Mesa Fillmore 50 Owner's Manual

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Page 1 Owner’s Manual...
Page 2 Hello from the Tone Farm Congratulations on your choice of the FILLMORE™ and welcome to the MESA/Boogie® Fam- ily! The instrument you’ve selected has a deep heritage that combines the best attributes of vintage tube amplification with pioneering innovation that brings high-gain channel switching performance to a new frontier.
Page 3: Table Of Contents
Table of Contents PRECAUTIONS OVERVIEW ____________________________________________________________________________________ 1-3 GETTING STARTED ______________________________________________________________________________ 4 HELPFUL HINTS ________________________________________________________________________________ 5 FRONT PANEL GAIN _________________________________________________________________________________________ 5-6 TREBLE _______________________________________________________________________________________ 6 MID ___________________________________________________________________________________________ 7 BASS _________________________________________________________________________________________ 7-8 PRESENCE ____________________________________________________________________________________ 8-9 MASTER _______________________________________________________________________________________ 9 CHANNEL SELECT ______________________________________________________________________________ 9 MODE SELECT _________________________________________________________________________________ 10 POWER _______________________________________________________________________________________ 10 STANDBY _____________________________________________________________________________________ 10 REAR PANEL...
Page 4: Important Safety Instructions
Make certain grounding conforms with local standards. YOUR AMPLIFIER IS LOUD! EXPOSURE TO HIGH SOUND VOLUMES MAY CAUSE PERMANENT HEARING DAMAGE! Your Mesa/Boogie Amplifier is a professional instrument. Please treat it with respect and operate it properly. READ AND FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS OF PROPER USAGE.
Page 5: Overview
Operating Instructions OVERVIEW From the other branch of the Boogie® Family Tree comes this new vintage-voiced and styled amplifier featuring–soft clip to saturated– our most expressive cleans and transitional to medium gain ever presented. To some this amplifier might seem a collection of contradictions: traditional looking and sounding cabinetry, yet loaded with a fully featured chassis sporting two identical Channels with 3 powerful Modes each.
Page 6 IDENTICAL CHANNELS As you’ve noticed by now, the FILLMORE™ features two identical Channels. Three Modes aimed at covering all your needs, both clean and overdriven, are provided and virtually every sound imaginable can be found among them. We’ve found over decades that most players, especially in the stylistic categories the FILLMORE™ aims at, tend to use either slight variations of the same gain structure or differing gain structures that are closely related sonically.
Page 7 70s/early 80s Crunch Rhythm and Lead sounds used on so many records. It rides the line beautifully between those created by us at MESA/Boogie back in the day and those produced by the classic Brit amps popular in that era. Circuit-wise HI is all American, remaining closer to the wonderful tweed covered amps hailing from California in the 50s.
Page 8: Getting Started
GETTING STARTED 1. After unpacking the amplifier, check to make sure all the tubes are firmly seated in their sockets as some may have loosened a bit during shipping. 2. Connect the A.C. Cord to a grounded (3 pin) A.C. outlet. 3.
Page 9: Helpful Hints
Doing so will increase the toneful life of your tubes • Circuits emanating from this “other side” of the MESA Line (as in non-MARK amplifiers) like your FILLMORE™ tend to favor TRE- BLE and PRESENCE control settings on the lower side for sounds in the warmer domain. Depending on guitar woods, pickups and technique, don’t be surprised if you find great sounds below 12:00, or even all the way off on the TREBLE and PRESENCE,...
Page 10: Treble
We suggest that you start with the TREBLE at 11:00 and adjust up or down slightly until the desired blend is achieved. However, circuits emanating from this “other side” of the MESA line and sharing that DNA tend to favor TREBLE and PRESENCE control settings on the lower side for sounds in the warmer domain.
Page 11: Mid
The MID control brings in and out a broad band of midrange frequencies and – as we have mentioned earlier in the TREBLE section – along with these rides a fair amount of higher “low treble” range frequencies. These highs are lower than that of the TREBLE, but they are important for the punch and cut of the amplifier in a mix.
Page 12: Presence
and possibly detrimental here, frequency used in the CLEAN mode. Therefore the need to be able to have different amounts of these two different frequencies is critical to both great sound and great footswitching compatibility between the Modes/Channels. In the CLEAN mode, we like the balance of the BASS control when it is blending in warmth and body, but not overpowering the attack and sparkle in the mix.
