MESA ENGINEERING Rectifier BADLANDER EL34/50 Owner's Manual

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Owner's Manual

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Page 1 BADLANDER ™ Owner’s Manual...
Page 2 Hello from the Tone Farm Congratulations on your choice of the BADLANDER™ and welcome to the MESA/Boogie® Family! The instrument you’ve selected has a deep heritage that combines the best attributes of vintage tube amplification with pioneering innovation that brings high-gain channel switching performance to a new frontier.
Page 3: Table Of Contents
BADLANDER ™ Table of Contents PRECAUTIONS OVERVIEW __________________________________________________________________1-2 HELPFUL HINTS _____________________________________________________________ 3-4 FRONT PANEL INPUT _______________________________________________________________________ 4 FTSW ________________________________________________________________________ 4 CHANNEL SELECT _____________________________________________________________ 4 MODE SELECT _________________________________________________________________ 4 GAIN ______________________________________________________________________ 5-6 TREBLE ______________________________________________________________________ 6 MID _______________________________________________________________________ 6-7 BASS ________________________________________________________________________ 7 PRESENCE __________________________________________________________________ 7-8 MASTER ____________________________________________________________________ 8-9 MULTI-WATT POWER ____________________________________________________________ 9...
Page 4 IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS WARNING: Do not defeat the safety grounding pin on the power cable, it is there for your safety. Before attempting to use this apparatus, read and follow these instructions for proper use. WARNING: Do not open or perform any internal modifications on this apparatus.
Page 5: Overview
BADLANDER ™ Operating Instructions Overview Congratulations on your choice of the Badlander™ and welcome to the MESA/Boogie family! ® The Badlander is the latest in a long line of iconic Rectifier ® products that carries the tradition of high perfor- mance, high gain forward with a tighter low end, more aggressive midrange character and enhanced harmonic content.
Page 6 Next, the on-board CabClone IR DI section opens a new world of flexibility and convenience, providing 8 choices ™ (repeated in each channel) of Impulse Response Captures of our most popular MESA Speaker cabinets mic’d for Live applications. This array of IRs provides instant great choices in the very best of virtual cabinetry with 8 voicing options, as well as footswitchable independence to treat the two channels differently when recording direct or sending live, mic-free, or even cab free stage sounds to the front of house in venues.
Page 7: Helpful Hints
settings of the same gain range. However you choose to dedicate your channels, a world of possibilities await your exploration and application. There are many possibilities for configuration across the entire gain spectrum, from traditional to modern extremes, so feel free to set the channels to your liking and needs and experiment as much as you like. We feel confident that regardless of how you configure the two channels, the Badlander will impress you with it’s rewarding Tone and incredible versatility.
Page 8: Front Panel
• When searching for more traditional-gain Crunch or Classic Rock sounds, especially in the CLEAN Mode, you may want to try the reduced wattage positions of the Multi-Watt Switch in addition to simply turning the GAIN control higher. Taking this approach allows for you to increase the overdrive content and characteristics in the power section with the MASTER control, while at the same time lower the overall output volume to make dB levels less punishing for yourself and others who may be nearby.
Page 9: Gain
GAIN: In the Badlander, as with most MESA amplifiers, the GAIN is the most critical of all preamp controls. It’s setting determines much about the character and texture, dynamic content and sustain factor of the sound and voices the sound in all three of the identical Modes appearing in both channels. Each mode reacts a little differently, but generally speaking, the middle range of the GAIN control provides enough of everything and not too much of anything.
Page 10: Treble
lower wattage settings. This approach will allow you to increase the MASTER and hear more of the power tubes character, but this too must be balanced to assure the low end stays tight and tracking isn’t compromised. The best tracking and low-end accuracy will almost always be experienced in the highest wattage setting. So, if your music requires accurate Bass response, especially in combination with high GAIN settings, you will want to forego the extra harmonics that might otherwise be added in the lower wattage settings and just stick with the highest Power Setting.
Page 11: Bass
All these factors play a part in your perception of how the instrument responds to your attack, how the sound morphs afterward and how it feels to play as your ears capture it, your brain interprets it, and then sends signals to your hands while playing in this feedback loop.
Page 12: Master
At the top end of the control (2:30 – 5:30), an aggressive blend of upper harmonics dominate the sound and this region can be somewhat dangerous to balanced Tone if it’s not applied in small measures. Higher notes will slice and dice even the bravest of ears and we suggest using this region mostly in the studio for recording heavy crunch rhythm parts and even then, mostly on parts that feature the lower strings.
Page 13: Multi-Watt Power
approach, then by all means, use the MASTERS in this way... it won’t hurt the amplifier. However you will be severely limiting the sounds you can achieve by removing the limitless great sounding combinations of GAIN and MASTER settings. NOTE: VERY high settings of the Master combined with high output pickups can potentially overload the input of the IR circuitry, causing some unwanted distortion.
Page 14: Standby
VARIAC also changes the feel on the strings as it softens the attack and pads back the transients, creating a silkier, more elastic feel on the strings. The transients are still there, they just don’t jump out through the mix as hard or as fast due to the reduced voltage across all parts of the amplifier circuit.
