Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp (Clean/Crunch)

MESA/BOOGIE STUDIO PREAMP (CLEAN/CRUNCH) RHYTHM CHANNEL, CALIBRATED A2 PREAMP CAPTURE PACK This pack captures the Rhythm channel of a vintage Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp, an all-valve rack preamp with Bright switching and Mesa’s five-band graphic EQ. This is a preamp-only capture pack. It contains no power amplifier, speaker cabinet, microphone or room sound. Main Output A was used rather than the speaker-simulated Recording Output, so these models are intended to be paired with a separate power-amplifier model and cabinet IR. WHY HAVE I ONLY DONE THE RHYTHM CHANNEL YOU ASK? 

I accidentally knocked the gain input knob on the interface when I was recording the distortion tones. 
I lost consistency with the calibration (which I take pretty seriously) so I just decided to delete them and release them as a separate pack. HOW TO USE IT Guitar → Mesa Studio Preamp → gain trim → power-amplifier model → cabinet IR Do not place it before or after a complete amp-head capture unless that model allows its own preamp section to be disabled. Otherwise, you will be stacking two guitar preamps together. GATEWAY/NAM PLAYER SETUP: 1 - Load the Mesa model into Gateway. 2 - Click the gear icon and enable Input Calibration. Set the Mesa model’s output to Calibrated. 3 - Select A2-Full by moving the quality slider beside the model loader to 1. This turns Lite mode off. 4 - Add a clean gain plugin after the Mesa, starting at approximately −12 dB (higher if you want more thicccc) 5 - Load a power-amp-only model into a second Gateway instance. (such as the marshal 9100 I have captured) Set the power amp’s input to Calibrated and its output to Normalised. Select A2-Full and make sure Lite mode is off. 6 - Add a cabinet IR after the power amp. Disable any additional power-amplifier simulation inside the IR loader. The Studio Preamp has a powerful line-level output. Move the interstage gain towards −6 or 0 dB for more power-stage compression and saturation. Reduce it further if the result becomes too thick or distorted. Without a power-amplifier model and cabinet IR, these captures will sound harsh and unfinished. INCLUDED TONES: Eight Rhythm settings were captured, moving from clean sounds into progressively more driven territory: Glass Clean Sparkling Clean Full Clean Warm Clean Pushed Clean Edge of Breakup Heavy Edge Rhythm Crunch Each setting is supplied twice: EQ=OUT: Mesa five-band graphic EQ bypassed EQ=IN: the same tone with the hardware graphic EQ engaged This gives 16 models in total. Bright switching was selected individually for each tone. COMMON SETTINGS ACROSS THE PACK:
 Master: 6.5 Output A: 5 Reverb: 0 Main Output A NAMING SYSTEM
 Example: 1_MesaStudioPre_GLASS_CLEAN_V2.5_T8.5_B3_M3.5_BRT=ON_EQ=OUT.nam V2.5: Volume 2.5 T8.5: Treble 8.5 B3: Bass 3 M3.5: Middle 3.5 BRT=ON: Bright switch engaged EQ=OUT: graphic EQ bypassed EQ=IN: graphic EQ engaged The fixed Master, Output and Reverb settings are not repeated in every filename. CAPTURE DETAILS
 Captured using a RME FireFace III. The interface output fed the Torpedo Reload’s REPLAY circuit, which provided the correct connection for the Mesa’s instrument input. Main Output A was returned directly to a line input. The Reload was used only as a reamping interface. No loadbox was required because this is a standalone preamp. Send calibration: +14.7 dBu Return calibration: +29.8 dBu Official A2 capture signal Reverb disabled No speaker simulation No software EQ, compression, limiting, noise reduction or normalisation Any EQ heard in the EQ-labelled models comes from the Mesa’s physical analogue graphic equaliser. These captures represent this particular vintage unit, including its valves, component tolerances and present condition.