Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

[jgcable]

I just got it today. A diamond plate Mesa Dual Rectifier Tremoverb head in a kick ass diamond plate road case. I already have a 1st year dual rectifier and just sold a brand new 3 channel triple.
In 2 words.... holy crap.
Clean, blues, rock, metal,thrash,death metal.... no problem. Volume? Give me a friggin break.
Tone? This is the best rectifier I have ever heard.
Reverb and tremelo? top notch.
This is one killer amp and is so much more than I need it ain't funny. With the master volume on 3 it will blow your friggin windows out of the house. Palm muting on the red channel in silicone diode mode gives you so much chunk there was stuff falling off of the shelves in my basement. This Dual Recto Trem-o-verb is very similar to my 1st year Dual Recto but more refined and actually it has more gain. Go figure... more gain.It has a much better clean channel, the blues channel is perfect for SRV type stuff and I love real lush reverb and tremelo. This amp has it all and it is in diamond plate on top of it! This amp can handle any genre of music. Now my Studio 22 has competition. The Nomad 45 is in transit so I will review that when it gets here. Like I said, this amp is way more than I need but now I know what all the hype is all about and why the modeling amps all model the Dual Rectifier Tremoverb. So far, it is the best sounding Mesa I have ever heard.

[Supercharged 350]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

Of all the rectos the Trem was always my favorite. I've seen a couple go pretty cheap (as far as Mesas go) on the bay lately.

[Tetsuo]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

Hey John that is my Tremo give it back [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[jgcable]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

I would suggest buying one to anybody looking for a Rectifier. Totally collectable, discontinued and totally killer. To be perfectly honest, I had my mind made up on getting a Vetta,Vetta 2, or HD147 with the foot controllers but I just couldn't work out a deal. When I saw this Diamond Plate Trem-o-verb listed along with the matching diamond plate road case I jumped on it for 2 reasons. 1. It was very reasonably priced. 2. I figured that I could eventually trade somebody for a Vetta or an HD147 down the road or at least sell it and have enough money to buy one. I don't really need anohter Dual Rectifier and because my band does a wide variety of 80's rock and metal ranging from Journey and Def Leppard to G&R, Dokken and Ratt, a modeling amp is more useful.
I have a Mesa Nomad 45 coming, I already have a Studio 22 and the X100B will be here in a week. That doesn't include my Peavey or my Roland Cube 30... oh yea.. and all the friggin cabinets I have stacked everywhere.

[Boxcar Willie 84]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

JGCable, I am really enjoying your amp reviews that you've been making lately.

[Hotrod]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

[img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] I second everything you said, man. That's what I've been talking about. I've had mine for a little over a year and I hate it when people talk about Mesa's being good for *one thing only*. The TOV is a very versatile head, but it does have a lot of horsepower and isn't practical if you only play at home. I do love taking it to practice, though [img]graemlins/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] . I'd love to hear the TOV combo. Maybe it's a little bit tamer [img]graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] . Anyhoo, thanks for the review.

[jgcable]

Re: Mesa Trem-o-verb Review

Here is another Trem-o-verb update. I set it to spongy (low power) and vacuam tube (vintage) instead of silicon rectifier, I cloned the channels, boosted the mids and presence,cut the bass and set the gain on both channels to around 7 and what I have now is a KILLER hot rodded Marshall/5150 on both channels. Setting the red channel louder then the orange channel I now have what every 5150 player wished they had (including me when I owned one). 2 killer 5150 lead channels that are totally independent and adjustable. Orange for rhythm and red for solo.
Say for instance you are at a gig, you have your amp set up like I do and you are now about to do a song that needs a clean guitar. No problem... just flick the mini toggle switch on the orange channel right in the front to blues and you can go from a SRV lead tone to a really clean tone just by rolling your volume on the guitar. Of course, the red channel is still your 5150 tone. Setting the amp to modern high gain and bold will give you all the death metal gain you could ever want. You could also have a 5150 on the orange channel and a dual rectifer on the red channel.