“I think this is the rotten fish board. Not the cat piss board. And I’ll show you the WTF thing on the other side” 😂🤣 Come on Lyle. Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel about Mesa Boogie. 🤣😂
Mesa always gave players what they asked for. They've never operated in a vacuum. The old Fenders sounded good but didn't overdrive until they were hellishly loud. Partly by accident and design Smith gave players the tools to create distortion at lower volumes in a compact package in the Mk I. Players then thought it would be nice to be able to switch between the clean and overdrive channels on the fly so he gave them the Mk II. At some point with the IIC they stumbled on even higher gain sounds with the C+ and that fit in with the '80s metal scene. People then wanted a crunch channel between the clean and dirty sounds so along came the Mk III. But it was hard to balance with shared EQ controls so along came the Mk IV with a bit more control on each channel. The Caliber series were all about affordability so people without the $ could get their hands on a Mesa. The original series had shared EQ controls so the DC series was an answer to that. The Rectos came along at the tail end of the '80s when hot-rodded Marshalls were the rage but in the '90s Mesa pivoted and changed them to appeal to the new Grunge scene's low down de-tuned sounds. By the time we get to the Mk V independent 3 channel controls had arrived. Today players want clean pedal platforms so Mesa came out with the Filmores. They have always just given musos what they were after and they have tried out a few different things over the years with some of their amp designs.
How are the cleans on these amps? Got an offer on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 combo.. that would set me back considerably less $$-wise than high headroom Fenders (which I love). I am actually looking for a clean platform for pedals... Any thoughts?
@@martinskanal I would mainly buy these for the overdrive tones. The cleans are great and can be made to crunch up nicely but if clean is the most important thing you're better off with a Fender. Grab a Hot Rod Deluxe and you have a great rig.
Fond memories of my DC-5. Used it for 8 years in a band and after building a travel case, it looked as new as the first day I un-boxed it when I sold. I don't like working on Mesa amps but I did like the clean channel on the DC-5...
I bought my first DC-5 in 1995 brand new, sold it a few years later and within 6 months realized my mistake and bought another one. I used that one for 19 years until the transformer went bad and bought another a couple weeks later once I found one. Crunch to blackface, great tone though I admit as you pointed out - the quality of design/workmanship ain't always the best. Cool video, thanks
I bought one of these new in the late 90's. Probably wouldn't buy a Mesa now. It had an absolutely brutal tone and it fed my metal obsession quite nicely. I actually really loved the amp - weirdly, it only sounded good w/ Mesa tubes. I was a lot younger then, so who knows!
How are the cleans? Got an offer on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 combo.. I am not looking for brutal high gains, just a clean platform for pedals.. (if I need grit I have great pedals for that). Any thoughts?
@@martinskanal I think you'd have to play it and see, honestly. Probably not very helpful answer. I liked the cleans. They're good, but it's been so long since I had one of these. I will say those amps to me seem to be really sensitive to what tubes you put in them as far as overall tone/ feel.
@@j.aut.1275 Thank you so much! I guess I would have to try it out.. As I understand it, it seems like these amps have a learning curve to tweak as all controls seems to affect each others.. anyway your input is much appreciated, man.. hope you're having a great weekend!
@@martinskanal Yes, definitely a learning curve. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily. In fact, the 5-band graphic eq really gives a lot of tonal possibilities. Generally I'd leave the lower/ upper two pretty much in the same spot of the classic "V" shape and then just push the mids up and down to adjust the tone. Certainly any graphic EQ could do the same thing, but if you like the amp otherwise it's a nice feature. Not for everyone, for sure. I'm making no claims on reliability/ build worthiness. Best of luck!
Boogie is the bane of the tech world. My Mark IV has been a good boy for many a year but Ive babied it mostly. When gigging it I always put it in bag if I wasbtearingbdown and itbstays in the house where temps are regulated. The tones are great for what I do but if you drag one into abshop ultimately eyebrows go up and there is a slight feeling of " Oh Crap" from across the coumter.
