Mesa/Boogie Rectifier Recording Preamp

it pretty easy! there is nothing complicated

well i compare it with rectifier head, i can say the base of the sound is the same, but the pre-amp has not enough gain, but if you use a pedal to boost your sound it will be kick *** sound, i tried it with Ibanez Tube Screamer, and that was awesome, if you want to play metal you need to buy a pedal, also you can use an MXR M133 micro amp, its good too.
i don't like the clean channel, its not what i except from mesa/boogie, its not sharp and bright enough
the reason i buy this is because i wanted to record my song direct through the mixer, and its works well, you know its better that you use a head and cab for recording, but if you can't, its perfect for direct recording

you can go to a war with it, hehe

they SUCK! you can't make a contact with them, they even didn't create an e-mail address in their website ! if you want to talk to them you should call them, but the phone line is busy for %99 of time,and in that %1 they don't answer! in fact, they are not supportive

well, im playing heavy/thrash/progressive metal and if i lose it i will try to buy another one, but if i have enought money and space for recording , i prefer to buy a head and cab ! but again i tell you its perfect for direct recording

Prety eazy to use really. took me about 10 mins to get it right. its a bit touchy though.

Good sound, not good for Metal/Deathmetal but once i changed the tubes in v1, v2 and v3 to Tunsols, and left v4, v5 and v6 as standard tubes because the tungsols were to dark in the position, try jjs in v4, v5, v6

Hasnt faild yet though i Have only had it 18 months. It has endured a travel from USA to australia then from australia to New Zealand. and seems good.

never had a problem, though mine never came with a peddle that it was ment to. Mesa bogie didnt take responsibillity, and they company claimed innsence and since i wasnt in australian anymore i couldnt do much about that.

good unit, very overpriced in Australia as due to direct selling rights with mesa and the prices they quote.

This unit is stock, new from store. I'll comment on both the live and direct recording sounds. The live sound is awesome, sounds just like you'd want it to. I can get good clean and dirty sounds. The solo feature when using the footswitch is great too. For direct recording I was dissapointed. I tried to dial in a decent sound but nothing beats a good mic on some nice speakers in my opinion. It gets an 8 because although the live sound is awesome, the direct recording is lacking.

I use it with a variety of guitars from ibanez prestige rg's to an american jack kv2 to a us made strat. I run usually the kv2 to the preamp to a mesa strategy 400 power amp running 2 straight marshall jcm900 4x12 cabs and 2 slanted recto 4x12's. It's sick. I can get good clean and dirty sounds out of all of them. The solo feature when using the footswitch is great too. Again the direct recording feature is sub-par and the rating is affected by that.

I have gigged, practiced and recorded with it without a problem. Built very sturdy and wouldn't expect any problems as it lives in my rack.

Never had to deal with them.

I play Death Metal, Grind, Grindcore, Deathgrind and Crust, this amp takes care of all sounds for all genres. I've been playing guitar for 14 years, owned more amps than you can shake a stick at (5150, marshalls, peaveys, rocktron) and i really like the distortion on this amp. The rocktron prophesy preamp I own does cleans better than this amp. The 5150 is my favortie for heavy distortion and i usually end up running both the 5150 and the recto at the same time push two cabs each. Then if i need to play something clean i switch to a piezo pickup running to the rocktron. The only thing I wish it had was reverb. I would probably replace it if i had it stolen, the only other i might get over it is a rectifier head but i doubt it.

# How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

Um, turn it on.

# How about Editing patches?

Interface device consists of knobs. This is an analog preamp, not an fx processor. If you like a sound, stop touching the knobs. Down side is that the knobs are not clearly marked, and the position of the toggle switches did not exactly match the manual. Some fiddling was required to sort out which settings were which.

# How is the manual for it (if there is one)?

Besides the toggle switch thing manual is excellent and describes the thinking behind how the preamp's sound was shaped; it also includes 16 very useful sample settings.

