New rig update #2 - Mesa/Boogie influx!

A little over a week has gone by since the last post, and, once again, I've been keeping the delivery guys busy. And, quite frankly, I've been keeping myself busy, too... I took a few hours on Saturday to accumulate all the new gear and go over each piece with a fine-tooth comb: I cleaned (and tightened up any loose) tube sockets/pots/switches/jacks and wiped everything down on the outside. So things may not look as good as new, but at least they look one step closer to new. :)

With that being said, on to the new gear...

Mesa/Boogie Studio preamp -Here's one out of the "vintage" bin... the Studio preamp is based on the Mark-series amps with 2 channels, switchable graphic EQ, and spring reverb. Of course, in Mark-series fashion, both channels share tone controls but do have independent gain controls and bright/fat switches. Tonally, "liquid" is the best way to describe this preamp... while the lead channel is classic Boogie, even the clean channel somehow manages to sustain for days. Setting the graphic EQ in the classic Mesa "V" shape delivers dead-on old-school Metallica crunch. Definitely reminds me of everything I liked about my old Mark IV and Triaxis rigs back in the day!

Mesa/Boogie Rectifier recording preamp - Another preamp?!? In the spirit of trying new stuff (or rather, revisiting old stuff that I had about 5 years ago), I picked up the Recto preamp to dish up everything that is the polar opposite of the Studio preamp... thin & crisp cleans, gritty mid-gain tones, and (why everyone buys Rectifiers to begin with) aggressive modern chugga-chugga tones. The preamp has 2 channels, each with 3 modes (clean + fat + brit on the green channel, raw + vintage + modern on the red channel) and a switchable solo boost. Unlike the Studio preamp, both channels have independent tone controls, and there is no reverb or graphic EQ. The range of tones across all 6 modes is impressive, although I've been gravitating towards the clean and vintage modes. This preamp blends beautifully with the Soldano, and sounds killer through the...

Mesa/Boogie 20/20 power amp - Another power amp?!? Ok... maybe the third preamp wasn't overkill, but the second power amp definitely is! I wanted to experiment with the 20/20 for several reasons... first, to see how a low-wattage power amp sounds compared to the higher-power RT2/50; second, to see how the texture of EL84 power tubes compliments the preamps; and finally, to experiment with a wet/dry setup using all three preamps and both power amps in parallel. While I did clean the 20/20's tube sockets and pots, I've got a bit of odd behavior going on... one channel is darker (almost muddier), while the other is brighter... I need to do a bit more troubleshooting to see if one of the sets of tubes is mismatched or if only one side of the amp was modded by a previous owner (there's a little known "deep" mod for the 20/20).

Finally, here's a pic of everything stacked up, anxiously awaiting for the rack to arrive...



Don't be fooled... everything's still wired up in a half-a$$ fashion... nothing will really be wired up right until it's installed in the rack (which should arrive either late this week or early next week). In the mean time, I'm just hoping the puny little table doesn't collapse under the weight of all the amps!

--B