Can a Recto do Van Halen?

Re: Can a Recto do Van Halen?

Boogie Bill said:
Back when the first Rectos hit the market in the mid '90s, I was in a music store in Seattle and just to see what it would do, the sales guy helped me do a little experiment.

We had a new 2-channel Dual Rectifier plugged into a Mesa slant V30 412. And right next to it...a used BF Fender Deluxe (no reverb) that the store had taken in, plugged into an identical Mesa slant V30 412. What surprised everyone was how quickly we were able to dial in the clean channel to match the tone of the Deluxe. A great sounding little amp, btw...especially plugged into the 412. Plently loud when pushed to 7-8 on the volume and simply gorgeous.

And the Mesa matched just perfectly but it could do it at a much louder volume. And it could capture that pushed tone of the Deluxe at a lower volume. I think B.B. King could have been right at home on a Recto.

And of course, the Recto has that whole other channel with its massive distortion capabilities. And the new Reborn has even more versatility.

The Mini-Recto Reverb...what can I say? I came this close to buying one, but a used Mark V:35 popped up and I got that instead. The MRR is a killer amp and I'm sure I would have been very happy with one. It's a different flavor than the Mark Series, but there are a lot of great tones in that amp.

I don't know about the whole " My amp HAS to sound like a Marshall" thing. I've done the bar band scene for years, and I can tell you that the drunk at the bar, the guys shooting eight-ball, the dart and pinball players...even the dancers on the dance floor...they could care less about what amp you're playing. Is it not quite Eddie's "brown sound"? Hey, they don't care!

WE care, of course...the "Artiste" within us. For myself, I don't try to sound exactly like Eddie, Carlos, Eric, or Stevie Ray. I like to think that I'm doing good when I simply sound like me. For me, that's the Mesas.

I really enjoyed the clip. Thanks for posting.

Bill
Click to expand...

Years ago a store loaned me a Plexi for the night. I'd just started browsing internet forums at the time, had read lots about them and wanted to hear one for myself.

I took it into one of the warehouses at work, plugged it into my Recto 4x12, turned the volume up to 8... and was surprised at how much it sounded like a Recto.

Years later another gear demo went the other way. Plugged a Recto into an Orange 4x12 loaded with Greenbacks and was surprised how much it sounded like a Marshall.
 
Re: Can a Recto do Van Halen?

A Recto has more sounds than you think. The price for that is the same as with any Mesa product... there's so much range in the tone controls and so many options that you have to do A LOT of tweaking to get what you want. They have a lot of great tones in them but it's easier to dial in something bad than something good. It's not like a Marshall where it really only has one sound but takes maybe 30 seconds to dial it in.
 
Re: Can a Recto do Van Halen?

Why the heck won't it? It's all in the settings, and the Rectifier has decently powerful controls to tweak your sound as long as it's high gain. The clean channel leaves much to be desired for me but come on who the hell buys a Recto for cleans.

I used a Dual Rect for a few years in my previous band, kind of a progressive rock band. I was pleasantly surprised at how versatile the Dual Rect is! I ran a Les Paul and a Suhr into that amp and I was able to get anything from that classic Alex Lifeson tone to the more stereotypical modern Boogie chugga chugga tones.
 
Re: Can a Recto do Van Halen?

I traded in my EVH 5150 III 50 watt for a Mesa Mark V combo- I can can close enough to the Brown sound on the Mesa, with more feel and less over the board compression.
 
Re: Can a Recto do Van Halen?

My Stiletto can do some righteous early VH...then again, it was kind of built to do that, among other things.
 
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