triple recs

are in my opinion the most overrated amps ever made. I borrowed one to use for my show saturday since the randall getting picked up friday by her new owner and this thing does not get a good tone any way you go about it. Its just too much power and too much preamp buzz. What a disappointing garbage machine.

I never liked the "hand full of light bulbs in a blender" sound either. Mesa is one of those amps for me that when I hear other people play through them I like it and I think they sound cool, but when I play through them I sound like ****. I'm sure some of you have experienced this same thing too. I agree that they are over rated but to each his/her own. It's also interesting that the design concept was to have a choice of rectifier sounds, but they really became known for that one (solid state) tone in particular.

I cannot get a good tone out of a Rectifier to save my life. I actually owned one of the 3 channel dual rectifiers about 2 years ago. I bought it at Guitar Center because I knew I could bring it back within 30 days for a full refund. Man, I tried everything but I couldnt get it to sound good at all. I really like some of the early Rectifier tones like on Dream Theater "Awake", King's X "Dogman" and Winger "Pull" but I just couldnt find those tones in the box. Its possible I didnt dial it in right or crank it enough, but regardless of what it was, it always sounded terrible. Interestingly enough, I got an SLO instead which sounded great with all the knobs deadset at 12 oclock the second I turned it on!

-Matt

some say the older rectifiers sound better than the newer ones; although I can't personally confirm this.


BTW; EWSEthan, Petrucci from Dream theater currently uses RoadKings, but also on prior albums he has been known to use the Mark Series.

The older 2 channel recs have a much better dirty channel, but the clean was real bad.

even my old bands other guitarists triple sounded ok by comparison to this one. I think it has a lot to do with old power amp tubes on this one. BUt i still cant wait to have this out of my hair and my mod50 in its place

TheAbomb12 said:

BTW; EWSEthan, Petrucci from Dream theater currently uses RoadKings, but also on prior albums he has been known to use the Mark Series.

Click to expand...

Yeah, John seems to have gone back and forth and used a bunch of Mesa amps over the years. Heres my understanding, which I think is pretty close to being correct:

Images And Words: Triaxis
Awake: Triaxis and Dual Recto (on "Mirror" and "Lie" particularly)
Scenes From a Memory: Mark IIC+, some Mark IV
Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence: Mark IIC+, some Mark IV
Train of Thought: Roadking
Octavarium: Roadking

He also has some sort green preamp he started using around Six Degrees that is a mystery but many suspect is a MarkIIC+ based preamp.

Maybe there is something to that "older rectos sound better" because I liked the tones he got from them on Awake, but I think his Roadking tone is pretty terrible.

-Matt

I messed with it a bit more today. It sounds pretty cool on the second channel on vintage mode with my strat loaded with p-90s, but when i plug my jackson into it for metal stuff it just sucks. What a bummer, i hope it doesnt effect me too much for this bands first show!

Try a stomp box EQ for the Jackson guitar , maybe you can tune it in a little?

I got it where i like it today actually w the jackson. Hopefully running two cabs will clear up some of the mud its giving me!

Petrucci also runs the Mesa Lonestar.

so the nice sound i was getting in my room, went to **** at the show haha. It was even ok at rehearsal, but that room did not like that head. The fullstack was too much too, so i unplugged the bottom cab and let it just be there for looks.

ON the upside, it was a sold out show(300 heads) and the response for us was exactly what i was looking for. I cant wait till we settle on our name haha!

I have owned a Dual Recto for about 6 years now. Its one of three heads I have, the others being a Randall RM100 and a Bogner Uberschall. The Mesa is by far the hardest of the three to dial in but after it is dialed in right it sounds monstourous live! It is also a head that doesn't sound good at low volume it simply has to be cranked. The amp does have good tone but you have to spend time with it.

i dig the duals a lot more, its just sooooo hard to get a 150 watt amp up to any kind of heat that itll sound good.

i love the way they sound when someone like petrucci plays a road king, but whenever i tried a mesa i was not pleased at all with the tone or playabilty.

If i was to purchase any of the rectifier series. The trem-o-verb is on the top of my list. That amp sings on the blues mode. Also, the clean is far better than any of the rectos and the modern mode is a kill cranked up. Not as fancy as a roadster/rk but it's still pretty killer imho, especially considering the price of those. If i wasn't such a sucker for the mark sound, i would have gotten that amp.

Im sure that alot of my experience with mesa rectifiers has to do with the fact that I never really got them loud enough and really understood how to dial them in. There are great tones in there somewhere, though I generally hear more bad tones out of them than good.

I think in general the amp just isnt exactly right for my playing. Too sharp, aggressive, and non-3D to my ears.

Petrucci uses Lonestar for cleans.

-Matt