Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier Trem-O-Verb 212 Combo

I have owned this amp since about 1995 or 96 and I bought it new. It has the large Mesa Engineering placard on the front, not the little placard in the corner of the amp, but of course that is of no consequence other than to date the amplifier. I play many different styles and the Tremoverb moves from Jazz to Rock to Country to Metal with the greatest of ease, but you have to work with the systems parameters to learn how to pull the sounds out of the amp. They are there and with a bit of effort you too can learn where they are, kinda like an electronic "Where's Waldo." It is a two channel amp with two distinctly different sections in each channel which can be cloned(see Tremoverb manual you can dl at the boogie site)For the features information you really want to visit the site. It has line out, effects loop which is switchable, solid state or tube rectifier, soft and spongy setting which acts much like an attenuator switch. Many others, again, check out the site. I wish this amp had a switchable power setting that would take it from 100 watts, to 50, or 25 watts. You can take out two power tubes and get a fifty watt configuration, but it would be easier just to flip a switch. I rarely use the effects loop as I use floor pedals, mostly Boss and Keeley, that works for me. It is not your normal effects loop however, and you know where to go to get the scoop on the loop function. If you want an amp to play at home or in small venues, dont buy this amp, it's not for you. This amp is a powerhouse and it is Loud. But if you are still thinking, "No way man, I want this monster!" I say great, but do yourself a big favor, order up a THD Hotplate Attenuator. This little gem will allow you to turn the amp to ten and then turn it down at the attenuator. You will get the fully cranked tube amp sound without losing your apartment, wife, kids, neighbors, dog, or going to jail. Bonus.

I use strats, fatstrats, and Les Pauls with this amp. As with any high gain amplifier a certain amount of noise is inherent. But really this is a particularly transparent amp all things considered, such as volume level, pickup choice, and tube age. The clean channel is very quiet, and if its not, better change those tubes. I do however use a noise surpressor in my effects chain, but that is for the strictly for the chain and without the chain there is really no need for a surpressor. The clean channel gives you that sonic thump in the chest that we live performers crave--and at preamp saturation if you wanted more gain and brutality youd have to put a pickup on your chainsaw and...well, you get it, right? But again, if you are diligent in looking for sounds you will find most every sound you need.

The week after I purchased this amp, the power died. It went to about half power, which isnt bad but I paid for full power. I went back to the store I bought it from and they said, "Hey, It's your amp buddy." More on that in the next section. Just take care of the amp--and it will take road abuse and laugh in your face. Ive not had a problem with it since the first incident.

I called Mesa Boogie after my music store acted like they never knew me(and boy they regret that now) and the people at Mesa were great. I was a bit distraught over the fact that I had to pay to send it to Petaluma but the people at Boogie made it worth it. After the great techs at Boogie and I chatted on the phone a few times they corrected the problem and also went the extra mile and gave me some tweaks and mods that blueprinted the amp to my particular needs. When my amp returned it came back with a complete spare set of tubes. A week after I had received my amp I got a phone call from Randall Smith (the creator of Mesa Boogie industry, the head honcho) making sure I was totally satisfied with the work that was done. How do you think I feel about the customer support?

I have been playing since I was in grade school and own more gear than you or I have time to discuss. If it were lost or stolen I would be extremely sad. I coulnt pick up another like it, so I would recall the amp wistfully and prolly buy a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and have it modded a bit, or maybe a vibrolux. I love most stuff about it, hate the weight, but hell, its a big amp, whatyagonnado? I chose this amp for one thing. Tone.

Not sure on the year, but my guess is 2002.
I mainly play metal, and although some people have suggested that this amp is not really a good choice for this style of music, I beg to differ. This is a metal monster! It has more power than anyone should ever need for bedroom practice, small and mid-sized gigs. Good thing you can "slow" it down to 50 watts!
As far as features are concerned: It has all you need, and more. Probably so much more that it can get unnerving if you're easily intimidated. To me it's a great challenge!

I own a KH-602 with EMG 81's, a DV8-R with SD pu's, and a GrassRoots GMX-48 with nonames, and they all sound awesome when you twiddle with the amps settings and play the style of music these axes were designed to play.
The amp is somewhat noisy in idle mode, but I guess that's to be expected.
The clean channel stays clean. At least up to the volumes I have tried it - around 12 o'clock. Anything more than that will you make you hair turn weird colors. The crunch/distortion is unreal - I only play up to 11 o'clock on it, because I seriously fear that my ears will start to bleed if I go any higher without earplugs.
I'm giving it a 9 here because of the noise when it's idle. It doesn't really bother me, but it's something to consider.

I've only had it for a short while - no complaints so far, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and rate it a cautious 9 because it's a Mesa and these things are tanks.

Never had to deal with them so far, but I hear great things.

I've been playing for several years, and if that thing were stolen, I'd kill the m/f that stole it if I could find him...so yeah, I'd buy another one. :D
Been looking for "my" sound for a long time, and I think I finally found the amp that delivers it.

