June 2002

here's a lot of excitement at Mesa/Boogie right now because we're finally building some of the new products that I've been working on for many years, including the Road King and the Rectifier Recording Preamp or "Rec Pre" as we call it. Your support for our work is what drives me (and all of us) onward in the Quest for Tone, so thanks! Curiously though, I'm told of rumors (spread mostly by shops that don't carry Mesa/Boogie) that "things have changed" and I've lost interest. Wow! I wish they'd asked me. The truth is, I could have sold out many times in the past, but I didn't. I remember what happened in the 1960s when CBS bought Fender®. Plus I always asked myself what would I do then: Work for a big corporation? Play golf? Sorry…not me.

See, my life's work is creating high-performance vacuum-tube amplifiers --has been since age twelve. And I believe that one key to our success is the passion that drives us …because you've got to live it to get real good at it. And you've gotta love it if you're going to live it. Same with music itself.

In 1973 I started building amps one at a time in an old mountain shack and when players like Carlos Santana, Larry Carlton and Keith Richards got hold of them, word spread quickly. The complaint then was that it took up to a year to get a Mark I Boogie. That was when Gibson offered to buy me out …and how different my life would have been! But while they sought bidness, I sought tone: a radical new high-gain tone which was starting to revolutionize guitar amplification.

And looking back, I guess I was the first "boutique" amp company, though I never thought of it that way. I just wanted to take what I had been repairing for years and try to kick it up to another level and satisfy the wishes I kept hearing from the players I knew. Now, 30 years and 30 miles from that original tone shack, we're still hand-building Mark I's …and quite a few other models.

We're no longer the latest underground boutique darling, but we're still pioneering the frontiers of tone. And we've barely changed the way we design and build our amplifiers. What changes we have made are all based on my years of experience as the designer and builder. And every little thing is calculated for one purpose only: To Produce a Better Amplifier.

The Original Snakeskin Mark I

Each chassis is still entirely hand-wired, checked-out, teched-out and as always, bashed repeatedly with a hammer while turned full up. (Though sometimes UPS can be even harsher!) Then there is a play-test, followed by a 24-hour burn-in, another electronic check, installation into a cabinet and a final play-test by a different musician and another final check before packing. Every Mesa/Boogie from the most expensive to the least uses the identical top-grade materials and assembly techniques. Every Mesa/Boogie, including all the cabinets, is entirely made in our one location here in Petaluma, California where we've been since 1980.

Funny thing: a lot of big-name amp manufacturers now have many (or all) their products built elsewhere, and that's OK with us. We look to a couple of our favorite icons and take heart: a Ferrari wouldn't be the same if it were made in China. And closer to home, Harleys deserve to be made in Milwaukee, not Mexico, because they are American. And so are we.

I promise we won't let our increased visibility spoil us because the other key to our success is integrity. That means always trying to do the right thing. Putting you, the musician, first: especially if you need help. Your satisfaction is our first responsibility and we take that very seriously when you trust us with your cash and your tone. Always have. Always will.

Thanks for your support all these years. Our goals remain unchanged from day one: Build the best musical amplifiers we possibly can, and treat each of you as we ourselves would wish to be treated, trying to make every musician a life-long and toneful member of our amplifier family.

New Products:
	Road King: 4 preamp channels, 5 switchable power amps with Progressive Linkage™, and Recto Tracking™ among its 8 patented innovations. A tone monster that's been called "the pinnacle" of my career.
	Rectifier Preamp: Direct recording like never before. Five transformers and six 12AX7 tubes provide real tone and real juice. It plays like a stack --in two rack spaces-and, in showdowns with the modeling cyber puppets, the Recto truth of tone shines through!
	Rectifier 2:One Hundred: Stereo power amp, because the Recto-Pre also slays live, with 3 footswitching sounds. This rig exactly duplicates our fabled Dual Rectifier, but provides stereo 100 watt power sections in two rack spaces.
	2:Fifty Stereo Power: Refined and redesigned, this is a more toneful workhorse, totally updated and uprated from our best selling, all-tube 50/50.
	F-30, F-50, F-100: Three power levels, each with 3 footswitching sounds: creamy, thick, high-gain, a bluesy mid-gain, and maybe our best clean ever, in mainstream, all-tube heads and combos. Come in for a taste!

Rectifier, Recto, Rec Pre, Road King,
and Home of Tone are all trademarks
of Mesa/Boogie Ltd.