Berrier Audio Works

Berrier Audio Works Berrier Audio Works is a full service repair and mod shop for guitar and bass amps. DM for a repair quote or to make an appointment!
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At Berrier AudioWorks, we strive to provide the best possible recording for your hard earned dollar. As musicians ourselves, we understand the reward of having your musical vision come to life. It is our goal to capture your best performances and sounds, and get them all to fit together just like it does in your head (maybe even better). Our hope is that the recording process will fade into the ba

ckground, so you can concentrate on giving the performance your project deserves. Besides full production, we also offer tracking and reamping services. We are fully equipped to help out DIY bands that just need somewhere to track drums and reamp guitars with quality mics, preamps, and converters. Our studio is comfortable and spacious, but retains an intimate studio vibe. We have three tracking rooms including a drum room, a diamond shaped live room and a spacious vocal booth. All rooms are visible from the control room through double paned glass and are acoustically isolated from each other. We also have a lounge area for the musicians and offer free WiFi. Contact us today so that we can help you make your mark on the music industry and create your legacy for generations to come to hear! Gear that we use:

Mics:
Audio Technica 4050
Audio Technica 4047
Audio Technica 4040 x2
Audio Technica 4033
Audio Technica AT2010 x3
Electro Voice RE320
Sennheiser MD421 x2
Sennheiser E604
Shure Beta 58A x2
Shure Beta 57A
Shure SM57 x2
Shure Beta 52A x2
Audix D6
AKG D112

Hardware:
Mac Pro
Presonus StudioLive 32.4.2 AI Console
Presonus Eureka Modded x2
Avid Eleven Rack
Alesis DM5 and Swiss made Ddrum Triggers
Presonus HP60 (6 Independent headphone mixes while tracking)
Yamaha HS80M Monitors
Yamaha HS50M Monitors

Software:
Logic Pro X
Presonus Studio One 2.6 Pro
Waves Horizon
Many other plugins

Amps:
Mesa Mark V Head
Mesa Dual Rec Roadster Head
Mesa Stiletto Deuce Head
Peavey Classic 50 Head
EVH 5150 III 50w Head
Peavey 5150 Block Letter head
Ampeg 1959 R12 Rocket combo
Mesa Bass 400+ Head

Cabs:
Mesa Standard (OS) 412 x2
Mesa Traditional 412
Mesa Rectifier 212
Mesa Widebody Open 112
Mesa Roadster 112
Marshall 1960BV 412
Peavey 410E
Mesa 1516 Bass
Ampeg 1540 Bass

Drums:
Crush E3 Sublime Maple 4pc
Gretch Catalina Birch 4pc

Snares:
Ludwig Black Magic 14x8
Ddrum Ash 14x6.5
Crush E3 Maple 14x6
Legend Maple 13x7

08/04/2026

1978 Fender Super Twin Reverb - Full service of one of Fender’s most powerful guitar amps!

07/21/2026

1991 Mesa Boogie 400+

The amp came in with a failed EQ switch. It was failing open, so it was cutting out the entire signal path. Sourcing a new switch, turned out to be a challenge, and I had to settle for a three position switch with the correct mounting pattern. That being said the replacement switch that I used is still being manufactured so I’m going to stock up on them because this form factor is getting harder and harder to find. The only caveat to this particular switch is the middle position is basically a mute function now.

While the EQ board was out, I went ahead and did a recap and full service to the card.

That includes new filter caps on the power supply, a new coupling cap for the output of the EQ stage, and a thorough cleaning and lubrication of the faders. On this particular model, the faders tend to get really nasty because there is air circulating in the top of the amp that is completely unfiltered.

After a complete refurbishing, the EQ works properly again!

07/18/2026

1999 Mesa Triple Rec - this amp came in for it’s 100,000 mile service interval. The amp was working fine, but upon closer inspection, I did find a cap that was not filtering properly in one of the preamp nodes. Good thing we had already planned for a full recap of this amp.

I see quite a few amp techs out there, not remove the board when doing a recap, and just skipping over the low-voltage supply. In my opinion, this is not considered a recap. I do understand that the low-voltage caps are under much less stress, but they are the same age as all the other caps in the amp. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Lift that board and take those radios out and put some fresh electrolytes throughout the amp.

While I’m in there, I change out the phase inverter coupling caps because they are underrated for the voltages that can be present during warm-up. If everything is working right in the amp, they are not a problem, but if something happens in the phase inverter is not conducting then these caps can see well over their rated voltage. The easy way to safeguard against this is to put 600 V caps back in their place.

After the service, I make sure to clean all of the flux off of the bottom side of the circuit board (flux is not conductive, but it does absorb moisture which can become conductive).

Clean the pots, clean the jacks, clean the chassis.

This amp is now in better condition than when it left the Mesa boogie factory in 1999.

07/06/2026

Tyler 2020 - This amp came in after being on a brutal tour with some serious mechanical issues. First and foremost, the output transformer had broken from its hardware and was rattling around in the back of the cabinet. To keep from the tubes getting smashed up, the customer cut the transformer out by the leads.

Upon further inspection of the amp, at some point in its life, it had been serviced at the hands of a very hurried repair tech. Sloppy wiring, leads, touching on the tone caps, missing grid, leaks on the input jacks, hot glue on the board (that had melted into the tube socket), and overall questionable component selection.

I’m normally not this heavy-handed with a repair, but I saw no other way to get this amp up to my standards. The board came out and was completely rewired with high-quality components. The gummed up tube socket was replaced and grid stoppers and screen grid resistors were added (this is not traditional for a 5E3 but it definitely helps control blocking distortion and lengthen’s tube life). Last but not least, a Lenco paper layer USA made output transformer was fitted to replace the broken Classic Tone.

