NAD Roadster 2x12 Combo

[ironjose]

:mrgreen: Well guys the day finally came... and i was getting desperate... just got it an hour ago... i haven't play it yet coz i'm at my mom's and well i guess i'll have to wait until tomorrow morning... anyways i now can say i'm proud owner of a Mesa amp...

Theese pics are the ones that the guy who sold me the amp sent me...

This one the actual amp... and boy oh boy... its practically NEW... :mrgreen:

 

[LithiumZero]

Congrats! I love mine! Take a lot time tweaking and read the manual...then read it again. The possibilities are endless. The Roadster is a swiss army knife of great guitar tones. Also a Tung-Sol 12ax7 reissue in V1 is amazing.

 

[ironjose]

thanks man... i've been the manual for two years now... but its not compare as having the real deal in your hands... i'll try to set the examples they gave and then mine...
maybe upload some clips or vids... about them in the near future... 8)

 

[YellowJacket]

That's a great new toy. We are all very excited for you and I personally can't wait for reports of how this thing absolutely blows you bandit away, especially during rehearsals and shows.
Hot tip: Expect a tube amp to be much more dynamic than you are used to. i.e. if you play with wimpy technique you'll get a wimpy tone. The more you abuse the guitar the more gain you'll get

 

[ironjose]

That's a great new toy. We are all very excited for you and I personally can't wait for reports of how this thing absolutely blows you bandit away, especially during rehearsals and shows.
Hot tip: Expect a tube amp to be much more dynamic than you are used to. i.e. if you play with wimpy technique you'll get a wimpy tone. The more you abuse the guitar the more gain you'll get

thanks man... i know for a fact that my bandit will spend more time on vacation from this day foward... lol
and the HOT Tip you gave well the minute i came to my house i rush to connect my guitar... but since it was 11pm i wasnt able to past the output from 9 o'clock but the first chord and riff i did on channel 1 on the fat mode my wife said literally "it sounds amazing"... go figure...

 

[YellowJacket]

You're wife lets you get the output past 9:00?

 

[ironjose]

You're wife lets you get the output past 9:00?

lol... actually she doesn't but i guess she was curious about my new toy... and since i usually play with headphones this amps dont have a headphone output... but after 5 min of playing she told to lower the volume and and i have all morning to play... imaging that... i'm going to wake up my neighbors with metallica tunes !!!

 

[thejay]

awesome man, enjoy!

 

[ironjose]

awesome man, enjoy!

thanks man... i'm enjoying it !!! so far so freaking good !!!

 

[ironjose]

first impressions...
well last nite i played it like 15 mins... and going thru all the channels back and forth... as i did like two years ago...
since i couldn't sleep thinking about it...
i woke up around 7am and connect my guitar and started to dial the "preset" settings on the manual... after going thru them i started to dial some personal settings...
i pretty much liked all channels, and the massive growl on channel 4... boy oh boy... Modern mode is amazing and the gain after gain after gain... is freaking endless !!!
vintage mode on both channels are quite great... the best of both worlds i'd say...

clean mode is clean... not JC clean but clean enough for me to dial some nice clean tone!!!
fat mode is the best... you can have a great clean with lots of headroom and still dial a crunch tone... just great!!!

tweed mode seems like an american tweed not a big surprise but i haven't explore it completely... it remind me of a fender champ i used to play like 9 years ago... (wasn't mine but it had a great drive...)

brit mode in my opinion was the big dissapointment for me... you know after reading and going thru the manual again and again i thought i could have a maiden sound out of it... but still it sounds great... i bet most of you Roadster owners have used it for ACDC tones... i'm pretty sure i will find a well use for it...

it has gain, it has style and by all means it has a great tone !!!

 

[bendo]

first impressions...
well last nite i played it like 15 mins... and going thru all the channels back and forth... as i did like two years ago...
since i couldn't sleep thinking about it...
i woke up around 7am and connect my guitar and started to dial the "preset" settings on the manual... after going thru them i started to dial some personal settings...
i pretty much liked all channels, and the massive growl on channel 4... boy oh boy... Modern mode is amazing and the gain after gain after gain... is freaking endless !!!
vintage mode on both channels are quite great... the best of both worlds i'd say...

clean mode is clean... not JC clean but clean enough for me to dial some nice clean tone!!!
fat mode is the best... you can have a great clean with lots of headroom and still dial a crunch tone... just great!!!

tweed mode seems like an american tweed not a big surprise but i haven't explore it completely... it remind me of a fender champ i used to play like 9 years ago... (wasn't mine but it had a great drive...)

brit mode in my opinion was the big dissapointment for me... you know after reading and going thru the manual again and again i thought i could have a maiden sound out of it... but still it sounds great... i bet most of you Roadster owners have used it for ACDC tones... i'm pretty sure i will find a well use for it...

it has gain, it has style and by all means it has a great tone !!!

I love my Roadster. Tweed on Channel 1 kicks ass. Gain around 1:30-2 and play with tone controls from there. Switch to Spongy for a really nice brown tweed tone with great clip.

My mom loves it when the bass is bottomed out, Gain around 3:30, Reverb MAXED and working out some Link Wray (her favorite) for her. At 70, it's one of the few things that makes here smile. Run in the MXR Phaser 100 with towards the end for a nice tremolo like tone.... You get the idea.

