Tremoverb vs Dual Recto

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I am the original owner of one from the first run. I am very familiar with most of the DR family. I am sitting 3 feet from mine right now.
 
I have a TOV and I think it's one of the finest amps Mesa ever made. I'm sure there are subtle differences in a DR and a TOV, but I think of the TOV as an elegant version of a DR with its addition of reverb, and trem. Moreover, I think the DR has a reputation of being a monster metal amp, hence the nickname RectumFrier. Most of the time I see them, someone is playing a dual humbucker guitar and trying to shake the earth from its axis. I can get some wicked sounds from my TOV playing an AM ST Strat with Kinman pickups that will rattle the windows, but I can can also get a wide variation of sounds that I don't think a DR will do nearly as well. To sum up, it really depends, IMHO, on whether your using 6L6's, my choice, or EL34's, and what kind of pickups you're using. If you had to choose between the two, I'd pick the TOV everytime.

Good Luck, Mike
 
ryjan said:
So what generation of recto would you say it falls into. Old 2 channel, 3 channel, roadster, etc.

It is most like the other ones being made at the same time .... the two channel amps. It is the final refinement of the two channel amps.

It has a much better clean channel, the blues channel has a pretty big midrange hump and well cover a lot of middle gain range sounds. The clean and blues channels can do a pretty good vintage English crunch. The Red and Orange are bit smoother, not as bright and in your face. I feel they have more girth also. It is a darker sound than the 2 channel Dual and Triple. Many feel it is the best amp Mesa has ever made.

http://www.mesaboogie.com/Product_Info/Out_of%20_Production/Tremoverb/tremoverb.html

"WAIT - STOP! But seriously: Big, HUGE notes. If we seem enthusiastic, it's because this is the most awesome big amp we make.

At the infamous Guitar Player Amp Summit of 1994, we were impressed (as were the magazines's top reviewers) that the T-verb copped the major juju of amps as diverse as the Vibro-King and the AC-30 in a field of 28 hundred watt contenders - including ones costing up to four times as much. and then went on to produce unique sounds all its own which none of the others could replicate."

As stated above it well get into the ball park of Fender and Vox sounds. I can get mine to sound a lot like the Beatles Revolver album. Most buy it for the heavy sounds ... but it is much more versatile.

Using 5881, 6L6, EL34, KT77, KT66 or 6CA7 in the power section well all effect the flavor of the amp. I use old 6CA7 in mine and really like them.

The http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/Tremoverb.pdf talks about it's range a bit.
 
Cool! Thanks guys. I'm supposed to go check one out saturday and just wanted to know what to expect since my recto experience is limited to one sit down each with a 3 channel dual, a 2010 multi watt dual, and a roadster.
 
stephen sawall said:
ryjan said:
So what generation of recto would you say it falls into. Old 2 channel, 3 channel, roadster, etc.

It is most like the other ones being made at the same time .... the two channel amps. It is the final refinement of the two channel amps.

It has a much better clean channel, the blues channel has a pretty big midrange hump and well cover a lot of middle gain range sounds. The clean and blues channels can do a pretty good vintage English crunch. The Red and Orange are bit smoother, not as bright and in your face. I feel they have more girth also. It is a darker sound than the 2 channel Dual and Triple. Many feel it is the best amp Mesa has ever made.

To put it in perspective, I feel the Tremoverb was the last Recto designed with 'Alternative' in mind. After it's release detuned nu-metal and 7-strings started to become all the rage, and I feel that Mesa answered by brightening up the 3 channel in an effort to give the Recto a little more cut and to make it a little more aggressive in the face of guitar's tuned down to oblivion.

I think that's why a lot of the rock guys prefer the older Rectos... little darker and a touch smoother.
 
If you look on page 6 of this manual ( http://www.mesaboogie.com/manuals/3chRecto_multiWatt-100216.pdf ) it does a very good job of describing how a gain control works on all amps. It does a lot more than add distortion. That and the tone control section well translate well to any of the DR amps. I would recommend any one with a DR or going to look at one reads this.
 
screamingdaisy said:
stephen sawall said:
ryjan said:
So what generation of recto would you say it falls into. Old 2 channel, 3 channel, roadster, etc.

