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Mesa Subway D-350!

#861
Michael Vee said:
I don't know that I understand exactly what that all meant, but I do know that I have played the D-350 with both my very-active Steinberger with rounds, EMG HBCS pickups and BTC tone controls, and with my Ibanez AFB200 passive bass with Chromes. They are pretty much opposite of each other tonally.

I left all four EQs at noon and listened to both basses with the Contour off, 1/4, half, 3/4, and all the ay up. It's a very useful range of tones on both basses, with the EQ slightly adjusted additionally to taste.

It's not a simple "more vintage" control, because those controls on other amps were more of a treble roll-off. That's not what this contour does. It's not really a mid-scoop, either.
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This was the dilemma we had when trying to be more precise in our description for the voicing control with either our engineer or musician hats on. While things like the EQ, HPF, power output, and other functions/aspects can be described in terms of specifics (like frequency, Q, slope of a curve, Watts, etc.), the voicing control is very interactive and multi-dimensional in its effect relative to control position.

At the end of the discussions we came to the consensus that a hybrid description that was a little bit technical but more focused on the design intent of the control would best prepare people to begin experimenting with it and finding their own insights into what it could do for them. While that may sound like a bit of a cop out, we believed it was consistent with Andy's guiding thought that we needed to produce a manual that enabled musicians to get the most out of the amp and its features. In retrospect, maybe a sample curve might have been helpful, but even that would have not done justice to the unique, dynamic nature of the filter IMO.

Bottom line...we tried to convey what we felt would be most helpful for a musician to discover and understand exactly the kind of thing that the post I'm responding to said. After gaining that more intuitive insight we felt people would then be able to easily use the control to meet their various tone goals with different basses and/or cabs. I'm confident that Chef would have said all that better,...and with fewer words! :)
 
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#862
Thank you, Al. I have enjoyed the D-350 a lot already, here at the house, at a jam last Saturday at a friend's, and am looking forward to using it for a musical theatre production in late July. As I said, the contour is really interesting to me tonally. As the manual says, start with the contour, and sculpt with the EQ. That's right.

God bless Alan Loshbaugh. He was the best.
 
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#864
Wild Rice Chris said:
I tried the D-350 and Subway 112 with an archtop guitar (1967 Epiphone Broadway for those of you who care) last night. This thing has some really serious potential as a jazz guitar amp. @agedhorse , you should be talking to the Mesa guitar side about adapting this amp for guitar. Just needs reverb!
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Many jazz players used the Walter Woods amp for guitar. Most don't use reverb or opt for an outboard unit. The jazz guitar needs a warm clean tone with lots of headroom and the D-350 certainly can handle that.
 
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#865
Wild Rice Chris said:
I tried the D-350 and Subway 112 with an archtop guitar (1967 Epiphone Broadway for those of you who care) last night. This thing has some really serious potential as a jazz guitar amp. @agedhorse , you should be talking to the Mesa guitar side about adapting this amp for guitar. Just needs reverb!
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Fender tried something similar with the Jazzmaster Ultralight amp about 15 years ago, and it was discontinued pretty quickly despite excellent reviews.
 
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#867
Wild Rice Chris said:
I tried the D-350 and Subway 112 with an archtop guitar (1967 Epiphone Broadway for those of you who care) last night. This thing has some really serious potential as a jazz guitar amp. @agedhorse , you should be talking to the Mesa guitar side about adapting this amp for guitar. Just needs reverb!
Click to expand...


I use it for guitar too, with a MAS 16. Sound's awesome. My Marshall Origin 20 is languishing lol
 
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#868
Lots of fun with this still. I am using this 1/2 watt tube amp as my pre amp ( usually use it for my guitar, it has an output that can be used as a pre amp).

169FD0DA-5380-4B07-893A-C6C932568AEA.jpeg
 
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#870
ColdEye said:
Lots of fun with this still. I am using this 1/2 watt tube amp as my pre amp ( usually use it for my guitar, it has an output that can be used as a pre amp).

View attachment 4756459
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Looks like you'd have a bit of a bass and low mid focused kind of sound. I'll bet it sounds great!
 
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#873
One thing I have noticed comparing my D800 to my D350 is that using an active bass (in this case my 2021 Ultra Jazz), set to active mode, I keep the active/passive switch on the D800 at "passive" and the input can still get to around 10 or 11 o'clock before it clips fairly consistently, whereas with the D350 the light comes on much earlier set to "passive" on the amp, and I tend to set the active/passive on the amp to "active" to have similar input settings (around 11 o'clock before it clips fairly regularly). I am wondering why this would be so different, since it is preamp stage. I don't really care, as it is actually a rare case where I have used an input pad and it sounds great, just curious.
 
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#875
lermgalieu said:
One thing I have noticed comparing my D800 to my D350 is that using an active bass (in this case my 2021 Ultra Jazz), set to active mode, I keep the active/passive switch on the D800 at "passive" and the input can still get to around 10 or 11 o'clock before it clips fairly consistently, whereas with the D350 the light comes on much earlier set to "passive" on the amp, and I tend to set the active/passive on the amp to "active" to have similar input settings (around 11 o'clock before it clips fairly regularly). I am wondering why this would be so different, since it is preamp stage. I don't really care, as it is actually a rare case where I have used an input pad and it sounds great, just curious.
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Are you talking about the input clip LED or the output limit LED?

shadven said:
Add a HPF and I’d buy one.
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It already has a 24dB/octave HPF, fixed frequency, just like the D-800.
 
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#878
agedhorse said:
Ok, I believe there’s about a 3 - 4dB difference in input headroom on the D-800 due to the preamp power supply. Turning the input gain control down by 3-4dB and they are about the same.
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Ok - yep, makes total sense and aligns with what I am seeing. It’s just enough that I use the pad on the D-350 with this bass. Sounds excellent.
 
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#879
agedhorse said:
Ok, I believe there’s about a 3 - 4dB difference in input headroom on the D-800 due to the preamp power supply. Turning the input gain control down by 3-4dB and they are about the same.
Click to expand...
Also really feeling the eq on the D350. It might be that I am usually adjusting the D800 amidst a full band racket but I am really noticing how much difference little adjustments make with this eq on the D350 playing around with it at home.
 
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