# Do you know the firmware revision number? Has your unit been upgraded?

Heh. The only firmware this thing has is the wood I get when I play it...

Note-- rating reflects that there are very few devices that are non-programmable in 2006. More thumbs down for the unclear knobs. My other beef, and this is minor, is that the recording output is *extremely* loud. I sometimes use a little M-Audio FW Solo for recording and it's difficult to record some tones without clipping.

I'm not a big guitar-hero encyclopedia, so it would be hard for me to say "oh, yeah, you can cop so-and-so's tone from the second solo on this song on that live bootleg." I do know that I have managed to get a surprising range of glorious tube sounds out of it recording direct.

Most of the below is based on playing the preamp in a DI situation using a variety of guitars and pickups. Generally, humbuckers and fatter-sounding single coils are better. Live through a Mesa 2/100 it's like having a Roadking and a Recto Twin in the same rig.

Clean sounds are uniformly warm, round, and very full. They tend towards fat/dark. Tweaking is necessary to find truly great rhythm tones, because you will find characteristics of your guitars and pickups you didn't know existed. Channel 1 is extremely sensitive to input level, and the warmth of the tones increases beautifully as you add preamp gain. The three modes-- Clean, Fat, and Brit-- are very distinct. Fat is almost never suitable for rhythm work, it's just too chubby. There's whole hidden universes of tonal shading in the Master and Presence knobs; the down side is that it's easily possible to produce outputs that are too hot for some interface devices with relatively sane Gain and Master settings. Again, tweaking is required for clean tones, especially if you need a completely clean sound that won't break up no matter what you do in a live situation.

The high-gain Channel 2 tones are also terrific, though slightly narrower in scope. Again, you have three very distinct modes that will cover pretty much all your rock needs from bluesy to modern metal. "Raw" and "Vintage" shade into each other a fair bit. All three modes have fearsome bottom end, silky highs, and very sweet compression as you increase gain. The bottom end in all modes is ridiculously tight-- we're talking Jessica Alba here. The only thing missing is that some serious doom heads (I mean, if you're into Sunn O))) or something) may find the bottom end is a little *too* controlled. It's hard to fuzz out completely, if that's what you want. The other thing I haven't found yet in here is a good Vox AC30 ripoff.

I haven't asked it to do anything awful. In six months it has about 400 hours on it in the studio and maybe 12 as part of a live rig. No problems thus far.

No problems so far.

It's difficult to compare this preamp to other gear because there's nothing quite like it in terms of the focus on pure tube tone to the exclusion of everything else.

The main things to keep in mind if you are considering buying this thing are:

Pros:

If you spend a lot of time in the studio as a guitarist (as opposed to being the songwriter/producer/engineer), and don't mind tweaking, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

All the sounds it makes are stunning.

If you find tone inspiring, this thing will make you remember why you love playing guitar.

Cons:

Difficult to use as the core of a live rig if you need much versatility, and you'll need lots of other gear to really make the best use of it.

It's "studio" gear without modern "studio" convenience.

It's totally *not* plug-and-go, and the learning curve is pretty long. You will need patience and a discerning ear. Again, if you love tone, you won't mind, but if you need predictable on-demand results, not so much.

I'll say only an 8 for ease of use because the pots have a lot of range, giving you a lot of power for serious tone or serious lack of tone, he he. The manual is excellent.

Wow! I've had this unit for 2 years and am still blown away every time I play. Channel 1 Clean gives me the perfect slap and wack with an EMG telecaster. Very similar to a Fender without reverb but more intense. Cops the "Green Grass And High Tides" telecaster sound exactly with every bit of excitement. Crystal-like until you slap the strings where you get a bit of crunch.

Fat brings in a fuller more gainy tone which works well for humbucking jazzy tones. Brit goes further in this direction and sounds very warm and full with more compression. All clean sounds have an amazing spring-loaded feel that varies with the amount of mid-range you dial in.

