Mesa/Boogie Formula Preamp

Basic but ok.
Since I was dissappoited with the amp, I didn't check out the recording output.

Fender Strat USA '86 with ESP active preampbuilt in, Seymour Duncan HotRail in bridgeposition.
Ibanez Custom Agent

I'm playing funk to metal.

Clean channel is superb. Rating 10
Lead 1 and Lead 2 sound a bit cheasy. Rating 5

If you are looking for higain distortion the formula pre does not do a good job.
It sounds more like a Marshall jcm 900.
Clean channel with a Hughes+kettner tubefactor (which is not even a higain pedal)
in front gives you much more distortion than the two Leadchannels.
There was a hum that came in when the Strings were stopped with the palm.

i don't own it. I only tested it for one hourbecause i could have gotten it cheap. 350$

i don't own it. I only tested it for one hourbecause i could have gotten it cheap. 350$

I was pretty dissappointed with the distortion channels.

I really dig mesa boogie.

Clean channel is fantastic. (I can tell, i have a Fender Twin reverb with JBL's.
To get heavy distortionsounds i play the Twin with a Marshall 1960b cabinet,
the JBL's are for clean sounds or slightly bluesdistortion with a unique custommade tube preamp only.)

A nice three channel rack-preamp only when modified with the "Andrew-mod" on the lead channels
Clean is fine, factory overdrive just doesn't cut it.
For the mod you need to go to the Boogie-board forum.
How and where? Read further!

Only good when modded.
Mesa Boogie did not take it out of production because it's so good!

Never broke down, but then again i don't own it anymore for portability reasons.

Mesa Boogie was always very helpfull!

Realy only any good with the "Andrew-mod"
For this mod you need to go here:

http://forum.grailtone.com/viewtopic.php?t=11262&highlight=formula+andy+andrew

Volume (L+R)
Presence (L+R)

Great clean reproduction, it does not have any gain, or verb or eq, it was not designed for that.

This is my backup amp, and I needed it in a backup situation in the studio, where it failed miserably.

Instead of blowing out the fuse it decide to burn the circuit board and the back of my rig filled with horrid smoke, this was about 10 seconds after connecting with a very light load.

Speakers on the other end were set for 8 Ohm and running in stereo, inputs were not hot at all.

Strat to a GP-100, to the 20/20 to a Marshall 1968 4x12 and the 20/20 bit the dust.

When I tell you I have used this thing collectively for less than 50 hours since owning it and it has only moved a few times (in a flight case with three other racks) it makes me very critical of every getting another piece of mesa gear.

I'll let you know when they open, I'm on the East Coast

Playing 20 years (when the hell did that happen!?!)
2 Custom Strats (Joe Bardens), SG, G+L ASAT (All Lefty)
Yamaha FG-420 LA, Takimini Santa Fe (Nashville tuning), Favilla Nylon
Marshall JCM 900 (Dual Verb with GT's), Marshall 1968 4x12, Roland GP-100, Crybaby, Dunlop Double Shot, Barcus Berry Violin Preamp (It's like stuffing a 20 oz. steak inside a 12 oz. chicken), DE-2000 (I think it has a 4 bit processor), Berringer FCB-1000(?) and the dreaded 20/20

I love the clean sound (it's what this amp was made for)
I hate the fact it died on me when I needed it.

Lost or stolen I would have said replace with same until last night, now it's replace with something else

I'm not trying to bad mouth mesa, I love the sound of their gear(big fan of GBV, Foo Fighters, etc.) but this was a real slap in the face.

all options available!! I've got 2 formula's one to work with and one at home for recording and backup.

I don't care howmany sounds you can make as long as I get MY own sound,and it does. but anyway best clean channel and M##F## dist.blue to hard to heavey GREAT sounds.although I noticed a little dist using the modern rec on the clean channel.(strange anyone??)
I use both with Lexicon G2's and live i run it to a strategy 500!
I don't understand the modifying of this unit neither the people who say that it's a bad sounding pre.Ive owned 2 quads and the old studio
this one is awesome!!!

it's MESA so what!!

