Mesa Boogie Titan V12

[jacko]

Good choice. I'm on my second. Sold the first then went through Mpulse 600, CarbineM9 and BB750 before I realised how stupid I'd been to sell the Titan.  Even the guitarists in my band love the tone and heft

[basshead56]

Always lusted after the Titan. Had the MPulse 600 and Powerhouse 8x10 and it was the most HiFi, clearest tone I've ever had. Got stupid loud with volumes too. loved it to bits.

The Titan seemed like the next logical step but decided to swap back to an SVT in the end.

But i do sometimes lay awake at night wondering what might have been...

[marcblum]

After reheasing with 2 bands here my findings:

- incredible versatile preamp, 2 channels, 2 overdrive settings, plus Boost/solo option (say: eight different volume levels/sounds at your foottipps )

- lots of power, lots of headroom, diggin' harder and even harder into your strings projects in a linear fashion, no intrinsic compression (well, you are on your own to provide even dynamics)

- sorrily, my unit does not work stable with 2 Ohm speaker load. After 30 secs or so, high current protection kicks in and mutes the outputs. 4 and 8 Ohm loads work stable at even silly volumes. (had an email exchange with Mesa Tech Support partner in Europe. Only option is to upgrade the power amp. I'm not convinced to go this way.)

[marcblum]

Sorrily going for power unit upgrade. Check on proceedings with Mesa HQ ongoing.

[Sarlscharisma]

Yeah, I’ve got the little bro bb750.  Inspired by the live Mani sound.  

Amazing rock sound with great mids. The overdrive is very usuable.

[brutis88]

I recently got the Titan V12, and unfortunately also think I will be sending my in to Mesa HQ for their update

Let us know what you hear from Mesa

[marcblum]

Well, I have to send the amp to Mesa Tech Support partner in Italy. They will extract the power unit, send it to Mesa HQ for some changes, and back. Rather costly.

Now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either do the expensive update or find a buyer who does not need full power at 2 Ohm.

sigh

[marcblum]

Finally got my Titan back with the power unit update. Only 4 hours before rehearsal.
Tested it within my punk rock / dirt rock band. And we're loud. 😎
Cabs are two 2x12" SAD with respectively 1000W and 600W. Load is 2 Ohm.
Before the update it only took 10-20s for the amp to go into protection mode. 🤮
Now, full power ahead for 90 minutes.
NO FLAWS!💪

Soundwise this amp is something special. There is a big boomy bottom which really fills the room and pillows the band. Midrange is somewhat scooped, so you have to work on the mids eq-wise, and highs are open, clear, without any bite. What really flabbergasted me were dynamics. This amp projects everything I play without upper bounds, without any power unit compression. Any accent stands out clearly. But without that clinical harshness that some silicon amps deliver. The Titan's basic voicing leaves much space for the guitarist's sound, so we immediately found our band sounding better than ever. EQing was only needed for optimization.

Altough I rated the overdrive as too sweet and soft while checking out at home, it really worked well with the band. You can dial in a good scoop of dirt without sacrificing your attack. Sorrily it too boosts the bass frequencies too much, so I ended up setting one channel for a clean sound and the other channel for a more raunchy, aggressive sound. The concept of switching clean/overdrive within one channel did not work well.

What comes into play handy is the solo switch. I use it for that occasional slight +3db-push when we go to 11. Or when I go for slapping as this technique tends to get lost when everybody goes berserk.

Compared to my Thunderfunk TFB750, which is a swiss army knife due to its elaborated eq, and which has plenty of clean power, I can say: the Mesa Titan V12 has a lot more character, it has a character of its own, and it delivers superfast 16th notes at silly volumes without any compromise. When the Thunderfunk starts mumbling and you hardly can't tell whether there are distinct notes or just one long sound, the Titan nails one note after the other.
Apparently more is better. I like big power amp units. F*** for weight.

Compared to my Mesa Bass Strategy 8:88, the tube monster has much more mid range character, it is more of a giant guitar amp, while the Titan delivers more deep bass and embraces the band. Both take no prisoners.

