Oh God, is this a "settings" thread?! (PLEASE HELP!)

[Blitzie]

Alright dudes, I need some help. Not getting along with my tone at the moment and would love a little input.

So I've got it in my head that I'm looking for a Tool-esque tone. I know that isn't possible but I'm trying to at least get the same kind of feel.

I've been using the Bogner Red for months now and I really enjoy it. I'm playing it through my Mesa Single Rec-O-Verb (clean channel) and it seems like my tone is either too muddy/dark, too harsh/buzzy or lacking balls and low-end. I can't seem to find that sweet spot where it's not harsh but still clear and with some low-end without getting wuffy.

I'm using my ESP Eclipse with the HetSet, straight into the Bogner, into the front of the Mesa clean channel. Settings are as follows, out of 10...none of this clockface nonsense.

Mesa:
Presence - 7
Bass - 4
Middle- 4
Treble- 8
Gain- 2 (low enough to create sound)

Bogner:
Treble- 7
Middle- 5
Bass- 6
Gain- 7

Variac is off, mode is Tight, pre-eq is B1 and structure is 20th anniversary.

Like I said, if I have the presence too high, it gets too harsh. The bass on the Mesa makes everything too dark so that's no go. I can use the gain as a 3rd volume control, in addition to the master and the "output".

Any ideas?

 

[155]

I would ditch the pedal and use the amps gain channel ..?

 

[Erock]

Yeah, you need to hit the front end of that amp's gain channel with a boost/od, not a distortion pedal like the red. That will get you much closer IMO.

 

[Blitzie]

I use the gain channel but it's so damn dark! I have a Splawn cab with V30s and H30s in it and the dirty channel is super dark.

 

[Erock]

A boost will brighten it up a bit and keep everything tight. those amps are almost made to be boosted. I liked the red, but I found it really worked best with something like a great fender style clean.

 

[Sphere]

What boost would you recommend for this situation?

 

[Erock]

What boost would you recommend for this situation?

That's so subjective man, all comes down to tastes. Basically any ts9/od808 variants work great. Tons of choices, all the way to the bad monkey at a bargain price. I use an xotic bb preamp and a cmat tubeslammer with my triple rec. I also really like mesa's pedals, I have the flux drive which really contours the lows and mids like no pedal I've tried before.

And by the way, when I'm talking about boosting, it's a general formula for using these pedals. Basically keeping the level high, and overdrive on the pedal low. It hits the front end with a hotter signal, with a little hair from the drive, but not layering too much gain on it.

 

[JackBootedThug]

turn the treble to zero and use the presence as your treble and adjust from there. i've always used an ibanez distortion or a bad monkey for a boost on all my mesa's with great results. of course i wasn't going for a tool sound, that's just how i ran them.

 

[cardinal]

With my Triple, everything at noon (with no boost) in Vintage High Gain Mode sounds very similar to AJ's Aenima tone, IMHO. Definitely in the ball park. A Single Recto obviously would be a bit different, but I wouldn't think that much.

I have no experience with that pedal.

What speaker cabinet are you using? My Triple is somewhat picky. The bass seems hard for some cabinets to handle properly.

 

[tripstan]

A boost will brighten it up a bit and keep everything tight. those amps are almost made to be boosted. I liked the red, but I found it really worked best with something like a great fender style clean.

Agreed. Red works best with fender-esq clean amp. Fender style cleans make it sound amazing. If your amp has an ok clean the Red will also sound ok.

 

[Erock]

A boost will brighten it up a bit and keep everything tight. those amps are almost made to be boosted. I liked the red, but I found it really worked best with something like a great fender style clean.

Agreed. Red works best with fender-esq clean amp. Fender style cleans make it sound amazing. If your amp has an ok clean the Red will also sound ok.

I was shocked how good that pedal could sound with a great clean. I figured anything with a lot of headroom and no breakup would work best, but there is something about the fender voicing that just works so well with that pedal.

 

[Blitzie]

With my Triple, everything at noon (with no boost) in Vintage High Gain Mode sounds very similar to AJ's Aenima tone, IMHO. Definitely in the ball park. A Single Recto obviously would be a bit different, but I wouldn't think that much.

I have no experience with that pedal.

What speaker cabinet are you using? My Triple is somewhat picky. The bass seems hard for some cabinets to handle properly.

Like I said before, I'm using a Splawn 4x12 with H30s and V30s. It doesn't have trouble handling bass, that's for sure.

The clean channel is really good on this Mesa. It isn't the same voicing as a Fender, obviously, but I intended this thread to help me work with that I have, rather than tell me what I should have/should be changing. No offense

I have an SD-1 in the mail, so that'll serve as my boost with the Mesas dirty channel and a slight boost in front of the Bogner.

