Mesa Boogie Mark I - Normal preset

Verified · 82/100 confidence. Complete schematic. All component values readable. Parameters derived directly from the circuit.

The original Boogie emerged when Randall Smith modified a small Fender Princeton for a friend, adding cascading preamp gain stages that the Princeton's stock circuit had never imagined — and inadvertently invented the topology that every high-gain amplifier since has borrowed from. The Normal channel represents the cleaner face of this founding circuit: warm, full-bodied, and capable of natural breakup that retains clarity well into overdrive. Carlos Santana received one of the first prototypes and became an immediate evangelist, and the amp's mix of American warmth with an unusually articulate, compressed sustain made it immediately distinct from anything Fender or Marshall was building. Every Mark series, every Dual Rectifier, and most of a generation of boutique amps trace their lineage directly back to this schematic.

Known for: Carlos Santana, Keith Richards, Jerry Garcia, Lowell George.

Heard on: Oye Como Va — Carlos Santana (1970); Black Magic Woman — Santana (1970).

Tags: american, vintage, crunch.

Schematic-derived preset files for 16 Fractal and Line 6 modelers: Axe-Fx II/XL/XL+, Axe-Fx III, FM3, FM9, and the full Helix family (Floor, LT, Rack, HX Stomp, HX Stomp XL, Native).

Gridleak extracts amp parameters from original circuit schematics using AI vision — component values, gain staging, tone stack topology, tube types — then generates native preset files for every supported modeler. Every extraction is scored 0–100 and the score is published.