Strong hints that Van Halen 1 68 lead was just a slave amp and not the main amp.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Amp_chaser
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Mike Oxhuge said:
I don't know how anybody still believes a stock Plexi doesn't have enough gain as they 100% do. I had a 72 50 Watter a couple of years ago that stock had almost enough gain dimed for early Metallica. And I mean that amp was 100% as it was built in 1972 caps and all except power tubes. If you use the correct speakers for the era (VH1/2, etc ... in the correct cab dime all the knobs plug into treble input, slave that out to effects into power amp that is the sound. Pretty much any Marshall variaced Plexi ever made will get you 98% of the way there. If the gain isn't enough, its your fingers that are the problem. It's like flat earth theory. If all you look for is evidence the earth is flat, it's the only answer you will find.
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Man, the whole “can’t be a stock Plexi” thing had me thinking there was barely any dirt available on a Plexi right up until I finally heard/played one in person, which I assumed was modded until the owner looked at my cockeyed, because all I’d heard for years prior was how Plexi’s don’t have as much gain as what you hear on VH1.

Now I’ve got a Ceriatone Plexi50 ‘68 w/ “Brown Sound” written on the transformer and that thing dimed has way more dirt than what’s heard on VH1.
 
Amp_chaser said:
My plan is to reproduce the amp, the load box and try the slave setup with it on a 68 lead with ed's specs. Heyboer offers replicas of the transformers.
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Good, looking forward to listening to your end result.

In the mean time, to focus on the positive we could agree on the fact the journey itself is where it's at IMHO; as long as it makes you better at something and helps in developing your own style/vision, it's ok.
 
OP, take a stock Superlead of some type and add the components that are 'rumored' to be stock in Ed's plexi. To my memory it's an additional 'fat cap' ie a V2a cathode bypass cap, .68 Mustard or larger. Then, lower the V1B cathode resistor from 1.2 to .860. Those 2 alone turned a 50w 1972 into a gain machine that had a touch more gain to my ear than a 2204. A 2204 dimed is full of gain that can easily match VH1...then, goose the front with an echoplex and see the gain increase...then, play that amp through original 1967 M20s with a pair of JBL D120s also in the cab....done.

This really isn't that hard. You take what I mentioned above(there's a few more circuit changes, in the PI that I can't remember as well) and play that rig through the right cab with the right speakers, and the sizzle is there...the amount of gain is there, and then you add the King's hands?

This is/has been solved for years. I too didn't realize how much gain some of these old Marshalls can have, with the right circuit 'anomalies' but once I added/changed my amp in the same manner, I knew then that Ed DIDN'T lie about his dimed 68.
 
One other key some don't know about is even though you plug into the treble input, you still dime the bass input knob as well as it still bleeds some gain. My 1972 50 Watter was indeed more gainy than any 800 I've tried. And some of the low end bassiness in the recording is speaker breakup which due to the magnet being unable to control the cone as well adds some low end and is another key to the sound. Many on here seem to have no trouble getting close enough that studio tweaking would make the recorded tone almost indistinguishable from Ed's. And if Ed had indeed loved whatever Mod had been done to his 68, why wouldn't he have had it redone at the same time it was rebuilt? I would guess the extra pot was likely a bias knob based on Ed's other interviews.
 
RevDrucifer said:
Man, the whole “can’t be a stock Plexi” thing had me thinking there was barely any dirt available on a Plexi right up until I finally heard/played one in person, which I assumed was modded until the owner looked at my cockeyed, because all I’d heard for years prior was how Plexi’s don’t have as much gain as what you hear on VH1.

Now I’ve got a Ceriatone Plexi50 ‘68 w/ “Brown Sound” written on the transformer and that thing dimed has way more dirt than what’s heard on VH1.
Click to expand...
Is it a special transformer ? I have a Ceriatone Plexi 100 '68 from 2018 and I dont remember anything written on the transformer.
 
i went pretty hard after early vh tone but was not obsessed enough to learn his stuff note for note, build amps or claim everyone else trying it their way was wrong🤣

i’ve played an actual 12000 series super lead close in serial numbers to THE amp and many other jtm 50 watt and 100 watt plexis at cranked levels.

