Final FORTIN MESHUGGAH Preorder

[Mailman1971]

You could add a depth circuit to the Fortin to get a bit more low end sag. It’s also 100% reversible... and since the amp is Point to point, it is super easy to do.

But then it would be an Atomica

Looking at the Atomica schematic, the two are 99.99% identical.

...and Metro built the Atomicas.

it's seems like George is missing out on a direct sale.marketing opportunity by not offering his own Jose build

That was my thought as well.
I do remember a few years back he put out a video showing an Amp
He designed and was selling. But never heard much more after that.

The Metro-Plex?

Might of been. It was a while back. In the vid it sounded good as he ran it thru the paces.

 

[Salos]

You could add a depth circuit to the Fortin to get a bit more low end sag. It’s also 100% reversible... and since the amp is Point to point, it is super easy to do.

But then it would be an Atomica

Looking at the Atomica schematic, the two are 99.99% identical.

...and Metro built the Atomicas.

it's seems like George is missing out on a direct sale.marketing opportunity by not offering his own Jose build

That was my thought as well.
I do remember a few years back he put out a video showing an Amp
He designed and was selling. But never heard much more after that.

The Metro-Plex?

Might of been. It was a while back. In the vid it sounded good as he ran it thru the paces.

I remember seeing a few Metro-Plex's pop up in the classifieds here and on CL, but haven't seen one in some time. There was the Super-Plex, but I don't think that was Jose style.

 

[Detroit1973]

isn't Metro the Company that just built a Signature Head for William Duvall the current singer of AIC.

 

[peterc52]

Metro dont have a José. I've had the metroplex, cool super lead type amp. But nothing heavy sounding or jose sounding. But he really should do one.

 

[WizardSouth-JP]

isn't Metro the Company that just built a Signature Head for William Duvall the current singer of AIC.

Indeed they do, listened to some clips George did comparing the DVL1 to the MetroPlex and the SuperPlex. I wound up ordering a SuperPlex based on Lance Keltner's demo - sounds juicy. Maybe Fortin is building it as I type...

 

[Sacrimon]

Is someone selling their Meshuggah amp in here? I'll buy it, cash in hand, even better if you have an original Fortin Natas, will buy that too.

The price on the Meshuggah isn't that horrible. personally, I passed on it, because it's basically a polished up Marshall and I'd rather have a Vintage JMP and would buy a Super Lead before that thing.

Mike had mentioned a few times builds being outsourced also, so I don't think it was a secret to anyone who has payed attention to the Fortin Army group.

 

[Mailman1971]

Is someone selling their Meshuggah amp in here? I'll buy it, cash in hand.

Yup. Check the classifieds.
Pstar is selling one brand new sealed in the box.

 

[VC4EverAgain]

I cant see how you can compare Fortin and Friedman. They are both gear companies and that's as far as it goes.

IMO Friedman is successful off his years of hard work and networking with some of the top dogs. Has anything you want in stock at any place you would go to while Fortin is successful off marketing schemes, extremely limited quantities and internet hype.

Both extremely talented individuals but I appreciate the way Friedman runs the business side of things.

Since the Fortins are so limited how could someone NOT think he was building them himself? I dont care either way but to trash musicians on a gear forum for thinking that is pretty much a dick move.

Fortin expanded his business model. Supply and demand. One man building amps can get messy. Time being the biggest factor. Which leads to angry customers.

 

[guitarslayer]

I haven’t bothered checking, but does Friedman or Bonger advertise anywhere on their websites that their products are proudly made by “Boutique Amps Distribition”?

 

[JerEvil]

So people have no problem paying more for a Friedman Amp that isn’t actually made by him but Fortin does the same thing and charges less and he’s now the bad guy.

Friedman amps are great btw.

No wonder Fortin left this forum years ago. Too many haters here.

Nobody's hating on Fortin. He builds great stuff. It's the fact that there's a certain expectation of transparency that didn't exist on the who, whats and wheres on who was actually doing the work. The price isn't unreasonable at all.

