I finally found out what the pot behind van halen VH1 does (it wasn't a master at all)

[Amp_chaser]

to me the brighter of the two tracks just sound like a celestion miced with a 57 on axis on the dust cap more than a JBL,
but it could also be a JBL just heavily eq’ed to not be as bright as it would normally sound close miced and raw…which is very bright!

if you go to JJ Blair’s insta to find the original post he goes through all of the isolated instrument tracks and there is quite a bit of gtr bleed on the drum mics, which may contribute to the sound and may have captured some of the JBL in the room vibe…

the other thing i noticed is that the echo printed on the solo track didn’t sound much like an echoplex to me. sounded more like:

Eddie Van Halen used the Roland DC-20 echo on several tracks, notably including "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," "Runnin' With the Devil," and "Jump."

bottom line is the tracks here imo point out the raw tone was very consistent with what i know to be a cranked/attenuated plexi, with the help of a variac and maybe a boss eq pedal and echoplex preamp out front. the magic was Donn Landee mix and the Sunset Sound chamber.

see that chainsaw sound on the main chord of RWTD i have a schaffer and ep3 and an mxq blue 10 band eq. even with those pedals i can't get that sound with any of my guitars with evh related humbuckers and the stock super lead with ed's supposed specs fat cap 50k mid pot etc.

However with the main mod associated with the voltacontrol i can get it. Most recordings with super leads don't have that chainsaw sound. I know we can argue for ages but for the me the raw iso track does not sound like a stock marshall. It's unfortunate i can't make an ir of my modded amp and share it.

That big amp says Sound City on it.

perhaps but it is not a model you can find for sale, it seems completely custom and the size of it : that’s huge. That bigger than a svt …

Here is a new record of my mods it sound almost spot on threw an iphone :



This a brighter version with less mud :


However it fails hard at other vh songs except vh1. I swapped for a guitar with a 78 model at the beginning after the first riffs.

There is a cap controling the amount of drive however it has to be balanced or it gets a little bit muddy right here it’s still a bit too much i think i’ll have to order other values.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

This thread...

 

[Amp_chaser]

This thread...

View attachment 442826

Just listen my best tracks and compare it to a stock plexi without any pedals and no eq or any kind of boosting then decide.the modded amp sounds like that out of the box. It just need the power section mods and finding the right clipping circuit and where it was done and it will be finished. By the way the pics of ed’s turret board helped me a lot to figure out what was perhaps going on.

 

[MadAsAHatter]

Just listen my best tracks and compare it to a stock plexi without any pedals and no eq or any kind of boosting then decide.the modded amp sounds like that out of the box. It just need the power section mods and finding the right clipping circuit and where it was done and it will be finished. By the way the pics of ed’s turret board helped me a lot to figure out what was perhaps going on.

Um... It was just a goofy joke.
You did just personify the meme though.

 

[Lightning]

Amp Chaser what pickup are you using ??

 

[Amp_chaser]

Amp Chaser what pickup are you using ??

Again ibanez super 70’s the others fail at running with the devil this one is always spot on with that amp. If i remember well you had a copy and not an original one ? Get a genuine one.

The 78 models works well with everything that is tremolo based. However i don’t think it was the tremolo guitar humbucker. I need to buy a frankie classic amd swap the magnet.

 

[Rackman]

Quite a few people have said that Landee used Pultecs among other things so they probably were used.

I'm sure he did - a high percentage of productions use Pultecs.

I feel like this would all be less mysterious if people spent a bit more time recording guitars. There's enough room mic info on the Van Halen albums to know that primary guitar tracks are HEAVILY processed. Which is pretty standard. Take a hyped to hell mic like an SM57, whatever the pres in that custom console were (API I think, which are very colored), a Pultec, an 1176 compressor, tape artifacts, Sunset Sound chamber 1, plus the whole 2-bus/mastering chain and what went in the mic and what came out the speakers are only conceptually related.

