Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

[sunbeast]

I've had good luck running a preamp into the Walkabout FX return- you still get the benefit of that driver tube mojo, but the tone is generally brighter and a bit more refined than using the Walkabout preamp which seems to darken and otherwise contour the tone noticeably even when set "flat"-ish. I like running other pres into the front of the Walkabout, but often find myself cranking the Treble for the tones I want (unless said pres have a strong bright boost as it is).

 

[Leo was right]

Few minutes ago I ran my Tech21 ParaDriver into the fx loop of my BB750 and I am surprise how good the Jbass and the Stingray is crisp and warm in the same time, another discovery.

Special thanks to LOMO for his help.

Last week I was in a g.a.s syndrom, unable to dial a satisfying tone on my setup, so I contact LOMO, seeing that he live in the same area than me, to ask him few questions about his evaluations on Mesa products he his familiar to. The exchange was generous, he kindly offer me to have access to his gear but due to Covid19 we keep this option for the future. Most important, it permits me to recover the tone I lost cause of bad setting and understand what I did wrong.

Two thumbs up man!

 

[treyandres]

I've had good luck running a preamp into the Walkabout FX return- you still get the benefit of that driver tube mojo, but the tone is generally brighter and a bit more refined than using the Walkabout preamp which seems to darken and otherwise contour the tone noticeably even when set "flat"-ish. I like running other pres into the front of the Walkabout, but often find myself cranking the Treble for the tones I want (unless said pres have a strong bright boost as it is).

I like to run the WA pre DI into the effects return/amp in of one of my class D amps. Just got done hammering on it this evening running into the return of my humble Rumble 500 backup head that I carry to gigs and use for home practice. I still don’t understand why we can’t just have the old school WA pre going into a class D power section. It sounds absolutely amazing to me. It’s as close to the sound in my head as I’ve ever heard. And I have a Monique 700 to play with. It spends most of its time at home in the bag because I’d rather play live through my WA or my Bassman 500. If I could have a 7-800 watt class D power section transplanted into a WA running off the same signal as the DI, I’d be stoked and I doubt I would ever want for another amp. I love the WA pre. It’s my sound.

 

[Chef]

Have you tried the WD800?

 

[treyandres]

Have you tried the WD800?

Yep. Bought one of the first 100. Sold it about a month later. It’s not a WA front end. Good amp, but not a WA.

 

[bumble yeti]

I like to run the WA pre DI into the effects return/amp in of one of my class D amps. Just got done hammering on it this evening running into the return of my humble Rumble 500 backup head that I carry to gigs and use for home practice. I still don’t understand why we can’t just have the old school WA pre going into a class D power section. It sounds absolutely amazing to me. It’s as close to the sound in my head as I’ve ever heard. And I have a Monique 700 to play with. It spends most of its time at home in the bag because I’d rather play live through my WA or my Bassman 500. If I could have a 7-800 watt class D power section transplanted into a WA running off the same signal as the DI, I’d be stoked and I doubt I would ever want for another amp. I love the WA pre. It’s my sound.

Hmm. My niece has a Rumble 500. Helped her pick it out. I wonder…

 

[bumble yeti]

Re: Tube Rolling. Kinda settled on a couple EXH 12AX7's.
Like the stacked Tung-Sol reissues. Big and warm.
Like the JJ with Tung-Sol reissue for dirty.
Why the EXH 12AX7's? I'm blending clean and dirty pedal signals and really like the warm compression I get with the EHX's.
Never tried any NOS tubes. One hole I don't wanna go down.

 

[treyandres]

I have the original Mesa Chinese 1 in the first socket with a Mesa JJ replacing the Mesa Russian 2 in the second socket. Seems to have more going on sonically.

 

[MarkA]

I like to run the WA pre DI into the effects return/amp in of one of my class D amps. Just got done hammering on it this evening running into the return of my humble Rumble 500 backup head that I carry to gigs and use for home practice. I still don’t understand why we can’t just have the old school WA pre going into a class D power section. It sounds absolutely amazing to me. It’s as close to the sound in my head as I’ve ever heard. And I have a Monique 700 to play with. It spends most of its time at home in the bag because I’d rather play live through my WA or my Bassman 500. If I could have a 7-800 watt class D power section transplanted into a WA running off the same signal as the DI, I’d be stoked and I doubt I would ever want for another amp. I love the WA pre. It’s my sound.