It's a known fact where the Bogners, Friedmans, and others are built, and never was a secret. This was blatantly kept under wraps, and some may even feel duped, to an extent. I think it's somewhat shady, personally. The hype, the blitzes, and marketing led many to believe that he was, in fact, building these in his own venue.

The same can be said for the Randall deal. We all knew they have an import line, but when first announced, we were all led to believe, (and this was highly touted as the gospel), that HIS designs, leading to the flagship Thrasher Series, was to be "built in North America", and handwired, only to see $1500 (now $1629 in some places for the 120), and $2500 for the 667, built in China. Now, that could solely be on Randall. I honestly don't see Randall in business much longer, and the long-anticipated Satan 50 watt (released only, what, a year ago?), is already discontinued, with ProAudioStar buying all they had and blowing them out for $799. I see Ola with a new Signature amp with Fortin on the front in the near future, and he's probably cut ties with Randall.

Yeah man I agree with you here to a certain degree. Dave makes no allusions to the fact that the amps are not all hand built by him. He does sit and test them. He signs them stating so and I have full confidence that when I bought both my BE and DS, he checked them personally. I have zero beef with Mike F having someone build the amps. If I really wanted the Meshuggah, I don't care where it was built as long as it was built right! It's not the amp for me so I could care less. It certainly would not hurt to clarify these are Fortin Amps that have been outsourced. There's nothing wrong with making sure the amps are all built consistently, the same way by the same team. This is how he chose to make production runs. Don't like it, don't buy it.

The debacle on the Chinese made stuff seems like what happened with the Invective as well. Was supposed to be made in the US for $1899. That was a lot of amp for the price especially for being made stateside. A good point was made though and should have been an eye opener on the Randall stuff. It makes absolutely NO financial sense to build amps in the US that do all the Invective does and try to sell for $1899. There's no money in it. It HAD to be sent to China. The Fortin name on a global scale is not enough to meet the demand it would have required to get those amps made in the US and it likely should never have been alluded to.

They should have just said, "Fortin designed and built by Randall in our factory to bring at an affordable price point". No one would have expected them to be made in the US. No Randall's are made in the US as far as I know.

 

[technomancer]

So people have no problem paying more for a Friedman Amp that isn’t actually made by him but Fortin does the same thing and charges less and he’s now the bad guy.

Friedman amps are great btw.

No wonder Fortin left this forum years ago. Too many haters here.

Nobody's hating on Fortin. He builds great stuff. It's the fact that there's a certain expectation of transparency that didn't exist on the who, whats and wheres on who was actually doing the work. The price isn't unreasonable at all.

It's a known fact where the Bogners, Friedmans, and others are built, and never was a secret. This was blatantly kept under wraps, and some may even feel duped, to an extent. I think it's somewhat shady, personally. The hype, the blitzes, and marketing led many to believe that he was, in fact, building these in his own venue.

The same can be said for the Randall deal. We all knew they have an import line, but when first announced, we were all led to believe, (and this was highly touted as the gospel), that HIS designs, leading to the flagship Thrasher Series, was to be "built in North America", and handwired, only to see $1500 (now $1629 in some places for the 120), and $2500 for the 667, built in China. Now, that could solely be on Randall. I honestly don't see Randall in business much longer, and the long-anticipated Satan 50 watt (released only, what, a year ago?), is already discontinued, with ProAudioStar buying all they had and blowing them out for $799. I see Ola with a new Signature amp with Fortin on the front in the near future, and he's probably cut ties with Randall.

Yeah man I agree with you here to a certain degree. Dave makes no allusions to the fact that the amps are not all hand built by him. He does sit and test them. He signs them stating so and I have full confidence that when I bought both my BE and DS, he checked them personally. I have zero beef with Mike F having someone build the amps. If I really wanted the Meshuggah, I don't care where it was built as long as it was built right! It's not the amp for me so I could care less. It certainly would not hurt to clarify these are Fortin Amps that have been outsourced. There's nothing wrong with making sure the amps are all built consistently, the same way by the same team. This is how he chose to make production runs. Don't like it, don't buy it.