 

[SoooRad]

see that chainsaw sound on the main chord of RWTD i have a schaffer and ep3 and an mxq blue 10 band eq. even with those pedals i can't get that sound with any of my guitars with evh related humbuckers and the stock super lead with ed's supposed specs fat cap 50k mid pot etc.

However with the main mod associated with the voltacontrol i can get it. Most recordings with super leads don't have that chainsaw sound. I know we can argue for ages but for the me the raw iso track does not sound like a stock marshall. It's unfortunate i can't make an ir of my modded amp and share it.

perhaps but it is not a model you can find for sale, it seems completely custom and the size of it : that’s huge. That bigger than a svt …

Here is a new record of my mods it sound almost spot on threw an iphone :



There is a cap controling the amount of drive however it has to be balanced or it gets a little bit muddy right here it’s still a bit too much i think i’ll have to order other values.

Just for fun, I put in headphones from two different feeds, VH in my left ear, your track in the right. Your side comparatively speaking is fatter/rounder.

Otherwise it is quite close. To be honest with you, the primary thing is just what happens when it gets the volume right near the top. I could get a very similar sound with my Laney GH50L just by turning the master volume over 8. It gets wild and hairy over 8.

 

[VonBonfire]

Here is a new record of my mods it sound almost spot on threw an iphone :

Sounded like bedroom mud.

 

[Amp_chaser]

Sounded like bedroom mud.

Is it better ?

 

[Lightning]

Amp Chaser I also had a original Ibanez super 70 and it also fell short

 

[DanTravis62]

I'm sure he did - a high percentage of productions use Pultecs.

I feel like this would all be less mysterious if people spent a bit more time recording guitars. There's enough room mic info on the Van Halen albums to know that primary guitar tracks are HEAVILY processed. Which is pretty standard. Take a hyped to hell mic like an SM57, whatever the pres in that custom console were (API I think, which are very colored), a Pultec, an 1176 compressor, tape artifacts, Sunset Sound chamber 1, plus the whole 2-bus/mastering chain and what went in the mic and what came out the speakers are only conceptually related.

Trying to replicate that room sound with an iphone (!) recording of all things just shows you how little many guitarists and amp guys know about recording works; especially the effects of rooms and post processing

 

[Anje]

... it sound almost spot on threw an iphone :

This must be the ice on the cake of this whole thread
If it sounds right on a phone, it must be right! Isn't is?

 

[harddriver]

I'm sure he did - a high percentage of productions use Pultecs.

I feel like this would all be less mysterious if people spent a bit more time recording guitars. There's enough room mic info on the Van Halen albums to know that primary guitar tracks are HEAVILY processed. Which is pretty standard. Take a hyped to hell mic like an SM57, whatever the pres in that custom console were (API I think, which are very colored), a Pultec, an 1176 compressor, tape artifacts, Sunset Sound chamber 1, plus the whole 2-bus/mastering chain and what went in the mic and what came out the speakers are only conceptually related.

Trying to replicate that room sound with an iphone (!) recording of all things just shows you how little many guitarists and amp guys know about recording works; especially the effects of rooms and post processing

Well, that's what this ampchaser guy wants, he wants his live amp to sound like the actual studio processed recording of VH1 with Don Landee and Ted Templeman at the controls.

It was because of Landee that Ed's amp sounds the way it does on VH1 and Mr. Ampchaser is in complete denial of the effects of the studio processing compared to the room mic clips of VH1 and how Ed's amp actually sounded like in front of the speaker cab. These have been posted in all of his threads and he simply ignores what is obvious to most of us.

 

[DanTravis62]

Well, that's what this ampchaser guy wants, he wants his live amp to sound like the actual studio processed recording of VH1 with Don Landee and Ted Templeman at the controls.

