Why can’t Mesa…

[Life Eats Life]

I’m not sure if I trust Mesa IR loading cabclone on the badlander doesn’t seem to be working out for me…. Hopefully I’m just being dumb though

I know WTF is up that CabClone crap??

Here’s my take, Mesa tends to have too many options.
Options that are amazing ideas but most of those options don’t sound good or fussy etc.
Each one of those options add cost.
It seems they add the function by way of being cheap with that function which makes the function kinda worthless.
But on paper it sure sounds rad and like you are getting more for your money.

 

[JiveTurkey]

My Badlander cabclone worked very intermittently. At best. @Mongillo19 grabbed it and he has had it working. Not a fan of it or the built in load.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I told our rep that they should lower the price of their amps, and take the Cabclone shit out. It doesn’t sound that great, and it’s flaky. He said he personally agrees, but it’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” with so many companies building it in these days.
I personally would rather have it as a separate device, particularly when companies like Suhr, Fryette, and St. Rock do a better job.

 

[Mongillo19]

My Badlander cabclone worked very intermittently. At best. @Mongillo19 grabbed it and he has had it working. Not a fan of it or the built in load.

To clarify I have not tried the built in load or cabclone. I run into my suhr RL. I just assume it's not worth my time lol

 

[KHAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!!!!]

Hear that Cesar?
With Gibson ownership really curious to see where they’ll be in 2-5 years.

 

[metropolis_4]

I really liked the CabClone IR in the VII. I haven’t tried the older CabClone in amps like the Badlander. Is it not as good?

 

[spawnofthesith]

I really liked the CabClone IR in the VII. I haven’t tried the older CabClone in amps like the Badlander. Is it not as good?

I thought all the stock IRs sounded really bad. I can't seem to get loading my own IRs to work on it

 

[laxu]

I told our rep that they should lower the price of their amps, and take the Cabclone shit out. It doesn’t sound that great, and it’s flaky. He said he personally agrees, but it’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” with so many companies building it in these days.
I personally would rather have it as a separate device, particularly when companies like Suhr, Fryette, and St. Rock do a better job.

To me just having a line out tapped from the speaker out would be more than enough. You can then run that to whatever cab sim solution you prefer.

The one thing I hate is DI outs with undefeatable cab sims. If you don't like what you get then that output just becomes useless.

 

[JiveTurkey]

The same cab clone afaik. Levels seemed super hot with any sort of volume on the channels and the Suhr load is much better than the baked in load as far as feel and overall experience.

 

[Desertdweller]

@spawnofthesith ha that's awesome it came back to me. Here's exactly what it needs to be from the manual:

On mine the only time I've had no sound is when I've tried to upload an IR that isn't 48/24. Otherwise I haven't experienced the issue you're having. If you want some free IRs to try, here's a pack I made about a year ago, all of these are tested in the Badlander CabClone IR and should work for you:

LuPone Mes412 Impulse Response Pack

 

[EOengineer]

To me just having a line out tapped from the speaker out would be more than enough. You can then run that to whatever cab sim solution you prefer.

The one thing I hate is DI outs with undefeatable cab sims. If you don't like what you get then that output just becomes useless.

Mesa was one of the few manufacturers putting slave outs on most of their amps for decades and I’ve always loved that about them. I use the slave out all the time, so useful.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Mesa was one of the few manufacturers putting slave outs on most of their amps for decades and I’ve always loved that about them. I use the slave out all the time, so useful.

Yeah Slave Out is the way to go, because you can use it for IR's, you can use it for cool wet/dry setups, etc. It's more useful (and simpler/cheaper) than a CabClone.

 

[TubeStack]

I told our rep that they should lower the price of their amps, and take the Cabclone shit out. It doesn’t sound that great, and it’s flaky. He said he personally agrees, but it’s “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” with so many companies building it in these days.
I personally would rather have it as a separate device, particularly when companies like Suhr, Fryette, and St. Rock do a better job.

CabClone was actually part of the appeal for me with the VII. I like that I can (hopefully) not need my Friedman Mic No Mo and have one less thing to setup/takedown at gigs.

I'm not fussy about the IRs though, I don't think. Just looking for some reinforcement in the mains. If I was recording, etc, it might be different.

 

[TubeStack]

Mesa was one of the few manufacturers putting slave outs on most of their amps for decades and I’ve always loved that about them. I use the slave out all the time, so useful.

I was able to get great QC captures using the slave out on my Dyne.

 

[paisleywookiee]

CabClone was actually part of the appeal for me with the VII. I like that I can (hopefully) not need my Friedman Mic No Mo and have one less thing to setup/takedown at gigs.

I'm not fussy about the IRs though, I don't think. Just looking for some reinforcement in the mains. If I was recording, etc, it might be different.

The problem is that it's USB-B, not USB-C. The load also isn't very good, so it's not useful from that standpoint either, IMO. I'd much rather have a DI-sized IR box to just dual lock onto my cab.

 

[metropolis_4]

Interesting. Reactive loads aren’t something I’ve experimented with. Sounds like something I’ll have to try if I go the amp path again

 

[Desertdweller]

The problem is that it's USB-B, not USB-C. The load also isn't very good, so it's not useful from that standpoint either, IMO. I'd much rather have a DI-sized IR box to just dual lock onto my cab.

The CabClone IR on the Badlander and the VII is very good - it's a 1 IR / non software Torpedo Captor. I definitely like the sound of the Suhr RL better, but there's no doubt the Mesa amps with the newer CCs sound very good.

 

[paisleywookiee]

The CabClone IR on the Badlander and the VII is very good - it's a 1 IR / non software Torpedo Captor. I definitely like the sound of the Suhr RL better, but there's no doubt the Mesa amps with the newer CCs sound very good.

I disagree. I don’t care for the Torpedo Captor either. It’s stiff-feeling.

 

[Elric]

When it comes to the IIC vs III, I find the common internet banter around these amps to be really funny. Remember, the Mark III isn’t as good as the Mark II because of the transformer. But the early Dual Rectifiers are superior to the modern DRs because they use the Mark III transformer.

Lots of internet opinion on amp tones is nonsense and colored by people's feelings about a particular artist, etc. i.e. Some artists the person worships did some classic record with amp 'X', people love that record and want the special sauce. So amp 'X' becomes legendary.

I think the IIC had the benefit of timing to some degree. I'm sure it is a great amp, but so are the other Marks. If Metallica and a few others had broke at a different time, a different Mark would likely be 'the one'; the IIC was the amp doing 'that thing' at that time and so it reached some threshold to become coveted.

I'm sure Petrucci, Metallica, Santana, other famous Mark users can pull those tones from any amp in the series and likely some non-Marks. Sure they may even prefer that old classic amp they did the record with. It's a known factor and they did legendary work with it...

I'm an SLO player and frankly, the SLO is largely the same story, I think. It's awesome and special in its place of high gain amp evolution, but I could replace it with a Mezzabarba or other derived amp and not suffer much for it.

But, a lot of famous players went through that amp so it has a rep and that affects the listener/player if they're aware of it when forming an opinion on the toanz.

 

[TubeStack]

The problem is that it's USB-B, not USB-C.

Still not something I care about.

The load also isn't very good, so it's not useful from that standpoint either, IMO.

How can a load be not good? Genuine question, I'm a simpleton in these areas.

I'd much rather have a DI-sized IR box to just dual lock onto my cab.

I'd much rather have it in the amp.
And nothing personal, I enjoy our back-and-forths.