Mesa/Boogie MARK IIC+ - Lead Master

part of and more symbiotic with your instrument as the nuances emerge, and it will actually inspire you to “dig
deeper” emotionally. As you learn to utilize its characteristics and strengths it will invite a call-and-response
relationship and catapult your playing to the emotional places singers do with their unique voices and traits...
instead of simply covering them up with gain and leveling out all the emotional peaks and valleys, much like
too much compression can do to a singer in a studio environment.
Only a tube amp can oer this incredibly wide range of attack, sustain, and dynamic content along with its
friendly and organically “right” and musical EQ-ing. We urge you to explore and learn the traits, places, and
characteristics in this instrument that can reward your playing and use them to showcase the best version of
your voice as a guitarist.
LEAD MASTER
The LEAD MASTER control is the separate Master Volume level control for the Lead Mode. It helps you adjust
and optimize the volume levels between the two Modes for your stage and studio applications. As mentioned
earlier, the MASTER control feeds the signal to the LEAD MASTER and determines how much signal strength
there is to work with in a particular volume range.
At medium volume levels the number setting of the two controls, MASTER and LEAD MASTER, should dial up
fairly close in number for relatively equal volume levels of the two Modes. At very low or very high volume levels,
the two controls could potentially dial up with greater number setting dierences to equal the same or similar
volume levels. This is due to dynamic dierences between clean and saturated (and naturally compressed)
characters as well as the signal fed from the MASTER to the LEAD MASTER.
If you have your MASTER control set for a particular clean rhythm level and you need the Lead Mode considerably
louder than the Rhythm Mode, which is a common and likely scenario in performance situations, you may need
to increase the MASTER to feed a little more signal down the line for the LEAD MASTER to operate on for a
wider range of level dierences between the two Modes.
This will also increase your Rhythm Mode level, so you may need to either back down your instrument’s volume
control a bit at times, or perhaps in more extreme cases or venues, even introduce a Volume Pedal into the
Eects Loop to be able to adjust the Rhythm Mode’s level on the fly to keep a certain Rhythm Mode volume in
place or have more flexibility between the Modes’ levels.
You could also handle discrepancies in the opposite manner and insert a (Clean) Boost into the signal chain,
either in the Front of the amp before the INPUT or in the Eects Loop, and trigger it for the Lead Mode to
obtain a significant dierence in level between the Modes. And, lastly, there is always the possibility of using
the Graphic EQ in a way that compensates for dierences between the two Modes, either dipping certain or
all frequencies below the Center Line for reduced levels of either Mode or boosting them above it for volume
increases for either of them.
The EQ AUTO feature in the EQ switch accommodates this approach to tailoring the Lead Mode level, as it will
turn on the Graphic EQ automatically every time the Lead Mode is selected. In some cases, this may be the
easiest solution to obtain the desired levels between the Modes, albeit considering your dependency on the
Graphic EQ for its more specific shaping applications for certain sounds.
When playing at really low levels, such as in your home or apartment late at night, so as not to disturb others,
you may need to reduce the Rhythm Mode’s MASTER setting to the low volume level necessary to fit the
environment. You will then likely need to set the LEAD MASTER substantially higher than the number on the
MASTER control to reach a similar or appropriate Lead level matching that of the Rhythm Mode. This is because
at very low settings of the MASTER there will be a very small signal sent on to the LEAD MASTER.
There is usually a way to make things work between the MASTER and LEAD MASTER regardless of your
application; it just may take a couple of moments of creative thinking to consider and isolate any challenges
and come up with a solution that best fits your individual needs.
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