Rect-o-verb not hitting hi gain?

[Matt15f]

So I got my rect-o-vberb combo, and while overall it sounds great, I have not been able to get the new metalish hi gain type tones out of it.

Im basically at a master of puppets type sound, would think that it would go higher gain.

My guitar is a little old, a fender 91 prodigy hss.

If you have any ideas on what the problem is I would appreciate.

 

[coppa]

how much more gain do you need?.

its more about the voicing of the rectos rather then the gain on tap

the way you hear it may be different from someone else

if theres not enough I guess boost the signal with a pedal to get even more

also try hitting the strings harder

 

[sixtonoize]

Unless there's an electronic problem (like a tube that needs to be replaced), you should have WAY more gain than you'll ever need on a RoV.

I'd be willing to be that you're comparing your tone to the tone you hear on CD, which is just not a reasonable way to gauge "good" tone at all. After all, to get a "new metallish high gain" sound on a record, bands use MANY takes of low gain amps, layered on top of each other. This created a huge sound that SOUNDS like it has a lot more gain than it actually does.

I know Chevelle usually uses between 6-8 tracks per side (12-16 total). Some bands use up to 20 per side. There is simply NO WAY to duplicate this with one amp.

So, you said that your RoV sounds great, so don't worry about it. Dial your amp to sound killer and fit in the mix with less gain than you think you need. Realistically, for the optimal live mix, you'll never need to have the gain above 1:00 on a RoV. Too much gain tends to turn guitars to a wall of fuzzy mush and bury them in a mix.

 

[MusicManJP6]

sixtonoize made some good points. Your bridge pickup is your only hope for any metal tones without an OD pedal or EQ (or both) with your current guitar. Try Modern mode and use gain at 2:00, treble at 12:30, mids at 11:00, bass at noon, and presence to taste and see where that gets you. Try similar settings in Vintage mode and add an OD in front with gain at 0 and level at max.

If you are still having gain problems then your pickups may be to blame OR like sixtonoize said you may have a tube issue. Try to borrow a friends guitar or something and try again.

 

[EXPRESSLOVER]

You should defo try another guitar to see where that takes you. Mesa amplifiers make other amps sound thin. Less is more when you use gain.

 

[scott1]

Awhile back I was having problems getting gain and with my tone being too bassy. Turns out the jack on my guitar had come loose and I really hadn't noticed. Had to be something simple and stupid like that....I was replacing tubes, trying all kinds of things.

 

[rectonator296]

So I got my rect-o-vberb combo, and while overall it sounds great, I have not been able to get the new metalish hi gain type tones out of it.

Im basically at a master of puppets type sound, would think that it would go higher gain.

My guitar is a little old, a fender 91 prodigy hss.

If you have any ideas on what the problem is I would appreciate.

you cant be running out of gain with that beast :evil: when i first got it i played around the modern mode looking for those dark and heavy sounding, then i worked on the vintage and i liked it. but now, i go back with the modern mode but this time i tried dialling it back a lil off (gain-wise)to sound like the vintage. the only reason i do this is that i found the that on modern you have a better definition IMO. also note, i threw in an TS9DX and mxr 10 band eq up front( i know you gotta have this behind but issues with the parallel fx loop wont let this happen!)

 

[clutch71]

Baring problems with a grid resistor, and once I learned to dial one properly, I've rarely taken gain on rectos above 1 o'clock. I love an OD out front with the gain completely dialed out of the pedal. Rectos thrive on power tube distortion. This takes volume.

Master of Puppets on a recto just never cut it for me but to each there own.

I'd second checking out some other pups. Took me a while to find ones I was comfortable with.

 

[155]

something is not right here , mabye turn up the volume??

 

[jdurso]

You should defo try another guitar to see where that takes you. Mesa amplifiers make other amps sound thin. Less is more when you use gain.

agreed on the guitar. for the newer higain metal stuff (killswitch, trivium, etc) you'll find a hotter pickup will bring the amp to a whole new level of higain. do you have any friends with say an ESP equipped with emgs? or maybe a PRS 24 or a Les Paul? the guitar will make a huge difference as will the pickups they're equipped with. your fender right of the bat is gonna be lighter which will translate to a thinner sound... the pups in it are probably low to medium output so that will make a huge difference.

 

[Chris McKinley]

Another point to keep in mind is that even with all of the supposed high-gain amps available, even including the great Mesa Rectifier, there has yet to be an amp come along where all of the supposed high-gain is actually useable without tradeoffs in sound quality. Rectos offer a lot of gain, but much above around 2:00 and the sound quality begins to suffer. Chords lose distinction, notes lose definition, compression begins to rob dynamics, and mud can easily set in. One might ask what good is having five 12AX7 preamp tubes if only the equivalent of 3 or 4 of them is actually in the sweet spot of useable tone. The instruction manual itself warns the user not to use the full amount of gain available because tone will suffer.

Currently, the only way to approach the level of gain a Recto offers and still keep the tone useable, clear and articulate is to dial back on gain of the amp itself and, instead, to hit the first few preamp tubes extra hard with higher initial signal provided by either active pickups or a boost or overdrive. Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, but it might be nice to hope that one of Mesa's next models might include a much more useable gain architecture, allowing players to use all or nearly all of the available gain of the amp without sacrificing tone.

