Just had my Mark3 Blue Stripe up at Petaluma for some maintenance. Michael Bendinelli took great care with my amp and did some revisions to the capacitors. It sounds absolutely fantastic.
Great playing. I have a Mark III Red Stripe from '87 and it's a gain beast. Historically have used it for the chug tones. However, recently I've been dialing back the gain and enjoying the dynamic range the lead channel is capable of.
How have you dialed in chug tones? I’m not getting enough gain for proper metal chugs, it isn’t thick/beefy enough. What were your settings, would love to know
@@zz-.- Here's my settings. Volume-9.5 Treble-6 *pull shift engaged* Bass-2.5 Middle-4 Lead Drive-4 *pull bright engaged Graphic EQ to taste. And I use a Boss SD-1 level on 10, drive on 0, with the tone at 12 o'clock.
@@thechannelforeverything2170 that helped a ton thanks. Have been struggling to get good chug tones with dirty leads. Using clean amp settings and solar chug pedal with Noise suppression. Just can’t find a balance, when the lows sound good the highs cut out and vice versa. Just did your settings with a Boss OS-2 and noise suppressor and it’s much less noisy and much more balanced. Going to get a MetalZone and see how that may add a bit more shred/chug.
Yes the Mark III is so underrated, sure it can take a little dialling in - but worth it. I hear you on the weight, I built a head shell and cabinet for mine 15+ years back, to split the weight. Never regretted that idea. But looking at the hardwood version, i am really tempted to build another new head/cab for it out of some nice timber…
I've never played a real one, but the clean Mark III in Amplitube 5 is one of my favorite amps in there, so much so that I'm thinking about trying to get a real one. Beautiful sweet and melodic clean sound with just a touch of hair on it. It sounds incredible if I plug my lp studio with burstbuckers pros into it and throw an la2a style comp after it with a tiny amount of memory man in Amplitube's fx loop. It's like one of those guitar tones where you'll be amazed that you're actually making that sound when you play it and changes what you play. Super inspiring, to my ears. I'm honestly blown away by it and I'm guessing the real thing is even better.
Another vintage boutique amp that is under-rated is the Seymour Duncan Convertible, a swiss-army knife amp of it's day, with continuously variable EL34 wattage from 1 to 100, channel switching, triode-pentode switching, various preamp module configurations, you could almost hear it breathing.
Mod that Mike Bendinelli has been offering to bring it closer to 2C+. Involves changing couple capacitors. I did it myself. I would imagine the effect is more dramatic with the brighter revisions like blue stripe. With black stripe less dramatic, but noticeable.
@@johnnathancordy I did it on mine as well, the clean channel gets cleaner and less compressed somehow (?) and the lead channel is closer to a mark IIc+. Might try to mod it to the 3++ spec though.
Analyzing the symbolism of your shot here. you have this brilliant light to your left which sometimes makes you squint with discomfort. But then to the right you have this pole and your shadow on a closet door. So, while you once were perhaps in the closet with your playing in the past, the pole represents that line that you will not cross again despite the glare of your bright future being somewhat disquieting at times. Brilliant, imaginative imagery! You apparently really know how to tell a story with your lighting and camera positioning. Will you be doing a vid with the new Boss GX-100. Would love to hear the mesa with that new Boss pedal.
Really love your playing and guitar work here, especially with that SG. Have a MK lll long head Simul-Class with reverb and graphic. Bought in 1986. Always been the best amp I’ve ever owned. I don’t like EV’s at all, sounds best through JBL G-125’s and for a different sound-Celestion Vintage 30’s. I have Mesa/Boogie Custom 90 watt Celestions but don’t favor them for the Boogie amp as much since they’re more warmer sounding. The JBL G-125’s are a speaker with an overdrive characteristic like a Celestion and are the perfect combination with the amp.
