Hot _Grits
Buttery Toneologist
Tried a Mesa Lonestar 1x12 last saturday. I was looking forward to trying the lonestar, as it has almost the perfect feature set for my needs. Seriously, it's like Randall was reading my mind.
First impressions, looking at the thing, were that the mid-blue/silver look wasn't that great, especially compared to my departed blue leather Blue Angel head. Still, looks aren't everything, and I took it to an isolation room. The trip there highlighted one thing: it weighs more than a Mark 1 combo. Comes with casters stock, which is good, cause it's a serious back-breaker.
The LoneStar I tried sounded very noisy. Not normal hum, but a dirty, cloudy white noise that was way above what you'd call 'operational hum', even on a badly maintained AC30. Still, that didn't stop me from getting a feel for the overall tone. The clean was very much in the blackface territory, with a different, slightly flatter midrange character. Using a PRS cu22, tones were warm and polite. A tele sounded crisp and clear, but lacking in much distinction.
So, is the clean channel good? -yes and no, in my opinion. It's a very nice sounding 6l6 amp, but to me there wasn't enough midrange character inherent in the amp to convince me that it would punch through, and particularly mate well with Strats and teles. Switching to the tweed power option gave the amp a bit more character, but I still think it's a bit weeny through the mids.
An analogy I'd offer would be comparing a recto to a marshall: A recto has a sucked mid that makes any guitar sound pleasant, even with searing overdrive, but stick one next to a decent marshall, and all you'll hear is the marshall punching through, with perhaps a hint of recto fizz in the background. In the same way, the lonestar sounds like it would suffer against any decent fender amp when fighting through a mix. I think if I plugged the lonestar next to my vibrolux, the vibrolux would carry the tone.
I only tried the overdrive channel briefly, but it sounded nice. Someone else will have to chip in here, as I was kind of put off about the cleans....
On the positive side, the tone controls were very nicely voiced. Any setting sounded good. The very cool 50/100 watt feature for both channels worked well. Reverb was on the back of the amp, like a mark one, which was a bit annoying.
Overall, it struck me on first impression that it would be a great amp for humbuckers, and as a different take on blackface. But I just have this nagging feeling it wouldn't cut through...
First impressions, looking at the thing, were that the mid-blue/silver look wasn't that great, especially compared to my departed blue leather Blue Angel head. Still, looks aren't everything, and I took it to an isolation room. The trip there highlighted one thing: it weighs more than a Mark 1 combo. Comes with casters stock, which is good, cause it's a serious back-breaker.
The LoneStar I tried sounded very noisy. Not normal hum, but a dirty, cloudy white noise that was way above what you'd call 'operational hum', even on a badly maintained AC30. Still, that didn't stop me from getting a feel for the overall tone. The clean was very much in the blackface territory, with a different, slightly flatter midrange character. Using a PRS cu22, tones were warm and polite. A tele sounded crisp and clear, but lacking in much distinction.
So, is the clean channel good? -yes and no, in my opinion. It's a very nice sounding 6l6 amp, but to me there wasn't enough midrange character inherent in the amp to convince me that it would punch through, and particularly mate well with Strats and teles. Switching to the tweed power option gave the amp a bit more character, but I still think it's a bit weeny through the mids.
An analogy I'd offer would be comparing a recto to a marshall: A recto has a sucked mid that makes any guitar sound pleasant, even with searing overdrive, but stick one next to a decent marshall, and all you'll hear is the marshall punching through, with perhaps a hint of recto fizz in the background. In the same way, the lonestar sounds like it would suffer against any decent fender amp when fighting through a mix. I think if I plugged the lonestar next to my vibrolux, the vibrolux would carry the tone.
I only tried the overdrive channel briefly, but it sounded nice. Someone else will have to chip in here, as I was kind of put off about the cleans....
On the positive side, the tone controls were very nicely voiced. Any setting sounded good. The very cool 50/100 watt feature for both channels worked well. Reverb was on the back of the amp, like a mark one, which was a bit annoying.
Overall, it struck me on first impression that it would be a great amp for humbuckers, and as a different take on blackface. But I just have this nagging feeling it wouldn't cut through...
Seriously. Soldano does a lot of great single channel stuff, but they don't have a multichannel wonder. Bogner obviously has the holy grail. Diezel makes one of the finest multi channel amps in the world, only second to Bogner. ENGL makes great mutli channel stuff (the SE looks sweet), but in the end I think I like the H&K better than the ENGL. Only one channel has all out gain so you have 5 other channels that will cover everything in between very well. The individual channels have character, which I noticed most Mesas, don't.
