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 Revisiting one of his favourite old pastimes, GEARED rocks up to Kedron’s Ellaways Music, plugs a Gibson into a shiny new MESA/BOOGIE TRANSATLANTIC and digs the lunchbox-sized amp’s sweet tones.
Famously christened by Carlos Santana following a well-known prank (the legend goes like this: one day in 1969, Country Joe & The Fish guitarist Barry Melton brought his Fender Princeton to a San Francisco repair shop called Prune Music; the cunning owner/techie Randall Smith deliberately replaced the amp’s innards with the tweed Fender Bassman circuit and a 12-inch JBL speaker; Santana walks into the front shop, spots the freshly hot-rodded amp, plugs in, duly gets blown away by the hellacious roar, exclaims an immortal “Shit, man – that little thing really boogies!” and keeps wailing away until people start blocking the sidewalk; the Boogie Mark 1 is born. – Geared Ed.), the Mesa/Boogie amplifiers are synonymous with the term “American hi-gain”. Aside from early champions like the aforementioned Latin guitar maestro and Keith Richards, the rock machines have amassed a legion of admirers – many of whom prefer the signature dark, ferocious chunk of the Double and Triple Rectifiers and the ever-nifty Mark combo series.
M/B’s latest toy and belated showing to the “lunchbox amp party”, the bread loaf-sized Transatlantic TA-15 is a slick-looking, futuristic Multi-Watt™ amp. At only 12 pounds’ – or less that 5.5kg – weight, it is not only smaller than the much-praised Orange Tiny Terror, but also effortlessly nails both “British” and “American” tones (which is rather revolutionary for a staunchly Yank brand). Once I was handed a goldtop Les Paul and led into the Ellaways showroom, it was hard for me to resist the simple joy of turning the “gain” knob all the way up and cranking out some big, stupid rock riffs, but I wanted to check out the cleans first.
Enter Channel 1 and... voila – a gorgeous, shimmering British chime and a killer Top Boost that gets things nicely dirtied up. I was still marvelling at how warm the clean Transatlantic sounded by the time I was ready to feel to full overdriven power of its two EL84 tubes.
Switch-flick ... KER-POW! Now that was the noise that could truly cross the pond, with all the right overtones, a shuddering bottom end, well-balanced mids and cutting treble. It doesn’t matter if your favourite guitarist is Jimmy Page or Joe Perry – the TA-15 nails both of those legendary tones. The little annihilator’s treasure box, Channel 2 houses the exquisitely “brown” Tweed, Hi 1 (or “Brit gain” – insert your favourite Led Zep riff here) and the cholesterol-heavy Hi 2 or “American gain”, which is perfect for your chugging rhythms, menacing drop-tune riffs and squealing solos.
For Mesa purists, the Pull Master on the Cut/Master control can be hard-bypassed, but I’m a longtime Fender/Marshall/Orange man with little time for sophistication... kidding, I’m just appreciating the third Mesa/Boogie amp I’ve played in my life as a guitar nerd. As far as extra radness goes, you can switch between 5, 15 and 25W modes on either channel depending on the size of the room you’re playing in – and you also get a channel footswitch and a groovy padded gig bag.
Decked out in dead-cool black crinkle/platinum pearl powder vinyl and equipped with metal chassis, the Transatlantic is a fantastic portable gig companion – whack it on top of a quadbox or a halfstack and you’ll be slaying the front rows. And I’ll quote the mustachioed Mexican once again in relation to the little thing that made my sleep-deficient day – it really boogies.
THE MESA/BOOGIE TRANSATLANTIC TA-15 is now available at Ellaways Music’s Kedron and Underwood stores. RRP $2,295 (head), $995 (speaker). Check out www.ellaways.com.au and www.mesaboogie.com for more information.
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