NAD wizard hellrazor

  • Thread starter Thread starter Techdeth
  • Start date Start date
So, there’s no master on the rhythm channel, I guess that means there is no black cat mod on the rhythm channel.

Is the rhythm channel on the HR back to the 1990’s era useless clean channel?

Now, Obviously, nobody buys a Wizard for the cleaner tones but that black cat mod was a great feature with its separate gain and volume controls. Made the amplifier somewhat versatile.
I guess with this HR though, you can now footswitch more gainstages into the signal path?
Nice to see that Wizard now has a more aggressive ‘Marshallesque’ kerrrrang type thing going on?
The one thing that was frustrating for me with the 4 MTL’s I owned was that ‘hollow’ midrange. Guess I should’ve just tried a high end eq in the loop. Maybe that’s the answer?
Loved everything else on the MTL’s though.
Glad you guys are enjoying the new beast!
 
SQUAREHEAD said:
So, there’s no master on the rhythm channel, I guess that means there is no black cat mod on the rhythm channel.

Is the rhythm channel on the HR back to the 1990’s era useless clean channel?

Now, Obviously, nobody buys a Wizard for the cleaner tones but that black cat mod was a great feature with its separate gain and volume controls. Made the amplifier somewhat versatile.
I guess with this HR though, you can now footswitch more gainstages into the signal path?
Nice to see that Wizard now has a more aggressive ‘Marshallesque’ kerrrrang type thing going on?
The one thing that was frustrating for me with the 4 MTL’s I owned was that ‘hollow’ midrange. Guess I should’ve just tried a high end eq in the loop. Maybe that’s the answer?
Loved everything else on the MTL’s though.
Glad you guys are enjoying the new beast!
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The clean is about as good as I remember of the other wizards I’ve had. Of course if you pull boost it for the high gain channel as I like to do it won’t be clean anymore. For a high gain amp the clean is about as good as I’ve heard, but really compare any great clean ch of a high gain amp to an amp with a truly great clean like an Alessandro AZZ, vintage Blackface or Copperpanel Vox and then their cleans all severely lack any beauty to the tone vs those. Kinda hard and 2D vs amps like those in cleans

I don’t think the tone is any more Marshall-esque, which actually I think is cool because it’s more distinctive. Kinda like they went 110% Wizard flavor. It is more aggressive, but not in a Marshally way. I find all Wizard’s (including the Hell Razor) have a flatter/hollow midrange. Just part of their sound being kind of in between Hiwatt’s and Marshall’s, but I do remember my MTL being a bit more hollow. The MC was for me kind of an awkward middle ground in still not really having good mids vs a Marshall and less of what to me makes wizards so distinctive. The Hell Razor imo goes 110% with what makes wizards special: punch, clarity, and definition (with lots of gain) in a way no Marshall I’ve tried can achieve, but I love a good Marshall just as much for the qualities they offer
 
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braintheory said:
I don’t see where I’d use the MTL I used to have over the Hell Razor KT150 I have now. If I were Rick I’d consider discontinuing the other models lol, at least with the MTL and MC. Haven’t tried the others
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I like both. The mtl2 can do some stoner shit and when killswitch type tones . I’m just being honest I need both lol fr
 
SQUAREHEAD said:
So, there’s no master on the rhythm channel, I guess that means there is no black cat mod on the rhythm channel.

Is the rhythm channel on the HR back to the 1990’s era useless clean channel?

Now, Obviously, nobody buys a Wizard for the cleaner tones but that black cat mod was a great feature with its separate gain and volume controls. Made the amplifier somewhat versatile.
I guess with this HR though, you can now footswitch more gainstages into the signal path?
Nice to see that Wizard now has a more aggressive ‘Marshallesque’ kerrrrang type thing going on?
The one thing that was frustrating for me with the 4 MTL’s I owned was that ‘hollow’ midrange. Guess I should’ve just tried a high end eq in the loop. Maybe that’s the answer?
Loved everything else on the MTL’s though.
Glad you guys are enjoying the new beast!
Click to expand...
I still like both amps a lot . Along with my 5 gain Hermansson I’d say that’s my Big 3 of amps until further things happen . But in the clean channel the pull boosts hits in a cool way .
 
Techdeth said:
I like both. The mtl2 can do some stoner shit and when killswitch type tones . I’m just being honest I need both lol fr
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I would typically choose looser, saggier amps for stoner type stuff and neither would be my choice for KSE, but I would be able to get much closer in those ballpark with my HR KT150 than the MTL I had. With its unique gain controls I could get a thicker, sludgier tone that I couldn’t do with the MTL, but really I don’t think it’s Wizard’s natural forte. The HR also I think gets closer to KSE ballpark with the extra saturation and thicker gain, but I think wizards are just inherently a bit too hollow to really be ideal for that, but it’s just why we have lots of different amps lol
 
braintheory said:
I would typically choose looser, saggier amps for stoner type stuff and neither would be my choice for KSE, but I would be able to get much closer in those ballpark with my HR KT150 than the MTL I had. With its unique gain controls I could get a thicker, sludgier tone that I couldn’t do with the MTL, but really I don’t think it’s Wizard’s natural forte. The HR also I think gets closer to KSE ballpark with the extra saturation and thicker gain, but I think wizards are just inherently a bit too hollow to really be ideal for that, but it’s just why we have lots of different amps lol
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I get it but user experience helps . I can make any amp stoner if I need to but some are better than others . Honestly I’m probably going to blend HR with MTL2 .
 
