So I just bought a Mesa Boogie Stilleto Deuce 100W head and i need some guidance. I really like the high gain of the amp, but i wish that i could get a more low end distortion sound. I play metal with alot of chugging and what not and want the amp to have more of a chuggy shape to it. I would highly appreciate some ideas on making the amp sound more metaly?! Please Help with your knowledge!!!!!!

Try an eq in the loop...

Or just use your EQ knobs properly.

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You wanted a chuggy amp, then you buy a british voiced boogie?

The main problem is probably the power tubes. I can't imagine you can't get a good tone out of the preamp section with all those bells and whistles :P

Try swapping the power tubes for JJ KT77. EL34 isn't too chuggy. Email Bob @ www.eurotubes.com and explain your issue, he will set you up with something, he's the man when it comes to Boogie and JJ tubes (his opinions are WAY biased though).



You could probably get 6L6's in there too but since the power section is designed for use with EL34's it probably won't sound too good, better try the KT77 (which is very much like a EL34, just sounds radically different). Added bonus is that they will last way longer than standard EL34.

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To be honest, that head is good enough to get what you want from it in stock form. spend a couple of hours messing around with the Eq settings until you find something you like. Also what volume are you playing at, because that chug will really only come into play at higher volumes.

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if you're running it at half power it will seriously reduce bass response. Also, what guitar are you playing and what pickups are you using?

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Listen to the_bleeding, he is right. My setup, all tube, el34 and stuff too, sounds very thin unless i turn the volume up to about 40% (if i turn it higher stuff fall out of shelves etc, not cool). This is a combined issue with both speakers and tubes - tubes need to be turned up to sound good, and 100w 12" speakers need some wattage to be driven properly, esp. if you have two or four connected to a 100 watt amp. I think people almost never give thought to the fact that speakers also needs a little bit of power to sound good, not only tubes.

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Yeah. I agree. Before you spend any money on pedals, tubes, speakers or whatever, play with the EQ. Don't be afraid of them. You may even find a better tone than what you were imagening in your head.

If you have a boost in highs, try cutting them out to bring out the lows more. If that dosn't work for you, try boosting the lows. Turn the presence all the way down and bring it up till it starts to brighten the sound. The more presence, the less punchy and more chunky (which, in my opinion is not so good sounding)

I also don't agree with the whole, "Louder is where the tone comes from" Yeah sure, if you have your gain turn down quite a bit and get your distortion from the master, but really, if your pre tubes are on fire with gain then thats the most tone you're going to get. Just the louder it is... the more you FEEL it. Which makes it seem like the tone got warmer and sweeter. When it comes to recording or live sound, you don't have to blast everything off the floor.

Alright alright alright... I'm done... Peace!

The warmth and sweetness comes from the power tube distortion. The key is to get a mix of pre and power tube distortion. The power tube distortion obviously comes from cranking the master, taming it with a good attenuator works.

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Are you saying that if you use preamp distortion to a large degree, then the power applied to the speaker(s) has no influence on the depth and "fullness" of the sound, i.e. low mids, bass, and treble?

I agree that there are a lot of mental factors involved in how you percieve tone, and the human hearing is designed to that the higher the sound pressure, the fuller the bass/low mids/treble response. It might not be this way on a measuring instrument, but to humans, which are error-prone, it is. This may be different for you, but the human ear is usually way better at hearing high-mids at low sound pressure, then the freq. response gradually evens out with pressure.

Take a look:
http://www.extron.com/company/artic...dnesscontrol_ts
http://www.extron.com/technology/im...rol_ts_1-lg.jpg

Do you see that the frequency response is rather mid-boosted at low volume, then goes on to flatten out as the volume increases? Those "mids" are pretty high mids in a guitar rig, where "treble" is usually 5.5k (guitar loudspeakers can rarely ever go above 5.5khz).

Note that this has nothing to do with power tube distortion, just pure sound pressure.


Uhm.. we might be saying the same thing. I.E. you could probably record it at low volume, then blast the recording on your stereo to get the same effect. Thing is speakers have all kinds of opposing inducance and capacitance in them, so they will sound a bit different with varying voltage anyway, it's just that on a recording with studio magic 2000 applied you might not notice. It's fairly common practice in a "big money" recording studio where the AE has recorded heavy guitars for 25+ years to turn the volume up till the speakers move the most they can inside their cab, and i guess it has to be for a reason (other than the psychic effect of playing better when your "percieved" tone improves )

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Eh... whatever. Point is... play with the amp before you buy anything. If you've tried everything... and still cant get your sound, then buy something. Oh yeah... rooms alter your sound too.

Yeah, Try placing it in a corner.

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thank you very much to all the responses.!!

I have never truly experienced powertube saturation from driving my amp to stupid levels, and don't think I will while I live in apartments. But still, I'm extremely happy with my tube head even though I never push it to such loud volumes, most modern amps and virtually all high gain amps get most of their saturation from the preamp, not power tubes. Power tube saturation = oldschool loose classic Marshall breakup tone on records we've all grown to love. But modern uber-tight death metal sounds? That's all coming from the preamp baby, and that's more than good enough for me.

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