Tonelab · Settings card 01

Suhr Badger 18
Nine recipes, three sources

Every dial position below is quoted from a written source, not eyeballed from a video. Amber cards come from Suhr's manual, rust from Gear Page owners on the Mk II, teal from Guitar Chalk. Adjust to your cab and your ears.

Amp Badger 18 Mk II / V2 head
Cab Suhr 2×12 deep, closed back
Tubes 2× EL84 · 5Y3GT rectifier
Panel Power · Drive · Bass · Middle · Treble · Gain · Boost

Read this before you touch a knob

The Badger's Power and Drive controls are interdependent. Three rules from the manual and Suhr's product page explain why the same Gain number sounds wildly different across the cards below.

Power at 10 → Drive is the masterDrive feeds the power section. With Power full up it behaves like a conventional master volume and Gain is your preamp gain.
Scaling down → keep Drive within 2 of PowerSet Drive lower than Power and the amp gets brighter and more master-volume-like. Drive above Power adds EL84 compression and sag.
Power 10 + Drive 10 → non-master modeBoth drop out of the circuit and Gain becomes the only volume control. Vintage-amp feel, vintage-amp volume. As Gain or Drive rises, back the Bass off.

Suhr factory settings

Straight from the user manual's sample-settings page. These predate the Mk II, so Boost is off unless stated.

Gear Page owner recipes (Mk II)

From the "Tone Chasing / Share Your Settings" thread. All four use the Mk II footswitchable Boost, and three run a Suhr Koko Boost in front with its mid-boost engaged. On this board the Koko's seat is the DCX or the Jan Ray.

Guitar Chalk presets

The two most useful of their five for a Landau/Henderson-leaning player: the pedal-platform clean and the scooped fusion lead. Note the fusion preset scoops the mids where the Gear Page "Dumb and Dumbler" pushes them — A/B both.

Sources

  1. Suhr Badger 18 User Manual v4 — sample settings and Power/Drive rules. media.suhr.com (PDF); also mirrored at manualslib.com.
  2. Suhr product page — tone-control guidance ("start around 5, back the Bass off as Gain/Drive rise"). suhr.com/electronics/amplifiers/suhr-badger
  3. The Gear Page — "Suhr Badger 18 Tone Chasing / Share Your Settings", April 2021. thegearpage.net
  4. Guitar Chalk — "Suhr Badger 18 Amp Settings and Tone Tips", updated Sept 2026. guitarchalk.com
  5. Demos worth watching — Shawn Tubbs, official Mk II in-depth demo: youtube.com/watch?v=GJfFkyy2ljU · Pete Thorn's original Badger demo (search "Pete Thorn Suhr Badger").