Being a Santana fan I Iusted after a Boogie for years and I finally got a MKII C+. It could peal paint off the walls and I loved it. Years later I sold it and luckily it never broke. Once I started doing some repairs for friends as a hobby, not an occupation, I discovered the downside of any amp with a PCB which, as pointed out here by Lyle in many of his videos, is major disassembly to replace a very inexpensive part. A friend recently asked me to look at his Boogie and I gently told him I no longer work on any amp with PCBs. Sad to see the decline in quality of Boogies.
Thanks KYLE for another video that shows you sir know what the hell you are doing! unfortunately you cannot trust just anybody to do this type of work. I enjoy seeing you with your knowledge and experience fix amps. Thanks for showing us the short comings of some amp designs. I had a single rect solo 50 for a while and never had issues with but never really got along with,mesa amps are over engineered and hard to dial in and expensive to work on because of the design and layout. Takes my mind off of the chaos and Extreme insanity of today’s culture, wish you all the best sir thank you!
The epoxy on that transformer is JB WELD. It's used by auto mechanics. It is powerful stuff. You have to chisel it off. It's very strong. You can also grind it off with a Dremel tool. I've used it for years. ( But never on a guitar amp! )
Ahhh, the undisclosed secondary issues common to amps quoted as "no signal". With how often it happens, one would be inclined to wonder if it was undisclosed intentionally. The "it worked fine before, you must have done something wrong" syndrome.
I've never heard of an amp tech yet who liked working on Mesa Boogie amps. All my buddies that used to play these things gave me so much crap about my Fender and Ampeg amps, and I had no where near the service issues that they did.
Good stuff. I’ve found that when working in any newer amp, to get to anything you’ve got to remove so much crap. I just had a Marshall tsl 602 on my bench and that thing needed to be taken completely apart. It sucked.
I know all, about functional repairs to keep costs down. My daughter's mother's heater went out and the technician told her she needed the entire system replaced. Except she didn't have the $7k for that. And winter was a few weeks away. So I called my best friend whos done AC repair since he was around 12 yrs old. His dad owned a business and he always went with his dad to fix stuff. Anyway. I had him come look at it and tell me what he thought. He walks out about 5 mins later, turns the heat on, and the HOUSE GOT WARM. It took him 2 mins and ZERO DOLLARS to fix her system by bypassing whatever had gone bad. 11 yrs later and it still works fine.
I'm probably jinxing myself, but I"ve had my DC-5 for 20+ years, its been through hell and back, had some minor repairs, reverb tank, caps, replaced a speaker after some moron knocked it over back stage, and burned through a few sets of tubes, Its still working and playing live on a fairly regular basis, despite my years of literal abuse, throwing it, riding it down stairs and across stages, pretty sure its the one that got thrown into a crowd (and snapping the neck of my 74 LP... again...) Been one of the toughest amps I've owned. I've calmed down some... and don't smash nearly as much stuff as I used to... but I still don't treat them like some precious artifact, they are tools meant to express emotions, I'm just not as angry as I used to be.
I used to solder circuit boards and debug for a living. The coating it called conforma coating. It is meant to keep moisture off. Once applied it’s not meant to be soldered. It’s pretty toxic stuff.
General question: What's your current limiter, that you use before powering up (first time)? Do you have a video on the basic bits 'n pieces of tools / equipment, beyond a multimeter, one should get before starting a repair?
Love your videos! How are the cleans on these amps? Got great offers on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 (both combos), but they are a long drive away.. So.. I am not a metal head, I want huge Fenderesque headroom and use it for a pedal platform which might make 75% of Mesa lovers cringe, but it is what it is.. How are the cleans on these amps? Anyone care to give up a few thoughts?
Lyle, Have you had any experience with Splawn amps? I've noticed that they're relatively affordable on the used market. A brand new Competition (model) 50 watt is about $1600 new. Any info on the quality, repair-ability would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to choose between Ceriatone and Splawn for a hot-rodded Marshall tone. Thanks, again for all the work you do!
