previous: Steve Ahola     Looking at ... -- 6/14/2000 8:03 AM

Re: M/B Dual Rectifier- Red Channel or Orange?

6/14/2000 10:23 PM

Tom Brown

Re: M/B Dual Rectifier- Red Channel or Orange? Steve,     With due respect to the previous posters, I prefer the Red channel to the Orange on the Dual Rectifier Solo head. Although I've gone back and forth between the two, and I certainly enjoy the Orange channel from time to time, I find myself again and again using channel cloning to set up both channels as "Red". (This trend spans the course of about 4 years and two different Dual Recto Solo heads).     I think part of the range in people's opinions about this amp stems from the different cabinets that people use with it. I own the Dual Rectifier 4x12 cabinet with Vintage 30's and the gold-tone grille cloth.     (as an aside-- has anyone noticed a difference in sound due to this gold grille cloth? It has some kind of wax impregnated in it, and I swear it seems like it sounds different to me than other Recto 4x12's I've played through, but since I haven't had the opportunity to do a apples-to-apples comparison it's hard for me to know for sure)     Anyway, with this cabinet I think the Red channel is a great match. The Red channel makes for a louder, cleaner clean sound than the Orange channel does, and it has a massive and authoritative dirty sound. Through a Marshall cabinet it might not sound so good, since the Marshall cabinets I've played through have tended to be on the mushier side. Once I spent an afternoon comparing different amps through different cabinets at a local music store-- Marshall JTM through Mesa cabinet, Mesa Dual Recto through Marshall cabinet, etc. One insight that one of the guys at the guitar store had that I think is pretty apt is this: The Marshall Plexi reissues tend to sound fairly harsh on their own, but they make a great combination with the Marshall cabinets because the speaker breakup in those cabinets tends to mellow them out some. The Dual Rectifiers are voiced less harsh than the Marshalls and can be somewhat mushy when the gain is turned up, so they match well with the Dual Rectifier cabinets which reproduce the amp's sound without much speaker breakup at all.     As far as the presence controls, I think the Red channel "Presence" control is OK but nothing to write home about. As has been noted, it's just a second treble tone knob with a different frequency. Since the negative feedback loop is disabled in the red channel the real "presence" is on 10, which I think is one of the things about the red channel that I like.     For what it's worth, I'm running Svetlana 6L6's biased at around 25mA per a bias pot I installed (stock fixed resistors produced a bias around 18-22mA depending) and usually use the tube rectifiers and have lately been using the "spongy" power setting. Preamp tubes are Sovtek 12AX7LPS's and JJ/Tesla ECC83's.     By the way, if it hasn't been said here lately, the secret to getting awesome tone from the Dual Rectifier series is this:     Turn DOWN the gain and turn UP the volume! Just because the gain goes to 11 doesn't mean you should be using it. My "HIGH GAIN" setting on the Red channel has the gain set to about 1:00 or 2:00 O'clock. Going higher than that is how you get the buzzbox tone that people always associate with this amp. And it really sounds great with the gain around 12:00 O'clock for a heavy crunch sound. There's a lot of territory to be explored on the lower gain settings of this amp.     Hope this helps!     -Tom

 

Replies:

rmike I also prefer the Red channel for d... -- 6/15/2000 12:01 AM Ryan Tom, thanks for respecting my opini... -- 6/15/2000 3:32 AM