Dual Rectifier solo head blues settings?

I am going for Bonamassa-ish settings on the 3-channel solo head. Googling this stuff has not provided satisfactory results so I am taking it to the pros

Thanks!

Well I have a Tremoverb, so not exactly the same beast but I suspect you can achieve a similar result with your amp. First I finally stopped trying to find settings online and just read the manual, lol. I figure the guys that designed it probably have some of the best insights into how to set it up for any particular sound and will at least give the best starting point for experimentation. I've always loved a warm Eric Johnson or Bonamassa type tone and on other amps in the past that's generally meant running the mids at least noon or more. One thing I've learned however is that Mesas can be counter-intuitive until your mind wraps around the interactivity of the tone controls and how they feed off of each other. After spending some time between vintage and blues modes I decided I was getting the warmest tone from the blues mode. Vintage was very close with equal gain settings and truthfully I could set it up to sound nearly identical, but blues just seemed to be a little more focused to me. After that I decided to listen to the manual and go with a lower mid setting for a liquid, fluid tone. Unlike the modern mode, blues and vintage are already very midrange voiced modes and therefore running a lower setting doesn't rob mids from the tone so long as the treble settings don't get too high. So clock settings are as follows....

Presence: 9 OClock - For a brighter voiced rectifier I'd drop presence to 0.
Bass: 10 OClock - Without a TS type pedal you'll probably need to drop the bass to 0 to prevent flub with higher amp gain settings.
Mid: 9 OClock
Treble: 10:30
Gain: 1 OClock

Bold with tube rectifiers

It will also likely be necessary to run a tube screamer type pedal to help achieve this kind of tone. The combination of running the bass and gain lower on the amp along with a TS style pedal tightens the amp up considerably and allows the desired gain level to be dialed in while maintaining the lower gain level on the amp. I use a BBpre pedal with the bass and treble at noon, level 2 Oclock and drive 10 Oclock.

I've seen many people state that the rectifiers aren't good for smooth leads and I'm just forced to disagree completely. I've had a Lonestar and a Mark V and I have to say that I'm getting nearly as creamy a tone as I was with my preferred settings on my old Lonestar and just as smooth and fluid a tone as anything the Mark V could give me in any channel or setting. Anything from Petrucci to Eric Johnson, Gary Moore, or Joe Bonamassa I can manage to my satisfaction...and I am OCD, lol. Your mileage may vary on different model rectifiers as I know they are all voiced differently but for sure this Tremoverb is a far cry from the stereotypical metal machine these amps have become known for. It's as bluesy and soulful an amp as I've heard and IMHO it's treasure is to be found in the blues and vintage modes. Hope that is of some help.

Chris

Oh, and don't forget the serial loop mod and a good delay to complete the package...or at least the delay!

Chris

Thanks!

I found a pretty good one since I posted this, your settings sound nice too, but without the TS, I think I like mine more.

Presence 100%
Bass 9 o'clock
Mid 0%
Gain 3 o'clock
Treble 2 o'clock
RAW

Still adjusting, but I like where this is going.

Glad you found something you like. Low mids in that mode makes a smooth tone.

Chris

Im new to the boogie board, but currently on my 6th Rectifier. I have never been able to get a steller blues tone out of the recto with any guitar, which for me would either be a strat or a les paul. However, the rectifier has a very, very cool feature about it most never use. If yours is like mine, you have a foot switchable effects loop. This is very handy. You can use an alternative preamp. In my case, I use my ADA MP-1 pre, or I use my B-52 AT100 head Preamp. In essence what you can do is plug in a different preamp for a different tone directly to the Rectifier's tube output power section by plugging it into the effects return, and then pressing your footswitch to engage the loop. This amazing feature is what keeps me coming back to The Recto. I know that the Recto will not work for everything, but because I can run and offboard pre and switch between the recto pre (on board) and the alternative pre (off board), it makes this head worth the price of admission as an amazing power amp just for that alone.