The debacle on the Chinese made stuff seems like what happened with the Invective as well. Was supposed to be made in the US for $1899. That was a lot of amp for the price especially for being made stateside. A good point was made though and should have been an eye opener on the Randall stuff. It makes absolutely NO financial sense to build amps in the US that do all the Invective does and try to sell for $1899. There's no money in it. It HAD to be sent to China. The Fortin name on a global scale is not enough to meet the demand it would have required to get those amps made in the US and it likely should never have been alluded to.

They should have just said, "Fortin designed and built by Randall in our factory to bring at an affordable price point". No one would have expected them to be made in the US. No Randall's are made in the US as far as I know.

Randall never claimed the amps were being built in the US, and Mike talked repeatedly about going to China to supervise the production lines and verify components when they were being set up. There may have been idle speculation before things were released, but it was never stated or implied by anybody involved that the amps were going to be USA. Randall also completely mismanaged delivery of product but that is a different story lol

The issue with the Invective was that it was marketed as being made in the US, but from what I saw it never actually was. This included somebody on another forum I'm on who got one with a made in china sticker on it when they were still supposedly made in the USA. When he contacted Peavey they told him they forgot to swap the MIC for a USA sticker before shipping and sent him a USA sticker to put on it. There was also either a Peavey rep or Misha posting (forget which) claiming they were going to provide pics of the US production line that never materialized. That was followed by the "oh yeah these are made in China now" announcement. They were also, interestingly, listed as MIC on a euro dealer while Peavey was still saying they were US made. The EU has much stricter laws about listing country of origin of products... That whole debacle was just a complete mess.

 

[JerEvil]

So people have no problem paying more for a Friedman Amp that isn’t actually made by him but Fortin does the same thing and charges less and he’s now the bad guy.

Friedman amps are great btw.

No wonder Fortin left this forum years ago. Too many haters here.

Nobody's hating on Fortin. He builds great stuff. It's the fact that there's a certain expectation of transparency that didn't exist on the who, whats and wheres on who was actually doing the work. The price isn't unreasonable at all.

It's a known fact where the Bogners, Friedmans, and others are built, and never was a secret. This was blatantly kept under wraps, and some may even feel duped, to an extent. I think it's somewhat shady, personally. The hype, the blitzes, and marketing led many to believe that he was, in fact, building these in his own venue.

The same can be said for the Randall deal. We all knew they have an import line, but when first announced, we were all led to believe, (and this was highly touted as the gospel), that HIS designs, leading to the flagship Thrasher Series, was to be "built in North America", and handwired, only to see $1500 (now $1629 in some places for the 120), and $2500 for the 667, built in China. Now, that could solely be on Randall. I honestly don't see Randall in business much longer, and the long-anticipated Satan 50 watt (released only, what, a year ago?), is already discontinued, with ProAudioStar buying all they had and blowing them out for $799. I see Ola with a new Signature amp with Fortin on the front in the near future, and he's probably cut ties with Randall.

Yeah man I agree with you here to a certain degree. Dave makes no allusions to the fact that the amps are not all hand built by him. He does sit and test them. He signs them stating so and I have full confidence that when I bought both my BE and DS, he checked them personally. I have zero beef with Mike F having someone build the amps. If I really wanted the Meshuggah, I don't care where it was built as long as it was built right! It's not the amp for me so I could care less. It certainly would not hurt to clarify these are Fortin Amps that have been outsourced. There's nothing wrong with making sure the amps are all built consistently, the same way by the same team. This is how he chose to make production runs. Don't like it, don't buy it.

The debacle on the Chinese made stuff seems like what happened with the Invective as well. Was supposed to be made in the US for $1899. That was a lot of amp for the price especially for being made stateside. A good point was made though and should have been an eye opener on the Randall stuff. It makes absolutely NO financial sense to build amps in the US that do all the Invective does and try to sell for $1899. There's no money in it. It HAD to be sent to China. The Fortin name on a global scale is not enough to meet the demand it would have required to get those amps made in the US and it likely should never have been alluded to.