-driving the properly voiced low watt speakers in a 4x12 at volume
-experimenting with making power tubes in a plexi sag by pulling tubes, loading and reamping
-w/d using the right fx and wet amp/cab
-the right pickups/action/string gauge

many trips up to the plexi palace/mojave under the tutelage of Victor who was the first guy i knew of who actually nailed vh. to the point that matt bruck heard him demoing his rig at a guitar show in pomona and asked him how he was doing that and got invited to 5150 to mess with stuff. Vic’s tone was so killer it got me into holmes pickups, gh30s, attenuators and using a w/d rig with a h&k replex and peavy classic power amp.

when i got my second peacemaker in 2011 he and craig hand tuned it with the HG mod and i had them voice it more towards a saggy jtm45/plexi45. because the first time around with a peacemaker i felt it was a bit stiff for soloing and wanted more give. so i get the jones for bloom. i still “cheated” and used pedal for overdrives. much of that sponge and any tonal deficit in presence or lows can be enhanced with the second wet amp/cab which is what i think all those random vox/orange/laney/music man amps may have been used for.

https://www.vhlinks.com/vbforums/th...eve-Rosen!?s=035de6dfdcb65d47c9d667da03f9bce7

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/english.html
 
Cless357 said:
Is it a special transformer ? I have a Ceriatone Plexi 100 '68 from 2018 and I dont remember anything written on the transformer.
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:dunno:

IMG_2136.jpeg


I’m guessing it was just his way of knowing which version of the Plexi50/100 he was going to drop it into?
 
You guys act like the mods done by a TV repairman, were so awesome, highly scientific, rocket science, unrepeatable, mathematically, impossible sequence of events, to get some sound on an album from 1978. Give me a break, guy was a goddamn TV repairman for fucks sake.
He was probably using old Zenith TV parts for his mods
 
CarlF said:
You guys act like the mods done by a TV repairman, were so awesome, highly scientific, rocket science, unrepeatable, mathematically, impossible sequence of events, to get some sound on an album from 1978. Give me a break, guy was a goddamn TV repairman for fucks sake.
He was probably using old Zenith TV parts for his mods
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if you think that’s tough blues saraceno’s dad was an appliance tech and built the dirty boy with seven transformers he pulled from things like refrigerators and ac units! i think vic got it down to four and it still felt like lifing a lead sofa😂
 
mentoneman said:
if you think that’s tough blues saraceno’s dad was an appliance tech and built the dirty boy with seven transformers he pulled from things like refrigerators and ac units! i think vic got it down to four and it still felt like lifing a lead sofa😂
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One of the only maps out there I still daydream about trying 🥰
 
mentoneman said:
i went pretty hard after early vh tone but was not obsessed enough to learn his stuff note for note, build amps or claim everyone else trying it their way was wrong🤣

i’ve played an actual 12000 series super lead close in serial numbers to THE amp and many other jtm 50 watt and 100 watt plexis at cranked levels.

-driving the properly voiced low watt speakers in a 4x12 at volume
-experimenting with making power tubes in a plexi sag by pulling tubes, loading and reamping
-w/d using the right fx and wet amp/cab
-the right pickups/action/string gauge

many trips up to the plexi palace/mojave under the tutelage of Victor who was the first guy i knew of who actually nailed vh. to the point that matt bruck heard him demoing his rig at a guitar show in pomona and asked him how he was doing that and got invited to 5150 to mess with stuff. Vic’s tone was so killer it got me into holmes pickups, gh30s, attenuators and using a w/d rig with a h&k replex and peavy classic power amp.

when i got my second peacemaker in 2011 he and craig hand tuned it with the HG mod and i had them voice it more towards a saggy jtm45/plexi45. because the first time around with a peacemaker i felt it was a bit stiff for soloing and wanted more give. so i get the jones for bloom. i still “cheated” and used pedal for overdrives. much of that sponge and any tonal deficit in presence or lows can be enhanced with the second wet amp/cab which is what i think all those random vox/orange/laney/music man amps may have been used for.

https://www.vhlinks.com/vbforums/th...eve-Rosen!?s=035de6dfdcb65d47c9d667da03f9bce7

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/english.html
Click to expand...
Did you get your 78/79 IKMM package working good yet?
 
harddriver said:
Did you get your 78/79 IKMM package working good yet?
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have a few modified presets (volcano 78, dreams 78, that 89) sounding as good as i can get them atm with my guitar and headphones. gotten past the hatred phase🤣

it always takes my ears a few minutes to adapt for each preset and maybe because of using the headphones, there’s still an inherent top end harshness i’ve heard with every digital product i’ve used (fractal, kemper, helix). you can bury it with treble/presence controls but then the fire you want to keep sorta goes away with it.


there are also some free presets like gigger and fig’s jel 50 that i thought sounded pretty cool for high gain stuff.
 
RevDrucifer said:
Man, the whole “can’t be a stock Plexi” thing had me thinking there was barely any dirt available on a Plexi right up until I finally heard/played one in person, which I assumed was modded until the owner looked at my cockeyed, because all I’d heard for years prior was how Plexi’s don’t have as much gain as what you hear on VH1.

