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Post by diyblues on May 8, 2016 23:21:00 GMT -7
Night before christmas.... thats how I feel like at the moment. Got a good deal on a Red MV Monza head. I should get it in a few days. I've had few MAZ18 amps years ago, but never played Monza. I live in Finland and we don't have any dealers here that would have Z's... or any other good "boutique" amp for that mater.
I usually play blackface type amps (have Two Rock Studio Pro 35 and Carr Rambler) and get the crunch from pedals, but now I was looking RAW rock tone ala Gibbons/Grissom/Haynes straight out of the amp.
I refuse to belive that the tone of this amp is as bad as some of the Youtube videos makes you think... there are few good ones, but thats it. Done some recordings my self and one thing that is hard to get on tape is the structure of a good gain sound (getting it to sound the same as in the room your playing)!
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Post by pcns on May 9, 2016 3:52:58 GMT -7
Its a very fun amp!
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on May 9, 2016 7:25:01 GMT -7
It's called "Billy in a Box" for a good reason! I hope you got the master volume on yours. If not, it's well worth it to send it to the Mother Ship for an upgrade. I've had mine for over a year and I have only opened up the MV a couple of times...it's very loud (I've got the 10" Red Fang combo). But if you want rock tones without pedals, this is the one. I've tried drive pedals in front and it just compresses more. Like Todd says, it's a fun amp! Instant rock and roll, the Drive control really puts girth to the tone and fattens things up as you crank it higher. Put everything at 12:00 to start with and have fun. It's a great grab-n-go amp when you know you aren't going to be doing sissy ballads. Nothing shy about this amplifier...it's built to go. The MV is key, though, at least for me. It opens up tons of different possibilities. And it's so much fun to see jaws drop when you turn that little thing up, sitting next to a 4x12 half stack. People can't believe it's all from a single 10".
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Post by crunch on May 9, 2016 9:21:45 GMT -7
Night before christmas.... thats how I feel like at the moment. Got a good deal on a Red MV Monza head. I should get it in a few days. I've had few MAZ18 amps years ago, but never played Monza. I live in Finland and we don't have any dealers here that would have Z's... or any other good "boutique" amp for that mater. I usually play blackface type amps (have Two Rock Studio Pro 35 and Carr Rambler) and get the crunch from pedals, but now I was looking RAW rock tone ala Gibbons/Grissom/Haynes straight out of the amp. I refuse to belive that the tone of this amp is as bad as some of the Youtube videos makes you think... there are few good ones, but thats it. Done some recordings my self and one thing that is hard to get on tape is the structure of a good gain sound (getting it to sound the same as in the room your playing)! Just got one last week so haven't had much time on it yet, but I don't think you're going to be disappointed. It's an extremely high quality amp. The controls are very interactive, I'm sure you'll have fun figuring it out.
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Post by diyblues on May 9, 2016 10:12:20 GMT -7
I know that Z amps are quality stuff and there is not going to be problems on that side. In a few days I will know if this is a keeper or not. I've been through many 18watt type amps.... hope this is "the one"! Youtube clips of this amp sound way too "fizzy,crispy,thin" to me, but I hope its the recordings, not the amp. I've got pretty good 1x12 cabinet with ET65 in it. If I like the amp I think I'm gonna make 1x12 or 1x10 combo cab for it too.
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Post by diyblues on May 11, 2016 8:54:58 GMT -7
Got it.. Love it. It has very unique sound and I think it will take a little bit longer to get used to it. Glad I bought it! Now starts the speaker and tube show... trying to get the sound as good as it can get
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Post by Jaguarguy (Mike) on May 11, 2016 10:27:12 GMT -7
It sounds really good with the Red Fang.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on May 11, 2016 11:25:10 GMT -7
It sounds really good with the Red Fang. It sure does...
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Post by diyblues on May 12, 2016 7:42:14 GMT -7
I had 12" Red Fang on my Maz years ago, but that had way too harsh highs for my taste. Maybe the 10" RF is better.
Now that I have played few ours with Monza Im starting to get something out of it. I put new tubes in it and notised that 5751 for V1 is must for me. I dont mind the gain, but gain sturcture goes way too harsh when you past the noon with 12ax7. I had NOS RCA 5751 and it made it bit smoother. ET65 has worked well with Robben Ford type tones with Two Rock head, but I dont think that it pairs well with Monza.