Page 13: Master
region, power (effectiveness) and character in the overall signature of the top end. So when dialing in your sounds make sure to use all three of these controls to balance the different frequencies and amounts in your overall mix in each of the Modes. REVERB The FILLMORE™...
Page 14: Mode Select
MODE SELECT Each Channel contains a MODE SELECT switch which allows selection of any one of the three preamp Modes (CLEAN, DRIVE and HI). The Channels are identical (except for any minor tolerance differences in the actual Pots, so you may dedicate your Channels as you see fit with no compromise or limitations.
Page 15: Fuse
This 1/4” jack allows remote control of the Reverb via an optional Footswitch. You can obtain the Footswitch through your nearest MESA Dealer or from us directly. You may also use any standard “tip to ground” latching (not mo- mentary) type Footswitch to control the Reverb. The jack accepts a mono unshielded cable.
Page 16: Speaker Outputs
When using the Combo by itself or the Head through a standard MESA 8 Ohm 4x12 or 1x12 Extension cabinet, use the 8 OHM jack. Most MESA 2x12 Cabinets are also wired to 8 Ohms and they can be used in this Output as well.
Page 17: Factory Sample Settings
FACTORY SAMPLE SETTINGS CLEAN DRIVE DRIVE INPUT FT. SW. FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER DRIVE Fillmore DRIVE DRIVE POWER STANDBY FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER DRIVE CRUNCH DRIVE DRIVE INPUT FT. SW. FT.
Page 18 FACTORY SAMPLE SETTINGS PUSHED CLEAN DRIVE DRIVE INPUT FT. SW. FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER DRIVE SOLO Fillmore DRIVE DRIVE POWER STANDBY FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER DRIVE “CLEAN” DRIVE DRIVE INPUT FT.
Page 19: User Settings
USER SETTINGS Fillmore DRIVE DRIVE INPUT POWER FT. SW. STANDBY FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER Fillmore DRIVE DRIVE POWER INPUT FT. SW. STANDBY FT. SW. CHANNEL GAIN TREBLE BASS PRESENCE REVERB MASTER GAIN...
Page 20: Tube Troubleshooting Guide
TUBE NOISE & MICROPHONICS: You may occasionally experience some form of tube noise or microphonics. Certainly no cause for alarm, this quirky behavior comes with the territory and the Tone. Much like changing a light bulb, you don’t need a technician to cure these types of minor user serviceable annoyances and in fact, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to cure tube problems...by simply swapping out a pre-amp or power tube! First may we suggest that you set the amplifier up on something so that you can get to the tubes comfortably without having to bend...
Page 21 DIAGNOSING PRE-AMP TUBE PROBLEMS: Because your amplifier is an all tube design, it is quite possible that you will at some point experience minor pre-amp tube noise. Rest assured - this is no cause for alarm and you can take care of the problem yourself in a matter of minutes by simply swapping tubes.
Page 22: Speaker Hookup Guide
Output transformer. A few amplifiers can handle 2 ohms effectively without damaging them ( for example the MESA’S Bass 400+ ). You can always have a higher resistance ( 16 ohms, for example ) without damaging results, but too low of a resistance will likely cause problems.
Page 23 SPEAKER IMPEDANCE MATCHING & HOOK-UP GUIDE: (Continued) PARALLEL: When wiring in parallel, the resistance of the speakers decreases. Two 8 ohm speakers wired in ( hooked-up ) Parallel results in a 4 ohm load. It’s easy to calculate the effect of a resistive load when all the speakers are all the same resistance. It is really not suggested to wire different resistive load values in Parallel ( 8 and 4, 16 and 8 etc.
Page 24 WIRING SCHEMES...Amplifier to Speaker Cabinets SPEAKERS SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 4 Ohm Cabinet SPEAKERS SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 16 Ohm Cabinet SAFE MISMATCH SAFE MISMATCH...
Page 25 WIRING SCHEMES...Amplifier to Speaker Cabinets SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 8 Ohm Cabinet PAGE 21...
Page 26: Tube Task Chart
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Page 27: Parts List
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