This post is for the fellow below who had is amp go out on him day before a show at practice................ I have owned my Trem-OVerb for about 6 years now and it has had to be re-tubed twice. Nature of the beast - TUBES WEAR OUT. Mine died once durring a show. Honked like a stuck goose. Never gig without a back up. Lucky I had one thqat night. Take it to a certified Mesa repair place and have them fix it and should be set. In my case I had a bad power tube and some capacitros that needed top be replaced.

THis is a great amp. With the right guitar is sounds brilliant. I will never sell mine even though I am jonesing for a new amp due to G.A.S. (gear aquisition syndrome).

Good luck and I hope you get it repaired.

THansk, JEFF WHITE

You guys know the features by now.
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bought the amp used. sounded good when i tried it out in the store at reasonaably low volumes. I have had it for about a year now. You can get some good sounds out of it if you really tweek it, and i mean like every time you play it. ill have the perfect settings and perfect sound, next day ill come in, flip it on, and it sounds like shit. sometimes the distortion will seem nice and smooth and others it will break up and not have any substance to it at all. guess thats a tube amp for you, unreliable sound... well i changed the poweramp tubes, new boogie tubes, it sounds better, but still nowhere near what it should. im thinking maybe it has something to do with the preamp tubes, but that makes no sense. ive heard preamp tubes usually sound best before they are about to blow out. and the clean channel breaks up at very low volumes, its rediculous. i dont know what everyone else is talking about with the clean being so good, maybe its that they just got the amp and payed a lot of money for it and they want to believe its a good amp with a good sound. didnt work out that way for me. even on the solid state channels... no better. in fact, the tube distortion sounds better than the solid state most of the time, but then again the tube distortion is breaking up and sounding like shit. im thorouhgly dissapointed with this amp. not to mention what happened next...

so im at band practice one day. get everything all hooked up, set my levels, turn on the amp to practice for our show that was the next day. the amp sounds like complete shit. i mean, horrible. the volume sounds super low even when i turn it up all the way. everything sounds like shit. i thought maybe it was just the amp doing its usual thing, sounding good one minute bad the next, but then it fuckin shuts down on me. just like that. now it wont even turn on. i was soooo pissed. i thought mesa boogie would make something a little bit more reliable considering so many people use them. not the case with this amp. to me the amp never sounded as good as it should have, maybe i just got a bad one or something, tho very unlikely for that to happen, but compared to a dual rectifier the distortion doesnt even compare. not as heavy, not as smooth, no matter what the settings. and believe me, i took the time to tweak and get the right levels. ahh what a waste of money. im definately not putting more money into this amp to be fixed if its going to sound like it did.

havent dealt with them yet.

my advice to you is to steer clear of this amp. but then again you cant really even go by these reviews, i mean there are tons of people who say this amp is the best theyve ever played, and for me it was complete shit. could never get the right sounds out of it, no loud clean, no heavy distortion, blues channel was too crackly, never smooth. and then it broke down on me. it sounded fine when i tried it at the store and good occasionally, but over all it never had a completely good sound to it. it was always just acceptable. i dunno maybe there is something wrong internally that needs or needed to be fixed all along. if anyone has any ideas, let me know.

you all know its 100 watts with vintage 30's.

i play a schecter omen 6 with an emg 81 and 85 and i love the tone that i get. i play metal mainly so i can get as versitaile as scooping the shit out of the mids or i can get a more full distortion thats creamy as all hell. the only thing that i can complain about would be mine gets a little noisy when its just sitting even when all the volume is down. i think thats just a tube problem though.

i have only owned this amp for about a month and nothing bad has happened yet so hopefully it stays that way.

i havent had to contact mesa at all and i dont think i will cause i go to guitar center and talk to my old store manager and he knows everything about this thing so he can answer any questions i have.

so far i love this thing and i dont have anything i can complain about. i just cant wait to hear it through the 4x12 diesel cab i just bought.

You all know the features by now, but one major feature to talk about is the dual rectifier. After owning this amp for about 5 years, and going back and forth with loving it and being frustrated with it, I finally ignored the glowing talk in the manual about the wonderful effect of the tube rectifier option and switched to using the solid state rectifer. Oh my god! Finally, I was able to find a more Fendery clean sound that really worked for me. And by switching to the vintage lead channel (using the channel cloning feature) I got the lead tone that is the perfect combination of vintage tone and high gain harmonics. I love the way you can bend strings in this channel and actually make the strings squeak!

I play in a classic rock cover band that also plays some new bands as well. I loved the way this amp sounded in my garage, but when I played on stage with my band, I got lost in the mix. It was because I was using the tube rectifier as opposed to the silicon diodes. Using the silicon diode rectifer helps the clean channel immensely and also helps me cut through the mix with the lead channel. The tube rectifier sounds "flubby" when playing live.

I put new Mesa power tubes in this baby and it sounds killer. People knock Mesa power tubes, but make sure and buy good ones. They sell inexpensive ones and higher priced better quality ones. This amp has never broke down on me.

The guys always return my call if I can't get them the first time. They seem willing to visit and answer any questions I might have.

The best two sounds I found out of this amp are from the owners manual which you can download from Mesa's website. Sample 1 and 4 are fantastic. And they both say to use the silicon diode rectifier! If I'd only paid attention five years ago...I've been playing for 26 years. My main guitar is a PRS McCarty. I also own a Marshall TSL 100 Head, Fender Prosonic Combo and a Fender Super Champ. It's never going to get stolen-it's too heavy to carry...

