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Mesa Boogie Walkabout Mega-thread part Four!

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#821
StayLow said:
Why? The WalkAbout doesn't have a tube power section. it doesn't need a speaker load.

You'd go speaker out of the WalkAbout into the speaker-level DI (ART one costs $22) then that sends line level to your power amp.

Seems like a great idea.
Click to expand...

It being a solid state amp doesn't matter. A speaker level DI won't output any signal without a speaker connected because the DI itself has no real load on the power amp. No load means no output (which is the reason a solid state amp doesn't blow itself up when used without a speaker)- it won't hurt the Walkabout like it will a tube amp, but it also won't work as a DI!
 
#822
Sunbeast, thank you.

That makes sense, but I'm confused how these speaker DI boxes can work. The adverts I've read make no mention of anything other than 'connecting the DI to any amplifier's speaker output'. No mention of load requirements.

You described what's required in an earlier post, but could you dumb it down please? Is it the case that if there's two speaker outs on an amp, one must have a speaker or dummy load and then the other will have a signal for the speaker DI?
 
#823
The DI will simply go in between the amp and speaker in the same way that a DI on the front end goes in between the bass and your amp (using "input" and "thru" jacks). There will then be a switch that will pad the input for a speaker level signal by 30-40 dB. Using the DI on a second speaker out wouldnt work, because there still wouldn't be a noticeable load on the output to the DI (it is the load on the output that the speaker "sees").
 
#824
I just took delivery of a 4ohm Walkabout cab. In comparing the 4 ohm cab with my 8ohm cab with new Eminence 8ohm speaker from Mesa, the tonal qualities are quite different, side to side. With the Walkabout amp settings the same and using the same bass, the 4ohm Walkabout cab tone is noticeably grittier and aggressive, and more easily breaks up. By contrast, the 8ohm cab has a more pillowy quality, yet is stout on the mid control. With my Glaub and '79 Sabre, the 8ohm cab at this point wins by a fair margin. I'm guessing this has something to do with the 4ohm cab taking every bit of the amp's 300W, while the 8ohm cab only using what I understand to be about 180W of it. Really no appreciable difference in volume output that I could acertain.
 
#825
Finally got to try my walkabout scout stack at rehearsal last night... coupla observations. I'm curious how much EQ the rest of you use on these heads? For the last several weeks I've been using the single 12" combo at low volume for songwriting sessions and the tone has been great with everything run flat. At most I'd occasionally roll off a hair on the bass knob, otherwise it was all good.

But last night, using the same bass setup (precision w/ nickel rounds, played pickstyle), I had the rig running a bit louder, and with the my new 12" extension cab underneath. I felt like the tone was way too present in certain freq's -- obviously there was a massive amount of low end, so i had to trim a little around 50hz; there was some uber-present mid grossness that felt like it was punching my eardrum, but not in a good way... somewhere around 600hz IIRC; and some serious high-mid ugliness around 1.5khz. Yet the body and fullness didn't seem to quite be there. Basically I was cutting at all 3 of the above freq's, but I felt like I needed to boost around 250hz to bring in some of that fullness I like...

I will say this... at first I was playing with the gain set around noon or 12:30... for fun I dialed it up to about 2:30 and it seemed like there was a bit more fullness to the tone, i'm guessing due to tube compression.

I guess I'm just wondering how surgical you guys get with your semi-parametrics on this thing. At low volume I didn't use them at all and liked the results quite a bit, but gig volume seemed to require a lot more fine tuning, and I don't think I've quite found my tone yet.
 
#827
the eq can be really helpful, if you have a good working understanding of what freq's really do what.

some of your problem could well be a room issue, and/or amp placement issue.
 
#828
Chef said:
the eq can be really helpful, if you have a good working understanding of what freq's really do what.

some of your problem could well be a room issue, and/or amp placement issue.
Click to expand...

it is an odd room, for sure. we rehearse in a warehouse... 30 foot ceilings, the room itself is essentially a long hall full of random stuff. probably 250 feet long. been rehearsing there for 4 years though, and with my other rigs I never had too hard a time getting a good sound. on my Ashdown head I only had to make minor EQ tweaks compared to my stage sound. I'll just keep playing with it. It'll be interesting to see how my Rickenbacker interacts with this rig, once I get the bass back from the shop.
 
