Mesa Dual Recto - mic'ed up with two of my cabs and different mics...

[006]

Working on a project long-distance currently. As in, the guy lives in California, I'm in Texas. He sent me his amplifier, a pretty old Mesa Dual Rectifier Tremo-Verb combo, so that I can re-amp his guitar tracks into it in favor of the PODxt, I don't blame him. Now, when this amp first arrived, I plugged it all in to check it out. It's not much different than my Dual Recto 3ch. head, except this has more midrange to it, kinda has that slight warmness to it. So I mic'ed up the combo speakers, two Celestion V30's in a 3/4 back "cab", and I got horrible results. Way too boxy sounding and no way to eq it out no matter what I tried. So I immediately diverted to my two trusty 4x12's. In this clip are a Marshall 1960av with the vintage speakers, and a Mesa Standard (oversized) 4x12 with Vintage30's. The mics are an SM57, Neumann TLM103, and a Sennheiser MD421mkII. The order of the recording goes:

Marshall SM57
Mesa SM57
Marshall TLM103
Mesa TLM103
Marshall MD421
Mesa MD421

One track each side, excuse any sloppyness, and the riff is just something I pulled out of my ass right when I hit the record button. Guitar being used for this clip is an ESP/LTD EC-1000 which has a mahogany body with a set maple neck and rosewood fingerboard. Tune-O-Matic bridge with stop peice and an EMG-81 in both neck and bridge positions. E standard tuning (e a d g b e, low to high). This guitar is the closest thing I own that would represent what his guitar is going to sound like, which is a Carvin CT6M mahogany bodied, bolt-on maple neck with rosewood fingerboard, ToM bridge and string thru body...pretty close. Anyway, I prefer the SM57 on the Marshall cab mostly. The others are usable in some ways, and others are crapola to the max. There is no EQ'ing on any of these, so this is all raw. All mics went straight into a Focusrite OctoPre and then straight into the Mac.

Comment! Check it out.

~006

 

[~BURNY~]

If I were to choose one, I'd choose the Mesa+57 but to be totally honest, I think they all sounds weird, like the amp was cranked over the limit (to 11) and super compressed... I don't know, maybe that's just me...

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

Cool 006, thanks that was pretty fun listening...some of those tones were real cool on their own, and most sounded pretty usable, but you know how it is, without the drums it's tough to say...good that you have that flexibility!

 

[006]

Well, the amp is a combo, I unplugged the speakers and ran it into a 4x12, so I don't know how the slave out reacts. I'm not using the normal speaker outputs on the back, the slave out is working though, so I'm assuming that is one way to do it, however, there is a slave output volume which acts kinda like a master volume, and then the actual master volume on the front also works at the same time. BTW, I'm using the slave out as per request from the client. I think I'll just use the speaker outs for the next session of tone searching and see where that takes me. I have the slave all the way up because the pot itself cuts out unless it's on 10, or else I have to push up on it to keep any connection, so it's cranked, then the master volume on the front is at like 4 or 5. I guess I should try turning one or both of them down and then see what that sounds like. I do agree it does have some compression occurring here and there, I noticed that when I was dialing in tones, but I figured it was just the combo's characteristics...guess not.

For the tones, the Mesa cabinet is far better than the Marshall IMO, however it requires some hefty eq'ing in order to make it as clear as the Marshall, such as a C4 to compress the low mids, which I would have done anyway, and a big roll-off at 100Hz as well as a boost at about 2-3kHz for some more clarity. I find with Mesa's that it's easier to leave the amp pretty dull on the top end and then eq any shine out later on than to have a really bright amp that I have to tame. That's just my experience though, sometimes the latter works, most of the time the first method works for me. I will try it the other way, making the amp brighter and then eq'ing it out, as well as messing with the slave and master volumes...I may have to do some soldering on that output pot, should be fun. Thanks guys.

~006

 

[KeithRT99]

best to me:
mesa-sm57
marshall-sm57
mesa-md421

i think a mix of marshall and mesa would be good. the mesa lacks the top end, but the marshall lacks the chunk.

 

[006]

the mesa lacks the top end, but the marshall lacks the chunk.

Exactly.

~006

 

[Carrier Flux]

the marshall + 57 easily sounds the best to me. I'm convinced the designers of the v30 lack hearing at 5khz. that shit is nasty on the v30's. either that or I'm just crazy.

the md421 sounded poor to me, and I've heard people rave about that mic. have you had better results with that particular piece in the past?

out of curiosity 006, have you ever opened the marshall to see what speakers reside in there? I noticed you didn't call them vintage 30s, and to my understanding they are not, but people always refer to them as v30's. the marshall site says they are "vintage speakers", not v30's. just curious if you ever confirmed for yourself what they are loaded with.

 

[Keiffer]

I didn't really care for any of them on their own. maybe in a mix one of the mesa clips. basically, sounds like all preamp gain with no body.

 

[006]

Keiffer, you have to realize that these are all raw with no processing whatsoever. I wanted to see which mic(s) would give me the best foundation to start with. It's easy to get stuck with one mic just because it's easier to eq and than another, even if it requires more eq'ing.

So far, the Shure SM57 still hails as the guitar mic IMO. I've had mixed results with all of the mics here that we have for guitars : SM57, TLM103, MD421mkII, e609 silver, AT4040, TLM127, KSM32 and even a Royer R-121...the SM57 always kicks the shit out of all of those mics. The MD421mkII is a really difficult mic to use for guitars as it has a really present scoop in the midrange. It's probably the single ideal dynamic microphone to use on toms because you automatically have that mid scoop to give you the attack and the low end, very little eq'ing is needed after that to get the typical metal tom sound we all know and love.

The Marshall is the 1960AV, they are 70w "Vintage" speakers, instead of the 60w V30's, they sound very similar to me as I have a Marshall 1960A that use to have those awful g12t75's in it which I replaced with a full set of Celestion V30's. From what I understand they are the same, just one has 10w more power handling, they sound nearly identical to me...but I could be mistaken. I'm going to try a few different things later tonight if I find some time, if not then tomorrow for sure.

~006

 

[Keiffer]

I just thought the raw track should have more body. That's all. I'd trade gains - preamp to power stage by backing off on the preamp gain and drive the power stage more or even just drive the power section harder.

 

[chadsxe]

I would look into combining a mesa with a marshall. Can you split the signal to drive both? The TLM sounds like ass all around The MD421 on the marsh mixed with the 57 on the mesa might sound great. Shoot even the combination of both 57's. Actually the more and more I listen to it I think the combinatio of both 57's would work out nice. If you are using just one then the 57 on the marshall would be my pick. Good luck!

 

[chadsxe]

I just thought the raw track should have more body. That's all. I'd trade gains - preamp to power stage by backing off on the preamp gain and drive the power stage more or even just drive the power section harder.

I think these tracks have a chance of feeling nicely with a bass but you can never tell this early.

 

[Keiffer]

I think these tracks have a chance of feeling nicely with a bass but you can never tell this early.

yeah... maybe.