Simple tip for Recto tones

Combo or Head?? :)

Mine is the 2 x 12 and the heaviest combo amp ever made, in my experience. Pretty
sure it has not moved in the 5+ years we have been in our current house. Ok, maybe
once to dust a little. :)
Head. I couldn’t imagine lifting a 2x12 combo version of that amp, but Jeff Buckley did and didn’t seem to mind. :)
Mine is a '93 combo. I thought an AC30 was heavy but this thing is nuts. Thankfully I like the way it sounds on casters.

I think Orange Modern is where it's at. Red Modern is a bit dry or stiff. Vintage isn't quite aggressive enough for me.
Orange Modern on that amp was a big surprise. It sounds great in the Axe too. I never tried it until a metal producer in town told me that it was his go-to Recto mode.

The three channel Solo and Multi-Watt heads just can’t compete with whatever is happening under the hood of those old 2-channel Dual Recs. I love diming the mids (or around 8) with those amps. It still sounds like a Recto but with more note clarity.


Switch to soldano slo which is the real deal:)
I’ve got a Soldano Avenger. That’s my other favorite high gain head. But man… the volume and headroom on that thing makes the Dual Rec look like a practice amp.
 
or just turn it down before clipping the headroom in axe edit as you're playing

I believe the rectifier sound is more in the pre amp section , otherwise just turn knobs until it sounds good to you
If the sound is more in the preamp, why would you introduce more power amp flavoring by increasing the master volume?

I do find the headroom meter useful, but I I also believe it's misleading in the search for certain tones. Just because it notifies you of when you are about to clip, doesn't mean you should always ride right up against it. Like a tachometer, there's a lot of useful range before redline.
 
Also, I hear a little flubbiness in your palm mutes (hard to be certain since there wasn't that many of them.) On my real DR, I can get palm mutes really tight. Not as tight as say, Petrucci likes em, but tighter than what I hear.
I could get it tighter if I wanted, as many of my "tricks"'went unused in this clip lol
 
The low MV is absolutely the way to get THAT sounds from the Recto's. My early Dual Recto basically doesn't get louder when you take the MV past about 2, it just gets starts to lurch into power amp distortion and fall apart. I always boosted mine when I gigged and recorded it to further tighten it up.

I also like bumping supply sag to 6 and setting the variac to 75% to cop some of that "spongy" vibe from the real amp.
Appreciate the extra tips!

And there's quite a bit of high gain amps that I've played where anything past 8:30-9:00 o'clock is not only unnecessary, but unwanted. It's beyond loud, and starts to mush out.
 
I've struggled with this conundrum. The MV taper of the model is authentic so just like the real amp the power amp starts to clip very early. With the real amp there's audible feedback (as in it gets insanely loud) but with the model you don't get that and humans have this weird thing where they don't like knobs to deviate from noon. I've debated changing the taper or adding a pad between the preamp and power amp but, in the end, I decided to keep things authentic.
I hear you on that one. I grew up on an amp that everything at noon sounded like crap, so I never got it ingrained in me to have stuff at noon lol
 
I’ve got a ‘95 Tremoverb that I sent to Mesa to have them replace the LDRs and go through it to get it sounding “right”… and good grief, it’s the best sounding Recto I’ve ever heard in the room. I got the Recto 1 to sound pretty close to it, but I stand with other players who claim the Tremoverb to be the best Recto ever made. It’s an incredible amp.
Agree 100%: my '00 Trem-O-Verb combo is the best sounding Recto I've ever played. There's someone on TGP who is a Mesa aficionado, and he knows about the slight tweaks to the ToV over the regular Recto, but I don't remember exactly.

I'd like to send my amp to Mike B for a 20 year checkup but it seems like a p.i.t.a...
 
I’ve got a ‘95 Tremoverb that I sent to Mesa to have them replace the LDRs and go through it to get it sounding “right”… and good grief, it’s the best sounding Recto I’ve ever heard in the room. I got the Recto 1 to sound pretty close to it, but I stand with other players who claim the Tremoverb to be the best Recto ever made. It’s an incredible amp.

90's Incubus FTW. What I wouldn't give for a Tremoverb and a Road King in the Axe...
 
90's Incubus FTW. What I wouldn't give for a Tremoverb and a Road King in the Axe...
Word, the Trem-O-Verb had / has a really diverse following: Incubus, Jeff Buckley, Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), and Ed O'Brien (Radiohead).

A ToV would be cool in Axe but I really like Recto 1 so... One day I'll break out my Suhr RL and compare it to the model.

I noticed that the Quad Cortex has a ToV model, which, I guess, is cool?
 
la noise said:
Combo or Head?? :)

Mine is the 2 x 12 and the heaviest combo amp ever made, in my experience.