One of the most versatile amps around. Tone for days.

 

[ironjose]

I love my Roadster. Tweed on Channel 1 kicks ass. Gain around 1:30-2 and play with tone controls from there. Switch to Spongy for a really nice brown tweed tone with great clip.

My mom loves it when the bass is bottomed out, Gain around 3:30, Reverb MAXED and working out some Link Wray (her favorite) for her. At 70, it's one of the few things that makes here smile. Run in the MXR Phaser 100 with towards the end for a nice tremolo like tone.... You get the idea.

One of the most versatile amps around. Tone for days.

whoa how cool is that your mom likes your tone... just awesome... like i said before is just my first impression with a decent volume... can't have a day off to play with it and dont have rehearsel in the near future but that gives me time to dial and get to know the amp...
i'm planning today to include my gt8 as effects and see how the amp reacts...
other than it just feels and sounds amazing

 

[thejay]

BRIT was a disappointment to me as well then I took the 6L6s out and put some EL34s in their place. Much happier overall with the amp and BRIT sounds much better.

Also love TWEED myself

 

[LithiumZero]

For Brit mode try running in 50 watt mode, tube rectifier and run the treble between 9 and 10 oclock, mids at 2 to 3 oclock, gain, bass and presence to taste. Running the treble low and the mids high really fattened up this channel for me. Try Spongy for lower volume playing.

 

[YellowJacket]

For Brit mode try running in 50 watt mode, tube rectifier and run the treble between 9 and 10 oclock, mids at 2 to 3 oclock, gain, bass and presence to taste. Running the treble low and the mids high really fattened up this channel for me. Try Spongy for lower volume playing.

Haha, even though I don't own a roadster, I was going to suggest this very thing. 8)
When I demo'd the roadster I was also surprised by the lack of gain in brit mode, but I'm sure this could be remedied with correct settings on the amp when paired with a guitar that has hot pickups.

 

[ironjose]

BRIT was a disappointment to me as well then I took the 6L6s out and put some EL34s in their place. Much happier overall with the amp and BRIT sounds much better.
Also love TWEED myself

i was reading about that... but i've also heard that el34's make much brighter the sound right?

 

[ironjose]

For Brit mode try running in 50 watt mode, tube rectifier and run the treble between 9 and 10 oclock, mids at 2 to 3 oclock, gain, bass and presence to taste. Running the treble low and the mids high really fattened up this channel for me. Try Spongy for lower volume playing.

Haha, even though I don't own a roadster, I was going to suggest this very thing. 8)
When I demo'd the roadster I was also surprised by the lack of gain in brit mode, but I'm sure this could be remedied with correct settings on the amp when paired with a guitar that has hot pickups.

thanks you guys... i'm going to try it... also i've find that the spongy and tube rectification suites me... also i now comprehend the difficult of dialing a freaking sound on channels 3 & 4, you move a button a tiny little bit and the whole sound changes...

 

[JCDenton6]

Congrats and welcome to the mesa family!
Glad you are loving the amp, nothing beats finally getting the sound you've had in your head blasting through the speakers :mrgreen:

 

[ironjose]

thanks for all your post... i've never been so happy with my sound until now... but this is only the begining i now have to dial my sound and flavor...
today i tried two things...

1- connecting my gt8 thru the effects loop and learning how the effect loop on the amp works... i didnt know that the little switch on the channel strip "fx on / fx off" was so important, now i know how the footswitch works and the loop... but i need to work on the levels... bc sometimes when the loop is on the overall sound of the amp muffles... like i said i still need some homework to do...

2- connecting my gt8 the normal input of the amp and use only the OD in the gt8, you know to learn the od in front of the amp thing...

i came to two conclusions:

1- i need to buy a lot of pedals (in the future)
2- i need to buy a booster to use in front of the amp... dont know yet which one yet... dont know if a booster will do the trick or an overdrive or a tubescreamer
the ones i like using the gt8 were:

Booster (this was the best one)
Natural OD (second best)
OD-1 as in the Boss OD-1 (okay)
T-Scream as in the TS808 (but i find this one a bit noisy)

which settings you may say i use them Gain:0-15%, Bottom: 0%, Tone:0%, Level: 100%

i need a fourth cable to do the four cable method, you know to include the amps preamp in the effect loop of the gt8... but anyways i'm getting to know the amp...
cheers !!!

 

[ironjose]

update...
last monday i had my first rehearsel with the Roadster... since i arrive everyone was like expecting to hear it... oh man i was too... to play it above 9 o'clock...
the truth is that i barely raised the output to 11 o'clock...

channel 1 - used the tweed mode and it was more than enough for the guys
channel 2 - a clean tone using the fat mode... chimming and well my eyes started to get blurry like i wanted to cry... :') but in a good way
channel 3 - a bit of grit using the raw mode and it blew my friends away... gosh this amp is really doing it for me !!!
channel 4 - it was in modern mode but only tried it out to show off... lol... i knew they would be jealous... hahaha

a friend of a friend brought the route 66 od/comp pedal i give it a try... it blew my mind... im just thinking about getting it...

and like i said before i just need a separate pedals and i'm all set !!!