-
Hello groovers,
-
here we are for my review of
-
the Mesa V-Twin distortion pedal
-
Um, a little bit about it first,
-
the general gist of it
-
The first thing you are going to notice,
it's a big pedal
-
it's quite heavy as well
and it's made like a tank
-
it's a really big solid metal pedal
-
which I think is great
-
if you are going to go out on the road
-
then this is going to be a good sturdy,
touring companion
-
the first thing to do,
interesting about it
-
is the power supply
-
so it's not like a regular pedal
-
that you can just plug in,
-
like plug into a 9-volt power supply
-
it's got a big "wah-wah" thing
-
you know, like, that you have to plug into
-
the main power socket
-
that's the first thing to
-
make sure that you are aware of
-
if it means that you are having
your pedals at the front of the stage
-
you're going to have to run a power supply
out to this particular pedal
-
if it's the only one you are using
-
although, most pedals you will have to
-
have some sort of power supply anyway
-
but it definitely doesn't run on batteries
-
What I'm gonna do now,
-
before we actually listen to it
-
is go through and do a close up
and I'll explain
-
all of the different bits,
what they do
-
and then we'll start playing it
-
and have a bit of fun
-
so, here we go
-
well, here is our Mesa Engineering
V-Twin distortion pedal
-
possibly one of the best and fanciest
-
distortion pedals I've ever had
-
and probably that's ever been made, really
-
I'm not even sure if they still
make one
-
exactly the same as this one anymore
-
Let me go through and explain
-
the basic features of it
-
first thing, we've got
two buttons on there
-
The first one is,
you can see
-
it lights up the little red light there
-
is a bypass switch
-
which basically in effect,
turns the pedal off
-
so when the lights on,
-
it's not working
-
click that on and your pedal is then
in action
-
Now this one changes between
-
a few different things
-
depending on how you set it up
-
with this center button depressed
-
it's going from clean
(clicks button)
-
Click it on, and it goes to solo sound
-
which is kind of a lead guitar
-
kind of, you know, big heavy metal sound
-
if you've got the button up
-
it goes from blues
-
(clicks button)
-
to solo
-
so two different distortions
-
of course, your regular state
-
if the amps in bypass
-
would give you a clean sound
-
and then, if you turn that off
(clicks button)
-
you've got a blues sound
-
(clicks)
kick that on for your lead solo
-
(clicks)
and then back to your rhythym sound
-
(clicks)
back to your clean sound, so
-
it effectively gives you three channels
of distortion
-
so, or two channels of distortion
-
and bypass, which will leave you clean
-
it's got a really good range of EQ
on this one
-
we've got gain, of course
-
which is how much distortion you've got
-
you've got bass, middle, treble,
and presence
-
which are all EQ
-
so very versatile for your EQ sounds
-
and of course, you've got a master volume
over there
-
which will sort out your overall level
-
now you can see inside
-
this little cage part here
-
is actually two real valves
-
which I can actually pop out
-
I probably shouldn't be doing this
without turning the power off
-
but just so you can have a little of
a look-see, this comes off
-
and they've got actually two proper
-
AX7, I think
-
yeah, AX7 valves
-
I've got Mesa Boogie ones in there
-
but you can, of course, put other valves
in there
-
if you wish
-
it does change the sound a bit
-
but, to be honest I've been pretty happy
-
with the ones in there
-
so, I really haven't had to do
a whole lot to that
-
let's put that cage back in before
I show you anything else
-
okay, so, other features
-
if we look over the back here
-
you see, we've got quite a few
-
little holes here
-
so, the first one is the instrument input
-
pretty obvious
-
external bypass
-
which will turn the pedal on and off
from an external source
-
like a channel switching thing
-
which you can use a seperate pedal for
I don't know why you'd wanna do that
-
an external select,
-
which changes, is kind of an external way
-
of changing your channel
-
I use that with my TC Electronic
G System
-
and that, the G system,
-
can change the channel for me
-
depending on what sound I want and when
-
so that's kind of a pretty useful feature
-
we've also got, on the back here now,
-
we've got a two-guitar amp
-
two power amp
-
and mixer/headphones
-
now, of course, if you're using it with
a guitar amplifier
-
you are gonna plug your output
-
from here into your guitar amplifier
-
if you are using a power amp
-
