Monkey Man
Super Moderator
Hey bud, use this sticky as an introductory thread if you like. 
Meet Eddy
- Thread starter Monkey Man
- Start date
JackBootedThug
MURDERATOR
oh shit-we need to let him know he's hooked up now...lol
Monkey Man
Super Moderator
I sent him a PM.
EddyLenz
Well-known member
Thank you all for making this possible!
So this is the story of how I got here.
I'm Eddy Lenz, born in March of 2000 in Germany.
In late 2013 I picked up the guitar as a hobby and soon realized, that I'd like it to be more than just that.
My favorite guitarist at the time was Slash, and I mostly listened to Guns n Roses.
My first proper amp was an Orange TH30 which I got in 2014.
I liked the sound, but after I became more familiar with different guitar tones, I wanted a proper 3-band EQ and not just a shift knob, so I could dial in a sound that would better suit my preference.
Around that time, I also started to notice, that all the album sounds I really liked were recorded with Marshall amps (GnR, Green Day, Ozzy/Zakk Wylde, AC/DC...).
I think it was late 2015 when I stumbled across an original 1987 Marshall Silver Jubilee in a guitar store in Stuttgart.
I tried it with the matching cab and was blown away. It was completely different than my Orange and was closer to the sound that I heard on all those records.
After doing some research on the amp, I also saw that Slash had been using it as his main live amp since the 90s, so I just had to get it.
The Silver Jubilee became my main amp for the next year or so and I really liked it.
Getting more into the tone of different amps and guitars around 2016, I became obsessed with the tone on Appetite for Destruction and Dookie.
This led me down the rabbit hole of modded Marshalls and got me to pull the trigger on a 1973 Super Lead. I used it stock with an attenuator for a while and then decided to have it modded. At first, I thought about getting the Dookie mod, but then I landed on the S.I.R #34/36 after watching a Guns n Roses documentary on TV.
I found a local guy who could do the mod and was really happy with the amp when I got it back. At the time, it was the closest I've ever been to the album sound. Like all those times before, this happiness didn't last too long. I was still trying to get even closer to that sound.
Around the same time, I became almost equally obsessed with the tone on the first two Racer X records.
This led to me buying a 1976 JMP MKII 50W, which I then had modded with a Lee Jackson mod.
These two modded Marshalls are amps that I first started tinkering with, in order to get them closer to the sound I was hearing in my head.
At that point, I had some experience in working on amps because I built a 15W amp kit with my dad, who has a background in electronics.
In 2018, my new obsession was Joe Holmes's tone on Farmikos. So naturally, I had to get a Jose modded Marshall lol.
I bought a french Plexi clone that I had modded with a standard Jose mod but it didn't get me the sound I desired.
So I started tinkering with the Jose a lot and got more and more into all the little details.
After finishing school in 2018, I moved to the UK later that year and started my BA at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford.
During that time, I continued to work on my own amps and gained more and more knowledge on the topic.
In July of 2019, I uploaded the first video of an amp that I modded myself.
It was the french Plexi clone, but I had long replaced the old Jose mod with a different 3in1 style Jose mod.
About two months later, I uploaded the first video of my own #34/36 mod, which I spent a long time perfecting.
This #34/36 video and the shortly following JCM800 #34 video are probably how most people first came across my work.
I started to get requests for doing those mods, which I declined at first, but after I got more experience working on my own amps, I accepted the first #34 request in early 2020. A few weeks later, I got a 2nd request for a Jose mod in a 1987X and they just kept coming.
In late 2020, after finishing my BA and moving back to Germany, I got the attention of the German guitarist Siggi Schwarz, who was about to record his new album.
He asked if he could try my modded Marshalls and maybe use one of them in the studio.
I immediately got to work and started to develop a new circuit in my 1970 Super PA, that I thought would suit his style (which now evolved into the Hot Chili).
On the day of the meeting, I brought 3 of my modded Marshalls to his old guitar store building, where he tested them all at high volumes.
In addition to the Super PA, which had the newly designed circuit, I brought along a 1980 Super Bass with my Jose mod and an old 2203 that I had completely rebuilt into a 2 channel prototype.
The Super PA was by far his favorite amp but he also really liked the Jose, so I lent him those two amps and left them at the building.
Right the next morning, I got a call. It was Siggi and he said that he continued to play the amps after I was gone. He compared the modded Super PA to his old JCM 2205, which Michael Schenker used for a project with him, and was amazed at how much better my amp sounded.
All this led to him asking whether I was interested in starting an amp company with him, which was exactly what I was hoping for.
We immediately contacted Michael Kast, who got Siggi interested in my work in the first place and asked him to join our venture.
Michael had a lot of experience in sales, having worked for Bogner in LA and other amp companies back in the day. In addition to that, he had the same vision for the company and shared the same passion for guitar tones as Siggi and me.
In May of 2021, the three of us finally got all the paperwork done and founded Lenz Amplification.
We now arrive at the present, where I'm currently building the first run of our Hot Chili amp.
I hope this wasn't too boring haha.
Cheers,
Eddy
So this is the story of how I got here.
I'm Eddy Lenz, born in March of 2000 in Germany.
