New Road King Owner needs help converting from DC-5

[Gadfly810]

Hello All!

I have recently purchased a new Road King head. To say this thing is awesome is an understatement. I have been playing live for the past 9 years with a DC-5 combo. The DC-5 has been a reliable kick a** amp. I have got that amp tweaked to perfection on the gain channel. I am having a lot of trouble getting a similar sound out of the road king. I really like the warm, creamy distortion of the DC-5. All distortion/gain in the Road King seems to be a bit more "harsh" and fuzzy if you will. I have already spent hours with the RK, and although I am making progress towards tones i really like, no luck with the DC-5 sound. Can anyone out there give me some advice on this? Greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[no soul]

First, welcome to the board.

And all I can really say is keep trying with the RK, it has the same really high learning curve as all its other recto brothers.

 

[mesa115]

Welcome.

Start by lowering the wattage on your distorted channels to emulate your DC5. Turn your presence way lower than the DC 5. If your trying to emulate the CONTOUR, go with the silicone rectifier and Modern.

Do not lower your mids past about 10:00 there is A LOT of mid in the DC circuit, so no mids on a DC is 10 o'clock on a Road King.

Did you change any speakers, was the DC-5 a head?

 

[tele_jas]

Don't have a road king, but I have a Triple Rectifier and a Rectoverb and my favorite setting on both amps is the Vintage (probably ch 3 on the RK) with the Bass at 11:00 * Mids at 11:00 * Treb at 11:00 * Pres at 10:00 * Gain at 1:00 to 3:00 (all the way up on my triple since it seems to have less gain than my Rectoverb).

Those settings may not mean anything on the RK, or you may not like them but that's where I set it on mine and I don't have a real harsh sound but that could be my cab and/or speaker too.

Oh yeah, the Triple is 150wts and set for tube rectification and the ROV is 50 wts with only diode rectifier- and this setting works pretty good on both, give or take a tad here and there.

Let us know when you find the tone you're looking for and post settings for others too.

 

[screamingdaisy]

I drew up a cheat sheet that has the tone pie charts out of the Dual Recto manual (I don't know if the RK has the same or not).

When I'm adjusting the feel of the amp I always glance over at the pie charts.

For instance...

I really like the warm, creamy distortion of the DC-5. All distortion/gain in the Road King seems to be a bit more "harsh" and fuzzy if you will.

Gain - 14:30-full - "Warm and Saturated"
Mids - 09:00-none - "Compressed, scooped, easy"
Pres - 10:00-none - "Scooped, compressed, dark"

Would tell me that you probably want to roll up the gain, roll down the mids and presence. I wouldn't recommend running the mids down around 09:00, but it's your tone.

Running the mids too high tends to make the amp very stiff feeling, and running the presence too high gives it a harsh and fizzy top end.

When I think Rectifier I generally don't imagine a warm tone as the amp is rather intentionally cold sounding, but when I want do want warm and saturated I dime the gain on the Raw voicing with the presence around 09:00-10:00 and the mids either slightly scooped (11:00 or so), or slightly boosted (12:30 or so).

Another trick that you could try is to turn up the presence and scoop the treble.....a sound that's not for everyone, but some people like it.

Lastly, you could try a retube using a "hotter" grade of tube.