Badger 18 — The Sweet Spot
Why every value matters.
Power 4, Drive 5: The EL84s are clipping at low volume. The 5Y3GT rectifier sag is active — notes bloom and swell naturally. Power at 4 gives you roughly 2–3 watts. Drive at 5 (one above Power) adds a touch of the compressed, squashed EL84 character without turning it to mush. This is the setting where the amp is alive — it reacts to your guitar volume like a breathing instrument.
Gain 5: The preamp is right at the threshold. With the SD-9 feeding it at low gain, guitar vol at 7 = sweet singing breakup. Guitar vol at 10 = proper crunch. Guitar vol at 5 = the preamp cleans up and the SD-9's character becomes a warm, transparent colour rather than a drive sound. This is the knife-edge that makes one-tone-does-everything work.
Bass 3: The Holdsworth secret — bass always at 2. We go to 3 because you're using single coils not humbuckers, but it's the same philosophy. Low bass keeps the midrange focused, prevents mud under gain, and makes legato lines ring clearly on every string. The ML pickups already have "big tight lows" — you don't need to add more.
Middle 6: The Henderson/Holdsworth crossover point. Both players push mids, but for different reasons — Henderson for vocal honk, Holdsworth for sax-like focus. At 6, the Badger's passive-cut mid control gives you enough presence to cut through the chorus and delay without becoming nasal. It's the frequency range that makes a guitar sound like a horn.
Treble 5: Flat. Not pushed, not pulled. The ML pickups have "smooth top-end sparkle" that doesn't need help. The SD-9 at low tone will already be softening the high-frequency attack — Holdsworth's requirement of "cutting 5K and 10K" to remove pick chirp. Let the guitar and pedal handle the top end sculpting.
Maxon SD-9 — Always On
The sustain engine • not a drive pedal here • true bypass but LEAVE IT ON
Distortion9 o'clock
Tone8 o'clock
Level2 o'clock
This is NOT the Landau crunch setting. Distortion at 9 o'clock — barely adding any clipping. What it IS doing: adding harmonic density and compression that sustains notes without obvious distortion. The SD-9's circuit compresses the signal in a way that makes hammer-ons and pull-offs ring with equal weight to picked notes — that's the Holdsworth legato requirement. Tone at 8 o'clock — the Landau/Henderson extreme setting, but here it's doing double duty: smoothing the attack transients (Holdsworth's "remove the pick chirp") AND warming the overall tone for that sax-like quality. Level at 2 o'clock, not dimed — just enough to push the Badger's preamp to the threshold, not enough to overdrive it. The SD-9 at these settings is acting as a compressor-EQ-sustainer, not a distortion pedal. When you roll the guitar to 5, the SD-9's compression becomes transparent warmth. At 7, it adds singing sustain. At 10, it pushes the Badger into proper crunch. That's the one-tone magic.
Xotic AC+ — Always On (Channel A)
The shaper • Landau's Jan Ray role • warmth + body + buffer
ChannelA only
Gain A9 o'clock (minimum)
Volume A12:00 (unity)
Tone A10 o'clock (warm / dark)
Boost switchON
Tone at 10 o'clock — darker than any other preset we've built. This is the Holdsworth insight: warm, round, no high-frequency chirp or bite. The AC+ Boost switch adds +3dB of low-mid emphasis — body and weight that makes the guitar sound like a horn, not a guitar. Gain at minimum — the AC+ is not adding distortion, it's adding colour and impedance buffering. At unity volume, it shapes the SD-9's output without changing the gain structure. The Tone + Boost combination is the secret to the sax quality — it emphasises the 200–800Hz range where saxophones live while gently attenuating the 3–6KHz range where "guitar" attack lives. The result: notes that bloom and sustain with a warm, vocal quality. Holdsworth wanted a sax. This gets you closer than any other pedal setting.