Techdeth said:
I get it but user experience helps . I can make any amp stoner if I need to but some are better than others . Honestly I’m probably going to blend HR with MTL2 .
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Yeah it’s not that I couldn’t make either work, just that I think so many other amps can work a lot better if that’s what one is going for. JMO. I try to just use amps more to where I feel they are 10/10 unrivaled rather than try to make it into something I feel another amp can do better
 
braintheory said:
Yeah it’s not that I couldn’t make either work, just that I think so many other amps can work a lot better if that’s what one is going for. JMO. I try to just use amps more to where I feel they are 10/10 unrivaled rather than try to make it into something I feel another amp can do better
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Send me a few clips of you . There’s a classical song you played that I want to know the name of still
 
thegame said:
It's too bad the Hell Razor is such a Hiss Raiser
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I’ve got it to where you can get rid of it . When I create my main tone I like to go straight in the front with a gate in front . It’s just didn’t work that way and I was stumped , I do this with all my amps . So like I said I was stumped . Gate in looped took care of most now . Starting off that way made me very stumped .
 
thegame said:
It's too bad the Hell Razor is such a Hiss Raiser
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Adding that much gain to a circuit inherently raises the noise floor. Guitar amps are not magic. With that much gain, the noise floor is going to be amplified enough to be audible. It's just physics.

The best you can do with any amp that has that much gain is to try to find the balance between the best sounding and feeling saturation and the lowest noise.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Adding that much gain to a circuit inherently raises the noise floor. Guitar amps are not magic. With that much gain, the noise floor is going to be amplified enough to be audible. It's just physics.

The best you can do with any amp that has that much gain is to try to find the balance between the best sounding and feeling saturation and the lowest noise.
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Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes not. I used to have a Mako CHW that had approximately SLO 100 levels of gain. That amp was a hiss factory with the gain up and bright switches on. A/B'd with even higher gain amps such as a C+/C++ was shocking in that the Mesas were considerably quieter (from a noise perspective). I've also played a Steavens Poundcake MKII with roughly the same gain potential that was even noisier than my Mako. It's really not just the overall gain quantity that renders amps noisy or not. There's a whole art to 'cleaning up the circuit' involving grounding, component location, layout, etc that some amp makers get and others do not.
 
thegame said:
Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes not. I used to have a Mako CHW that had approximately SLO 100 levels of gain. That amp was a hiss factory with the gain up and bright switches on. A/B'd with even higher gain amps such as a C+/C++ was shocking in that the Mesas were considerably quieter (from a noise perspective). I've also played a Steavens Poundcake MKII with roughly the same gain potential that was even noisier than my Mako. It's really not just the overall gain quantity that renders amps noisy or not. There's a whole art to 'cleaning up the circuit' involving grounding, component location, layout, etc that some amp makers get and others do not.
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I have noticed that my iic+ and Rev C are maybe my least noisy high gain amps I have currently. I don’t recall my Poundcake mk2 being super noisy, but I haven’t played it in a while now. The Hell Razor though has much more gain and brightness/cut than these amps (c++ would probably be similar gain-wise, but a lot more compressed), so I’d think that’d be at least part of what could make it harder to tame. If set with MTL levels of gain it wouldn’t be noisier that the MTL I had, but I guess the HR seems to be new territory for Rick and it’s about time lol
 
thegame said:
Sometimes that is the case. Sometimes not. I used to have a Mako CHW that had approximately SLO 100 levels of gain. That amp was a hiss factory with the gain up and bright switches on. A/B'd with even higher gain amps such as a C+/C++ was shocking in that the Mesas were considerably quieter (from a noise perspective). I've also played a Steavens Poundcake MKII with roughly the same gain potential that was even noisier than my Mako. It's really not just the overall gain quantity that renders amps noisy or not. There's a whole art to 'cleaning up the circuit' involving grounding, component location, layout, etc that some amp makers get and others do not.
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That's fair in a way, but all those amps you mention sound different, too. I'm not convinced there's really a way to clean up a circuit and de-noise it while fully maintaining the brightness and clarity of the more noisy high gainers out there. My Uber Ultra can be dialed to be more noisy than my Dual Rec, Mark IV, and EVH amps, but its noise is not really much different when I dial it for similar filtering and EQ signatures as the other amps. The Uber Ultra at extreme settings has a bit more gain on tap than those other amps (maybe not the EVH's), but the difference is that the Uber Ultra also preserves the detail of the guitar at high gain, especially in the guitar's higher treble ranges, in a way the Mesas and EVH amps do not. That's part of where both the Uber’s extra clarity and noise come from I think.

In the end I agree with you that it's all a delicate balancing act with plenty of places to give and take, but I'm still not sure it's possible to make an amp with the gain of a Hell Razor, and with the clarity and touch sensitivity of a typical Wizard, without the noise.

Personally I'd rather have a clearer and more open/detailed, but also noisier, high gainer than a more filtered, quieter one. Besides, noise gates are pretty good these days so it's much less of an issue than it otherwise might be. :)
 
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