Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Trem-O-Verb

Most of you know the features by now, 2 channels, 4 modes (Clean, vintage high, blues and modern). Has the option to select vaccum tubes for great warmth or silicon diodes for total saturation! Also, can choose spongy (75 watts) or bold (100W) and their is bias select for the tubes (6l6/EL34) Each channel has its own eq controls. The combination of different sounds is mindblowing. Changing each setting can have an enormous effect or small one, depends on what you want. Truly versatile!

First of all: to address the great ambiguity about these amps. If you look at many reviews you will see everything from a 10 to a 1. The reason is quite simple, everyone's taste's are different, but their is something worth noting. Those reviews who complained about having a muddy sound, more of than not, have a les paul or strat with the stock pickups. Those who loved the sound often had some Seymore Duncan or EMG setup. Thus it is not suprising that guitars which are supposed to sound thick, buttery and and, yes, even a bit muddy, so that way! Just check out the trend.

I play a 99 ESP Custom Explorer (OHH YEEAAA!) with EMG 81's (I got the last one available in NY before stupid Gibson screwed up everything). The tone, in my humble opinion, is excellent. I'm in an original band and we play progressive meatal with a heavy thrash influence. THat means we need everything from sparkling clean, sweet santana-like leads and MetallicA style shredd, and this amp covers it beautifully! It takes a lot of tweaking to get there, but every sound is usable.
If you play one in the store 1)spend some time with it!!! Don't be hasty with your expermimenting. Make the floor guy show you EVERY feature 2)Do stand/sit 2 inches away from the cab if possible, of course it sounds bad if your ear is right up next to it! 3)use your own guitar!!
Thats another great mark of this amp, it retains the natural sound of the guitar amazingly. I plugged a Gibson SG into it and it was like a different amp altogether. All in all, an amp for people who want a thick, tight HEAVY amp capable of mastering the blues to all types of metal. The only reason I gave a 9 is because it just got it recently.

As far as I know, most people I know who use them say they are built like tanks!

So far so good. It took a LONG time for them to ship the amp to the guitar center where I ordered it!

I've been playing for about 9 years and have had 2 other marshall amps. I couldn't live without this one now. I liked the marshalls, nice amps, just not as 'full' as this one, also they couldn't quite hold a nice sound at loud volumes, this amp'll knock your house down and still hold a clean note!

don't know the year-it was sitting at guitar center at one of their
"big sales" and i talked the sales guy down some...it must be a few
years old, as it has the knobs that you can't really see where they
are set(they fixed that on newer ones).it has tons of power(100w) and
lots of options-see other reviews for fine details.IT"S HEAVY!!!

it's taken some getting used to-i'm not much for channel switchin',
although you can set it up very nice for that.the cloning feature is
cool if you want to switch between 2 voices on the same channel...
i now use it on the 'blues' voicing with some OD/boosters on the
floor-it's set on the cleaner side.the maximum gain isn't as much as
you'd think on the 'modern hi gain' voice-it IS a lot, but not as much
gain as others i've tried.you can set it to 'spongy' and turn up the
master some more to get it more heated up...did i mention it's HEAVY?

who knows? a friend of mine had the combo version and it was not
quite right for a time, but i think they sent new parts free of charge
(it was used)and it seems fine now...mine makes a "thump" or 2 when
you flick it off of standby-the guy at mesa said that was somewhat
normal and it hasn't caused any problems yet.there are new power tubes
in there now(6L6's) and usually it's in the 'tube recto' mode.

they are very busy,but always helpful on the phone-they call back
when you leave a message for tech support.

it's made for versatility(sp?)and it has a lot of good tones-it gets
near some classic amp sounds,but has it's own thing mostly...what
kind of cab you use w/it is key for getting what you want.it's good
that it has seperate footswitch ins for trem,channel,loop,verb-i hate
those usually shitty included ones...you can use the length of cable
you want and it's just better.it's heavy, but it's good.

