The particularities about Eddie Van Halen plexi 12301

[pat_rocks]

Plus reduced negative feedback.

To be clear I don't know anything about what Eddie really used or didn't other than not to trust a word he said, but my ears are not hearing any extra gain amp modifications in those tones.

you should check this video at the beginning :



Ossie is the only one being able to recreate the spiting cough speaker sound. Just listen to the little guitars intro riff. He explains the josé mods and so on. I'm gonna try those mods. His sound is perhaps the closest VH tone with the one of david bray amps.

 

[pittbull]

We can’t forget the late Mark Abrahamian Rockstah Mod 5 he did one of the best Van Halen mods

 

[matttornado]

There's also the Eq's. Ed had the boss EQ hooked up by his echo plex units. They were like adding an OD with the mids boosted.

 

[pittbull]

He also used the mxr 6 band eq

 

[PowerTube44]

There's also the Eq's. Ed had the boss EQ hooked up by his echo plex units. They were like adding an OD with the mids boosted.

I had a friend back in the 80's who played a JCM 800 2210 half stack. He ran a Boss GE-7 EQ up front with the volume on the pedal maxed. It sounded incredible, but the hiss was too much for my taste.

Still, it really did sound killer.

 

[BluezMe]

I appreciate the knowledge base here but I'm also of the opinion people tend to overthink it.

Overthink it ? Remember... it's a discussion Forum which includes mostly Documented Facts... very little Fiction and just a Pinch of Speculation.
Anything related to EVH... is going to open up at least a half dozen Rabbit Holes to go down.
Ed created a lot of Myths and Mystery by Chance or Choice... now we get to play Sherlock Holmes.... for those who are intrigued by this sort of thing.

 

[pittbull]

Use your ears and your experience/knowledge is key

 

[BluezMe]

Yeah, it's almost like a "fizzy with clarity" sort of thing. There's fizz around the edges and punch in the center. It's hard to describe.

I know this Thread is about his Amp... but the Recorded sound of the Speakers is an Integral Part of VH1 as demonstrated ( A / B'd ) in the Video... The Brighter sound of the JBL... then compared to the Celestion. I don't now if they were split in Stereo or Combined when mixed... 2 SM 56's on the Invoice... looks like 2 boom stands with mics on the Top and Bottom...
The Eruption Tone is pretty Raw.

They Jumped between Studio 1 and 2... but think these recordings are from Studio 1 (Sunset Sound) the only existing photo of them in Studio 1 as far as I know



Never hear any opinions of Marshall Cabs with the Tolex removed... just Bare Birch Ply Cabs. Guess the Mic doesn't care... but certainly would sound different in a non mic'ed application.
If you get to the 15:00 Time mark... we find that Ed nicked the idea of the random black tape on the White Frankenstrat from Chip Kinman of the Dills... maybe even the Signature Ed "Jump" ?

 

[cccc]

That sounds good but please tell us everything in the music chain including computer shit before uploading the video.

There is nothing else in the chain that's the sound of those amps on the 0.2 watt setting . He makes that clear in the video.

 

[Springfield Scooter]

dave friedman leaked on the forum of metro amps.

Dave friedman repaired the amp. John Suhr also had the amp in his shop at some point... Those 2 guys know more about this amp than us...

Friedman also said , on Tone Talk, that Marshall no longer produces amplifiers in England...
Do you believe him?

 

[pittbull]

John Suhr would call Mike Soldano in the very early 90s to ask him about Amps in general that’s a FACT and Dave Friedman leaned a lot from Bruce Egnator. Eddie loved the Soldano SLO he didn’t play a Friedman or a Suhr amp.

 

[pat_rocks]

Friedman also said , on Tone Talk, that Marshall no longer produces amplifiers in England...
Do you believe him?

"Marshall is a manufacturer of Marshall musical instruments (e.g. amplifiers, pedals), with its head office in the UK and offices and manufacturing sites in the UK, Hong Kong and Vietnam."
that's not totally false moreover just look at the guts of a sv20h and one of a jcm 4210. 80-90's era amp. The components used in 80-90's era marshall were way better quality now marshall uses cheap caps and resistors in their amps. Their pcb quality was way better in the past. They even used mustard style caps on pcb amps in the past...

however there are many made in asia gear that sounds awesome despite being cheap quality.

for the price of a HW marshall your could buy a boutique plexi which is way better quality and has a better tone because it is often copies of hot rodded plexis. You know most of the 70's and 80's rock bands that we listen to had their marshalls modded. It was almost never stock. You know why ? no one wanted to have the same tone it was a fight. Those hot rod mods... Marshall doesn't sell them unless perhaps one day they will try to reverse engeneer guitar heroes plexis and make models like the hdrx 20 for Steve Vai, Angus, Page, etc...

