I have found this post by Vitor Gracie.
QUOTE
Since the Trem O Verb has only been touched on slightly...allow me to ellaborate. (this is gonna be LOONG!)
I own a fixed power cable, Trem O verb combo with the old pointer knobs. The extra mode on the "Lead" channel is called "Blues."
If I had one sound that I had to live with on a desert island it would be that channel...
I recently sold my two channel recto head with the detachable cable and the distortion and cleans truely are different. Dialing both amps exactly the same way with fresh Mesa tubes through the same cab (recto 4X12 trad cab) produced very different sounds.
The recto head was a little gravely and "chunkier" with lots of lows but where the older Trem O Verb kills the solo head is in the midrange. The T.O.V has a beautiful mid "hump." You can hear subtle similarities in the frequencies present to a Mark IV. I have A/B ed it to one and the tones are certainly not the same but the eq boost/cut seems to aim at some of the same frequencies. I also compared it to a Quad and you could hear that they had subtle similarities in the eq. The newer rectos are just as stated, METAL! Cold and almost what Mesa "thought" all the players wanted. Scooped mids, too much lows and nail scraping on a chalk board highs...YUCK!
...aaahh the blues mode. I believe Mesa was trying to attract MK players with this mode. It is loose and creamy and huge sounding...SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Much MIDS!!!! The first thing you notice is that the mode leaves no room to play at low volumes at all. Setting the lead channel to orange forces you to turn up the volume as the channel is drasticly quieter then the red or blues. However the blues mode is loud on 1/2 of where 1 would be so you are driving the power tube almost right away. If you play a MKIII, there is a drastic "sag" if you try to do anything percussive. (this can be dialed out) The blues mode on the TOV is almost as if they gave the channel all of the MkIII characteristics but made it not as flubby and tryed to mimic the effect of the 5 band eq but with the knobs instead. Think of playing and amp with 1meg pots. LOTS of effect on the tone. I think a MkIII is also smother sounding at higher levels of gain where as the blues mode breaks up in a pleasantly uglier way. I set the gain at about three o'clock and that is MORE then enough for sustainy solo work. There is still plenty of diction in your notes.
Overall the cleans are why I first purchased the amp from the store. I owned a 5150 and didn't care about the gain somuch as getting a REALLY good clean tone. To me back then as long as the amp had thuddd, I didn't care about the dirty. But the cleans are warmer then the solo head. I have read that there is a capacitor on the pots in the clean channel...I am not sure that this is true, however, if you set the lead channel to orange, the presence knob becomes almost non-functional. You have to use the presence knob on the clean channel to effect the lead. It says to do this in the manual.
One more thing on the cleans...there is a "secret" channel on these older rectos. The 1st channel can be cloned as we all know. You can have orangr/red, orange/orange or red/red. Well most players back then never heard anything like this amp so we all imediatly wanted two red channels with gain and then MORE gain!!!
Here is the secret. You can set channel 1 to clean and have them both be red. This creates the same eq curve as the dirty and majorly increases the highs and lows to produce a very scooped clean sound. If you use a Les Paul or another guitar that has humbuckers, it can get you pretty glassy sounds. It also sounds great with a P-90 as the hotter the single coil the more of those glassy highs you LOOSE. The low end thump on that red clean sound is almost too much....AWSOME...
Well thats my book on the Trem O Verb. I got it new WITH a discount ($1400.00 USD) The store just lost its Mesa Lisence due to lack of sales. It was my first Mesa and I soon got a PRS from the same store. Sounds great on top of the matching recto 2X12. Open back from the combo and closed from the bottom.
Good Luck bro!
UNQUOTE
Regards
Daniel