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Post subject: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2011 2:18 am
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Aspiring Musician
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Was going to post when I bought my Mustang IV, but instead thought I would leave it a while and give my opinions after putting it through its paces properly in a working situation!

Warning - wall of text below, you might want to grab a coffee and a sandwich. ;)



Still here? Good. :mrgreen:

Me? Working guitarist, playing for 21 years, far too many guitars and random bits of gear for me to count, or at least count without wincing when I think how much it all cost. :mrgreen:

After having some reliability issues with my main gigging amps (one rather nice all valve class A combo, and one rather old modelling 2x12) I heard good reviews about the Mustang series, and gave the IV a good workout in a local music store. Half an hour later, one enormous box in the back seat of the car and a dent in my wallet, from both Mustang purchase and dropping my other amp in for repair!

Dragged it off to our rehearsal space and had a damn good fiddle, finding a few tones I really liked. Wasn't utterly happy with it during our first rehearsal, as it just seemed to disappear in the mix, but knew that could possibly be fixed with plenty of editing. Still, it was only a temporary backup amp, so I wasn't too concerned. Clean tones were absolutely superb though.

I did notice some of the fizz people have been mentioning. Was rather annoying, but seemed to completely disappear once the master volume was above 5, so not really an issue for me, as it generally spends most of its life cranked rather loud to compete with an incredibly noisy drummer.

Fast forward several rehearsals and a couple of gigs - The amp was certainly cutting through now, but the top end was driving me nuts! Just sounded fizzy and artificial when using overdrive, particularly when using a guitar with twin humbuckers - my Strats seemed to sound fine though for some reason. It wasn't *really* bad, but just enough to niggle me, and we all know just how the slightest tonal niggle can develop into an obsession. :lol:

I just gave in last week and started swapping speakers around, as I seem to have amassed a rather large collection of random 12" drivers over the years. Ended up (after pretty much a whole day of popping speakers in and out :lol: ) with one Celestion G12T-75, and one miscellaneous Hayden branded driver of unknown parentage, which for some reason or another turned out to be an unlikely pairing of goodness! The Hayden is a very dark speaker, with a very growly low end, and mixed with the brighter (but nowhere as bright as the stock 70/80s!) G12T-75, really made everything suddenly hang together in a really rather likeable way, as well as being much less directional. I've never been a fan of the 70/80s in any amp I've tried, as the top end is just a bit too extended for my tastes when using distortion.

Next rehearsal, the bassist commented on how I must have finally become a pro at editing the amp, as my tone was so much better. He didn't know I'd swapped speakers, so was good to have an unbiased opinion!

One thing I have noticed about the amp is that I've subconsciously started using it like a valve amp - I generally use one rather overdriven preset, then clean it up with the guitar volume control, just using the pedalboard for effects control. I've not been able to do that convincingly with a modelling amp before, so I'm rather impressed, to say the least. In fact, it seems to work far better like this than by constantly switching presets.

If you approach it as an actual amp, and use the models more as tone selections rather than trying to get it to sound like some other amp, it really seems to spring to life. The main tone I'm using now doesn't really sound or feel like a Fender, Marshall, Vox or whatever, but it's a really nice unique and responsive tone. I like it.

I had a couple of very nice compliments about my tone at the last gig, including "Is that a Fender amp I see there? Yeah, can't beat the sound of good old tubes, you sounded awesome." :lol:

Niggles? I do wish you could access tap tempo using the standard 4-way switch. I know you can set up a 2-way to do it, but finding one of those seems to be an issue at the moment!

An extension speaker out would also be nice, but I might just wire one in myself (seeing as I've already voided my warranty with the speaker swap!).

Realtime control over effects would have been amazing - it's slightly irritating that I haven't been able to completely leave my effects at home, as I still need my wah. :lol:

1/4" outs would also be nice, as would the ability to swap the order of presets without the use of Fuse. Perhaps automatically muting the delay for a moment when changing presets would be handy, as it avoids that 'Boing!' noise when you switch between two presets with differing delay times.


I have my tube rig back now, freshly retubed and all working. Sounds awesome, as it always has. It now makes a great emergency backup for the Fender, as it saves lugging it around and destroying my already slightly squished back. :lol: The Mustang isn't *quite* there soundwise, but it's damn close, and certainly close enough to be pretty much indistinguishable at gig volume with a band. Seems solid enough so far, but I'm still going to keep the other modelling combo in the back of the car just in case. :lol:

All in all, nicely done, Fender! It's a stonking amount of amp for hardly any money at all. :D


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 2:05 pm
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Aspiring Musician
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Skirt So Plain wrote:
Really really nice post. Thanks for that. I just bought a Mustang IV and I'm on the other side of the spectrum--been playing only about a year. Nowhere close to gigging ability yet but I'm obsessed and have gotten to where I can play recognizable songs. I read your review prior to pulling the trigger, so Fender can thank users like you for at least one more sale.

