Guitar Gear Forum

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Tue Apr 22, 2025 11:55 pm

spawnofthesith wrote: ↑Tue Apr 22, 2025 11:50 pm

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Sun Apr 20, 2025 11:29 pm Yeah man, the F-100 is a real sleeper amp. I regret selling mine. The clean channel is like a perfected Twin Reverb and the gain channel is monstrous.

Do the serial loop mod, it is simple and definitely worth it

Agree with this assessment for sure! I can definitely see the similarities to the express 5:50+ but the gain channel is waaaay more brutal and aggressive

I was a little apprehensive about the parallel loop (especially after my experiences with how shockingly awful the parallel loop was on my old rectoverb 50) but honestly I have no complaints about this loop, even with my hyper specific looper pedal situation

Is the mod similar to how it’s done on rectos?


Honestly I’m a little paranoid my clumsy ass is gonna end up breaking the toggle switch while doing this. Footswitch can’t get here fast enough!

Yeah same as the Recto mod.


When I had mine, I wired up a DIN to TS jack adaptor and wired the DIN cable so the Reverb and Contour were always on, and I just used a generic 1-button footswitch to change channels. That made the amp work with the same footswitch I already had on my board for the DSL etc... and the F series footswitch is way too big, given that I didn't need to turn the reverb on/off and only used the contour voicing.

Oh nice! Didn’t realize you could do that sort of thing


The aftermarket FS I ordered is in an MXR size enclosure with all 3 buttons. I have one for my mark V from this dude too that saves a lot of floor real estate

Damn, congrats on the sweet deal !

ElDirtySanchez wrote: ↑Wed Apr 23, 2025 3:11 pm Damn, congrats on the sweet deal !

Thanks!!


My aftermarket footswitch arrived yesterday…. Unfortunately the contour FS button was shot…. Just stuck like a log. And stuck “off” too and I have no use for the gain channel without the countour active lol. I unscrewed the but hoping maybe it was on to tight or something then started fiddling and inaddervently ripped off the solder joints twisting it around

I cracked it open though and just resoldered it to be “always on”

Kind of annoying/frustrating but not really a big deal as I don’t need that to be switchable. Certainly not trying to send it back or anything like that. Thought about emailing and requesting a replacement switch but seems like a lot of trouble for a $3 part

I’m just happy to be able to FS this amp now

I feel like I should take it to practice tomorrow but also am already feeling worn out just at the thought of transporting it to my drummers basement

Yeah I had the contour always on. I didn't really like the gain channel without it. Too Santana

But still, you should email the guy and get the part. It's a brand new footswitch, it should work.

I can't even imagine how heavy this is. Mine was heavy and it was only the head

Damn, another crazy deal on a Mesa. Congrats man, those are solid ass workhorse amps.

Guitarbilly wrote: ↑Fri May 02, 2025 2:01 am Yeah I had the contour always on. I didn't really like the gain channel without it. Too Santana

I was the same with my f30 until I threw a BB preamp in front of it and it was magic. The amp circuit wise is not all that different from the lonestar amps and I found the Andy Timmons settings were a great starting place. With the gain back on the BB I could leave it on all the time. I don't like overly clean cleans anyways. I built a loop switcher that dropped my mini spark booster in the loop when I turned off the contour to even out the volumes. The contour was my heavy rhythm and the contour off with the boost in the loop and BB up front was my lead.

The best thing for any mesa amp though is to get the volume up to at least 11 o'clock. They really come alive with some volume.