With the Mesa Boogie Badlander 50 Head, the amp manufacturer from Petaluma, California, is expanding its legendary Rectifier series with a 50-watt tube head whose modern voicing corresponds perfectly with lower-tuned 7-string and 8-string guitars. With an aggressive midrange spectrum, extremely tight bass and percussive
The preamp design of the Badlander is based on five 12AX7 tubes and uses two identical channels for intuitive and precise control over the guitar sound. With Clean, Crunch and Crush, each channel offers three basic gain modes for glassy Californian clean sound, creamy mid-gain drive or aggressive high-gain distortion. Each channel also has a 3-band tone stack and a presence control for precise adjustment of the guitar sound.
In the power amplifier of the Mesa Boogie top section, two EL34 tubes provide a full 50 watts of power, promising stage-ready volumes with enormous presence and punch. The multi-watt circuit also allows the power to be reduced to a moderate 20 watts, so that the amp can also be used to its full potential in small venues. For fans of the classic Brown sound, the Mesa Boogie Badlander amplifier also offers a Variac circuit that reduces the voltage supply to the entire amp and delivers a particularly smooth response with natural compression.
Last but not least, the Mesa Boogie Badlander 50 is equipped with the practical Mesa Boogie CabClone IR DI box for silent recording without speakers connected. Separate IR switches can be used to assign one of eight impulse response speaker simulations to each channel, so that guitar tracks are presented with a particularly natural sound. The USB port also allows 3rd party IRs to be loaded for optimum sound tuning.