I'm a pro and playing for 28 years owned the whole bulls####,vintage and new and on and on,now I'm back on boogie that say's enuff.I had the studio way back,two quads, matrix, abacus,triaxis etc etc this formula is a good hidden secret.... and thnx to all of you who discriminated this piece (use your ears for god sake)cause of you it's CHEAP these day's!!
(others who love this piece feel free to email and share your experiences to me)

Three footswitchable channels offer a good range of tweaking ability.
Effects loop never quite sounds right in my opinion.(Mesa recommends running in parallel and not using effects loop.) Grphic EQ makes for quick and easy final "dialing in" Has a high and low gain input switch for the recording outputs(Makes the low gain clean sounds record cleaner.) Third channel is limited as to the depth of control due to it sharing the treble, mid, and bass controls with channel two.

Channel one has some of the most amazing clean sounds I've ever heard! You can go from sparkle clean to slightly crunchy. I prefer playing heavily overdriven music but this thing makes me want to sit and play clean for hours! Channel two sounds like a Mesa should, great tone with lots of bottom end. Chanel three is a repeat of two with just a little more gain.
This pre amp works a lot like the Mark IV. Mesa did a great job at explaining the controls of the Mark IV but not such a good job with explaining the controls of the Formula.
RULE#1 THE TREBLE CONTROL DETERMINES THE AMOUNT OF GAIN THAT REACHES THE OUTPUT, so when young kids who are only familiar with tube modelers get a hold of a real piece of tube equipment, they run the bass all the way up, leave the treble nearly off, and then cry that it sounds like crap. The Formula likes high treble settings and not much more than mid to about two o-clock on the bass. You can dial in your lows with the graphic EQ. You can achieve the highest gain by leaving the bass control nearly out of the picture or at about nine o-clock and running the treble up high. (It's a Boogie it already has much more low end than most amps!) Turn the bass knob all the way up and you get a wet fart sound. I play through it with a Jackson DKMG with active pick ups, and a Gibson SG. Most of the time I play direct-in to a sound system with no amplifier and you can't tell that I am not running the whole rig.

No trouble since new.

I have only spoken to Mesa when I lost an EQ slider. They were very friendly and sent me a new one imediately.

I've been playing for 22 years. I have owned various pieces of processing equipment and combo amps Peavey, Crate, Mesa, Boss, Zoom, Roland etc. The Formula has been one of my favorite pieces of equipment. My overall rating is a 9 but only because of the seemingly useless effects loop.(It overpowers the pre-amp at almost any setting.) Putting the Formula first in the chain and running it in to the effects from the main outs and forgetting it even has an effects loop eliminates this problem. I think most users who complain about the Formula are former solid state users who are used to having their modelers cover up for them. Tubes don't lie. If your fingers are not in the right spot everyone will hear it and a harder attack on the strings will make a more aggressive sound. Most solid state users are accustomed to an over-processed sound that yields the same result no matter how they attack the strings. I know because I used to be one and the tube world took a while to get accustomed to. Remember don't turn that bass knob too far or you won't like the noise it makes!

Bought recently for home-studio set up,so far seems to be good, all as-was when made no idea of age, Would love to have details of the mod' some reviewers have done,tried to e-mail the am.deronde@quicknet.nl link but no joy. all returned, so if any one can help please do (i love to tinker with things and up-spec)

Would like more treble response on the clean ch. from 12'oclock on does nothing? also prescence would have been nice.mainly using custom-built fender/variaxe hybrid's, really brings out the distinction between the models.

Only had it a couple of weeks so cant say.

Never bothered them so far with any of their amps I have owned(4 in all)

Been around longer than M/Boogie have, owned and sold most of the stuff that I can,t afford to buy back now , I cant see me gigging this as I need a midi-capable unit to interface with my p/board so I have also bought a JMP-1 for this job, and will use it for noodling on at home.

I bought my Formula Preamp second hand. Age unknown - I assume around 8 years old. All tube preamp with 3 channels (rythm, lead 1, lead 2 + extra equalizer unit). One unit space only. Effect loop signal can be set from 10 to 100% (knob located on the back panel). Everything you need to record. Footswitch jack on the front panel. I miss a headphone jack and therefor rate features with 9.

