NAD!! I guess Badlander goes in this section?

[spawnofthesith2]

It’s here

Obligatory Mesa tower

This thing is AWESOME. Never played a Mesa that was this straight forward to dial in. Dead simple, but also tons of different sounds available every knob seems to be usable across the range

Cleans are nice, not as good as a mark but beats the 5153 for sure. Lots of cool breakup sounds going up the the gain knob. The high gain tones are just though. What a rocking amp. Certainly doesn’t sound like your traditional rectos but I knew that going in. Bottom end is sick though that’sthe Biggest similarity to a rectifier imo. Plenty of gain for “modern metal” so not sure who started that rumor lol. Briefly experimented with boosting but honestly I just rarely prefer it. I automatically went to crush mode to get my high gain tones going but after some playing around found that I like crunch mode with the gain wide open was sounding epic for the brootz:love

I won’t comment on any “Marshally-ness” I’m not really a Marshall guy. My Marshall experience has mainly just been the jvm210. Which is an absolutely awesome amp but these gain tones tickle my fancy far more I can tell off the bat.

I spent most of demo time so far with my ce24 which is my de facto #1 at this point in time. But then I plugged in my Les Paul and holy **** it was like Zeus himself came down to nut lightening and thunder into my ear holes

Now my grievances:

1. No reverb. I know that’s a plus for some but I prefer onboard reverb even if it’s middling. All good though I can just add some simple reverb blocks to all my patches on the stomp and I’m good to go

2. Mesa makes my favorite tones but they always gotta have SOMETHING up with the loop that presents challenges for my hyper specific use case regarding looping. For my loops to be the same volume when changing channels the masters have to be set almost identical. There’s a little bit of wiggle room but not much. The thing is the modes definitely get louder progressively. I was able to get a “good enough” balanced levels but it did require running the gain knob for cleans slightly higher than I’d prefer so that I’m not losing too much volume. I’ll keep fiddling but I may just have to get more accustomed to tweaking volume knobs on the guitar to get my more pristine cleans when using this amp

 

[bandit2013]

I would agree with you. The BAD is bad as it gets without sounding bad. If that makes any sense at all.
The clean channel reminds me of the MWDR clean. The exception is that you do not need to have a drive mode for it. Push the gain up and you get into some vintage vibe of sorts. Probably because the amp makes use of a dc coupled cathode follower tone stack driver at the back end. I assume the 50W has Variac power mode like the 100W. If it does, Try that with the crunch and you do get into the Rectifier territory (when using the MWDR in spongy power with tube tracking). It will get a bit more scooped. Badlander is one of my favorite amps. So easy to use too.

Just a note on where the channel masters sit, they are after the FX loop. If you ever slave into another amp, make sure it has a master after the FX loop too or you will be getting full volume from that power section.

 

[rarebitusa]

It’s here

Obligatory Mesa tower

This thing is AWESOME. Never played a Mesa that was this straight forward to dial in. Dead simple, but also tons of different sounds available every knob seems to be usable across the range

Cleans are nice, not as good as a mark but beats the 5153 for sure. Lots of cool breakup sounds going up the the gain knob. The high gain tones are just though. What a rocking amp. Certainly doesn’t sound like your traditional rectos but I knew that going in. Bottom end is sick though that’sthe Biggest similarity to a rectifier imo. Plenty of gain for “modern metal” so not sure who started that rumor lol. Briefly experimented with boosting but honestly I just rarely prefer it. I automatically went to crush mode to get my high gain tones going but after some playing around found that I like crunch mode with the gain wide open was sounding epic for the brootz:love

I won’t comment on any “Marshally-ness” I’m not really a Marshall guy. My Marshall experience has mainly just been the jvm210. Which is an absolutely awesome amp but these gain tones tickle my fancy far more I can tell off the bat.

I spent most of demo time so far with my ce24 which is my de facto #1 at this point in time. But then I plugged in my Les Paul and holy **** it was like Zeus himself came down to nut lightening and thunder into my ear holes

Now my grievances:

1. No reverb. I know that’s a plus for some but I prefer onboard reverb even if it’s middling. All good though I can just add some simple reverb blocks to all my patches on the stomp and I’m good to go

2. Mesa makes my favorite tones but they always gotta have SOMETHING up with the loop that presents challenges for my hyper specific use case regarding looping. For my loops to be the same volume when changing channels the masters have to be set almost identical. There’s a little bit of wiggle room but not much. The thing is the modes definitely get louder progressively. I was able to get a “good enough” balanced levels but it did require running the gain knob for cleans slightly higher than I’d prefer so that I’m not losing too much volume. I’ll keep fiddling but I may just have to get more accustomed to tweaking volume knobs on the guitar to get my more pristine cleans when using this amp

Congrats... I totally concur with those BAD takes. Having 4 other Mesas the Badlander was noticeably different right off the bat. Yea the clean voicing is not FAT like a IV/V but for sure dropping pickup vol helps.

What pickups are in your Les Paul? What's your take on 20 vs 50W?

 

[spawnofthesith2]

I would agree with you. The BAD is bad as it gets without sounding bad. If that makes any sense at all.
The clean channel reminds me of the MWDR clean. The exception is that you do not need to have a drive mode for it. Push the gain up and you get into some vintage vibe of sorts. Probably because the amp makes use of a dc coupled cathode follower tone stack driver at the back end. I assume the 50W has Variac power mode like the 100W. If it does, Try that with the crunch and you do get into the Rectifier territory (when using the MWDR in spongy power with tube tracking). It will get a bit more scooped. Badlander is one of my favorite amps. So easy to use too.

Just a note on where the channel masters sit, they are after the FX loop. If you ever slave into another amp, make sure it has a master after the FX loop too or you will be getting full volume from that power section.

Just was experimenting with variac mode a bit albeit at very low volumes, it was pretty awesome

I’ll be able to play around with it on Thursday with proper band volumes. Gonna get to my drummers earlier than usual to dial in settings some more

Congrats... I totally concur with those BAD takes. Having 4 other Mesas the Badlander was noticeably different right off the bat. Yea the clean voicing is not FAT like a IV/V but for sure dropping pickup vol helps.

What pickups are in your Les Paul? What's your take on 20 vs 50W?

Thanks!

My LP has an SD Pegasus in the bridge and the stock burstbucker pro in the neck

Only tried 20w briefly so far, I didn't like it as much for some of the more modern high gain tones I gravitate towards but it sounded cool for low-mid gain stuff

 

[spawnofthesith2]

I'll wait til after my first band practice with it, but I think I'd like to check out 6L6s in here too, I have a feeling it may help keep the cleans a bit cleaner for dealing with my aforementioned channel balancing looper "issue" lol