NAD Dual Recto (Diesel cabs) Pedal and clean questions

[sean106ESP]

Hey guys, just snagged up a brand new Dual Recto this weekend. My Mark V has been in the shop for a while and frankly I have no idea what is wrong with it. Not tubes for sure. So I picked this one up as I have been wanting something different then the Mark V tones, and a back up amp.

So far love it. For sure a beast. Clean wise I prefer the Mark V much better but not sure I had it set right in rehearsal today. The dirty channels sounded massive and rumbled but the clean channel was well.............kinda dirty. Not like Mark V channel one which is like a near Roland JC clean. Perhaps I should have raised the master output very high and used the channel masters to raise the levels. :?:

I had the clean channel volume dimed and just used a little gain to add volume and had lots of clipping...break up etc. Did not notice until I got home that I prolly should have had the master output a bit higher. Any advice? Maybe it is a master output thing? (Meaning have the master set high and gradually raise the level on the clean so you have little break up?)

Anyhoo, I love how boomy the rhythm chug is. Any consensus on what pedals the recto's like in terms of say a OD pedal.................. to add more focus and little bit of a tighter sound? To make it maybe not as boomy?

Might go pedal shopping this week. Looking at some of the MXR stuff as everyone seems to rave about it. Need a delay, reverb, wah....and possibly a OD/EQ pedal to help tighten the rhythm dirties.

Thanks all!

 

[screamingdaisy]

Hey guys, just snagged up a brand new Dual Recto this weekend. My Mark V has been in the shop for a while and frankly I have no idea what is wrong with it. Not tubes for sure. So I picked this one up as I have been wanting something different then the Mark V tones, and a back up amp.

So far love it. For sure a beast. Clean wise I prefer the Mark V much better but not sure I had it set right in rehearsal today. The dirty channels sounded massive and rumbled but the clean channel was well.............kinda dirty. Not like Mark V channel one which is like a near Roland JC clean. Perhaps I should have raised the master output very high and used the channel masters to raise the levels. :?:

I had the clean channel volume dimed and just used a little gain to add volume and had lots of clipping...break up etc. Did not notice until I got home that I prolly should have had the master output a bit higher. Any advice? Maybe it is a master output thing? (Meaning have the master set high and gradually raise the level on the clean so you have little break up?)

Set the master on channel 3 to somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00, then adjust the other two channel volumes to balance that one. Once that is done, set the master output at whatever level you prefer. I like mine up around 11:00, but I'm not always allowed to play that loud.

I find the clean channel on the Recto isn't a perfect clean... in the old 2 channel manuals they used to mention that they designed it to have a bit of breakup purpose since most of their artists don't use a perfectly clean clean tone... not sure if that mentality carried over to the three channel Duals or not.

Anyhoo, I love how boomy the rhythm chug is. Any consensus on what pedals the recto's like in terms of say a OD pedal.................. to add more focus and little bit of a tighter sound? To make it maybe not as boomy?

The easiest way to reduce the boom is to turn the bass knob down and the output knob up. The amp is kind of loose and flabby at low volumes and tightens up as the volume increases. With passive pickups I usually run the bass around 9:00 to 10:00 and with EMGs (81/60) I'll run the bass as high as 12:00.

I prefer not to boost... if I need tighter tracking I use EMGs... however, the go-to pedal for boosting a Recto is a Maxon OD808. Any Tubescreamer will work, but the OD808 has reached legendary status for it's ability to sound like it's part of the amp.

Might go pedal shopping this week. Looking at some of the MXR stuff as everyone seems to rave about it. Need a delay, reverb, wah....and possibly a OD/EQ pedal to help tighten the rhythm dirties.

If you want to tighten the rhythm then work on tightening your pick attack first. A Recto is a totally different monster than a Mark and you need to develop a different feel for how it responds to different pick attacks. A picking technique that sounds fat on a Mark will sound slow and mushy on a Recto, while a technique that sounds tight on a Recto will sound thin and sterile on a Mark. You wouldn't think there'd be such a big difference, but after years of switching back and forth between those two amps I've gotten kind of used to it (although it still takes me a bit to adjust).

 

[domct203]

Congrats!!

As screamingdaisy said, the Recto & MKV are two completely different animals, & not just tone wise.

The MXR M-108 10-Band Graphic EQ is an awesome EQ pedal that will work great either in front of the amp as a boost or in the FX Loop for tone shaping (most Recto players use them in the Loop). The Ibanez TS-9 also works great as a front end boost and can be had on the cheap if buying used.

Dom

 

[sean106ESP]

Thank you very much guys.

Yeah last night I had some better results at high volumes for clean. I had the master at around 2 O'Clock, the Ch1 volume at around 4-5 O'Clock and more or less used the gain to get a nice level with minimal break up. To your point, the Dual does seems to still have some what of a mild dirt to the clean channel like the older ones. I recall that was a big issue for me back with my older ones in 2002-2005. But the cleans were a bit dirtier back then. I think they did clean them up a bit compared to what I was used to years ago.

Thanks on the pick advice and boominess. A good point regarding pick attack. Because I did notice by fast palm muting rhythm chugs were somewhat "flubby" here and there.