Channel 2's Raw is a little hard to get a feel for but there's got to be some nice Allman Brothers tones there. Vintage... Ah.... heaven with humbuckers. Creamy, Fat, Sharp, Liquid, you name it. Plenty of bass that doesn't completely go away at 0. With the pickups on all 6 of my electric guitars I get plenty of sharpness when I need it at high gain settings. Modern I'm undecided about. It lacks the fullness and harmonic outlay of vintage. It's bit bit sharper sort of. But I'm not a metal head though I revel in hard rock at times. Modern could sound quite hefty combined with Vintage if you had another amp or pre-amp.

I use an ADA speaker simulator and would regard that as an absolute necessity. You won't get a convincing amp sound otherwise. But the tone is so fantastic I don't even miss not having reverb.

So far so good but it stays at home. The tubes always get warmed up first.

Never needed to call.

I'm been playing nearly every style for over 30 years. This box seems capable of providing most of what I need though for precision work a fine amp and stack are often the way to go. This unit is perfect for practicing quietly, working out parts prior to recording final cuts, writing, and certainly complements direct miking. I'd buy another one for the rack if I had extra cash on hand. There's a high factor of inspiration I get with this piece.

You can get a straight-up good recording sound by putting all of the tone controls at 50% and dialing the gain to taste. You can create a wide range of tones with one of these. There is a bit of a learning curve like anything else. No preset storage banks.. have to dial in your tones from memory, by ear.. or you can take a snapshot of the dials with a digital camea and label the photos to archive your favorite settings. I'll give it a 7 here because it's simple in design, but setting the dials where you think they need to be to produce a certain tone won't happen until you learn the character of the amp. Once that's done, you can do anything you want with it.

I'll say a high 9. Only thing missing is that little extra something.. depth, width, etc. that you get with a mic'd amp, or perhaps a more robust powersoak unit at the output stage.. but then that also requires a power amp, and a cabinet, etc. I find it superior to the recto models on all POD, GS-10, VAMP types, or amp modeling software like guitar rig, etc. -as it should be.

You may have to tweek a bit to find the ideal output tone if you are going direct. There is a lot of actual interplay that goes on with the controls. Playing with the master volume will actually change up the tone on top of the gain knob, before the master record output. It sounds different with different guitars, etc. You can get a ton of bass on it. For those left wanting for 'palm mutes' that drown out everything else, I suspect it's either the guitar, pickups, or perhaps a faulty unit? I can get low end shake that's huge using my baritone guitar, or my standard Jackson strat model. I usually try to EQ most of that noise out though when recording.. not that it's excessive.. just there if you crank up the low end and know how to strum a powerful palm mute.

Cleans are very full. Lots of options all the way around.

Describing it can't really convey everything, so I linked a track that I have made with the unit. I think it shows off a good deal of tonal range you can get, though it's skewed toward the heavy side of things. http://www.soundclick.com/util/downloadSong.cfm?ID=4188642&ref=2

Download that^ and hear the recto recording pre. All guitar tones were done with the recto's direct record outputs, except for the obvious mic'd acoustic guitars toward the end of the track.

Solid steel. No problems whatsoever. I have used boogies (I guess they would be called 'Mesas' now) for years. Had a quad preamp, a strat 400 stereo power amp, 2 4x12 cabs, and also currently have the 2:100 power amp and a 1x12 recto cabinet. No problems with any of it save for needing to change the tubes out over time, which is normal.

Best there is. Cool guys working at the factory/offices, and also at the Hollywood store. Always prompt, savvy, and eager to please.

Great stuff. I play all styles and this 1 preamp serves my needs. Bear in mind that I do not use it to play live, though I could with my 2:100 power amp as it's basically a recto head sans power amp + recording outputs. Other gear I own.. just a few things like my MOTU 828MKII firewire recording interface, a Boss GS-10, a set of V-Drums, Event monitors, etc.

