Mesa/Boogie
BADLANDER 100-WATT HEAD
TESTED BY ART THOMPSON
Guitar Player Editors’ Pick
BORN FROM A
long line of high-gain Rectifier amplifiers that dropped on the heavy-rock scene in the ’90s — and rapidly evolved from the Dual and Triple Rectifiers to the Road King, Roadster, Mini-Rectifier and Recto-Verb 25 — Mesa/Boogie’s new Badlander is its most sophisticated yet. It boasts all-new preamp and power sections that have been designed to do several things: Stay tight on the bottom end and sweet and singing on top, deliver exceptional dynamic and touch sensitivity, and allow the character of the guitar and the player to come through, no matter how the gain is set.
The 100-watt Badlander on review here starts out with five 12AX7s and a quartet of EL34s (or a pair in the 50-watt model), and can be quickly rebiased for 6L6s via a switch on the back. Channels 1 and 2 are selectable with a front-panel switch or the included single-button foot switch. Both channels have what Mesa calls 3 Mode Channel Cloning, which provides independent switching of the Clean, Crunch and Crush modes — which each provide different gain/ voicing options — along with independent gain, treble, mid, bass, presence and master controls. A front-panel switch selects 100-watt, 50-watt or 20-watt operation (all operate in class A/B, with the 20-watt position rewired to Triode operation), and there’s a tube-buffered series effects loop as well as a trio of speaker jacks: two four-ohm and one eight-ohm.