[technomancer]

So after listening to Drew's clips and a few others on here I found myself suffering a severe case of GAS for a Nomad. Tonight I was out at a local shop and found out they were selling this used:



Needless to say I couldn't resist, and it came home with me.

[rummy]

Awesome! My next purchase would defintely be the Nomad 55 head. Yup, thanks to Drew.

[darren]

There's a sweet, minty F-30 up on eBay right now, but i just can't swing the cash. We just bought some new furniture that's coming in a few weeks, and a nice 32" LCD TV to sit on top of it.

[Drew]

HELL yeah, another member of the Nomad Army.

Nomads flat out rule, they're arguably the single most versatile amp Mesa's ever produced. Sure, the Road Kings have stupidly flexble back-panel options, and the Mark-IV's can produce some absolutely hellacious growl, but the Nomad's the only amp I can think of that can do crunch rhythm tones with the same sort bass depth as a Recto, but with the flip of a switch and twist of a few knobs do a downright scary imitation of a Mark-IV style smooth lead. Sure, a Recto (or even a F-30) will do heavy crunch a little better, and a Mark has this incredible 3-D quality to the leads that a Nomad doesn't quite capture, but it's the only amp in Mesa's arsenal that'll get you ballpark on both.

I've only played Nomad-55's briefly - I gather they're a bit brighter than 45/100's, and you lose the 45's "Extreme" poweramp mode, but you also get to swap poweramp tubes between EL34's and 6L6's, which is pretty damned cool.

[DSS3]

I'm actually really interested in one of these - I'll be picking up a small combo in the near future, and was hoping to use it for a layer when recording... How heavy can these things get? Any sort of modern black/deathmetal tone?

[Christopher]

I just wish I could find one to try out. I've never actually seen one in person.

[noodles]

Channel 2 on the Nomad is the finest channel on the amp. I saw a blues/rock cover band a month back, and the guy lived on that channel. Amazingly responsive to touch and the guitar's volume knob.

Nice score.

[Drew]

Fuck, I have no idea, DSS - the heaviest I've ever recorded it was those pickup comparison clips I did in the pickup forum, but I mean, I'm not exactly the black/DM type so the riffing isn't really there, you know?

I actually prefer Channel 3, noodles, but 2 is definitely the bassier/crunchier side - sort of vaguely reminiscent of a Marshall running hard, but not. For what he was doing it was probably perfect.

[technomancer]

Originally Posted by Drew

HELL yeah, another member of the Nomad Army.

Nomads flat out rule, they're arguably the single most versatile amp Mesa's ever produced. Sure, the Road Kings have stupidly flexble back-panel options, and the Mark-IV's can produce some absolutely hellacious growl, but the Nomad's the only amp I can think of that can do crunch rhythm tones with the same sort bass depth as a Recto, but with the flip of a switch and twist of a few knobs do a downright scary imitation of a Mark-IV style smooth lead. Sure, a Recto (or even a F-30) will do heavy crunch a little better, and a Mark has this incredible 3-D quality to the leads that a Nomad doesn't quite capture, but it's the only amp in Mesa's arsenal that'll get you ballpark on both.

I've only played Nomad-55's briefly - I gather they're a bit brighter than 45/100's, and you lose the 45's "Extreme" poweramp mode, but you also get to swap poweramp tubes between EL34's and 6L6's, which is pretty damned cool.

+1 the versatility is why I bought it... and I figure if I want face-searing gain I can always throw an OD pedal in front of it. I also figure I bought this as a practice amp, and I KNOW it will sound good doing just about anything, so it should work out perfectly

I actually had my choice of a 45 or a 55, the 55 was from the rental department and the 45 was on consignment. This was one case where price was the determining factor, as the 55 was $100 cheaper and didn't require me to call someone else to haggle the price down.

Originally Posted by noodles

Channel 2 on the Nomad is the finest channel on the amp. I saw a blues/rock cover band a month back, and the guy lived on that channel. Amazingly responsive to touch and the guitar's volume knob.

Nice score.

Noodles, you're... you're... not a chicken anymore!

Seriously I am so happy I scored this thing

Originally Posted by Christopher

I just wish I could find one to try out. I've never actually seen one in person.

Yeah I'm lucky as far as this goes... there's one music store around here that literally carries tons of Mesa gear. They pretty much have one of everything in production give or take (I don't think they have a Mark IV) and their rental department periodically sells stuff off.

[Drew]

By the way, my one bit of advice - for channel 3 in Modern mode, keep your channel volume low, maybe 5 or below, and run the master harder. For Vintage, for saturated Mark-like leads run the master low and push the channel harder.

Seriously, it's like night-and-day different, how the positioning of the channel volume changes the tone and response of that channel.