CAE MC404 Wah

Hello everyone, I'm going to review a very cool wah pedal called CAE MC404 by MXR. As some of you might already know, this is one of those wah pedal that has tons of features that mostly are only available on boutique high end wah pedals but with friendlier price. Also, this one is built with the highest standard and could survive Armageddon without a scratch on it. Read on :)

CAE
In case you don't know, CAE or Custom Audio Electronics is a very famous rig builder that designed many high profile artists' rigs with ultra custom solutions that will maintain good tone, ease of use and durability. Besides building rigs, CAE also starts to build effects pedal as well. So far, they come with MC401 Boost, MC402 Overdrive/Boost and MC404 Wah.

Features
This wah pedal features so many stuffs!! First of all, it features two separate inductors, one called yellow and the other one called red; the red one has tons of low end deep sound while the other one focuses more on the high end treble, the two can be switched back and forth using a side switch on the right. It also has a built in MC401 Boost circuit, also with a side switch that can be easily engaged; the boost is very useful when you need to add more low end while keeping the top end loud and clear or as an extra dirt to kick the front of the amp.

However, the most important feature for me is the TRUE BYPASS. This pedal has been confirmed as a true bypass as it does not suck any of your tone at all. This is very important as I mentioned on a past post that wah pedals don't usually have the luxury of true bypass. Wah pedals like this usually comes in the boutique range but now we can have it for a more reasonable price.

Sound
Super nice!! One of the nicest sounding wah pedal that I ever heard. The yellow inductor works very well for clean funky tunes as well on some overdrive parts. The red inductor shines very well on lead playing. I don't really use the boost but it's very useful if you have some volume balance issue with the amp. The MC401 boost can really hit the front of your amp with more volume and with as little dirt as possible.

Still remember my old post about Weeping Demon Wah? This one totally kicks that wah out of the food chain haha! Although I don't use wah as much as some of my friends, this one really deserves a special place on my pedalboard.

Worth the price?
It comes for around USD $150 on the market, maybe higher than that sometimes. It's not cheap for sure, but  you get two inductors and a boost that comes around $90.00 alone, that's like three pedals in one form factor. What more can you ask? It's totally worth it!!! I wouldn't even mind paying a bit more.

From 0 to 10
11. Never been this happy with a wah pedal. I tried every wah that I found on guitar stores, this one wins the competition significantly in terms of price, reliability and tone.

CLICK HERE FOR YELLOW CLEAN AUDIO SAMPLE
CLICK HERE FOR RED LEAD GAIN AUDIO SAMPLE

I hope you enjoy the post, cheers and God bless :)

MESA BOOGIE TRANSATLANTIC TA 30

Hello everyone, today I want to talk about Mesa Boogie Transatlantic TA-30. A little background, Mesa Boogie is very known for its very high quality high end guitar and bass amplifiers and cabinets. Some of its successful amplifiers are now being used by high profile artists such as John Petrucci, Mark Tremonti, Andy Timmons and many others. 

The history of Mesa Boogie starts way back from around early '70s when Randall Smith started his job as a repairing technician for guitar amplifiers. He modified amps that was available during that time by "hot-roding" the amp with an extra tube on the preamp section of the amp to achieve a high gain sound that was not easily available during that time. Since then, he started building his very own guitar and bass amps that come in different tones, output power and size.

Transatlantic TA-30

Mesa Boogie is very well known for its reputation on making high gain amp, but those people working there want to show the world that they can also make amps that can do some great stuffs on lower gain settings; this is the main purpose of TA-30. This amp does so many great clean and break up tones, but you can always crank it up to get that mid gain tone out of this amp. This amp is also on the portable side of amplifiers, means that the head version of this amp is pretty small and light enough for you to easily carry it on any gig.

Technical Detail

I have the head version, it features 4xEL84 tubes, 6x12AX7 tubes, a special output transformer, Effects Loop, Reverb circuits for both channels, independent EQ for different channels, independent Reverb and FX Loop setting on different channels, independent output power level on different channels and some push-pull knobs. The EQ settings are consisted of Bass and Treble without any option to adjust the Mid.

You have two channels:

Channel Green, you can choose between "Normal" clean tone and a British sort of like Vox AC "Top Boost". When cranked up, the Clean tone will deliver an almost break up tone but still on the clean side while the Top Boost tone will start to get saturated. This channel EQ includes a Cut knob to remove some high end sizzle; the knob can be pulled and it starts to act as a Master Volume with pre-fixed amount of "cut".

Channel Red, you can choose between "Tweed" for American Fender clean tone, "Hi 1" for British mid gain tone, and "Hi 2" for Mesa's signature mid gain tone. When cranked up, Tweed will give you an almost break up tone with just a hint of dirt. Hi 1 will deliver Marshall-like mid gain tone when cranked up with enough sustain but not very saturated. Hi 2 will sizzle when cranked up and it will sound pretty good when you do lead stuffs.

All the channels have individual tone control as well as power selection of 15, 30 and 40 Watt. The 15 and 30 Watt power level will give you class A tube tone at different volume and headroom level. The 40 Watt power level will deliver class AB "Dyna-watt" tube tone with extra juice that can enhance your playability and tone.

My opinion

It's a super great amp!!! I personally like the clean channel on Normal mode with some added treble. With the help of its built-in Reverb, you can get so many great classic clean tone that can cover many ground of music styles. I also like the Hi 2 mode on the Red Channel and I usually roll down the treble to get that fat warm tone; I add my BB Preamp in front of the already cranked amp to push it harder and make it sound like a mid/high gain amp that doesn't fuzz too much and still retain the integrity of the original tone. 

You can add any pedal in front of it or on the Effects Loop if you need to use the FX Loop. It works well with all of my overdrive pedal and it projects the delays from my delay pedal nicely. I use a Mesa Mini Recto Cab as my cabinet and it works well especially on Hi 1 mode. 

Is it worth the price?

Nothing bad to say except its sky-rocket-high price. But I say it's worth it, the overall quality of the amp is very good and it's very well built. My personal experience with this amp has been very great, it delivers what it says on the brochure and on the internet.

From 0 to 10

10. Maybe even higher than 10, this is really one of the best amp I've ever tried.

Here's some sound clips. I used my PGM30 with DiMarzio AT-1 and Cruiser Bridge. I record the sound from the amp using Radial JDX Amp DI.

DIRTY

CLEAN

I hope you enjoy this post. Cheers and God Bless :)

Stay tuned for more reviews :)