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Mesa Boogie Mark IV Amp Settings
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Model Sound Comments

Short Head Metallica-esque and solid rock tone. Great sounding tone straight in with hotter pickups. Channel two may need an OD pedal with low to medium output pickups; with hotter pickups it is perfectly usable. Older A version with EVM12L speaker View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo METALLICA Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Fore Floorpodplus Comments and modifications to your Mark IV Using a closed cabinet with 2 12" Eminence legend View Settings

Short Head Steve vai's Studio Preamp sound for Mesa MK IV. Adjust Lead Gain to taste. Put 6600 just below to 2200. Sounds great on my Mark IV through an original Thiele closed back cab. View Settings

Medium Head Full, Rich sound that cuts through loud live sessions and low volume jams! These are settings that I've tinkered from playing live with loud drummers and bedroom jams with my drum machine. This setting has a full sound that is still retains clarity for open chords and also gives me clear crystal cleans. Channel 2 gain settings is aim similar to the lead channel in case I accidentally step on channel 2 instead of the 3 at times. I use a Gibson SG @ Les Paul with JB in the bridges. I run through a 2x12 Whitebox w/ v30 & ET65 speakers. View Settings

Short Head Focused, slinky, fat, organic, singing! Ok...The ACTUAL graphoic EQ settings are as follows 80 -SLIGHTLY below center line (just abover the middle point between center and next line down) 240 -1/4 over center line 750 - 3/4 over center, just under next line up 2200 -leave it, sometimes SLIGHTLYSLIGHTY boosted, mainly for a bit of added volume in that FREQ. 6600 -I usually tap it downward a tiny, barely noticeable. Use your ears for a SLIGHT reduce in treble gain. It will almost look like it is still in the middle. These settings in all channels will allow a focused lead tone in the neck, and a fat yet CLEAR singing sustaining tone in the bridge. Top three are with these settings. View Settings

Medium Head Waldi's favourite setting really fat lead + crunch, full clean View Settings

Short Head View Settings

Medium Head Clear Clean, Rhy Sound Punky, Hi Gain Nothing Special, Rev A View Settings

Short Head Winds of Plague live tone i checked out Nick Eash from Winds of Plague's live rig and wrote down his settings from the mayhem tour.. he uses 4 6l6s in the back..this should be dead on accurate. View Settings

Medium Head Loud! sounds like shit but loud as fuck View Settings

Short Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Larry Carlton style smooth tone On the graphic EQ, 80hz and 750hz should be just above centre line, and 6600hz is just below centre line. View Settings

Short Head 80'S HAIR METAL Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Medium Head James Hetfield Tone EMG81 pickups, Mesa recto cab, G12T-100 speakers, JJ EL34L tubes in outer sockets. View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Greg Howe type fusion lead setting This setting produces a very sensitive lead sound with incredible singing upper-harmonics and sustain. Playing with the eq in on the lead channel will give you a violin-like fusion tone, whereas taking out the eq will give you more of a traditional rock lead tone - the best of both worlds! View Settings

Short Head smooth gain Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo All round great tone! Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Mark Morton's actual bottom row settings Do a google image search for "Mark Morton Mark IV" and you'll find a picture of his Mark IV with the actual settings for the bottom row written in marker. He is also on the Mesa Boogie website talking about his amp settings. View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Best tone I've ever gotten (No metal sound) Great VERSATILE Rock Tone (secret) use attenuator and get the tubes working This setting is to be used for amazing versatile rock tones (no metallica stuff). I have two el34 on the outside 6L6 on the inside. This would work in both configurations though. I use a weber 100 watt mass lite between the amp and the cabinet that allows me to crank the amp more. This is why the gain settings are so low. When you can crank the amp up the gain increases dramatically and you don't need to turn the gain up nearly as much, which in turn, allows the amp to be less noisy.. I also have the master volumes cranked more in general to get the pre amps working hard to output more gain. The output level can be really low and it still sounds good. It's best when it can be around 3-5. WIthout attenuator it can really hurt your ears........ I also have a 8 ohm ceramic tone tubby swapped out in the cabinet instead of the EV speaker that comes with it. WAY warmer and handles low end better. View Settings

Short Head live metal show i run the master/output levels fairly loud because i use my DBX-266 as master volume control through the effects loop View Settings