Have you tried the WD800?

Yep. Bought one of the first 100. Sold it about a month later. It’s not a WA front end. Good amp, but not a WA.

Someone, years back, did exactly this (installed a high-powered class D amp in his Walkabout) and made a thread about it. I want to say he was Italian -- at least someone not in the U.S. -- but I don't recall for sure and did not turn up the thread with a quick search.

How successful this would be (assuming you know what you're doing and safely dot all your is and cross your ts) would, I imagine, depend on which aspects of the WA's behavior you hoped to retain at high volume.

I do remember being awfully intrigued by it at the time, though. Anyone else recall the thread I'm talking about? I think it predates the Subway amps.

 

[Chef]

I do not.

 

[Leo was right]

I like to run the WA pre DI into the effects return/amp in of one of my class D amps. Just got done hammering on it this evening running into the return of my humble Rumble 500 backup head that I carry to gigs and use for home practice. I still don’t understand why we can’t just have the old school WA pre going into a class D power section. It sounds absolutely amazing to me. It’s as close to the sound in my head as I’ve ever heard. And I have a Monique 700 to play with. It spends most of its time at home in the bag because I’d rather play live through my WA or my Bassman 500. If I could have a 7-800 watt class D power section transplanted into a WA running off the same signal as the DI, I’d be stoked and I doubt I would ever want for another amp. I love the WA pre. It’s my sound.

IMHO, it is a lot simpler to carry your small Rumble amp and a 1/4'' cable than cannibalizing your WA, I experiment this situation few years ago, a friend of mine bring me a Mpulse600 in several pieces supposed to be non-reparable and I got on a shelf a 1000 watts Class D module that could fit physically inside, that started the project but between the idea and realise it in neat clean fashion it is a lot of hours of work, finally I let down all this project and repaired (all original) the 600 which is my go to amp now. OK you have to carry one more box but there is nothing wrong with this if you like the way it sound. .

 

[Al Kraft]

How successful this would be (assuming you know what you're doing and safely dot all your is and cross your ts) would, I imagine, depend on which aspects of the WA's behavior you hoped to retain at high volume.

Given my understanding of the WA and M-Pulse line in general (where the bigger brother amps with quite similar preamps do not sound like bigger WA's) I think you hit the nail on the head. Based on discussions with Andy during his WD design work, I suspect he would say pretty much the same thing albeit in a more frustrated sounding tone.

 

[treyandres]

IMHO, it is a lot simpler to carry your small Rumble amp and a 1/4'' cable than cannibalizing your WA, I experiment this situation few years ago, a friend of mine bring me a Mpulse600 in several pieces supposed to be non-reparable and I got on a shelf a 1000 watts Class D module that could fit physically inside, that started the project but between the idea and realise it in neat clean fashion it is a lot of hours of work, finally I let down all this project and repaired (all original) the 600 which is my go to amp now. OK you have to carry one more box but there is nothing wrong with this if you like the way it sound. .

No doubt, and that’s what I do when I need more volume. The Rumble is always along for the ride anyway. Thankfully, I found a very efficient cab that sounds good to my ears in the Ag SL112, so it has become mostly unnecessary. Gain at noon, Master between 9 and noon is usually as much as I need. That keeps the tone in the sweet spot for me. No way am I hacking up my WA. But still wish there was one in existence that had the same pre with class D power.

 

[agedhorse]

I did mate a WA to a class D power amp as one of the early iterations in the WD design. It had little of the feel and only a moderate amount of the tone of the WA and still contained some of the negative artifacts of the WA the we didn't care for, plus some new ones too.

The WD is not identical to the WA, that was not the intention. It is certainly INSPIRED by the WA and is how we would have wanted the WA to evolve at the beginning had the technology been capable.

This is much the same as the process behind the development of the TT-800. It's heavily inspired by both the Bass 400/400+ and the Subway D-800+ but unique in some ways as well where it extends the usefulness or improves the real world performance.

