Mike Soldano talks about EVH's Marshall

[Kapo_Polenton]

Chubtone, so passionate about this topic!! I for one can go either way. I think we've heard enough tones now of hot pups with a dimed and variac'd (or eq'd plexi) that get that tone in spades. I don't rule out that knob being a PPIMV or diodes alla Jose either though. In fact, throw into the mix the re-amping which was said to chain two plexi's together and that'll def increase gain as well! We just don't know.. the first album def sounds gainier to me than the second. I'm pretty sure Ed would have made a DS-1 into a fender sound bitchin though so I don't even bother thinking about it anymore.

 

[Chubtone]

I'm not trying to be overly passionate about this either. I LOVE this discussion is all I am saying. This is like arguing football teams and I live in LA so I have no team to argue about so this is it!

I have heard so many guys on that Metro forum nail VH tones with stock plexi builds, and modded plexi builds. They can do it stock with a pedal or stock but slaved or variac'd etc. Those guys are lunatics and I love reading and hearing their experiments. I'm not going to go that far for myself, but I love those VH lunatic archaeologist guys.

I just would like to hear John Suhr, or Friedman or Soldano or the European guy, Van Wheeldan or whatever talk about that extra hole in the back and what they think that might have been. I mean, it's obviously there, isn't it? What do THEY think it was?

It's like you're with a woman with normal size boobs and there are some small scars on each side and in old pictures you can see that her boobs were much larger than they are now. When asked about it, you're like, "yep, the boobs are totally stock. Move along. Nothing to see here."

 

[Chubtone]

Better yet...what happened to all those other guys amps? That's what I want to know.

Jose's family kept them and sold them to my friend John who owned a guitar shop. The invoices were taped to the bottoms of the amps so you might argue that they didn't know. John paid full price for the amps and I don't know what happened to them after that. I just know the sad, still frustrating story of THE Atomica amp and I'm not telling that one again.

 

[Chubtone]

This is the world of facts not being facts, when those facts are coming from the very people who would and do know.
But, in this world those people who would and do know are disregarded as not knowing the facts because some keyboard jockey claims he knows more than those who would and do know.

The internet has become reality by typing opinions.
Experts are regarded as having agenda's and thus can't be trusted or believed.
People who actually research things professionally and actually know the facts and details are disregarded because the facts they give to the general public doesn't jibe with personal opinion.
It's like nothing is actually knowable and factual outside of one's own opinion.

When I was a kid there was a term for people who always denied facts and real authorities on subjects, we called them "know it all's", and we knew what they were full of.....and it wasn't knowledge.
Get yer boots on!

I'm probably the "know it all" you are referring to. I'm not a know it all. You've belonged to Rig Talk for about 7 minutes now. I've been here since just about day 1 and we go at it on topics from time to time and this is one of them and if you are under the impression that I take myself too seriously or consider myself a know it all, maybe wait til you've been here 15 minutes and you might get to know a lot of us better. I am asking questions and presenting pictures that the questions are referring to. Know it all? Hardly. Asking questions because I'd like one of the real authorities on the subject to address the 800 lb gorilla in the room. Why won't any of them mention that? I just think it's strange.

 

[nitro]

Chubtone I agree with you 1000% ive been saying that for years.Eds plexi back then was not stock the Van Halen II studio photo shows Edwards plexi with the knob/pot in the back,stock plexis didnt have knob/pots in the back.Im surprised all these well know techs/builders dont understand or see that....... Jose did add a master volume to Edwards amp and that came right from Jose mouth to me.(Many conversation with Jose during the late 70s though the late 80s).

 

[yngzaklynch]

Fuck it... Let's talk about boobs. Damn you Chubtone!

 

[nitro]

Pictures show the facts.....

 

[311boogieman]

Chubtone, so passionate about this topic!! I for one can go either way. I think we've heard enough tones now of hot pups with a dimed and variac'd (or eq'd plexi) that get that tone in spades. I don't rule out that knob being a PPIMV or diodes alla Jose either though. In fact, throw into the mix the re-amping which was said to chain two plexi's together and that'll def increase gain as well! We just don't know.. the first album def sounds gainier to me than the second. I'm pretty sure Ed would have made a DS-1 into a fender sound bitchin though so I don't even bother thinking about it anymore.

It's all about the Vox man

 

[shgshg]

Wow. I coulda sworn I posted a reply here that I can't see. So anyway, for completeness:

Did John discuss the extra hole in the back of the amp?

