Any of you use a 5150 III live?

[Tercero]

I know with my old 6505 as soon as I turned it up to 4 or more, it didn't really get any louder...just more 'holy shit'. Is this the same case with the EVH? Also, does anyone have any metal clips of a boosted channel 2 on the EVH? Most that I've found have been channel 3.

Thanks!

 

[elapidae1]

Eric Peterson And Steve Smyth both use them live. When i have the cash i will buy one of these.

 

[nwright]

I have one and play it live. I don't have any clips of channel 2 boosted. IMO the 6505 didn't sound any better above 3-4, just a little louder and crappier. IMO the sweet spot on those amps is right around 3.5 on the post gain.

I've not played my 5150III above 3-4, either, but IMO take everything you don't like about the 6505 and put in MORE of the stuff you do and you have the 5150III. Some people say it isn't as aggressive as the regular 6505/5150's, but for me and my playing style, I think it sounds more aggressive. YMMV


Channel is great IMO but not voiced quite close enough to the third channel for my liking. It definitely can do metal, even without a boost, if you crank the gain. but for me, channel 3 is where it's at.

 

[Tercero]

I have one and play it live. I don't have any clips of channel 2 boosted. IMO the 6505 didn't sound any better above 3-4, just a little louder and crappier. IMO the sweet spot on those amps is right around 3.5 on the post gain.

I've not played my 5150III above 3-4, either, but IMO take everything you don't like about the 6505 and put in MORE of the stuff you do and you have the 5150III. Some people say it isn't as aggressive as the regular 6505/5150's, but for me and my playing style, I think it sounds more aggressive. YMMV


Channel is great IMO but not voiced quite close enough to the third channel for my liking. It definitely can do metal, even without a boost, if you crank the gain. but for me, channel 3 is where it's at.

Thanks for the reply man. Again, from a lack of clips in a high gain setting....would you say channel 2 of the 5150 III sounds similar to the Rhythm channel of the 5150/6505?

 

[if6was9]

Just saw the 50 watter is now available in the EU on Thomann, for 888e. Awesome. I want it so badly!

 

[nwright]

Thanks for the reply man. Again, from a lack of clips in a high gain setting....would you say channel 2 of the 5150 III sounds similar to the Rhythm channel of the 5150/6505?

it sounds better? lol, I don't play it enough to say, and rarely played the rhythm channel of my old 5150's or my 6505. IMO if you top out the gain it will have the same if not more gain than the rhythm channel of the 5150.

It's smoother and more defined as well, IMO. Both on the crunch channel and the lead channel.

I made a video when I first got the amp playing mostly the clean and rhythm channels, mainly because most of the clips (like you said) were all channel 3.

from 5:30-7:45 this is all the rhythm (blue channel) at different gain settings. the settings I go through are at the beginning of the video. The guitar is standard tuned with a JB Jr. pickup. When I switch to the Viper, all the high gain stuff is the red lead channel.

I'm just dicking around, not playing anything specific. I did play a lot of pseudo bluesy sounding stuff on the clean channel and rhythm channel just to see if it had the Fender heritage to the tone since it's made by Fender.

 

[TravisW]

Comparing the Channel 2 on my co-guitarist's 5150iii to my clean/crunch channel on my 5150, the Channel 2 on the 5150iii is probably a more user-friendly metal tone. It's not as tubby in the low end as the original 5150's clean/crunch channel.

 

[Tercero]

Thanks for all of the replies guys! Final question, does the 5153's clean channel actually stay clean at high volumes or does it fall short like the 6505?

 

[nwright]

it can do both, really. You can have it clean clean, semi clean, gritty clean, or flat out overdrive. If you crank the gain on the clean channel all the way, it is more gainy than the blue channel at lower settings. Each channel's gain kinda flows into the next channels' gain, with a bit of an overlap when the gain is fully cranked.

 

[mburton21]

As far as clips go, I'll have an assload once we start guitars on our album + a clients album; using the 5150III for both.

As soon as I played this sumbitch I sold my 5150mki and bought it straight away, it's every bit as aggressive (only thing I don't like about this amp is the lack of a resonance knob, but the bass pots seem to respond better than on the I and II so it's not too big of a deal).

The Clean channel is tits: it goes loud as fuck and doesn't break up. If you want, you can actually turn it into a distorted channel that is tight but not to my liking personally. You can also switch the Blue (Rhythm/channel 2 or whatever you wanna call it) channel to a clean and mess around with that too!

I don't boost my red channel, but we'll see what happens on the recordings. It seems fine without it TBH, and I've heard lots of people say the same thing.

The volume pots on this amp are unlike the 6505/5150s where the increase is substantial up to 3.5ish and then irrelevant afterwards. That being said, it's the same deal from 6 or 7 onwards on this amp, but no one is going to play it at that volume. 3 for live and 5 for recording is where it's at for me.

Just go over your knobs before shows! I fucked up and forgot about my clean, so when we switched to a little bridge all that could be heard was my shitty playing. Facepalms followed.