Mesa Boogie Nomad

[primeholy]

What does it sound like? Anything like a mark or recto?

[sleewell]

Had the 45 head, doesn't sound like a recto at all. Great rock n roll amp, good cleans too.

[primeholy]

 

Had the 45 head, doesn't sound like a recto at all. Great rock n roll amp, good cleans too.

 

 

 

 

Thank you patient boy.

[chobley]

100 nomad with graphic eq..Not me , but I like it

 

[ACLONERANGER]

Having owned a nomad 100 just because its a boogie and I love boogies,I would say its one of Mesas worst amps. Big volume jumps betweeen channels and tone just isnt there for me..IMO the DC series before the nomad was where its at. Ive had like 5 DC5 heads over the years and they all rocked ! Good cleans on the nomad tho.

[tlbonehead]

Had the 45 head, doesn't sound like a recto at all. Great rock n roll amp, good cleans too.

I have a 45 head. Still probably the best value I've ever gotten in an amp. Great rock amp. Channel 3 can get pretty heavy, but not really Mark or Recto-like.

[tlbonehead]

and tone just isnt there for me..IMO the DC series before the nomad was where its at. Ive had like 5 DC5 heads over the years and they all rocked ! Good cleans on the nomad tho.

all three channels have their own vol, gain, and full tone stack. Why couldn't you set them to similar volumes?

[SnowStorm]

Your avatar is still the best!!! {censored}.

[MyEmergency]

I have owned two different nomad amps and I would say they are ok but nothing special at all. Closer to a mark than a recto but not all that close to a mark either kind of a straight rock amp, has a nice clean channel, the gain is kind of odd sounding and it takes a long time to dial in a good sound depending on your cab and guitar, but it does come with a {censored}load of features.

[akapuli]

A friend of mine had it and honestly this was the only Mesa I didn't like. Maybe it was his EQ choice, but it wasn't too impressive.

[yourguitarhero]

Have a look at the F-Series ones, they are nice and not too pricey.

[::fred::]

very mediocre tone. Then again, it's cheap, if that's what you're looking for..

[sleewell]

 

all three channels have their own vol, gain, and full tone stack. Why couldn't you set them to similar volumes?

 

 

 

It's always the amps fault, duh.

[Miter Gauge]

What does it sound like? Anything like a mark or recto?

 

I really liked the cleans on the Nomad I had. I don't know why in the world I got rid of.

[guitarbilly74]

I like the 100w and the 45w versions, I had the 55 and really hated it. Like some other Mesas, the Nomad really need a GEQ.

[Gwimlock]

 

Having owned a nomad 100 just because its a boogie and I love boogies,I would say its one of Mesas worst amps. Big volume jumps betweeen channels and tone just isnt there for me..IMO the DC series before the nomad was where its at. Ive had like 5 DC5 heads over the years and they all rocked ! Good cleans on the nomad tho.

 

 

I agree. I owned a Nomad 55 2x12 for years, and it never really made me grin with joy, though the clean channel was pretty nice. I was fairly underwhelmed with the distortion until I switched the 6L6s for EL34s, but I still ended up selling the thing. It was just so damn heavy, the weight negated the point of a combo. And the sad truth was that I still preferred the sound of a DC-5 to my Nomad.

[BlackCustom]

I had one, and thought it was a pretty good amp. I wasn't concerned as to whether it was like a recto or mark, I just let it be a Nomad. It's VERY full featured, and to tell the truth that's why I bought it. In the end, that's also why I sold it. I am in a place now where all of my amps are single channel, mostly NMV style.

 

The biggest challenge for me was the wierd ass EQ. Each knob had a "sweet spot" (which means it didn't sound good outside of it), and the sweet spot was in diffwerent places on each knob. Frankly, I couldn't be bothered to learn all of the different sweet spots.

 

In the right hands I bet it could be a great amp. It is a bargain for mesa quality, but like most amps, it's not for everyone.

[hcprimerib]

good cheap rock amps. but the 45 and 55 are nasal sounding at best

[Dolf]

Mediocre, every one I've played sounded very flat and unimpressive.

 

Good-sounding amp, but has zero wow factor.

[panther_king]

Here's my likely 'wall of text' impression.

 

Nomad's get alot of hate because they aren't Rectos or Marks; not even close. It evolved from the original Boogie circuit pre-mark, and was preceded by the Caliber and studio/DC line, and then followed up with by the F and Express. What get's alot of people twisted is that the Nomad stands out from the other amps in the series as the 'broadest', in that it was designed with the most features, in the most configurations, to allow to get the broadest range of tones. The DC series before, and the F series after, both kind of 'focus' on more one particular style, while the Nomad went the 'little bit of everything' route. The issue with that is that it doesn't get all the way 'there' on the gain channels to what people expect now from Mesa; either Mark or Recto. The clean channel is great, and gets alot of praise because A: ) Mesa always have good cleans, and B: ) people tend to not be as particular about it as they are gain tones, as people usually know what they are looking for right out of the gate when it comes to that.

 

That said, the gain channels stand on their own as good sounding, usable channels. CH2 is EQ'd a bit with more bass in mind, and CH3 is designed a little 'tighter'. They are not 'CH3 = more of CH2' and need to be set up completely differently (mine are dialed in almost opposite, as a matter of fact) to get the most from them. The EQ knobs are also both extremely sensitive (sweet spots have been mentioned), and highly interactive. The higher you turn up the preceeding knob on the tone stack, the less ALL following knobs do, to the point where if the gain is at 'X' amount, you might as well not even have Treble, Mids, or Bass.