As for OD pedals I might play around. I am more wanting a delay or reverb pedal right now (and maybe a better chorus...I have the boss super chorus which is not great) Eying the Carbon Copy right now. Was watching some MXR/Recto boost/OD vids last night and seems like such a mixed bag of suggestions and of course is all subjective to the player. Might play around and see what GC has that I can fiddle with and return if I don't like it

Once thing I found for dead sure (for EMG users)....is that EMG Het Set sounds much different when switching guitars that are the same, but with a 60/81 combo. The dual recto reacts much different with the Het Set. The Het Set is much much hotter, looser and a bit noisy. I found for lead playing much more sustain and liquid feedback, but for rhythm I actually prefer the EMG 81 for tighter chugging. When going from the Het Ste to the 81 you find you need to raise the gain a bit and tweak a little on overall knows. Not sure if this is a good thing as I kinda liked the focus more on the 81 then the JH set with this particular amp.

Thanks again.

 

[screamingdaisy]

As for OD pedals I might play around. I am more wanting a delay or reverb pedal right now (and maybe a better chorus...I have the boss super chorus which is not great) Eying the Carbon Copy right now. Was watching some MXR/Recto boost/OD vids last night and seems like such a mixed bag of suggestions and of course is all subjective to the player. Might play around and see what GC has that I can fiddle with and return if I don't like it

Boosting a Recto is fairly straight forward and can be done with pretty much anything. I prefer OD/TS808 style pedals as they're a little darker/smoother than a TS9, which I find blends in with the Recto's tone a little better.

I found the Carbon Copy doesn't like being in an effects loop. I really liked the sound of the delay, and it worked well when I was using it in front of a mid-gain single channel amp... but once I tried using it inside an effects loop I found it bled off a lot of top end and sucked quite a bit of the dynamics out of the sound.

I have an Eventide TimeFactor that works really well in an effects loop. As a bonus the modulated delay settings produce a really nice/thick chorus effect that eliminates the need for a separate pedal. The drawback is that I have to rely on presets as it's difficult to tweak on the fly.

I just started using a Boss DD-5 the other day. It doesn't like the Mark V's loop (bleeds treble and reduces dynamics), but it works really well with the Roadster for some reason. It's not a super accurate/Hi-Fi sounding delay, but when using high gain the repeats stay out of the way so your dry signal remains relatively clear.

Once thing I found for dead sure (for EMG users)....is that EMG Het Set sounds much different when switching guitars that are the same, but with a 60/81 combo. The dual recto reacts much different with the Het Set. The Het Set is much much hotter, looser and a bit noisy. I found for lead playing much more sustain and liquid feedback, but for rhythm I actually prefer the EMG 81 for tighter chugging. When going from the Het Ste to the 81 you find you need to raise the gain a bit and tweak a little on overall knows. Not sure if this is a good thing as I kinda liked the focus more on the 81 then the JH set with this particular amp.

That's interesting to hear. I've been wanting to try a set for awhile.

 

[sean106ESP]

Hey good looking out on the CC Delay. I used a Boss Delay before and it worked fine in a FX loop but it was a Diesel VH4 channel insert I had it in. (Don't get me started but by far the separate channel loops on the VH4 was soooooo useful. I wish more amps had em)

Before I buy some pedals, I have POD HD500 and may try the 4 cable method and see how goes with just using it for FX (of course). Not getting my hopes op as back in the day I tried for ever to hook up a Boss GT-10 with the four cable method using a Diesel VH4, Herbert and ENGL SE.....to no avail. Was way to complicated tweaking the line levels trying to loose the tone suckage but I will try anyhoo and see.

With regards to the het set. I have em in two of my guitars (3rd guitar inbound with them) and really noticed the dramatic change in the bridge, not so much the neck with cleans. very nice pups, but I think gigging them it would make sense to have them in all the guitars if you are looking for the same sound but different tunings.

 

[Addictedtokaos]

The Het Set is much much hotter, looser and a bit noisy. I found for lead playing much more sustain and liquid feedback, but for rhythm I actually prefer the EMG 81 for tighter chugging...

Really, I find the JH 81 to be a tighter pickup than the 81. fluff191 helped me out with this, you cant set them up as close to the strings as a standard 81 or they clip. Might be why you find them to be loose.

 

[sean106ESP]

The Het Set is much much hotter, looser and a bit noisy. I found for lead playing much more sustain and liquid feedback, but for rhythm I actually prefer the EMG 81 for tighter chugging...

Really, I find the JH 81 to be a tighter pickup than the 81. Fluffy helped me out with this, you cant set them up as close to the strings as a standard 81 or they clip. Might be why you find them to be loose.

Yes I think you nailed it. For sure the neck pup for cleans has to be way lower then a EMG 60. I just looked and sure enough my Het bridge is close as the 81 in anotehr guitar of the same ilk. So good point; gonna lower.

Got my Mark V back today and works lovely (Thank God as i thought I was going to have to send it back to boogie). I may do a Het Vs. 60/81 shoot out with the Mark V as it seems to react less to the two combinations of pups.

 

[Addictedtokaos]

I have mine set to 9/64th (approx 1/8"), I think fluff191 said he has his about 1/4" from the string.