Dave Friedman's 68 super bass : The secret Van Halen specs ?

[pat_rocks]

Steve Lynch(great player) the guitar player from the band Autograph used a Jose modded Marshall on “Please Sign in “ album if you listen to Turn Up The Radio Steve Lynch’s sound has the Eddie sound, I had a chance to speak to Steve Lynch sometime ago and explained to me the gear/ amp he used the pickup he used was a Seymour Duncan SH-5 custom( ceramic magnet), Steve also liked EMG pickups

definitely some van halen mojo on the altec ? what do you think ?

this coupled with a greenback should be interesting

 

[Steve Smith]

Hello,

i just began to watch some tone talk épisodes and in this one :



Dave Friedman puts his number one amp as his own 68 plexi which then John Suhr tells

"the one i modded with the van halen cap ?"

So it turns out that friedman replies ah in this one it's me that have done it. You've done it on other of my amps.

Then i remember that John Fryette posted a video about rebiasing friedman's 68 plexi. This video confirms that this one was the amp and guess what ? Here is what Fryette tells us about how dave friedman plays this amp :

"HE USES A VARIAC WHEN HE IS GOOFING AROUND WITH IT"



Here is how it supposedely sounds with the variac on :




so it is a 50w 68 super bass modded into a super lead and played with a variac isn't there something fishy ? plus he says thats the only amp he would never sell.

We know for sure that John Suhr, Dave Friedman and soldano got to see the real van halen head and they all said it is STOCK what does it mean ? that the red dye applied to solder was mostly intact. but that DOESN'T MEAN that it follows the classical 1959 schematic.

During late 1967 and 68 Marshall was in a transition period and they had tons of supply shortage. Add to this that they were experimenting. So what's the big deal ? Many times you'll find extermely out of place and random components in those era marshalls and defining a stock variant is almost impossible cause most 67-68 heads will sound different.

So if dave plays his amp with a variac and it is a 68 plexi i mean this all seems to point out that he is a van halen fan and he like this exclusive tone. This could mean that he would probably reconfigure his super bass to a 68 super lead based on the van halen plexi. Fryette tells us that this amp has been totally reconfigured in the video.

here is a quote of him :

“I mean, I make amps that have a lot of gain too, but that’s not necessarily where my head’s at. I do it for the people that want more. I mean, to me, the quintessential amp is an old Plexi Super Lead circuit with a Variac, on 10. That’s where my head is, which is quite gainy if it’s set up right, but old-school gainy. You know, more the Van Halen school of Plexi, shall we say."

So here are the weird specs of this amp which friedman rebuilt.

- First of all there is a huge argument coming in favor of the fact that this is indeed an amp which has been to try to replicate values from another amp.

- There are 5 bands resistors on this amp for example there are extremely weird values like a 10.4k resistor where a 100k should be. Putting a 10.4k resistor instead of a 4 band 10k resistor tells us that the one putting this 10.4k resistor is looking at extremely precise values. Usually 4 band resistors have enough accuracy to build an amp it is rare to find 5 band resistors on a plexi because usually you don't need killer accuracy for the components.

here are the exceptionnal weird values :

View attachment 126838
Dont take this board for référence i only put the Big changes compared to a regular 68sl
i forgot to change the 56k tone stack res to a 33k
The 0.022 from the 10.4 is a 0.0022

in the video you can clearly see a

- Correction : 5 band 10.4k ohm following the 820ohm 500pf instead of 100k
- a 5 band 10.4k res instead of 100k going to the Bright channel

View attachment 126851
View attachment 126860

Correction this seems to be a 10.4k resistor too.

The first electrolytic cap on v1 is 320-330uf but the second is unknown but i think it is a 250uf.

You can even see a capacitor along the dual 32uf which seems to be a mica cap 291b instead of a regular 10k 2watt resistor...

this thing has some crazy off the charts values and components.

Dave friedman gave us those specs for the VH amp components :

Post by RACKSYSTEMS » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:40 pm

Split cathode V1a 250uF/820,V1b .68/820
All coupling caps are 0.022uF,Bright channel coupling cap is 0.0022uF

470k mixer resistors
500pf [red out of 69 amp] mixer bypass cap
Bypass cap on V2a is .68uF and a 220uf to 470uf
33k/560pF lemco tone stack combo
100k NFB resistor at 4 ohm tap
220k bias splitter resistors
0.1 uF cap on presence control
.022uf output couplers

filtering is
2] 100uf's f&t in series mains
2] 32uf's f&t in series screens
1]100uf lcr phase inverter
1] dual 33 x 33 f&t preamp

which don't seem to be the same as in his own personnal 68 preamp section.

I'm not saying That Dave and suhr lied to us but there may be many possibilities :

- Dave modded this particular 50w amp to sound like a 100w van halen plexi. He and suhr gave us the real complete values.

- Dave copied his preamp section from the VH original Head

in this case perhaps every people to have seen Van halen amp actually signed a paper prohibiting them to tell us what's inside this amp and to copycat the exact same values for amp building and selling. However perhaps that suhr came close to the same sound with his own sl68 preamps specs and that's what Dave Gave us. (The specs dave gave us were almost the same as the suhr sl68). Because it was close enough they gave us those specs for us to stop asking them.

- Dave gave his own shot at how to make a 50w hot rod plexi taking from van halen values mixing with his own.

- They told the truth but didn’t leak every comp value off the charts.

I Guess we will never know but those 68 weird values seem be worth to be tested.

What's your thoughts about this ?

we see almost everything in the video we just lack some components values to have the main components : the cap behind the 2.7k resistor and the resistor or cap along the double 32uf.

