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I believe it is a 1991. Its a Mesa Boogie Mark III Simulclass head. Green stripe with factory reverb and EQ. Simulclass means it runs both a pair of EL34's and a pair of 6L6's at the same time. The Green stripe runs in pentode.. not triode like other Mark III's. I am running it through 2 cabinets.
1 is a Marshall 1960B with Celestions T75's
1 is a Randall 2 x 12 open back slant with Altec Lansing 300w White Frames. The guitar I am using is a 1989 Ibanez RG550 with an Evolution in the bridge, HS3 in the middle and a PAF Pro in the neck.
For effects I am using a delay, chorus and volume pedal in the loop and a wah and tuner out in front.
I am in what you would call a fairly progressive melodic metal band. Think Dream Theater meets Kansas meets Bon Jovi!!
Ok.. here it goes....
I used the Metal 1 base line settings that come in the owners manual. It took me a total of 2 minutes to dial it in.
Channel 1 (Rhythm 1) is a full bodied clean channel. Tons of body, incredible liquid clean tone that reacts extremely well to your pick attack and guitar volume. Its pretty much the same clean that you would find in most any other high wattage Mesa Boogie. The reverb is absolutely stunning. The best reverb I have ever heard in an amp. I would buy this amp for the clean channel alone. Its every bit as good as the Carvin Legacy that I previously owned and I would say its almost as good as that killer JCM900 50w head that Zeegler now owns.
Channel 2 (Rhythm 2) is basically a Marshall JCM800. Good solid crunch, very tight, lots of harmonics. You can hear every string. To be totally honest.. its not a channel that I would use. Too much gain for clean.. not enough gain for the music I play. I can see it being very useful for a top 40 band or blues or punk... just not metal.
Channel 3 (Lead) has so many attributes I will just start naming them.
Its tight.. VERY tight.., amazing harmonics, you can get any note to feedback anytime you want. It puts all the control at your fingers and your guitars controls. It has mucho gain and the best part is that it doesn't fizz or muddy up if you dial a ton of it in. The amp stays focused and right on track. It cuts through a mix like nobodys business. The thing to watch for is stepping all over the other guitar player (if you have a 2 guitar band). This amp stomps and shits all over just about any amp I have ever heard. Many reviews have stated that this amp is grainy and really IN YOUR FACE. Well.. absolutely correct in both cases. This is an aggressive guitar tone. The nice thing is that its also very smooth and very easy to play. Its actually quite forgiving. You can dial the grainyness out with the 750mhz slider on the EQ and the presence control.
You aren't going to get a Rectifier tone out of it because it doesn't sizzle that much. Rectifiers have a white noise type sizzle thats compressed in the middle. What you will get is a Master of Puppets tone in spades. IMHO.. the Green Stripe must be voiced fairly similar to the Mark IIc+
The bottom end on this amp is tight. The midrange will rip your face off and the amount of high end you can dial in is just staggering.
Now... onto some of the features...
The EQ is not necessary for most genre's of music but for metal I think its a must. This is because the manual recommends that the bass knob be set anywhere from 0-3. Its amazing how much bottom end this amp has. They tell you to then dial in the bass on the EQ. It works perfectly. It is also programmable to either be on all the time, off or it will turn on when only the lead channel is activated. Cool.
Just set the EQ on the typical V pattern and you are all set to go. Just mess with the middle slider (750mhz) to flavor to your taste.
The effects loop is very user friendly. The amp has a fan and even a holder for a spare preamp tube. Another nice feature is the AC accessory outlet on the back.
Now.. onto the switching system. Its quirky but let me tell you how it works in simple terms.
Plug a standard 1 button footswitch in the front jack and you can switch from clean to lead just like a basic 2 channel amp.
There are 2 other jacks on the back,
Jack 1 (1 button footswitch) will switch from Rhythm 1 to Rhythm 2
Jack 2 (2 button footswitch) will switch the reverb on and off and also the EQ in and out.
This amp also has a 1/2 power switch and you can switch the simulclass on and off.
So.. to sum it up.
The Mark III gets a bad rap for being hard to dial in. Its simple... PROVIDING you aren't looking for 3 different channels to use live.
Its simply too difficult to have your cake and eat it too regarding 3 channels.
If you think of the Mark III as a 2 channel amp with lots of features you can't possibly be dissapointed.
The clean is great, the crunch is great and the lead channel is the equivalent of punching people in the face with your guitar.
My bandmates don't care too much for the way it sounds alone but they love it when the band is playing. It really cuts and it seems to fill in all the gaps in midrange frequency that we were missing.
Like I said earlier.. it took me 2 minutes to dial it in by just following the sample settings in the manual. I tweaked it a little while we were playing but I gotta say I basically plugged in and jammed.
If you were looking for a monster of an amp that could actually be tamed this is a good choice. If you play multiple genre's of music including the heaviest of metal.. this is a good choice.
Let me say one more thing. I have had a ton of amps... including just about every modeling amp on the planet. I was really good at dialing in a modeling amp to mimic just about any amp. IMHO.. it would extremely difficult to dial in a modeler to sound like this Mark III. Its just too complex of a tone and way too organic sounding while remaining extremely tight and focused. With a modeler you can usually get one of the other but not both.
