NAD: Wizard Modern Classic 2 MkII - (with more clips)

TheGreatGreen

TheGreatGreen

Well-known member
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I've wanted one of these amps for a long time now. About 10 years ago I went to Vintage King audio in Nashville and tried one out, and by that point, I’d been interested in them long enough to make an appointment reserving time at a high end guitar store over an hour from where I lived just to play one. Ever since then, I've told myself I'd get one some day.

Well, "some day" came around and as of now there's a Modern Classic 2 MkII in my studio, and guys... what an amp. I've been building this thing up in my head since I played it back then, and funny enough it's actually better than I remember. It's a modern high gain amp that's dynamic, clear and articulate, and takes boosts like a champ. This thing isn't going anywhere.

One thing I didn't remember from playing them the first time which surprised me is just how EXTREMELY tweakable this amp is. The basic "tight articulate modern gain" character is always there more or less, but between the EQ, Treble-Shift function, Presence, Contour, and Bright knob, it's ridiculously adjustable. You can kind of give it whatever EQ profile you want.


Here's a clip of my general take on what the amp is best at doing. There's a few db's of treble boost EQ at the input just to offset how dead my months-old guitar strings are, lol.




Here's a stereo "Bleeding Me" test with a decent amount of high cut in the DAW to try and get in the ballpark of the album tone. This was guitar (old strings and all) straight into the amp.


edit #1: Bleeding Me - Take #2 - slightly less high cut, and with drums and bass this time:


edit #2
Intro clip to Metallica's Prince Charming as requested.



And just to show that this thing has some hidden tricks up its sleeve, here's my attempt at making it sound kind of like an Ecstasy 101B with the "low Treble, high Presence, max Gain" trick people do with that amp. Beware, lots of aimless noodling here. Of course it’s still a Wizard and definitely not a Bogner, but I was kind of surprised at what I was able to dial up.
 
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Those clips sound REALLY good brother. Really rich, yet tight lows...complex and grinding mids with a crisp, but not harsh top end. Overall tone shows a lot of depth. The Wizard MC guitar tracks on Garage Inc are some of my all time favorite recorded tones. Congrats man.
 
Techdeth said:
Excellent . Come help me make clips
Click to expand...
And help me as well lol. I suck at recording (for classical as well), but have very good mics and pre’s

Anyway, congrats GreatGreen!! Your clips always sound well done with good detail/clarity to them, something I and many other guys seem not get very well in recordings
 
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Great sounding clips as usual. Actually...some of the best I've heard in awhile. Might have been me, but there seemed to be a weird, slight, volume drop 2/3rds the way through on all. I will listen again. Super good. How did you record?

HNWD :cheers:
 
Great clips/playing and of course, stoked you are loving your MCII! Totally agree with you about the versatility regarding the controls; the eq's and other tone shaping options are very powerful. I was surprised to find that I could get my Wizards to do 101b thing....or the Ultralead thing....and my MC1 can even kinda do the Mesa Mark thing. Hope she is a keeper! :)
 
311splawndude said:
Great sounding clips as usual. Actually...some of the best I've heard in awhile. Might have been me, but there seemed to be a weird, slight, volume drop 2/3rds the way through on all. I will listen again. Super good. How did you record?

HNWD :cheers:
Click to expand...

Thanks!

I do most recordings with the amp plugged into a Suhr RL, then the Suhr's line out gets sent into an Axe-Fx for some light post-EQ and then IRs. EQ-wise, I usually dial a super broad Q, slight dip in the mids centered around 800 Hz, and a deeper but very narrow Q cut around 330 Hz to tame the bloat. From there, I go into a blend of a few Cab IR's that come stock with the Axe-Fx. Right now I'm using Mesa V30 4x12 cab IRs blended with Zilla 2x12 Creamback IRs. Two IR's use 57's, one uses an M160, and one uses an AT4047.

After all that, in the DAW I'll usually set a high pass around 90 or 100 Hz to cut to sub lows, and I'll cut the super high stuff just depending on the vibe I'm going for. I usually start with a low pass around 7-8 kHz with a gradual slope to take out the super fizz, then move around from there just depending on what works.

So yeah, the general strategy I go for is to get the biggest, widest bandwidth sound possible by combining as many complimentary IR's as I can, while avoiding any IR's that make the sound too notchy or spikey in any single frequency band. I find that the more IR's you use, the bigger and smoother your sound tends to get. And again, after that, I'll use EQ in the DAW to high and low pass the guitars back into workable bandwidth. I find it's better to start with more frequency info than you need and then cut what you don't, rather than not having enough, so you start boosting to compensate.
 
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Dead sexy amp. Like it doesn't even need to try, it just is.
I love the 'Bleeding Me' clip, I think I seem to go for guitar tones with a decent amount of top end cut off like that. Thick af. My ears don't like the crispies too much I'm figuring. Maybe I have some high end freq aversion.
Can you do the intro riff from "Prince Charming"? I'm convinced it's straight Wizard tone.
 
Man that sounds fucking great, you can just tell how sick the feel is just by listening to you play. I want one haha.


Also, you were much, much closer to the Metallica era tone ( well, more garage inc really) in the first clip by far to my ears, just needs more gain and you’d be eerily similar.
 
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