I have a dc10..cleans are great..distortion would rip the paint off a wall..but have a problem with the clean channel stopped working..recapped a while back..changed the LDR.S.so dont think its them...think it might be a dry solder on the preamp tube..
Lyle doesn't cuss much, and mostly for good cause. His buddy Brad (Brad's Guitar Garage) in Australia swears far more. If you regularly had to fix other people's shoddy work (as I do) you'd swear too; sometimes, "bless that other repair tech's heart" just doesn't vent your frustration adequately. But if it's truly that offensive to you, you are free to change the *damn* channel! 😁
“I think this is the rotten fish board. Not the cat piss board. And I’ll show you the WTF thing on the other side” 😂🤣 Come on Lyle. Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel about Mesa Boogie. 🤣😂
The epoxy isn't Mesa's fault. That was a freelance idiot.
@@PsionicAudio Been watching Brad too much :)
Thank you. I now know how to get the opening sound of Cochise by Audioslave. Wiggle the preamp tube on a crappy combo amp.
Mesa always gave players what they asked for. They've never operated in a vacuum. The old Fenders sounded good but didn't overdrive until they were hellishly loud. Partly by accident and design Smith gave players the tools to create distortion at lower volumes in a compact package in the Mk I. Players then thought it would be nice to be able to switch between the clean and overdrive channels on the fly so he gave them the Mk II. At some point with the IIC they stumbled on even higher gain sounds with the C+ and that fit in with the '80s metal scene. People then wanted a crunch channel between the clean and dirty sounds so along came the Mk III. But it was hard to balance with shared EQ controls so along came the Mk IV with a bit more control on each channel. The Caliber series were all about affordability so people without the $ could get their hands on a Mesa. The original series had shared EQ controls so the DC series was an answer to that. The Rectos came along at the tail end of the '80s when hot-rodded Marshalls were the rage but in the '90s Mesa pivoted and changed them to appeal to the new Grunge scene's low down de-tuned sounds. By the time we get to the Mk V independent 3 channel controls had arrived. Today players want clean pedal platforms so Mesa came out with the Filmores. They have always just given musos what they were after and they have tried out a few different things over the years with some of their amp designs.
How are the cleans on these amps? Got an offer on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 combo.. that would set me back considerably less $$-wise than high headroom Fenders (which I love). I am actually looking for a clean platform for pedals... Any thoughts?
@@martinskanal I would mainly buy these for the overdrive tones. The cleans are great and can be made to crunch up nicely but if clean is the most important thing you're better off with a Fender. Grab a Hot Rod Deluxe and you have a great rig.
Fond memories of my DC-5. Used it for 8 years in a band and after building a travel case, it looked as new as the first day I un-boxed it when I sold. I don't like working on Mesa amps but I did like the clean channel on the DC-5...
The DC-10 line was pretty good!
I bought my first DC-5 in 1995 brand new, sold it a few years later and within 6 months realized my mistake and bought another one. I used that one for 19 years until the transformer went bad and bought another a couple weeks later once I found one. Crunch to blackface, great tone though I admit as you pointed out - the quality of design/workmanship ain't always the best. Cool video, thanks
Haha, that opening remark was priceless!
I bought one of these new in the late 90's. Probably wouldn't buy a Mesa now. It had an absolutely brutal tone and it fed my metal obsession quite nicely. I actually really loved the amp - weirdly, it only sounded good w/ Mesa tubes. I was a lot younger then, so who knows!
How are the cleans? Got an offer on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 combo.. I am not looking for brutal high gains, just a clean platform for pedals.. (if I need grit I have great pedals for that). Any thoughts?
@@martinskanal I think you'd have to play it and see, honestly. Probably not very helpful answer. I liked the cleans. They're good, but it's been so long since I had one of these. I will say those amps to me seem to be really sensitive to what tubes you put in them as far as overall tone/ feel.
@@j.aut.1275 Thank you so much! I guess I would have to try it out.. As I understand it, it seems like these amps have a learning curve to tweak as all controls seems to affect each others.. anyway your input is much appreciated, man.. hope you're having a great weekend!
