These videos and audio files are bonus content related to the Holiday 2014 issue of Guitar World. For the full range of interviews, features, tabs and more, pick up the new issue on newsstands now or at the Guitar World Online Store.
Someone could write a PhD thesis on Mesa/Boogie’s scores of user-interfaced tone-shaping circuits and their permutable effects.
The simplest, most powerful and iconic of these innovative tools is undoubtedly Mesa’s five-band graphic equalizer. Developed by Randall Smith in the early Seventies, the circuit features a quintet of frequency sliders that lets players morph a Mesa amp’s response far beyond what can be achieved with the tone knobs alone.
It’s most often utilized to achieve the supercharged mid-scooped tonal curves that have forged the distinctive sound of hard rock and metal guitar.