Mesa/Boogie has launched a limited edition run of its iconic Mark IIC++ tube amp head, offering the super-rare modded Simul-Class amp as a production model for the first time. But you had best be quick; they’re only making 200 of them.
The Mark IIC++ is the stuff of legend. What would become the most legendary metal guitar amp of all time started with a request from Vivian Campbell. The story goes back to 1985, Campbell was playing with Dio, and he wanted a bit more gain from his amp.
He asked Mesa/Boogie what they could do to his IIC+, and Mesa’s Mike Bendinelli had some thoughts. Bendinelli got to work, engineering the “Metal Mod” that offered more gain, a tighter low-end response, and would become immortalised as the IIC++. That extra plus sign did a lot of heavy lifting. Its would pack more gain and have a tighter low-end response.
Metallica would be later request the mod. The Mark IIC++, along with EMG active electric guitar pickups, helped shape metal tone in the ‘80s, ushering in a new era of high-gain electric guitar sounds.
You can get the Mark IIC++ sound in a guitar plugin – read more about Neural DSP's digital take on the IIC++ here – but until now, you’d need to be exceptionally lucky to find one of the original modded heads. And even then, you're not buying it new with five years warranty to cover it.
In an interview with the Gibson Gazette, Doug West, Tone Lab director of Gibson and Mesa/Boogie, spoke of his excitement at this amp finally getting an official release.
“Over time, this mod, which was never an official model, logged a healthy list of A-level artist recordings,” says West. “This kept our Chief Tech and IIC+ guru, Mike Bendinelli, busy for decades doing the mod for customers who’d heard of its legendary aggression for metal styles and sent their used IIC+s to him for an update.”
The IIC++ is aesthetically identical to the IIC+. This was, after all, only every supposed to be a mod, an off-menu special for Mesa artists. On this reissue, you’ve got a badge on the grille clothe to let you know the difference.
But otherwise it is the same as the IIC+ that was officially reissued in December 2024 as a head and 1x12 combo, and is super configurable. There is footswitchable 5-band graphic EQ, reverb. There is an exceptional level of control over your gain.
Indeed, that’s where the action is. The IIC++ plus mode only affects the cascading high-gain of the Lead channel. The cleans are unaffected. You can run the amp in at a full 75-watts (Simul-Class) or at 25-watts Class A. It’ll put some meat on your riffs.
When Metallica released Hardwired… To Self Destruct, James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett told MusicRadar of how important the Mark IIC++ was in the evolution of their sound, specifically the one Hetfield called his Crunch Berries amp, which entered the picture in time for Master Of Puppets and the all-important tour supporting Ozzy Osbourne.
“For me it’s got to be percussive. It’s got to push air, what we call bark,” said Hetfield. “It’s got to bark. But I don’t want it really abrasive, so any fake fuzz to me really just takes away from the sound… The Crunch Berries amp that we’ve used, I think, since Ride The Lightning on or at least Master Of Puppets for sure. That Mesa/Boogie C++ [Simul-Class] is a very integral part of the sound still.”
“They made very few of those Boogies and we happened to get a few,” added Hammett. “ And those amps, along with EMG pickups were defining our sound. They enabled us to get the sound that we needed to get across. If it wasn’t for those Mesa/Boogie amps and EMG pickups, I don’t know how much further we would have got with just Marshalls.”
That extra gain came along at just the right time for Metallica. The thrash metal arms race was heating up. Hetfield and Hammett needed the firepower.
“With the Boogies it was something different. Those Simul-Classes had three gain stages and a parametric EQ built in,” said Hammett. “The great thing about that amp is how they cascaded the gain stages, there’s a particular order that you could run the gain stages to get a certain sound. And that’s what we liked about them.”
The Mark IIC++ is available now, limited to 200 units worldwide, and is priced £3,899, US price TBC. See Mesa/Boogie for more details.
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