To top it off, as per customer request, a negative feedback mod was added to clean the power amp up for use with pedals and to add more headroom.

After all was said and done, this little amp sounds like a million bucks and is virtually Hum-free thanks to the new grounding scheme.

07/02/2026

Peavey 5150 II - This one came in with the customer, complaining about it, making a lot of noise until he wiggled the preamp tubes. That could be a number of things and it turned out to be a number of things.

First off, this is the time period Peavey started having problems with their ribbon cables, especially in the high current parts of the circuit. According to John Fields, they had issues with dissimilar plating between the connectors and the pins themselves. This would cause corrosion and lead to resistance, especially in high current portions of the circuit.

First course of action in this amp was to remove all the boards and inspect all the solder joints. The customer authorized a full service, which includes a full recap of all the electrolytics, updated screen resistors, and a thorough cleaning. The customer also wanted my gain mod on the lead channel (modded to OG 5150 specs).

There weren’t any solder joints that were jumping out at me, but all of the critical components got a reflow just for good measure.

The next thing to do in this amp is to hardwire the heater connection between the tube board and the main board. I generally remove the pins from both boards and run 18 gauge solid core wire between them.

After recapping all three boards, I turned my attention to re-tensioning the ribbon connectors.

After reassembly and firing it up, it sounded monstrous, but there was still some noise that needed to be tracked down.

I found two older JJ tubes that had gone noisy. Once they were replaced and the amp was biased, this thing sounded better than new!

06/11/2026

Mesa Boogie Mark IV Rev A/B !!!

This amp came in for a complete service. It’s from 1992 so that’s going to include electrolytic caps, carbon comp resistors, LDR inspection, and a general cleaning.

While doing the service I found a bad treble pot and a non-functioning LDR.

The interesting bit about this amp is that it is a transition amp. The main board looks like a rev B, but the outside and the control compliment looks like a rev A. Another clue is the reverb transformer was connected backwards from the factory. I assume this is because the old transformer (rev a) is wound differently than the newer ones (rev b). There were also unpopulated sections on this board that I haven’t seen in other rev b amps. Truly a unique Mark IV!

06/02/2026

Marshall JCM 2000 Reborn!

This JCM 2000 DSL50 had been sitting in a rehearsal room after being put away because the circuit board had gone conductive and it was eating power tubes.

If you’ve ever owned one of these amps you know the reputation. The circuit board goes conductive over time because of heat cycling and carbonizing. Generally, a little conductivity doesn’t cause too many problems. In the case of the JCM 2000, it causes big problems because of how close the high voltage traces are to the grid pins of the power tube. The voltage leaks onto the grids and causes the bias to run away (destroying the power tubes in the process).

If the board isn’t entirely cooked, modifications can be made to get the HV off of the grid pins. Just doing this generally stabilizes the amp.

In the case of this one, we also did some circuit tweaks to make the gain more usable and make the amp feel less stiff.

This one came out great. I love putting these amps back on the road!

05/30/2026

1992 Mesa Dual Rec REV D!!

This amp came in after going down over 10 years ago with an arcing power tube. Because the amp had sat for so long it had some problems that needed to be dealt with.

Upon initial inspection, a previous tech had replaced a blown MOV bud didn’t clean up the mess it left behind. Carbon is conductive so the power board got removed and cleaned up.

The filter caps dated back to 1990 so they were long overdue for a change. These blue atom caps are notorious for drying out after long periods of dormancy. Also the low voltage supply caps get worked pretty hard in these amps so they had to go too. The board is out, so let’s hit the bias supply too.

Next, all the carbon comp resistors on the boards and the screen supply get replaced with metal film or metal oxide low tolerance parts for stability.

Lastly, all the boards, controls, and connectors get a thorough cleaning and final inspection.

After a new set of tubes and burning in, this is one of the best sounding Dual Recs I’ve ever played. This revision has a lot in common with the famed REV C (including the turd of a clean channel), and it IS the sound you hear in your head when you think Dual Rectifier.

05/23/2026

1967 Fender Super Reverb! There is a story behind every vintage amp. This one came to my customer after a GC purchased 70’s Pro-Reverb went up in smoke on a gig. GC made it right and traded him even for this beautiful 67 Super. His request was to make this a reliable gigging amp.

Upon initial inspection it was obvious several techs had already been inside this amp. The power supply recap was done well and recently so that was left alone. There were several patch up repairs that had been done over the years that needed to be done properly. The tremolo circuit was hacked together and ticking badly. Also, almost all of the original carbon comp resistors had drifted well outside of their tolerance range. On top of that, there was dc present on the eyelet board around a few of the coupling and tone caps causing scratchy pots.

We decided to depopulate the board, soak and clean it with IPA and replace all the old work and carbon comp resistors with high quality metal film resistors for lower noise. All of the blue molded caps that were left went back on the board(they were still good), and any missing ones were replaced with Panasonics. We also updated the tremolo circuit to slow it down. With a new LDR and lead dress, the ticking disappeared.

I also did my standard rectifier protection, grid stopper update, and screen resistor upgrade. Most of these changes are sonically invisible, but make a big difference in the playability and tube longevity.

All in all, this is one of the best examples of an AB763 Super Reverb that I have ever heard!

05/14/2026

Carvin 1984 X-100B

This amp came in with no output after sitting in a barn for a decade. Upon further inspection the first dropper in the power supply was blown open and the filter caps were starting to bulge.

Given its age we decided to do a full service that included all new electrolytic caps, new power supply node resistors (where necessary), and a couple of new output tubes (2 had red-plated in the past).

Along with this all the pots, jacks, and switches got a thorough cleaning and this amp rips! The clean channel is pristine, and the dirt has a very vocal singing sustain.

Address

490 Guy Rd
Johnston County, NC
27520

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