So, when I want to run my B-52 preamp, but over my Triple Rectifier Power section, here is basically what I do. I plug my guitar into an A/B/Y switcher so I can run my guitar signal to both amps at the same time. I install an impedance matching load resistor on the output of the B-52 amp and set the master volume to 0. The impedance matching load resistor is just an 8 ohm/50 watt wire wound load resistor. I have tons of them around for other work I do. If you don't have one, Mouser has them. I just solder it to speaker wire and solder the other side of the speaker wire to a T/S 1/4" speaker jack and plug it into the B52 output. Next, I take a guitar cable and run it from the EFFECTS SEND of the B-52 amp into the Effects return of the Triple Recto. Your speaker wire should come out of the recto and into your speaker cab. Voila! Now you are running the B-52 preamp and the Triple Rectifier power section. So, Boogie purists would say, why in the heck would you do that. Well, in this case, The B-52 Clean channel is a Fender Twin Clone right down to the bright switch. Cap for Cap, resistor for resistor, they are strikingly close. And the B-52 clean sounds absolutely amazing. Second, the Rhythm and Lead channels on the B-52 are a clone of a hot rodded Marshall JCM-900 with an extra gain stage. When you run that preamp over a Recto power section set in Spongy and tube Rectified, is has a ton of lovely sag. I just love it. I also love running one of my four ADA MP-1 Pres over the recto power section. And the beauty is that you can dial in a great squeaky clean tone, a great blues tone for a Strat or Les Paul, etc, etc, etc. It is all about versatility. If you are a gigging musician and the Recto covers most of what you need, but you need a few more sounds, or you want to incorporate Midi switching into your live show with presets, but still want to bust back to the crushing Recto Red channel, setting up an ADA MP1 with midi switching and its own effects loop for a lot of your other sounds, and switching between the Recto and ADA MP-1 preamps is a great way to get that done. All foot switchable for you already with the great way Randall Smith designed the effects loop.

I know this seems like this got a little off topic from trying to dial in a little Bonamassa, but I dumped my first and best sounding Recto because I could never dial in a strat sound for SRV. I wanted to find an amp that would do it all, and thought I could. That was the biggest mistake of my life. I never should have sold that amp since it was strikingly different than all my other rectos. Not sure why. But if I would have known this little trick when I had it, I would have saved myself about 2000 hours of tone tweaking and about 40 tube amps since then. haha.

This works great with all kind of stuff. Want to find out what your Recto will sound like over EL-34s? Put a load resisitor on the output of your recto and set the master to 0. Take the effects send out of your recto and run it into the effects return of your DSL or Orange or whatever. Plug your guitar into the Recto, plug your speaker cab into your DSL, etc and viola. Same trick. I got good blues tone by running my digital modeling preamps into the effects return of my recto. That saved me, then I got into the ADA MP-1s and later, now I am just hooking up all my heads with effects loops differently to check the different flavors. It is fun, and can help you dial in a great tone. Hope this helps.

VailAve,

I posted this a few years ago with a bit of a write up. It's a similar thing you're talking about but a bit more flexible. The setup below is actually a setup I've used (with those exact pedals).



The H&K Tubeman in the image can be any preamp, in your case an ADA. What I want to try soon are my Rocktron Piranha and Mesa Quad preamps through my Roadster head. Should be lots of fun.

The orange pedal in the image is actually a pedal I own. It's basically a 2x effects loop pedal that have their own level controls. You can switch either loop in or out or have both on. One of the loops also has a phase switch. This is the combination available:

1. Amp preamp
2. External preamp
3. Combined preamps
4. Clean guitar signal blend into either loop or both loops (via a toggle switch on the pedal)
5. Bypass (only guitar signal straight into power amp)

When you think about the above combinations, each preamp also has it's own channels. So think about this combination if you have a Roadster amp plus say the H&K unit:
1. Amp's Ch 1
2. Amp's Ch 2
3. Amp's Ch 3
4. Amp's Ch 4
5. Amp's Ch 1 + H&K Ch 1
6. Amp's Ch 1 + H&K Ch 2
7. Amp's Ch 1 + H&K Ch 3
8. Amp's Ch 2 + H&K Ch 1
9. Amp's Ch 2 + H&K Ch 2
10. Amp's Ch 2 + H&K Ch 3
11. Amp's Ch 3 + H&K Ch 1
12. Amp's Ch 3 + H&K Ch 2
13. Amp's Ch 3 + H&K Ch 3
14. Amp's Ch 4 + H&K Ch 1
15. Amp's Ch 4 + H&K Ch 2
16. Amp's Ch 4 + H&K Ch 3
17. H&K Ch 1
18. H&K Ch 2
19. H&K Ch 3
20. Straight guitar signal

Insane number of channels available. Plus you have the other modes to play with!

That looper pedal is a really neat pedal that I bought years ago. I bought it off ebay but I can't recall who made it. The guy also made other unique pedals. I don't think he makes / sells any more (I haven't seen this pedal on ebay in a few years).

Here's food for thought:
1. Convert the amp's effects loop into serial.
2. Add a 3x or 4x (or 5x) effect loop pedal as shown in the image above. This basically converts the amp's serial loop into a multi-loop (multi-parallel loop). If each loop has it's own level control (as shown above), even better.
3. Add multiple preamps or EQ's (or other pedals)

Things to keep in mind:
1. Phase switches are required for the loops to make sure all preamps are not out of phase.
2. One loop must be free to connect to amp's input and send jacks.

Plenty to think about if you want to have some fun. Or go mad :lol:

-B