Re: NAD: Dream Amp... Mesa Mark II
I have a love for a good Mark. If you ever get to use it in a band you'll know what it's all about.
And thanks everyone, I really dig this one.
Still figuring out the EQ and volume knobs (3!) though.
The Mark features a cascading gain setup. The Volume 1 knob is not only the gain knob for channel 1, it also controls how much gain is being fed into channel 2. Changing the relationship between Volume 1 and LD Drive will change the feel of the lead channel. One way is a little brighter and more crisp... the other is fatter and more blurred.
The EQ affects the feel as much as it does the actual tone. Increasing treble increased the gain present in the circuit AND controls the overall voice of the amp the strongest. The reason being is that whatever signal isn't fed into the treble circuit is routed into the mids, and the same goes for whatever is left from the mids being routed into the bass. So, increasing treble will also decrease and shift the mid response and bass response while decreasing the treble will increase mids/bass while shifting the mid response. It's not uncommon to run the treble up around 7 or 8 on a Mark.
Increasing the mids will typically make the amp feel stiffer while decreasing the mids will make it have more give. 9:00 on a Mark is somewhat neutral while 12:00 is more of a tubescreamer effect.
Bass is pretty straight forward since it only affects itself. I usually start with it on zero and slowly increase it until I can hear it fill out the tone without adding too much mud. it's not uncommon to run it at 2 for more aggressive styles and up around 3 or even 4 for fat, round lead styles.
Presence affects upper midrange brightness and feel. Higher settings will produce more punch while lower settings will give it a more scooped and elastic feel. Most Marks I've used are fairly dull until you give them a fair dose of this. I think I used to run mine up around 7, but it's been a long time.
The pull treble and pull shift functions varied by revision and I don't want to give you bad advice so I'll just admit that I don't know how the ones on your particular amp will behave.
Lastly, if you drop a simple EQ in the FX loop it'll produce basically the same results as you'd get from having the EQ built into the amp. The Mark's normal EQ is in between gain stages, which is why the effects of small changes are amplified so much. The graphic EQ was in the standard position for most other amps... ie, after all the gain stages and before the phase inverter.
