Hey there,

Just got hold of a Marshall MG Series 250 DFX after begging/borrowing amps for a couple of years. Cos i could never afford one i've never really learned how to get the best out of them... if i was borrowing a friends they were never hapy with me 'messing' so i tended not to End result, i'm crap at using the amp!

I'm (amongst other bands) a MegaDeth fan and trying to get that heavy, dark sound out without overpowering gain and just not managing whatsoever. [For anyone that has seen it, i'm ideally trying to get the kind of sound heard on 'Symphony of Destruction' or 'She Wolf' on the Rude Awakening DVD]
Anyway ... any tips / hints as to how to what settings are going to get me the sound would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers all,

Andy K

just dick with the settings... if you want less gain, turn the gain down... more lows? turn the lows up... to shrill and "ice pick to your ears" sounding? turn the highs and or presence down... not enough cutting power? give it more mids.

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I love Medadeth's tone, but that's not what I have dialed in right now. I'll try to help anyways though!

I read in an interview that Dave Mustaine likes to push the mids and treble more. So you may want to go for the opposite of a scooped tone. Just try a lot of mid, medium high, and just a little less bass than high. Pump the distortion up abou 3/4 of the way and it should give you a nice tight tone, where everything's heavy and tight, but still maintains definition.

Only saw the DVD twice at a friend's house though, but still this should help. AND WELCOME!!

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Yeah, just a thought though, you might have wanted to choose a better amp, but work with what you have if you cant afford to upgrade.

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thats easy to say but if the kid knows nothign about amps then what if he doesnt know what those do? I know when I first started out I had no clue what mids did to the sound ect

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true, yeah, i did the whole scooped thing for a long time... then i got my eyes opened to a band practice, and jacked my mids up alot.

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to me, when im playing alone it sounds better with the mids scoopeds but when i play with a band or just some other people its sounds better with the mids up...

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mid's add an amount of "tone" and cutting power, without them the cymbals and bassist will eat you up... i find when i scoop it sounds like there is a big gap in my tone... i like it for chuggy breakdowns sometimes though.... for the most part i like my jmp-1 and my buddy's jcm 900 with them dimed... on my guitarist's 5150 they're at about 5... my old mesa vtiwn they were literally at zero(it was an insanly midrangey amp... which suprises most).

it all depends on the amp.

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There's only one way to know what mids do to your sound, and thats fiddling with your settings to get an feel for it.

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My mids are at 5.5

with a band or not. I hate that scooped sound.. lacks dynamic's imo

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My mids are dimed. Without mids my tone isnt "alive", theres something missing.

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on my jmp-1 they're dimed but that's partially because the sonic maximizer adds that natural scoop... so i have to compensate on my graphic eq and preamp's eq. sounds real good methinks.

on my buddy's jcm 900 i just dime EVERY knob except the reverbs.... the end result is fucking TONE and a half shell.
at low volumes i hate that amp, it sounds weak and thin with almost no gain.
because it's only a medium gain amp... but when you dime the volume you get so much saturation and the speakers start to breakup so you can actually get some really heavy sounds.

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what do you guys meen by "dime"

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cranked to the max.....
a dime is 10 cents... so basically put to 10...

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ah, and just cause i can

when im playing alone my mids arnt completly scooped there about 3

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scooping is fine for practice if you like that tone, but live it just doesnt cut it.

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That's fun. When you (like me) have a preamp/multieffect/speker-simulator all in one box, it's really difficult to know what does what to your tone. I've got EQ in 2.5 places, and then I've got drive/gain in different stages too. A little confusing at first.

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dude, don't get me started.... rack gear can blow your mind... i normally setup the "perfect tones" via preamp and poweramp with everything else bypassed... then the sonic maximizer, compressor, graphic eq, parametric eq(if i had one anymore), ect... all come on. normally i depend on the preamp for the most gain, but when i'm using the 50/50 i dime it, the cs800 is to powerful to dime(800w). but it still sounds awesome as fuck.
the compressor flattens my signal, the bbe tightens and enhances my lows and makes my highs a bit smoother and less "ear fucking"... the grapic eq is normally what i change the most once i have everything else the way i want it because different rooms will drastically change the eq'd sound... i normally use the parametric eq(off the fx unit which currently don't own so i use the graphic eq) to boost the mids after the bbe because it kinda scoops it a bit..

i could get even more complex... but it's past my bed time

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*mind blown*

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yup...

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