Mesa Boogie Rig
During John’s first moments of the Mother’s Milk tour (1989), John and Flea received a whole gear from Mesa Boogie, and John used them for a couple of months, before finding his sound in the Marshall heads.
🔺Rig:
- Mesa Boogie Quad Preamp
- Mesa Boogie Strategy 400 Stereo Power Amp
- Mesa Boogie 4x12 cabinets
Here’s a mention from Robbie Allen (John Frusciante’s guitar tech from 1988 to 1992) to our affiliated page
@jfeffects :
“When I first started working for them, they did Mother’s Milk and they all got sold on Mesa Boogie, which came to them and said ‘Hey, we will give you all this gear’ And they all got those rack mounted systems. I think they were called ‘600’ or ‘800’ (referring to Mesa Boogie’s power amp Strategy 400 Stereo) with big power-amps that had like 16 power-tubes and they were probably 800 watts. Both John and Flea had these big racks, with big power-amps with pre-amps… So, John would use Mega Boogie cabinets and Mesa Boogie amps and all of that weird shit and frankly it sounded like fucking garbage. I love Mesa Boogies, but they are for something special, they are for Slipknot. They are heavy and beautiful, they got headroom for days if you wanna play clean... but it’s never going to break up normally, there’s never gonna be a natural break up, you will need to use the preamp to get all the ‘dirt’. It’s always a little ‘tame’, if you know what I mean. They did a whole tour with that stuff. John was playing Stratocasters by then, but still wasn’t getting the beauty that happens when you play that Strat to a Marshall cabinet… he was still very ‘Satriani’, very ‘Vai’.”
A couple of months later he switched to a Marshall JCM800, but he eventually went for another shot with the rig, as he last mentions it in 1991:
“As far as amps go I have a Mesa Boogie, and I don’t know what kind it is. But it’s two amps in one. The knobs are frozen in a good spot. I can control the volume, just not the treble or bass, but I don’t have a problem yet. I’m sure it’s going to grow little legs and walk away from me soon.”
Guitar Magazine UK - February 1991
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