One of the last ones before they stopped production. versatile.

i use a jasckson dr-3 with emg-81 pickups. I play heavy rock and alternative. the tone of this amp is great. very versatle. Currently using the stock 6l6 power tubes. Havent tryed the el34's yet. The only thing i wish the amp had is a better "low, or Bottowm end thump" to it. I am thinking about buying a 2x12 recto closed back cab to add to this, hopfully it will give me the lows im looking for.

very nicely build!!! very heavy i think it tips the scale at around 95lbs. only thing ya need to do is change the tubes when they go bad.

never had to deal with them, although i heard they were friendly & helpful.

I'v been playin for about 6 years. This is my first tube amp. I am pretty happy with it overall. If it were stolen i would pissed cause i can't afford another one. I love the tone...just wish it had more low end bass, but its a openback combo so that should be expected. Best sounding amp i'v ever owned!

This is a mid-90's tremoverb, with the vintage style grill. you probably already know the features. I like the fact that you can swith between 6L6's and EL34's (tubes), very cool feature that i have never seen before. This thing is louder than you would ever want it to be.

This is an amp which is really made to play rock, metal...that type of thing. The distortions are very versatile. The vintage setting is just that, you can get really cool classic rock type sounds, very nice crunchy sound. The modern distortion is the signature MESA sound. It's absolutely as heavy as you want it to be. i really like the versatility of this channel though. You can get that midrange-sucked thumping metal sound, or go in a completely different direction because the eq on this thing is VERY responsive. If you get this amp, really mess with the eq, because it WILL change the tone drastically. I know many people who say they don't like the blues channel, but i totally love it. I think if you don't like it, you havent messed with it enough, its freaking awesome. The clean channels are cool, but they are really not for that totally jazzy clean sound. If you want pristine clean, youre probably not gonna get it without adding something else (compression), and even then...
but the clean channel is really musical, it responds so well to how you play it.

Mesa is known for its reliability. they are on world tours everywhere. i give it a 9 because my amp cuts out sometimes for an unknown reason, and it sucks because repair shops very often don't want to mess with my mesa, they say "you gotta send it to a licensed repairman". they cant handle the mesa.

good question, don't know.

One of the most versatile rock and roll amps ive ever played. I have been playing for nearly 15 years, and this is one of the sweetest amps out there. Its not quite as heavy sounding as a mesa 4x12 stack would be, but i love the open-back sound. While the open back means you lose a little heaviness, it really gives you a more "lively" sound. go buy one

This amp has more features at the back than up front, it's really versatile, offering you 4 distinct channels (Clean, Vintage high gain (EQ 1) and Blues and modern high gain on EQ2). It fits well my style which is simlilar to TOOL. Offered with a reverb and tremolo effect, which can be turned on and off with a footswitch that you plug at the back. Features are extremely easy to get used to, and everything is well labelled. I'll probably never get this amp passed 3, it's so loud and it's not even on the 16ohm.

I use a Ibanez RG320 FM and an Epiphone (gothic) les paul studio. And the sustain and tone on this amp is perfect. The distortion it so amazing and the palm mutes seem to hit you in the chest, even at low volume. This amp is dead quiet compared to the other amps I had and tried, I thought I would by those gold plated cables to get the best sound, but it's obvious that I don't need those.
Since it has such a nice distortion I thought that maybe I would sell all the distortion pedals that I have (metal zone, fabtone and big muff), but when I plugged them in, it was as if I had new pedals, the metal zone sound like a fuckn punch in the face, the fabtone as so much tone and the big muff has that little soft fuzz that I couldn't get with my other amp. There's a guy that said that this amp wasn't meant for pedals, well he was wrong. I also put a little distortion on my clean which sound really gound for a nice lead and so I can't really said if it distorts at high volume. The tremolo and reverb are sounding really good, better than I thought they would.

I bought it used and it looks like new and sounds like new. And it's a mesa, if you can't depend on a mesa, the music industry is in trouble.

Doesn't apply

If god or satan were musicians, they'd be playing that amp. I could shit on my guitar and it would still sound amazing. So far all the setup I've tried were amazing. Usually I was trying to get one good sound. Now I'm asking myself if could find a bad sound with that amp

For all the features check the mesa boogie site, but this thing is great, with the channel clonning. The reverb on this amp is ok, but i dont really use it so it doesnt matter.

LOVE THE TONE!!!!!! THis amp sounds so great, you have to turn the volume up pretty loud to make the tone really come out and this thing does get loud. I play an Ibanez RG 7620 through this and it sounds great even when i tune down.

My amp has always been there for me, it has been working for me since day 1

i had a few questions about the amp when i first got it and mesa helped me out

i give this amp a 10 overall, if it were stolen i would track down the fucker and kill him. I bought this amp in August of 2001 from another guy who never even touched it. He said that this amp was the last tremoverb to come out of the factory, and its in mint condition and i would highly recommend this amp to anybody that can afford it. It sounds way better than the marshals of the same price