OK boys: School me on the amp modders...

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jonny toetags

jonny toetags

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I keep hearing about Cameron. Is he "THE" amp modder?
Is he the guy that did the Marshall that was used on Appetite For Destruction (the one Slash 'borrowed')?
Are there others?
 
fuchs. he's going to stop soon and he's expensive. only does certain amps to. i can give you his list if you want.
 
FJA mods. (Jerry P here on the forums). HE does EXCELLENT work, and has great customer service. :thumbsup:


-Ans-
 
+1 to jerry!! there's trace at voodoo, and i think tom cauble does mod work as well.
 
Cameron did not do the Appetite For Destr #39 Marshall. That was Tim Caswell, who still does that Mod... about $600 or so
I had had a Lee Jackson modded Marshall - cool but REAL noisy and kind of fuzzy, and still own a Cameron Modded Marshall
Wait til his cameron amps are out, and check those out ;)
Besides those guys, there is Fuchs, Voodoo, Splawn (who I don't think does mods anymore) - no more Jose Arredondo (RIP) or Diaz (the amp guru or amp doctor) and no more Todd Langner

there are others as well, but not as well known - Roccoforte, FJA...
 
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Wayniac":c6d5e said:
Cameron did not do the Appetite For Destr #39 Marshall. That was Tim Caswell, who still does that Mod... about $600 or so
I had had a Lee Jackson modded Marshall - cool but REAL noisy and kind of fuzzy, and still own a Cameron Modded Marshall
Wait til his cameron amps are out, and check those out ;)
Besides those guys, there is Fuchs, Voodoo, Splawn (who I don't think does mods anymore) - no more Jose Arredondo (RIP) or Diaz (the amp guru or amp doctor) and no more Todd Langner

there are others as well, but not as well known - Roccoforte, FJA...

So your telling me Caswell could mod an JCM800 to sound close to AFD :eek:
I would die happy!
 
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jonny toetags":49e80 said:
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So your telling me Caswell could mod an JCM800 to sound close to AFD :eek:
I would die happy!

There was a modded Marshall he did on ebay recently.
 
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jonny toetags":482a7 said:
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So your telling me Caswell could mod an JCM800 to sound close to AFD :eek:
I would die happy!
I think he prefers the JMP's and Superleads.. but I'm sure he'll do the mod on an 800 - also said his mods will NOT fit in a 50 watter..
 
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Wayniac":915ee said:
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I think he prefers the JMP's and Superleads.. but I'm sure he'll do the mod on an 800 - also said his mods will NOT fit in a 50 watter..

Well, i'd have to get whatever amp he needs to do the mods, so that's cool.
 
caswell mods are nuts. So are his amps with motorized pots.
 
My friend Fankie had a Caswell modded marshall in the 80's and it absolutely sucked balls IMHO. I jammed with him once and I used my JCM800 2210 with a graphic EQ in the loop and he used his Caswell Modded Marshall. That jam session caused him to sell the Caswell and Buy a 2210.

I have experiance with Mark Cameron mods,Lee Jackson Mods,Caswell Mods, Jose Mods, Heavy Metal Joe mods and Harry Kolbe mods.

The Cameron Marshall mods smokes them all IMHO.

The Lee Jackson mods were hit or miss. I owned one for many years and had it re-modded by Dave Bray. My Lee Jackson mod sucked whereas this other guys sounded amazing. Lee basically did one mod at the time and it seems as if he did not take the time to make sure they all sounded the same becuase they did NOT.

The Caswell mod sounded crunchy in a bad way. It was very shrill and had a more gain then stock but it was in no way a musical sounding amp. I have only heard one so that's not to say that someone else had a different experiance.

The Old Jose Mods were also hit of miss iMHO and Jose had more then a few mods. Not just one. The one I heard sounded like ass and pretty much sounded like the tone Mick Sweeda got on the first Bullet Boys disc. Sounded cool for rhythm but when you went for a solo, The amp choked out.
The Jose modded amps that John Sykes uses are killer IMHO. I would be willing to bet that it was a different mod then the one I tried.
I believe Steve Sah5150 has a lot of experiance with the Jose mods and so Deos Mark cameron of course!! I think Steve and Mark can chime in although so we can hear some stories about the master!

I wont even mention Harry Kolbe's mods. I don;t think Kolbe gets high gain and his marshall mods were horrible sounding IMHO. That said, Harry worked on all my amps in the 80's just re-tubing and biasing / service. His service was top notch and my Stock amps always came back sounding better. I hear that his Fender mods are killer but I never heard them.