It is most like the other ones being made at the same time .... the two channel amps. It is the final refinement of the two channel amps.

It has a much better clean channel, the blues channel has a pretty big midrange hump and well cover a lot of middle gain range sounds. The clean and blues channels can do a pretty good vintage English crunch. The Red and Orange are bit smoother, not as bright and in your face. I feel they have more girth also. It is a darker sound than the 2 channel Dual and Triple. Many feel it is the best amp Mesa has ever made.

To put it in perspective, I feel the Tremoverb was the last Recto designed with 'Alternative' in mind. After it's release detuned nu-metal and 7-strings started to become all the rage, and I feel that Mesa answered by brightening up the 3 channel in an effort to give the Recto a little more cut and to make it a little more aggressive in the face of guitar's tuned down to oblivion.

I think that's why a lot of the rock guys prefer the older Rectos... little darker and a touch smoother.

I believe you are correct Mesa was changing the sound to follow what was happening with popular sounds. A lot of people felt it was not cutting in the mix so the voiced it more upper midrange instead of lower midrange. I also feel the 2 channel amps do good with lower tunings. A lot of amps well not.
 
Tremoverb and a 2 channel Dual will sound about the same, + or - a bit. What the TOV does have is the nice cleans and blues modes.
 
I think tremoverb was the intent to make a more versatile Dual Rectifier, and it has a very big diference in the voicing, besides of the efect of reverb and tremolo even if they are bypassed, tremoverb has one more stage after eq-master and reverb, just before efects loop (V5b).
just now seeing the schemaics i realice that, and a new idea comes to my mind, maybe you can get some post eq distortion, or desirable compresion from that stage if you set the channel master pass 12:00 or 02:00, and activate the efects loop to use the general master volume for atenuates the volume and dont get deaf. if this works maybe can be someting like crank the power section of the amp.
that stage can be shaped to do that efect if it does not do that like it is, even u can put a switch if u wan to preserve the natural TOV tone i will experiment tomorrow that, and if it works with mod or not, you will have to name this feature by G.M.C.F (Gonzalo´s Monster Cock Factor) in my honor! :twisted:

best regards!!!
 
A Tremoverb, (my main amp since '96) is the same amp as an older 2 channel Recto on the red and orange distortion modes (modern and vintage high gain...Same amp EXCEPT that it has:

1) An improved clean tone; There is a bright cap on the normal clean channel (the clean channel be dialed to distort like a big nasty, crusty ol' marshall amp-in a splendid way)
1a) there are two clean modes. Orange mode which is normal "vintage" and red mode which is spanky and scooped (normal two channel rectos can do this too, but it don't sound all that friggin' good)
2) Tremolo
3) Reverb
3) An extra mode called Blues; I could write a whole page on this mode alone. In essence the Blues mode is a nod to the older Mark series of amps (Mark III maybe) but with a different architecture. It's more modern sounding instead of flubby and round on the lows and indeed does have a mid hump which can be scooped out in a non-metal kinda way (think the mid knob on a Twin for instance) Also, the presence on the blues mode is extremely tweakable allowing you to make the distortion muffled (no highs at all) all the way up to fizzy) There is a ton of gain in this mode and to my ears is voiced for doing very vocal like leads as opposed to the crunchy beefy rhythm tones that the Orange and Red modes are designed for. Lastly, the best feature of all is that the gain on this mode is massively responsive and can dial from an alternate, slightly overdriven clean, all the way to flooded (not metal, just fluid like a Mark amp) It's the most versatile mode in the amp for sure and the only time that this sound/mode appears like this in ANY Mesa Boogie amp.

I have played dropped tuned crazy D-Metal with my tremoverb, I have done R&B/Black Gospel, Rock, Jazz gigs, Blues/SRV stuff, and alt rock with my Tremoverb. It really is the best Mesa Boogie amp ever created to my ears.

The Roadster is really on par with this amp for sure, but just does what it does in it's own way. It's not better then a TOV or worse, it just is what it is. I loved my Roadster and will get another now that I don't have it anymore, but I will ALWAYS own my Tremoverb. The amp can just do to many things with sound that have defined me as a professional player.

DSCN0674.jpg
 
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