Introducing the new Lone Star from Mesa Engineering.
Texas Sized Tone & Inspiration….
And Your Guitar's New Best Friend!
As guitar players, we live for
those elusive moments of divine musical inspiration, where
you become one with the interaction between your guitar and
amplifier and it magically transcends
you and your playing to a level well beyond your normal plane.
You know the ones.... Those moments of unbelievable gratification
where your tone is so amazingly right and the feel of your strings
are so perfectly connected to your fingers that you become an
unbridled channel of soulful musical expression. These are the
moments that truly motivate us as players and keep us coming
back to the art of playing guitar! It is in this exact spirit
that we have created the new Lone Star!
The Lone Star is an amplifier of such extravagant tone and seductive
feel that we can almost guarantee that you will experience divine
inspiration and effortless expression every time you plug into
it! It is that amazing!
From its conception, the
Lone Star was targeted directly at exceeding playersexpectations
of both tone AND versatility from a vintage and/or modern boutique
amp, without accepting compromise.
Tonally it must be experienced to believe, as there are not enough
adjectives and expletives to remotely do it justice - Simply
put, the Lone Star is a sonic flood of Texas-sized proportions!
The most ridiculously amazing cleans, classic breakup and high
gain tones we have ever offered in a single amplifier! It has become
an instant favorite among every player in our shop and we have
practically had to hold a lotto within our company to qualify who
will get the first one! It is stranded island good
and if you only try one product this year, make sure it's
the Lone Star But be forewarned, prepare yourself for a
new vice because it's not just an amp IT'S AN
ADDICTION! The Lone Star will change the standard by which you
measure all other amps!
Functionally, the Lone Star incorporates
an impressive list of unique and extremely powerful features
that allow you to tailor
the character and feel of the amplifier to perfectly meet your
musical needs. For a closer look at the Lone Star's exceptional
versatility and features list, lets dig into the front and rear
panel controls.
Welcome to Lone Star Ranch
The Lone Star's front and rear control panels are extremely player
friendly and are in themselves an expressive art form through the beauty,
logic and simplicity of their design. Its simple, two channel layout
provides a platform for ultimate expression with a minimal learning curve.
Within these two channels you will find the entire range of gain, from
sparkling clean to totally saturated and anywhere in between.
Dial Up Texas Gold
Channel 1 is based on a traditional vintage/boutique gain structure to
produce angelic and warm clean sounds in its low to medium gain ranges.
Like most great tube amps, this channel can be driven to clip and produces
incredible solo possibilities for blues or roots chording styles.
Channel 2 has a split personality (see
right) that can either be set to achieve a slightly gainier clone
of Channel 1, or with the flick of it's Drive Switch, it
becomes a fully evolved high gain preamp. Switching in the Drive
control adds 2 more triode stages and an additional gain control
to meter in the exact blend of smooth singing saturation. The bipolar
nature of Channel 2 allows the Lone Star to roam effortlessly through
both vintage and modern territory with full channel switching accuracy
and an emphasis on soul and simplicity. It also provides an amazing
amount of added control and flexibility to further tailor the sonic
character and feel of the Lone Star to best match the musical style
you are playing. There are many cool combinations, imagine having
two low gain channels, one for sparkling clean and the other driven
into an old school breakup, or one for low gain clean and the other
for high gain singing sustain - Very Cool!
 |
| Channel-Assignable Power Section |
The Lone Star also takes channel switching further by allowing
you to assign the amount of power and type of rectification you
want on each preamp channel. The choices are 50 or 100 watt power
ratings and Tube or Silicon Diode rectification. For the ultimate
over-drive breakup and a vintage-squish feel, choose 50 watts and
Tube rectification. For clean headroom and tight tracking accuracy,
select 100 watts and the Diodes are automatically brought on line
to keep things bold and authoritative. These power-selectable-per-preamp
channels are incredibly intuitive and allow for extreme stylistic
accuracy when dedicating the two channels to your footswitching
needs.