 

Taken as is, the general consensus among Nomad players is that you take the 45 or 100, and skip the 50. The 50 doesn't have the GEQ, which the amp can benefit greatly from, ESPECIALLY when set for higher gain settings (which this forum is so darned fond of) and will typically need an EQ in the loop. The 100 has the GEQ, and to my ears sounds best with EL34 instead of stock 6L6. The 45 is EL84, and is a COMPLETELY different animal than the 50 or 100 because of the brighter, poppier, bubblier attack. It also features an 'extreme' switch which gooses the voltage to the power tubes and creates more gain saturation and compression, a feature people who are deliberately searching for that kind of thing prefer. That feature is ONLY on the 45, which is why it often times get recommended above the plainer 50.

 

I like the hell out of them for what they are; a USA made 3 channel, spring reverb + solo boost rock amp with a wide range of feature, sounds and settings. It won't do tha brutlz, but it does a huge amount of everything else pretty well, and take pedals like a champ.

 

Also, my 45 combo was like, $500 bucks. Find that price on another amp with those features, and let me know.

[tlbonehead]

Here's my likely 'wall of text' impression. Nomad's get alot of hate because they aren't Rectos or Marks; not even close. It evolved from the original Boogie circuit pre-mark, and was preceded by the Caliber and studio/DC line, and then followed up with by the F and Express. What get's alot of people twisted is that the Nomad stands out from the other amps in the series as the 'broadest', in that it was designed with the most features, in the most configurations, to allow to get the broadest range of tones. The DC series before, and the F series after, both kind of 'focus' on more one particular style, while the Nomad went the 'little bit of everything' route. The issue with that is that it doesn't get all the way 'there' on the gain channels to what people expect now from Mesa; either Mark or Recto. The clean channel is great, and gets alot of praise because A: ) Mesa always have good cleans, and B: ) people tend to not be as particular about it as they are gain tones, as people usually know what they are looking for right out of the gate when it comes to that. That said, the gain channels stand on their own as good sounding, usable channels. CH2 is EQ'd a bit with more bass in mind, and CH3 is designed a little 'tighter'. They are not 'CH3 = more of CH2' and need to be set up completely differently (mine are dialed in almost opposite, as a matter of fact) to get the most from them. The EQ knobs are also both extremely sensitive (sweet spots have been mentioned), and highly interactive. The higher you turn up the preceeding knob on the tone stack, the less ALL following knobs do, to the point where if the gain is at 'X' amount, you might as well not even have Treble, Mids, or Bass. Taken as is, the general consensus among Nomad players is that you take the 45 or 100, and skip the 50. The 50 doesn't have the GEQ, which the amp can benefit greatly from, ESPECIALLY when set for higher gain settings (which this forum is so darned fond of) and will typically need an EQ in the loop. The 100 has the GEQ, and to my ears sounds best with EL34 instead of stock 6L6. The 45 is EL84, and is a COMPLETELY different animal than the 50 or 100 because of the brighter, poppier, bubblier attack. It also features an 'extreme' switch which gooses the voltage to the power tubes and creates more gain saturation and compression, a feature people who are deliberately searching for that kind of thing prefer. That feature is ONLY on the 45, which is why it often times get recommended above the plainer 50. I like the hell out of them for what they are; a USA made 3 channel, spring reverb + solo boost rock amp with a wide range of feature, sounds and settings. It won't do tha brutlz, but it does a huge amount of everything else pretty well, and take pedals like a champ. Also, my 45 combo was like, $500 bucks. Find that price on another amp with those features, and let me know.

that's a good summary. My 45 head was $699 new with cover and 5 button footswitch and has done about 1000 gigs with nothing more than occasional tube changes.

[ACLONERANGER]

You can,I'm just saying that setting the master at the same setting on all channels yield different volumesone would needed to be cranked way past another for unity volume. Decent amp don't get me wrong. But I'm pretty sure it was more of a experiment amp for mesa than anything else imo. I did love the cleans tho..

[facefirst]

Owned one for a year and hated it. Luckily I was able to trade it for a Kustom Double Cross, which I also hated. But I was able to trade that for a Dual Recto. Then I found out I don't like Rectos. Sold it for $1000, though.

[z28talon]

I had a Nomad 55 combo and got rid of it. Nowhere near as good as my Mesa Rect-O-Verb combo. Not a bad amp, but not something that did anything special. Having 3 channels was nice, but I would have rather had 2 channels with better tone. I figured it would be my gigging amp, but I much preferred my Marshall DSL401.

 

I wasn't a fan of the continually shifting, interactive equalizer settings. Fun to play with for a while, but that wore off.

 

And I know you could replace them, but those black knobs were sure not easy to see when dialing in anything. Particularly since this amp kind of encouraged experimentation to find your sweet spot. Would have been much better served with the silver knobs on the Rect-O-Verb.

 

Certainly a feature laden amp with a lot to offer. Maybe if I didn't have the Rect-O-Verb for home and the Marshall, which suited me better for gigs, I might have liked the Nomad 55 better than I did. Hopefully, somebody picked it up used and enjoyed the heck out of it.