I've got two shows this week and my guitarist borrowed his friends dual-recto for me and I can't get a good distortion with it. We have a show Thursday and Friday and the rehearsal went horrible (sorry ass tone and shitty distortion). Should I even mess with amp distortion or run my pod through it? I already have patches I need on the pod.

ok. if you can't get a good distortion out of a dual recto you suck.

you must be doing SOMETHING wrong. what setting are you using? (as in all control knobs)

anyways, you have two shows and your guitarist borrowed his friends dual recto for you, what amp are you normally using then? ofcourse if you can't get the sound you want you can allways use the pod, but hell. that would be pretty stupid.

mesa's need to be tweaked for their sweet spots... but they're still easy to get good sounds out of...
if you get desparate then you could just run your old setup or run the pod through it. but i'd feel like a retard running a pod through one of the amp's it tries to model...

i suggest sitting down with it for at least an hour or so... tweak the knobs, stand back a couple meters listen and go back and tweak it... i like to have my rack a little ways away from the cab so i can tweak and hear it faster... make sure you have it turned up to giggin/practice volumes when you're tweaking it because there will be a huge difference in tone between when it's on 2 and when it's on 6...

i'll hook you up with some settings i like in a while, but i lost my keys and i'm running late so it'll be a couple hours.

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Well I'm tight on time since they only let us have 20-25 minutes to rehearse. I just figured that I should use the pod since I have my cleans, rhythym and solo distortions set. If I had the time to set it up I would. Our show Friday is at 10 so I'll have all day to set it up. What would be good settings for alternative covers and heavier dist for fade to black?
P.S. What's so bad about the Pod?

the point of the pods is to give you as many options as possible, like a dozen different amp models... one of which being the recto. so i thought it'd be kinda silly to use a pod through a recto for preamping tones because the recto could waste it at brutal distortion, medium gain crunch and super cleans. the only thing the pod has over it is fx...

the settings.

*partially taken from a buddy in a different forum..*

Channel 1 Main
Voice Brit

Gain 13:00
Treble 12:00
Midrange 10:30
Bass 13:00
Prescence 12:00
Ch Master 09:00

Output Between 13:00 and 15:00

Notes: Roll down the guitar volume for clean, roll it up for overdrive.

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Channel 2 Main
Voice Vintage

Gain 13:00
Treble 12:00
Midrange 11:00 - 12:00 (depending on how much edge I want)
Bass 12:00
Prescence 11:00
Ch Master 13:00

Output Between 13:00 and 15:00

Notes: What Metallica would sound like if they turned their mids up a bit.

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Channel 1 Alternate
Voice Brit

Gain 14:30
Treble 13:00
Midrange 11:00
Bass 10:00
Prescence 13:00
Ch Master 09:00

Output Max

Notes: I like to run the output high on this setting. It gives me alot of power amp and speaker distortion withough alot of preamp dirt. Good for old school crunch.

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Channel 2 Alternate
Voice Modern

Gain 14:00
Treble 13:30
Midrange 10:30
Bass 14:00
Prescence 15:00
Ch Master 09:30

Output Max

Notes: I call this setting "Big Muff on Crack". As you turn the output up, the distortion starts to fold over on itself and give huge harmonics. This setting will give you good mutes, but only if you run the output high enough to crunch the speakers. Generally though, it has absoloutely ZERO touch sensitivity and no dynamics as it's super compressed. I like it for over the top rhythm work, but it would probably make for a good lead sound if it didn't feedback like a bitch.

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Channel 1 Fat Clean
Voice Fat

Gain 13:00
Treble 12:00
Midrange 08:30
Bass 12:00
Prescence 11:00
Ch Master 11:00

Output Around 13:00 or a tad higher.

Notes: I like this setting with neck pickups (I haven't tried it with a decent neck humbucker yet). Really fat sounding clean single notes with a touch of shimmer. Chords and single notes in the lower registers of the low E and A stings will overdrive the power section. Huge dynamics. Roll the guitar volume off slightly for more headroom, that way you can pick clean on the low E and A, or pick hard and overdrive them for more dynamics.

I've yet to try this setting in a band mix, so I don't know how well it will hold up in the mix. Probably make for a good jazz or blues setting, or maybe for a rock ballad where the rest of the band eases off the volume.

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Channel 2 Fat Clean Plus
Voice Raw

Gain 10:30
Treble 12:00
Midrange 08:30
Bass 12:30
Prescence 11:00 - 11:30
Ch Master 12:00

Output Around 13:00 or a tad higher

Notes: This basically compements the Fat Clean setting. It's pretty dirty in a bluesy kind of way, and has plenty of dynamics. Play with the guitar volume and tone alot on this setting, you'll be surprised at what you might find.
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*others i like*
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Channel 2, on vintage, with output at about 12 o'clock to run tubes hot

Presence: 2
Gain: 3
Bass: 2
Mid: 9
treble: 3
Bold
Solid State rectifier

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2 channel Dual Recto

Red Channel

Master - 9:15
Presence - 9:00
Bass - 2:30
Mid - 10:30
Treble - 1:00
Gain - 3:00

BOLD - Silicon Diodes

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So you think I have enough time during a 25 minute rehearsal to set up the amp distortion? Last time I guy from another band set it up and he murdered my tone. Would it be wise to use the pod in this tight situation or should I still try to tweek the amp?

heres an easy one for the eq... turn it to vintage lead channel. Zero the highs (dont worry, this sounds good on the recto) put the mids at about 7 or 9, and dime the bass. I set that at my local guitar center and it gave this bassy grindy tone that sounded good for hardcore and the like.

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It took me like 30 seconds to get a good sound out of a dual rectifier.
! You must be retarded!

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well, how bad do you guys need to rehearse? you can't scarifice half of your practice time to make sure everything sounds good?
try a couple of the settings i listed.... and if you can't get a good sound from them withen a few minutes then bust out the pod until next time....

it's not going to matter how tight you guys are if your tone isnt good.... if you know the pod will do the trick than there is no harm in it... but i was just getting you a couple good settings to try.

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so true... just a question though, the dual rec is not hard to use at all, how long have you been playing? After i was playing about 6 months i knew how to interface with amps well enough so that i wasnt scooping all the mids out and diming the gain.

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Last night's gig went pretty good with the exception that I couldn't here what was going on some of the time. We snuck into the place we were playing and rehearsed for an hour or two. I did end up getting a good sound out of the rectifier but in my show today I have to play 20+ songs and need to a variety of tones. So shouldn't I Set the mesa up for heavy tones and use the pod for everything in between?
P.S. I'm buying a peavey 5150, there's no use for overpaying for a tube amp.

well, if you require alot of tones don't get the 5150... it doesnt do a huge variety... it doesnt even really have a clean channel(you can kinda make it clean up a bit, but it's really a crunch channel with a couple voicings)... i like the rectos more because they have a wider range of sounds, from good cleans, to hot vintage crunch, to searing death metal lead... 5150 just does a variety of distortion tones, don't get me wrong, 5150's are great amps, but you talk of needing so many tones. so i thought i would point out how not really flexible it is.
the recto might be a bit more "overpriced" because it costs more than the 5150, but it also does alot more.

personally think you should go rack or something with savable presets via midi... maybe you should just buy a poweramp to go with the pod? or upgrade from the pod to a nice midi pre+muti fx unit? just a thought, i love savable presets. worlds of tones at the tap of a single button.

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^listen to him!

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