I'm such a Mesa fan boy. I have a mkIV rev b widebody. I'd love mark 2 and/or 3. But I only have so many eggs, and just the one basket. Enjoying your playing and video topics.
Absolutely beautiful playing! I have a Mark I reissue and a Mark IV, but while versatile, seem hard to dial in. I guess I just need to put in some more effort to unlock the tones.
Had this amp since '89. I don't agree that it's tricky to dial in like some say, it's just that its controls are very sensitive in comparison to most other amps, which allows for a much wider than usual tonal palette. This amp really is three amps in one and it's the most reliable amp I've ever owned.
thank you for making a mesa mark video that isn't metal. i've been using a mk3 blue for over a decade and also recently got jp2c. two best amps i've ever used. nice playing.
I have had them all, still do, and sold them all back in the 80's working at strings and things in Memphis. the mark iic+ mark 3 purple and red stripe, mark 3 blue stripe and the last one mark 3 green stripe, they are all so close almost no real discernible difference between all of them. they are all the same amp with minor tweaks. Mike at boogie will tell you that. Even the mark IV was so close in sound, it just got more technical with some separate eq where the others shared the eq across the channels. it makes sense all of them being a mark series amps, if they were vastly different they wouldn't have just swiped each version with just a magic marker swipe or a black dot or a + sign. The big difference in the IIC+ and the Mark III was the third channel. Mesa got noticeably different with the Mesa badging vs the Boogie badges. The Rectifier series,The lone star, Road King,Nomad, etc came later and did sound different... The stiletto was probably the most different being EL34 based shooting toward the Marshall tone. Even my newer Mark 5 EL84 based amp sits in my studio with the older mark III'S and it too sounds really close even all these years later with totally different power section/ tubes. The petrucci amp is a modern Mark amp and you can line up all the Mark series amps and NO one in the audience would ever know the difference and most guitar players blind folded couldn't pick them out one from the other especially with the transparent EVM 12L black shadow speaker or an MC-90 black shadow. The IIC+ landed in the right time to become the flagship vintage boogie. Thats when 80's music was huge and that amp was produced at the right time for the players who made it famous. I would argue a Mark III purple, red, blue or green could have been used by the players who made the IIC+ famous and those albums and concerts wouldn't have sounded any different.
Hi John. As a long time Boogie user - (I've had all of the Mark series amps from 1 to 5 at various times) - I think the Mark 3 had 2 problems for most gigging musicians, not including the weight. The Mark 3 is a great sounding amp, but it needs to be very loud to get to the "sweet spot", and combining the "rhythm 2" channel with the mid control meant that it came in extremely loud when foot switching to it. There was a popular "mod" that Boogie did which made the slave out control a volume control for the rhythm 2, which made it easily controllable, but the amp still needed to be very loud to get the sweet sounds.
none of my mark III'S ever had that problem..... mine sound killer at any volume. it's all in the volume control, if you set it correctly, there was no volume jump between channels.
Had back in the '90' a Mesa Boogie Mark 3 with Electro Voice 12" like yours for 4 years. The best sounding amp I EVER has played through. The only "drawback" was the noise from the cooling fan - and that I nearly allways played too loud (some people told me). I told them, that a Mesa i made to play LOUD
There's a tonne of these on Marketplace too. I was looking for a MkI re issue, but the cleans on this sound gorgeous, and im looking for something that'll take my distrotion and fuzz pedals well.
Hey Folks, great playing, good video. But.... I owned the hard wood simul class eq combo for years, payed over 150 shows with it and...... one night it sounded great, other nights like crap. Sometimes e.g. the middle control was a hair changed and easy to deal, sometimes nothing helped. At that time there was no power conditioner. I loved it, it hated it. It broke in warenty times 2 times. Just one control layout for three sounds was a limit which the mark 4 took care of. If I would have had the knowledge of today I would not have spend that huge amount of money to buy and would not have had the experiance to sell it for less than half the money i spend. Honestly It can sound like heaven, sometimes the sound carried me away. But.... I am glad to not have to deal with it anymore.
