Mesa Releases 4 New Pedals... What Do You Think?

Well, it looks like Mesa released some new toys. There are videos on the site of each pedal. I've been thinking of using the Grid Slammer to color my high gain channels... it seems very versatile, as does the Flux Drive. I'll have to try them out. What about you guys? What's your opinion on these, and would you buy them?

Based on lay out, the Grid Slammer seems like a Tube Screamer type pedal, I would imagine it would play nice as boost for higher gain tones and not color it in a negative way like some TS pedals do, and that makes it super appealing! Overall I think I like the Flux Drive best on its own driving a clean signal. I guess it makes since that Mesa followed suit after Bogner released their pedals.

To me the tones are very appealing and I wouldn't be as leery (sp?) about blending it with a Mesa amplifier in fear of it coloring the sound too much. Or it could be the fact that if you slap a Mesa logo on anything and I'll be more likely to buy it... Haha. Regardless, they sound good enough the justify trying them out!

the Tone Burst clean boost sounds awesome (as far you can tell from a video), the Grid Slammer is a progress of legendary TS808, but the flux-drive looks and sounds very interesting! the throttle box is a cool high-gain overdrive pedal, but i have cool high-gain sounds in my amps, so no need for this pedal.
did i mentioned that the flux-drive sounds interesting?

DWAKO said:

Based on lay out, the Grid Slammer seems like a Tube Screamer type pedal, I would imagine it would play nice as boost for higher gain tones and not color it in a negative way like some TS pedals do, and that makes it super appealing! Overall I think I like the Flux Drive best on its own driving a clean signal. I guess it makes since that Mesa followed suit after Bogner released their pedals.

To me the tones are very appealing and I wouldn't be as leery (sp?) about blending it with a Mesa amplifier in fear of it coloring the sound too much. Or it could be the fact that if you slap a Mesa logo on anything and I'll be more likely to buy it... Haha. Regardless, they sound good enough the justify trying them out!

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I agree, man. I'm a Boogie man for life. Hopefully, if I wanted to, I could turn the gain down on the Flux Drive. Then, I could maybe work out a really interesting tone.

joe web said:

the Tone Burst clean boost sounds awesome (as far you can tell from a video), the Grid Slammer is a progress of legendary TS808, but the flux-drive looks and sounds very interesting! the throttle box is a cool high-gain overdrive pedal, but i have cool high-gain sounds in my amps, so no need for this pedal.
did i mentioned that the flux-drive sounds interesting?

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+1

just seen the prices for the pedals:
$179.- for tone burst, grid slammer and flux-drive
$199.- for the throttle box

for my taste a bit expensive for a little drive-pedal.

Yeesh, that's pricey. For that kind of money, I'd rather pick up a Barber or a Tim.

FWIW, they're ugly little suckers, too. If I had to choose one, though, it'd be that Flux Drive.

joe web said:

just seen the prices for the pedals:
$179.- for tone burst, grid slammer and flux-drive
$199.- for the throttle box

for my taste a bit expensive for a little drive-pedal.

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True, but if the tone, durability, and overall quality can make it worth it to one, then they could go ahead and pull out the wallet. If not, then oh well.

I think this move reinforces the idea that the real money in the gear business is made on pedals. Price point moves product. There are probably 5 to 10 pedals sold for every amp sold. Then, look at profit margin. These big 60 to 100# boxes requiring cabinetry, tubes, transformers, mounds of complex PC circuitry for $1500-$2000, or a little stamped steel box with 20 cheap low voltage, low current parts on a PC board fpr a total parts cost of $20 or less. Theres gotta be AT LEAST 50% and probably 80% margin in a pedal, compared to maybe 10% in an amp. The speakers in a 2x12 combo cost more than the total retail price of a pedal.

The reasons for this move are clear IMO. Fulltone probably makes more (net( money than Mesa.

Next steel box from Mesa should be a power attenuator. People will use them and will burn power tubes faster.
Mesa will then sell attenuators and more tubes.

It would ave been nice to see them used with different amps...
An not just on a clean setting...

Like using the Mini Rec or a Dual Rec and hitting it like an od8o8.....

