NAD - Driftwood Mini Nightmare IR with in-built loadbox.

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firejack

firejack

Well-known member
Just received my Mini Nightmare IR this morning. Have to say I'm quite impressed with this amp. It's got a huge range of tones and tweakability with stupid levels of gain available. Even with stupid levels of gain coming out of this thing, it still retains note clarity in chords. And it's ultra responsive to playing dynamics, especially when doing single-note leads. Also worth mentioning that it has a very nice clean channel. Maybe the best cleans I've yet heard from a high-gain amp. Will make some clips soon.
 

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Very nice! Had one of these on my radar a couple years back after finding out about
them through a Michael Britt Kemper profile. Congrats!
 
[ Donnie B. ] said:
Very nice! Had one of these on my radar a couple years back after finding out about
them through a Michael Britt Kemper profile. Congrats!
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Cheers Donnie. :thumbsup:
For what it's worth, I had a Kemper stage and had the MB Purple Nightmare profile. I much prefer my Mini Nightmare amp.
 
firejack said:
Cheers Donnie. :thumbsup:
For what it's worth, I had a Kemper. I much prefer my amp.
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I can see those who would have great use for a Kemper (or other Swiss Army Knife digital amp).
These days I just use amps. It's all about what sounds/feels REAL!
(sold my Kemper over a year ago)
 
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[ Donnie B. ] said:
I can see those who would have great for a Kemper (or other Swiss Army Knife digital amp).
These days I just use amps. It's all about what sounds/feels REAL these days!
(sold my Kemper over a year ago)
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Yeah same here mate. I tried the Kemper Stage, Axe FM3 and Headrush Pedalboard. Really wanted to love one of those units, but just couldn't jive with them.
 
Nice! Love the Driftwood stuff I’ve played. Looking at a Darkest Nightmare for my studio setup.
 

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Very nice! It's been on my radar too, even when it was just the lunchbox size without IR.
ticks on paper at least all the boxes for a gigging head for me:
-at most 20-24" wide,
-big glass (40-60W)
-2/3 footswitchable channels
-if 2 channels, then footswitchable boost also
-footswitchable fx-loop

so the 9V output en noisegate were already nice extra's.
What's the drive channel like? Vintage/modern, more Marshally or Mesa-Recto-ish? Enough high gain without the T/S engaged?
 
JerEvil said:
Nice! Love the Driftwood stuff I’ve played. Looking at a Darkest Nightmare for my studio setup.
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Heya Jeremy! Your Darkest Nightmare vid helped convince me to try a Driftwood amp.
Mate, Marek's clean channel is really sweet. Have you considered the Purple or Mini instead?
 
Speeddemon said:
Very nice! It's been on my radar too, even when it was just the lunchbox size without IR.
ticks on paper at least all the boxes for a gigging head for me:
-at most 20-24" wide,
-big glass (40-60W)
-2/3 footswitchable channels
-if 2 channels, then footswitchable boost also
-footswitchable fx-loop

so the 9V output en noisegate were already nice extra's.
What's the drive channel like? Vintage/modern, more Marshally or Mesa-Recto-ish? Enough high gain without the T/S engaged?
Click to expand...
The drive channel does very good medium gain rock tones in low or high-gain mode. For a rough reference point, it's more vintage Marshall in low, and more modded Marshall in high. It manages to hang with my Landry in that respect.

For my tastes, the onboard TS is essential to take the amp into modern gain territory. And with the TS you can thicken or tighten the gain's voicing by increasing or decreasing the TS Gain and Tone controls. It's a really nice TS circuit. I've found I can just leave the amp's channel settings alone and use the TS to dial in the guitar I'm using. Really cool. On the flip-side though, it's very easy to make the amp sound harsh and fizzy if you use too much of the Sizzle/Sharp control combined with too much gain. There's a number of clips on YouTube like this, and they had me second-guessing purchasing the Driftwood. But yeah, it's totally controllable and there's multiple approaches to controlling the fizz with the excellent control layout.

The best trick that the amp has is its feel. It so nice to play on any channel. It has a very liquid feel under your fretting hand. Even the clean channel has this easy-going feel to it that makes playing the amp effortless. It's my favorite feature of the amp. It's just so nice to play.
 
firejack said:
Heya Jeremy! Your Darkest Nightmare vid helped convince me to try a Driftwood amp.
Mate, Marek's clean channel is really sweet. Have you considered the Purple or Mini instead?
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Yeah I’ve considered them all. The gain channel is the biggest differentiator in my amp stable. The mini is 50 watt?
 
Sound clips get more necessary and sought after everyday we dont have them :ROFLMAO:
 
That looks killer, awesome features. I bet that amp does slay. Congrats.
 
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