Gibson bought Mesa

[Scout]

Gibson bought Mesa because it was for sale, not revolutionary or anything
really not a big surprise and probably not going to be drastic changes, at
least not immediately. Business as usual.

[Maggieo]

Random releases and reworks of stuff that needed neither, plenty of "modern" takes on the Mark I/Mark IIB and C+ for blues lawyers who love Santana and old rocker guys who love Metallica, higher prices, and lower QC -- if they're taking charge and making changes, that is. If they're buying Mesa but leaving everything alone to just skim some money off the top, probably just higher prices.

I really want to try a Mesa Mark I. One of my favorite albums was made with one with some great crunchy guitar tones, Weezer's Blue Album. All the demos on YouTube are for blues lawyers.

Seconded!

I wonder how those blooze lawyers are able to lift it. It weighs more than a Twin!

[SAVEStheDAY]

This board is funny.

For the first time in their entire history Mesa has a new corporate overlord, and it's Gibson??? Eh, no biggie.

Fender changed the font on their letterhead? BURN THEM DOWN TO THE GROUND, WHY GOD WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[countertext]

Hopefully it’s a good opportunity for Gibson to reissue the good, small Gibson amps from the ‘50s and ‘60s. Mesa’s got the infrastructure to build high-quality replicas that a lot of players would buy.

[papa_hotel_delta]

Not surprised but somewhat disheartened, just read about the sale on my PG notifications.

I can get real nostalgic about Mesa, the first one I saw in person was around '78, a Mk. I with beautiful hardwood cabinet , caned front and the little graphic EQ panel, the guy that owned it was in a band I used to hang around with and he played his 60s SG through it with heavenly tonal results. For quite a while Mk. I's were the amp and impossible to acquire. I actually owned an Atlantic head briefly, still lots of fun but not nearly the Mojo of the Mk. I's.

[budda12ax7]

Mesa Boogie Mark 3. The unsung unknown bastard Mark series amp. All you need. ALSO,,,,the DC series amp.

[Embenny]

I never really gave Mesa amps a chance. When I was a young pup, they were being paired with PRS guitars by Nu Metal bands and I just found them repulsive. They were also being paired with a PRS by Santana, whose tone I also found repulsive at the time. I think I just viewed them as the PRS of amps.

I know there's a lot more to the brand than Dual and Triple Rectifiers, but all I knew about them at the time was that they were used by bands I hated the sound of, and one of their amps was named after the trick where you light your farts on fire, so I never even sought one out to try.

Never knew a Mark I was used on the Blue Album. That would have completely changed my perception of the brand during my formative years.

[Larry Mal]

I don't think you are wrong about them. I had two of them, a Subway Rocket and a Studio .22, and all I could get them to do was heavy metal shit. The cleans were uninspiring.

It turned me off on the brand. I got a silver face Fender Princeton and stayed with Fender amps ever since. They do cleans well and the reverb is great.

I had some friends that had higher end Mesa stuff, and it certainly was better than what I had. I maybe could have lived with those, but they were very expensive, also.

My belief is that Mesa Boogie is of its era, and that era is "modern rock".

[HarlowTheFish]

Some of the oddball Mesa designs, like the Nomad 45 and Transatlantic, are honestly really cool amps with pretty unique voicings -- the former's somewhere between Brian May and John Petrucci, the latter was used on a bunch of The Dear Hunter stuff until a few years back IIRC. The Triple Crown's also pretty cool, and as an old post-hardcore kid I really appreciate the 5150-but-refined tones you get out of them. The Rectum Fryers sound good, but they also really only do one thing well: that proggy power metal sound Sonata Arctica gets (and yeah yeah Metallica whatever, they're why everybody thinks Rectos sound like garbage), either dirty or clean. The Marks are super flexible, but they're also way too finicky for my taste, especially before the Mark V/JP-2C's incredible invention of *gasp* independent channel controls.

Then they put out stuff like the Badlander and I'm like, so you're taking away a bunch of useful features, swapping them out for also useful but kinda hamstrung features, and charging more? For a sidegrade?

conspiracy theory time: the Badlander was the first Gibson fingers closing around Mesa's throat

[Pepe Silvia]

Some of the oddball Mesa designs, like the Nomad 45 and Transatlantic, are honestly really cool amps with pretty unique voicings -- the former's somewhere between Brian May and John Petrucci, the latter was used on a bunch of The Dear Hunter stuff until a few years back IIRC. The Triple Crown's also pretty cool, and as an old post-hardcore kid I really appreciate the 5150-but-refined tones you get out of them. The Rectum Fryers sound good, but they also really only do one thing well: that proggy power metal sound Sonata Arctica gets (and yeah yeah Metallica whatever, they're why everybody thinks Rectos sound like garbage), either dirty or clean. The Marks are super flexible, but they're also way too finicky for my taste, especially before the Mark V/JP-2C's incredible invention of *gasp* independent channel controls.