They should have just said, "Fortin designed and built by Randall in our factory to bring at an affordable price point". No one would have expected them to be made in the US. No Randall's are made in the US as far as I know.

Randall never claimed the amps were being built in the US, and Mike talked repeatedly about going to China to supervise the production lines and verify components when they were being set up. There may have been idle speculation before things were released, but it was never stated or implied by anybody involved that the amps were going to be USA. Randall also completely mismanaged delivery of product but that is a different story lol

The issue with the Invective was that it was marketed as being made in the US, but from what I saw it never actually was. This included somebody on another forum I'm on who got one with a made in china sticker on it when they were still supposedly made in the USA. When he contacted Peavey they told him they forgot to swap the MIC for a USA sticker before shipping and sent him a USA sticker to put on it. There was also either a Peavey rep or Misha posting (forget which) claiming they were going to provide pics of the US production line that never materialized. That was followed by the "oh yeah these are made in China now" announcement. They were also, interestingly, listed as MIC on a euro dealer while Peavey was still saying they were US made. The EU has much stricter laws about listing country of origin of products... That whole debacle was just a complete mess.

Yeah my comment about the Randall thing was based on what was posted here. I never followed that whole thing. The Invective thing I watched with more interest.

 

[technomancer]

So people have no problem paying more for a Friedman Amp that isn’t actually made by him but Fortin does the same thing and charges less and he’s now the bad guy.

Friedman amps are great btw.

No wonder Fortin left this forum years ago. Too many haters here.

Nobody's hating on Fortin. He builds great stuff. It's the fact that there's a certain expectation of transparency that didn't exist on the who, whats and wheres on who was actually doing the work. The price isn't unreasonable at all.

It's a known fact where the Bogners, Friedmans, and others are built, and never was a secret. This was blatantly kept under wraps, and some may even feel duped, to an extent. I think it's somewhat shady, personally. The hype, the blitzes, and marketing led many to believe that he was, in fact, building these in his own venue.

The same can be said for the Randall deal. We all knew they have an import line, but when first announced, we were all led to believe, (and this was highly touted as the gospel), that HIS designs, leading to the flagship Thrasher Series, was to be "built in North America", and handwired, only to see $1500 (now $1629 in some places for the 120), and $2500 for the 667, built in China. Now, that could solely be on Randall. I honestly don't see Randall in business much longer, and the long-anticipated Satan 50 watt (released only, what, a year ago?), is already discontinued, with ProAudioStar buying all they had and blowing them out for $799. I see Ola with a new Signature amp with Fortin on the front in the near future, and he's probably cut ties with Randall.

Yeah man I agree with you here to a certain degree. Dave makes no allusions to the fact that the amps are not all hand built by him. He does sit and test them. He signs them stating so and I have full confidence that when I bought both my BE and DS, he checked them personally. I have zero beef with Mike F having someone build the amps. If I really wanted the Meshuggah, I don't care where it was built as long as it was built right! It's not the amp for me so I could care less. It certainly would not hurt to clarify these are Fortin Amps that have been outsourced. There's nothing wrong with making sure the amps are all built consistently, the same way by the same team. This is how he chose to make production runs. Don't like it, don't buy it.

The debacle on the Chinese made stuff seems like what happened with the Invective as well. Was supposed to be made in the US for $1899. That was a lot of amp for the price especially for being made stateside. A good point was made though and should have been an eye opener on the Randall stuff. It makes absolutely NO financial sense to build amps in the US that do all the Invective does and try to sell for $1899. There's no money in it. It HAD to be sent to China. The Fortin name on a global scale is not enough to meet the demand it would have required to get those amps made in the US and it likely should never have been alluded to.

They should have just said, "Fortin designed and built by Randall in our factory to bring at an affordable price point". No one would have expected them to be made in the US. No Randall's are made in the US as far as I know.

