Review: Mesa Rosette Preamp DI

Vancebo · #1 12-19-2017, 01:01 AM

About me. I am a picky fellow who has forever in my guitar playing career been on a quest for the holy grail of plugged in acoustic sound. Found it, (somewhat) then decided it was an utterly meaningless endeavor. I have learned a lot in my experiences and have discovered it to be a hobby of mine to try new products and report on it here. If I could make someone's amplified acoustic journey easier, then I have done a good service. Lately, I have lacked motivation to try new gear because I have been so extremely happy with my current set-up. The Dazzo/Red Eye Combo has been my go to set up for two years. That's a new record for me. I would have figured I would have jumped on the front end of the Tonedexter wave for sure but I have been so happy with what I have got I didn't think I needed it.

A couple of weeks ago I just happened to find a used Mesa Rosette on Reverb for a good price. I have read and watched the press and thought it would be an interesting piece of gear. It had a unique set of features that you wouldn't find on any other preamp that I know of. (I tried a lot of them) One promo on the Rosette mentioned that it's designer had the mindset of a FOH engineer and designed it with a mixing console in mind.

Feature set:

4 band EQ (2 adjustable Low/High mid bands)
Notch filter
Adjustable High Pass Filter (wow! this is one commonly overlooked and under appreciated feature)
Mute Switch
Boost switch with an adjustable gain knob
Phase switch
Ground lift switch
Pre and Post Send
9volt battery operation
Other typical bells and whistles that will go unmentioned for this review.

Review:
The box is a very sturdy metal housing but it is surprisingly light weight. You will not be able to crush the thing. The boost and mute switch have a very loud click to them that I didn't like initially but eventually it stopped bugging me. The mute switch is dead silent in the system though. I didn't like the boxy shape of the unit compared to the sleek design of the Baggs Venue in comparison. I have to lift my foot a bit higher to stomp one of those bad boys. But I am being real picky.

I plugged my Goodall into my AER Compact 60. This thing is not as audiophile as my Red Eye or most likely the Grace Design Preamps or the Pendulum SPS1 but it is still real quiet and warm. Adjusting the tone was real easy because I could easily hear the effects the adjustments were making on the tone. I have become pretty adept at using EQ for acoustic guitar so this was fairly easy. I wasn't afraid to use the HPF on this unit since there is plenty of bass response from the Dazzo. Using some mild cuts here and there I was able to dial in a very beautiful natural acoustic sound. Using the less is more narrative, I was able to get a sound that would cut through a band mix without the shrill high trebles. No Treble knob was boosted in this scenario. Compared to my Red Eye, I was able to get a better detailed and nuanced result with the Rosette. (If that makes sense) I have been able to solve most issues with the Red Eye with just boosting or lowering the treble knob. I can hone in better with the control this unit gives. IT MADE ME EXTREMELY HAPPY. SO I PLAYED AND PLAYED AND PLAYED. And that's what matters most.

I will someday be trying the Tonedexter and Grace Felix and I am sure those will be great. Because of my quick set-up/tear down scenarios I need something that is on battery power or Phantom powered. I can't be needing to plug in to an outlet every time. This will replace my Baggs PADI, Baggs Session and Baggs Venue as my back up to the Red Eye. Mesa has a real winner here. I have yet to try it at church or at our monthly guitar society meeting with the boxy stage from hell, when I do I will add to my review here. Happy holidays to all you AGFers. Peace.

Kalani · #2 12-19-2017, 12:29 PM

Thanks for the review, much appreciated! I just got the Grace Alix and will try it out in the next couple nights.

The Growler · #3 12-19-2017, 09:45 PM

Thanks Vancebo. I've been interested in this one and am looking forward to your update.

agedhorse · #4 12-19-2017, 10:20 PM

Hi Vancebo - your comment about the mechanically loud footswitch is understood. The background to this is the desire to use the most mechanically robust switch we possibly could, because footswitches are subject to a lot of wear and tear by their very nature of being stepped on over and over again. It's a trade-off that in the bigger picture probably benefits more players be being super heavy duty, allowing us to cover the pedal with a 5 year transferable warranty, way longer than any pedal that I am aware of.

I'm glad you are enjoying it, our goal is to create products that inspire you to go out and play some music!

SpruceTop · #5 12-19-2017, 11:45 PM

Thanks, Vancebo! It's nice to have folks share their gear experiences and it sure seems like Mesa is on to something really good!

David MacNeill · #6 12-20-2017, 01:31 AM

Good review, much appreciated.

Nailpicker · #7 12-20-2017, 06:49 PM

My experience with the Rosette is similar to OPs.