The Master Output Control is joined by a Master Solo Control that
provides an additional pre-settable master output that you can
trigger remotely for a footswitchable boost when you want to feature
a part. These two Front Panel controls are brought on line with
the activation of the hard bypassable, Effects Loop. When the Loop
is not active, the individual Channel Master Controls serve as
final output controls. When the Loop is set to Hard Bypass, all
associated circuitry is removed (for you purists) from the signal
path. Since the Output and Solo Controls are wired as Loop Returns
at the end of the preamp and Loop signal path, they are defeated
when the Loop is bypassed.
The Power Switch is fitted with
Tweed or normal Onpower
settings. The Tweed setting provides a built in Variac effect
by reducing the incoming AC voltage, which produces a spongier
feel and increased clip-ability. This ability to run everything
in somewhat of a brown-out state produces amazing possibilities
for the clean sounds that are driven to clip.
The Lone Star's Back
40
 |
| Diode / Tube Auto-Assign Rectifier
Tracking |
The Diode/Tube Rectifier Tracking
Switch is an amazing new feature that takes our patented Dual
Rectifier
concept to a new level.
When Tube Rectifier Tracking is selected the Lone Star will auto-assign
the most stylistic rectifier circuit to track the assignable 50/100-watt
power settings of both preamp channels. In this mode, when either
preamp channel is in the 50-watt position, the 5U4GB Rectifier
Tube is automatically brought online, which produces an authentic
vintage feel that is extremely silky and inspiring to play. In
the 100-watt position, the Silicon Diode Rectifier is automatically
brought online, which provides the Lone Star with top fuelperformance
that produces more punch, a tighter, livelier attack and substantially
more headroom. In this way, Tube Rectifier Tracking allows you
to tune each of the channels power feel to the specific
preamp sound you are dialing in. For example, you can select Channel
1 running at 100-watts, which will auto-track to the Diode Rectifier
for high headroom clean work, while running Channel 2 at 50-watts,
which auto-tracks the Tube Rectifier for a sweet, classic breakup
with a sultry vintage feel. Alternatively, if you prefer the articulate
power and authoritative punch provided by the Silicon Diode Rectifier
in both the 50 and 100-watt power modes at all times, you can simply
set the Rectifier Switch to the Diode position. This setting would
be best for any application where maximum headroom is needed or
tight bass response is called for, such as clean rhythm playing
or extreme high gain crunch rhythm sounds.
An all tube series Effects Loop handles
outboard processing with transparent finesse. The ability to
Hard Bypassthe
loop entirely assures the purist in you will be satisfied in the
studio, where every nuance of tone is crucial and you don't
need the Solo feature.
 |
| Dual Voice, All-Tube, Long
Spring Reverb with Bright/Warm Reverb Tone Switch |
The pure, all tube, long tank Reverb is fitted with a Bright/Warm
Switch that enables you to tailor the reverb sound to the style
you are playing. Bright delivers a vintage-inspired sound complete
with the identifiable haze of harmonics associated with older amp
circuits, while Warm produces a more pure, studio quality character.
Individual blend controls for each channel allow you to get the
mix just right for each of the sounds you have designated to the
two channels.
External switch ports are provided to assure that you can
interface the Lone Star with larger rack or multi amp setups. The
Channels and Solo feature will respond to any tip-to-ground latching
type logic at their corresponding jacks. You can control these
features via external and/or midi commands with any switcher that
supports grounding type logic within their programmable menus.
A Switchable Bias Select feature allows
you to swap tube types in the power section for different response
characteristics.
Use the stock 6L6 type tubes for the greatest versatility, or swap
them out for a quartet of EL34's for a brighter, more British
feel with added harmonic spread.
A Slave Output and Level Control round
out the Rear Panel enabling you to use the Lone Star as the dry master
amp for a stereo setup, drive an external rack of outboard processing
or, simply add additional power for larger venues. This output
captures the entire sound of the preamp and power section by padding
down the signal at the speaker output.
|