Great playing as always! I've had the Mark IV for several years. Guess that one is quite similar to the Mark III?! Neverheless the lead channel was the geatest lead tone of all time but I couldn't fall in love with the clean and crunch channel. I missed the Vox like clean and crunch over there. My current solution is a clean Laney Lionheart with the Mesa flux five pedal for crunch and lead. Best of both worlds!
The other bad thing about the weight especially with wood and wicker is you want to protect it. So Mines in a road case . Ya more weight. But very protected. Mines a fully optioned out S O B. Basically moving 100 lbs every time. My pro tube Twin weights in at 80 lbs and is on wheels. My Lab Series L5 is also up there in weight. Funny my Behringer 300 watt 15 in speaker bass amp is the lightest at about 50 lbs.
Was wondering that also. 5:46. Can’t read it. Old. Also what actually qualifies for boutique? I would think of Mesa as mass produced. Small production but still.
I had a mark 3 , sounded great , but way to heavy and to loud , the other guitarplayer in my band at that time used an marshall 100 w half stack and we played pretty loud , but even then i never got the amp any higher then 2 -3 on the volume and even that was already to loud at times , besides that , i lived in a flat in those times , 3 stories high and had to carry the damn thing ( with flightcase ) up the strairs , together with a extra mesa 12 " cabinet , 3 guitars and pedalboard , never gonna do that again , now i have an fender tm dr ( wich also has an nice sound and is lightweight , much better for my back wich is not to strong anymore as i am a lot older now : )
You moved so fast at 1:21 I honestly didn't see you put down the SG, get out of the chair, fetch the Strat, and get that plugged in. That was some Flash move right there.
Allan Holdsworth used a Mark iii as well 👍🏻I have the red stripe (1988)
I have the Red Stripe as well…just looked at what they are selling for…egad!!!!
Just had my Mark3 Blue Stripe up at Petaluma for some maintenance. Michael Bendinelli took great care with my amp and did some revisions to the capacitors. It sounds absolutely fantastic.
The MK iii is the one amp where they got everything right. Never heard a bad one. Thats why the price never stops going up.
Wow fantastic sounding and even better playing.
Great playing. I have a Mark III Red Stripe from '87 and it's a gain beast. Historically have used it for the chug tones. However, recently I've been dialing back the gain and enjoying the dynamic range the lead channel is capable of.
How have you dialed in chug tones? I’m not getting enough gain for proper metal chugs, it isn’t thick/beefy enough. What were your settings, would love to know
@@zz-.- Here's my settings.
Volume-9.5
Treble-6 *pull shift engaged*
Bass-2.5
Middle-4
Lead Drive-4 *pull bright engaged
Graphic EQ to taste.
And I use a Boss SD-1 level on 10, drive on 0, with the tone at 12 o'clock.
@@thechannelforeverything2170 thanks man will give it a go tomorrow 🤘
@@thechannelforeverything2170 that helped a ton thanks. Have been struggling to get good chug tones with dirty leads. Using clean amp settings and solar chug pedal with Noise suppression. Just can’t find a balance, when the lows sound good the highs cut out and vice versa. Just did your settings with a Boss OS-2 and noise suppressor and it’s much less noisy and much more balanced. Going to get a MetalZone and see how that may add a bit more shred/chug.
Yes the Mark III is so underrated, sure it can take a little dialling in - but worth it. I hear you on the weight, I built a head shell and cabinet for mine 15+ years back, to split the weight. Never regretted that idea. But looking at the hardwood version, i am really tempted to build another new head/cab for it out of some nice timber…
Omgosh that amp sings 🥺
I dont think ive ever heard you go through so many different sounds and styles in one amp.👏🏾👏🏾👏🏾
The mark iii red stripe with a SG is magical.
Fantastic phrasing my dude. Great note articulation and choice. Loving the solo work.
