Hey Guys, I have an older Mesa 50w Rectoverb (Single Rect, black shadow speaker). I think its from 2000. For the life of me I can not get a good heavy/crunch sound even with the amp cranked a bit. Tried many, many knob configs... I've tried with my rga 121 w/ dimarzio titans as well as my rg570. I originally bought it with JJ EL-34s and have now put in the Mesa 6l6 branded tubes. Do the preamp tubes generally go bad after while?? Could they cause a lack of nice sounding gain? The amp doesn't really buzz to much and the cleans sound amazing. Anyone have any advice?
Preamp tubes CAN go bad....are you talking about a loss of volume over time, or is this something that's always happened, as in, you're unable to get these tones EVER? You're telling me you have an RGA121 with Titans in it and a Mesa Rectifier and you can't get heavy tones? Yeah, something is wrong with this picture.... What do you mean 'cranked a bit'? Like, 0.5 or like 2? We're going to need more symptoms, sir....I have pretty much always been able to get a mean tone out of Rectos...some of them need/like a boost, but even still...
I got it a few months ago. Never been able to get a super crunchy high gain tone. It's there but its weak/fizzy sounding with no clarity. I've read this could be because the single rec doesn't actually have rectifier tubes? On modern, master volume Cranked almost half way, output at about 8 or 9 o'clock. Can you suggest me any knob configs to try? I did try a couple of ones included in the Mesa Instructions with not much luck.
I had a similar issue on my gain channel recently and changed out both V1 and V2 (I still havent tested to find out which was the culprit) and it resolved the issue. The amp should sound groovy so that would be my guess.
V1 will be closest to the side where the input of the amp is, V2 the next one over and so forth. Sounds great with a Tung Sol RI in V1 and a JJ83 in V2. V1- both channels V2- both channels V3- gain channel V4- FX Loop V5 -PI