The Steel Guitar Forum

Today I spen several hours at the local Guitar shop (D-Town Guitars). A great store with a variety of vintage and modern boutique amps. I set up my GFI and played through several twin reverbs lates 70s(the cleanest) and reissues. Then made my way to High Wattage solid states. The soldid states were undeniably better sounding and more responsive. I decided on a cheap Fender Mustang 150 watt 2 12''. The cleans are hands down the best this guitar has ever sounded. Possible alumitone Pickups don't agree with tubes, cause i tried em all Boogies n' fenders n' everything else. The twin setting on the Mustang I like. An actual fender twin I dislike. Save the $$ and get a Mustang IV. You will not have any regrets.

It's hard to disagree with your assessment. Most of my resistance has been mental. But when I compared a Mustang III model with the current crop of Fender tube amps at a local store, I had to admit I couldn't tell what was tube or modeling amps. The range and flexibility is pretty awesome, but the actual sound is the clincher.

Although I would agree with the initial assessment in the store...I would be curious to know how the 150 watt SS amp performs on a gig...in a hot band setting...

regarding TWINS, I would also agree that they may not deliver the absolute cats meow as far as tonal characteristic overall, but they perform on the stage either with Steel or Double Duty, which is why we use them. They don't let anyone down on the gig.

Would love to know how the MIII performs on the gig..

nice purchase congrats...

Thanks fellas. I had a rehearsal last night full band bass drums keys and two guitars. The mustang sounded better than my tube Mesa with this band. Really no comparison.

Keep in mind, you really don't get into the Twin Reverb's sweet spot until you are up around 5 -6 on the volume knob. By then things are getting pretty loud. If you are playing steel with a volume pedal, you probably need to be at 7 with a Twin. The point here is that you can't really appreciate the full tonal splendor of the Twin Reverb until you have the whole circuit cooking. It sounds very blah at low volume.

That being said, I have been using my Mustang III for all shows since last September. Its 100 watts are more than enough for my 5 piece band. We do try to keep our stage volume at a reasonable level so I keep the Mustang close to me and run a line out to the board. It sounds amazingly good and works especially well for me as a multi instrumentalist, because you can create custom patches for each instrument and even for each neck on your steel if you want. I have created about 10 patches for steel and 8 patches each for my 6 strings, plus one for my mandolin.

Last week I hauled my Twin Reverb and Standel Artist out of the basement and did some side by side comparisons. The Mustang is clean, warm, infinitely versatile and actually sounds better than either of my big traditional amps. The Mustang sounds great at low volume and pushing the speaker a bit brings in some analog warmth. For convenience, versatility and just plain great sound, I just don't see going back. I hear the Mustang v3s are coming out soon and I will probably be upgrading from my v1.

I might add - I do not use ANY of the factory pre-sets and pretty much go for clean to slightly overdriven Fender tones when I create my patches.

Yes, the factory presets are garbage. Just sounds like a digital nightmare. The department manager at the local music shop had gone through and tweaked everything out over the course of a few months and came up with all sorts of classic Fender amp sounds. This old Bassman setting he had was hard to beat. I had a '73 Silverface Twin which was close to getting that kind of mid range warmth, but I do not remember the high end to be as clear as what I heard come through the Mustang III.
My old SS Laney is about to bite the dust, so now I have a truly valid reason to go and get one of these. I'd like to hear the V.3, see what they come up with there. But I would be fine with the V.2 I heard. I think I would also like to try the Mustang IV at full bore.
Great to hear the live experience is satisfying. That was one of my reservations, as well.

I played a gig today using a Mustang II with my Fender Stringmaster. On an outdoor festival stage with the amp mic'ed. Used the Twin Reverb setting with a tad bit of reverb (Hall). Sounded great. Hint: I also used a Sarno Freeloader with it. Worked great. I was pleasantly surprised.

Well, I am selling a couple things tomorrow, and if the buyers come through, I'll be going directly to purchase a Mustang III. Hearing that they perform well live was the clincher. If I need any more than 100 watts of solid state, having that line out option to the board will supply the power. Thanks guys!

Finally took home a Mustang III v.2 today.

Whoa Nelly, there is some really good stuff in this little box! Now that I purchased it, I am taking a more critical consideration, but after getting through the presets, I am finding nothing but possibilities. Really great sounding amp.

have any of you compared this amp to the Roland Cube ? how does it stack up ?

have any of you compared this amp to the Roland Cube ? how does it stack up ?

Karen, I have a Roland Cube 60XL and a Mustang II

I like the Fender a tad bit better. It emulates the Twin Reverb tone better and that's all I care about. I never liked the clean channel on the Roland much. A bit too brittle sounding. And I don't do dirty with either amp. The Sarno Earth Drive works better for me.

I think the Roland is probably built better, however.

thanks Tom. I am hooked on my fender twin but i dont want to haul it out to practices. I had a cube also and found it very bright. how does the mustang compare to a NV112 ??