What 12" do you use with your Monza? Im trying to get the gainy stuff sound as smooth as possible. With ET65 it has kind of harsh/sharp upper mids that I dont like! Maby Greenback, Creamback.. some other WGS.
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Post by crunch on May 12, 2016 10:00:18 GMT -7
... What 12" do you use with your Monza? Im trying to get the gainy stuff sound as smooth as possible. With ET65 it has kind of harsh/sharp upper mids that I dont like! Maby Greenback, Creamback.. some other WGS. Mine came with a G12H Anniversary, Chinese model, if that matters. It doesn't seem to make a difference at least not to me. The speaker is clear and well defined with a nice smooth edge on the decay. It holds a note well and seems to impart that classic celestion sparkle that works with gain, and the Monza certainly has some of that. Although my amp was used, it was not used much so I'm thinking the speaker isn't completely broken in yet. I have an older Altec 417 alnico that I want to try in it. The alnico might be smoother with some of that roundness thing it does so well, however I might give the G12H and the little monz-ster a little time to grow on me.
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Post by helmi on May 12, 2016 16:46:47 GMT -7
I refuse to belive that the tone of this amp is as bad as some of the Youtube videos makes you think... there are few good ones, but thats it. congrats. I agree with you on the youtube videos. saying there are a "few" good ones is being too kind. the only one I think that is even remotely decent is the official one w/dave baker.
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Post by diyblues on May 12, 2016 23:10:52 GMT -7
congrats. I agree with you on the youtube videos. saying there are a "few" good ones is being too kind. the only one I think that is even remotely decent is the official one w/dave baker. Only thing that bothers me about Daves demo is that both Volume and Drive are past noon the whole video! Monza is quite a different animal when you get those two over the noon! Sound in that video is too much for me Another thing is that when the master volume is... let say under 9.. sound goes a little fizzier.. and narrower (same problem with all PPIMV layouts... at some point the signal from phase inverter is just too weak for power tubes). Frankie Stars video in this matter is better... amp is "breathing" better (no MV), and that fizzinessss is gone! and dont get me wrong.... mastervolume on this amp works great. Monzas true nature just doesnt come out before you move that MV to about noon.
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Post by diyblues on May 15, 2016 10:13:56 GMT -7
Wow... Just played Monza for about 2 hours with a cover band. Played everything from Wonder.. Moore.. ZZ Top.. Free.. Bad Company to Beatles. Used 2x12 openback with ET65 and Veteran 30. 5751 in V1. My setting the hole set with Les Paul (paf style pickups): Volume 10, drive 1, tone 9 and MV 2. When I rolled my guitar volume to about 2-3 sound was allmost clean. At full volume solos where... umm.. Extremely nice made the hole band smile Sometimes I boosted solos with TC spark booster for extra volume and sustain. I could have used a bit cleaner sound at times, but Im very happy with the sounds Im getting out of this little monster. One thing Im really consider doing... a switch next to input to switch the input to a Low setting (assumming that the input is now "high"... which I think it is). This would really help the clean stuff. M12 has this feature. I've build and serviced tube amps for a long time.. so I know it would be a really fast, easy and effective mod.
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Post by diyblues on May 17, 2016 11:47:56 GMT -7
Made few quick sound demos. I'm trying to learn some recording basics... but it's really hard to get a good sounding amp to sound good on "tape"! Need better recording equipment... using my Ipad with mic pre for now.
Monza is so much fun!!!
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on May 17, 2016 12:24:37 GMT -7
Nicely done! Thanks for posting it.
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Post by diyblues on Jun 15, 2016 2:32:48 GMT -7
A month has passed and I still love this little monster!! I went through many speakers (Z 1x12 cab) and ended up with WGS Reaper 55Hz.. to me.. this is a perfect match for Monza!! It's smooooth, but still very articulate and bright enough to get trough a band mix.
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Post by helmi on Jun 15, 2016 16:30:30 GMT -7
Nicely done! Thanks for posting it. DITTO!
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Post by pcns on Jun 15, 2016 18:08:39 GMT -7
Glad you are happy with it, great amps!!
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