I compared the recto pre to everything else out there, and it was ideal for my needs and budget. Only thing it's really lacking is the above mentioned preset storage banks. I'm expecting Mesa to bring a 'Road King Recording Preamp' or something similar to market one day.. that hopefully will have preset banks available. Though, I have not heard of any such official plans. Best to listen to the sample I have linked above. The musical stylings may not be to taste, but there is a wide variety of tones in there that make a good demo of the unit.

I am real impressed as to have sensitive the controls are. Each control can really affect the overall sound and if you have mutliple guitars/ tones you can really get lost in the nuances this unit offers. As a result, I have spent a lot of time looking and noodling to find those sounds.

The manula is great starting point and frther tweaking can come from adjusting one's own equipment (humbuckers/ single coils, active/ passive, body woods, etc.) to find the sweet spot. Between my LP and PRS Modern Eagle the setting vary a lot and so I am still tweaking and enjoying doing so.

I am currently awaiting a 2 x 12 rec cab to use with my 20/20 power that I just bought and mounted in my rack. I am currently using it only through Pro Tools and my ribbon tweeter monitors for a couple more weeks.

The unit has a minimal amount of hum even with the gain fairly high with clean setting it's real quiet. I have an LP, a PRS Modern Eagle and a Warmoth strat with a Duncan Invader. The interesting settings for me are real low gain on channel 2 and more/ lots of gain on the clean channel. There's a lot of tones in the are where the two channels are closest that I find most exciting. I like a whole range of tones (clean- Linkin Park/ Creed) and am new to Mesa so I cannot tell if this is standard Mesa quality or a really great Mesa unit. I understand the love of their products now though.

I have a Marshall 100Watt 2 x 12 and run a DBX 31 band EQ, a DBX 266XL compressor, a TC Electronic G Major and a Behringer DualFX Pro. When I run the loop or in series the rack really affects the tone and so I find that I don't use it at all. The Marshall needs the rack to get the sounds I want. I run the Mesa Recto Pre direct and then run plug-ins in the channels in Pro Tools. I use Waves stuff for chorusing, delay and reverb and it sounds great.

As for artists I like Alex Lifeson (Permanent Waves- Pictures), BIll Frisell (all), Andy Summers (Solo stuff), Pat Metheny (all) and John Scofield (Grace Under Pressure up 'til now). I also like Scott Ian/ Anthrax, Queensryche, Petrucci, etc.

I've only had it for several months and haven't any problems with it.

I've had no reason to contact them as of yet and they haven't called me to check.

I find this is unit for direct recording an amazing piece of equipment. I've never owned a Mesa product before and I am very much in love with the range of sounds. For running direct into a DAW I just love the range of warm tones. I am not big into the 7 string low tuning thing, but it clearly has all of that stuff. The warmth of tones just makes the digital stuff pale in comparison. When recording in my studio volume is quite low and the tone just absolutely rages.

My goal is to be able to record sounds direct that capture that live, miked sound and this is really great for that. I also want to play it as a stand alone as well and most of the other Mesa amps don't offer the direct recording option. I highly recommend it because it sounds great direct and can still be a stand alone. I am really happy with this. It's pricey, but I don't feel dissappointed at all.

IF YOU WANT THE OH MY F*CKING GOD TONE WITH THIS PREAMP, HERE IS THE SIMPLE SECRET.

THE OUTPUT IS SUPER QUIET SO RUN THIS PREAMP WITH AN OVERDRIVE PEDAL. MY RIG IS DUNLOP CLASSIC CRYBABY, MORLEY A/B SWITCH, TO THE DRIVE SIDE A MXR ZAKK WYLDE OVERDRIVE TO A ISP DECIMINATOR, TO THE RECTO PREAMP( VINTAGE ), THAN A ROCKTRON XPRESSION SET ON DIGITAL TO A BEHRINGER EQ THAN TO MY POWER AMP . THE CLEAN SIDE GOES FROM THE A/B SWITCH TO AN ADA MP1 THAN TO A BBE SONIC MAXIMIZER TO THE ROCKTRON EXPRESSION , EQ THAN POWER AMP. ON MY PEDAL BOARD ALL I HAVE IS MY WAH , MY A/B SWITCH, AND MY BEHRINGER FCB 1010. ONE MIDI, AND TWO GUITAR CABLES. SO SIMPLE.

