Mesa Mini Rectifier Review ( Surprised and Impressed)

[Adambomb]

Been on the hunt for a lunchbox low powered amp for awhile now and finally found the bees knees. The Mesa Mini Recto sounds extremely good!! Already had for about 5 days and it's been to one gig and 2 practices.... As far as power.. It's almost TOO loud. Tone report.. In clean and modern mode my PRS 25th CU24 sounds best, but in pushed and vintage modes the Les Paul kills. I'm running through a 4x12 right now and plan on getting a 2x12 or a matching 1x12 Mini cab. I like the sound better than my old Dual Recto. You can achieve pretty much any tone possible with tweaking and this amp is way easier to tweak than its big brothers. 2 channels. The effects loop is a big plus and sounds great with pedals I've put through it and my TC GMajor rack effects. Got a great deal on mine with a free quad of EL34's for my Mark V amp.

Ch1 clean there's plenty of headroom for medium sized venues and cleans are super nice. Ch1 pushed is like a whole different amp.. Very good classic rock tone, smooth gain with articulatation in pushed and the tone knobs as so versatile that you can make pushed mode even classic rock, modern, or metal.. JUST from the pushed mode. *Pushed Tone Settings*.... 25 watts gain maxed, master around 12 noon, tone knobs around 12 except mids bumped up to 2:30. That tone is one of THE best tones I've ever heard from an amp period. (joe perry Aerosmith like tone).

Ch 2 can be about any kinda gain and rock tone you want. In modern mode with the gain down really low and master cranked you can get some very good blues tones on the neck pup of a Les Paul. In modern mode you do have to have "some" knowledge of Rectos and Mesa amps and the way they work and the controls interact with each other. I find the modern mode very good on 25 watts, but on the 10 watt setting Modern clips a little too much. *Modern Tone Settings*... Gain 11:30, treble 12, mids 11:30, bass 11, presense around 9, Master 10 o'clock and it's extremely loud cause that's gigging volume. The Vintage mode is very smooth liquid type tone like from a Mark type amp. I like the gain around 12 on Vintage, very mid heavy mode so mids almost rolled off, bass around 2, precence around 1 and master cranked around 1. Vintage mode is very versatile too and sounds really good in the 10 watt mode.

All around this amp is worth every penny ($1000). It's seriously the most rugged build amp I've ever owned. I was kinda turned off by the Mini when it first cam out cause I had a Dual Recto before and wasn't too big on the Recto tone, but this EL84 amp is a whole new world of Mesa Engineering gain. Through my Mesa 4x12 it sound great, but I imagine it'll sound even better pushing 1 or 2 V30s. The stock Mesa tubes are JJ's preamps and not sure on the power tubes, but they all sound great. Did some tube swapping from some I had laying around but the stock tubes sounded best to my ears. Thinking about getting some JJ EL84's for the power section since I've heard from many other Mini owners that it's an improvement over stock power tubes.

This amp is really blowing me away, more than any other "new amp day". FORGET THE SIZE OF IT. I suggest if you have a thousand dollar budget and need one good all around gigging, recording, ane super easy to transport (arent we all?), I would recommend the Mini Rectifier for any style of music or any music type applications. Very articulate, warm, and versatile amp.

 

[KiwiJoe]

Excellent review, and I agree almost entirely with all your observations, especially:

The Vintage mode is very smooth liquid type tone like from a Mark type amp. I like the gain around 12 on Vintage, very mid heavy mode so mids almost rolled off, bass around 2, precence around 1 and master cranked around 1. Vintage mode is very versatile too and sounds really good in the 10 watt mode.

THAT is one of the main reasons I bought my Mini - and here in New Zealand I paid NZ$1800 (obviously still worth it). I'm really after the old Mark I/Mark II tone, and, since I'm not really keen on buying stuff on-line from around the globe - and old Mark series amps are hard to come by here in New Zealand, I was quickly impressed at the versatility of the amp. It became readily apparent that the tonal possibilities would be almost endless. I love the thick, round tones of the old Mark amps, and I am well on my way to dialing that sound in with mine. I haven't changed tubes yet (I'll do that maybe in 6 months or so; I'm not fussy with things like that as long as they work and don't do anything weird), but I'm quite happy with the punch this little amp has.

