Mesa Boogie-type effect, tube cascades, etc...

[MartinS]

Hi. My setup is pretty basic: Gibson 335 - Boss OC2 octave pedal (not got it yet - soon to arrive from eBay) - EH Tube Zipper (with two 12AX7EH tubes) - George Dennis volume/tremolo - Boss DD3 - Roland JC120 (although I've been using the Marshalls provided at the practise rooms).

One of my favourite guitarists is Mick Harvey of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. I'm pretty sure he uses a Mesa Boogie amp (I've seen it on a DVD), and he certainly gets a wide range of sounds, ranging from clean to absolute sonic obliteration - sometimes switching between the two instantaneously.

As Mesa Boggies cost well over a grand (and look pretty intimidating to dial in), I'm wondering if there's a pedal or such like I can add to my setup that would allow me to do this sort of thing. I've read about cascading tubes, but am not sure what this is. But I've wondered if I bought another tube-driven overdrive pedal such as the EH English Muff'n, whether that would work.

Any suggestions? Anyone know what I'm on about? Not sure I do...

Martin

[Davey]

they have a pedal called the V-Twin. tube distortion pedal.. havent really tried it myself but a friend swore by it, said it sounds like a pissed off MarkIV or something to that effect.
http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html

[igloo0213]

The MI Audio Tube Zone is often described as having that Mesa kind of flavor. You might want to check out some of the AMT Electronics stuff, especially the California Sound, I think is what it is called.

[FELINEGUITARS]

Not sure if he still has it for sale but Crazy_Joe had a Boogie studio preamp for sale

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9313

[indysmith]

it sounds like a pissed off MarkIV or something to that effect.
http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html

Absolute bollucks. it's a very loose and bluesy preamp. More Lonestar than Mark IV

[Crazy_Joe]

Not sure if he still has it for sale but Crazy_Joe had a Boogie studio preamp for sale

http://www.bareknucklepickups.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9313

That went a few months ago, much to my dissapointment :(

[MartinS]

The V-Twin looks nice, but I'm not sure it'd do much more than my Tube Zipper, which is an overdrive and envelope filter. Plus, it's more expensive even on eBay.

I've wondered about something like this, perhaps linked to the zipper...

[indysmith]

check out the rocktron zombie. seems pretty convincing, and cheap too!

[FELINEGUITARS]

TRy a Soldano preamp or the Soldano GTO pedal

Or look for a Peavey Triumph amplifier - they were similar in many ways - good value too

Found another studio preamp on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mesa-Boogie-Studio-Preamp_W0QQitemZ200164418676QQihZ010QQcategoryZ10171QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

[Ratrod]

it sounds like a pissed off MarkIV or something to that effect.
http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/V-Twin/v-twin.html

Absolute bollucks. it's a very loose and bluesy preamp. More Lonestar than Mark IV

A mate of mine has one. Great sounding pedal but itīs a tweed style blues box all the way.

I can get pretty close to a Boogie metal sound with my H&K Tube Factor with the gain and contour maxed.

Is my Warpig clip still on this board?

[Davey]

Talking with Pierre, i was reminded of a distortion pedal i tried out at this years LGS.
 the Blackstar HT-DistX
it's a bit pricy @ €185 (plus tax i think.. or without dont know exactly) but it really does everything from a marshall to a firebreathing mesa type sound. check it out if you can
http://www.blackstaramps.com/

[ericsabbath]

v-twin sucks!
the rackmount version too
it's muddy and undefined

[indysmith]

v-twin sucks!
the rackmount version too
it's muddy and undefined

it is if you're trying to get a metal sound out of it. For the blues and clean sounds it's quite nice. Not GREAT, but definately good.