YellowJacket said:
WOW! With how everybody talks, you'd think the 2 channel heads were better. Since I never work with anything aside from low to moderate volumes this is definitely interesting . . .
It has way more bottom end, so the tone is beefier and it doesn't need as much volume to fill out. My old one is brighter and a little more aggressive in the mids, but you need to drive it kind of hard before the cab/speakers do their thing and fill the sound out.
Anyway, I finally had a chance to turn it up for a short period of time today. I like the Roadster better. I mean, it has a real clean channel, which is a big plus... but I actually prefer the high gain as well. The darker tone produces a smoothness that I like.
Clean is a straight forward improvement. I mean... I have an amp with no real clean channel going up against an amp with a clean channel referenced from a Lonestar. I have channel one on tweed/50w/tube rectifier and dialled in for a Fender turned a little too loud kind of sound. Just enough gain to give it some character, but not so much that I can't chord without loosing definition. It sits in that just past the verge of breakup region really well. It also takes an overdrive like a champ, which gives me some alternate mid-gain tones. Channel 2 is set up on fat/100w/diode, and the idea is for a pristine yet warm clean kind of sound. It does this very well and the reverb is really nice.
I really love the flexibility of separate clean channels. I have no problem rolling my guitars volume off for cleans, but to be able to call up two alternative cleans like that is a pretty big bonus for me as I'm not always about the high gain.
Channel 3 is vintage/100w/tube rectified. I think I've been pretty vocal in that I don't feel that Rectifiers have a good lead tone... however I'm really impressed with this. My old Recto produced that thin, kind of wimpy lead tone that was workable but never really got my rocks off. Boosting it just made matters worse because it thinned it out even more. With it's extended bottom end this new Recto sounds thicker right out of the gate, and boosting it for more mids/sustain doesn't totally gut the bottom end out of it. Overall I'm extremely happy.
Channel 4 is modern/100w/diode. This is the one mode/channel I was really concerned about going in. I like how aggressive the old Recto is and I was worried about the Roadster's extra bottom end muddying things up as it has A LOT more bottom end than my old Recto... to the point where it almost feels like I'm being doubled by a bass guitar. I can reduce the bass right to zero and while it drops the bottom end, it doesn't remove the extended bottom end effect. Either way, after playing with this amp for a bit I'm not too concerned with it... while the bottom end sounds a bit loose and boomy at lower volumes it stiffens up as you increase the volume. I'd argue that this amp is actually tighter than my old Recto, even with all the extra bottom end it produces.
Oddly enough, channel 4/modern doesn't boost nearly as well as it did on my old Recto. Boosting my old Recto took it from sludgy to modern metal. Boosting this one doesn't work nearly as well... or maybe I just haven't spent enough time with it yet to work the settings out. Whatever it is the OD is putting an ugly layer and isn't blending as well as I'm used to (tried an OD808 and Fulldrive 2). They've been useful for tightening up the bottom end when playing at lower volumes, but at higher volumes they add a very boxy midrange to the overall sound that I don't like.
Overall, for my tastes I'd say it's an improvement in every channel. Factor in an improved effects loop, the ability to have tube/diode rectifiers per channel, a solo boost and reverb... and it equals a massive upgrade in gig-ability.
The only knock against the amp is that at low volumes there is a hollow phasing effect when the effects loop is in use. This phasing effect is most prominent in channel 4/modern and goes away as the volume goes up.
For reference, I've been running fairly generic Recto settings lately. The low mids on channel 3 is kind of muddy on it's own, but it works well with a mid heavy OD pushing it.
Code:
Channel 1 - Channel 2 - Channel 3 - Channel 4
G - 12:30 - G - 12:00 - G - 01:00 - G - 01:00
T - 12:00 - T - 01:15 - T - 12:00 - T - 01:00
M - 09:00 - M - 09:00 - M - 08:00 - M - 11:00
B - 11:00 - B - 11:00 - B - 12:30 - B - 10:00
P - 08:00 - P - 10:30 - P - 11:00 - P - 01:00
M - 10:00 - M - 10:30 - M - 11:30 - M - 09:30
50w/tube - 100w/tube - 100w/tube - 100w/diode
