Eddie Van Halen: The 5150III Era, Part 1

[The~Kid]

You really believe that about Eddie

Yes I do...... He didn't want to compromise on quality and standards and there is a lot of stuff that should be upcharged or cost more relative to other stuff on the market that cost the same or less relative to its counterparts from others. The 212 and 412 cabs, the cases, the amps and yeah even some of the guitars.


In a sense IMO Eddie felt that it was important to take on some of the cost so the fans and players and well people who aren't rich or well to do were the only ones who could afford it. He really wanted to provide a quality and affordable product that met his high standards with zero compromise on that end.


It's sort of something many don't recognize, cant understand or take for granted in that sense and it wasn't all about the money for Eddie IMO

 

[Lightning]

Then how come he didn’t go with the Eddie Van Halen signature model Soldano SLO 100 that Mike would have done, Answer: not mass produced, price, and quality(Edward wanted mass produced for the money)so for the first 5150 the peavy Edward took one of his SLO to peavy and they did a some what copy of the SLO Randall Smith from Mesa Boogie did the same thing with the dual rectifier copied the preamp of the SLO. How come Edward didn’t go with Marshall for a signature model because Marshall wasn’t going to pay him the crazy money he wanted.

 

[marvcus]

When Eddie made the switch from Ernie Ball to Peavey, he said something to the effect in an interview, maybe the Peavey Monitor, “People think I got a huge sum of money to make the move to Peavey, but that had nothing to do with it…”

 

[BenoA]

@TheGreatGreen thanks for sharing that. Haven't watched it yet but did look at the EBMM one and the Peavey part #1.

Currently watching Peavey part #2. Nice to listen to James Brown and Jim DeCola. Cool stories and humble dudes working in the shadow of EVH.

 

[BenoA]

Can’t believe Eddie didn’t get along with that dude

Sorry but what did I miss?

 

[Kelly]

When Eddie made the switch from Ernie Ball to Peavey, he said something to the effect in an interview, maybe the Peavey Monitor, “People think I got a huge sum of money to make the move to Peavey, but that had nothing to do with it…”

He didn't leave Ernie Ball because of the money. He left because he got caught cheating with Sterling Ball's wife. Just a couple notes on the video:
Peavey didn't have a patent on the 5150 circuit, other than the resonance (which may have been expired by that time). Peavey couldn't really enforce that patent anyway, since Fryette invented it.
The transformers that Fender copied were from the Peavey. Peavey uses a unique welded transformer, the Fender has the same.

 

[The~Kid]

Then how come he didn’t go with the Eddie Van Halen signature model Soldano SLO 100 that Mike would have done, Answer: not mass produced, price, and quality(Edward wanted mass produced for the money)so for the first 5150 the peavy Edward took one of his SLO to peavy and they did a some what copy of the SLO Randall Smith from Mesa Boogie did the same thing with the dual rectifier copied the preamp of the SLO. How come Edward didn’t go with Marshall for a signature model because Marshall wasn’t going to pay him the crazy money he wanted.

Who knows, maybe they didn't have the same vision as he did....... I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case as even at Fender he had issues with others getting onboard for his vision of the products and EVH brand/gear.


In the end ultimately his main goal was to not sacrifice on quality, standards and offer gear that fans and regular people could afford. He really did see hey not everyone is rich or well off and he made it a mission to do his best to make this accessible to regular folks, fans and players IMO.


I honestly prefer the original Peavey 5150s but the lll ain't bad and I can see why people dig them and in many ways it's a better amp too.

As said there are a bunch of products they offer that are an amazing value and quality that cost less relative to what you get from others and in some cases the EVH stuff is better some could argue as with the cabs IMO for example.

 

[VonBonfire]

Eddie smoked cigarettes which meant the dude could pretty much get away with anything. Eddie In Halen.

 

[The~Kid]

@TheGreatGreen thanks for sharing that. Haven't watched it yet but did look at the EBMM one and the Peavey part #1.

Currently watching Peavey part #2. Nice to listen to James Brown and Jim DeCola. Cool stories and humble dudes working in the shadow of EVH.

Need to watch that......


Shit reminds me of Sam Ash and plugging into an Original Peavey 5150 the one with the EVH logo on the panel..... And the 5150 ll and 6505 +......

Those were good times and I'd crank it but the dudes at the store didn't care and let me mess around through the 412. Even the Chinese ones aren't bad come to think of it when they make rhe switch In checked them out and they sounded as good..... A bit different sort of I guess but overall still an Original 5150/6505 tone.


