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 The
Spirit of Art
Music
is in my blood. And building tube amplifiers is my personal
art. One lesson I learned early on is that any time you make
something, you're leaving behind an artifact of who and what
you were at that moment in your life. Later, you're
bound to encounter some of these relics of your past and when
you do, YOU will have to own up to who you were at that time.
This realization taught me the Commitment to Excellence.
MESA/Boogie is founded on this commitment, and it is my responsibility
to see that we stay true to that principle and to our customers.
I'm here every day, designing and working on
amplifiers. Most of MESA's inner circle have been here at least
15 years and some prac- tically grew up here. We operate more
like a band than a company. With that kind of tight communi-
cation, we can ride the cutting edge and keep bureaucracy from
sprout- ing between you and us. The R&D Team of myself,
Dan Van Riezen and Doug
West can neither eat, sleep nor shower
without thinking about Tone. Jim Aschow, VP and Production
Chief, is similarly obsessed and works his magic in cabinetry
and hardware design. Mike Bendinelli, Chief Technician
and Keeper of the Archives, works diligently with George Mueller
to ensure that every production model measures up to its glowing
prototypes. Our Deacon Steve
Mueller and his sales team of Kevin
Parker, Mike Oliencheck, Trent Blake and Kevin Backsa keep our
pro centers in tune worldwide.
Customer Service is our direct pipeline to
musicians. Tien Lawrence,
Richard Duvall and John Marshall have the clout, expertise
and the answers to guarantee your satisfaction. They
know our products inside and out because they scrutinize every
finished Mesa product during play test and show no mercy for
any amp that doesn't measure up. Tien Lawrence heads Artist Relations
and is THE rack guru. He builds the hardest working
coliseum rigs today for our long list of touring artists.
I wish room here allowed me to mention everyone whose part
in Team Boogie deserves acknowledgement. But you will
see many of their signatures on the Q.C. Card that accompanies
each amplifier. My thanks to each and all for their
individual part in helping fulfill our collective commitment.
And to my wife, Susanne, for her enthusiasm, humor and steadfast
support.
A Little History
Introduced in 1970, the Boogies
proved to be absolute giant killers (in
more ways than one) and began to re-define forever what a
guitar amp could be and do. A small company working
closely with leading players and fiercely dedicated to innovation
and quality made a successful end-run around the sleeping
giants of the industry.
The first Boogie was built as a practical joke (How far out
can I boost
this little amp?)...but was in fact so practical in the real
sense that top
players saw it, heard it, and began demanding their own.
They also liked
the wolf-in-sheeps-clothing approach. Built inside a
deceitfully stock
looking Fender Princeton was a hot-rodded circuit based on
the 4x10 tweed Bassman.
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Original
"Home of Tone," the
Dog House workshop shack in Lagunitas. Crescent
moons on door are remnants from the original
Princeton baffle boards, cut out to hold 12" speakers.
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American
Ingenuity
The trick was to get all the
high power electronics, big transformers and a JBL twelve built
reliably inside a package that was intended to house a ten inch
speaker and produce twelve watts! But it was worth the
effort. The quote from one of the hottest local guitar
slingers, Carlos Santana was,
"Man, that little thing really Boogies!" Thus
the name was born. Over two hundred of those Princeton
Boogies were built between 1967 and 1970 up a dirt path in a
mountain workshop that I converted from a dog kennel built for
racing greyhounds. Today, most of those "pre-Boogies"
are still around, alive and treasured by their owners.
Out of the Dog House
Tearing apart Fender Princetons
eventually became too inefficient a way to build a Boogie as
the demand kept growing. Moreover, CBS Fender was getting
suspicious about the number of transformers being sold to an
obscure location in Northern California and cut off the supply.
It was
clearly time to move on.
Into the Garage
So I moved out of the dog kennel
Tone Shack and started building a
two-story garage/studio with reject wood I trucked down directly
from the
saw mills. The truck was so overloaded we had to drive
five miles through
a pear orchard to avoid the Highway Patrol weigh station!
Cash was needed to order custom transformers directly from the
manufacturer, so when I wasn't rebuilding my own 3/4 race Bug
Eye Sprite, I moonlighted by rebuilding old Mercedes-Benz engines
for others. I liked the powerful,
high-quality feeling of those super-balanced crankshafts, beefy
cam
bearings and alloy covers. A Benz engine is a high power, smooth
running
jewel. Combining this mechanical excellence with the exhilaration
of
whipping a British race car around the mountain roads of California
was the impetus behind my amplifier ideas: Performance
that breeds inspiration combined with reliability that builds
assurance.
First Hand Experience
Nearly every part of those first
Mark I Boogies was produced in that
garage: nameplates were silk-screened, sheet metal chasses
were hand
punched, wiring and cabinet building were done by hand...even
the printed circuit boards were screened and etched there.
My experience with the Mercedes engines had demonstrated again
that quality creates pride in work...and that quality must extend
down through every little part in order to produce outstanding
reliability and performance.
VALUE
Above all else, any MESA/Boogie
you purchase will be an investment of
lasting value. Ask yourself how much you've spent on lesser
amplifiers?
How much did you lose in performance, and musical satisfaction?
How much did you lose when selling or trading in? With
MESA/Boogie you get more than just our fanatical devotion to
performance and quality, You get Us, our resources and our 25
years of expertise. No one else stands behind their products
like we do, guaranteeing lasting satisfaction and seeing that
each customer is treated as we ourselves would like to be.
We understand you because we are musicians ourselves.
And we are committed to making your MESA/Boogie one of the most
rewarding purchases of your life.
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