RoadKingII Channel 4 vintage issue

[wmpunk]

I have my RoadKing set up with channel 3 set to modern because I think it sounds WAY better than modern on channel 4. I wanted to try to set up channel 4 as a lead channel and just couldn't seem to find a tone I liked. I tried setting it to vintage and there was a massive volume drop.At first I was concerned but then I read online that this is normal. After tweaking and tweaking I came to the conclusion that channel 4 vintage sounded horrible and shrill and just gave up on the idea for a bit.

A few weeks later I tried vintage on channel 3 and thought it sounded absolutely Amazing, so I tried to tried again to get channel 4 as my lead. This time I set channel 3 and 4 to the exact same setting (tubes, rectifier, everything ) with just the intention to tweaking the presence control on channel 4 since I read that the presence is the only difference between the two.To my surprise I found out that channel 4's vintage had considerable less volume channel 3's vintage. Channels 3's vintage I had to turn the volume up about 3 notches to match the volume from when I had it in modern, but on channel 4 I had to turn up the volume about another 3 notches past where channel 3 was just to make both the vintage channels the same volume. Is this normal? I have a hard time believing that a difference in presence controls would have such a difference in volume, specifically just in vintage. ( I didn't mesa with Raw at all)

 

[domct203]

Welcome to the board.

Channel 3 is optimized for Vintage mode, while Ch 4 is optimized for Modern mode. It's the same with my Roadster.

I use Ch 3 Vintage for my lead channel, Ch 4 Modern for my rhythms. Works perfect for me.

HTH,
Dom

 

[wmpunk]

Thank you!

I was under the impression that the presence was the only difference between the channels? Is there also a difference in the power section? Unless the increases negative feedback from the channel 4's presence causes a change in volume.

I would use channel 4 for modern but It just sounds so much sweeter to me on channel 3.

 

[knotts]

My roadster is the same way too. I wasn't 100% sure it was designed that way, but I was willing to accept it. Channel 3 sounds so good I don't need Channel 4 except for a few rhythm tones. Thanks for the explanation Dom and thanks for the post.

 

[dlpasco]

This seriously tripped me up for quite awhile.

I eventually did some exhaustive A/B testing with my Road King II and my 2010 Dual Rectifier to figure out what the heck was going on.

The net result is:

Channel 3 is super bright, so you get much brighter Vintage and Modern modes.
Channel 4 is super dark, so you get much darker Vintage and Modern modes.

However, when I A/B'd against the regular Dual Rectifier, what I found was:

Road King Channel 3, Vintage = Dual Rectifier Vintage Mode
Road King Channel 4, Modern = Dual Rectifier Modern Mode

Road King Channel 3, Modern = Crazy bright, fizzy Modern mode far brighter than anything on the Dual Rectifier
Road King Channel 4, Vintage = Crazy dark Vintage mode unlike anything anywhere. Sounds like someone threw a blanket over the speakers.

You can see this in the Haggerty's music Roadster/Dual Rectifier comparison, but I really didn't understand what I was seeing until I'd worked this out myself.

So, basically, when they say "Optimized for Vintage" they really mean "sounds like crap for Modern" and when they say "Optimized for Modern" they mean "sounds like crap for Vintage".

What happened with me is that I got used to thinking of Channel 3 on the Road King as the "Dual Rectifier Channel" despite what was in the manual, because my ear would adjust to the super bright Modern mode and start thinking of that as "the real Modern mode". I also started thinking of Channel 4 as "the messed up crazy dark channel" until I got the amps side by side and really started comparing them seriously.

I have a playlist comparing the the two modes on both amps on sound cloud, if anyone is interested