Good times

 

[The~Kid]

Eddie smoked cigarettes which meant the dude could pretty much get away with anything. Eddie In Halen.

Eddie Van Halen, dude was from SoCal too

 

[RaceU4her]

Sorry but what did I miss?

he seemed very well liked an easy to work with in the other videos in that series

 

[TheGreatGreen]

Alot of marketing BS with Edward(RIP)and Matt bruck,Edward was a modded Marshall guy also he loved the Soldano SLO(loved the SLO design-circuit)which they tried to copy and in my opinion fell way short. It’s all about the marketing and the money. In the late 70s Edward didn’t want Seymour Duncan to put out a special Van Halen pickup same with Grover Jackson putting out strip guitars because Edward said it wasn’t about the money now look it was all about the money with Edward and the gear he put out. Edward wanted Mike Soldano to make a special signature Eddie Van Halen Soldano SLO but Mike couldn’t mass produce SLO with the quality Mike puts into a SLO parts in general, Mike wouldn’t use lower quality parts in the SLO plus the price that a SLO sells for.

You think they fell short? Interesting. I’ve always preferred the 5150 to the SLO in every shootout I’ve ever heard or done.

The SLO always sounded both too soft and mid-heavy while also somehow having a grating harshness in the upper mids that I’ve never heard anybody dial out. The 5150 has always sounded more balanced overall to my ear yet smoother in the high mids, but not harsh.

I think the 5150 is the better sounding amp of the two despite costing a third of what the SLO goes for.

 

[Lightning]

I could make a SLO 100 sound harsh or smooth the eq section on the amp is very flexible

 

[Deleted member 101920]

Not to sound like a village idiot saying things that people would consider absolute "bulls**t".
But I am actually friends with Mr. James Brown on Facebook. Awesome guy and so down to earth it's ridiculous. He's really into fishing so we hit it off with the usual fishing stories, etc.
The things he used to tell me about the "horrors" of working with Ed were just ridiculous.
Phone calls in the middle of the night from a obliterated wasted Ed about the most trivial things, to the next day Ed having no recollection of the phone call or problem with the amp that was in testing phase.
Being called out of important meetings with phone calls over, you guessed it.. totally dumb s**t like stepping away from the project if they didn't do something about a foot switch "issue" that was easily resolved without all the drama.
Having to take countless flights out to Ed's studio to tweak the amp to his liking that day or week. Only to have him not like what he was hearing, flying back out there, secretly putting it back how it was and him loving it.... It was a complete nightmare.
From what he told me I think they were spending/losing more money on the project than they had anticipated.
There was a point where they basically had to revamp and rebuild the amp from pretty much the ground up because of the nonstop bugaboo thinking of Ed towards how things should be.
It got even worse when they released the Wolfgang guitar. He would do interviews and come out with things that never even happened with the relationship with Peavey. Just a total Circus.
I think in a way they were glad to see him go. Here they had this amp built and ready for sale on the market and Ed was still asking for last minute ridiculous things.
Then the whole abortion that was the drunk, wigged out Ed at the 2003 Namm show was the final nail in the coffin..

 

[Nigel]

Tune in to the weekly Rig-Talk Eddie Van Halen radio broadcast.

This program is brought to you by Celestion EVH Greenbacks
EVH Greenbacks, where the maths say 100/4=20.

The way I see it, Ed’s ears were shot by this time and the tuning of the III amps was accentuated to fill in deficiencies in his hearing.

Never liked the III, never even liked the II. The II has a distinct nasal quality to it. The OG 5150 is the king of the hill in that vein.

Yeah, it sounds good with JJ6L6’s and ECC83s in all slots save a real Mullard in V1.

Glass’ contribution makes for that nasal sound as if you’ve put cheap gas in a Saleen S281 or the like: it don’t run right.

I bet that amp would slay with ECC803’s too. That’s how Reinhold ships the new Über Ultra.

A guitarist I know has a II and it always had that quality you describe with the Shuguangs and Sovtek glass.

With JJ’s and NO Sovtek, cranked, it was legit!

James Brown said Ed liked it with all JJ’s and a Mullard too, it works.

 

[Lightning]

James Brown is a very nice guy, he had to deal with a lot of BS when he was with peavy and to deal with Edward, I had a few conversations with James .