The HPF feature alone, for example, is a game changer for the Boogie channel. If it "could" have been done on the Bass 400/400+, it would have been a totally different (in a good way) amp and might have lasted even longer in production. If you were to try a Bass 400 with an external HPF, you would be shocked at how much more capable the amp was, especially into that vintage of cabinet. (Actually, the same can be said about the WA too)

 

[mikeswals]

I do remember being awfully intrigued by it at the time, though. Anyone else recall the thread I'm talking about? I think it predates the Subway amps.

Yes, it was many pages back right here in this Walkabout Megathread.

Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

 

[MarkA]

Yes, it was many pages back right here in this Walkabout Megathread.

Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

Yes! I just this second found it -- got the idea to search my own posts in this thread, thinking that I might have reacted to it if it were posted here (I did). If only I were a little faster, I might have managed to look cool for once. Despite the blow to my ego, I thank you very much for searching and turning it up!

Edit: The post is more recent than I thought -- does not predate the Subway amps, though does the WD.

 

[MarkA]

Given my understanding of the WA and M-Pulse line in general (where the bigger brother amps with quite similar preamps do not sound like bigger WA's) I think you hit the nail on the head. Based on discussions with Andy during his WD design work, I suspect he would say pretty much the same thing albeit in a more frustrated sounding tone.

Well, a lot (most) of the discussion in this thread, especially a few years back, re. a "higher powered Walkabout" had to do with the difficulty in scaling up whatever phenomena take place within that amp to make it feel and sound a certain way at different volume levels. I tried running the WA into a separate poweramp and it did, indeed, sound and feel different (less "bounce"). I didn't like it as much, but it was not a bad tone -- if someone dug that and wanted a stiffer feel in the amp, I could (at the risk of sounding sacrilegious) even see them preferring it to the stock WA, but, yeah, not the same. Less rich (a little thinner-sounding?) and stiffer is how I recall it, but it's been awhile.

I did mate a WA to a class D power amp as one of the early iterations in the WD design. It had little of the feel and only a moderate amount of the tone of the WA and still contained some of the negative artifacts of the WA the we didn't care for, plus some new ones too.

The WD is not identical to the WA, that was not the intention. It is certainly INSPIRED by the WA and is how we would have wanted the WA to evolve at the beginning had the technology been capable.

This is much the same as the process behind the development of the TT-800. It's heavily inspired by both the Bass 400/400+ and the Subway D-800+ but unique in some ways as well where it extends the usefulness or improves the real world performance.

The HPF feature alone, for example, is a game changer for the Boogie channel. If it "could" have been done on the Bass 400/400+, it would have been a totally different (in a good way) amp and might have lasted even longer in production. If you were to try a Bass 400 with an external HPF, you would be shocked at how much more capable the amp was, especially into that vintage or cabinet. (Actually, the same can be said about the WA too)

I've never played a 400/400+. Would like to try one someday. I was talking with another player about his, a few days ago, and, based on our conversation, suggested that he try an HPF with it. I am going to send him this post in support of that.

 

[treyandres]

I did mate a WA to a class D power amp as one of the early iterations in the WD design.

May I have it?

 

[MarkA]

This discussion reminded me of an idea I had, for running the WA with a slave amp in a way that should in theory, retain more of its vibe and feel at higher volumes. It requires two cabs (one of which will be driven directly by the WA, which is key) and you lose the WA DI for FOH (but, depending on the configuration of the slave amp, might be able to send to FOH via its DI).

I didn't have my WA anymore when I thought of this, so I didn't get to try it, personally, but @pfschim gave it a go.

Here are some of the relevant posts from that discussion:

I had a Walkabout, but it's been awhile. I know that I tried running the DI into a poweramp. Can't recall if I did that with the effects send. DI-to-poweramp was good, but not the same. I'm not sure where in the circuit the FX loop is.