Strymon Mobius — Always On
Subliminal chorus • you shouldn't hear it until you switch it off
TypeChorus
ModedBucket
Speed8 o'clock (very slow)
Depth10 o'clock (subtle)
Level12:00
Mix (param)20%
Tone (param)10 o'clock (dark)
The chorus you don't hear. 20% mix, slow speed, low depth, dark tone. This isn't the Landau session shimmer — it's the width and dimension that makes a single-coil guitar sound three-dimensional without sounding chorused. It adds the barely perceptible motion that makes sustained notes feel alive rather than static. Test: play a sustained note, switch the Mobius off, switch it back on. The note should feel bigger and more present with it on, but you shouldn't be able to hear chorus modulation. If you can hear the chorus, pull the mix back to 15%. This is the difference between "has chorus on" and "sounds expensive."
Strymon Timeline → Mesa 5:25 (100% Wet)
The sustain pedal • notes float in the background from the second amp
TypedBucket
Range (param)Double
Time440ms
Repeats11 o'clock (~35%)
Mix5 o'clock (100% wet)
Filter1 o'clock (dark, analog curve)
Grit10 o'clock
Mod Speed9 o'clock
Mod Depth10 o'clock
dBucket in Double range — the warm analog delay. Not digital crystal. Not tape wobble. The dBucket mode recreates bucket-brigade analog delay — warm, slightly degraded, each repeat darker and softer than the last. Double range gives you up to 800ms, but at 440ms you get a natural-feeling echo that doesn't feel like a delay effect — it feels like the room is sustaining your notes. Filter at 1 o'clock (dark) — each repeat loses high end, so the echoes recede gracefully rather than competing with your dry attack. Grit at 10 o'clock — subtle saturation on the repeats. Combined with the Mesa's own tube reverb (set to 4), the echoes from the second amp have warmth and life that a digital delay through a single amp can't touch. Mod speed and depth — very gentle pitch wobble on the repeats, like a real analog delay's clock instability. This is what makes it sound liquid rather than mechanical.
The Holdsworth connection: his close friend described the delay as acting "like a piano sustain pedal — prior notes float in the background but not so much that it's a gloppy mess." The dBucket at these settings does exactly that. Your dry note from the Badger is immediate and present. Its echo, warm and slightly degraded, appears from the Mesa a moment later. The next note you play covers the echo. The effect is of continuous, singing sustain — legato lines that float in a warm ambient bed without any obvious delay effect.
Mesa 5:25 — Wet Amp Settings
Channel1 (Clean mode)
Power mode5W Class A
Gain2
Bass4
Mid5
Treble5
Reverb4
MasterMatch to Badger by ear
ContourOff
Bass at 4 (slightly below flat) — the dBucket delay already has warm low end. The Mesa's tube reverb at 4 adds ambient room around the echoes without washing them out. The Mesa's EL84s in 5W Class A add their own sweet compression to the delay signal — it won't sound like a digital delay anymore. It sounds like echoes happening in a real warm room, because they are.
Suhr Strat S — Guitar Volume Map
The guitar volume knob is your only control. Tone stays at 6–7 (Holdsworth rolled off 1/3, Landau at 7–8). Leave it and forget it. The volume knob does this:
4–5
Glass clean
Landau session warmth. SD-9 is transparent colour. Chorus adds width. Delay floats.
6
Sweet spot
Just breathing. Notes have body and sustain without any audible breakup. Chords shimmer.
7
Liquid sax
The Holdsworth zone. Legato lines sing. Sustain for days. Pick attack smoothed away. Notes bloom.
8
Singing lead
Henderson vocal quality. The amp is pushing back. Bend a note and it talks to you. Vibrato rings.
9
Hot crunch
Proper breakup. Chord stabs bark. Single notes sustain indefinitely. The SD-9's compression blooms.
10
Filthy
Full crunch. Dig in hard and it bites. Stamp the Badger Boost for maximum Henderson fury.
Pickup selection: Neck for everything except rhythm crunch. The ML neck at 6.5K through the SD-9 at low gain is the liquid sax voice. Pos 4 (neck+mid) for chords — the quack adds definition. Bridge for aggressive crunch only (vol 9–10). Tone knob at 6–7 and leave it. Rolling the tone down slightly is both Holdsworth's and Landau's documented approach — it removes the brittle, glassy top end that makes a guitar sound like a guitar rather than a horn. The MOSFET Boost on the Badger is your emergency button — stamp it when you need to go from singing lead to screaming lead without touching the guitar. It works at any guitar volume setting, adding gain and dynamic range on top of wherever you are on the volume map.