"Mr. Mesa"

[jdurso]

To me the best spokesman would have to be Carlos Santana in the old days and Mark Tremonti now (even though i HATE his music)

But the most recognisable mesa players to me would have to be Dave Grohl and Chris Shifflett from Foo Fighters or Munky (and Head) from Korn, they have been a massive band and pretty much defined that sludgy mesa nu metal sound.

didnt even think about the boys from korn..... dont really like their music but they're awesome live

 

[jdurso]

Metallica definitely. Even though they don't use Mesa anymore... lol.

what are you smoking? they still use mesa and its probably 75% of their sound recorded and live.... granted they've grown to include some diezel, diezel, randall (kirk has... james has used them for a while) among others, but still they have racks upon racks of rectos, triaxis, and mark ivs

False.

Well...not fully false anyways. Yes they still have Mesa amps. But I don't believe they use them anymore.

At least not this tour.

We'll find out when the new album comes out

As for St. Anger, they had everything from Roland to 4 Triaxis setups, to Diezels. I haven't seen any of those this tour.

believe me they still use mesa for a majority of their recording and live gigs with the staple being the triaxis' they have in the racks out of view..... i'll let you know when i head out to HQ with my buddy in a few months, but from my time in the met club to the studio pictures of this album, mesa is still the biggest part of their round (aside from the cleans which are the jc-120s)

 

[igfraso]

Carlos Santana was the sound that rocked the world. No one's guitar sound has effected the music world like he did except Jimi and his Marshalls. Brad Gillis was the MKII ambassador of the early 80's. Other players played boogies but didn't exploit the gain (ie. Keith Richards, Larry Carlton, Gerry Garcia, etc.) like these guys did. I actually never cared for Santana and was more into guys like Blackmore. But for years no one touched the unique sound Santana had.

Younger guys have no idea how shockingly different Carlos Santana was when he came out playing this modded fender. Guys were scrambling in shock trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

I've listened to Metalica and I remember a guy who worked for me back in the 80's telling me how good this guitarist in the band was... I listened to it and asked him if he'd ever heard Alan Holdsworth play?

For different generations there are different heros... but your boys would never have heard a Mesa to even know what one was if it were not for Carlos.

Santana is the ONLY reason Randall Smith and Mesa became huge... He took a nobody to the world when Fender, Vox, and Marshall amps were the ONLY amps most stores would sell. In fact back then you could only order a Boogie by mail.

in my opinion, Carlos is the foundering mesa player because he gave Mesa a coat tail to ride. And Mesa made Carlos bigger than life for years because they gave him a unique sound no one else could. They took each other to the world when no one else could or would... One of those lightning strike moments in history.

Well... I am 50, and I totally agree with srf399.
It was such a different sound that some people could not believe this was just the sound of a guitar plugged into a guitar amp.

Actually we could discuss forever who deserves to be named "Mr. Mesa". But in my humble opinion, there is no way to deny that Carlos Santana deserves to be called "Mr. Boogie".
Regards

 

[boogie shoes]

curt cobain.......with the logo taped up.

 

[fdesalvo]

You fooools! Everyone knows that the guitarrist for Meatloaf holds the title!

 

[MrMason]

I found out the other day: Kirk's new Randall is basically the MTS with his name on it. The ones that I linked to earlier are the base model SS amps. So I'd be willing to bet he IS using Randall, if it's and MTS. They have Recto modules, and then some.

 

[kingster911]

Metallica is a BIG one considering they've used Mesa since the early days, and even until now. An array of Mesas at that. Petrucci is kind of a cash cow for Mesa with his RK LS combo onstage, but as far as one that no one has yet named (that I'll probably get in trouble for mentioning) is Tom DeLonge from Blink-182. Just his sound is totally like what the rectos were meant for.

 

[edgarallanpoe]

Carlos Santana was the sound that rocked the world. No one's guitar sound has effected the music world like he did except Jimi and his Marshalls. Brad Gillis was the MKII ambassador of the early 80's. Other players played boogies but didn't exploit the gain (ie. Keith Richards, Larry Carlton, Gerry Garcia, etc.) like these guys did. I actually never cared for Santana and was more into guys like Blackmore. But for years no one touched the unique sound Santana had.

Younger guys have no idea how shockingly different Carlos Santana was when he came out playing this modded fender. Guys were scrambling in shock trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

I've listened to Metalica and I remember a guy who worked for me back in the 80's telling me how good this guitarist in the band was... I listened to it and asked him if he'd ever heard Alan Holdsworth play?

For different generations there are different heros... but your boys would never have heard a Mesa to even know what one was if it were not for Carlos.

Santana is the ONLY reason Randall Smith and Mesa became huge... He took a nobody to the world when Fender, Vox, and Marshall amps were the ONLY amps most stores would sell. In fact back then you could only order a Boogie by mail.

in my opinion, Carlos is the foundering mesa player because he gave Mesa a coat tail to ride. And Mesa made Carlos bigger than life for years because they gave him a unique sound no one else could. They took each other to the world when no one else could or would... One of those lightning strike moments in history.