Randall never claimed the amps were being built in the US, and Mike talked repeatedly about going to China to supervise the production lines and verify components when they were being set up. There may have been idle speculation before things were released, but it was never stated or implied by anybody involved that the amps were going to be USA. Randall also completely mismanaged delivery of product but that is a different story lol

The issue with the Invective was that it was marketed as being made in the US, but from what I saw it never actually was. This included somebody on another forum I'm on who got one with a made in china sticker on it when they were still supposedly made in the USA. When he contacted Peavey they told him they forgot to swap the MIC for a USA sticker before shipping and sent him a USA sticker to put on it. There was also either a Peavey rep or Misha posting (forget which) claiming they were going to provide pics of the US production line that never materialized. That was followed by the "oh yeah these are made in China now" announcement. They were also, interestingly, listed as MIC on a euro dealer while Peavey was still saying they were US made. The EU has much stricter laws about listing country of origin of products... That whole debacle was just a complete mess.

Yeah my comment about the Randall thing was based on what was posted here. I never followed that whole thing. The Invective thing I watched with more interest.

I was actually really interested in the Randall stuff, and had a Thrasher for a bit. Solid amp. I had no interest in the invective because I have an old 5150 here already... but am on a forum full of Misha fanboys

 

[JerEvil]

So people have no problem paying more for a Friedman Amp that isn’t actually made by him but Fortin does the same thing and charges less and he’s now the bad guy.

Friedman amps are great btw.

No wonder Fortin left this forum years ago. Too many haters here.

Nobody's hating on Fortin. He builds great stuff. It's the fact that there's a certain expectation of transparency that didn't exist on the who, whats and wheres on who was actually doing the work. The price isn't unreasonable at all.

It's a known fact where the Bogners, Friedmans, and others are built, and never was a secret. This was blatantly kept under wraps, and some may even feel duped, to an extent. I think it's somewhat shady, personally. The hype, the blitzes, and marketing led many to believe that he was, in fact, building these in his own venue.

The same can be said for the Randall deal. We all knew they have an import line, but when first announced, we were all led to believe, (and this was highly touted as the gospel), that HIS designs, leading to the flagship Thrasher Series, was to be "built in North America", and handwired, only to see $1500 (now $1629 in some places for the 120), and $2500 for the 667, built in China. Now, that could solely be on Randall. I honestly don't see Randall in business much longer, and the long-anticipated Satan 50 watt (released only, what, a year ago?), is already discontinued, with ProAudioStar buying all they had and blowing them out for $799. I see Ola with a new Signature amp with Fortin on the front in the near future, and he's probably cut ties with Randall.

Yeah man I agree with you here to a certain degree. Dave makes no allusions to the fact that the amps are not all hand built by him. He does sit and test them. He signs them stating so and I have full confidence that when I bought both my BE and DS, he checked them personally. I have zero beef with Mike F having someone build the amps. If I really wanted the Meshuggah, I don't care where it was built as long as it was built right! It's not the amp for me so I could care less. It certainly would not hurt to clarify these are Fortin Amps that have been outsourced. There's nothing wrong with making sure the amps are all built consistently, the same way by the same team. This is how he chose to make production runs. Don't like it, don't buy it.

The debacle on the Chinese made stuff seems like what happened with the Invective as well. Was supposed to be made in the US for $1899. That was a lot of amp for the price especially for being made stateside. A good point was made though and should have been an eye opener on the Randall stuff. It makes absolutely NO financial sense to build amps in the US that do all the Invective does and try to sell for $1899. There's no money in it. It HAD to be sent to China. The Fortin name on a global scale is not enough to meet the demand it would have required to get those amps made in the US and it likely should never have been alluded to.

They should have just said, "Fortin designed and built by Randall in our factory to bring at an affordable price point". No one would have expected them to be made in the US. No Randall's are made in the US as far as I know.