ONLY 12AX7'S HERE, NO POWER TUBES, OR RECTIFIER TUBES , SO VERY STURDY.

THIS SET UP ALLOWS ME TO HAVE THE RECTO TONE THROUGH TWO 4X12'S AND A SOUPED UP MARSHALL TONE THROUGH MY OTHER 4X12'S. THERE ISN'T ANY TONE I CAN'T GET. THE OVERDRIVE PEDAL GETS RID OF THE RECTO'S MUDDY BOTTOM END, AND MAKES IT SHARP. I THINK THE PRE GAIN SECTION IS A LITTLE OFF BALANCED FROM THE POST. THERE JUST ISN'T ENOUGH IN FRONT OF THE TUBES, SO THEY SOUND FUZZY AND MUDDY. THAT IS WHY SOME PEOPLE LOVE THIS THING AND SOME HATE IT. ( ALL MY GUITARS ARE LOADED WITH EMG'S, AND ALL MY CABS HAVE CELESTION GT75'S IN THEM ).

The layout is simple and well layed out.

It seems to be very picky about what guitar you use. I've used a G&L S-500 and a Commache. The S-500 sounded like crap. Very thin and weak. The Commache sounded awesome. Lots of overtones and detail. I've also heard with a Mexi-Strat and an SG, with mixed results, depending on what sound you're going for. The recording out was somewhat dissapointing for the price tag.

Never had a problem

I had a problem with a pop when channel switching. I contacted Boogie and they found me a repair guy in the area and paid for the fix.

Overall, this is a great tool for getting good tone without having to use an amp. If you have the luxury though, I would definately prefer a good amp with good mics in a good room. The speaker simulator does not live up to it's claims, but it sure beats a pod. Now that I have a room to mic amps, I will be selling it, but it was great when I didn't have a room and was working at home.

Easy to use. The controls are self-explanatory.

The context is I wanted to try direct recording. I tried it with two guitars, an ESP LTD M1000 with EMG 81 pickups and a Jackson Kelly neckthrough with Seymour Duncans.

For strummed out chords, the direct recording was great. Unfortunately, I'm into syncopated metal with a tight yet warm sound. The best I could get out of this amp (in modern mode) was a loose attack, then a very nice sustain, then a fuzzy break up. Again, great for genres that bang out long chords (if there's a lot going on in the song that covers up the attack/decay problems) but awful for metal.

I listened to shintock's mp3 below and that's the sound I was getting. Notice how the opening chord in "asiam" is nice but things go to hell when he palm mutes single notes. Before I had the preamp in my hands I assumed he was poor at palm muting, but after playing with it I concede that while his rhythm is off on the single note palm mutes, his poor attack is more to blame on this unit.

It may be true that one can add compression/effects to clean it up, but to me a unit should have a great "base" sound. For me, a good sound is a nice tight attack and a harmonically rich sustain. This unit has the latter, even though it breaks up horribly eventually (static), but lacks the former. If you are into hard rock you might like it. For metal, stay away. Your syncopations will turn to mush, and it's just not pleasing to play for that style, unless you use it in conjunction with other effects.

Did not keep it long enough to comment.

Did not keep it long enough to comment.

I bought the preamp for direct recording purposes, and have since returned it.

For non-metal genres, or if you use another distorion in the chain and operate on clean (defeating the purpose in my eyes), you may like this. For metal, stay away. To me, metal requires a tighter response. And this isn't a case of no direct recording methods being sufficient, since I can get much better direct recording for metal with both my subsequently-bought-and-loved ENGL 570SE (highly recommended, although better still to use it with micing up a 4X12 and a tube power amp (the ultimate)) and with my Pod XT (does the job ok, with some harshness, but especially considering its low price, amazing).

As for non direct-recording with the mesa recto recording preamp, I can't comment.