Frank Levi Marshall Mod?

[PentatonicPunk]

Hey guys, I know this topic has been brought up before but I'm curious to know if Frank is still doing mods ? I know the Slash tone has been associated with SIR and Casewell, but I know that Levi did work on Doug Aldrich and George Lynch's Marshalls as well. That is the mod/ tone that I would be going after. I have even heard rumors that Levi did some work on Demartini's Marshalls back in the day too. Just wanted to start some discussion if anyone has any info. I have heard some clips of #36 on youtube and it sounded pretty good.

 

[MrDan666]

Hey guys, I know this topic has been brought up before but I'm curious to know if Frank is still doing mods ? I know the Slash tone has been associated with SIR and Casewell, but I know that Levi did work on Doug Aldrich and George Lynch's Marshalls as well. That is the mod/ tone that I would be going after. I have even heard rumors that Levi did some work on Demartini's Marshalls back in the day too. Just wanted to start some discussion if anyone has any info. I have heard some clips of #36 on youtube and it sounded pretty good.

Frank is still doing mods, i believe he lives over on the east coast now.

BTW even though Doug Aldrich had a couple Frank Levi modded/tweaked Marshalls, he also used a 50w Jose modded Marshall a lot back during the Lion days, all the way to the time when he did the House Of Lords - Sahara album.

Since owning several 'Jose' style modded Marshalls and doing a bunch of Jose inspired mods to Marshalls, i personally think Doug's tone back in the day resembled more of the Jose tone than the Levi/Caswell tone. Keep in mind, he also boosted the crap out of his amps with the Furman PQ-3 or a DOD FET Preamp + MXR 6band EQ combination.

As far as the Slash and Lynch thing, you'd probably be better off just going with the Caswell option, as Tim's mod has that tone in spades. No idea what Warren was using though, i have read all kinds of stories about him using both stock and modded Marshalls during his career.

 

[PentatonicPunk]

Well the Slash tone was never something I was after. Just not my thing. But Lynch is a different story Has anyone spoken to Frank recently? It would be interesting to get some more information on his work.

 

[MrDan666]

Well the Slash tone was never something I was after. Just not my thing. But Lynch is a different story Has anyone spoken to Frank recently? It would be interesting to get some more information on his work.

I believe it was the exact same amp (#39) that Slash and Lynch both used when they rented it from S.I.R Studios back in the 80's, as you probably know Slash rented the amp and never brought it back until years later.. when a roadie brought it back in by accident and S.I.R took it back. That was the amp that Tim Caswell modified, not Frank Levi.

The Caswell mod nails that sound, so if you're into the Lynch thing then i would look into one and maybe give Tim Caswell a call

 

[PentatonicPunk]

Thanks for your help man, I just need to find some good Caswell clips

 

[OBGYNkanobi]

Hey guys, I don't have any real hard evidence for any of this, but I came acorss something interesting, when I was trying to find some schematics on the #39 S.I.R...just pure curiosity as to what was done to the amp. Dave Friedman of Racksystems said over at the Metro forum that it was in fact the S.I.R. #34 amp that was used on AFD, not the # 39.

Thee's a link to an article explaining that the #36 was one that was set up by Levi to be like #39 that Caswell modded after he left SIR. When Lynch took #39 on tour, there was no suitable amp to meet the demand for #39, so #36 was modded to be similar in tone. However, Dave says that it was in fact #34 that was on the album. Dave recently had one of slash's JCM 800s in his shop, and it's not a Caswell mod...no extra tube, just good old tweaks to a JCM 800, which is more consistant with Levi's mods and would also explain why Levi is consulting on the Marshall AFD and not Tim Caswell. I'm not trying to pass this off as gospel, but I found it interesting none the less. Personally, I could care less, Dave's Brown Eye, Hairy Brown Eye, Custom45 mods, and Rockstah's Mod5 smoke the Caswell and the Levi Mods.

 

[jonny toetags]

The Caswell mod nails that sound, so if you're into the Lynch thing then i would look into one and maybe give Tim Caswell a call

I agree with this.
When I had my Caswell modded Marshall, I could go from "Slash" to "Lynch" with a flick of the front toggle switches.

