http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_In...ctoPreAmp.html

If it sounds the way I think it sounds.....GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMME !!!!!!!heh heh grggt

Getting a loaner today to try out for a few days. I'll post my findings.

this has been out for bit at this point... I came close to buying it a few months ago but instead I just but the bombfactory sansamp plug, and amp farm and now I am gonna get amplitube (ok make fun on me) I still might get this too as you can have it in your control room and go direct or expand with an amp and cab and have a full on guitar set up...it's suppose to sound exactly what you would expect to...

This was shown at NAMM last Feb.

I didn't like the direct the sound myself.

Yeah, it's got toobs and stuff like a real amp, but that's just part of the equation. Also, I think not having numbers on the knobs sucks for recall.

Toooo much money to still NOT sound as good as a miked cabinet...IMHO.

I loved it. The clean direct signal sounded great. And yes, I'd prefer a cabinet, but as far as these go (the pod, sans amp, vamp, etc) this one takes the cake by far! It's impossible to give these boxes the same control you can have with a mic techniques (off axis, close, mic in a garbage can in front of it, etc) with a plethora of different mics to choose from. If you can't record in a gymnasium sized room with a stack of Boogies at any hour of the day, then this is a no brainer. I think this piece will retain it's value quite well over the years.

I was very excited about this product, I own a TriAxis, 2:90 and a Triple Rectifier, so having the possibility of having the mesa sound direct like it was announced in the Mesa advert would be great but after I saw this posts:

http://www.musicgearnetwork.com/cgi-...=008286#000002

I am not sure if it works as well as they (Mesa) say.
I will try it.

mwagener,
please post your results after you try it.

e-cue,
How are the distortion sounds? You only refered to the clean channel.

Thanks

I loved the distortion, but if you set your settings exactly like a Rectifier amp, they do differ. After about 30 minutes of tweaking I came up with a killer SRV/Santana beefy solo sound reminiscent of the Dumble line of amps. This is definitely one of those units you can lose yourself in tweaking for hours having fun.

Anybody try the THD preamp?

Nik

The THD UniValve is WAAAY cool!
The tubes 'self bias', so you can swap em out in a few seconds.
With a small collection of tubes, you can get an 800 sound, a modern sound, a fender sound, etc...
It's also cool to use the 'line out' (instrument OR DI level out) to drive another amp (Mesa/Marshall/Fender).

THD as preamp into a Fender Vibrolux is just a LOVELY blues tone!

I am going to try it!

BTW I would send it out to a power amp most times & a cab...

I just dig the size & hopefully the price - I already have a fine poweramp in my Engle Savage...

So e-cue likes it...

Michael?

Yeah, I'd appreciate any opinions on this Mesa preamp as my current studio (apartment) does not allow for any amps. I'm not into supersaturated overdrive, looking for subtle overdrive, warmth etc. The Boogie ads don't mention anything about powertube distortion, have a feeling this thing may not be for me. Had a THD Univalve, was very cool as an amp but too bright with my Strat and it didn't seem to sag like a tube rectified amp can. Never tried it direct.
For the time being am using a Pod XT for inspiration, writing etc but find it clinical sounding and don't need the effects. Current line of thinking is to record a direct track and monitor the Pod for vibe and book time at a local studio where I can reamp through my amps. We guitarists are a picky lot!

I had one here about 6 weeks ago. I already own a Formula Pre, so I was sort of familiar with the Mesa approach to this product. I found the newer unit to be much less flexible in coming up with moderate distortion sounds than the Formula, more suited to big crunchy stuff. The unit I had produced an undesirable chattering distortion on the trailing ends of sounds in the cleaner settings. Apparently the store sent it back to Mesa who retubed it- I haven't heard it since, having spent the money I was thinking of using on this unit elsewhere.

There's a great intro price on that unit, which of course in the UK we don't get. I mailed the distributor...r....

sorry for the dealy in responding, the amp just got to the studio last week. I haven't had time to check it with a poweramp, but I did fiddle with it plugged directly into the board. I wasn't very happy with the results I got on the distorted channel, it sounded very bright, even with a lot of the treble rolled off. It probably needs the natural high end rolloff of a speaker. The clean sounds where cool and useful and for some reason seemed to be rounder and bigger than the distorted sounds. When cranked in the Master section the amp sounded as if the powersupply got sucked dry, almost like a compressor in total overload, not very nice.

At this point I wouldn't put out a grand for that unit (already saw it used for $ 750 at Broadway in Nashville).

I'm still trying to find time to check it with my Macinthosh poweramps and the ENGL poweramp in the Savage (fresh out of guitar players right now). I'll report back after some more testing.

Wikid mid term usage report michael THANKS!

Jules . . . I'm going to do you a HUGE favor because you and I go back a long way. I wouldn't do this for anyone but you.

I KNOW how hard you are looking for a guitar recording preamp that doesn't have to be "cranked" . . . . . and I can tell you are just not finding what you are looking for.

Therefore I am willing to part with my "VINTAGE" Tom Scholz Rockman!!!! It is one of the first ones to hit NYC and bought at WORLD FAMOUS . . . Manny's Music!! For you . . . I will part with this WONDERFUL sounding unit! Sounds JUST LIKE a HUGE stack of Marshalls and is as quiet as a mouse. Does not sound compressed at all!! For you, I will take $1750 US!!!! I will throw in the "ROCKADAPTER" electric plug for free so you won't have to spend a lot on batteries.

Again, this is only because you and I are old pals and I want so much to help you. This offer is strictly from my heart. You will never be able to find ANYTHING that sounds, ah . . . quite like it! It is THAT . . . . er, special.