It was because of Landee that Ed's amp sounds the way it does on VH1 and Mr. Ampchaser is in complete denial of the effects of the studio processing compared to the room mic clips of VH1 and how Ed's amp actually sounded like in front of the speaker cab. These have been posted in all of his threads and he simply ignores what is obvious to most of us.

It's funny, at least to me, listening to that in the room janies cryin makes it incredibly obvious that it's a relatively stock plexi. At least for me personally, that "loud stock plexi in a room with a band" sound is really obvious if you've had the experience.

 

[rsm]

so, after 335 posts, the real solution is to get a Fractal Axe-FX III Mark II Turbo and model the entire studio chain used to record VH1.

sifting through 100s of IRs should be fun. /S

 

[harddriver]

Is it better ?

Do you not hear those oscillations you got going on there? Something in the circuit isn't happy. You do realize there is a lower threshold of B+ at which a 12ax7 will not operate correctly? Jose's voltacontrol was designed to mimic a variaced B+ level of the V1 gain stage in a non variaced amp at 110AC wall voltage the same way Mark Cameron and Dave Friedman and some Jose amps use 330K and 430K plate resistors to lower the B+ for earlier clipping of the 12ax7.

Knock yourself out........No one, not even John Suhr, Dave Friedman and Mike Soldano and every EVH plexi clip on Youtube is going to convince you otherwise.

BTW... is there still snow on the ground in Switzerland?

 

[Amp_chaser]

Trying to replicate that room sound with an iphone (!) recording of all things just shows you how little many guitarists and amp guys know about recording works; especially the effects of rooms and post processing

Man i just have issues with recording amps with programs. Threw genome it sounds as good as in my cabs. I have to tweak a lot input amd output in luna and reaper to get something close. It sounds as close as it is live threw an iphone speaker that’s what i wanted to say. It sounds way better in my room believe me x)… it’s just i’m a freaking noob at recording i think if people saw how i record they would probably have a headache .

 

[Amp_chaser]

Do you not hear those oscillations you got going on there? Something in the circuit isn't happy. You do realize there is a lower threshold of B+ at which a 12ax7 will not operate correctly? Jose's voltacontrol was designed to mimic a variaced B+ level of the V1 gain stage in a non variaced amp at 110AC wall voltage the same way Mark Cameron and Dave Friedman and some Jose amps use 330K and 430K plate resistors to lower the B+ for earlier clipping of the 12ax7.

Knock yourself out........No one, not even John Suhr, Dave Friedman and Mike Soldano and every EVH plexi clip on Youtube is going to convince you otherwise.

What i know for sure about josé and eddie they prefered tone over the health and safety of the amp they were willing to burn tubes for tone. It’s clearly their ideology that goes into that volta that starves the 12ax7 a lot. Despite being low volume, I remember eddie complaining at how noisy the vh1 settup was and this matches what i got with the volta.

I believe the preamp is done i just need now to find the right clipping components which i guess are germanium. Finally add the short load adujst the preamp voicing with the clipping and power section distortion and it will be done. If you don’t believe the short load story remember that many vh players know the 24 ohm load at the output of ed’s amp. But at some point he probably used a very low short load that would need reamp.

It’s a variation of what ed did when he plugged into the aux out of his bandmaster…

Eddie :
<< If you plug the cabinet into the external speaker output instead of the regular output, it’s really quiet. I could turn everything all the way up, which is what I always did anyway, and there was this small amount of bleed that sounded exactly like when the regular output is turned all the way up, but it’s really quiet. Everyone says that you can’t do that because the transformer will blow, but the amp never blew up. >>

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

What i know for sure about josé and eddie they prefered tone to the health and safety of the amp they were willing to burn tubes for tone. It’s clearly their ideology that goes into that volta that starves the 12ax7 a lot. I remember eddie complaining at how noisy the vh1 settup was and this matches what i got with the volta.

The tone you got in the room was spot on as far as I'm concerned. Do you know the rest of the song, though? It isn't my style, but the recording sounded good. I would just like to hear more than a 3 second part repeated