Mesa & Paul Rivera connection???

I have heard that at one point in time, Paul Rivera was designing amps for Boogie? Anyone have any info about this??? Thanks!


Matt

I know he worked for Fender. He made a Fender Concert that had high gain, but not aware that he worked for Mesa.

Mike

This was news to me too. I knew about Fender.

Matt

I own his Rivera KR7 and it is one of THE BEST amps I have owned.
And I have owned alot in the past 28 years of playing.
Waiting on My Mark III Red stripe head to come in today though! :x

Like a kid on Xmas eve........ :lol:

I had also heard the rumor that he worked for Mesa....before his Fender days.

How did I hear it?
Back in about '82 or '83, a salesman at a local music store told me I should buy a Fender amp because they were being designed by a "guy that used to work at Boogie named Paul Rivera".

The store? Lets just say they're a big advertiser on this board! :shock:

I have not heard much about this since, so maybe it was just a rumor or else maybe Paul and/or Randy did not want this to be common knowledge(?)
Gotta love a mystery!

I had an '81 Concert 4-10! It put me off of channel switching, master volume amps for many years. It was actually a very good amp, but, the clean channel was too clean and the dirty channel was too dark and grainy for my playing, There was no middle ground (which was what I was after).

I sold the amp around 1990 and my next channel switching amp was my Express 5:50 that I bought in 2008! Since then I've made up for lost time!

I had never heard that Rivera worked at Mesa/Boogie.

If I remember correctly, I think Paul himself actually said it in an interview that's on Youtube now. Also, there's a Youtube demo of a R55 Rivera amp and the guy who does it mentions in his introduction about Paul designing amps for Boogie. I love a good mystery :wink:

Matt

Old BF Shred said:

I had also heard the rumor that he worked for Mesa....before his Fender days.

How did I hear it?
Back in about '82 or '83, a salesman at a local music store told me I should buy a Fender amp because they were being designed by a "guy that used to work at Boogie named Paul Rivera".

The store? Lets just say they're a big advertiser on this board! :shock:

I have not heard much about this since, so maybe it was just a rumor or else maybe Paul and/or Randy did not want this to be common knowledge(?)
Gotta love a mystery!

Click to expand...

I heard the same thing to back in the late 80's or early 90's from a music store when I asked what the heck a Rivera amp was.

Yes, I can confirm that Paul Rivera did work at Mesa in the late 70's as I recently purchased a 1978 Mesa Mark I/II with the initials PR written in sharpie inside. I called Mesa and asked and they confirmed that, yes, he did indeed work there during the time that my amp was built. So, I have a mesa handwired by Paul Rivera, pretty **** cool!

He definitely worked there, pre-Fender (I believe he also did some work for Yamaha around the same time), but my recollection is that he was doing assembly, not design.

He has a Youtube interview where he mentions going to fender and one of the first amps he checked out was an almost exact copy of a Boogie. He said to the guys in charge "You guys don't need to copy anyone your Fender!" But I did not know that he actually worked for Boogie. Pretty Cool!

vlutton said:

Yes, I can confirm that Paul Rivera did work at Mesa in the late 70's as I recently purchased a 1978 Mesa Mark I/II with the initials PR written in sharpie inside. I called Mesa and asked and they confirmed that, yes, he did indeed work there during the time that my amp was built. So, I have a mesa handwired by Paul Rivera, pretty **** cool!

Click to expand...

According to the interview I saw (you tube)...he worked at MusicMan as well.
He gets around!

Awesome interview vid. He said he went to Fender in 81ish. If tiktok's assertion is correct about Paul working assembly and not design, then it is possible that someone may have Mark I with Paul's initials for sign off...however he didn't mention it in the interview video, something, I'd imagine that would have come up as a relevance of importance when discussing Fender's pre-CBS days and building a Boogie knock off, considering he would have been incredibly knowledgable of it's circuits. He did however mention he formed "Rivera Research & Development" in 1976 which would elude to him doing side work for developing amps for other companies (Boogie, Fender, whoever) but would Mesa have hired an outside developer in-house if he was doing assembly in 1978, just to let him run off to Fender in 1981?

...and the mystery is solved!

I sent Rivera an email yesterday and thanks to a quick reply they confirmed Paul did indeed consult for Mesa from '76-'79.

Way to go and thanks for doing the legwork!

Matt

Here he is showing Robben Ford a Mark, circa 1979. Apparently he did work on assembly and at the service centre in Hollywood in his pre-Fender years.



url: https://www.facebook.com/RobbenFord...932135.32563.175656035803502/911033432265755/

That's a Mark ll.