Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread Part 10

[Al Kraft]

Should I look at replacing the 4ohm speaker in my WA Scout to an 8 ohm?

I think agedhorse mentioned that there was an 8 Ohm replacement you can get from Mesa that has a little higher sensitivity than the original speakers and sounds a bit better than the original 4 or 8 Ohm.

 

[agedhorse]

Should I look at replacing the 4ohm speaker in my WA Scout to an 8 ohm?

If you are just using it with only the Walkabout head, it's not a big deal but if you want to use the cabinet with a larger amp, absolutely.

 

[Christophe C]

Hi
Question on the different options to record my bass from the Walkabout.
I have a Focusrite Scarlet i212 and when I need to record my bass, I plug it directly in. The sound is good, no noise, and good enough to listen to my mistakes and try to improve my play.
As an experiment, I tried to plug the bass in my walkabout and connect the amp to the focusrite from the DI output on back of the amp head. It works but there is some noise and the record is not as clean as when I plug my bass directly in the focusrite... Are there some tips to improve this ?

 

[agedhorse]

If you are using the post eq signal, there are a lot of tube gain stages in the path which do have some noise. The pre eq path will be quieter.

 

[Christophe C]

If you are using the post eq signal, there are a lot of tube gain stages in the path which do have some noise. The pre eq path will be quieter.

I don’t see a switch for pre or post. How do I select this ?

 

[agedhorse]

I don’t see a switch for pre or post. How do I select this ?

Sorry, I was thinking about the WD-800, which addressed this issue with the post eq DI on the Walkabout.

At one time, there was a pre eq modification available for the Walkabout, which accomplished much the same thing.

 

[treyandres]

Hi
Question on the different options to record my bass from the Walkabout.
I have a Focusrite Scarlet i212 and when I need to record my bass, I plug it directly in. The sound is good, no noise, and good enough to listen to my mistakes and try to improve my play.
As an experiment, I tried to plug the bass in my walkabout and connect the amp to the focusrite from the DI output on back of the amp head. It works but there is some noise and the record is not as clean as when I plug my bass directly in the focusrite... Are there some tips to improve this ?

Did you try the ground lift? Mine records quite nicely from the DI through my EIE Pro. Not much extra noise and a whole lotta nice warm overtones.

 

[sunbeast]

I don’t see a switch for pre or post. How do I select this ?

The Walkabout (unless it was modded) has a DI that picks up the signal after the Master Volume control. There is gain and possibly noise added at multiple levels in the preamp up to that point, and so you may have to experiment somewhat with the DI Output level vs the Master Volume level to find the best signal to noise ratio. I love recording from the DI of the Walkabout with the Master pushed to around halfway specifically because of added saturation to the tone, but if you do this you may need to lower the DI Level control (or possibly adjust the input sensitivity of your interface). For a cleaner/clearer tone you’ll want to run the Master and Gain lower and raise the DI Level control.
Also of course check the “Ground Lift” switch as suggested above!).

 

[gillento]

Mine sounds great as well using the regular post EQ DI.

 

[Christophe C]

Ok. I tried the ground lift and it was Already on the good setting. Then yes I have to play with di level and master and gain but there is always a little noise.
i will continue to test

 

[treyandres]

Could be worth rolling some tubes too. Maybe you have noisy one.

 

[sunbeast]

Ok. I tried the ground lift and it was Already on the good setting. Then yes I have to play with di level and master and gain but there is always a little noise.
i will continue to test

If all else fails, you can try swapping each tube one at a time in case the tubes may be noisy. I've never found my Walkabout DI to be a particularly noisy one, but the amp itself can be depending on settings and gain structure and that DI picks up all of it including that pushed second tube if you are pushing the Master Volume.

 

[Leo was right]

"In-Line XLR Attenuator Pad 20dB" from www.parts-express.com!

Something like this could solve the problem of too much gain and noise using the post eq D.I.

 

[mikeswals]

Could be worth rolling some tubes too. Maybe you have noisy one.

Yup. This would have been my first task.

 

[pfschim]

another WA user here who uses its post EQ DI without any issues related to noise. I have brought the WA to sessions here and there and it always gets praises for its great tone and none at all about excessive noise.

as others have said, perhaps the OP is dealing with a noisy tube or something else in his signal chain.

hope this works out, the WA is such a great amp, and a killer recording amp too IMO/IME.

 

[gillento]

another WA user here who uses its post EQ DI without any issues related to noise. I have brought the WA to sessions here and there and it always gets praises for its great tone and none at all about excessive noise.

as others have said, perhaps the OP is dealing with a noisy tube or something else in his signal chain.

hope this works out, the WA is such a great amp, and a killer recording amp too IMO/IME.

+1 here

 

[Al Kraft]

another WA user here who uses its post EQ DI without any issues related to noise. I have brought the WA to sessions here and there and it always gets praises for its great tone and none at all about excessive noise.

as others have said, perhaps the OP is dealing with a noisy tube or something else in his signal chain.

hope this works out, the WA is such a great amp, and a killer recording amp too IMO/IME.

+1 for me as well.

 

[WoodyJ]

My original owner, as new Walkabout Scout 12 is for sale. Here's the link: For Sale - Mesa Walkabout Scout 12

 

[Leo was right]

D.I. out issues.

Both my BB750 and my Walkabout have the same minor issue, the two small electrolytics capacitors at the D.I. out are poped like they have been strucked by a reverse or higher than expected voltage, which can be the case if they accidentaly positive received Phantom 48v. from a mixing board, these cap are rated 16v. and are polarised with negative out so we can imagine that they don't like it.

Conclusion: If you find that your D.I out doesn't sound the way it should, have a look at these little caps near the xlr connector, if the top is not flat (curved) as some others caps in the amp, change it, preferably with some rated 63v. with positive leads in direction of the XLR.

 

[Diddywah]

another WA user here who uses its post EQ DI without any issues related to noise. I have brought the WA to sessions here and there and it always gets praises for its great tone and none at all about excessive noise.

as others have said, perhaps the OP is dealing with a noisy tube or something else in his signal chain.

hope this works out, the WA is such a great amp, and a killer recording amp too IMO/IME.

Yepp