Medium Head Crystal, Vintage Crunch, Metal Lead EQ and Output to taste. View Settings

Medium Head Newer Chuncky Metallica Run active pickups and V30 speakers. View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Children of Bodom tone Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head invader bridge PU metal but rich View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo metallica clean and metallica lead clean with a neck pickup sounds like classic metallica high gain using 4 mesa 6L6 tubes View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo stephen's Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Mark motherfucking morton Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Rackmount Head with all 6L6 Tubes all 6L6's View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Metallica High Gain View Settings

Medium Head Fat Clean, Overdrive and Crunch Mark IV medium head with 4x12 halfback cabinet circa 1992. View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Luke + Mk4 These are the sound settings for my Musicman Luke and MK4. Sounds amazing!! View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Boogies suggested settings Good Starting spot! View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Fat Clean/ Chunky Rythm/ Classic Boogie Lead I use all Gibson's. This setting was done with my Warren Haynes 58'les Paul with Burstbucker's. View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Fat Clean/ Chunky Rythm/ Classic Boogie Lead Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Perfect Lamb of God Tone 6L6's on the outside, and EL34's on the inside. View Settings

Short Head Perfect Lamb of God Tone Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Medium Head Petrucci/Smooth Lead Here are my Lead tone settings for my Lines in the Sand YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow1GGJQrSuE View Settings

Medium Head Thick RHY2 and LEAD Petrucci/Maillard tone I use a maxon OD808 to open up the sound alittle bit. It sounds best with an overdrive pedal in front of it. It's got tight lead, nice and punchy RHY. Best fit for metal, pretty high gain! Enjoy! View Settings

Short Head quite metal mesa 12ax7 and JJ electronics 6l6 GC and Sovtek 6l6 GB View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Musicola Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo MK4 Settings Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Fluid lead gain, very tight and agressive! Petrucci like I don't use reverb, just delay for my leads and mostly dry for my crunch tones! If you find you need more gain just pull out the lead 2 pull bright and switch to midgain on the back and maybe even triode!! View Settings

Short Head Clean, Dirtier, Crunch I use this to play in a Classic Rock/Party band. I use a Boss ME-50 multi-effects unit on the input and kick on a little distortion to give Rhy2 and Lead channels more gain when needed. This way I have 5 stages of distortion. I kick in the EQ for solos. View Settings

Medium Head clean/acdc/metallicrunch black with with emg 81-bridge, 60 neck View Settings

Medium Head Full bodied crunch rhythm tone!!! Made by me for my band, I find it's really thick sounding and is basically a HUGE metal rhythm sound! Good for tight riffs and big power chords View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo my Mark IV eats Rectos for breakfast !!! Shift the 80hz slider upwards until your sound is thick enough for your cabinet, then shift the 6600hz slider up one milimeter. And now turn up your master volume... BAAMM !!! I use a Mark IV w/ T.C. Electronic G-System (for further equalizing and noisegate) and play 7 string PRS and Music Man guitars as well as a '56 Custom Shop Time Machine Series Strat. View Settings

Short Head fuzz,distortion Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head fuzz,distortion Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Medium Head Full clean sound, Crunchy R2, Sweet Smooth Lead, Alternate Rhythm with Lead/EQ I use a digitech digital delay in the loop set for R1 and Lead, Level-3 Repeats-2 Length-6 Setting-2, this helps fill things up and smooth things out even more. I use the Lead/EQ for a metal rhythm channel. I use an RG1527 with EVO7 in the bridge for this setting. This might be a good start for anyone to build from as well. View Settings

Short Head Metallica Master of Puppets Translated the settings from Rasmussens C+ notes to Mk IV settings. Adjust to guitar and taste, and ofcourse, your Mk4 is not a C+. View Settings

Medium Head Thiago Campos - Lead Over the past few weeks I've received many msgs asking for the settings I used on a couple of videos I posted on youtube. I don't remember 'exactly' what they were on each specific video but I assure it was similar to what I have now. I do minor tweaks every now and then as I too am looking for the perfect tone. These are just settings for the 'Lead' Channel and the 'back of the amp'. I wasn't using any graphic EQ on the videos. In fact, I'm loving my tone without it most of the time. These settings are pretty straight forward, no rocket science here. I hope it helps! View Settings

