Question about the Roadster

[philiprst]

I am new here so please be gentle

I am gigging again and need a new head so I just got back from spending the afternoon checking out the Mesa Stiletto Ace and the Roadster head at a local store. I very slowly went through every channel on each amp and tweaked as best I could within the time available.

I absolutely love the ch1 and ch2 of the Roadster. There is s much variety in those two channels and ch1 has the sparkling cleans I always wished for. Ch 3 and 4 gave me what I think of as the classic Rectifier rhythm sound. Very nice and I can definitely use that tone. But, I could not for the life of me find a lead tone that I liked. The problem is that the notes do not sustain smoothly; after a short while they break up into a choppy buzz that I find annoying.

By contrast, the cleans on the stiletto sounded, to me, quite boxed without much room to breathe. The cleans were not bad, just nowhere near as vibrant and open. The rhythm crunch sound was voiced more towards Marshall that the Roadster Ch 3 and 4 which I could live with but I would prefer the Rectifier tone. But.... the lead tones on the Stilletto were much closer to what I was looking for.

I told the salesguy that what I wanted was the lead tone of the Stiletto in the Roadster! He said that I could replace the tubes in the Roadster with EL34s and that might get it closer to the Stiletto sound.

So... anyone got any advice? I would love to hear from people who have run their Roasters with EL34 and the effect it had on the lead tone. Also, has anyone with experience with the roadster been able to dial up a nice smooth sustaining lead tone without the choppy decay?

Thanks so much

Philip

 

[Platypus]

Welcome to the board.

In my opinion, you're not going to get the Stiletto lead tone out of a Rectifier even with different tubes. They are just voiced completely differently. They cover vastly different sonic territories. While a lot of people will fiercely argue with me, I don't consider the Rectifier series to have what I would call a good lead tone compared to a Lonestar or Mark IV or Stiletto for example.

You might consider a Mark IV if you want good cleans, good crunch, brutal heavy distortion and awesome lead tones. If the Roadster didn't do it for you in the Lead department then you're most likely not going to be happy with it in the long run. There is a lot you can experiment with, I did almost everything to try and get my Dual Rectifier to have a good lead tone but it just wasn't there. I simply flipped the switch from standby to 'on' with my Mark and Stiletto and had a great lead sound in contrast.

An easy fix would be to try and boost the Recto with a tubescreamer style overdrive and see if that gets you closer in the lead dept.. otherwise while you're shifting the frequencies you hear with different output tubes, it's still a recto under the hood.

 

[wildrat666]

I´ve got EL 34s in my dual recto 3chan. and a maxon od808 to boost it.
result: tight sounding metal machine with lots of sustain,lead tone

 

[philiprst]

Thanks for the help everyone. Following your suggestions I went back to the store and had them swap the 6L6s with EL34s and then used a fulltone drive to boost channel 4. Result: very nice lead sound

 

[123thefirst]

But, I could not for the life of me find a lead tone that I liked. The problem is that the notes do not sustain smoothly; after a short while they break up into a choppy buzz that I find annoying.

Unlike some other amps than effectively give you training wheels, the Roadster and Road King are full pro amps. They seem to be designed with the philosophy that the owner is already well-versed in the art, especially using classic amps like the Fender Twin and Marshall Plexi. Any deficiencies with other equipment you're using will be plainly audible, especially playing solos where it all comes to the forefront.

I'd guess from your description above that you used the Modern mode. That has a massive amount of compression with a very hard knee and will hyper boost the dying edge of the guitar's signal to the point of ugly breakup if the guitar's signal is weak. A boost/distortion pedal is a quick bandaid.

While I do generally find using the EL34's more often lets you get a rounder, creamier tone for soloing, the 6L6's will give you a different type of lead sound, more in line with playing a Fender or Dumble. You should also experiment with the Rectifier and Bold/Spongy switches.