I had heard and read some positive reports on the Mesa Rosette pre/di so when I got a little extra money I ordered one to see if they are as good as I had heard. Although I have other PREs, EQs and DIs, it is my view that one can never have too many. When the box arrived and I opened it and took out the Rosette I immediately thought "WHOA," this is a bad one. The factory forgot to install the inner workings. It's just a shell." Despite having a metal casing it is quite light compared to my Radial PZ-Pre and PZ-Deluxe despite having a slightly larger foot print. So I immediately plugged in to confirm it did indeed work, but also pushed out a really good tone when dialed in optimally. It's a keeper. Although I still prefer the PZ-Pre and Deluxe for a variety of reasons, if someone said they were trying to decide between a Radial PZ-Pre or the Rosette and asked my opinion, I'd say "you can't go wrong with either." Both the Rosette and PZ push out great tone with my acoustic guitars, but with the Rosette I'm having a fair degree of difficulty dialing in my T5 and Gretsch 6120. I had no problem dialing in my PZs for either guitar. I like that the Rosette can utilize either a 9V power supply or 9V battery. Bias alert!: And I like that they are made in the U.S.

Vancebo · #8 12-20-2017, 11:28 PM

Good Report Nailpicker.

I owned both Radial PZ pre and Deluxe. I don't remember why I took them back after a lengthy trial period. It was all about feature sets I guess. I do remember them having a warmer tone to them compared to anything else. Quality for sure.

Now, having a few more days to play around with it, I can get it dialed in pretty sweet that I now prefer it over my Red Eye.

I have to comment on anther interesting off topic tidbit. When I am trying our new gear, I find that I am trying it in different temperatures and also in sessions no more than 20 minutes and always coming back with fresh ears. The thing I find is that I always hear things differently the next time around even when I am using the same settings. Teddy Randazzo of Dazzo pickup fame had agreed that piezo material goes through sound changes as the temperature changes. Since my guitar is equipped with piezo material, it is subject to subtle variations. It's not to problematic proportions though.

Yamaha Man · #9 12-21-2017, 04:10 PM

I thought about it for a while when it first came out but decided to get the Rosette 300 amp instead because it had two channels of pre-amp, the amp and speaker in a nice case, I thought that was the better deal. This works for me cause I get one channel for vocals and one for guitar or two for a stereo guitar recording.

Vancebo · #10 12-25-2017, 01:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Maniac

I thought about it for a while when it first came out but decided to get the Rosette 300 amp instead because it had two channels of pre-amp, the amp and speaker in a nice case, I thought that was the better deal. This works for me cause I get one channel for vocals and one for guitar or two for a stereo guitar recording.

Thought about the amp. I have the AER Compact 60 and it is simply spectacular sounding but not as full featured as the Rosette. You should give us a review.

MOScott · #11 01-21-2024, 09:05 PM

Being a Mesa fan for bass, I jumped at getting one of these that I wanted to use with an acoustic guitar as well as mandolin. One hurdle that I haven’t been able to overcome is when all plugged in, the PA sound board indicates signal while not playing the instrument, and there is a hissing noise coming from the PA speaker. Thinking there was an issue with my particular unit; I sent back for warranty repair. The only issue they could find was a dead battery and sent back to me. I still have the same issue. I also have a Baggs Venue, which I have no issue with, using same exact cable/instrument/PA set up. I’m at a loss at this point.

agedhorse · #12 01-21-2024, 09:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MOScott

Being a Mesa fan for bass, I jumped at getting one of these that I wanted to use with an acoustic guitar as well as mandolin. One hurdle that I haven’t been able to overcome is when all plugged in, the PA sound board indicates signal while not playing the instrument, and there is a hissing noise coming from the PA speaker. Thinking there was an issue with my particular unit; I sent back for warranty repair. The only issue they could find was a dead battery and sent back to me. I still have the same issue. I also have a Baggs Venue, which I have no issue with, using same exact cable/instrument/PA set up. I’m at a loss at this point.

Ok, this is fairly easy to sort out. When the mixer is seeing a signal, it's because the meters on many of the digital consoles are extended range with an unweighted reading down to -60dBu or lower. What you are seeing is the low level switching residual of the internal power supply. It's above 20kHz, the level is about -55dBu and it's completely inaudible. The only reason you can even see it is because of the extended range metering, on a conventional analog console with analog metering it's over 20dB below the most sensitive meter. It's a non-problem.

As far as the noise floor goes, this is an all analog circuit and it's going to be a little bit noisier than a digital preamp pedal (that's one of the biggest attractions to working in the digital domain). My suggestion is to be sure that your gain staging is optimized, that means that driving the input gain a little harder and reducing the output level might give you the reduction in noise floor that you are looking for. Also, if you are using treble boost, this will increase the hiss because it will additionally amplify the high frequencies where the noise is located.

Hope this helps.

jricc · #13 01-21-2024, 10:47 PM

Thanks for the detailed review Vancebo. It's great to hear others experience with new gear. Glad you are digging it!

MOScott · #14 01-22-2024, 02:35 PM

Thank you for the response and sound advice, agedhorse. I am using an analog board, and we have multiple other pedals. None of which cause the hissing noise like the Rosette. In fact, the Rosette is the only pedal that has noise at all. All others, including a Fire-Eye Red-Eye, create absolutely zero noise.
I played with the gain and treble as you mentioned. Also switched between the Direct Out and Pre-amp Out XLR ports, as well as the 1/4" output port. All have the same noise.