Now I’ve got a Ceriatone Plexi50 ‘68 w/ “Brown Sound” written on the transformer and that thing dimed has way more dirt than what’s heard on VH1.
Click to expand...
I own a stock 70's mark 2 super lead. Again it's not about gain it's about distortion, distortion coloring (for example each distortion pedal has it's own coloring of disto) and mostly about blooming. NO super lead lead blooms like jtm amps. Try a real jtm amp or a fender bassman or bandmaster irl you will understand what blooming is. It's caracteristic of those amps due to a combination of tube rectifier, low filtering and how voltages behave in the circuit. RWTD and many Van Halen 1 (only vh1) songs have tons of blooming a thing super leads don't have.
 
CarlF said:
You guys act like the mods done by a TV repairman, were so awesome, highly scientific, rocket science, unrepeatable, mathematically, impossible sequence of events, to get some sound on an album from 1978. Give me a break, guy was a goddamn TV repairman for fucks sake.
He was probably using old Zenith TV parts for his mods
Click to expand...
haha the man was behind steve vai, warren de martini, george lynch, pete frampton, John sykes, james hetfield tone. that's only a portion of famous artists that recorded with his mods. Don't think that the mods the plebs like us recieved were the same as the talentuous kids or new guitar heroes at the time. José had his own setups, weird gear and also unconventionnal mods. He worked for vox and ampeg too btw.
 
mentoneman said:
i went pretty hard after early vh tone but was not obsessed enough to learn his stuff note for note, build amps or claim everyone else trying it their way was wrong🤣

i’ve played an actual 12000 series super lead close in serial numbers to THE amp and many other jtm 50 watt and 100 watt plexis at cranked levels.

-driving the properly voiced low watt speakers in a 4x12 at volume
-experimenting with making power tubes in a plexi sag by pulling tubes, loading and reamping
-w/d using the right fx and wet amp/cab
-the right pickups/action/string gauge

many trips up to the plexi palace/mojave under the tutelage of Victor who was the first guy i knew of who actually nailed vh. to the point that matt bruck heard him demoing his rig at a guitar show in pomona and asked him how he was doing that and got invited to 5150 to mess with stuff. Vic’s tone was so killer it got me into holmes pickups, gh30s, attenuators and using a w/d rig with a h&k replex and peavy classic power amp.

when i got my second peacemaker in 2011 he and craig hand tuned it with the HG mod and i had them voice it more towards a saggy jtm45/plexi45. because the first time around with a peacemaker i felt it was a bit stiff for soloing and wanted more give. so i get the jones for bloom. i still “cheated” and used pedal for overdrives. much of that sponge and any tonal deficit in presence or lows can be enhanced with the second wet amp/cab which is what i think all those random vox/orange/laney/music man amps may have been used for.

https://www.vhlinks.com/vbforums/th...eve-Rosen!?s=035de6dfdcb65d47c9d667da03f9bce7

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/english.html
Click to expand...
that's quite very intersting. He was probably doing a lot of things right, Just by reading what you've written. G12h are also probably a big factor into ed's tone. Holmes pickups ?
 
Racerxrated said:
OP, take a stock Superlead of some type and add the components that are 'rumored' to be stock in Ed's plexi. To my memory it's an additional 'fat cap' ie a V2a cathode bypass cap, .68 Mustard or larger. Then, lower the V1B cathode resistor from 1.2 to .860. Those 2 alone turned a 50w 1972 into a gain machine that had a touch more gain to my ear than a 2204. A 2204 dimed is full of gain that can easily match VH1...then, goose the front with an echoplex and see the gain increase...then, play that amp through original 1967 M20s with a pair of JBL D120s also in the cab....done.

This really isn't that hard. You take what I mentioned above(there's a few more circuit changes, in the PI that I can't remember as well) and play that rig through the right cab with the right speakers, and the sizzle is there...the amount of gain is there, and then you add the King's hands?

This is/has been solved for years. I too didn't realize how much gain some of these old Marshalls can have, with the right circuit 'anomalies' but once I added/changed my amp in the same manner, I knew then that Ed DIDN'T lie about his dimed 68.
Click to expand...
Done and done it. i have a full ed's spec copy cat of the suhr sl68 with the 50k mid pot and all the goodies. I even have a cab with 20w celestions and g12h blackbacks. You get a good all around brown sound for vh2 and everything after. ed's yellow chiclet cap was probably around .75 uf perhaps higher because dave friedman said it was around 1uf. i even have OT and power transformers replicas left for my next josé. As i said no super lead blooms like in the songs. the only studio device that could have added bloom is the la2 and not this amount.
 
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