I've never played a real one, but the clean Mark III in Amplitube 5 is one of my favorite amps in there, so much so that I'm thinking about trying to get a real one. Beautiful sweet and melodic clean sound with just a touch of hair on it. It sounds incredible if I plug my lp studio with burstbuckers pros into it and throw an la2a style comp after it with a tiny amount of memory man in Amplitube's fx loop. It's like one of those guitar tones where you'll be amazed that you're actually making that sound when you play it and changes what you play. Super inspiring, to my ears. I'm honestly blown away by it and I'm guessing the real thing is even better.
Another vintage boutique amp that is under-rated is the Seymour Duncan Convertible, a swiss-army knife amp of it's day, with continuously variable EL34 wattage from 1 to 100, channel switching, triode-pentode switching, various preamp module configurations, you could almost hear it breathing.
The Mark 25 ( Mini Mark) is also a great sounding amp without all the weight.
The Mark III has a boldness.. very in your face. However, the gain is sweet enough that you appreciate it instead of becoming turned off.
I lusted over these amps in guitar magazines as a kid in the mid 90's. I had no idea why, I simply loved the look. Maybe I was right all along!
Got mine 2 weeks ago, fantastic amp; watched a video before on dialing in Mesa Mark's, had a GREAT sound in like 5-10 minutes. Love mine :)
I love Mk III cleans with the lead boost - clean pre-amp with lots of power tube gain.
Man… those lead lines were beautiful…thank you
Yes yes yes! Mk3 is great amp, after + mod even better.
Which mod is that?!
Mod that Mike Bendinelli has been offering to bring it closer to 2C+. Involves changing couple capacitors. I did it myself. I would imagine the effect is more dramatic with the brighter revisions like blue stripe. With black stripe less dramatic, but noticeable.
@@johnnathancordy I did it on mine as well, the clean channel gets cleaner and less compressed somehow (?) and the lead channel is closer to a mark IIc+. Might try to mod it to the 3++ spec though.
Analyzing the symbolism of your shot here. you have this brilliant light to your left which sometimes makes you squint with discomfort. But then to the right you have this pole and your shadow on a closet door. So, while you once were perhaps in the closet with your playing in the past, the pole represents that line that you will not cross again despite the glare of your bright future being somewhat disquieting at times. Brilliant, imaginative imagery! You apparently really know how to tell a story with your lighting and camera positioning. Will you be doing a vid with the new Boss GX-100. Would love to hear the mesa with that new Boss pedal.
Lol!
I'm hoping to get hands on the GX100 soon yes!
Really love your playing and guitar work here, especially with that SG. Have a MK lll long head Simul-Class with reverb and graphic. Bought in 1986. Always been the best amp I’ve ever owned. I don’t like EV’s at all, sounds best through JBL G-125’s and for a different sound-Celestion Vintage 30’s. I have Mesa/Boogie Custom 90 watt Celestions but don’t favor them for the Boogie amp as much since they’re more warmer sounding. The JBL G-125’s are a speaker with an overdrive characteristic like a Celestion and are the perfect combination with the amp.
I'm such a Mesa fan boy. I have a mkIV rev b widebody. I'd love mark 2 and/or 3. But I only have so many eggs, and just the one basket. Enjoying your playing and video topics.
Certainly sounds better when you play it than when I had it!
Absolutely beautiful playing! I have a Mark I reissue and a Mark IV, but while versatile, seem hard to dial in. I guess I just need to put in some more effort to unlock the tones.
Had this amp since '89. I don't agree that it's tricky to dial in like some say, it's just that its controls are very sensitive in comparison to most other amps, which allows for a much wider than usual tonal palette. This amp really is three amps in one and it's the most reliable amp I've ever owned.
It's easy to dial in on Amplitude lol no issues and best amp on the program
Wow really great playing and tone. I've got a IV combo. Love the Marks!
thank you for making a mesa mark video that isn't metal. i've been using a mk3 blue for over a decade and also recently got jp2c. two best amps i've ever used. nice playing.