Medium Head Close to a Foo Fighters sound Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Rackmount Head Pennywise - Land of the Free? / From the Ashes View Settings

Medium Head Clean - AC/DC - VH R1 (fairly clean). R2 (nice dirt like AC/DC). Lead channel just comes alive like VH. I use the lead channel as a rhythym channel too. I play with the EQ OFF. Pay close attention to my EQ settings because when I need a volume boost, I step on the EQ button. That is the only time I use the EQ, for solos. View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Sparkly Clean/Highway To Hell/Lukatheresque No modifications to MK4. Using custom built strat similar to valley arts with EMG's (2nr SA's,1nr 85 Humbucker). Enjoy! View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo CLASSIC L.A. Mesa Mark IVa factory setting. This is the best tone I have ever heard from the Mark IV! View Settings

Rackmount Head fender clean, mesa crunch,JP lead Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Master of Puppets 'Recto-ish' Mark sound 6600 in the EQ is just below centre line, 80 is just below top line. This is an extremely brutal setting for both meaty riffage and soloing. This setting works brilliantly for both mic'ed and direct line-out recording! View Settings

Medium Head Heavy Rock (chevelle-ish) [Bright/Loose/Tight] NOTE: I was not able to denote that I have the lead ch. presence knob pulled out for shift. These are settings I have tweaked with and finally found something I like a lot. The cleans sound nice and bright, with just a slight amount of break up. The Rhythm2 channel sounds kindof loose, yet retains a nice definition with a good rigid distortion. The lead channel I fought with for a while to remove some high-end flab/grittyness/buzz I was getting with my rig. It sounds excellent, has a rich rigid, defined, good heavy rock and even metal sound. I will be doing recording later if I can maybe add it to this record View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Great rhythm 1 clean, O.K. Rhythm 2Clean, Awsome Crunch I have the E.V. speaker, Ruby 12AX7's,Groove Tubes EL34's outer sockets, and Electro Harmonix 6L6's inner sockets. I don't really use the E.Q. much except for the occasional boost. View Settings

Medium Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV JAN NOS 5751 in V1 Mesa 5881 power tubes RYTHM 1: BLUES BABY RYTHM 2: "tie yer mother down" LEAD: Santana "Europa" sustain (use neck pickup and roll guitar tone pot down some) View Settings

Medium Head Glassy Cleans , Crunchy Rhythm and THICK ROUND LEAD Lead sound reminds me of "circles" from Surfing with the alien - Joe Satriani album. Works well with my strat and in any Class A, Harmonics.. etc mode View Settings

Rackmount Head clean/swampy/heavy Made with 2003 brazilian Rosewood PRS so sounds may vary. The swampy (R2) might be too muddy for other guitars so eq as needed :) View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo classic rock with santana blues lead Comments and modifications to your Mark IV i'm using 6v6 power tubes on tweed power. amp is stk View Settings

Short Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo High gain lead - "thick" 80's metal Ibanez 7420 (w/ToneZone) -> Mark IV -> Mesa Standard 4x12 -> Audix I5 (mic .5" from grille, 1" straight up from upper-right speaker cone) View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Eric Johnson! I'm using stock tubes, all Sovteks in the preamp and 6L6's in the power amp. With an EJ Strat and some delay, this is so close to his sound! Bell like when clean, a nice fat rhythm and a very smooth lead. Still in you face. Turn it up! View Settings

Rackmount Head Chili-R1; Warm Dist-R2; EXT Raunch-L Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo hi-gain rhythm/harmonically rich lead Played through an Ibanez prestige w/seymour duncans & a Boss dd3 for a liquid-smooth distortion. View Settings

Short Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Chunky Metal - Full Clean Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Clean / Guns'n'Roses-ACDC Crunch / Metallica (enter sandman ) - Vai ( Attitude song) MODERN Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Heavy Death Metal Tone This what I use when playing in my band, we play like Lamb of God, As I lay Dying shit View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Crystal-clear clean tone & singing lead tone Only use the E.Q when playing the lead channel (punch LD-EQ on the footswitch). The clean channel should be played without E.Q. I have deliberately left out channel 2, as I haven't yet found an ideal setting for this channel. Happy playing! View Settings