The same as a Solo Head, but with tremolo, reverb, and an extra mode(blues mode). For those who don't know, and or complain about the lack of reverb in the dual rectifier solo head, this amp is the reason(and solution). Mine was made in 1999. Very versitale, works good for blues, clean, hard rock, extremely heavy stuff and some types of metal. It has two footswitchable channels, and two different modes for each channel(unfortunatly the modes are not foot switchable). The two modes for the first channel(orange) are Clean and Vintage High Gain. The second channel (red) is home to Blues and Modern High Gain. Also included is a feature called channel cloning, which allows you to have any two of the four modes at once(including two of the same channel). The effects loop is wonderful, with a send output, return input, send level control, and mix level control. The effects loop can be set for bypass, external foot switchable, red channel, orange channel, or both channels. When used for both channels, their is a seperate master control on the front for volume that is activated. You then use the master for each channel to balance things out. This is very useful. You can also choose between EL34 power tubes, or 6L6 power tubes. Comes with a good reverb, and a decent tremolo effect. You can choose between Silicon diode rectifiers, or tube rectifiers(hence the dual rectifier name). The power can also be reduced to about 75 watts with a power switch labeled Bold/Spongy. I wish it came with a single foot controller that handled the fx loop, reverb, channel switch, and tremolo. Instead it comes with four 1/4" footswitch intputs(actually five, but two are just channel footswitch intputs, one on the front for ease of use, and one on the back), and you need a seperate footswitch for each, and it only comes with one. I made myself a foot controller with four switches,and four bundled cords to go to the amp. This works wonderfull, but for the price of this high end amp, this should be included. I use this amp in a band that does regular gigs. It has 100 watts, and is loud enough for anything.

I use this with my modified usa fender strat(it has dimarzio single coils, and a dimarzio humbucker Tone Zone in the bridge) and my Epi-Les Paul Custom(with an EMG 81 in the bridge, i don't use the neck pickup). I mostly use the strat because of it's versatility. It gets a better clean sound, and a great full distorted sound with the humbucker. I use the les paul on songs where I don't need a clean sound, and I need a tighter distorted sound. This amp is noisy, but it comes with the high gain ferocity that this amp unleashes. The clean sound is great for a 100 watt amp, Plenty of headroom. It's better than any of the previous amps I've owned. It is much improved over the Solo Head. The Modern High Gain(red) is what you hear everyone rave about. It's so damn wonderful. It will RIP YOUR F***ING HEAD OFF. It's one of the main reasons I bought this amp. It is as heavy as everyone describes, BUT IT IS NOT AS TIGHT AND DEFINED AS A LOT OF PEOPLE SAY. The EMG 81 on my les paul help some. IT'S STILL THE MOST WONDERFUL SOUND THOUGH. It does handle lower tunings better than most other amps though(marshall, crate blue voodoo, peavey 5150 and 5150 II). The blues mode is great and really gets a tone all it's own. It definetly has it's origins from respected blues tones, but it has flavor not found in other amplifiers. I love it, some purist don't. But I don't like sounding like everyone else. ( the modern high gain has become everyone's tone recently ironically). The vintage high gain is a channel often overlooked in this amplifier series. I think the reason is because people read marshall when they see vintage high gain, and are dissapointed when it doesn't sound like a marshall. This channel sounds so wonderful, and has it's own sound. If you wanted a Marshall sound, why would you cough up $1800 dollars for a different brand? I could play all day long in the Vintage High Gain mode. It doesn't seem to wear on your ears after hours of playing like most distortion, or overdrive sounds will.

I bought it when it was only 6 months used. I've owned it for 6 months myself now. It has been sturdier than anything i've ever owned. Well my '69 Dodge might have given it a good challenge. I could see placing this amp at the end of long stretch of asphalt, getting my dodge up to about 70 mph and ramming this amp, with the amp still turning on and playing fine afterwards.

Great service, they call you back quickly, are very interested in making you happy, and Have a geniune commitment to their product. Warranty isn't very long(1 year) or transferable. For the quality of this product, and the price, I wish this could be changed.

I'm 21 years old, and I've been playing for 8 years. I've been playing in bands for 6 years. Plus I've been playing other musical instruments for 11 years. I also own a crap fender amp, boss metal zone( I used to think it ruled but now I think it is a piece of crap tone-wise), I also own a Cry-Baby wah, old Ibanez chorus, and Boss DM-2 delay. If stolen, I'd buy it again definetly, if I could get my hands on one, seeing as they just discontinued it in favor of producing a bunch of their new 3 channel dual rectifiers. I hope they come out with a four channel version of Trem-O-Verb. I auditioned many amplifiers for about a year before deciding on this one. This amp is not my holy grail, but the closest compromise I could get. (If you don't give a crap about clean sounds or mild to semi-hard distorted tones, try VHT). If super hard distorion is not your thing try soldano.