I have had them all, still do, and sold them all back in the 80's working at strings and things in Memphis. the mark iic+ mark 3 purple and red stripe, mark 3 blue stripe and the last one mark 3 green stripe, they are all so close almost no real discernible difference between all of them. they are all the same amp with minor tweaks. Mike at boogie will tell you that. Even the mark IV was so close in sound, it just got more technical with some separate eq where the others shared the eq across the channels. it makes sense all of them being a mark series amps, if they were vastly different they wouldn't have just swiped each version with just a magic marker swipe or a black dot or a + sign. The big difference in the IIC+ and the Mark III was the third channel. Mesa got noticeably different with the Mesa badging vs the Boogie badges. The Rectifier series,The lone star, Road King,Nomad, etc came later and did sound different... The stiletto was probably the most different being EL34 based shooting toward the Marshall tone. Even my newer Mark 5 EL84 based amp sits in my studio with the older mark III'S and it too sounds really close even all these years later with totally different power section/ tubes. The petrucci amp is a modern Mark amp and you can line up all the Mark series amps and NO one in the audience would ever know the difference and most guitar players blind folded couldn't pick them out one from the other especially with the transparent EVM 12L black shadow speaker or an MC-90 black shadow. The IIC+ landed in the right time to become the flagship vintage boogie. Thats when 80's music was huge and that amp was produced at the right time for the players who made it famous. I would argue a Mark III purple, red, blue or green could have been used by the players who made the IIC+ famous and those albums and concerts wouldn't have sounded any different.
Purple Stripe here!!
Me too bought it new in 86
Beautiful phrasing👏👏👏👏
Amazing tone, killer playing.
Sounds killer!
I once played one, which had an amazing clean sound. Tough, I'd never get a multi-channel amp with shared controls.
Hi John. As a long time Boogie user - (I've had all of the Mark series amps from 1 to 5 at various times) - I think the Mark 3 had 2 problems for most gigging musicians, not including the weight. The Mark 3 is a great sounding amp, but it needs to be very loud to get to the "sweet spot", and combining the "rhythm 2" channel with the mid control meant that it came in extremely loud when foot switching to it. There was a popular "mod" that Boogie did which made the slave out control a volume control for the rhythm 2, which made it easily controllable, but the amp still needed to be very loud to get the sweet sounds.
In my older years now I find weight should be not be a determining factor. Get a good hand truck!
none of my mark III'S ever had that problem..... mine sound killer at any volume. it's all in the volume control, if you set it correctly, there was no volume jump between channels.
Had back in the '90' a Mesa Boogie Mark 3 with Electro Voice 12" like yours for 4 years. The best sounding amp I EVER has played through. The only "drawback" was the noise from the cooling fan - and that I nearly allways played too loud (some people told me). I told them, that a Mesa i made to play LOUD
Found a blue stripe with that wicker and walnut shell , might snag it Friday
Wow wow wow that intro damn, soooo goood, instant subscribtion
There's a tonne of these on Marketplace too. I was looking for a MkI re issue, but the cleans on this sound gorgeous, and im looking for something that'll take my distrotion and fuzz pedals well.
Hey Folks, great playing, good video. But.... I owned the hard wood simul class eq combo for years, payed over 150 shows with it and...... one night it sounded great, other nights like crap. Sometimes e.g. the middle control was a hair changed and easy to deal, sometimes nothing helped. At that time there was no power conditioner. I loved it, it hated it. It broke in warenty times 2 times. Just one control layout for three sounds was a limit which the mark 4 took care of. If I would have had the knowledge of today I would not have spend that huge amount of money to buy and would not have had the experiance to sell it for less than half the money i spend. Honestly It can sound like heaven, sometimes the sound carried me away. But.... I am glad to not have to deal with it anymore.