Page 15: Cabclone Ir
NOTE: Normally this is the spot we’d be reminding you to ALWAYS keep a Load connected to your amplifier. However, your Badlander is wired such that when you disconnect the (Speaker) cable from one or more of the SPEAKER output jacks, the Internal Reactive Load is automatically connected. This means your amplifier is always protected from a no-load condition.
Page 16 1. 4x12 RECTO STANDARD – Celestion V30s – MESA Proprietary – 8 ohm 2. 4X12 RECTO TRADITIONAL - Celestion V30s – MESA Proprietary – 8ohm 3. 2X12 RECTO HORIZONTAL - Celestion V30s – MESA Proprietary – 16 ohm 4. 1X12 RECTO 1X12 - Celestion V30 – MESA Proprietary – 8 ohm 5.
Page 17 amplifier. The switch does not always cure the noise problems associated with these differences in ground, but it is often effective and a welcomed feature when you’re anxious to get rolling in the studio or do a timely sound check at a gig. CAB SELECT: These two 8-position Rotary controls select the cabinet IRs you will trigger in each of the Badlander channels when connected to the DIRECT OUT and/or the HEADPHONE output.
Page 18: Effects Loop (Series)
EFFECTS LOOP: These two ¼” jacks provide the interfacing patch points for your “rear end” processing needs. The Effects Loop is basically a circuit bridge from the end of the preamp to the Driver stage, with the SEND interrupting the signal at the preamp’s end and the RETURN feeding the power section just before the Driver tube.
Page 19 For most Rock playing the EL34s contain a harmonic structure we feel is precious, full of personality and more complex and they really add to the character of the Badlander’s British heritage in an authentic and flattering way. That said, many will prefer the thicker, mids and bottom favored, smoother character 6L6’s will produce, espe- cially for clean styles or times when fatter, lower, wider is appropriate.
Page 20: Factory Sample Settings
FACTORY SAMPLE SETTINGS CLEAN / CLASSIC PUSHED VARIAC BADLANDER ™ CLEAN / BLUES VARIAC BADLANDER ™ CLASSIC ROCK / CRUNCH VARIAC BADLANDER ™ CRUNCH / CLASSIC LEAD VARIAC BADLANDER ™ HEAVY CRUNCH / SOLO VARIAC BADLANDER ™ PAGE 16...
Page 21: User Settings
USER SETTINGS VARIAC BADLANDER ™ VARIAC BADLANDER ™ VARIAC BADLANDER ™ VARIAC BADLANDER ™ VARIAC BADLANDER ™ PAGE 17...
Page 22: Tube Troubleshooting
TUBE NOISE & MICROPHONICS: You may occasionally experience some form of tube noise or microphonics. Certainly no cause for alarm, this quirky behavior comes with the territory and the Tone. Much like changing a light bulb, you don’t need a technician to cure these types of minor user serviceable annoyances and in fact, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to cure tube problems...by simply swapping out a pre-amp or power tube! First may we suggest that you set the amplifier up on something so that you can get to the tubes comfortably without having to bend down.
Page 23 nected from the power source before any servicing is attempted. Remove the suspected tube from its socket. Reconnect to the power source and turn the amp back on. It will cause no damage to run the amplifier briefly with one power tube missing. You may notice a slight background hum, however, as the push-pull becomes unbalanced.
Page 24 a simple tube replacement! If you must send your amp back to us for service: first, disconnect the AC power cord from the power source and wait 2 minutes for internal components to discharge. Then remove the chassis from the cabinet by unscrewing the four mounting bolts on the bottom (or top on combo amps). Some ampli- fiers have a tension screw that holds the chassis taught against the cabinet and once loosened, the chassis can slide back like a drawer and come out from the back.
Page 25 REST AREA PAGE 21...
Page 26 SPEAKER IMPEDANCE MATCHING & HOOK-UP GUIDE: IMPEDANCE: Wiring up speakers to provide the most effective load and making sure that all of them are in phase will help in creating the best sound possible. This is not too difficult, as long as you understand a few things about loading and how to connect your speakers to provide an optimal resistive load.
Page 27 SPEAKER IMPEDANCE MATCHING & HOOK-UP GUIDE: (Continued) PARALLEL: When wiring in parallel, the resistance of the speakers decreases. Two 8 ohm speakers wired in ( hooked-up ) Parallel results in a 4 ohm load. It’s easy to calculate the effect of a resistive load when all the speakers are all the same resistance.
Page 28: Speaker Hook-Up Guide
WIRING SCHEMES...Amplifier to Speaker Cabinets SPEAKERS SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 4 Ohm Cabinet SPEAKERS SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 16 Ohm Cabinet SAFE MISMATCH SAFE MISMATCH...
Page 29 WIRING SCHEMES...Amplifier to Speaker Cabinets SPEAKERS 8 OHM 4 OHM 4 OHM 8 Ohm Cabinet 8 Ohm Cabinet PAGE 25...
Page 30: Tube Task Chart
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Page 31: Parts List
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Page 32 Thank you for trusting MESA/Boogie® to be your amplifier company and we wish you many years of toneful enjoyment from this handbuilt all tube instrument.
Page 34 23/03/15...