I have a used trem-o-verb head with a matching 4x12 cabinet. I spent $1000 on the head used, and got the cab used for $500. In case you wanted to know, I am not some rich little prick who's mama bought him an amp for christmas, I worked my ass off for months in order to get and amp that would meet all my needs (being the tone freak I am), and that I would have no reason to replace. So, after months of searching I decided on this, and every day I've had it I've been more glad I bought it.

The sound of my amp is incredible. I haven't heard the combo version of this amp, but i think it would be a sin to run this thing through anything but a genuine mesa 4x12. If you have one of these, and you think it sounds muddy, or it doesn't sing, or it doesn't have bite; then you obviously don't know how to work the damn thing! It has quite a few knobs, so I guess if you are an idiot, I can kind of see why you would make it sound muddy. It unbelieveably versitile in the different sounds it produces.
-The clean channel is a great standard rich clean sound.
-The vintage high gain is a great dark distortion. You can easily get a good 60's or 70's distortion, like a zztop, black sabbath, or led zepplin tone. I know those 3 examples are very different, but with the adjustable level and gain, you can get a wide veriety of sounds.
-The blues channel is great for (obviously) blues. With just a little gain you can get a good clean sound that gets dirty when you play harder, like a stevie sound for example. I have been playing blues for years and this channel does everything I want it to do.

-The modern high gain has enough gain to make you shit your pants. Of course it will make noises at high volumes, but if that's a problem all you have to do is take off a little gain, and turn the volume up more, and the problem's solved. It can do everything from pantera, to satriani and vai.

I've had this thing about a year and a half, from the basement to the out on the road i haven't had a single problem with it.

never had a reason to deal with them

Being a halfstack, at 1500 I think I got a great deal on mine. I have never listened to another amp and thought, boy i wish my amp could do that, because it can. Owning this wasn't a childhood dream or anything, I had not heard much of anything about them untill I played with the one I later bought. My only other amp is a 1977 MusicMan 210HD, I bought it only because their are certain instances where it is silly to bring a half stack.

The amp is a gift from God... definitly worth the Money for the features... it has 4 channels... a rectifier which allows you to switch between tube and Solid state... tremelo... reverb... channel cloning... bold/ spongy thickness... etc... etc... could go on forever....

My main axe is A fender Guild... with some HOTTT pickups... in the bridge setting... It is great for lead with some distortion cranked up... and has a great clean tone with a little bit of Reverb dialed in and a moderate to low Trem. The clean channel is crystal clear at low gains and Goes up to that of a Marshall JCM model at high gains The distortion is capable of killing small animals

I've never had a problem with my amp... except for once the fuse came a little loose.. but I fixed it myself

I've never dealt with the company but they seem to be very supportive in their ads and their warranties and what not

I've been playing for about nine years... I used to play through fender amps and Marshall amps and I couldn't find that Versatility until I found my baby the Mesa. If it was stolen or lost I would definitly buy a NOMAD which is the newest Mesa Amp.. I love the Gain.. I hate the EQ controls.. they are the only thing that don't please me... I wish it had more of a treble control and Mid... It's a great amp.. but some may want other alternatives if you can't afford paying almost 2 GRAND

Tons of great features. 2 full channels of tone shaping, with mini toggles to select character types of sound, more bluesy, more modern, - bold/spongy switches, bias selection, etc. All kinds of great stuff.

First off, I was prompted by the other recent reviewer who kind of panned it. I feel the same, and I would imagine we are in the minority.

My bandmate owns the amp, and corresponding 2x12 cab. It's his first real-deal amp other than some Laney's and others over the years. He found what he wanted, and was willing to shell out big dollars for this bad boy. His main axe is a really nice '73 Les Paul Standard, and we have tried a number of guitars through that thing: my strats, teles, you name it. Also, I have more than my share of experience hearing it, hearing it at stage volumes, practice volumes, recorded, live, and my own monkeying with it.

Bottom line - it's very lifeless, sterile, undefined, muddy, dark, (I like the other reviewer's comment) boring, -- just a not happening tone.