 

[Gainfreak]

I can tell you from experiance that the Caswell stuff will vary. In other words some sounded good and others not so much. My friend Frankie had a Caswell modded marshall and it sounded like total crap. To be honest with you I had a Lee Jackson mod that sucked and he had the Caswell and my Lee Jackson amp sounded GodLike compared to his. Needless to say I ditched my Jackson and switched to using a stock 2210 with a graphic eq in the loop and after I did that, Frankie followed my lead because that setup sounded better then both mods!

 

[OBGYNkanobi]

I can tell you from experiance that the Caswell stuff will vary. In other words some sounded good and others not so much. My friend Frankie had a Caswell modded marshall and it sounded like total crap. To be honest with you I had a Lee Jackson mod that sucked and he had the Caswell and my Lee Jackson amp sounded GodLike compared to his. Needless to say I ditched my Jackson and switched to using a stock 2210 with a graphic eq in the loop and after I did that, Frankie followed my lead because that setup sounded better then both mods!

IMHO there are better options/modders out today IMHO. Ive never heard a Levi Mod in person and Im sure that back in the day they smoked but now that we have access to so many builders, id have to say that id go that route first then to try and get a line on someone who has fallen into obscurity. That's just my thinking

Absolutely, and there's a lot of good stuff out there today that is free, if you're willing do the research, pop out the chasis, and put some elbow grease into it...provided you know how to work on amps without killing yourself. Check out this link from Steve Miller... http://home.comcast.net/~mamp17/index.html.

Take his switchable 1 wire mod, change the value of the 1st CC position to .0022uf-.000047uf, change the cathode bypass cap on the normal channel to .68uf and the cathode resistor to 2.7k. You get a cascaded sound that doesn't get muddy and woofey when you bring in the normal channel. You'll have an excellent modded marshall sound, and your stock sound at the flick of a switch...it makes jumpering the channels much more useable as well. Provided that your amp sounds alright to begin with, I would think it could go toe to toe with a Caswell mod, and it won't cost you a small fortune.

 

[OBGYNkanobi]

I think that's true of a lot of mods, because a lot of times the guy doing the mod plugs in his parts...usually in the preamp, without taking a look at the amp as a whole and making the appropriate changes. The type of transfomers...esp the OT, filtering in the power section, the choke value, how the amp is voiced to begin with, etc. Instead I've seen cases where it's almost like they apply their formula to it, substitute the parts, make a few changes and "voila"....what you get is what you get. You can't really blame them, because they did the mod that they advertised to you that they would do, but the results are often times less than stellar. The only thing that kind of pisses me off about this, is that some of these mods are pushing $500...or higher. I mentioned Dave Friedman and Mark Abrahamian in particular because these guys take a more wholistic approach. They consider everything and if your amps is jacked up and sounds like crap to begin with, that's going to be the first thing that gets addressed...not adding some "formula mod" to an already bad sounding amp. I think Dave Bray should get a nod here to in this respect.

 

[Ste-Mean]

Sorry if I exhumed an old topic but I wanted to inform you about a news I found.
Reading a comment from him in person on the net, I found a really cool news:

Things are as good as they can be in this day & age, I am about to embark on a big push for my Marshall mods ... and, if all goes well, my own amp line in 2011 ... all custom handbuilt by moi. Time will tell ...

Woah, I can't wait!!
Anyone of you know more about it?!

 

[Schaf]

Wasn't ULAK recorded with Lee Jackson Modified heads? Didn't he just take the Caswell modded heads on that tour? Isn't that the tone everyone is chasing? Hell, I saw them on the Back for the Attack tour and the mix was so distorted that you couldn't even get a make on his tone. So, unless he recorded the BFTA with the Caswell heads, then how do we know what they really sound like? If that's what he was using on tour, i couldn't tell you what they sounded like because the mix was so bad. I personally like the tone on ULAK better than BFTA. Maybe someone can help me out here.

Schaf