Tommy_G said:

I think this move reinforces the idea that the real money in the gear business is made on pedals. Price point moves product. There are probably 5 to 10 pedals sold for every amp sold. Then, look at profit margin. These big 60 to 100# boxes requiring cabinetry, tubes, transformers, mounds of complex PC circuitry for $1500-$2000, or a little stamped steel box with 20 cheap low voltage, low current parts on a PC board fpr a total parts cost of $20 or less. Theres gotta be AT LEAST 50% and probably 80% margin in a pedal, compared to maybe 10% in an amp. The speakers in a 2x12 combo cost more than the total retail price of a pedal.

The reasons for this move are clear IMO. Fulltone probably makes more (net( money than Mesa.

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Except a lot of pedal makers are going to tell you that they don't make shitloads of money on them. That's because a lot of people are getting on the pedal building/modding business...

Disagree by visual inspection. Take the Catilin Bread stuff. Looks cheap, feels cheap, sounds great....lighter than a big mac and half the price of a Peavey Classic 30, no tubes, transformers and speakers. Bucketloads of margin in the pedal business, but yeah, getting saturated with options, but how many $100-$300 pedals does it take to gross $1M? $10M? I've gotta believe that Fulltone's OCD sells over $1M per year. That's 10000 pedals per year worldwide at $100 per back to the manufacturer (they retail for $165+). I have one, and so does everyone else I know....

Tommy_G said:

a little stamped steel box with 20 cheap low voltage, low current parts on a PC board fpr a total parts cost of $20 or less.

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+ Labour + packaging + marketing + warehousing costs + shipping costs + management costs + warranty costs + legal costs + retailer markup + taxes

Just because something has $20 worth of parts in it doesn't mean it costs $20 to get it on a store shelf.

screamingdaisy said:

Tommy_G said:

a little stamped steel box with 20 cheap low voltage, low current parts on a PC board fpr a total parts cost of $20 or less.

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+ Labour + packaging + marketing + warehousing costs + shipping costs + management costs + warranty costs + legal costs + retailer markup + taxes

Just because something has $20 worth of parts in it doesn't mean it costs $20 to get it on a store shelf.

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Ok, I relent...

But, for a further reasonableness test, compare that argument straight up against the amp business. How would that compare for an amp? Hmmm...you could fit 300 pedals in the space of a 2x12 combo, and 600 of them in the space of a 4x12 cab. That's the logistics part of the equation covered.

Management: Typical rule of thumb is 1 manager per 7 employees. How many disciplines do you need in house to fit together an (outsourced manufactured) pc board and switch into a small box with low voltage wiring and no requirement for certified tradespeople? Now think of an amp and all the different components required....wood boxes, lots of hand wired componentry, high voltage stuff and all the regs and safety stuff that goes with that. Preamps, power amps, tubes, speakers, etc. All requiring quality control, troubleshooting, fix ups, in house and subcontracted warrantee work. An amp business is at a minimum 10x more sophisticated than pedal manufacture per retail dollar. More of EVERYTHING.

However, is this even worth arguing about? I was just making an educated guess on why Mesa is pursuing the pedal market. They wouldn't be investing resources there if it didn't make coin. And hats off to them for having such a phenomenally efficient R&D and manufacturing process that they make some of the best sounding, best manufactured amps around, and not in China at $3/day wages like the better part of their competition. They get it done, and in California, no less.

(By way of explanation, the OP stated that Mesa released 4 new pedals....what do I think. What I stated was what I think.)

The videos of these pedals did not make me want to run out and by one. Nothing new here that would interest me, but I currently have a Chandler Tube Driver Rack, a Mesa V-Twin, a Rack V-Twin, a KOT , a Beano Boost, an Ethos Overdrive, A Hermida Zen Drive, a Tube Zen Drive 2 and a couple other Hermida pedals the NU-Drive and The Tiki drive, I just don't think any of the Mesa offerings could supplant any them.

This should invigorate the Foot pedals section of this forum!

Tone Burst for a little more edge / gain saturation during solos.

cho said:

This should invigorate the Foot pedals section of this forum!

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Whoops

YellowJacket said:

Tone Burst for a little more edge / gain saturation during solos.

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Great choice, man