@@martinskanal Yes, definitely a learning curve. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily. In fact, the 5-band graphic eq really gives a lot of tonal possibilities. Generally I'd leave the lower/ upper two pretty much in the same spot of the classic "V" shape and then just push the mids up and down to adjust the tone. Certainly any graphic EQ could do the same thing, but if you like the amp otherwise it's a nice feature. Not for everyone, for sure. I'm making no claims on reliability/ build worthiness. Best of luck!
I can smell it from here.
Great fix for that resistor. best to get these Mess amps out of your workshop as quick as possible..
Boogie is the bane of the tech world. My Mark IV has been a good boy for many a year but Ive babied it mostly. When gigging it I always put it in bag if I wasbtearingbdown and itbstays in the house where temps are regulated. The tones are great for what I do but if you drag one into abshop ultimately eyebrows go up and there is a slight feeling of " Oh Crap" from across the coumter.
Being a Santana fan I Iusted after a Boogie for years and I finally got a MKII C+. It could peal paint off the walls and I loved it. Years later I sold it and luckily it never broke. Once I started doing some repairs for friends as a hobby, not an occupation, I discovered the downside of any amp with a PCB which, as pointed out here by Lyle in many of his videos, is major disassembly to replace a very inexpensive part. A friend recently asked me to look at his Boogie and I gently told him I no longer work on any amp with PCBs. Sad to see the decline in quality of Boogies.
@@patrickfreuler1376 even your iic+ had boards in it. My iic+ has a RP10 board.
@@patrickfreuler1376 this is actually an easier one to work on than a lot of their amps..
I'd love to see you repair a DC-10! Such a classic.
Wow that's some great work with the epoxy, WTF!! Just think Brad gets these kind of repairs all the time. Lyle great troubleshooting. 👍
Before he said it was epoxy, I thought it looked like spilled pudding.
@@charlesclark3840 that’s tone pudding. Cosby approved
@@charlesclark3840 It is actually JB WELD. Used by auto mechanics.
Boogie fan l see Lyle!
Or epoxy by the looks.
Great channel mate.
I didn’t hear *that* train a comin’😮😂
Thanx Lyle
Thanks KYLE for another video that shows you sir know what the hell you are doing! unfortunately you cannot trust just anybody to do this type of work. I enjoy seeing you with your knowledge and experience fix amps. Thanks for showing us the short comings of some amp designs. I had a single rect solo 50 for a while and never had issues with but never really got along with,mesa amps are over engineered and hard to dial in and expensive to work on because of the design and layout. Takes my mind off of the chaos and Extreme insanity of today’s culture, wish you all the best sir thank you!
Don’t scrap it, JB weld it!
The epoxy on that transformer is JB WELD. It's used by auto mechanics. It is powerful stuff. You have to chisel it off. It's very strong. You can also grind it off with a Dremel tool. I've used it for years. ( But never on a guitar amp! )
Ahhh, the undisclosed secondary issues common to amps quoted as "no signal".
With how often it happens, one would be inclined to wonder if it was undisclosed intentionally.
The "it worked fine before, you must have done something wrong" syndrome.
Lyle swears now! Bravo, I LIKE swearing Lyle!
I've never heard of an amp tech yet who liked working on Mesa Boogie amps. All my buddies that used to play these things gave me so much crap about my Fender and Ampeg amps, and I had no where near the service issues that they did.
Good stuff. I’ve found that when working in any newer amp, to get to anything you’ve got to remove so much crap. I just had a Marshall tsl 602 on my bench and that thing needed to be taken completely apart. It sucked.
I know all, about functional repairs to keep costs down. My daughter's mother's heater went out and the technician told her she needed the entire system replaced. Except she didn't have the $7k for that. And winter was a few weeks away.
So I called my best friend whos done AC repair since he was around 12 yrs old. His dad owned a business and he always went with his dad to fix stuff. Anyway. I had him come look at it and tell me what he thought.
He walks out about 5 mins later, turns the heat on, and the HOUSE GOT WARM. It took him 2 mins and ZERO DOLLARS to fix her system by bypassing whatever had gone bad. 11 yrs later and it still works fine.