Yeah, he said something to the effect that Jose had put either a slave out and/or a standby jack on more than one of Ed's amps and that would account for an extra hole. It seemed clear to me that Suhr didn't consider that work as "a mod" and didn't think it was important (as it had nothing to do with how the amp sounded).

 

[Rev]

Chubtone, so passionate about this topic!! I for one can go either way. I think we've heard enough tones now of hot pups with a dimed and variac'd (or eq'd plexi) that get that tone in spades. I don't rule out that knob being a PPIMV or diodes alla Jose either though. In fact, throw into the mix the re-amping which was said to chain two plexi's together and that'll def increase gain as well! We just don't know.. the first album def sounds gainier to me than the second. I'm pretty sure Ed would have made a DS-1 into a fender sound bitchin though so I don't even bother thinking about it anymore.

It's all about the Vox man

This is from a guy who was a mad scientist with modding guitars and pups, but I'm sure he left well enough alone when it came to his amps. Deductive reasoning and logic would conclude......look he even has a modded torpedo in that room.

 

[nevusofota]

I like to think that the amp builders are not addressing the extra hole in the back because, after examining the guts, they regard it as something that wouldn't have changed the tone (i.e. standby or slave out). Therefore not mentioning.

wooooosaaaaa........

 

[JohnSykes]

Cool thread.

 

[xXDaveyJonesXx]

^ Cool name

 

[Chubtone]

Chubtone, so passionate about this topic!! I for one can go either way. I think we've heard enough tones now of hot pups with a dimed and variac'd (or eq'd plexi) that get that tone in spades. I don't rule out that knob being a PPIMV or diodes alla Jose either though. In fact, throw into the mix the re-amping which was said to chain two plexi's together and that'll def increase gain as well! We just don't know.. the first album def sounds gainier to me than the second. I'm pretty sure Ed would have made a DS-1 into a fender sound bitchin though so I don't even bother thinking about it anymore.

It's all about the Vox man

This is from a guy who was a mad scientist with modding guitars and pups, but I'm sure he left well enough alone when it came to his amps. Deductive reasoning and logic would conclude......look he even has a modded torpedo in that room.

That bomb is not modded. In 1993, when General Norman Schwarzkopf was working on that bomb he said that everything in that bomb was totally stock, exactly as it had left the factory. General Colin Powell looked at it in 1997 and he also said that it was in perfect, stock condition. I think it is safe to say that when Ed was using that bomb in 1977-1978 that it was totally stock. Pay no attention to the hole in it and the tape echo, those aren't really there.

I mean, who are we going to listen to? Eddie back in the day said he had an old bomb that he put a tape echo in, but we all know he lied about everything right, so we have to disregard what he said in early interviews. He just said that to give the army surplus stores around him some extra business (sound familiar?).

Now we have the word of authorities who know bombs that the bomb is totally stock, fully functional and the reason we don't use bombs like that anymore is that the new bombs have way more channels and low end and gain.

 

[Chubtone]

Wow. I coulda sworn I posted a reply here that I can't see. So anyway, for completeness:

Did John discuss the extra hole in the back of the amp?

Yeah, he said something to the effect that Jose had put either a slave out and/or a standby jack on more than one of Ed's amps and that would account for an extra hole. It seemed clear to me that Suhr didn't consider that work as "a mod" and didn't think it was important (as it had nothing to do with how the amp sounded).

So the pot we are looking at could be the control for the slave out but where is the output jack for the slave out? What we are looking at is a pot and not a jack of any kind. Again, I swear, I'm not arguing, I just feel like these questions have never been answered completely.

And my Super Leads with the right pickup and the right pedal sound so early VH that I am not doubting the amp circuit could be stock. I'm just asking what the pot is for.

 

[shgshg]

Looks more like a button than a pot to me. Could be a standby switch so a tech could put the amp into standby from behind the back line, could be anything.

 

[supersonic]

This is old news OP. Brown tone may be in the shoes!

 

[Rogue]

So the pot we are looking at could be the control for the slave out but where is the output jack for the slave out? What we are looking at is a pot and not a jack of any kind. Again, I swear, I'm not arguing, I just feel like these questions have never been answered completely.

And my Super Leads with the right pickup and the right pedal sound so early VH that I am not doubting the amp circuit could be stock. I'm just asking what the pot is for.

It's entirely possible whatever on the back has nothing to do with the gain/tone circuits of the amp. Why would Mike Soldano and John Suhr purposely mislead people?

 

[shredi knight]

Did John discuss the extra hole in the back of the amp? I don't think it can get any clearer than pictured evidence of #1 in the recording studio for VH II....

What hole?

 

[glpg80]