It has been pretty much said that the light dimmer variac was an urban myth, it was Ed's sense of humour taking the piss basically.
I just do not believe that ever happened it is just a bit Spinal Tap..
Ed did have an electronics guru in Pasadena back in the early day. An old guy called Jose from Argentina who sorted out all of the electronics and fx and the right voltages and smoothed out the right bias and signal path. Also I do not believe that they made groupies chomp on dog dirt in the dressing room. Just the piss taking humour to feed the tabloid press... but...
I do believe the story about the pre gig riders.... remove the red ones from the M and M's .... to make them read the contract xx

 

[Steve Smith]

Interesting read. I bought a late 69/70 Marshall off Dave Friedman. Him and Pete Thorn did a couple videos with it including the EVH tone deep dive. It sounds awesome and is biased to run at 90 volts.
View attachment 127539

Absolutey fab... 60s superleads

 

[Steve Smith]

definitely some van halen mojo on the altec ? what do you think ?

this coupled with a greenback should be interesting

Lovely tone and sound, you have an Eddie feel and style with your playing....you are very good indeed.

But so sorry... I can not learn to love a LP through a wound up Marshall,

I am a strat with a humbucker in the bridge guy..
Each to their own.... Ed vs Slash . Both are great ok ?

Sorry mate xx

 

[junk notes]

It has been pretty much said that the light dimmer variac was an urban myth,

No, there are no mythical urbans perpetuated. Dial Radio in Pasadena on Colorado Blvd.

 

[pat_rocks]

i think i finnally solved the vh1 pickup mystery : https://1978guitarsandspecs.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/van-halen-i/
for the rest it is work in progress.

 

[pittbull]

Interesting read I think when people see the mighty mite in the destroy they automaticly think Edward used mighty mite pickups especially in the club days and then you see early club photos of a Edward and they see the zebra humbucker and the cream color pickups where you really can’t see the pole pieces o the pickups due to the photo not being clear they assume it’s a mighty mite pickup including me anyway read I knew some of stuff in that read but the break down makes sense

 

[pittbull]

Pat-Rock why was your post vh1 pickup deleted

 

[pat_rocks]

Pat-Rock why was your post vh1 pickup deleted

Yes sorry i had to change the url, it's back there https://1978guitarsandspecs.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/van-halen-i/

Yeah unfortunately the mighty mite is a savage myth i spent 200 bucks on a pickup that was almost never used by Eddie. However i must admit it sounds close.

 

[pittbull]

The mighty mite 1300 pickup was and still is in in the shark- Destroyer today plus Edward used the shark with the mighty mite 1300 for the recording of Van hale. II(Van Halen II studio photo with shark guitar with mighty Mite 1300 pickup in the background )

 

[Dogs of Doom]

I always thought that the Legendary Tones article had it right...

Legendary Tones - The "Secret" Edward Van Halen Pickup!

We dig into Seymour Duncan's "Secret" Edward Van Halen Pickup in this feature, and how close it can get you to Van Halen's sound with the right equipment.

legendarytones.com

maybe not 100%, but, I think very close, as IIRC, the gal that did the winding supposedly confirmed it.

Maybe @David Szabados could chime in a bit more on this?

 

[pittbull]

Out of the two Seymour Duncan pickups the 78 and the Duncan 59 I like the 59 better it’s cuts better and it’s brighter

 

[Dogs of Doom]

but, getting a custom 8.5k ohm +/- wind?

 

[pat_rocks]

Out of the two Seymour Duncan pickups the 78 and the Duncan 59 I like the 59 better it’s cuts better and it’s brighter

the 59 has alnico V the 78 has alnico 2. My guess is that the real deal is the 78 with alnico V or IV. If chris datation of the es-335 is right then it is alnico V. That's why the 59 seems spot on as well as the bare knuckle vh2 as it is 9k alnico V.

Another hint it may be alnico V is that the custom shop had a really weird pickup named the IM1 or "I'm the one" that's probably a call to say i'm the real humbucker the real deal for the late frankie. Interestingly enough this humbucker was 14k2 with degaused alnico V. This humbucker was really short lived as if someone asked it to be removed.

I'm really lucky because i still got this humbucker however i almost never used it because the guitar in which it is was a crazy invention of mine with a 9 position selector switch . Yeah the selector and the weird wiring killed the tone...

we know what was left from the original paf was the magnet inside de super distortion clone made by duncan...

 

[pittbull]

I like alnico 5 over alnico 2

 

[pat_rocks]

I like alnico 5 over alnico 2

new update about tubes https://1978guitarsandspecs.wordpress.com/2023/03/30/power-and-preamp-tubes/

 

[pittbull]

I knew about the 6ca7 tubes

 

[pat_rocks]

I knew about the 6ca7 tubes

There is an interesting part about the preamp tubes including Dave friedman ^^

 

[David Szabados]

I always thought that the Legendary Tones article had it right...

Legendary Tones - The "Secret" Edward Van Halen Pickup!

We dig into Seymour Duncan's "Secret" Edward Van Halen Pickup in this feature, and how close it can get you to Van Halen's sound with the right equipment.

legendarytones.com

maybe not 100%, but, I think very close, as IIRC, the gal that did the winding supposedly confirmed it.

Maybe @David Szabados could chime in a bit more on this?

Pretty much everything I learned, I shared in the article. But what was never made clear to me is WHEN exactly did EVH approach Seymour and whether or not that pickup was used on record or touring.

I know now that the speculation is that there was a more aggressive pickup used on the first record, and I suspect this interaction with Seymour was likely after that.

I do remember the pickup sounding awesome through my 1972 Super Lead.

 

[pittbull]

Pat-Rock the thing with Dave Friedman what was your thought on that