First let me start out by saying "brootal" is a very subjective word... one person may consider Master of Puppets brutal (where infact there isnt much gain there) where the next guy might consider brutal a Killswitch Engage tone whereas the next guy may consider it something like Nevermore. I think the best way to get across to other people what your shooting for is if you cite a band and/or a song that we either know ro can find and listen to. there is a lot of experience on this board so finding a song or a tone on youtube can go a long way in providing assistance. :wink:
With that said, one thing thats always worked for me is using both an OD infront of the amp and using a EQ in the loop. Now I know there are a bunch of people out there that think "you already have a recto how much more gain do you need?"... well its not about the gain in the amp, its about the usuable gain and how to tap that gains potential while retaining the tone and character of your guitar and amp and technique.
The Rectos have a huge amount of gain on tap and not all of it is usuable, so you'll find past say 2 oclock on the gain knob you get pure mud. What I have found is by keeping the gain at or below 12 oclock and boosting your signal with an OD or Clean Boost you can keep your preamp cleaner (by keeping the gain lower on the actual amp) but still get a super heavy, super brutal tone because you sending a hotter signal to the preamp getting the tubes more compressed. You also end up adding more harmonics with the right OD which even for heavy rhythm tones is a good thing as it makes things sound more musical and rich. You also get some tightening with boost infront as the preamp tube compression will have a tighter, more bold tone. Finally with some boosts you'll get a bump in the mids which can be a blessing when paired with a recto as the rectos are a bit scooped, especially in the upper mids.
Now once you have your super tight, super dense tone coming from the preamp you may also want to finely shape your tone before it hits the power amp. This is where the eq in the loop comes in... the eqs for each channel do more than just enhance or subdue certain frequencies on a recto. They interact more than you'd see on other amps, so using an eq in the loop will help you get a more refined tone by making very slight adjustments until you find your tone. It also helps in brings more mids into your tone, which the rectos lack right off the bat. Reinstating those mids are very important for getting a good cutting lead tone as well as getting the right amount of punch for super heavy rhythms.
So are an OD and/or eq always necassary? No. But they are great tools for dialing in specific tones with certain amps. Granted there are many other changes you could make to get you a certain tone (different pickups in your guitar, a different cab, different preamp tubes), but to me adding an OD and/or eq to the mix are very easy and very affordible alternatives, especially if you want to do some experimenting first. you seem to already have both in your Bad Monkey and MXR eq, so i suggest trying both out and see if you can find what your looking for.
With the Bad Monkey I would suggest setting the gain to 0, maxing the volume and setting up your low and highs to your liking. If you feel thats too clean of a boost start adding a little bit of gain at a time till you get something that fits. One thing to note when doing this is you may need to reduce the gain on your amp as running the preamp cleaner with a boost gets you more clarity, more punch and at the same time more power due to the boost.
With the EQ make very slight adjustments. bottom end flub resides around the 200 hz frequency, so by taking that slider down slightly should tighten your tone a bit. I would also recommend bumping the 2k and 4k frequncies a bit to get a little more mid action in your tone which should give you some more punch without making things too bright.
One last thing... once you add the OD and/or EQ lower the presence on your amp. That should provide more thump rather than more bite... to add more bite rase the treble slightly on the channel and/or adjust the top end with the eq. At the end of the day thought just experiment and experiment, and most importantly have fun
