NPD: Mesa V-Twin should resolve neighbor and home recording issues

I recently learned that my kindly neighbor had been quietly enduring the lows from my Mesa rig in her house for almost two years I DO NOT want to be “that guy,” so I have retired that rig from home use—including micing for home recording—until I can look into some serious soundproofing. Sheltering in place doesn’t have many upsides, but I had at least hoped to make the most of the opportunities it presented for rocking out and recording. My Peavey rig still sounds good at a more acceptable volume (top cab only now) …


… but I miss that tube-y Mesa goodness; and the fairly popular D.I. pedal I have had for a while now has never really done it for me through headphones. What to do?

Reverb to the rescue!


A year or so of twiddling knobs on that D.I. pedal never got me close to my sound. The Mesa V-Twin got me there in minutes! I got it anticipating it would work well with guitar, and hoping it would work well enough with bass, but I haven’t even gotten around to plugging a guitar into this burly box yet! This comes really close to what I have been missing. Hopefully I will have the pants-flapping rig back in rotation by this fall, but this makes headphones and going direct way more appealing than they were yesterday.

The Mesa rig’s time will come …


… but home recording and tube-y goodness won’t have to wait.

 

Try plugging a bass into yours and you’ve got a deal

 

12v wall wart. I have used it only with headphones at home (it has a headphone out), but when I tried one at a store a while back it sounded good in front of an amplifier. I have had the Mesa V-1 Bottle Rocket for a while and I think that makes more sense in front of an amplifier for me, but for phones and going direct, this will be tough to beat. I don’t notice any real loss of lows with the V-1, or the “clean” or “solo” channel on the V-Twin; the “blues” channel seems to cut both highs and lows. Looking at how this pedal is set up, I don’t think it’s really designed to switch between “clean” and “blues” in a live setting; set one or the other how you like, then kick it over to “solo” to make it scream. The “clean” channel gets pleasingly gritty without a ton of prompting.

 

That’s a good mod.

 

I finally plugged a guitar into this thing and liked it, but I think I like it even better for bass, at least through headphones.