#829
Where are you setting your mid control? I find the mid control can really add a lot of honk if you set it too high especially at higher gain/volume settings. Turning up the gain does seem to darken the character of the tone quite a bit as well, which is part of why I prefer it to other hybrid heads I've tried in the past that can get really fizzy sounding at high gain rather than what I would consider "tubey"...
 
#830
sunbeast said:
Where are you setting your mid control? I find the mid control can really add a lot of honk if you set it too high especially at higher gain/volume settings. Turning up the gain does seem to darken the character of the tone quite a bit as well, which is part of why I prefer it to other hybrid heads I've tried in the past that can get really fizzy sounding at high gain rather than what I would consider "tubey"...
Click to expand...

I set mine around 10 o'clock.
 
#831
sunbeast said:
Where are you setting your mid control? I find the mid control can really add a lot of honk if you set it too high especially at higher gain/volume settings. Turning up the gain does seem to darken the character of the tone quite a bit as well, which is part of why I prefer it to other hybrid heads I've tried in the past that can get really fizzy sounding at high gain rather than what I would consider "tubey"...
Click to expand...

I was tweaking it a little bit, but I think it was mainly around noon or just below. I guess I had heard that noon wasn't exactly flat for the mid control (it's boost only, or something, right?), but i guess I'm trained to NOT cut the mids first, haha. Too much time on TB, I suppose. I'll try the mid knob a little lower instead of the surgical semi-parametric cutting I was trying to do.

EDIT: actually I think I tried it set a bit lower for a little while, now that i think about it. I think that was before I turned the gain up a little bit, and I remember thinking I wasn't cutting through / not enough body. I'm not sure why I had the gain set low, actually... on my ashdown i usually had that thing gritted up pretty fierce.
 
#832
I find the EQ to be deceivingly sensitive. Often times a couple of very small knob tweeks can deliver big differences.
+1 on the pull a few dB of 50 Hz.; passive mid between 9:00 and 12:00 and adjust treble for the cabinet; occasionaly I'll add a touch of 3K-4K and back down the passive treble to alter the high end focus
Think back to all the times many of us spent hours tweeking graphic or para EQ's (both at the amp or outboard) in the hopes of creating a harmonicaly rich, 3-D, sound that we heard is our heads, only to find an amp like the WA that delivers right out of the box and (IMO) is not particularly cabinet dependent.
 
#836
RickenBoogie said:
I also nudge the passive mid knob just past noon. Powerful little knob.
Click to expand...

I think the variable that might be causing my trouble is the pick attack. I'll have to try some different settings to tame the ear-popping mid attack I was getting, hopefully without losing any of the dynamic punch I like.
 
#837
I've been thinking about putting together a modular rig for lower volume gigs and also full volume gigs on smaller stages. Currently I use an M6 with a PH1000 cabinet. While this setup has cured my amp GAS it's not always the most appropriate rig for every venue. I've tried several of the micro heads and none of them have really done it for me. Many sounded good, but just seem to be missing something.

I finally tried a Walkabout today with the Bergantino AE112 and then through an AE2212. I was absolutely blown away. I think I may have found what I'm looking for in a smaller rig. My current idea is for the Walkabout with an AE112 for lower volume gigs, and then I would add an AE212 for the full volume/small stage gigs. Does anyone have any other speaker recommendations for this head? I need something with a smaller overall footprint than a full sized cabinet. I like a lot of punch with tight lows and not really any high end sizzle.
 
#839
SirDugh brought his NV610 over.
It's big, it's heavy, and Walkabout+Pbass+NV610 really maximizes P tone.

Totally not my thing, but it works really well.
 
#840
vin*tone said:
The bergs sound great. I run a pair of Aguilar DB112's which I think you'd like. They're heavier than the bergs tho.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to see if I can find one of those to try out. The weight is not a big deal, I'm mostly concerned with the width and depth. Besides the sound the thing that I liked about the Bergs was that the width and depth of the 112 of 212 are the same so I could stack them for a 312 setup. The only thing I don't like about them is the price.
 
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