Here's a thought, though, based on two premises: 1) D.I. out is post-everything 2) Walkabout character, sonically and in terms of feel, is based on how hard the power section is being pushed (this has been discussed here) and, maybe, on a somewhat tube-amp-like interaction with a reactive speaker load? (This last part I'm unsure of, but I'd guess, tube-amp-like or no, there is still some difference between how it would react to speakers vs. a simple power-soak, which would in-turn affect the signal to the D.I..)

In any case, my proposal is this: If running the WA with an 8 Ohm 1x12 atop a 4 Ohm 2x12 (or similar setup), let the WA drive the 8 Ohm cab and a separate poweramp (driven by the DI or the effects send, if suitable) drive the other cab. That will let the Walkabout "work" a bit without being responsible for all the volume or having to be pushed into the "wool" zone (unless you want that).

If my hunch is right, that'll translate some more of the WA vibe to the slaved amp. Or not. Downside -- would require two or more cabs. @agedhorse: What do you think, Andy -- is there something to this, or am I off-base? If someone already has a poweramp (or another amp they can slave), I figure it's worth a shot.

Another option to consider was suggested by @bucephylus in @pfschim's gear-reflection and asceticism thread. Namely, that a post-everything preamp output be retro-fitted to a Walkabout, if possible. (Or included in the Jogabout, Roustabout, or whatever a Walkabout successor might be called, if one comes to be.)

Additional amp and cab(s) would extend the maximum volume while retaining the WA vibe. Not a practical solution for many, but certainly for some.

Yeah, I'm not sure that I'd want to do it, myself, though I've carried some heavier amps around.

I'm wondering, for those talking about running their WA as a pre into a poweramp anyway, if letting the WA drive one of the cabs would somehow get more of the "vibe" through to the poweramp -- would the interaction with the speaker affect what's coming out of the DI differently than just turning up the master, with no cab attached?

As long as I was experimenting with running the WA DI into the D800+ and Demeter power sections, I thought I'd try MarkA's suggestion and let the WA drive one cab and "slaved" power amp drive the other cab - instead of just letting the slave amp drive both cabs. The idea is that there would be a pure WA flavor and then a WA-like flavor from the power amp.

I ran this set-up with both the Demeter and the D800+ with the WA driving an 80hm Berg CN112, and the other amp driving a 4ohm CN212.
Again, the Demeter sounded more transparently like the Walkabout whereas the D800+ retained some of its native voice (not sure how or why).

Results, as predicted, are an even more 800w Walkabout sounding rig (in fact, wouldn't it be a 965w Walkabout with the WA driving the 112 @ 8ohms ?)
This set-up provides a very big, clean and deep sound where the native Walkabout voice predominates much more than when using the WA FX send or even the WA DI into the external power amp driving both cabs. On its face, it could be more gear than many would want to mess with and it does take the WA DI out of action for driving FOH. But, both the amps I tried this with are quite small/light and really would not present much added stuff to haul to the right gig. As far as DI goes, you can do any number of things; DI from your bass, use a speaker level DI from the WA driven cab, DI from the parallel out on a VT Deluxe pedal or something similar etc.....

So, I'm pretty happy with this approach and will try it out on a gig next weekend with a power trio and see how it goes.

great suggestion MarkA

 

[treyandres]

I tried running the WA into a separate poweramp and it did, indeed, sound and feel different (less "bounce"). I didn't like it as much, but it was not a bad tone -- if someone dug that and wanted a stiffer feel in the amp, I could (at the risk of sounding sacrilegious) even see them preferring it to the stock WA, but, yeah, not the same. Less rich (a little thinner-sounding?) and stiffer is how I recall it, but it's been awhile.

Yeah, I actually like how it tightens up with the class D power. I don’t like the WA past noon. It’s too mushy. And yes, the feel is less ‘bouncy’, but that’s not my favorite part of the tone anyway. What works for me is it has to come out of the DI with that output knob sitting at noon or or higher, then it sounds huge. If I take the signal from the effects send, it’s thin and sounds bad. Only problem is, I lose my DI. So it only works when I need more volume, but don’t need the DI. If I need more stage volume AND I need a DI, I just grab the Bassman 500. It’s my second favorite sound anyway. Very classic Fender Bassman, but with a tight bottom end. I guess I like a tight bottom.