FretFire
SingedFingerologist
Well, I finally got to take the new amp out to really crank it and get the tubes cookin'. I also got to try out the pedal I bought from B2D, a Keeley Ultra modded Boss DS-1, but I'll get to that in a second 
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First of all, the Mesa. Wow is all I can say really. Of course the EQ settings I'd dialed in here in my room had to be tweaked some, but once I started playing with the knobs I found some great tones. The cleans continue to surprise me from this amp, very chimey and... well... clean
. BTW, I was only running a Boss TU-2, the DS-1, and the amp's reverb effects-wise. By switching to the "pushed" mode on the clean channel and adjusting the knobs I got some tasty blues lead tones, and with a little turn of the guitar's volume I could drop into a nice blues rhythm. My favorite part of the evening was the dirty channel though. I pulled everything from fusion tones, to Petrucci-ish lead sounds, to greasy haired nu-metal sounds from it with rather small adjustments. All in all I think I'm going to be very happy with this amp as I use 3 basic tones in a show: a nice clean, mid/high gain rhythm, and a thick, smooth lead tone.
That's where the DS-1 comes in. It sounds awesome in front of a clean setting, using it for the distorted tones, but what I like most so far in the small amount of time I've had to play with it, is using it to give my rhythm tones a kick in the tail to lead territory. My favorite so far is having the tone knob around 1:30, the distortion knob around 10 o'clock or so, switch down for "ultra" mode, and the level set to a nice solo boost volume. Great sustain, smooth attack, easy (yet controllable) harmonics, and very responsive to knob and pick attack adjustments.
Overall I'm extremely happy. I was getting any tones I wanted tonight with the amp and one pedal, the only thing I need now is the few modulation effects I use regularly and I'll be set. I'm going to go ahead and swap out the tubes, since it still has the original Mesa tubes in it (probably 5 years old or more).
.First of all, the Mesa. Wow is all I can say really. Of course the EQ settings I'd dialed in here in my room had to be tweaked some, but once I started playing with the knobs I found some great tones. The cleans continue to surprise me from this amp, very chimey and... well... clean
. BTW, I was only running a Boss TU-2, the DS-1, and the amp's reverb effects-wise. By switching to the "pushed" mode on the clean channel and adjusting the knobs I got some tasty blues lead tones, and with a little turn of the guitar's volume I could drop into a nice blues rhythm. My favorite part of the evening was the dirty channel though. I pulled everything from fusion tones, to Petrucci-ish lead sounds, to greasy haired nu-metal sounds from it with rather small adjustments. All in all I think I'm going to be very happy with this amp as I use 3 basic tones in a show: a nice clean, mid/high gain rhythm, and a thick, smooth lead tone.That's where the DS-1 comes in. It sounds awesome in front of a clean setting, using it for the distorted tones, but what I like most so far in the small amount of time I've had to play with it, is using it to give my rhythm tones a kick in the tail to lead territory. My favorite so far is having the tone knob around 1:30, the distortion knob around 10 o'clock or so, switch down for "ultra" mode, and the level set to a nice solo boost volume. Great sustain, smooth attack, easy (yet controllable) harmonics, and very responsive to knob and pick attack adjustments.
Overall I'm extremely happy. I was getting any tones I wanted tonight with the amp and one pedal, the only thing I need now is the few modulation effects I use regularly and I'll be set. I'm going to go ahead and swap out the tubes, since it still has the original Mesa tubes in it (probably 5 years old or more).