I play a Gibson Les Paul classic through the Formula Preamp + Rocktron Intellifex + Mesa Boogie Power Amp 20:20. This all is mounted in a 3 unit rack. Cabinet is a Hughes&Kettner 4x12 stereo.

I play Jazz, Jazz Rock and some Hardrock as well. When I got the preamp a couple of weeks ago I was not able to get one good sound out of it. I found a funny collection of different tubes in it, went to my local mesa dealer and spent some money on a complete set of mesa tubes. I also read the manual again and again. After spending one weekend on trying different settings I got it. Since that every time I switch on my amp I hardly can't stop playing guitar.

Clean sound is the best one I ever heard. Crunch sounds are a little bit difficult to dial in. The lead sounds you can create with this preamp are just phantastic! No noise at all. No need for a tube screamer or things like this. Also no need for any modification. As already mentioned before: read the manual. It takes some time to become familiar with this preamp. But once you figured out how to dial in different sounds you can pull almost any tone out of this amp! It's the best preamp I ever had. The sounds are just perfect: 10.

Bought the preamp around 2 months ago, so I can't rate reliability. But it's really built like a tank.

Until now there was no need to contact them.

Many years ago I played Marshall and Fender combos. I had a couple of preamp/poweramp combinations over the last years. I love to have a very small rack for recording, playing at home and also playing small gigs. With the Formula Preamp, the 20:20 Poweramp and the Intellifex I have everything I need in a 3 unit self made head.

The only thing I miss is a headphone jack but, compared to the sounds you get out of the Fromula Preamp, this is nothing. I will try to get a second one just as a backup. If you are more in those digital modeling things or if you just want to dial in prepared standard styles quickly you won't be happy with this preamp. But if you want to hear YOUR guitar and YOUR style all I can say: try to get one!

The coolest sounding pre I"ve owned - and I've owned a lot of them.

The gain channels DO NOT sound like JCM-era Marshall stuff, nor do they sound like overy fizzy Boogie MK stuff. They're pretty unique; I've not done this mod everyone is talking about, but I don't want to.

BECAUSE....

Unlike the bozo that complains about it being the "worst product Boogie has made", I LISTENED TO IT BEFORE I BOUGHT IT. Bozo...

fusion/technical blues

Very detailed gain sounds, versatile eq, intelligent layout, great clean tones. No midi, but it doesn't save presets anyhow - and you can get negative>ground switches that are midiable if you look around..

This is an early 2000 model which i bought for ?400 used about a year ago. as mentioned in previous reviews it has 3 channels labelled clean (with push/pull boost on gain pot), lead1 and lead2. it also has a switchable 5 band graphic eq. bass mid and treb are shared between the two lead channels. Around the back you have the main outputs + a pair of special recording outputs. also a stereo effects loop. no midi capabilities however the unit is controlled via the 4 button switch board supplied which allows you to choose channel or switch the graphic in or out (a very versatile option). It is driven by 5 el34 tubes. all in all a very versatile quality sounding amp which only uses 1 unit of rack space. lack of midi is all that prevents it getting a 10 in this category.

I use a modified fender stratocaster based guitar in a range of covers bands and the guitar and amp work together beautifully. it can go from sparkling clean (with the neck p/up) to a very saturated distortion (with seymore duncan hotrails humbucker at bridge p/up) at the change of channell. my rig consists of the strat which goes thru a crybaby wah, a boss ce5 chorus and a boss bd2 overdrive pedal straight into the formula. this in turn goes in stereo into a marshall 20x20w valve power amp and on into a Marshall 1936 2x12 stereo cabinet. over the years i have found that placing a delay pedal in the effects loop gets the best results. when the lead 2 channel is used in conjunction with the overdrive and the duncan p/up it is possible to get very saturated lead tones similar to those used by gary moore or santana. without the overdrive pedal and using a neck single coil you can get a very smooth violin type overdrive that doesn't mask the natural tone of your guitar. the lead 1 channell i generally use for my crunch tones but makes a very nice blues tone also. the rythm channel is very clean but using the boost option on the gain pot can give a very gritty blues tone. i generally leave the graphic at a little over neutral right across the board with the mids boosted a tad extra and i find this to be a very versatile setting marginally colouring the tone when switched in. the recording circuit is very useable however personally i would use my live set up and mic up in a studio as this i feel is the best tone you can get from the boogie. overall an amazing sound piece of kit with minimum noise. for tones that range from dire straits at its cleanest thru stevie ray and santana this amp is the way to go. however for higher gain tones you would need to invest in a good overdrive/distortion pedal..i use the blues driver and am very happy with it...another option would be a tubescreamer

