screamingdaisy
Well-known member
Found the quote below on a recording site. Kind of re-framed how I view these cabs. I checked around some more and found it was a recurring theme on recording forums.
For those who're new to Mesa;
The Recto Standard is the oversized Recto cabs
The Recto Traditional are now called the 'Stiletto' cabs.
Anyway, I've been doing something thinking and some further reading on the subject and this is what I've pieced together...
For starters, the description of the Recto Traditional is exactly what I hear in my Orange 4x12, which makes sense in a way because they're somewhat similar.
The gist of what I hear with my Orange 4x12 is that the 'attack' comes out high in the upper midrange, which tends to be where V30s sound their harshest. Then, the bassy follow through (the "G" in a 'chugging' palm muted riff) comes out in the low midrange, which is where guitar tends to sound muddy and indistinct. It's something that I never totally realized until I started A/Bing with a Recto 2x12. After a couple of weeks of using the Recto 2x12 I plugged my Orange 4x12 in and I couldn't figure out why the bass on my Orange 4x12 was so overbearing, why the mids sounded absent and why the cab sounded like mud. I was going to tear it apart this weekend and test all the wiring to see if I didn't mess something up last time I swapped speakers in that cab, however the quote above perfectly explained what I'm hearing. For me this was a bit of a mind-**** since I'd always been of the opinion that the Recto cab is loose and boomy, yet here one was being tight and clear.
My assumption is that the detuning of the Recto standard cab shifts both the attack emphasis and the bass emphasis down in frequency. So, instead of having your attack emphasized in the harsh part of the V30s response it sits a little lower in frequency where the V30 sounds smoother. Further, the bass response is shifted from the low mids to the bass frequencies. This tightens and adds clarity to guitar, but gives that slow, saggy response Recto cabs are known for whist also interfering with the bassist.
The trick is that once a microphone is on the speaker that extra bass response can be EQ'd out, so what you end up with is an overall increase to the midrange with a reduced bottom end response that makes for more smoother, fuller middle tones and improved tightness/clarity on the bottom end than the smaller cab provides.
For those who're new to Mesa;
The Recto Standard is the oversized Recto cabs
The Recto Traditional are now called the 'Stiletto' cabs.
Anyway, I've been doing something thinking and some further reading on the subject and this is what I've pieced together...
For starters, the description of the Recto Traditional is exactly what I hear in my Orange 4x12, which makes sense in a way because they're somewhat similar.
The gist of what I hear with my Orange 4x12 is that the 'attack' comes out high in the upper midrange, which tends to be where V30s sound their harshest. Then, the bassy follow through (the "G" in a 'chugging' palm muted riff) comes out in the low midrange, which is where guitar tends to sound muddy and indistinct. It's something that I never totally realized until I started A/Bing with a Recto 2x12. After a couple of weeks of using the Recto 2x12 I plugged my Orange 4x12 in and I couldn't figure out why the bass on my Orange 4x12 was so overbearing, why the mids sounded absent and why the cab sounded like mud. I was going to tear it apart this weekend and test all the wiring to see if I didn't mess something up last time I swapped speakers in that cab, however the quote above perfectly explained what I'm hearing. For me this was a bit of a mind-**** since I'd always been of the opinion that the Recto cab is loose and boomy, yet here one was being tight and clear.
My assumption is that the detuning of the Recto standard cab shifts both the attack emphasis and the bass emphasis down in frequency. So, instead of having your attack emphasized in the harsh part of the V30s response it sits a little lower in frequency where the V30 sounds smoother. Further, the bass response is shifted from the low mids to the bass frequencies. This tightens and adds clarity to guitar, but gives that slow, saggy response Recto cabs are known for whist also interfering with the bassist.
The trick is that once a microphone is on the speaker that extra bass response can be EQ'd out, so what you end up with is an overall increase to the midrange with a reduced bottom end response that makes for more smoother, fuller middle tones and improved tightness/clarity on the bottom end than the smaller cab provides.