I'm probably jinxing myself, but I"ve had my DC-5 for 20+ years, its been through hell and back, had some minor repairs, reverb tank, caps, replaced a speaker after some moron knocked it over back stage, and burned through a few sets of tubes, Its still working and playing live on a fairly regular basis, despite my years of literal abuse, throwing it, riding it down stairs and across stages, pretty sure its the one that got thrown into a crowd (and snapping the neck of my 74 LP... again...) Been one of the toughest amps I've owned. I've calmed down some... and don't smash nearly as much stuff as I used to... but I still don't treat them like some precious artifact, they are tools meant to express emotions, I'm just not as angry as I used to be.
I'd say that Lyle got lucky. Tubes had no epoxy holding them to the chassis.
I've seen some crazy half ass and downright dangerous repairs, but I've never seen a transformer epoxied to a chassis.
I used to solder circuit boards and debug for a living. The coating it called conforma coating. It is meant to keep moisture off. Once applied it’s not meant to be soldered. It’s pretty toxic stuff.
I know conformal coating. It also isn’t supposed to promote arcing between traces. But the stuff Mesa uses does. It’s nasty sticky dirty stuff.
Still have no idea what you’re saying 50% of the time, but sit here fascinated anyway 😊
General question: What's your current limiter, that you use before powering up (first time)? Do you have a video on the basic bits 'n pieces of tools / equipment, beyond a multimeter, one should get before starting a repair?
I believe it’s a light bulb in series before the amp
they done JB Welded it
Hate to say jj does in fact make tubes......
What's your opinion on the Mesa Boggie .50 caliber + head? Mine has worked well.
Mesa cut corners on the DC-5. No heatsink! 😛
Answer marks mails, I want to see you in ToneTalk!!!
I didn’t know he had sent any - they were in my spam folder! I just sent him an apology email. He is officially not spam now.
@@PsionicAudio I’m a hero 😂😂
Love your videos! How are the cleans on these amps?
Got great offers on both a DC-5 and a DC-10 (both combos), but they are a long drive away.. So.. I am not a metal head, I want huge Fenderesque headroom and use it for a pedal platform which might make 75% of Mesa lovers cringe, but it is what it is.. How are the cleans on these amps? Anyone care to give up a few thoughts?
Sold my last Boogie.. and good riddance.
Lyle, Have you had any experience with Splawn amps? I've noticed that they're relatively affordable on the used market. A brand new Competition (model) 50 watt is about $1600 new. Any info on the quality, repair-ability would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to choose between Ceriatone and Splawn for a hot-rodded Marshall tone. Thanks, again for all the work you do!
I haven't worked on one, so I have no opinion. Sorry,
@@PsionicAudio No problem, thanks for the reply! Your videos are great & can't wait to see future projects!
I haven’t ever tried to play a MD DC10. I bet it’s loud as hell and a real pain in the ass for the roadies to move around and set up.
I have a dc10..cleans are great..distortion would rip the paint off a wall..but have a problem with the clean channel stopped working..recapped a while back..changed the LDR.S.so dont think its them...think it might be a dry solder on the preamp tube..
Less parts count than the later stuff. Those sounded ok iirc
Mesa seems to be the Gibson of the amp world. Sounds like heaven, but with so many confusing design choices
Lol! and then Gibson buys the company! What future is for the Mesa name???
🤣🤣🤣😎👍
Never liked messy boogers!
Jiggle and clean won’t make this any good. Better get another amp.
what's with the potty mouth
Clearly you haven't ever had to work on a Mesa.
That's how you know he found something *really* bad.
Lyle doesn't cuss much, and mostly for good cause. His buddy Brad (Brad's Guitar Garage) in Australia swears far more. If you regularly had to fix other people's shoddy work (as I do) you'd swear too; sometimes, "bless that other repair tech's heart" just doesn't vent your frustration adequately. But if it's truly that offensive to you, you are free to change the *damn* channel! 😁
Do grown men actually say shit like "potty mouth"?