 

[pat_rocks]

John Suhr would call Mike Soldano in the very early 90s to ask him about Amps in general that’s a FACT and Dave Friedman leaned a lot from Bruce Egnator. Eddie loved the Soldano SLO he didn’t play a Friedman or a Suhr amp.

Man i don't care what you say about the man. He restored the amp and Eddie was happy with it he even said it sounded like it did during the past. A thing that the dutch amp tech wasn't able to do. Yeah he isn't soldano however, The point is that the amps he makes sound way better than any marshall current line of production. Moreover the amp was stock but the josé mods were probably removed José had a master volume with clipping diodes which made the amp browner this is what the master volume on the back of eddies plexi was about. This is a niche known secret in the evh community : the brown sound : a part of the equation is a master volume with cliping zener diodes, Soldano knows it, the sloclone forum knows it, metro amps forum knows it, granger amps even sell the mod in kit xd https://grangeramp.com/product/jose-master-volume-kit-2/. Add to this that josé usually added a preamp stage with a valve to make plexis sound gainier.

 

[Springfield Scooter]

"Marshall is a manufacturer of Marshall musical instruments (e.g. amplifiers, pedals), with its head office in the UK and offices and manufacturing sites in the UK, Hong Kong and Vietnam."
that's not totally false moreover just look at the guts of a sv20h and one of a jcm 4210. 80-90's era amp. The components used in 80-90's era marshall were way better quality now marshall uses cheap caps and resistors in their amps. Their pcb quality was way better in the past. They even used mustard style caps on pcb amps in the past...

however there are many made in asia gear that sounds awesome despite being cheap quality.

for the price of a HW marshall your could buy a boutique plexi which is way better quality and has a better tone because it is often copies of hot rodded plexis. You know most of the 70's and 80's rock bands that we listen to had their marshalls modded. It was almost never stock. You know why ? no one wanted to have the same tone it was a fight. Those hot rod mods... Marshall doesn't sell them unless perhaps one day they will try to reverse engeneer guitar heroes plexis and make models like the hdrx 20 for Steve Vai, Angus, Page, etc...

Marshall still produces products in England!
Friedman's statement was 100% false.

Tone Talk quickly redacted,edited, and revised that episode.
I can tell your a Friedmans fan, so I will stop right here!

 

[pittbull]

Nothing against John Suhr,Mike Soldano was in the amp also Steve fryette,(who changed the transformer)Reinhold tbogner and Friedman

 

[chocol8]

Watch that Sunset Sound video. He says "stock" amp with a variac at 90 and rebiased. At some point Jose added the fat cap and he may have changed the bias as well, so I have stock in quotes, but extra gain stages or an MV with clipping diodes are extremely unlikely.

Also, listen to the room mic and the two separate speaker mic tracks he plays in that video. That absolutely does not sound like a "Jose mod" amp to me. I think Eddie lied about that just like he lied about turning the variac up and not down. He was intentionally making it hard on people trying to copy him.

 

[pittbull]

Listening to a room mic is not going to tell you if a amp was modded or not,Let’s go back to the variac thing Eddie said he raised the voltage to 140 volts on the variac Eddie didn’t tell you his amp was a European amp which ran on 240 volts Eddie left that out ,if you plug in a 240 volt Marshall in the states which is 120 wall the Marshall would take for ever to work, a Marshall amp coming to the states would run on 120 volts you would blow the filter caps if you ran the amp at 140 on the variac. Jose Arrendondo did take care of Eddie’s amps stock/modded Micheal Anotheys bass tech Dugan would drop off Eddie marshalls to Jose shop for modded, in 1986 Bob Bradshaw built Eddie rack gear and switching system for the 5150 tour and Bradshaw said that Eddie marshalls were modded by Jose so what else is there to say

 

[chocol8]

Listening to an unprocessed recording will tell you what the amp sounded like. If you compare that to a Plexi running on 90 volts biased hot, they sound the same. Compare it to a "Jose mod" and they sound different.

I highly doubt Eddie was running at 140 volts with the transformer set to the 240 leads. I don't think the heaters would get hot enough, but I could test that.

 

[pittbull]

When Eddie raised the variac to 140 volts or higher on a European marshall(240 volts)the amp light inductor lite up. I believe that the 90 volt variac thing was even lower the 90 volts more like 60-70 volts do a search on YouTube for Jim Gausted he also believes that the variac was lower then 90 volts and he explains it,here’s the link listen to it he talks about the JBL speakers and the variac

 

[chocol8]

The playing at the end of that video sounds like too much gain to me. It is definitely possible Eddie used different voltages at different clubs though.

I agree with him on the JBL's. There is zero doubt in my mind that one of the mics on the first album was on a JBL. As I said previously, you can get close without one, but a JBL just gives that sound with no effort.