Audience comments from gigs include: What's up with his tone? He would sound great if he'd get that blanket off his amp. What's wrong with his amp? Man, that Les Paul sounds dark. Geez, he's muddy - someone tell the sound guy - naw, that's his amp. Is he running too many effects that it's killing his tone?

I'm here to tell you if you want those comments at your gig, this is the amp for you. We have tried more knob twisting than a porno flick, a complete redo of his effects chain (updates to true-bypass, etc.), 2 pickup swaps in his Les Paul, differing power settings, cords, you name it.

It doesn't breathe, no chime, doesn't zing, doesn't sing, doesn't react, doesn't sag, -- you know how people that play Vox AC30's and whatnot sy the amp feels 'alive' - this is the opposite.

You can dial out the mud by tweaking the very responsive eq, adding presence, etc., but then it's just clean and lifeless...

Looks, and from my bandmate's experience is extrememly well-built, well designed.

I would imagine quite good. Never any problems.

For the price, my God, the list of amps I would choose in favor of this one would be endless - absolutely endless. You could have 2 amazing amps and A/B between them, for this amount of green.

He's lived with it for years, and like most players, believe it is their tone. Plus, after shelling out those kinda beans years ago, it's hard to make a step up or down in value. Stepping down in the back of your mind, you're thinking "I'm stepping down from a big-dollar, high quality item." and stepping up, is a significant investment all over again. Kind of a weird place to be.

Lovely looking amp though. Great design, well thought out. Just sooo dead sounding. A shame.

Tons, basically its a single preamp with a whole bunch of opto switches to make it think that its got two preamps and a bunch of modes. Mesa has truly created a masterpiece of a switch network. The preamp is your basic master volume-extra gain stage-tone stack after cathode follower type of thing. In other words a hot rodded marshall done right, so you can still get good clean tones.

There must be alot of rich kids playing these in garages and bedroom. I don't see that many out at clubs. I never go to those pointless amphitheater/stadium gigs so I don't know if there being used there. When I do hear one at club it always sound boring. Not bad by any means, just boring. Clean and distorted sounds are always smooth and clear but they never have what it takes to make you really want to listen to it. Whenever I listen to a band using one of these the other insturments stand out better and I find myself listening more to the bass and drums. But I can't help listening to a really good old Marshall, old Fender, old Vox, or Matchless sound. I don't know what it is but I think the Tremoverb and other Mesa Rectifier models are too pristine for Rock and Blues. These things are probably great for recording those cheesy leads on overproduced alterna-rock and hormone-pop stuff. But they don't cut it in the clubs. Just too damn nice sounding.

Mesa Engineering should get the manufacturing contract when the US decides to replace the M1A1 Abrahms.

Hey, if you ask nicely, you can get the schematic for your amp. Empowering you to fix problems yourself is real support in my opinion.

I think Mesa has done a good job pleasing guitar amp buyers with this one. What they have not made is in any way a replacement for a black face twin, a 50 watt marshall halfstack maxed out, or an AC30 top boost. They seem to have made a watered down version of all three of these amps in one convinient package.

Awesome. I heard from a guitar store owner yesterday that this amp now comes with 3 channels. Anyone know if that is true? I asked him if he meant triple rect and he said no, it is a brand new feature of the dual. I wish it had a line out for recording and a speaker shutoff, but I guess if you get an amp like this you probably don't live in a closet. I love having a vintage, orange, red, heavy, clean everything kind of amp. I love the sound of a Mesa Boogie. As far as I am concerned, nothing comes close to this thing. This amp made my hair stand on end. After 14 years of playing all kinds of amps, I looked at the guy in the store and said that is the sound I have been looking for all my life.

I could plug a rake into this thing and it would sing. Nice hendrix kind of distortion and the heaviest of all heavy.

Pick one up. Zero rattle. This company is awesome.

Like I have said before, they pick up the phone before the first ring. They care about their customers.

Will be actually buying this in a few weeks. A definite must have.

This is my second review of the Dual Rectifier. I only feel this is necessary after reading "Stewart's" August 2nd review of this amp. I want to ensure that anyone considering buying this amp understands why he gave the amp such low scores. Read below for more info......

