Sad news, Randall Smith booted from MESA

rossipedia said:
This is me every time I see a nice amp head and start GAS-ing. Eventually after a little while I start thinking to myself "when the hell would I ever use it?". I got little kids and live in the burbs. Ain't no way I'm cranking a 90-120W tube head into a 4x12 or even a 2x12. I'd just end up playing my AxeFX anywho.
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Not to temp you, but a Mark VII into an X-Load into a Radial ReAmp into the Axe-FX III (bypass the amp block). Oh yeah. Still... why? I can conjure "Mesa" vibes already with everything I already own, especially with the AFX3. (You sense the GAS war in my brain.)
 
This thread has me nostalgia-ing hard.

I remember when I got my Mark-nothing, used, I had some questions. Called Mesa, and Randy, as he was known back then, answered the phone himself, talked to me for a long time, about possible mods I could do myself, integrating an Alembic F2B as an independent clean tone, etc. (Amp was one channel, only switching was a footswitchable boost that basically dimed all the tone controls, so a separate clean path was really useful.)

If I'm not mistaken, Mesa was Randy's garage at that point. My amp had labelmaker labels on the back, serial B-0015.

He really did change the world. Not a lot of people have that kind of impact.
 
Dave Merrill said:
This thread has me nostalgia-ing hard.

I remember when I got my Mark-nothing, used, I had some questions. Called Mesa, and Randy, as he was known back then, answered the phone himself, talked to me for a long time, about possible mods I could do myself, integrating an Alembic F2B as an independent clean tone, etc. (Amp was one channel, only switching was a footswitchable boost that basically dimed all the tone controls, so a separate clean path was really useful.)

If I'm not mistaken, Mesa was Randy's garage at that point. My amp had labelmaker labels on the back, serial B-0015.

He really did change the world. Not a lot of people have that kind of impact.
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Yes, back in Lagunitas he was building in an old greyhound kennel building. The magic started there.
 
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I had a whole WDW rig (all Mesa amps and cabs) in the 90’s. I was a huge loyal fan. I had since sold all of it, but was still a fan. When I saw Gibson bought Mesa and every time I see a Mesa ad with Gibson at the bottom I cringe. I wasn’t even sure if Randall Smith still had anything to do with it.

I figured retirement was the reason back with the sale. I would think that’s still the reason. Or else Gibson got whiff that he’s been working on things in the background and was violating his “non compete” agreement.
 
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