+1 Listen to the man, the discussion should have ended with this post.
Last I checked it wasn't Tremonti or Metallica in the Macy's commercials.

BUT

Viggo also nailed it (I'm 38 :roll: ), Lukather and Gillis in the 80's had a profound effect on the company and rejuvenated Boogie in an era that was dominated by rack gear. Everyone raise their hand if they owned an ADA...(edgarallanpoe looks around to see every person over 35 with their hand up...LOL!!!)

How is this for a scary thought... I have heard more than one person who knows Lukather tell me that he is a better drummer than a guitar player. Jesus...that is mind blowing because of all the guys of that era, Luke is my hands down favorite and I sure as hell ain't alone.

 

[jdurso]

I found out the other day: Kirk's new Randall is basically the MTS with his name on it. The ones that I linked to earlier are the base model SS amps. So I'd be willing to bet he IS using Randall, if it's and MTS. They have Recto modules, and then some.

the modules stock in the hammett amp are designed after his 3 main tones... the cleans are a mix of an old fender and a jc120... KH2 is based on the earlier metal tones (mark IIc+ mixed with some marshall) and KH3 is a more over the top in its gain stacking like a recto/diezel.... also the head chassis has some extras over the regular MTS chassis.... it also has the density knob which controls the low-mids to add punch... its built on the mts platform but with extras... and it sounds fantastic

 

[metallicat]

for me it's james and kirk. tremonti to but also for it's my old guitar teacher/friend BJ who i think of when think about mesa and this is why.......

 

[bluesymetal]

I think you can define it by era...

Obvisouly Santana in the beginning

I didn't know Lukather and Gillis used them in the 80's but that is huge

Late 80's and early 90's had to be Metallica as they were the biggest band on the planet at one point. And in the early 80's they used marshalls for the first two albums. Petrucci was using boogies since this time period too.

Mid to late 90's Korn, Godsmack, and all the numetal bands, and creed, nickelback and the other radio rock bands like foo fighters

Today I think Petrucci even though his best stuff came out in the early 90's, and Tremonti, his tone on the newest alterbridge album might be the best tone I've ever heard.

Theres other bands from each era of course ( the stones, john sykes I think used the mark III with whitesnake, Lamb of God, Nirvana, Disturbed), but I think the ones above had the biggest influence on making the company what it is.

 

[Bullen]

Metallica will still be using Mesa amps.

Kirk has said in interviews that he likes to mix different amps for his sounds, so even though he´s using his Randalls now, he will probably still have a Triaxis preamp and a recto in his rack. And he will probably still use the Strategy 400 poweramps. Same with the new album.

James latest live rack had both Triaxis preamps and Diezel VH4 heads and Stategy 400 poweramps. I doubt his rig will change that much in the future. And he will probably still be using Mesa Trad recto cabs.

 

[Silverwulf]

I was told by an extremely reliable source (who no, I won't name) that James and Kirk were just in CA at Mesa having a few of their Boogies tuned up while they're in the middle of finishing up the album. So, I would assume some Mesa's are on there in some respect.

And yeah, my vote goes to James and Kirk. Petrucci I'm sure is a close second, but I wouldn't be suprised if he became familiar with Mesa himself because of Metallica... :lol:

 

[Nitrobattery]

James and Kirk



Tremonti is and has been using Bogners for a while now. He still has Recto's in his rig, but his lead tone is a Bogner Shiva and he uses a few Uberschalls. He uses the Rectos for the midrange and crunch, and the Uber is for the low end muscle and tightness. The Recto and Uber are run at the same time, the Shiva does the lead stuff, and the Fender Twins do the cleans in stereo.

 

[Devho]

I never thought this thread would get so much attention.

I agree most with bluesymetal who says it can be defined by era. And honestly, I didn't know Metallica played Mesa. I knew James had tampered with a Diezel on Some Kind of Monster. But I think we can narrow it down to 4 choices:

Kirk/James
Tremonti
Pretucci
Santana

Those seem to be the dominant forces. For me though, its still Tremonti. Because of him, I am blessed to know what a Mesa is.

 

[satisfied5582]

Tremonti and Petrucci both popped in my mind at the exact same time. :wink:

+1 but this is because kirk and james don't really use mesa any more. i remember way back in the day when i first heard of mesa it was because of kirk and james, but since they don't use mesa any more, in my option they don't count. and why the hell is kirk hammet using a solid state amp, must be good money coming from randall.

 

[Silverwulf]

...but this is because kirk and james don't really use mesa any more. i remember way back in the day when i first heard of mesa it was because of kirk and james, but since they don't use mesa any more, in my option they don't count...

I was told by an extremely reliable source (who no, I won't name) that James and Kirk were just in CA at Mesa having a few of their Boogies tuned up while they're in the middle of finishing up the album. So, I would assume some Mesa's are on there in some respect.

 

[satisfied5582]

but it doesn't seem like they are using mesa exclusively! when kirk has a randall model and james has been known for using deizel these days.

 

[Botch]

I'd say Blink 182! No I'm not kidding, for the younger crowd at least these guys really made Mesa very, very popular. You gotta remember how huge these were for a few years recently.