this is one of the most reliable amps i have ever owned. i would have no hesitation in using it without backup. as there is no power amp circuitry the valves are very long lasting. following an incident with someone who forgot to use the power converter i got with it, it got blasted with 230V of power instead of the 110V the american circuitry is designed for. lets just say the fuse works......i replaced it over 4mths ago and it hasn't let a wimper since! a very reliable piece of kit....once you keep it away from people who don't know what they're at!

Never had any dealings with the company so can't comment in this round...heard they're helpful tho

i've been playing in covers bands for years playing everything from dire straits to metallica. i have used a whole manner of preamps including the line6 pod and the tech21 sans amp and while they were good this preamp is in a world of its own. combined with the rest of my rig it covers just about every tone i could imagine. there is nothing i dont like about this amp...if it were stolen i'd definately buy a new one...midi doesn't bother me due to my analog effects but it would be useful for someone with a rack mounted effects unit. however this is only a very small oversight on an otherwise amazing unit

The Mesa/Boogie Formula Preamp is 1 space rack mounted. I don't know the year - but it is probably a year 2000. I bought it used at Ebay for $475.

The pre has 3 channels;
1 clean. (with a high gain boost switch)
2 distortion channels.
The unit can be run in normal mode (ie., run into a power amp) or in recording mode (for recording - there are two 1/4" outputs for this...)
A switch at the front allows you to choose high-gain (for normal operation) or low-gain (for direct recording outs.)

There is a foot switch that runs into the unit via 5 pin standard Midi cable. The foot switch allows you to change channels and add or remove a 5 band EQ.

I typically leave the EQ on in the "classic V" shape.

I have also replaced the tubes (five 12ax7's) with Groove Tube 12ax7r's (The r means they are Russian made). This is definitelly recommended. DO NOT run those cheap Russian tubes (GT's are not cheapo's!) The clean channel will be okay - but the distortion paths will sound yucky...

This is all in a 1 Unit space - which is a great deal if you have to haul your own gear.

The clean channel is fabulous... It is sweet, and very very warm.
I typically leave this channel clean - but can run it with a more gain enhanced sound.

I usually leave the 1st distortion channel 'overdriven'... So it isn't real 'grindy.'

I have the second channel gain-saturated. This is a great fuzzy sounding tube distortion. Nice articulation... Very sweet and warm.

As I mentioned, I typically leave the EQ on all the time...

I had to replace the power transformer once. What a pain. $150 at a local Columbus, Ohio shop (which is one of the best anywhere, btw.)

I also had them Silicone down any peices that may break if left unprotected. This may or may not be worth the trouble.

It was a pain in the ass.

But - worth it!

Mesa is an excellent company. They have returned all of my phone calls. The technicians also know a lot about their products.

I have been playing 15 years. I play a PRS Custom 22. It's about 12 years old.
The Mesa pre is one of the first things in my rack. I'm running a Digitech 2120 with the effects loop. These peices then get pushed out (via balanced XLR) into a T.C. Electronics M-One XL. Then the M-One goes out to a Mesa 20/20. This powers a Hughes and Kettner 4 x 12" cabinet. I also have a guitar synth that controls Gigastudio in a rack-mounted computer (to do cello sounds and special effects) and Yamaha S90 keyboard. This all goes out to a pair of substantial Mackie Active's. Everything is wired via monster cables, or MLAN and stays digital...

All in all this setup sounds fantastic. There is NO ONE who I have ever heard who has a better sounding setup. I can do anything with it - and it sounds gorgeous. The Mesa is a good part of this...

I am a big fan of pro-end gear. Don't waste your money on commercial grade crap.