Heavy Metal Joe was my tech after Harry Kolbe. He worked for Marshall in the late 80's and did worl on the side for me and many others. Joe was rumored to have designed the Jcm900 series but he never got the recognition nor did they use his design. I think they just used his idea of a high gainer. IMHO it was a shame because his amp killed the 900 series hands down. That said, his amps were based on diode clipping just like the 2210 but with much more gain on tap. The problem was that it had a sizzle to it that could not be dialed out thus making me look elsware in the mod world ;)
 
I got my info from Tim.
Looks like i need to find any 100W Plexi or a 100W JCM800 with vertical inputs.
Should be fun since i know f'all about Marshall amps :(

Would none know what 'models' I should be looking for?
 
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Gainfreak":c4cfd said:
My friend Fankie had a Caswell modded marshall in the 80's and it absolutely sucked balls IMHO. I jammed with him once and I used my JCM800 2210 with a graphic EQ in the loop and he used his Caswell Modded Marshall. That jam session caused him to sell the Caswell and Buy a 2210.

I have experiance with Mark Cameron mods,Lee Jackson Mods,Caswell Mods, Jose Mods, Heavy Metal Joe mods and Harry Kolbe mods.

The Cameron Marshall mods smokes them all IMHO.

The Lee Jackson mods were hit or miss. I owned one for many years and had it re-modded by Dave Bray. My Lee Jackson mod sucked whereas this other guys sounded amazing. Lee basically did one mod at the time and it seems as if he did not take the time to make sure they all sounded the same becuase they did NOT.

The Caswell mod sounded crunchy in a bad way. It was very shrill and had a more gain then stock but it was in no way a musical sounding amp. I have only heard one so that's not to say that someone else had a different experiance.

The Old Jose Mods were also hit of miss iMHO and Jose had more then a few mods. Not just one. The one I heard sounded like ass and pretty much sounded like the tone Mick Sweeda got on the first Bullet Boys disc. Sounded cool for rhythm but when you went for a solo, The amp choked out.
The Jose modded amps that John Sykes uses are killer IMHO. I would be willing to bet that it was a different mod then the one I tried.
I believe Steve Sah5150 has a lot of experiance with the Jose mods and so Deos Mark cameron of course!! I think Steve and Mark can chime in although so we can hear some stories about the master!

I wont even mention Harry Kolbe's mods. I don;t think Kolbe gets high gain and his marshall mods were horrible sounding IMHO. That said, Harry worked on all my amps in the 80's just re-tubing and biasing / service. His service was top notch and my Stock amps always came back sounding better. I hear that his Fender mods are killer but I never heard them.

Heavy Metal Joe was my tech after Harry Kolbe. He worked for Marshall in the late 80's and did worl on the side for me and many others. Joe was rumored to have designed the Jcm900 series but he never got the recognition nor did they use his design. I think they just used his idea of a high gainer. IMHO it was a shame because his amp killed the 900 series hands down. That said, his amps were based on diode clipping just like the 2210 but with much more gain on tap. The problem was that it had a sizzle to it that could not be dialed out thus making me look elsware in the mod world ;)

+1 on all accounts! The Caswell sucked in every clip i ever heard, you can tell that the Appetite tone was that amp but there was a lot of studio magic done to get it sounding that nice.

I own a Cameron Aldrich mod and to be honest i wouldnt bother going to anyone else man. When you hear a Cameron modded amp in real life, you know straight away that the tone search is over. end of story. Marks seen and knows most mods inside out, and he can pretty much do anything you want. He seems to know exactly how to tailor an amp mod to suit what the customer asks for!!
 
I've got a park 50 watt modded by Lee Jackson that sounds pretty good. It's the Paul Gilbert mod and can be made to sound exactly like RacerX's first album, if you like that tone. I like to back down on the gain (it has tons with the built in attenuator) and it gives me a great hot rodded marshall sound. I had a metaltronix back in the day that sounded nothing like the Marshall and I never really liked it. I also checked out Harry Kolbe's mods back in 89 or so and I thought they sucked. They were also horribly expensive back then - something like 950.00 or so for the full treatment (remember this was back almost 20 years). When I was playing metal back in the late 80's/early 90's I used a local guy that modded amps near Berlin, NJ. He did a lot of amps for the local guys and his mods were pretty cool. His name was Rick Emery and he worked at the Music Place in Berlin. I've heard that he still does repairs there, but I'm not sure. From the clips I've heard you can't go wrong with a Cameron, Splawn or a Bray mod (in that order IMHO). Just my 2cents.
 
+ 10000000 to Jerry @ FJA . and i speak from personal experience.

you are looking for modded 800 or jmp tones???
 
im selling a 83 jcm800 2203. vertical input. 950 total (paypal, shipping, etc) send me a pm if interested
 
That Caswell on eBay was legit - that's when I emailed him, and he verified it for me. I ended up passing on it though - figured for what it sold for, it'd be cheaper to get a used 100 watter and pay for the mod

I have a 50 watt Cameron mod that RIPS!
Wait and save up for his own brand to come out
 
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