that doesn't have a pre-amp,
-
like doesn't have a clean sound
or whatever
-
directly into your power-amp
-
you would use this to the power-amp
-
so they're slightly different
-
they've got a different EQ
-
depending on what output of the pedal
you are going to use
-
and then also, you have this
mixer/headphones which means
-
that if you were just playing at home
-
and you wanted to
-
really rock in distortion
you could
-
plug your headphones directly into here
-
and listen to it from that
-
also if you wanted to go directly
into a mixing disk
-
if gives you kind of a speaker simulation
-
kind of effect
-
by plugging it straight into the disk
-
I have done a few gigs with this
-
plugged straight into the disc
-
and it sounds pretty good
-
it's probably the best
-
of this type of effect
-
you know the speaker simulation
-
that I've come across
-
except the Mesa Boogey recording pre-amp
-
which is what I use most of the time
in my rig
-
it's also got one switch over here
-
which changes between
mixers and headphones
-
of course, that only really works
-
if you are using the mixer/headphone
output there
-
another interesting thing,
-
which I didn't discover for a while is
-
it's got a couple of switches
on the back here
-
you can see I've got the screw missing
from here
-
so I can just flip it open
-
you can see there that this one
-
is a clean gain adjust
-
so you can adjust the volume
of your clean sound
-
which is a really useful feature
-
if your clean sound is a bit too quiet
-
you need a really small little screwdriver
to get in there
-
and also you've got a switch here
solo to blues
-
which can change over
-
instead of having clean,
-
if we flip it back over here to,
-
we've got this here going blues and solo
-
we can have that going here, clean to solo
-
if you put that switch on
-
instead of going clean to solo
-
it goes clean to blues
-
(guitar playing)
-
this is now in bypass mode, so
-
(guitar playing)
-
that's kind of our starting sound
-
it's going through my
Mesa Boogey Express Amplifier
-
and I'm using a Telecaster
-
but it's kind of hotted up a bit
-
so I'm using the bridge pickup
-
(guitar playing)
-
so that's the pedal not functioning
-
so the first thing, let's have a look
-
at the effect of using the clean channels
-
so I've just turned bypass off
-
(guitar playing)
-
That's the Boogey clean
-
so bypass (plays guitar)
-
with the clean sound (guitar playing)
-
kind of makes it a lot warmer
-
it's a really good effect here that gives
-
it that really "valve-y" warm clean sound
-
which I think is a really cool trick
-
okay, (clicks) so now lets kick it
-
over to here (clicks)
-
and let's start off by listening to
-
the blues channel, so (guitar playing)
-
generally, really really solid little
blues sound
-
really nice (guitar playing)
-
not too heavy, not too light
just right
-
of course we've got a gain adjustment here
-
so if we turn the gain right down
-
we're not getting any sound
(guitar playing progressively louder)
-
and on the blues channel
(guitar playing)
-
you're still getting quite a lot
of distortion there
-
I don't know if you can see on here or not
-
I've got these little black lines
-
all over the amplifier pedals
-
just to remind me where the
pedal settings go
-
in case I knock them
-
it's not a bad idea to get into the habit
of doing that
-
(guitar playing)
-
so, there's your blues sound
-
from quite a clean, you know
(guitar playing)
-
clean (guitar playing)
-
hardly any distortion on the blues
-
so you can get (guitar playing)
-
up to quite a gnarly kind of distortion
-
but it's still very blues-y
-
now, if we flip that over to solo sound
-
(guitar playing)
-
we're straight away
-
into proper rock territory
-
(guitar playing)
-
let's turn that presence up a little bit
-
(guitar playing)
-
really, really, really good solid
-
lead guitar sound from this pedal
-
it really has,
-
this is kind of all bells and whistles
-
great having the three channels
-
so it really is,
-
for me,
this is kind of the best
-
distortion pedal that I ever had
-
I still use it all the time,
-
it's great, it's a bit big
-
so it's a little bit of a pain
on the old pedal board
-
but, other than that
-
this is really a top-notch pedal
-
well I hope you enjoyed my little
-
talk-through the Mesa Boogey V-Twin Pedal
-
great pedal,
-
yeah, I really really rate it
-
I've had it for quite a few years now
-
and it's, yeah, really is my favorite
distortion pedal
-
yeah, I hope that's cool
-
go and check them out in a shop near you
-
and see if you dig it as much as I do
-
take care guys
-
I'll see you for another review soon
-
bye-bye!