At the dawn of 2021, Gibson made major waves with the announcement of its acquisition of the legendary guitar amp brand, Mesa/Boogie.
At the time, Gibson clarified that the company's founder and Master Designer, Randall Smith, would continue on in the latter role, and that Mesa/Boogie would continue to create and release products under its own name.
In a recent interview with MusicRadar though, Gibson Brand President Cesar Gueikian revealed that, in addition to his work on new Mesa/Boogie products, Smith is also working on a new line of Gibson amplifiers.
“The addition of Mesa/Boogie into the Gibson family, I think is another one of those incredibly exciting moments for us, and also having the blessing that Randy Smith is still as active as ever," Gueikian said.
“So, Randy – we call him our master pioneer, and he's still in the lab working on designing new concepts and new circuit boards.”
“To talk about life cycle of a product and the introduction of something new, it's going to take a while, but Randy is working on the design of what are going to be the next evolution of Gibson amplifiers as well. They are going to be made in Petaluma, California. So Randy's been leading that."
Gueikian also discussed the role that Mesa/Boogie's Jim Aschow, Doug West, and Steve Mueller played in the two legendary companies' relationship, and eventual merger.
“When it comes to tone,” Gueikian reflected, “Steve Mueller, he's been there for 30 years, and they call him the new guy. He's from Texas, so we call him Tex. He's like my tone brother. And he and I connected first.
“That's how we started the relationship, it was Steve and I talking about amplifiers and collaborating. Us sending some Gibsons and then them sending some Mesa/Boogies so we could do content.
“That's how the relationship developed. And then that led to, okay, this is an amazing collaboration to an amazing partnership to… why don't we?
“It was organic, it wasn't, 'Let's go buy an amp company,'" Gueikian said. "It was working with Mesa/Boogie, one thing led to another to having the conversation.”
It may be awhile before further developments on a Mesa/Boogie-designed Gibson amp line arise, but do keep your eyes on mesaboogie.com in the meantime for more news from the company.
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