 

[sixtonoize]

Another point to keep in mind is that even with all of the supposed high-gain amps available, even including the great Mesa Rectifier, there has yet to be an amp come along where all of the supposed high-gain is actually useable without tradeoffs in sound quality.

One word, and it's German:

Uberschall.

One might ask what good is having five 12AX7 preamp tubes if only the equivalent of 3 or 4 of them is actually in the sweet spot of useable tone.

Only three of the 12AX7s in the RectoVerb are actually in the preamp. V4 is the FX loop buffer and V5 is the phase splitter (which is a part of the power section). All 3 pre tubes arent' even used for gain: 1/2 of V3 is a cathode follower driving the tone stack, which is unity gain (i.e, no distortion added).

The real reason that there are so many gain stages (5) is voicing: each time the signal is amplified, the gain stage is voiced to add a different character to the sound, and you simply can't get the same complexity of tone out of two gain stages that you can get out of five. When you have a lot of similarly-voiced gain stages cascaded, the sound is VERY flat and one-dimensional. So, to get a harmoniously rich sound, many gain stages are needed.

This isn't true of more "vintage" styled amps like Fenders and Voxes because they rely heavily on power amp distortion, so the combination of preamp and power amp distortion results in an interesting sound without a lot of gain shaping. Mesa amps (and all "modern" amps, FWIW) rely primarily on preamp distortion, so the preamp needs to have a lot of tone shaping going to to create an interesting tone.

 

[Chris McKinley]

sixtonoise,

RE: Uberschall. It's a great amp. So are the Ecstasy and the Herbert. So are the Diezel VH4, the VHT Pitbull, the Fuchs Tripledrive Supreme and Badcat amps. I've played each of them, and as great as every single one of them is, none of them let you use the full gain of the amp without sacrificing tone. The technology apparently just isn't there yet. That's okay, because it's also fun to have the flexibility that a good overdrive/boost offers anyway.

Your description of the AX7's in your Rectoverb was great, although I am already aware of the structure and function of cascading gain architecture and was being somewhat facetious in my analogy. Still though, the purpose of each gain stage isn't simply to shape tone, especially since the tonal variance of the tube isn't very wide to begin with. It's primarily to provide additive gain to the preamp signal and, unfortunately, we're not there yet where all of the gain from all of the preamp tubes can be brought to bear without sacrificing tonal clarity and dynamics. Maybe we never will be, given that tube technology is quite old and may have certain inherent limits, but we can always dream.

 

[sixtonoize]

sixtonoise,

RE: Uberschall. It's a great amp. So are the Ecstasy and the Herbert. So are the Diezel VH4, the VHT Pitbull, the Fuchs Tripledrive Supreme and Badcat amps. I've played each of them, and as great as every single one of them is, none of them let you use the full gain of the amp without sacrificing tone. The technology apparently just isn't there yet. That's okay, because it's also fun to have the flexibility that a good overdrive/boost offers anyway.

Your description of the AX7's in your Rectoverb was great, although I am already aware of the structure and function of cascading gain architecture and was being somewhat facetious in my analogy. Still though, the purpose of each gain stage isn't simply to shape tone, especially since the tonal variance of the tube isn't very wide to begin with. It's primarily to provide additive gain to the preamp signal and, unfortunately, we're not there yet where all of the gain from all of the preamp tubes can be brought to bear without sacrificing tonal clarity and dynamics. Maybe we never will be, given that tube technology is quite old and may have certain inherent limits, but we can always dream.

Out of the amps you've named, I can only comment on the Uberschall, because it's the only one I've actually owned. Now, I doubt that we both have the exact same definition of "tonal quality", but I firmly believe that all of the gain in my Uber is usable., even though I usually keep the gain below 9:00. It's not like the other modern high-gain amps I've owned (Marshalls, Peaveys, Mesas, and a Traynor) where the fundamental tone changes as you turn up the gain.

With the Uberschall, there is no major tonal difference between low-gain settings and maximum gain. Obviously, there is more saturation and compression, but it's not like other amps where the gain gets fizzy, mushy, and flat. Even though the tone is very compressed (obviously...that's what gain does), the amp still responds to pick attack and subtle techniques like light muting (which I do a lot). I don't really know how to say it without sounding like a walking cliche', but the uber really does exactly what everyone raves about. Chords at maximum gain are just as well-defined as at low gain, and simpler ones (sus2s especially) sound BETTER with more gain.

Really, my overly-long description of what the pre tubes was written because when you said that a RoV had 5 tubes in the preamp, I though you didn't know what you were talking about. Clearly you do, so nevermind that part.

Although, I do disagree that altering the voicing of a single gain stage can have a drastic effect on an amps tone. I've done some modding (although I'm far from Randall Smith), and it's surprising how much of a difference simple small changes can make in the overall tone and characteristic of an amps distortion.

 

[MusicManJP6]

Hey Matt - any luck getting more gain out of your RoV?

 

[biazzaz]

Like one of the first people to reply to this post I was just wondering what he was using to gauge his tone against? Like the other poster mentioned its hard to gauge against a CD. I wanted to add that I feel the same way the OP feels at times. Sometimes I look at my Dual Rec and think "really thats as heavy as it goes?" Apart from the usual tweaks like playing adjustments, or a distortion/OD pedal, I have noticed that playing alone in my room makes a huge difference from when I'm with my band.

Simple point, but I wanted to ask in hopes that might help us help you lol.

Thanks