I have never asked for a lick breakdown before but 1:13 really has my attention.
The opener was full of ripping licks, that one included!
Johnny! Use the clips thing and then I can break it down and share it from that?
@@johnnathancordy ruclips.net/user/clipUgkx1wu0zFPK-mmyzdxyIAkH58JroW7Pk1Bn
Like this?
Exactly like this! Just editing the breakdown now
Great playing as always! I've had the Mark IV for several years. Guess that one is quite similar to the Mark III?! Neverheless the lead channel was the geatest lead tone of all time but I couldn't fall in love with the clean and crunch channel. I missed the Vox like clean and crunch over there.
My current solution is a clean Laney Lionheart with the Mesa flux five pedal for crunch and lead. Best of both worlds!
Beautiful playing man - wow. Gotta get my Mark IIC+ going again…
Sick playing
I have a MK2A ( with eq) and a mk4. Both are stellar amps but you have to take your time to dial it in to have great sounds. The
Sounds amazing.
Holy mother of… I had no idea mk3 had this tone.
Oh man. Had one that got stolen early 90's. Man do I miss that amp.
You made that thing sound incredible, mostly from your playing. Was this through a load box? Cheers
THANK GOD AND YOU.
The other bad thing about the weight especially with wood and wicker is you want to protect it. So Mines in a road case . Ya more weight. But very protected. Mines a fully optioned out S O B. Basically moving 100 lbs every time. My pro tube Twin weights in at 80 lbs and is on wheels. My Lab Series L5 is also up there in weight. Funny my Behringer 300 watt 15 in speaker bass amp is the lightest at about 50 lbs.
*whispers* he’s playing the guitar
How did you record the amp? Sound great!
Awesome sounds! But the clossest to the Mark 2C+ is the Mark 3 black dot the very next 2C+ modification.
All of the Mark lll’s are Better than the llC+....
Hahaha yeah buddy lol
I own a Mesa MK III with an EVM 12L Black Shadow speaker. The clean channel sounds amazing, but the amp is very tricky to dial in.
Beautiful tone! What power and preamp tubes did you use? Thx
Hi. Whats the year of your amp? Thanks
Which version/stripe color Mark III is this? I have to know!
Which amp is #1? Great playing as usual!
Was wondering that also. 5:46. Can’t read it. Old. Also what actually qualifies for boutique? I would think of Mesa as mass produced. Small production but still.
@@bryantwalley if my eyes do not deceive me, it is a Victoria 5112. Never heard of it. Might be a more Euro amp.
I think Mesa in the mid 80s was still mail order? But in any case, yeh the list is very odd anyway!
@@johnnathancordy
I bought my llC+ and traded it for my lll blue stripe simul class in the Hollywood Store... back in the 80’s
Nothing more!
Where’s that book indeed Pete ….. still researching?
I had a mark 3 , sounded great , but way to heavy and to loud , the other guitarplayer in my band at that time used an marshall 100 w half stack and we played pretty loud , but even then i never got the amp any higher then 2 -3 on the volume and even that was already to loud at times , besides that , i lived in a flat in those times , 3 stories high and had to carry the damn thing ( with flightcase ) up the strairs , together with a extra mesa 12 " cabinet , 3 guitars and pedalboard , never gonna do that again , now i have an fender tm dr ( wich also has an nice sound and is lightweight , much better for my back wich is not to strong anymore as i am a lot older now : )
You moved so fast at 1:21 I honestly didn't see you put down the SG, get out of the chair, fetch the Strat, and get that plugged in. That was some Flash move right there.
The mark llC+ aren’t better!
Got one. Do yourself a favor and ditch the EV speaker. I put a redback in mine.
I am the original owner of an early '86 purple stripe Mark3 (Reverb/EQ),60/100 in Hardwood and Wicker.
Hate it.
Sell it to me!
Mesa Boogie is not boutique. Its just expensive.
Terrible demo