Cannot get rid of flubby sound on Dual Rec with Suhr Reactiv

Just bought a shed load of gear...a Dual Rec Roadster, a Suhr Reactive Load and the Two Notes CAB M. The Cab M is superb, by the way...but I cannot get rid of the flubby feel on the Rectifier. The bass is so unusable, it almost sounds like I'm hitting the notes twice when I try to palm mute.

Second issue is that when I try to dial this out, the strings start sounding very metallic and aren't soft or saturated enough to sound good when doing a palm muted arpeggio, for example.

So I add in the only boost I have available to me right now, which is an EP Boost - I'm currently waiting for a Fortin Grind and Zuul to arrive from the States but they're stuck in customs - the EP helps with saturation and thickens the tone as expected, but it doesn't lose the flubby bass...I'm hoping the Fortin pedals help with this, but right now, I'm not convinced they will.

Any advice?

Has anyone got the SRL to work well with a Dual Rec and been able to tighten it up and continued to use it regularly...as in, not sold the whole thing after a couple of months due to boredom!

I'm starting to think that I'll either stick with the Kemper, which does what I ask of it (as far as this sound is concerned) or maybe it's a Marshall sound that I'm really after, not the Recto sound.

All this started, as it always does, because I thought that I NEED an amp and couldn't possibly live with the Kemper for the rest of my life...and so GAS begins!

Thanks for your help!

The grind will help a lot. As will any ts type pedal as well, don't worry

What are your settings?

Rectos do have a big bottom end, especially in modern mode, which can get flubby easy. In my opinion you need a boost that cuts bass to get a tight and punchy bottom end (I don’t believe an EP booster does this). Tubescreamers or EQ’s work for this. The fortin stuff is at the far end of the spectrum on tightness, I don’t think there is much else out there that cuts more bass and makes things any tighter.

If you don’t have an eq or tubescreamer you can use yet, you can start by turning the bass way down, keeping mids and treble around noon to start. The treble knob is kinda like an attack control, the more you turn it up, the more aggressive the tone gets.

1) Try bypassing the effects loop on the amp. On a Roadster I found it slowed the amp down and bloated the low end in a way I disliked.

2) I found putting a Tung Sol 12ax7 in the V1 helped. Mesa currently uses JJs, but the amp was designed when Mesa was still using EHX, which are a lot brighter than JJ. The Tung Sol will add some brightness, but I kind of like leaving JJ in the other positions since they add some mids and compression to the amp (all EHX sound colder, harsher and more industrial).

3) if you’re not used to playing a Recto they take some time to learn, particularly (IMO) if you’ve been playing something fairly one dimensional, like a solid state amp. You can control the speed of the amp with your pick attack and palm muting technique, but it takes some time to develop a feel for it.

4) Post the settings you’re using.

Tung sol in V1 and a sovtek 12AX7LPS in the PI that is a recipe for perfection in most amps for me.

Try a HPF at 100hz or so

I've tried Duals a few times, and even with a boost(I have a Maxon OD808, Boss OD1X, Ultimate Drive, vintage SD1, and for a time a Savage Drive) I still couldn't dial out the bloated low end in the few Duals I Tried. All were Rev G 2 channels. When I got a Triple, THAT was the solution...even without a boost the Triple is tighter than the Duals WITH any of my boost pedals. For me it was the amp itself that just has this bloated low end that I couldn't dial out..but solved with switching to a Triple. I do hear though that the newer multi watts are better for a tighter low end, and of course a Rev F or earlier but those are hard to find.

The only recent Dual Recs usable without a TS or Maxon 808 are the reborn series. Even the reborns benefit from am 808, but they are not useless without it.

EP Boost will make it worse. It’s more of a full clean boost than a mid-boost/low cut like an 808/SD1. So the EP Boost will boost the already inflated low end.

IME, I think I ran Rectos with a lot of mids and presence and kept the bass and treble moderate. But to me the real thing is keeping the preamp gain moderate. Somewhere around 5. As it gets higher, everything becomes fizzy mush.

If that’s not enough gain for you, you’ll want a tube-screamer type OD pedal to push it further. Just upping the gain knob makes the amp sound bad.

RaceU4her":1av9ezmz said:

Try a HPF at 100hz or so

Click to expand...

This is your best bet hands down. Stick an EQ in front of your amp and start neutering them low end Hz till you find the problem frequencies you dont like. Some overdrive pedals have some filter capabilities. Grind really neuters the low end. MXR modified bad ass OD has a very usable 100Hz filtering adjustment (i think its 100hz, none the less its a low freq its adjusting). If you can, grab a VFE Standout, midboost with high and low pass filtering with a sweet blend knob adjustment. Good luck finding one though.

Mesa Boogie Dual and Triple Recs *need* a boost in front, in my experience, otherwise the low end is just so dominant that all you'll hear is bass.

This is a clip of a Triple Rec boosted with an Ibanez TS9 in a mix.
https://soundcloud.com/arvind-jayaram-8 ... c-mix-test

And this is just a dual tracked recording.
https://soundcloud.com/arvind-jayaram-8 ... ifier-test

cardinal":3b704ig6 said:

EP Boost will make it worse. It’s more of a full clean boost than a mid-boost/low cut like an 808/SD1. So the EP Boost will boost the already inflated low end.

IME, I think I ran Rectos with a lot of mids and presence and kept the bass and treble moderate. But to me the real thing is keeping the preamp gain moderate. Somewhere around 5. As it gets higher, everything becomes fizzy mush.

If that’s not enough gain for you, you’ll want a tube-screamer type OD pedal to push it further. Just upping the gain knob makes the amp sound bad.

Click to expand...

This is spot on. From all usual boost pedals, EP accentuate bass and it is last thing You want with Rectos.

When I had a Roadster, it sounded better with EL-34's. Have you tried that? Tightens the low end.

in my experience mesa amps are inherently flabby in the bass.This is due to the low bias voltage.Unfortunately you can't adjust the bias on a mesa without modding the amp.
You can however order hotter tubes which may aleviate the problem .
I always just modded them to a fixed bias.
Good luck with it

try E34L's. they sound great in a rec. i use JJ for E34L's.