Mesa Tremoverb Settings Advice Needed

[Charvel1975]

So this past weekend, my other guitarist and I changed our rehearsal room rigs; He swapped his Boogie Mark V 1x12 Combo & Mesa Recto Vertical 2x12 Cab with his Marshall JVM410H head & a Marshall MX212 loaded with one V30 and one GK12-100 and a Line 6 POD HD500X on the FX Loop for effects only.

I swapped my old Peavey 6505+ Head (USA Made) with my Marshall 1960A 4x12 (2 Celestion G12T-75's and 2 WGS Retro 30's X patterned as the Peavey head has recently developed a very loud humming noise on the Lead channel and I got nervous and don't want to damage anything so I swapped with my 1995 Mesa Boogie Tremoverb converted to Head & the Mesa Tremoverb 2x12 cab (factory Vintage 30's) converted to closed back and a DigiTech RP360XP on the FX Loop for effects only.

Now the DigiTech the expression pedal on it is set to do a volume boost when stepping on it and worked fine through the Peavey but with the Mesa, and I suspect it's because of the Parallel effects loop, the pedal did nothing and I had my Maxon OD808 hooked up thrugh the front end of the Tremoverb with the gain at 0 and the Balance at Max and the Tone about 12 Noon and it seemed to only act as a volume boost on the Orange channel but not on the Red channel?

It has to have been over a year or more since I last played through the Mesa Tremoverb rig and I must say, it was quite a contrast in sound versus my other amps and especially against my other guitarist's Marshall JVM410 rig! Just seemed like my Tremoverb was all "scooped" sounding even with the mid-range knob almost at 10 on the Red channel? It is running 6L6's in it. The Epiphone Alex Lifeson LP sounded good through it but the ESP LTD Kirk Hammett Signature KH-602 - Purple Sparkle sounded "hollow"??

I do have an MXR 6-Band EQ pedal too that I haven't tried using, wondering if it would help any?​

 

[chadd]

marshall is always going to be way more mid-forward than the tremoverb, nothing will change that. Embrace it and find a tone that is complimentary to his, rather than similar. That said, with a Mesa, lowering the highs will bring the mids more forward. With their EQ, often times lowering what you don't want will being forward what you do. Alternatively, I found an EH 12ax7 in V1 to fatten up the tone a fair bit with mine.

 

[Aceman]

Don't fight it.

Work TOGETHER with the other guitar player.

You provide the booty, he provides the mids.

 

[Hiwatts and Gibsons]

I had a Tremoverb for 26 years. My favorite settings were with the mids and treble cranked, the bass just below noon, the gain no higher than noon, and the Master between noon and 3:00. I would hit the front end with my SansAmp, Keeley Java, or Beano Boost to goose it. I also used EL34''s with the SGR's upgraded to handle running them with the silicon diode R
rectifier.

I had no problem with it cutting through while the other guitarist played either a 6550 based JCM800 clone, or a Peavey 6505+.

I liked the tone of the amp much more with EL34's and Si diodes than I did running 6L6'S with Si diodes. The sound was not quite a cranked and boosted JMP, but defintely firmly in that Marshallesque raw British territory.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Rectifiers have a "trick" on where the treble knob is almost like a contour knob. If you crank it, your sound becomes treblier and more scooped. If you lower it, you bring down the highs and bring the mids up.

I don't like Rectos set like that, but people run the treble on 0 and control the brightness with the presence knob, which is super powerful. Try that.

Other thing is EL34's and try using the Vintage mode rather than Modern. Vintage is kind of a Marshall/Recto hybrid-sounding channel.

But honestly, if you don't want a scoopy amp, a Recto is probalby never going to please you. Scoopy as they are, Rectos have no trouble sitting right in a full mix, though. At least IME.

 

[Hiwatts and Gibsons]

Rectifiers have a "trick" on where the treble knob is almost like a contour knob. If you crank it, your sound becomes treblier and more scooped. If you lower it, you bring down the highs and bring the mids up.

I don't like Rectos set like that, but people run the treble on 0 and control the brightness with the presence knob, which is super powerful. Try that.

Other thing is EL34's and try using the Vintage mode rather than Modern. Vintage is kind of a Marshall/Recto hybrid-sounding channel.

But honestly, if you don't want a scoopy amp, a Recto is probalby never going to please you. Scoopy as they are, Rectos have no trouble sitting right in a full mix, though. At least IME.

According to Mesa and inline with my experience cranking the treble increases gain and volume while adding bite, and cranking the mids adds more gain above noon. Reducing the bass below noon gets rid of the scooped sound while making the amp both noticeably louder and emphasizing the upper mids more in conjunction with the treble and mids cranked.

I tried it both treble full up with presence dialed to taste, and presence full up with treble low to off, and greatly preferred the first setting to the latter.

I also agree that Vintage High Gain is much better sounding than Modern High Gain on that amp, and also blends much better in terms of volume with the clean channel.

Another weird idiosyncracy I only noticed once switching to EL34's and setting it up to sound more like a vintage Marshall than a typical Recto tone is that when Modern High Gain is cloned to Vintage the tone controls on the Orange Channel have an effect on the Red channel. In essence cranking the mids and treble on the Orange affect the amount of midrange and treble available on the Red channel, so if you set the Orange Clean channel for a Fendery scooped clean tone, you cannot get a great cutting midrange kerrang out of the Red channel no matter how it is set.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I also agree that Vintage High Gain is much better sounding than Modern High Gain on that amp, and also blends much better in terms of volume with the clean channel.

I'm not saying that Vintage is "better" than Modern, though. It certainly is more mid-forward, which the OP wants. But for high-gain Metal rhythm, I think Modern Red is kinda like the Recto sound (along with the amp set to Bold and with Diode rectification). Each to his own, though. Everyone is allowed to dial their Rectifier however they want.

Also, I think Rectos aren't biased super hot from the factory, and some people prefer to set them to the EL34 setting even with 6L6's, which warms the bias up. That's not something I'd recommend doing, though.

 

[Hiwatts and Gibsons]

I'm not saying that Vintage is "better" than Modern, though. It certainly is more mid-forward, which the OP wants. But for high-gain Metal rhythm, I think Modern Red is kinda like the Recto sound (along with the amp set to Bold and with Diode rectification). Each to his own, though. Everyone is allowed to dial their Rectifier however they want.

Also, I think Rectos aren't biased super hot from the factory, and some people prefer to set them to the EL34 setting even with 6L6's, which warms the bias up. That's not something I'd recommend doing, though.

I agree to a degree, but tbt I like the Vintage Highgain set the way I did above for metal, especially when hit with a Treble Booster which allowed me to get an extremely cutting grind on the bridge pickup with a thick meaty rhythm and middle tone on my Gibsons without the mud. With the Treble Booster I could get awesome chug, but still enough mids and highs to cut theough and great emphasis of artificial harmonics when I wanted that squeal even on the neck pickup.

And yes Recto's are;

A) biased cold from the factory, and
B) come stock with SGR's that are way under spec for running EL34's biased up properly.

What I did to remedy this was replace the stock 2 watt SGR's with 5 watt cement block resistors, so it could be biased up properly to run EL34's in the correct bias range with the silicon diode rectifiers without fear of blowing tubes and SGR's when cranking it up. To my ears this greatly improved the amps tone, and I ran it for a decade an a half this way with no issues whatsoever.
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