Amplitudes - Mesa Blog

Socialize With Us

Quick Overview

Overview

AN AMERICAN CLEAN CIRCUIT, ONLY A FOOTSWITCH AWAY FROM CLASSIC AND MODIFIED BRITISH SOUNDS

Royal Atlantic RA-100 Front Panel

Royal Atlantic RA-100 Rear Panel

The Royal Atlantic RA-100 wears an undeniable crown in the TransAtlantic fleet for delivering all this Tone with a big power gut-punch and three amazing Modes of footswitchable performance. Packing 100 watts of EL34 Brit-voiced attitude, this Atlantic takes everything you love about both Fullerton and Liverpool’s amplifier heritage and brings it all together with rich, chest-thumping high gain in the way only a MESA® can.

Dave Timnick & Sacha Dunable of Intronaut
Dave Timnick & Sacha Dunable of Intronaut shown delivering their heavy melodic and progressive rock at a recent show in San Francisco, CA. Both are using the Royal Atlantic RA-100 heads and 4x12 Rectifier Cabinets.

The Royal Atlantic RA-100’s two channels house the three distinctively different footswitchable modes. Each mode is dedicated to a region of musically-useful gain and is capable of truly iconic sounds. These are comprised of CLEAN, LO and HI and they cover the continents with soulfulness, conviction and authority…you need but plot the course and the Royal will take you there.

A DECIDEDLY AMERICAN CIRCUIT THAT CHIMES WITH BELL-LIKE CLARITY

Channel 1offers CLEAN, a decidedly American circuit, that chimes with bell-like clarity on the top and is filled out with bouncy, tight low-end that's warm and rich, but doesn't get tubby. CLEAN produces angelic rhythm chording sounds, but because of its tucked bass frequencies, also clips beautifully when used with its dedicated on-board Power Soak for either pushed bluesy rhythm or old-school overdriven solo sounds.

POWER TO PAY TRIBUTE TO BOTH CLASSIC AND MODIFIED BRITISH SOUNDS

Royal Atlantic Combo in Red Bronco with a Black Grille
Royal Atlantic Combo in Red Bronco with a Black Grille

Channel 2 pays tribute to both classic and modified British sounds, and though the two Modes in this Channel share Tone controls, they are adept at delivering amazing, no-compromise footswitchable performance. LO focuses on that touch-sensitive region of gain produced by classic Brit circuits and will have you knee-deep in hit-making sounds instantly.

The undeniable beauty of this gain region lies in the ability to dictate the sound based upon your picking technique, now further enhanced by the addition of Mutli-Soak™. Pick softly and LO will purr through stormy seas of Blue or, lay into it and deliver the classic Brit gut-punch…tight and thumping. LO has enough gain to crunch, yet retains the dynamics in the attack and is not too saturated.

HI covers the widest spectrum of gain in the RA100 and though its moniker suggests "over-the-top", some of its best attributes are to be found at settings in the low to middle regions of the evening watch. HI transforms from a sweet harbor for lower-gain, English-Blues bliss at the shallow end of the GAIN control, to an angry, raging tempest with fathoms of harmonics riding just below the surface as you taunt its furthest reaches.

WHATEVER AMOUNT OF POWER YOU NEED TO DELIVER YOUR PERSONAL FORM OF MAGIC, IN EVERY MODE, AT ANY VOLUME LEVEL YOU DESIRE

 Royal Atlantic Head in Blue & Hot White Bronco with a Gray & Black Grille.
Royal Atlantic Head in Blue & Hot White Bronco with a Gray & Black Grille.

INTRODUCING MULTI-SOAK™. At last you can have whatever amount of power amp drive you need to deliver your personal form of magic in every Mode at any volume level you desire. Let's say that again; now your Tone doesn't have to be directly tied to your volume. And one last time; you can dial-in the perfect amount of power-clip for every footswitchable sound in your amp. Okay, yeah the intro might be a little over the top...but damn... How long have we all struggled with that compromise? And though Power Soaks of many persuasions are nothing new...one that doesn't rob your Tone are much harder to find. The ability to have a Power Soak that gives you separate control of the power level and output for each Channel or Mode in your amp and also their different volumes in one built-in package...well you've just sailed off the edge of the map and into a New World of Power Expression.

LUSH ALL-TUBE REVERB DRENCHES THE RA100'S THREE MODES WITH A BEAUTIFUL 3-D HALO

The Royal's got Reverb. Lush all-tube Reverb drenches the RA100's three Modes with a beautiful 3-D halo and provides assignable choices on where to use it for the best footswitchable results. A 3-position Reverb MODE DEFEAT mini toggle in the REVERB section of the Rear Panel allows you to have the Reverb active in all Modes "ON" (toggle center), Defeated in HI (On in CLEAN and LO) or Defeated in LO and HI (On in CLEAN). The RA100 also provides a master REVERB BYPASS switch that enables you to remove the REVERB circuitry and all associated tubes from the signal path for a more true-to (at least Brit) vintage response. And if you still need more control than this sophisticated approach to applying REVERB offers, we've provided a "hidden Reverb kill" jack on the tube side of the chassis giving those who don't mind the dance, total control.

YOUR CHOICE, EL34s OR 6L6s

We've also included our handy BIAS SWITCH that allows you to swap the stock compliment of EL34s with the fatter, rounder sounding 6L6s; for those who want to lean heavily on American culture when it comes to crunch time (and even more so in CLEAN).

HARD BYPASSABLE EFFECTS LOOP

A transparent Series EFFECTS LOOP handles outboard signal processing aboard the RA100 and provides a seamless interface for units that don't want to be "in front of the preamp" such as Delay, Chorus, Flange and Pitch Shifting based effects. The Loop SEND is derived from a source at the end of the preamp and the RETURN is inserted back into the signal path near the input to the power section. The Loop is basically a patch point at the junction of preamp and power amp and this delivers the best signal to noise ratio and the least degradation of signal for most outboard devices. Well that's about it for a feature overview of the Royal Atlantic, now it's about taking her out for a cruise and seeing what the Royal will do in the wide open ocean of your creativity.

FORMATS AVAILABLE

Head (Width 26 ¾")
2x12 Combo (Width 26 ¾") • 12" Speakers

Videos

Ch. 1 CLEAN – Blues Rhythm

Ch. 1 CLEAN – Power Soak Clipped Clean

Ch. 2 HI MODE – Alt Rock Rhythm

Ch. 2 HI MODE – Drop D

Ch. 2 HI MODE – Pop Rock

Ch. 2 LO MODE – Classic Rock

Ch. 2 LO MODE – Pop Clean to Crunch

Official Demo Video

Reviews

  • "It has a brilliant clean channel that's so much less square sounding than the majority of 100-watt EL34 heads, plus the flexible, channel-assignable reverb. The dual-mode second channel offers two routes to superb classic-voiced rock tones with humbuckers and single-coils. Even better, it's blissfully simple to use. Finally, like all modern Boogies, the RA-100 is built to survive sustained, professional use.”


    Mick Taylor
    Music Radar

Available Formats