Soldano takes a trip inside EVH's marshall

  • Thread starter Thread starter JackBootedThug
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In the early days, to get higher than Clapton/Cream type gain out of stock Marshall Plexi's, EVH (or anyone) would have had to drive the amps with a Super Distortion (Mighty Mite) until Seymour appeared, and then EVH had access to higher wound pickups that were not Super Distortions.

EVH had both, Mighty Mites and Seymour rewinds.

His main amp did have the knob at the back (who knows what it was) that was eventually removed but that was only one of his live amps.

Another of his main amps was a Marshall that had no tolex, the wooden Marshall and Dave Friedman has seen the inside of that (and other amps) and it's stock.

When his main amp broke down he probably switched to the wooden Marshall or one of his others (he had at least 9 on stage) and he also had Laneys and Musicmans for a while when his main gear went missing for a while.

So there is only one way to deal with all of those amps and get the required gain levels from them and that's to use higher output pickups, and then the gain levels are pretty consistent from one amp to another and there is no need for boosts or any of that (his EQ's were not really boosts, they were for cable loss).

There is nothing wrong with stock PAF's into a stock Marshall if someone is after Clapton/Cream type gain.

Stock PAF's into a modded (say extra stage) Plexi is another way but then all of the amps need the same mod, otherwise if the modded amp breaks down and the player switches to a stock Marshall then it's back to Clapton/Cream.

So, EVH would have needed to mod about 15 or whatever amps and additional hastily picked up replacement Laneys and MusicMans with the same mod if he was using stock PAF's.

IMO, he was using higher output pickups into stock Marshall's all on 10 and their wattage brought down by the variac.

I can't see how he needed both hotter pickups and amp mods (like extra stages).

When EVH mentioned PAF's he didn't mean stock PAF's but rewound PAF's.

In his early interviews he would use PAF a lot but in some of the early interviews he would say custom rewound PAF's by a guy in Santa Barbara, who was obviously Seymour.

Getting a pickup rewound usually means getting it rewound "hotter" unless it's for a restoration sort of deal.
 
Rocksoff":3jhzs38n said:
A 8.5k Alnico 3 PAF (or something like that, it's a Gibson stock R9 pickup) into a 1967 Plexi Super Lead with a circuit similar to EVH's main amp (0.68 caps, split cathode).

Put a Duncan Custom into it (Seymour's EVH pickup) and Voila EVH early gain levels would appear and drop it's wattage down to 40 watts or so by using the Variac and lowering the supply voltage and no need for mods or any weirdo crap at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8jHuBuawQU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B1o3PQs3nw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB2Oh1_wb0Y
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This Johan guy gets the absolute best Marshall tones. Not sure if it is the combo of the beyer M160 and a room mic or what but they scream vintage crunchy tones. Love it. So raw. I would say that you would still need more gain for some of those VH leads though!
 
Chester Nimitz":29s289ii said:
2nd79.jpg


I know what i see ... ;)



http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/ ... alen/n9553
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The side cutters are also trying to send a message.
 
IMO,

The knob is probably a Jose master, there is an ARRCO (Jose) sticker right next to the knob.

It was probably installed before EVH got onto the variac trick.

EVH used to use his Bandmaster through his Marshall cabinet (there are club pics) because the Marshall was too loud.

So he probably tried a master volume on the Marshall, but maybe he didn't like it that much and used his Bandmaster instead until he discovered the Variac and then he could turn the Marshall up to 10 and drop the wattage with the Variac and the master would be just turned up to max and not matter that much.

The Bandmaster disappears from the club photos and gets replaced by Marshall's with Variacs.

Apparently John Suhr went over the solder points of EVH's main amp (when the knob was removed) and he said that a master volume being installed at some point wasn't out of the question (up near the phase inverter) and I think he also said that the preamp section solder points were original and so no sign of an extra stage one wire mod or anything like that.

None of EVH's other amps (like at least 8 or more of them) have any knobs at the back or any additional knobs and they have been looked at by Dave Friedman and are stock.