Then they put out stuff like the Badlander and I'm like, so you're taking away a bunch of useful features, swapping them out for also useful but kinda hamstrung features, and charging more? For a sidegrade?

conspiracy theory time: the Badlander was the first Gibson fingers closing around Mesa's throat

I think I may have played a Transatlantic once been then wrote it off as a nu metal amp and bought a Tiny Terror instead, but this video makes me want to try one again. Most demos online don't give me the same impression

Start around 22 minutes

https://youtu.be/7VrKKBkrxKI

[redchapterjubilee]

Mesa amps suffer from the assumption that you buy one either for Santana sustain, nu-metal scooped djent, that one good Metallica album, or the one guy in Dream Theater. I have been watching Doug Gillard play a Dual Rec half stack onstage with Guided By Voices for 20 years and I think were folks listening blindfolded no one would be able to name correctly what he was playing. I’m at year 10 with my Mark I and while there are other amps I prefer to record with there’s no amp I’d rather be onstage with than the Mark I. I do not play metal or fusion or lawyer blues. I play cleanish rhythm guitar in an early 90s style indie rock band. It has an amazing ability to be what it is at a very wide range of volumes, thanks to the very good master and the tweed circuit with 6V6’s instead of 6L6’s. With the right cab and tubes one could play literally any room with one amp.

As for Gibsonboogie, I am leery of what Gibson does to good brands. Oberheim and Slingerland come immediately to mind. But those were dying companies and that was in the ‘90s. Mesa is thriving and if Gibson is smart and largely leaves them alone then they can break thst perceived cycle of ruining the brands they purchase. The word is they plan on pairing with the Custom Shop which says finishes to me more than circuits. Imagine being able to sell someone an R8 and a Mesa with matching burst cabinets. Sounds lame to me but probably cool to someone else.

[s_mcsleazy]

so i've never hidden that i'm not the biggest fan of mesa boogie rectifiers and i think that's mainly down to what guitar players i seen using them back in the 90's and 00's. before the djent revolution, the main users were usually butt rock/post-grunge bands. like if someone gave me enough money to try recreating any guitar sound and said "90's butt rock/post-grunge" that would be easy. get a les paul/PRS, stick a set of EMG's in there (81 and 85's) tube screamer, sometimes a wah pedal (but not always) mesa boogie dual rectifier, any 4x12 cab (usually mesa or marshall) mic it with a sure sm57, add a heavy compressor and noise gate to the point where the guitar sounds like static being played at different frequencies and bam, you're done. all you gotta do is try eating a mars bar while singing hair metal lyrics and you got a buttrock band. as much as i make fun of 3rd wave emo, at least that changed up the guitar tone for the most part.

i've tried other mesa's i quite liked in the past however. i think the one i really liked was the subway rocket. but at the same time, it's not an amp i'd actively want to own for some reason. never figured out why. it's like "oh cool....... can i try out that deluxe reverb over there?"

i think after djent hit, mesa kinda had some of it's market share eaten. there were still high gain amps before that but after that, it seemed like every company was making high gain amps designed to take a 9 string with active pickups. so i think that might be why gibson were interested in mesa. can't wait for fuckers on reverb to start using the phrase "pre-gibson mesa. RARE" actually, let me check reverb one moment. *goes to reverb and checks the first 5 pages* WOW, well done reverb users. you've not said "pre-gibson mesa" that i could be arsed to find. well done.

at the end of the day, gibson buying mesa just seems like it's going to go badly.

[sessylU]

I've always liked Mesa, I think because I always assumed there was more to them than what I saw on TV in the early noughties.

For how stupid the Triple Rectifier looks, I always find it's the easiest amp to get a tone I want in Amplitube, if that means anything.

[redchapterjubilee]

can't wait for fuckers on reverb to start using the phrase "pre-gibson mesa. RARE" actually, let me check reverb one moment. *goes to reverb and checks the first 5 pages* WOW, well done reverb users. you've not said "pre-gibson mesa" that i could be arsed to find. well done.

You KNOW it's coming though. We can all get a right good chuckle when it does.

[DeathJag]

I never thought of Mesas as guitar amps, just bass. Obvs I’m wrong, but I guess I just really love their bass amps. Have a Strategy 88:8 at home and that thing cooks! Theremin also sounds awesome through it.