Randall never claimed the amps were being built in the US, and Mike talked repeatedly about going to China to supervise the production lines and verify components when they were being set up. There may have been idle speculation before things were released, but it was never stated or implied by anybody involved that the amps were going to be USA. Randall also completely mismanaged delivery of product but that is a different story lol

The issue with the Invective was that it was marketed as being made in the US, but from what I saw it never actually was. This included somebody on another forum I'm on who got one with a made in china sticker on it when they were still supposedly made in the USA. When he contacted Peavey they told him they forgot to swap the MIC for a USA sticker before shipping and sent him a USA sticker to put on it. There was also either a Peavey rep or Misha posting (forget which) claiming they were going to provide pics of the US production line that never materialized. That was followed by the "oh yeah these are made in China now" announcement. They were also, interestingly, listed as MIC on a euro dealer while Peavey was still saying they were US made. The EU has much stricter laws about listing country of origin of products... That whole debacle was just a complete mess.

Yeah my comment about the Randall thing was based on what was posted here. I never followed that whole thing. The Invective thing I watched with more interest.

I was actually really interested in the Randall stuff, and had a Thrasher for a bit. Solid amp. I had no interest in the invective because I have an old 5150 here already... but am on a forum full of Misha fanboys

Sounds dreadful! LOL! I was interested in the Invective as I have never pulled the trigger on any 5150 variant and it has some killer options.

 

[napalmdeath]

This is what was posted, initially...

"In April 2012, Randall Amplification introduced Mike Fortin as an exclusive design engineer for Randall Amplification. As the founder of Fortin Amplification, Inc. he has forged a worldwide reputation for creating cutting edge high gain amplifier designs. His first priorities will be a new multi-channel, 150 watt Kirk Hammett Signature Model Head and a whole range of high end, high gain all tube amplifiers to be manufactured in North America. The new Fortin designed series of Randall amplifiers will replace the discontinued MTS Series".

Nothing about China.

 

[scottosan]

North America could be a new province in China

 

[technomancer]

I apologize, I never saw that announcement, just followed Fortin on Facebook and watched as the products were announced. He had a ton of posts while going back and forth to China to set up production. I also never saw them post made in USA on the product pages or with actual stickers on the Chinese amps... I wonder if they were planning on building in Mexico initially and it didn't work out.

North America could be a new province in China

If you look at who owns the US national debt we pretty much ARE a new province of China

 

[DiezelMonster]

I was around pretty early, having met Mike in 2008, got my Hulk 800 in 2009 and then my Meathead in 2010. I don't live very far from Mike and saw him pretty regularly after the fact. When he was brought on by Randall, they told him they wanted to keep manufacturing in the USA, he was along for the ride at that point since he didn't dictate where they were being made, he was under the impression that was the way it was going to happen. I remember when he got the word it was not going to be built in the USA, he was pretty bummed out. He did retain some control of the components used on paper but then they even changed that. The amp business is a tough world. *

To give people an idea, I ordered my Meathead in 2008 and got it in 2010. Obviously that is a very challenging amp to build but for anyone freaking out about Mike not building the 2nd and 3rd batch of the Meshuggah amps, do you want it now or in a year? People are fickle, don't want to wait. At least it was made in the USA and not like what the fine folks at Peavey did. also Meeesha can go suck a lemon.

*Just my opinion. and none is fact and possibly clouded by time.

 

[Beyond Black]

I personally wouldn't give a fucking fuck if Mike built it or not. It's still entirely his design, Metropolis is one of the best in the business, I'd be saving $1667 dollars because it wasn't, and I wouldn't have to wait a year!... First world guitar player problems....

 

[napalmdeath]

I personally wouldn't give a fucking fuck if Mike built it or not. It's still entirely his design, Metropolis is one of the best in the business, I'd be saving $1667 dollars because it wasn't, and I wouldn't have to wait a year!... First world guitar player problems....

I find the price to be pretty reasonable, maybe a little high. I think it should be closer to $2500, but what do I know. If I dropped that kind of cash again, I'd probably go Bogner.

If I did buy the Fortin, the Meshuggah logo would have to go. I find it kinda stupid looking honestly. I'd rather have a Fortin nameplate on it.