mesa recording pre

[funkmaskin]

A friend of mine owns a mesa recording pre and we're both less than impressed by the sound it produces and I'm wondering if it's something wrong with it or if it's simply a bad product from Mesa.
Here's the problem:
When you use recording out and the gain passes 5-6 and up to 10 on the crunch channel it turns in to a thin, aweful tone and sounds nothing like when you gain a mesa amp.
It happens on all channels/modes when you push gain and master to a certain extent but is most obvious on the crunch channel, its impossible to achive anything close to a decent high gain sound because of this.
He eventually got another one but the problem was the same!
You can get ok clean and crunch without pushing to much gain and the live outputs for power amp and cabinet works as it should, but when you push the gain it sounds broken.
We always makes sure we dont send to much signal to the mixer so that is not the problem.

Does anybody have something to say about this amp?
Anybody with similar problems?

 

[rlcramer]

I had the EXACT same problem with mine. To be honest, I didn't do that much troubleshooting to see what the problem was (because I had just spent almost $1500 and waited 8 months to get it). When I plugged it in, and wasn't blown away immediately, I boxed it up and got my money back.

Same symptoms though - no high gain tone, the recording outs sounded like junk, etc. I was MEGA disappointed, but some people are so happy with their units, I can't help but think mine was defective.

It did sound good through an amp though, but I bought it strictly for direct recording and in that scenario it sounded like utter garbage. NO high gain tone at all. My POD blew it away tonewise.

Where did you buy it? I'm curious if you happened to purchase the one that I returned? Mine was returned to East Coast Music mall.

Bobby

 

[funkmaskin]

I live in Norway so it's not very likely the same box
Thanks for reply.
Intresting to hear that you had the same experience and this one was also just for recording but it sounds like crap and I would rather use the pod.

 

[rlcramer]

Yeah - mine wasn't so much a lack of low end, but more a lack of gain/distortion. I do play some pretty heavy metal, so maybe I'm expecting too much, but it's a recto - cmon?

I own a Peavey JSX and the gain knob at 9 o'clock is enough for most of my playing. At best, the recto pre sounded like a fender twin with a tube screamer in front of it. Definitely not the type of recto bite that I was hoping for.

Bobby

 

[CoG]

Yeah, the rec pre's record outs are very, very loud. Are you *sure* you're not getting clipping in your chain somewhere?

One thing I find is that a lot of people are plugging in their Rec Pres and expecting to hear KSE-type tones out of the box without, um, a boost in front, an EQ in the loop, a massive 4x12, and two or three layered guitar tracks. It's the preamp section of a DR with a decent power amp simulator, you need to treat it just like you would a DR.

 

[again with this]

The recording preamp sucks for recording mostly.

One thing is you cannot set the dials as you would for live. You have to tweak it very differntly to sound good.

All that said, I managed to squeek a good recording out of mine direct, but it only sounded good on playback. In the moment, I was thinking it sucked. Go figure. The miced cabs through the whole Recto rig and my 5150 both sounded much better. Or at least were esier to work with.

In the end, none of the direct tracks got used. The built in amp sim in my BR-1600 sounds WAY better than the Recto recording pre direct.

HOWEVER... through a 2:100 and a 4x12 on each side. Massive. Simply Massive. I confess, I think most of the massive-ness comes from the 2:100 and cabs.

 

[Jhon]

I have been researching people's opinions of this very unit and I would LOVE to hear what you guys thought was a bad sound. That would be great. Anybody got a sound sample of it sucking?

How about a sample of it being used for something that you think sounds great?? I'm not worried about grading people's performances, I just wanna hear the **** thing!!! Nobody seems to have an MP3 around??

:lol: -J