The cleans are amazing, especially through my semi-hollow body, and I agree totally about the "pushed" setting on channel 1. You can actually roll of the volume pot on the guitar and get a clean sound that you can gradually roll on during a solo to make a really great statement dynamics wise.

I love this amp!

 

[Adambomb]

Yea it's confirmed the Mini is a hit. I believe that people thought it would be a decent low powered amp that had tones that would "get the job done", but truth is Randall Smith has created a classic amazing little amp for Mesa for years to come. Hope they make some more nicknacks and assesories for the Mini other than lights and grill plates. I got some killer clips recorded of all the modes I gotta mix and master but been too busy playing the Mini live.

 

[soundchaser59]

Looking forward to the clips!

One thing that impressed me right away is how much more even the volume is between modes without changing any knobs. I came from the 5:25 Express world where switching modes would mean redialing all the knobs to get a similar volume level, major hassle.

This amp I was playing int he store and the manager was switching modes while I played. The changes were very even, except for a slight boost with the modern mode, but it was still usable. It was so good that the guy said if he bought one for himself he would mod it to make the 4 modes foot switchable. I thought that sounded like a good idea......maybe several months from now after I'm sure the warranty won't be needed.

This thing takes my pedals really well too. I'm running a Barber B Custom Cool and Subdecay Supernova in front, reverb, delay, chorus in the loop, and all sounds good. My CmatMods OD's go well with these Mesa amps too. Surprisingly, the Allums modded OD's work well also, like the Stacked BD2 or the OD3.

I want to play around with a couple brands of tubes, thinking TungSol and =C= maybe....?

 

[rectified.mafia]

Great review Adambomb,

I so want one of these. I have seen so many demos on youtube, but none sold me more than fearsde's Metal demo. It sounds so good, and the voicing and tone sounds just like the older brothers Although I do think the bass is slightly tighter and more focused than it's 6L6 and El34 family members.

If you want the sound of a Dual rectifier, but can't bring yourself to buy a 100w monster for small gigs, practice and rehearsals, get this. But before you do that, watch FEARSDE Metal video of this amp. It blew my mind

 

[elvis]

I couldn't figure out the amp settings in the fearsde demo I saw (knobs are too shiny to read)

ANybody know what they are?

 

[Adambomb]

I couldn't figure out the amp settings in the fearsde demo I saw (knobs are too shiny to read)

ANybody know what they are?

Heck I can't see my knobs from 4 feet away. That's one of the only things I don't like about Rectos, it's hard to tell where the dot it. We've got Mini Rec Club Members working on a solution as we speak. Someone said fluorescent paint on the dots so the dot on knobs will glow with the LED lights inside. Perfect idea but not sure how to do it.

 

[Reeko]

I couldn't figure out the amp settings in the fearsde demo I saw (knobs are too shiny to read)

ANybody know what they are?

Heck I can't see my knobs from 4 feet away. That's one of the only things I don't like about Rectos, it's hard to tell where the dot it. We've got Mini Rec Club Members working on a solution as we speak. Someone said fluorescent paint on the dots so the dot on knobs will glow with the LED lights inside. Perfect idea but not sure how to do it.

First night I used some bright red paint and a toothpick to fill the little dimple. Now it is at least usable.

I have considered buying replacement knobs and painting them flat black. Then put a white dot in the dimple. That might work fine.

 

[KiwiJoe]

Heck I can't see my knobs from 4 feet away. That's one of the only things I don't like about Rectos, it's hard to tell where the dot it. We've got Mini Rec Club Members working on a solution as we speak. Someone said fluorescent paint on the dots so the dot on knobs will glow with the LED lights inside. Perfect idea but not sure how to do it.

Yeah, the knobs are the only drawback I've found with the amp. It's just so odd that a company like MESA that rightfully pays so much attention to detail would actually think these knobs were a good idea. Functionality takes precedence over appearance; I think they dropped the ball here. No real biggie though.

Seems like replacing the knobs is the best and tidiest way to go:

http://mesa.stores.yahoo.net/blmesisl.html

http://mesa.stores.yahoo.net/blrikn.html

Those links were provided by soundchaser59 in another thread here at The Board: http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=61740#p429114