In late 2013 I picked up the guitar as a hobby and soon realized, that I'd like it to be more than just that.
My favorite guitarist at the time was Slash, and I mostly listened to Guns n Roses.
My first proper amp was an Orange TH30 which I got in 2014.
I liked the sound, but after I became more familiar with different guitar tones, I wanted a proper 3-band EQ and not just a shift knob, so I could dial in a sound that would better suit my preference.
Around that time, I also started to notice, that all the album sounds I really liked were recorded with Marshall amps (GnR, Green Day, Ozzy/Zakk Wylde, AC/DC...).
I think it was late 2015 when I stumbled across an original 1987 Marshall Silver Jubilee in a guitar store in Stuttgart.
I tried it with the matching cab and was blown away. It was completely different than my Orange and was closer to the sound that I heard on all those records.
After doing some research on the amp, I also saw that Slash had been using it as his main live amp since the 90s, so I just had to get it.
The Silver Jubilee became my main amp for the next year or so and I really liked it.
Getting more into the tone of different amps and guitars around 2016, I became obsessed with the tone on Appetite for Destruction and Dookie.
This led me down the rabbit hole of modded Marshalls and got me to pull the trigger on a 1973 Super Lead. I used it stock with an attenuator for a while and then decided to have it modded. At first, I thought about getting the Dookie mod, but then I landed on the S.I.R #34/36 after watching a Guns n Roses documentary on TV.
I found a local guy who could do the mod and was really happy with the amp when I got it back. At the time, it was the closest I've ever been to the album sound. Like all those times before, this happiness didn't last too long. I was still trying to get even closer to that sound.
Around the same time, I became almost equally obsessed with the tone on the first two Racer X records.
This led to me buying a 1976 JMP MKII 50W, which I then had modded with a Lee Jackson mod.
These two modded Marshalls are amps that I first started tinkering with, in order to get them closer to the sound I was hearing in my head.
At that point, I had some experience in working on amps because I built a 15W amp kit with my dad, who has a background in electronics.
In 2018, my new obsession was Joe Holmes's tone on Farmikos. So naturally, I had to get a Jose modded Marshall lol.
I bought a french Plexi clone that I had modded with a standard Jose mod but it didn't get me the sound I desired.
So I started tinkering with the Jose a lot and got more and more into all the little details.
After finishing school in 2018, I moved to the UK later that year and started my BA at the Academy of Contemporary Music in Guildford.
During that time, I continued to work on my own amps and gained more and more knowledge on the topic.
In July of 2019, I uploaded the first video of an amp that I modded myself.
It was the french Plexi clone, but I had long replaced the old Jose mod with a different 3in1 style Jose mod.
About two months later, I uploaded the first video of my own #34/36 mod, which I spent a long time perfecting.
This #34/36 video and the shortly following JCM800 #34 video are probably how most people first came across my work.
I started to get requests for doing those mods, which I declined at first, but after I got more experience working on my own amps, I accepted the first #34 request in early 2020. A few weeks later, I got a 2nd request for a Jose mod in a 1987X and they just kept coming.
In late 2020, after finishing my BA and moving back to Germany, I got the attention of the German guitarist Siggi Schwarz, who was about to record his new album.
He asked if he could try my modded Marshalls and maybe use one of them in the studio.
I immediately got to work and started to develop a new circuit in my 1970 Super PA, that I thought would suit his style (which now evolved into the Hot Chili).
On the day of the meeting, I brought 3 of my modded Marshalls to his old guitar store building, where he tested them all at high volumes.
In addition to the Super PA, which had the newly designed circuit, I brought along a 1980 Super Bass with my Jose mod and an old 2203 that I had completely rebuilt into a 2 channel prototype.
The Super PA was by far his favorite amp but he also really liked the Jose, so I lent him those two amps and left them at the building.
Right the next morning, I got a call. It was Siggi and he said that he continued to play the amps after I was gone. He compared the modded Super PA to his old JCM 2205, which Michael Schenker used for a project with him, and was amazed at how much better my amp sounded.
All this led to him asking whether I was interested in starting an amp company with him, which was exactly what I was hoping for.
We immediately contacted Michael Kast, who got Siggi interested in my work in the first place and asked him to join our venture.
Michael had a lot of experience in sales, having worked for Bogner in LA and other amp companies back in the day. In addition to that, he had the same vision for the company and shared the same passion for guitar tones as Siggi and me.
In May of 2021, the three of us finally got all the paperwork done and founded Lenz Amplification.
We now arrive at the present, where I'm currently building the first run of our Hot Chili amp.
I hope this wasn't too boring haha.
Cheers,
Eddy
SQUAREHEAD
Well-known member
Welcome Eddy!
All your stuff sounds incredible, reminds me of Joe Holmes live tone (love it) from the mid 90’s with Qzzy, which now makes perfect sense, reading your story
So excited for you to finally have a production amp,
Congratulations!
All your stuff sounds incredible, reminds me of Joe Holmes live tone (love it) from the mid 90’s with Qzzy, which now makes perfect sense, reading your story
So excited for you to finally have a production amp,
Congratulations!
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