I also have to say I've played a Line 6 Spider before and didn't really like what came out of it.

There's a lot of tone/effects adjustments you can make to the new Spiders, but you may have to put some time into playing with all the parameters.

 

[leevc5]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I took my Stratocaster (with Texas Specials) and my old Les Paul (with original pups, why mess with perfection?) to the music store. The guy was real nice and set me up in a room full of Martins and Taylors so I could hear the amp and not all the commotion in the store. I spent about an our checking out the Mustang III switching between guitars and with a lot of help from the music store guy going through the various amp models and trying some of the effects and presets. I have to admit this is one exceptional guitar amplifier far better than the Spider III I had, in fact no comparison. I really liked the sound of the 65 Twin with just with bass at 5, mid at 7, treble at 4 and reverb at 3. They wanted $330 for it and since I'm a cheapskate and also still a tube man at heart I held off buying it but will be browsing ebay and reverb and maybe scratch this itch I got for this technological wonder.

Thank you Lewguitar for the introduction.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I took my Stratocaster (with Texas Specials) and my old Les Paul (with original pups, why mess with perfection?) to the music store. The guy was real nice and set me up in a room full of Martins and Taylors so I could hear the amp and not all the commotion in the store. I spent about an our checking out the Mustang III switching between guitars and with a lot of help from the music store guy going through the various amp models and trying some of the effects and presets. I have to admit this is one exceptional guitar amplifier far better than the Spider III I had, in fact no comparison. I really liked the sound of the 65 Twin with just with bass at 5, mid at 7, treble at 4 and reverb at 3. They wanted $330 for it and since I'm a cheapskate and also still a tube man at heart I held off buying it but will be browsing ebay and reverb and maybe scratch this itch I got for this technological wonder.

Thank you Lewguitar for the introduction.

Thats great to hear! The 65 Twin Reverb is my favorite clean guitar sound on the Mustang. It's a great platform/starting point for creating your own clean presets.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Bought a new amp!

Great! The presets are good. But it's when you get a grip on how to tweak those presets and assign a different amp to a given preset that things really get interesting..

There's a lot of tone/effects adjustments you can make to the new Spiders, but you may have to put some time into playing with all the parameters

.

That is kind of a turn off for me. I don't like to fiddle with parameters or knobs on amps much. Just plug in and play. That doesn't mean I'm against modelers though. I can see the advantages in many situations and I have used the Roland stuff.

I would probably be more interested in something like the Super Champ X2, than the Mustang series or the Marshall CODE series.

 

[blueman335]

Re: Bought a new amp!

.
That is kind of a turn off for me. I don't like to fiddle with parameters or knobs on amps much. Just plug in and play.

This is the age of options. We have more guitars, amps, pedals, speakers, etc than we could have ever imagined.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Bought a new amp!

But I can make a big mess given too many options.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bought a new amp!

But I can make a big mess given too many options.

I thought of myself as being a guitar, a cord and a combo amp guy for many years. I was proud if it too.

But then I found it harder and harder to get a great sound at extremely low volumes: house concerts, church gigs, bands without drummers. I also started to admire the sounds some of my younger friends were getting both on gigs and at jams.

The Mustang doesn't have to be complicated. You find the presets you like and you work on those. It has knobs like you're used to and you adjust the gain, volume, master volume, tone controls and reverb knobs just like a normal amp.

And if the preset has a virtual Tubescreamer, Rat, Overdrive, Chorus, Echoplex or Delay on it you turn it on or off or adjust the drive, level and tone just like you would normally.

Same with any of the pedal models.

Then you save it so you can press the footswitch and call it up again.

It's pretty easy.

Easier than setting up a new iPhone or laptop or home computer...that's for sure! If you can do that, the Mustang III is a breeze to work with.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I'm willing to try it, and I have seriously thought about adding the Super Champ head to my amp stable.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I'm willing to try it, and I have seriously thought about adding the Super Champ head to my amp stable.

Hearing believing. And for $320? Nothing I've heard touches the Mustang III.

 

[Wattage]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I think it sounds pretty darn good too. The DR is definitely a little warmer but for what it is used for that's really a non-issue.

I love the idea of modelers but haven't found that the perfect fit yet. I really liked the L6 Vetta II, the DT25 was very good as well. No luck with the Spiders but I do like some of the Vyper's.

I am working on a 60's cover thing that if it clicks I wouldn't mind giving the MIII a shot.

 

[HTT]

Re: Bought a new amp!

I'm willing to try it, and I have seriously thought about adding the Super Champ head to my amp stable.

I replaced my wonky Mustang with a Super Champ. Different amps and usage. You can gig with the Mustang, but durability might be an issue. I had an infamous first generation Mustang, though. The Mustang has great bottom end that the Super Champ cannot dream of touching. That said, the Super Champ with the stock speaker is very spanky and IMO is probably much more durable than the Mustang. You probably can't gig with the Super Champ. You win with either choice, but have some trade offs with either choice.