Thanks for the report!... I came close to buying this glad I skipped it then...I have ampfarm and just bart the sansamp plug-in...im probably gonna get the amplitube one too since I won't be getting this...oh well...it's still a plug-in world for me rollz

1750 ... for a vintage rockman ... thats cheap dfegad grggt

hrhrhrhrhrhr

ive tried the pod , the mesa formula , sansamp , jmp1 , ada

i like the jmp1 the best , even its producing wrong tones ( can sound out of tune even if the guitar is in tune )
the mesa rack stuff was never pretty good . the combination of a mesa pre and poweramp was always kinda weak . its been a while when i owned a strategy 400 and tried with some pres against the good old marshalls . it worked pretty well till the drums and bass started . i was like , damn 2*200W is still not enough . switching on a 50w marshall showed that no matter which pre i tried is still the best . a mesa dealer in my area had the luck to buy one of the thousand guitar racks from mr. van halen . well it sounded pretty good , till i decided to ask if we can hear the pre and poweramp without the pcm70 , h3000 and tc 2290 . well , after this , it sounded like " **** " .

same some years later , i was going to a rehearsal of one of those numetal bands . already heard about the mesa rectifiers and saw em a thousand times on mtv . i can remember the drummers counted in " 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 " ... i was waiting for the devil himslef coming out of those " holy " amps . the only thing that came out of em was a piece of ****

next thing ive heard was a mesa combo , which was sounding like a little box without any tone . then again i heard some vox ac 30s , some plexi marshalls and " holy lord " it sounded great .
the roland jazzchorus was the next thing which was turned on and made my ears more than happy . the hiwatt was ok , still not much to do with the pink floyd tone i expected . the fender tonemaster top . everybody told me " how great " this thing is ...
if was realy exicted in front having one in my hands now , and ...
not even 50% of what i expected again . after this , a gallien krueger custom build tube amp for bass , never saw it somewhere else again ( damn ) sounded just awesome with anything you plugged in . i remember a band playing engl savage amps . didnt like the " tone " that much but it is flexible and agressive and has a vibe like a marshall . a good amp . an old bandmaster top sounded very good as well ( just a clean sound but great ) .

the marshall speaker emulator is great too . the palmer are ok but you still need to have a cabinet to run it . the unit i am going to buy cause i liked it a lot was a hughes&kettner tubeman 1 .
( cool for bass as well )

i hope this guitar tone nightmare ends one day




oh i saw robben ford some weeks ago , 2 fender combos doing the clean sounds a dumble top and a dumbulator for the distorted ones . a tc 2290 for delays . what a player and what a sound . not loud and agressive , but a lovely tone .

opinions on dumble & orange amps please !!!
( could never get a hand on those units )

For "singing" blues leads, big clean sounds and ferocious power amp crunch....I'm lovin a Budda Twinmaster. All tube hand wired, loudest 18 watts in the history of amplification.

Ungrateful English 'type' person!:eek:

Any more reports on this and does anyone know where you can buy one in the NY/NJ/Philly area?

Being a class amplifier, the THD Univalve requires to rebiasing to prevent crossover distortion as class A circuitry inherently has no crossover distortion. The sound of the amp totally depends on the tubes that are in it. I tried one out once and it was one of those "tones you've been looking for" and one time is was just kind of okay (I think it had ecc83's + 6L6's...odd combination). It's always going to have that class A sound so it can't entirely nail the Fender or Marshall thing, but it can get close and it's better at the Matchless/Vox thing.

I still have a Mesa Boogie Studio Pre, got it used 5 years ago and use it a couple of times a year. It is not as good as micing a cabinet. The only thing that will sound as good as a amp/speaker turned up loud is another amp/speaker turned up loud. And the Rockman.
That said, these pre's can be a great tool. but for $1K, I would wait for them to show up used.

Or buy the Rockman.

The Studio pre might well be the best preamp Boogie ever made, and has lots of fans still, at what, 15 years later? Some guys who can use anything still use these, often for that blackface Fender clean sound. If there will be such a thing as a vintage market for guitar rack gear, these are likely canidates.

I have a Quad preamp, which isn't supposed to be as good as the Studio, but I don't think it's crap. Naturally, it sounds better when put through a speaker, but it'll do in a pinch with the recording outs. (Trick - mix the recording and normal outputs to get a bit more life and complexity, mixing in the normal under the recording until it has just enough edge.) Love the two-pan reverb in the Quad. It isn't always the most inspiring thing to play through (I like vintagey combos with a distinct plug-and-play personality), but there is a lot of flexibility to get cool textures into an overdub. It keeps me from buying a less satisfactory amp modeler for similar purposes.

Bear

I have had one of these for more than a year and can tell you as a tone junkie for more than 20 years, this ain't the deal for direct recording . As a matter of fact my Pod is vastly superior. For direct recording the boogie sounds only marginally better than the direct outs on the back of most amps and has a buzzy overdrive that DOES NOT sound like a mic/cab/amp combo as the ads claim.

With that said, it does a few other things exceptionally well and I have decided to keep it in my rack.

1. It may be the best tube overdriver ever made when placed before a good guitar amp.

2. It's an excellent bass direct amp in the clean mode.

3. It is excellent for re-amping bass or guitar tracks that need warming up, and its eq is particularily well suited for deep warm bass. (Think Pultec).

As far as recording guitars at high volume without disturbing the neighbors, get an isolation cabinet. Randall and a couple of other companies make them.

Yes! I just did that and it sounded great on a bass track.

how can they even call this a "rectifier recording pre"? It doesnt actually have a rectifier tube in it. The recto tube is what gives the dual rectos, tripple rectos and tremoverbs..etc... their sound.

please, correct me if im wrong