 

[Erock]

With my Triple, everything at noon (with no boost) in Vintage High Gain Mode sounds very similar to AJ's Aenima tone, IMHO. Definitely in the ball park. A Single Recto obviously would be a bit different, but I wouldn't think that much.

I have no experience with that pedal.

What speaker cabinet are you using? My Triple is somewhat picky. The bass seems hard for some cabinets to handle properly.

Like I said before, I'm using a Splawn 4x12 with H30s and V30s. It doesn't have trouble handling bass, that's for sure.

The clean channel is really good on this Mesa. It isn't the same voicing as a Fender, obviously, but I intended this thread to help me work with that I have, rather than tell me what I should have/should be changing. No offense

I have an SD-1 in the mail, so that'll serve as my boost with the Mesas dirty channel and a slight boost in front of the Bogner.

Lol, sorry man, point taken and no offense taken. Maybe try eqing the clean as close as you can to those fender attributes, then tweak the pedal. The red can sound crazy good with the right setup. Think you will like the sd1 boosting the dirty a lot too, my tubeslammer is really close to the sd-1/od1, love how it grinds with the rectos.

 

[Blitzie]

With my Triple, everything at noon (with no boost) in Vintage High Gain Mode sounds very similar to AJ's Aenima tone, IMHO. Definitely in the ball park. A Single Recto obviously would be a bit different, but I wouldn't think that much.

I have no experience with that pedal.

What speaker cabinet are you using? My Triple is somewhat picky. The bass seems hard for some cabinets to handle properly.

Like I said before, I'm using a Splawn 4x12 with H30s and V30s. It doesn't have trouble handling bass, that's for sure.

The clean channel is really good on this Mesa. It isn't the same voicing as a Fender, obviously, but I intended this thread to help me work with that I have, rather than tell me what I should have/should be changing. No offense

I have an SD-1 in the mail, so that'll serve as my boost with the Mesas dirty channel and a slight boost in front of the Bogner.

Lol, sorry man, point taken and no offense taken. Maybe try eqing the clean as close as you can to those fender attributes, then tweak the pedal. The red can sound crazy good with the right setup. Think you will like the sd1 boosting the dirty a lot too, my tubeslammer is really close to the sd-1/od1, love how it grinds with the rectos.

It's all good bro

I always wrote off the SD-1 as a cheap "shitty" pedal but I saw some demos on Youtube and it sounds great! I'm excited about it. Plus it was $20 used...doesn't get much better than that.

I spent some time messing around with it today and I actually decided to flip the gain structure to the "101" mode and set the pre-amp to "b2" and that added some body. Sounds pretty good, I'm feeling better about it. And like I said, the SD should put it over the top for sure.

 

[Blitzie]

A boost will brighten it up a bit and keep everything tight. those amps are almost made to be boosted. I liked the red, but I found it really worked best with something like a great fender style clean.

You are a smart man.

Just bumping out of my own excitement. I had a TS808 for a long time but I didn't find myself ever really using it so I traded it to someone on the SS forum for an old Boss Flanger and a Duncan Distortion. I still wanted to have a boost just in case so I went on the GC used site and picked up an SD-1 for $20...I didn't think I'd ever really use it but I wanted something to fuck around with. I put it through my Bogner Red and it was alright, didn't really add anything to the tone that I thought was missing.

Then I put it in front of the dirty channel on my Mesa. Holy fuck.

It's crazy what this cheap little pedal did to my amp. I put the drive at 0, adjusted the level until it stopped feeding back and put the tone at 3/4 and it brightened up and added just a little tiny bit of gain. It reshaped the sound of the amp entirely, I'm thrilled with it. It's much closer to the Adam Jones sound than I was before, even if it isn't perfect, it's damn good enough for me.

If anyone out there has a Mesa that's too dark for them or too fizzy, try one of these bad boys before you sell/trade

 

[Steinmetzify]

It's crazy what this cheap little pedal did to my amp. I put the drive at 0, adjusted the level until it stopped feeding back and put the tone at 3/4 and it brightened up and added just a little tiny bit of gain. It reshaped the sound of the amp entirely, I'm thrilled with it. It's much closer to the Adam Jones sound than I was before, even if it isn't perfect, it's damn good enough for me.

Dude I HATED that Bogner pedal in front of my Single....I sold it an hour after I bought it for like a $50 loss and was glad it was gone. A boosted Recto is one of the best sounds in metal. Glad you got it amazing for you.