MY 140 WATT 1972 Ampeg VT-22, WEIGHED IN AT 89 LB.
My Trem-O-Verb combo is 100 lbs. Once I had to move it up two flights of stairs. Luckily, my friend was doing some serious "lifting" at the gym (as I think the kids say) at the time, so he wanted the challenge.

The Road King combo is 98 lbs. https://mesaboogie.com/media/Files/weights-and-dimensions.pdf
 
Tweak the recto. You can already get amp trem in advanced parameters. I bet someone has already done the work too lol.
The ToV is voiced slightly differently (it's not just a recto with trem and verb), but I bet it can be done. A quick search of Axe Change didn't return anything.

Here's a quote from someone I trust about Mesas (just an opinion, IMHO, YMMV):

"None of the other Rectifiers sound exactly like the the Tremoverb. The highs are smoother and it has a thicker more dominant midrange. The Blues mode is very midrange strong....almost like the Mark series when not using the GEQ. Both the Blues and Clean modes can do great clean, point of breakup and crunch. The Red and Orange modes have the best midrange of any for my taste. Works great with a overdrive or boost pedal...but I don't need one for most of the stuff I do.
All Tremoverb are rev G."
 
Combo or Head?? :)

Mine is the 2 x 12 and the heaviest combo amp ever made, in my experience. Pretty
sure it has not moved in the 5+ years we have been in our current house. Ok, maybe
once to dust a little. :)
I believe the Road King Combo is around 100 lbs. Gotta be close to being one of the heaviest guitar amps out there. I can't imagine, even with castors.
I'd love to compare my Multi-watt DR to a ToV, since I've heard many say it's the best DR, because my amp sounds killer. I guess you don't know that something can sound better than what you're already very pleased with, til you hear it yourself. Kinda like Cygnus.
 
The ToV is voiced slightly differently (it's not just a recto with trem and verb), but I bet it can be done. A quick search of Axe Change didn't return anything.

Here's a quote from someone I trust about Mesas (just an opinion, IMHO, YMMV):

"None of the other Rectifiers sound exactly like the the Tremoverb. The highs are smoother and it has a thicker more dominant midrange. The Blues mode is very midrange strong....almost like the Mark series when not using the GEQ. Both the Blues and Clean modes can do great clean, point of breakup and crunch. The Red and Orange modes have the best midrange of any for my taste. Works great with a overdrive or boost pedal...but I don't need one for most of the stuff I do.
All Tremoverb are rev G."

I'm willing to bet it's to do with negative feedback and potentially bias range along with some other stuff.
 
Agree 100%: my '00 Trem-O-Verb combo is the best sounding Recto I've ever played. There's someone on TGP who is a Mesa aficionado, and he knows about the slight tweaks to the ToV over the regular Recto, but I don't remember exactly.

I'd like to send my amp to Mike B for a 20 year checkup but it seems like a p.i.t.a...
Definitely send your amp to Mike B if you can. It’s worth every penny and he mine go from “fine” to “whoa! … now I get it!”


Word, the Trem-O-Verb had / has a really diverse following: Incubus, Jeff Buckley, Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), and Ed O'Brien (Radiohead).

A ToV would be cool in Axe but I really like Recto 1 so... One day I'll break out my Suhr RL and compare it to the model.

I noticed that the Quad Cortex has a ToV model, which, I guess, is cool?
I compared my ToV to the quad cortex model… it was embarrassing. The model isn’t even on the same planet as the real thing. Then I compared it to the Axe and just smiled.
 
The ToV is voiced slightly differently (it's not just a recto with trem and verb), but I bet it can be done. A quick search of Axe Change didn't return anything.

Here's a quote from someone I trust about Mesas (just an opinion, IMHO, YMMV):

"None of the other Rectifiers sound exactly like the the Tremoverb. The highs are smoother and it has a thicker more dominant midrange. The Blues mode is very midrange strong....almost like the Mark series when not using the GEQ. Both the Blues and Clean modes can do great clean, point of breakup and crunch. The Red and Orange modes have the best midrange of any for my taste. Works great with a overdrive or boost pedal...but I don't need one for most of the stuff I do.
All Tremoverb are rev G."

That quote makes sense. My experience of the TOV is that is NOT that stereotypically scooped
Nu-Metal tone that Dual and Triple Recs are kind of known for. Unless you want it to.

Vintage High-Gain mode boosted is just glorious. :)
 
Word, the Trem-O-Verb had / has a really diverse following: Incubus, Jeff Buckley, Kim Thayil (Soundgarden), and Ed O'Brien (Radiohead).

A ToV would be cool in Axe but I really like Recto 1 so... One day I'll break out my Suhr RL and compare it to the model.

I noticed that the Quad Cortex has a ToV model, which, I guess, is cool?

Maybe someone who has the Head version can send it to Cliff. Hint-hint./ :)

I bet he would have a lot of fun with it. You can easily squeeze 4 models out of one at the minimum.
 
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