gringopig's guitars
2024 Mesa Boogie Mark Five: 35
The nemesis of Guitar Amp repair techs (apparently) and beloved of metal chuggers worldwide, I knew that this amp could do a lot more than grind out metal riffs. Like my King Snake, it's idiosyncratic due to its circuit design but very versatile if you can navigate the weird and whacky world of Mesa design.
The Mesa mark series of amps began with Randall Smith producing customised Fender amps for LA based musicians and listened to the complaints that the much valued overdrive came at a cost: massive volume. So he sought to introduce a way that players could access this tone without going deaf - the first Boogie Mark 1 amps.
These were used by players such as Carlos Santana and I have a re-issue of Santana's Mk1 in the King Snake, complete with faux snake skin tolex!
It's an amp that has cascading gains with 2 channels that you can access at 2 points in the chain: at the start and after the first gain stage. This would be used by the first master volume Marshall amps later in the '70's but this was a novel idea from Randall Smith and from then on there was a succession of Mark amps, all with unusual gain structures and odd EQ systems that don't seem to work like normal amps!
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There was the Mark 1 amps then later Mark II in various 'Stripes' leading to the infamous IIC+ which became synonymous with Metallic for a grating palm muted mid scooped metal sound with tight bass and rigid chug. Later still came the Mark III and IV which softened the sound somewhat and added flexibility. The Mark V came with multiple voicings which echoed the previous generation and at 90 Watts was a loud beast.
The next mark model was a 25 Watt head in a small form factor, the Mark Five: 25
What a wee cutie! Especially in the custom colour variants. The 35 watt version followed and this is the model I bought. It is powered by 4 EL84 valves whereas the 25 Watt version has 2 EL84 and also upgrades the transformers and features the same 5 band EQ but includes a Solo over ride on each channel master to allow you a separate volume for those 'searing solos'.
Now, the amp is not a simple Deluxe Reverb style amp. It has 2 separate channels and 3 modes per channel. You can switch channels with a footswitch but not modes within each channel. Channel 1 is the 'clean' channel but actually you can go from a very Fendery clean to what most would consider high gain with a combination of that first stage gain knob, the ever-useful Mid/Boost knob and a balance between pre-amp and power-amp saturation. |Especially using the 10/25/35 Watt switching modes.
Now, the volume doesn't go down that much but it does allow different feels to each channel and it's quite cool you can footswitch from 35 Watts to 10 Watts!
Overall, the amp offers so much variation that it's hard to get your head around it and it can end up sounding boxy or thin so it's important to remember that Boogies are mid focused. Don't be afraid to dial something totally out. The EQ section is merely shaping the sound of the guitar before it saturates so you are forming the tone and offering it to the drive section and midrange doesn't hurt this at all. You can boost the Mids in channel 1 from 5-10 and get a big boost in overdrive but it doesn't get muddy.
The bass is important to balance too. Too little and it sounds boxy and too much sounds flabby. The presence can add cut or sound too harsh.
It's quite the balancing act!
Plus there is the world of super saturated gain in channel 2 with all the variation there that you could hope for.
I bought the head as I wanted to use a bigger cab than that available in the combo form.
I did a video just on channel 1 that you can watch below:
