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Hello and welcome to a video demo of the Mesa/Boogie Electra Dyne 1x12 combo the new 2 channel all valve amplifier
from Californian company Mesa Boogie.
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It's a 90 watt amp, switchable down to 45 and as you can see in terms of the front panel the
Electra Dyne is almost the antithesis to Boogie's Mark 5 we took a look at in issue
318. It's a very long time since a new Mesa amp came with just 6 knobs and 1 switch. Infact
the Electra Dyne's whole ethos is to be easy to understand and simple to use but that certainly
doesn't mean it's a one trick pony. There are 2 foot switchable channels, the 1st is
what Boogie describes as an American voice clean channel and the 2nd is a more British
inspired channel that divides into 2 modes of low and high gain. Unlike a lot of other
amps as well as the channels themselves, the 2nd channel's modes are also foot switchable
that means that along with the clean channel you can have up to 3 sounds at your feet.
I'll just switch through 3 sounds to give you an example of that. We'll go from clean
to crunch to lead.
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Let's go back to the clean channel and look at it in more detail. There are a good range
of tones in theis one channel alone using the volume control and the master volume arrangement
you can have either high head rooms in cleans.
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Or a more compressed over driven sound like this.
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The electra dyne is also switchable down to 45 watts cutting out 2 or the power valves
which increases the feeling of sag and compression when you turn it up loud. So you can do big
strident clean tones on full power or more dynamic, slighly sagging driving tones at
45 watts. While you can certainly hear a tonal difference the biggest change is how the amp
feels under your fingers the 45 watt setting feels somewhat looser and more elastic in
how it responds to your playing attack. Now let's switch to the 2nd channel, with the 2 modes
there's a big range of gain available here too, let's start in low mode for a light rocky crunch
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Now we'll add more gain in low mode for a fuller rock crunch.
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Now we'll switch to the high mode in the 2nd channel for a rock lead sound.
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The electra dyne also has a spring revurb which you'd expect in an American voiced amplifier
but it also adds some welcome ambience to the British inspired crunch and gain sounds
too. To give you an example of its tone and depth, here's the revurb turned up to around
half way on the clean channel.
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Now we'll switch to the lead channel and play some crunch and lead sounds with revurb.
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One extra handy function with the reverb is that if you want revurb with your channel one
clean sounds but not with your overdrive channel 2 sounds, you can select it to defeat on the rear panel.
Add to that the ability to run either 6L6 or EL34 sounds and you can see that despite the simple front panel
there's a lot inside the electra dyne. The price for this simplicity is that there are some compromise in setting optimum tone
settings for both channels, that said, there is a gain trim for the clean channel on the
rear panel which allows you to set the relative volume levels for both channels. All up the
electro dyne is a hugely rewarding plug and go amp, it's a great gigging work horse for
blues, rock and all manner of classic guitar tones. Check out the full review in
Guitarist Issue 321.