BTW, I practice in an apartment and the amp is way too loud for that, but I ahead and got the IV to be ready for my first dive-bar gig since I already have Line 6's version of the Mustang I so I skipped the II and II and went straight to the IV. It looks great in my living room.


If the amp is too loud - use the headphones or (if you want the speaker to really sound out, rather than your headphones) decrease the volume of the presets (note, not master volume of your amp - the knob on your amp that's always 'active', which is called 'Master', you have to adjust the volume of preset either via FUSE or via 'Volume' knob on your amp).
Hope that helps :)

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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2011 4:45 pm
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I will add to my above lengthy post that my Mustang now fizzes at lower levels like I'm being accompanied by a small bee humming along in a jar. :lol:

Still can't hear it at gig or rehearsal level, but it has become more annoying when trying to set tones up at lower volume.

Seems that it only happens on clean tones when it's fed a dark input signal, like a neck pickup with the tone rolled off. Odd! Obviously won't be using this for quiet jazz sessions. :mrgreen: Gets hugely worse when you roll the volume on the guitar back too. Does make me think it's something to do with the A/D converter side of things. Anyway, it's all academic for me, as once the master volume goes up and the drums kick in, the fizz seems to disappear, and the IV is after all a gigging amp rather than a bedroom practice tool. I've had far worse random noises come out of some tube gear which costs four times the price of the Mustang, put it that way!

Just got back home from another gig with it, got lots of compliments on my tone, so can't be too bad! It certainly kicks out rather a lot of level for a transistor amp, and seems to sound best when it's pushing plenty of air.


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 3:11 pm
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Another update on my journey through musical madness!

The fizz.

It was the noise gate, or rather, a side effect of it. :roll:

Turned it completely off, and the high frequency rubbish which had been accompanying my notes (and sounded exactly like the sound samples others have posted) turned out to be a constant background noise, which, with the noise gate on, had been sounding like some odd aliasing or other such digital fuzz. Found it weirdly more tolerable to leave the gate completely off and have the noise all the time, as then it at least wasn't essentially being triggered by my playing.

Not saying at all that the fizz others experience is the same, but now I've worked out what my noise was, it's infinitely less irritating, as if it's constant, my ears can just filter it out rather than it sounding like a tiny bee accompanying my notes. :lol:

Not exactly impressed with the general level of background noise when ungated though, much more hissy than anything else I own, tube gear included.


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 6:35 pm
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Vulpinity wrote:
Another update on my journey through musical madness!

The fizz.

It was the noise gate, or rather, a side effect of it. :roll:


I found the same thing to be the case for me (mentioned it a couple of times here, but apparently others' experiences differ).

I also lean towards turning the noise gate down or off (apart from the resultant crackling foil sound, it also makes softer picking break up too much for my liking).

PITA


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 6:11 pm
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I've been gigging my IV about twice a week for 4 months now.

All I can really say it is sounds good enough, is very easy to tweak. and has eliminated my pedalboard.

I play in a variety band that does a little bit of everything. I need jazz tones to full on shred on any given gig.

The four button switch has proven itself pretty worthless. I just reach back and spin the knob most of the time.

I have fizz, but like you said, it's not much of an issue above 2 on the master.
I play a Tele through most every show so I'm used to a little buzz,
one of the reasons I DO use the noise gate and appreciate it.

I'm pretty bummed about the stereo line in/out thing.
It might be more useful if it had the typical left/mono configuration that virtually ALL other stereo gear has.

I don't think anyone at Fender ever used anything in stereo before, so when they invented this they must have figured all effects have two ins and outs. That's probably the stupidest thing about this amp.

I can't say if I would rush out and buy another, but I did buy the MII before buyng this. Still have it, as an emergency backup (Maybe the coolest feature, the ability to clone your sound to a smaller backup amp) amp.



So I still have to give Fender props for the most interesting modeler combo amps to date.


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 7:00 pm
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Good post man... Your experiences mirror many of my own on this amp. I did notice a huge difference in tone when I swapped in some Eminence Cannabis Rex speakers - that's been the ticket for me. I do love the convenience of the presets and have only (like you) kept my wah from my previously (fairly) large pedalboard (well, that and my old script Phase 90, but I think that's more of a nostalgic thing!).

It's a bit embarrassing, but I only use about 5 presets in all. I've got the two footswitch setup - I use the two button to move between presets and the 4 button to pull effects in and out of the chain. I've got three clean presets (all based off the '65 Twin) and two *dirty* presets (1 based on the SuperSonic and the other on 70s Marshall). On most presets, I just use the overdrive for solos (boost) and that about cuts it. Seems a shame to let those other 95 presets go to waste ;)

I really love this amp - makes gigging a lot easier, don't it?


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Post subject: Re: Living with a Mustang IV - My thoughts!
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 10:28 am
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OP: Could you post your settings for your overdriven preset, the one you handle like a tube amp?
I'm looking for a similar setting for myself, haven't found a good match yet tho


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