For me, this is the best amp I have heard in my 14 years of playing guitar. I am not a just a KORN guitar player. In my years I have played everything from Clapton to the heavy stuff coming out now. The point I want to make is that "Stewart" is not a fan of Metallica, Creed, KORN, etc. and does not like that type of distortion. Well, I can tell you now that if you want that new dropped-d, heavy chunky sound, you can't buy a fender bassman. You need a nice clean sound, get a Fender. You want something that can cover everything from Hendrix to Metallica, you can go with Marshall. If you want to be able to blow a hole through your neighbor's wall, get a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier!!!

Go to the store and pick one up. I guarantee you won't hear a rattle. Feel the covering. Look at the solid metal pieces. Feel the metal knobs, etc. Then go grab another company's head. The difference will blow you away.

When you call Mesa Boogie support, they pick up so fast that you don't even hear a ring. Call them and see for yourself!

Have been playing about 14 years. Love the amp, can't have anything else.

I am pretty sure the amp is either a 1999 or a 2000 model. this amp has more options for tone that produce actual usable sounds than anything else i have ever owned. i has 2 channels with independant EQs , Master Volume and Gain controls. there are 4 modes however and a "clean rythym" switch on the Orange channel which is awesome. no one in their reviews mentioned this feature but it is great. effects loop, auto bias adjustment (no more benching the amp when re-tubing), selectable tube or solid state rectifier and channel cloning (great feature allowing to make 2 "modern" or 2 "vintage" channels if you like the sound of better. i wish it had a half wattage switch, but no big deal becuase you cna just remove the 2 middle tubes for half power. i wish you could select the "clean rhythym" for only 1 of the 2 orange channels if you are cloning the orange channel. i use this amp in my bedroom right now, but i am gonna start a new band pretty soon. its loud enough for shows for sure. its tube and can run on EL34's or 6l6 for a British tone or American tone. good option. it came with a leather covering instead of vinyl (very nice too) and it came with a seperate cover much like a BBQ cover. cool.

gear i use with it:
Line 6 DL4 Delay Modeler
Voodoo Labs Tremolo
MXR Phase 90 (hopefully i will get a new unit really soon)
Gibson SG Standrad '97

this amp is great, my musical style varies a lot and it allows me enough breathing room to do whatever i need to do, from metal to hi-gain prog rock tones. i love the orange channel hi-gain variable more than the modern reds hi-gain. its so warma dn ooey-gooey good.
this amp is not noiseym until you turn it off and then it make a "shuting down" type of sound..hard o explain. almost like you hear the tubes de-powering. amp has a range of sounds for every conceivable style if music. i have friends using it for metal, some using ir for prog-rock and others using it for pop-punk. the clean channel remains fairly clean, it has a very vintage response when in clean mode. dont expect anything you wouldnt expect from a blackface bassman. distortion is fucking metal.

seems to be built very well, all hand made and such. i have only heard of people doing dumb things and therefore breaking them. no bakc ups for me...had to trade what would have been my back up in...but i would have been ashamed to use my back with a stomp box for distoriton if this broke down. my back up would have been a 50 JCM 800. this ampis brand new and the previous owner had this unit for 5 weeks. the unit that this one replaced was broken by some idiot who turned the bias switch to El34 when it was equipped with 6l6 and during a high volume set for that matter. that fried some tube sockets so the original owner sent it to Mesa for a repiar and 5 weeks ago they sent him this brand new replacement. nice huh?

the company answered email within a amtter of hours. the last repair/replacment was done by Mesa technicians and it was actualy just replaced. took a while to get here, but they are an independant company. tons of authorized service centres around me. warranty is for 1 year but only applies to the original buyer which i think kinda sucks.

i have been playing for about 7 years now. i have owned a ton of other gear over the years (multiple heads and effects units/pedals, pre-amps and a few different guitars, still have the same Marshall cabinet though). i liked this better than any of the other heads i have owned. sounds awesome with my SG. i would definetley buy another if this were stolen, in fact if i hadnt gotten the great deal i got i would have bought one brand new anyhow. i love everything about it (including its light weight and nice size)...dont know what i hate yet sorry. i have tried this several products and there was just so mayne options without having to go digital and in 1 convenient package that i decided this was a good amp for me over the next couple years while i decide what kind of music i will be playing. tried and didnt like VHTs, Soldanos, Marshall DSL and 5150s (these were okay though). the Marshall was pretty good for the options it had, but the 5150 sounded better and the Soldano and VHTs i tired were not impressive at all!