Triple Recto tone and MXR EQ tone issue

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infinite_realm

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I have a Mesa Triple Recto and create heavy as well as light music. Big influences for many years have been Between The Buried And Me, The Faceless, Animals as leaders, Blotted Science, Exivious, Textures, Periphery ect....I have been working on the clean and dirty tones for quite sometime now. I am not experienced in this being its my first tube amp. I was playing out of a Line 6 Spider 3 2x12 on the Killswitch preset for my dirty tone. It is extremely clear compared to how i have my tone on my Mesa. The tone from the Mesa would be so much better and exactly what i want if it was just more clear but just as heavy when i hit chords with dark and bright notes in them while chugging and alternate single note picking. I have currently my guitar ibanez Sseries from like 8 yrs ago into an mxr 10band eq and a 4x12 cab with Eminence Governers however a protone dead horse deluxe is on its way. In my opinion now the Mesa just doesn't have the clarity that the Line 6 combo does even at live show volume. I actually just today i think achieved my clean tone. I know to really get the sound i want would be an AX-Fx with the Mesa Triple Rectifier but i can't afford Fractal Audio unit right now. Any tips? Thx
 
Less gain, more master volume, assuming what you refer to as a lack of "clarity" is what others might call fizziness or heavily saturated. Backing off the gain and opening the master volume gets more preamp signal to the power section and lets the amp breathe. Hitting the power tubes a bit harder with less gain from the preamp tends to give a less fizzy sound, but without an actual sound clip it's kind of hard to diagnose exactly what you're talking about

Also, are you running the EQ up front or in the fx loop? Up front the EQ tends to add more gain and acts often like a boost to the preamp. In the loop the EQ will act more like and EQ without the boost effect.
 
Thx for your help. I have my guitar into ns-2. The ns-2 send goes to mxd eq, then to tuner and back to ns-2. I have my effects loop set to clean channel. The effects loop for clean is boss comp sustain, into a wampler tape echo delay, to a boss re-20 space echo and that goes to the return on the effects. I can't really pull the master on the dirty channel up bcuz for some reason with the fx loop active it lowers the clean channel. So my clean channel volume has to be at like 3:00 and the modern dirty channel has to be rolled down or i can't get the clean to be equal volume due to the fx loop i guess. which is weird. i figure i spend 2000 dollars on a head and i can't use the fx loop without it messing my masters on each channel up.
 
mxr eq sry not mxd. i can't really put the eq on the fx loop bcuz i use the eq for the dirty channel and the fx loop is set up so that wen i switch to clean it will automatically have delay and reverb on to make life easier. If i throw the mxr in the fx loop it wouldn't be eq-ing the dirty channel when its active since it on the fx loop set to clean channel correct?
 
And yes it is just some fuzziness that is never present in recordings. yea i know all thats mixed and mastered and half of them u fractal audio but still. I've seen metal bands live before fractal was popular using mesa boogie heads and loved their set such as Between The Buried And Me back in the day. now they use a mesa head with a fractal ax also.
 
As I'm sure others have said already, simply running a boost pedal straight into the amp (no EQ) would probably be best. I recently saw a youtube video on how to dial in heavy tones where the fellow boosted the amp (gain down, level all the way up on a boost pedal) and then put the mids quite high. With EQing a recto, turning the treble up can add cut / bright / clarity to the tone. Ditch the EQ pedal.

Second thing: If financially possible, invest in a Mesa cab. They're just better.

Another thing: What sort of pickups do you have in your Ibanez? You might want to get some bright / clear high end pickups going. I have had particularly good results combining Bare Knuckle Pickups with Mesa because the BKP tend to be clear, complex, and articulate sound which mates well with Mesa's low mid heavy / complex tone. New pickups / electronics may alleviate much of the problems you have been experiencing.

[EDIT] and live, amps don't sound like on recordings. It just is what it is.

Jamming with a recto in a band is really fun, you should try it if you haven't already!
 

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