nomad mods

[nomad100hd]

wait till u play with a band

 

[earachemyeye]

Ok on with my tone report. My setup: El34's and a set of pre tubes from Dougs Tubes. My guitars: Hamers, one with 2 HB (Duncan booteek) and one with HSS (Duncan 59 and singles). Ch.1 results: Less bass woof (good thing) more snap, chime and clarity, I like it. Ch.2 results: Less bass woof (also good) less fizz, more cut, touch less gain (more clarity) and the gain is better sounding to my ears. I believe I will stick out better in the mix with my band on Ch.2 I like it. Ch.3 results: Pretty much the same as Ch2 but I feel that this channel already lacked bass so I'm not as happy here. Very Voxy sounding to my ears in the lower regions of gain so it's still usable. I have an eq to put in the loop so I could add the bass back in I'm sure. Haven't tried that yet. I had to fiddle with the settings and dial back some treble to calm it down. One beef I had with this amp was the lack of a Marshall like crunch when the master was dialed up. I think thats cured now. Ch.2 has a very nice crunch tone to it now without having to use my pedals to get there. I'll report back after practice this wed. on how it works with the band. For now, it's a good change as far as I can tell.

Joe

 

[fretwhizzy]

I'd already done a little mod to put in a switch on my nomad 45 that switches the effects loop between series and parallel. I think it's worth noting that running a series loop gets rid of the need to be VERY careful about not putting stuff in the loop that exceeds unity gain for fear of internal feedback!

I just tried the "mud-remover" mod as concocted by Nomad 100. Excellent! Thanks very much Nomad100 for posting this mod. It really gives a nice openness and more even frequency response to the amp generally... simple to do and easily reversed too in the event you ever want it back to stock!

As a handy thing to share here in the spirit of sharing handy stuff .....I found out Tuesday night, while putting my Nomad back together for a recording session the next day (I'm kinda experimenting with having some kind of permanently-racked up head n fx setup) and not being able to locate my 7pin din cable for the footswitch, that in fact the footswitch seems to work 100% fine with just a regular 5pin din cable. Which is just your regular MIDI cable and a lot more readily/cheaply available in various lengths.

Having found that a MIDI cable works fine on my Nomad I also tried it on my formula pre. 100% fine again..

 

[MusicManJP6]

Cool mods! Gonna do these as soon as I make my trade for a 45 2x12 official!

 

[mglenn]

The power section mod sounds pretty cool. The muddiness of that amp was one of my main complaints with it when compared to some of Mesa's other amps.

 

[nomad100hd]

just to clarify, the mod does not decrease the bass at all, just puts the highs back in the amp! Glad to know about the midi cable!

 

[MusicManJP6]

I performed the 'mud mod' as well as the serial FX loop mod last night. Both sound great! The mud mod opened up the highs and took away the muddy mids leaving the bass still intact. Pretty cool! I'm not a parallel FX loop fan since I like my delay so much. I didn't get a chance to put anything in the loop for testing of the loop, but I'm sure it is fine...

Thanks, nomad100hd! What else ya got up your sleeve?

 

[earachemyeye]

My Nomad is a 1X12 and I also run a Genz Benz ported 2x12 with it. This mod is going to affect each amp differently based on the speaker configuration, speaker type ,tubes ,pickups ect. I'm just reporting what I hear from my amp. YMMV with your setup. I also reported that I thought it was a good change and have added an eq to the loop to boost the lows in Ch. 3 to my taste. I don't see the need to clarify anything from my post. If you're running a setup similar to mine, you may experience the same results. No big deal.

 

[nomad100hd]

i understand really it's all a ration between highs an lows anyways. Since the mod is after the preamp it can't affect the gain, but can affect the perception of the gain. Always been curious about the genz benz cabs. I have a bias mod up my sleeve. Also thinking of altering channel 3's tone stack. Might add a fan, cuz those dang tubes get warm!

 

[MusicManJP6]

Might add a fan, cuz those dang tubes get warm!

Yea, they do!! I'm wondering if the excessive heat killed my reverb...

 

[earachemyeye]

Practiced with the band Wed. night with the cap clipped Nomad 55 and have to say it's going to stay this way. It stood out in the mix much better and has overall a better sound. Thanks for the mod Nomad100hd. Here's my thoughts on the difference the gain. I know from being a pedal mod freak that different types of capacitors can color the sound and the caps that are clipped are of the ceramic variety which most pedal modders try to avoid using when going for a clean and clear signal. Unfortunately in the picofarad range, ceramics are pretty much it. I think clipping these out in addition to adding the highs back in also cleans up the signal some giving a little more clean headroom to the amp. There are other things that also might happen in the areas of voltage and impedance that may effect the sound but I'm not sharp to do the math on that. Whatever the case, it sounds better to my ears and that's what matters. Cool stuff.

Joe

 

[Koreth]

You also have silver mica caps. Those fall in the picofarad range IIRC, and have very tight tolerances to boot. could not one replace the ceramic caps with silver mica ones for a better sound?

 

[fretwhizzy]

"just to clarify, the mod does not decrease the bass at all, just puts the highs back in the amp!" "Glad to know about the midi cable!"

Indeed! I rename it "clarity enhancer"

"Glad to know about the midi cable!"

It works for the Nomad 45 and formula pre.... I'd be optimistic about the 55, but I'd expect to lose some functionality on the 100... you'll probably lose the graphic i guess?

 

[nomad100hd]

if i just lost the reverb is be fine with that!

 

[earachemyeye]

Ooops. Koreth is right. Silver Mica caps could be used I suppose you could also play with the values if you didn't like the resulting treble increase. I could go back to 6l6 tubes if I wanted some more low grunt but I'm staying with el34s and an eq on Ch.3. I like the way they sound ( Marshall like) and that's what really matters. (think I said that before).

Joe

 

[KozMcCharlie]

Just a report from last nights gig... I switched out the JJ 12ax7s that were in there for some 12ax7EH (Mesa R2) and the difference was more than huge. This was the first time I really heard the fantastic chime of the EL84s in the 45. Between the mod and the new tubes the amp really isn't a dark sounding amp anymore...

 

[lerxst88]

i was checking out the schematics for the 100 and the 45 and it looks really simple to modify a 100 or 55 to have a Normal/Extreme switch like on the 45.

all you have to do is put a SPST switch between the 39k resistor and the 8 ohm output. anyone can confirm that this would work?

nomad 45 owners: whats the usefulness of this switch? is extreme mode active when the switch is open or closed?

 

[KozMcCharlie]

I'm always on Extreme mode on my 45. According to the manual, Extreme mode kills the negative feedback... The difference is huge. Takes the amp from sounding kind of spongy to having some serious edge. The one thing that I've noticed is that the power tubes run much hotter with the extreme mode.

That said, according to the schematic, open would be extreme mode and closed normal. I think that doing it would mean adding the switch to interrupt the negative feedback loop before it hits that resistor and the rest of the negative feedback circuit. It would be across all outputs as well, not just the 8ohm. Unfortunately I don't have the chassis out so it may involve modding a trace on the PCB or it may just be cutting a wire and putting in the switch... don't know...

 

[MusicManJP6]

It is very similar to the bold/spongy power settings found on other Mesa amps, IMO.

 

[nomad100hd]

if ur distorting the PA it NFB cause distortion to come on abrubtly, were no negative feedback allows a more gradual. NFB will keep the PA cleaner longer.