Medium Head 1 Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Satriani/Vai Tone After purchasing my MkIV it took me a long while to dial in a good Satriani-style setting for melodic guitar lines. After a while though I realised that the tubes worked harder when played at lower practice volumes if you set the masters low and the output high (or as high as you want, it's best to save those ear-drums!). This setting enables you to play smooth legato lines, and singing string bend vibrato notes, perfect for instrumental rock applications ala Satriani/Vai. If you dial in these settings (especially the lead settings), you are guaranteed a great melodic distortion sound at lower volumes. Have fun! View Settings

Short Head my sound Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Medium Head Clean/Crunch/Searing Using Mesa 6L6 in all sockets. Cabinets are 2x12 half open/closed back Mesa's. Using a Carvin DC200 guitar circa 1984 View Settings

Short Head Metallica Tone in Lead Channel, Warm R2, Bright R1 Using all 6L6 tubes and 12AX7 preamp tubes. View Settings

Short Head Mid to High Gain Rhythm Sound 2x6L6 tubes and 2xEL34 Tubes. All Mesa Brand. And stock preamp tubes. I use 2x12 Cab with Celestion Classic Lead 80 speakers. I use this tone for low volume mic recordings and late night practices. Its a great low volume sound and with a little tweaking can be great for Loud gigs too. Not much gain and obtains the clarity although its somewhat on the saggy side so you better have some tone in your fingers ;) If your using V30's i'd suggest you decrease high frequencies to fit your taste. And maybe add a little more mid frequencies. View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Live sounds 2 Live Rig. Settings 2 View Settings

Medium Head Petrucci esque tones Comments and modifications to your Mark IV Used with a EB/MM Petrucci model guitar and Mesa Recto cabs. View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Good three channel set up for rock, blues replaced Celsetion w/EVM12L and use Canare GS-6 for amp head to speaker connection. Also use JJ tubes with EL34s in the end sockets View Settings

Short Head My Regular Live Settings View Settings

Short Head gritty clean, punchy rhy2, complex lead I prefer the sound through 4 x 12 View Settings

1x12 Compact Combo Great classicRock sound and Old Santana lead sound. I own a Mark IV combo..(not a widebody). It has the EV speaker & I run a 1x12 boogie theile cab with a EV speaker as well. Between the open back on the combo and the Closed ported sound on the ext Cab. This just oozes tone. I play a Les paul Classic and Custom. The MarkIV has mesa tubes in it. Two EL34's...and Two 6L6's. But sometimes I use all four 6L6's. Just depends. I play everything from AC/DC to ZZTOP. Boogies are awesome amps. View Settings

Short Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Rackmount Head Comments and modifications to your Mark IV View Settings

Short Head Hendrix/ACDC/Petrucci Peavey Wolfgang EXP -> Mark IV short head -> Avatar G212H Custom (v30/G12h30). This is for bedroom practice level. Everything Stock. View Settings

Medium Head This settings are for low volumes Use a humbucking guitar. View Settings

Short Head Good clean, rockin R2, Searing R3 Comments and modifications to your Mark IV Placed a 1uf cathode cap on R2 3rd gain stage replacing 15uf cap for tighter/less bass in overdrive. I think it helped View Settings

1x12 Widebody Combo Balanced clean/rhythm/lead Stock Sovtek 6L6s (430s) with 1 twelve wide body extention cabinet. These settings give a nice balanced sound for single and humbucking pickups. View Settings

Short Head super clean sound / big brown sound Comments and modifications to your Mark IV GUITAR Music Man Axis(EVH) CABINETS : Mesa 2x12 recto and Marshall 4x12 loaded with 2 Celestion V30 on top and 2 Celestion G12H-30 on the bottom View Settings

All Out Agro From Mesa Boogie Mark IV manual, factory setting. View Settings

Twang/Purr/Sing From the Mesa Boogie Mark IV manual. View Settings

Blues/Grind/Sear From the Mesa Boogie Mark IV manual. View Settings

Vintage Clean/Clip/Howl Factory settings from the Mesa Boogie Mark IV manual. View Settings

Clean/Crunch/Lead Factory Settings from Mesa Boogie Mark IV manual. View Settings