Ok, I have a Cube 80XL and a Mustang I. I know, both ends of the wattage spectrum, not sure how much that will affect my comparison.

I actually found the Mustang I a bit bright/brittle (speaker size perhaps?), and haven't used it since getting my Cube. Now I wonder if I just didn't "mess with it" enough, tweaking it, changing the settings, etc.

Seeing this thread, I'm going to dust off the Mustang; see what I can dial in; and do a better comparison with my Cube.

Will report back later...

I should mention that I am playing single coil PUs. Shobud and Stringmaster. I never put a beamblocker on the Roland. I think that would help. As they say YMMV.

I also have a Mustang III (v1) but I haven't tried with my steel guitar yet as I have a PV112 that I use for the steel.

Do any of you use the software that comes with the Mustang Amp? If so, you might be able to trade "Fuse" files with each other.

Hey Greg,I've been screwing around with the software a little. I'll work off a base and then go from there, turn compression off, increase bias, turn down the gain, increase the Bass,messing with different speaker combos, etc. You can go pretty deep on that stuff. The Fender amp presets are ok if you tweak them to your needs. Mostly I am just playing off the '65 Fender Deluxe model, the sound is so good and rich. My Stage One doesn't sound like a newbie horn anymore! It sounds like a full blown Zum. Just looking at the thousands of presets people load up to the FUSE database is pretty incredible. Eventually we may have a thread where we could trade presets?
I have not tried the Roland Cube.

what kind of Twin did you compare it to? That might not be a very fair fight for various reasons.

Daniel, I agree the Fuse community has some fantastic support and there are many great presets you can download and play with, I have quite a few of them I use for my Telecaster settings. I'll play around with the Mustang III this weekend to see what I can come up with.

Like a few others have said, it would be great to be able to use just one amp for additional instruments and the Mustang is perfect for that, especially with the 4 button foot pedal. Also, it has been taking me a while to get used to the reverb on the PV112 and the 'Stang has a lot to offer in reverb settings.

I have a Mustang IV(v1)and Mustang III(v2). They are simply incredible amps. My steel sounds amazing (to me) through the Mustang IV and the III is great for jams (lighter weight and smaller cabinet). Got rid of all the other amps I thought I had to have. The patches are equally as easy to edit via computer or the amp control panel. I understand the Mustang I & II aren't quite as easy to mess with patches via the control panel of the amp. Big thumbs up for the Mustang III & IV!

Greg Spence wrote:Daniel, I agree the Fuse community has some fantastic support and there are many great presets you can download and play with, I have quite a few of them I use for my Telecaster settings. I'll play around with the Mustang III this weekend to see what I can come up with.

Hey Greg, I found some very usable presets for my Telecaster and Teisco Spectrum on the Fuse forum over the weekend. One is called "Honkytonkwomankeefsriff" and if I turn down the volume knob on the Tele, it has that sound to a T. I also found a good "HankMarvinShadows" preset for my Teisco. You don't have to spend a lot of time learning how to navigate the software to get good sounds. As far as Fender stock presets, the "C Baritone" is one of my favorites and didn't need any tweaking as far as I was concerned.

For pedal steel, the Mustang III really gives the Deluxe, Super, Bassman RIs a run for their money. The "65 Twin" preset can be tweaked to get really close to a dimed Twin Reverb, but its hard to get that deep undertow of a full bore Twin 15" or 2-12" with a single 12" Celestion, even though that Celestion is really efficient. It still sounds fantastic going for that tone,and I was surprised at how clean it can stay cranking the volume almost all the way up. I bet the Mustang IV would get that heavy rumble of a Twin for larger rooms. Still, I'm glad I got the III for practical reasons. I hardly envision I will need a fully cranked Fender Twin Reverb in the near future. This is a truly killer amp I took the plunge, and I haven't hit rock.

Got a chance to open the Mustang III up a bit at an outdoor festival this past weekend. Whoo - it sounded so big echoing up and down the streets of Grand Junction! Power to spare! I was on 5 or 6 on the master, with gains set in the 2 - 3 range. I was temped by some nice Twin Reverbs on the backline, but wanted to see what the Mustang could do. Modeling accuracy aside - what I really need is a good sounding amp and the Mustang delivers.

I hear you Tim, about modelling accuracy. After the curiosity has been satiated, its time to jsut start going for your particular sound. If your playing outdoors and getting over that strong, I imagine I should not be holding my breath for the day I need something bigger!After reading your post I shifted the 65 Deluxe model to using one of the "4x12" cab settings. It gets pretty deep sounding!

Hi Daniel, I've been out of town the past few days - sorry I haven't replied. What is a "dimed Twin Reverb" I haven't heard that term before. Anyhow, I haven't had a chance to try the "Mustang III" with my steel yet - maybe this weekend tho. I just received a MSA Universal from Fred Wurtz last Monday and I've been pretty busy having too much fun! I've got a lot to learn about the MSA's pulls, its all new to me.