Mark IV

Ah what can I say, this amp remains one of my favourite amps of all time. Some would say it's too difficult to get the sounds from, but I don't think so. If you get the chance to buy one then do it, especially second hand if you live in Europe (or anywhere except the USA in which case buy new). I guarantee you will not lose money on this amp if you keep it for a while.

I had mine for 6 years and it was awesome, I often wish I had another.

When I used my Gibson Jimmy Page Les Paul through this amp I guarantee that the combination could lift the hairs on your neck - the tone was incredible. No other amp I have ever owned sounded like the Mark IV did with this guitar, and this guitar sounds so different without the Mark IV - it was a combination that although I have tried very hard to better remains my finest setup since I started playing in 1970.

I guess I will buy another Mark IV one of these days - part exchange something, trade the wife, sell the car, you know what I mean.....

I have to admit that it was not a simple tube amp to get 'your' sound from. I spent many months going round and round and not quite getting there. The reverb was crap - and probably still is. The control knobs were mostly duel knobs - pull it out for a different sound - push it in for the original meaning of the pot. This is a good idea, but can be very confusing at first and worse than that - spend months on your sound, take the amp to a gig and find you've pressed the knobs back in on the way. Most guys don't write it down so you start again....... eventually you decide to document things and that solves the problem.

From a 1x12 speaker and just an amp the sounds can be spectacular - especially with the mix of tubes i.e. simul class mode. The amp had 6l6 and EL34 tubes with 12AX7 preamp tubes. What was good about the amp among other things was the ability to set various voicings of the tubes to say mid gain or harmonics, from pentode to triode etc. These settings and the push pull pots on the front for me did do the trick. I used to pull and shift the lead channel pot which was a unique sound to me especially with the JP Les Paul switched in a particular way.

The recording out was equally a great thing for me, I often record late, and the Mark IV was superb for this work. The speaker could be muted while I recorded. I never got this amp to be clean no matter how I tried, but hey, this boogie was made to rock.

Another 'feature' was the ability to switch channels, fx loop, eq and simul class from a midi controller (such as the mesa switcher of the time). I did not personally use this but I could see it's uses. The road king takes this idea further today.

The Mark IV does not look as if it is loud - wrong, this amp has the growl of a Lion on heat - the amp gets hot too!

The biggest down of this amp is it's weight - to say it's heavy is an understatement. As you get older you try to find someone to call a roadie so that they can carry it instead of you - most bottle out and let you do the honours of carrying this amp, on the basis that they just 'might' drop it - what an excuse.

I had my Mark IV for at least 6 years. I bought it new for about £1395.00 and sold it in part exchange against a road king - they allowed £1800.00 for it. I think that was a very good deal. Second hand in the UK they go from £1000 to £2000 as new.

Over those 6 years I changed the tubes just once and believe me that amp was worked very hard indeed. The tubes are expensive, but I bought mesa tubes and the sound was restored to almost original sound - without even rebiasing. This amp has a 'fixed' bias - it can be changed but it is hardly worth the effort, buy boogie tubes and just plug them in.

If you get the chance to buy one of these go for it you will NOT regret it.