[Beedster]

2 minutes ago, marcblum said:

Finally got my Titan back with the power unit update. Only 4 hours before rehearsal.
Tested it within my punk rock / dirt rock band. And we're loud. 😎
Cabs are two 2x12" SAD with respectively 1000W and 600W. Load is 2 Ohm.
Before the update it only took 10-20s for the amp to go into protection mode. 🤮
Now, full power ahead for 90 minutes.
NO FLAWS!💪

Soundwise this amp is something special. There is a big boomy bottom which really fills the room and pillows the band. Midrange is somewhat scooped, so you have to work on the mids eq-wise, and highs are open, clear, without any bite. What really flabbergasted me were dynamics. This amp projects everything I play without upper bounds, without any power unit compression. Any accent stands out clearly. But without that clinical harshness that some silicon amps deliver. The Titan's basic voicing leaves much space for the guitarist's sound, so we immediately found our band sounding better than ever. EQing was only needed for optimization.

Altough I rated the overdrive as too sweet and soft while checking out at home, it really worked well with the band. You can dial in a good scoop of dirt without sacrificing your attack. Sorrily it too boosts the bass frequencies too much, so I ended up setting one channel for a clean sound and the other channel for a more raunchy, aggressive sound. The concept of switching clean/overdrive within one channel did not work well.

What comes into play handy is the solo switch. I use it for that occasional slight +3db-push when we go to 11. Or when I go for slapping as this technique tends to get lost when everybody goes berserk.

Compared to my Thunderfunk TFB750, which is a swiss army knife due to its elaborated eq, and which has plenty of clean power, I can say: the Mesa Titan V12 has a lot more character, it has a character of its own, and it delivers superfast 16th notes at silly volumes without any compromise. When the Thunderfunk starts mumbling and you hardly can't tell whether there are distinct notes or just one long sound, the Titan nails one note after the other.
Apparently more is better. I like big power amp units. F*** for weight.

Compared to my Mesa Bass Strategy 8:88, the tube monster has much more mid range character, it is more of a giant guitar amp, while the Titan delivers more deep bass and embraces the band. Both take no prisoners.

That made me smile, glad you got it back and that it's doing what it does best!

[marcblum]

I must admit, I really had a ball during last rehearsal. So easy to play, so good band sound.

[marcblum]

It a took a while, but finally I used the Titan on a gig.
Well, well, well. This is the best sounding amp I ever used. And I went through the whole palette.
What stands out:
- clear separation of guitar and bass. Never experienced before such a clear distinction. We received much positive feedback, especially from long time die hard fans, on how good the band sounded.
- Punch, punch, punch. No mud. By dialing in or out bass and low mids I have precise control on how punchy it gets.
I got rid of all my overdrive pedals, went only by a clean, slightly compressing A-channel, and a raunchy, gnarly, a bit overdriven B-channel, where I could control degree of drive by attacking harder or softer.

[thodrik]

1 hour ago, marcblum said:

It a took a while, but finally I used the Titan on a gig.
Well, well, well. This is the best sounding amp I ever used. And I went through the whole palette.
What stands out:
- clear separation of guitar and bass. Never experienced before such a clear distinction. We received much positive feedback, especially from long time die hard fans, on how good the band sounded.
- Punch, punch, punch. No mud. By dialing in or out bass and low mids I have precise control on how punchy it gets.
I got rid of all my overdrive pedals, went only by a clean, slightly compressing A-channel, and a raunchy, gnarly, a bit overdriven B-channel, where I could control degree of drive by attacking harder or softer.

Sounds like an awesome amp. 

I have the little brother Big Block 750. It doesn't have the tonal variation or headroom of the Titan but I am very happy with the general tone. 

I think that the bass and low mids on all of the Mesa amps I have tried have been brilliant. I also owned the M6 for a while (too clean and clinical for me) and I still own a Walkabout (lovely but very limited clean headroom). 

[Beedster]

Looking forward to unleashing my new (to me) Titan this Friday

[jacko]

Better than you could have hoped for a couple of weeks ago  . Hope it goes trouble free. 

[Beedster]

On 22/01/2020 at 11:54, jacko said:

Better than you could have hoped for a couple of weeks ago  . Hope it goes trouble free. 

Absolutely mate, despite the best efforts of UPS! Many thanks. C