 

[legend71]

Not to sound like a village idiot saying things that people would consider absolute "bulls**t".
But I am actually friends with Mr. James Brown on Facebook. Awesome guy and so down to earth it's ridiculous. He's really into fishing so we hit it off with the usual fishing stories, etc.
The things he used to tell me about the "horrors" of working with Ed were just ridiculous.
Phone calls in the middle of the night from a obliterated wasted Ed about the most trivial things, to the next day Ed having no recollection of the phone call or problem with the amp that was in testing phase.
Being called out of important meetings with phone calls over, you guessed it.. totally dumb s**t like stepping away from the project if they didn't do something about a foot switch "issue" that was easily resolved without all the drama.
Having to take countless flights out to Ed's studio to tweak the amp to his liking that day or week. Only to have him not like what he was hearing, flying back out there, secretly putting it back how it was and him loving it.... It was a complete nightmare.
From what he told me I think they were spending/losing more money on the project than they had anticipated.
There was a point where they basically had to revamp and rebuild the amp from pretty much the ground up because of the nonstop bugaboo thinking of Ed towards how things should be.
It got even worse when they released the Wolfgang guitar. He would do interviews and come out with things that never even happened with the relationship with Peavey. Just a total Circus.
I think in a way they were glad to see him go. Here they had this amp built and ready for sale on the market and Ed was still asking for last minute ridiculous things.
Then the whole abortion that was the drunk, wigged out Ed at the 2003 Namm show was the final nail in the coffin..

Yeah - be careful what you wish for ha. Or I guess "never meet your heroes."

I imagine that working with EVH was not awesome and he probably has a way different view of the guy vs people like us. In the YT vids, I feel he is very diplomatic about it and tries to be polite. You can read between the lines and infer a lot of this from his comments. I never dug the 5150 amps and always liked his Marshall tones the best. I wish he would have juts kept using the plexi or a plexi. I know his original one became unusable at some point. But that sound had more teeth and bite. His later sounds were more fizzy to me.

I also can see some from EVH's side of things were they were probably taken advantage of when they were a younger band and that definitely changes a person and colors their worldview etc.

 

[Nigel]

You think they fell short? Interesting. I’ve always preferred the 5150 to the SLO in every shootout I’ve ever heard or done.

The SLO always sounded both too soft and mid-heavy while also somehow having a grating harshness in the upper mids that I’ve never heard anybody dial out. The 5150 has always sounded more balanced overall to my ear yet smoother in the high mids, but not harsh.

I think the 5150 is the better sounding amp of the two despite costing a third of what the SLO goes for.

The harshness is the glassware.

 

[The~Kid]

Not to sound like a village idiot saying things that people would consider absolute "bulls**t".
But I am actually friends with Mr. James Brown on Facebook. Awesome guy and so down to earth it's ridiculous. He's really into fishing so we hit it off with the usual fishing stories, etc.
The things he used to tell me about the "horrors" of working with Ed were just ridiculous.
Phone calls in the middle of the night from a obliterated wasted Ed about the most trivial things, to the next day Ed having no recollection of the phone call or problem with the amp that was in testing phase.
Being called out of important meetings with phone calls over, you guessed it.. totally dumb s**t like stepping away from the project if they didn't do something about a foot switch "issue" that was easily resolved without all the drama.
Having to take countless flights out to Ed's studio to tweak the amp to his liking that day or week. Only to have him not like what he was hearing, flying back out there, secretly putting it back how it was and him loving it.... It was a complete nightmare.
From what he told me I think they were spending/losing more money on the project than they had anticipated.
There was a point where they basically had to revamp and rebuild the amp from pretty much the ground up because of the nonstop bugaboo thinking of Ed towards how things should be.
It got even worse when they released the Wolfgang guitar. He would do interviews and come out with things that never even happened with the relationship with Peavey. Just a total Circus.
I think in a way they were glad to see him go. Here they had this amp built and ready for sale on the market and Ed was still asking for last minute ridiculous things.
Then the whole abortion that was the drunk, wigged out Ed at the 2003 Namm show was the final nail in the coffin..

James Brown is a very nice guy, he had to deal with a lot of BS when he was with peavy and to deal with Edward, I had a few conversations with James .

James is a cool guy and Ive talked to him before over DM/PM.


We were talking about the Iconic 5150 and other stuff like the Fender Reissues and other stuff he worked on. Down to Earth guy anyone could talk to or drink a beer with

 

[harddriver]

I bet that amp would slay with ECC803’s too. That’s how Reinhold ships the new Über Ultra.

Reinhold is using ECC803 Long plates in every preamp tube position of the Uber Ultra or select positions???

I would tend to think the long plates would not handle the gain the Uber Ultra's circuit and be susceptible to plate ring and oscillations versus a short plate 12ax7.