The only amp I have ever owned that was tighter and more focused than this amp is the Soldano SLO100.
1 is a Marshall 1960B with Celestions T75's
1 is a Randall 2 x 12 open back slant with Altec Lansing 300w White Frames. The guitar I am using is a 1989 Ibanez RG550 with an Evolution in the bridge, HS3 in the middle and a PAF Pro in the neck.
For effects I am using a delay, chorus and volume pedal in the loop and a wah and tuner out in front.
I am in what you would call a fairly progressive melodic metal band. Think Dream Theater meets Kansas meets Bon Jovi!!
Ok.. here it goes....
I used the Metal 1 base line settings that come in the owners manual. It took me a total of 2 minutes to dial it in.
Channel 1 (Rhythm 1) is a full bodied clean channel. Tons of body, incredible liquid clean tone that reacts extremely well to your pick attack and guitar volume. Its pretty much the same clean that you would find in most any other high wattage Mesa Boogie. The reverb is absolutely stunning. The best reverb I have ever heard in an amp. I would buy this amp for the clean channel alone. Its every bit as good as the Carvin Legacy that I previously owned and I would say its almost as good as that killer JCM900 50w head that Zeegler now owns.
Channel 2 (Rhythm 2) is basically a Marshall JCM800. Good solid crunch, very tight, lots of harmonics. You can hear every string. To be totally honest.. its not a channel that I would use. Too much gain for clean.. not enough gain for the music I play. I can see it being very useful for a top 40 band or blues or punk... just not metal.
Channel 3 (Lead) has so many attributes I will just start naming them.
Its tight.. VERY tight.., amazing harmonics, you can get any note to feedback anytime you want. It puts all the control at your fingers and your guitars controls. It has mucho gain and the best part is that it doesn't fizz or muddy up if you dial a ton of it in. The amp stays focused and right on track. It cuts through a mix like nobodys business. The thing to watch for is stepping all over the other guitar player (if you have a 2 guitar band). This amp stomps and shits all over just about any amp I have ever heard. Many reviews have stated that this amp is grainy and really IN YOUR FACE. Well.. absolutely correct in both cases. This is an aggressive guitar tone. The nice thing is that its also very smooth and very easy to play. Its actually quite forgiving. You can dial the grainyness out with the 750mhz slider on the EQ and the presence control.
You aren't going to get a Rectifier tone out of it because it doesn't sizzle that much. Rectifiers have a white noise type sizzle thats compressed in the middle. What you will get is a Master of Puppets tone in spades. IMHO.. the Green Stripe must be voiced fairly similar to the Mark IIc+
The bottom end on this amp is tight. The midrange will rip your face off and the amount of high end you can dial in is just staggering.
Now... onto some of the features...
The EQ is not necessary for most genre's of music but for metal I think its a must. This is because the manual recommends that the bass knob be set anywhere from 0-3. Its amazing how much bottom end this amp has. They tell you to then dial in the bass on the EQ. It works perfectly. It is also programmable to either be on all the time, off or it will turn on when only the lead channel is activated. Cool.
Just set the EQ on the typical V pattern and you are all set to go. Just mess with the middle slider (750mhz) to flavor to your taste.
The effects loop is very user friendly. The amp has a fan and even a holder for a spare preamp tube. Another nice feature is the AC accessory outlet on the back.
Now.. onto the switching system. Its quirky but let me tell you how it works in simple terms.
Plug a standard 1 button footswitch in the front jack and you can switch from clean to lead just like a basic 2 channel amp.
There are 2 other jacks on the back,
Jack 1 (1 button footswitch) will switch from Rhythm 1 to Rhythm 2
Jack 2 (2 button footswitch) will switch the reverb on and off and also the EQ in and out.
This amp also has a 1/2 power switch and you can switch the simulclass on and off.
So.. to sum it up.
The Mark III gets a bad rap for being hard to dial in. Its simple... PROVIDING you aren't looking for 3 different channels to use live.
Its simply too difficult to have your cake and eat it too regarding 3 channels.
If you think of the Mark III as a 2 channel amp with lots of features you can't possibly be dissapointed.
The clean is great, the crunch is great and the lead channel is the equivalent of punching people in the face with your guitar.
My bandmates don't care too much for the way it sounds alone but they love it when the band is playing. It really cuts and it seems to fill in all the gaps in midrange frequency that we were missing.
Like I said earlier.. it took me 2 minutes to dial it in by just following the sample settings in the manual. I tweaked it a little while we were playing but I gotta say I basically plugged in and jammed.
If you were looking for a monster of an amp that could actually be tamed this is a good choice. If you play multiple genre's of music including the heaviest of metal.. this is a good choice.
Let me say one more thing. I have had a ton of amps... including just about every modeling amp on the planet. I was really good at dialing in a modeling amp to mimic just about any amp. IMHO.. it would extremely difficult to dial in a modeler to sound like this Mark III. Its just too complex of a tone and way too organic sounding while remaining extremely tight and focused. With a modeler you can usually get one of the other but not both.
The only amp I have ever owned that was tighter and more focused than this amp is the Soldano SLO100.
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