Another thing is that he would probably need to have modded his Bandmaster as well as all of his other amps (including sometimes borrowed amps and temporary Laneys and Musicmans etc) if he was relying on stock PAF's and modded amps, and a hotter pickup driving a stock amp is just easier.
 
That probably is a Master vol but there's also a variac in the pic.
 
Just Mike":1bcvclph said:
That probably is a Master vol but there's also a variac in the pic.
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The reason Ed started using a variac in the first place is because the he had a UK made 230volt Marshall and no way to boost the 115vac USA line voltage. And i can tell u from an Engineering point taking a 230 amp and boosting voltage with an Analog variac the +/- tolerance in wall voltage was different everytime he used it unless he measured it with a DMM.

Everyone sez it was 90 volts but it would have been different.
 
No, he didn't boost voltage to the 230 volt amp, plugging the 230 volt amp into 117 VAC outlet gave him the idea to use a 117 volt amp down at 89 volts, and a Variac has an analog volt meter on the output so you know what the voltage is. The variance does nothing, I have 2. Cranking the bias to the tubes with the Variac down low helps, but it doesn't make the amp brown or grainy. It makes it gutless. I've tried all of that, and pulling two tubes out and running into an attenuator, non of it works.
 
Stradazone":1f5bdnly said:
So how do you know it's not the Mighty Mite PAF lower ouptut model instead of the 'distortion' model?
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It could be either, but generally believed to be the MM 1300 in the bridge because the DiMarzio allen screw pup in the neck is likely a Super Distortion, which would be an unusual neck pairing for a 1400 in the bridge. Ed's never been known to use the Super 2, so the SD is assumed anytime allen screw pups are photographed with DiMarzio bobbins.
 
EVH using his Bandmaster into a Marshall cab.



Variac in right hand corner.



According to EVH's more recent comments,

He had his Bandmaster and then he bought his main Marshall but couldn't use it because it was too loud and so he just looked at it in his room.

Maybe it already had a master volume installed by Jose from the Rose Palace days or maybe EVH had a master installed by Jose.

Seems like EVH didn't like a master volume anyway and he always was a turn the amp to 10 Clapton/Cream sort of dude.

Then he gets a European head and accidently discovers the Variac effect.

Next thing he stops using the Bandmaster at the clubs and starts using his Marshall's turned up to 10 and drops their wattage down with the Variac.

Dropping the wattage down with the Variac basically makes the 100 watt Marshall wattage more like the Bandmasters 40 watt wattage, so neat trick.

Master volumes are then pretty useless to him anyway once he discovers the Variac.

-------------------


---------

1963 Fender Bandmaster

“I used that amp for years in two ways. I already had the Marshall, but I had not stumbled onto the Variac thing yet, so I would use the Bandmaster through the Marshall cabinet when we gigged at smaller clubs like Gazzarri’s. In the little house in Pasadena that I grew up in, my mom always hated what she called ‘that high crying noise’—in other words, soloing. She’d always go, ‘Why do you have to make that high crying noise?’

-----------

1968 Marshall Super Lead 100 Model 1959

“When I was working for a music store called Berry and Grassmuck in Pasadena, moving pianos and organs, a Marshall head came in one day that had belonged to the Rose Palace. The Rose Palace is a concrete building where they build Rose Parade floats. They used to have concerts there with bands like Iron Butterfly and Jimi Hendrix. When they stopped having concerts there, that Marshall ended up in the store. I had never seen a Marshall before, except in pictures. I told them that I didn’t care how long I had to work there, but I wanted that amp head.

“When I first plugged it in, I blew it up. When you’d plug it straight into the wall, it would go poof! When I got it fixed, it was too loud. I used to sit in my room and stare at it. I remember playing a gig with it once, and as I looked behind it I could see the glass bottles of the tubes melting! It was too hot. The Variac was the key to making that amp work. I always wondered, What will happen if I do this? That’s how I stumbled onto the Variac. I wondered if the amp would still work if I lowered the voltage. It worked for years. Sylvania 6CA7 tubes sound great in it, but the best set of tubes that I ever had in that amp was a matched set of Telefunkens.

“I eventually met someone who worked at the Rose Palace who told me it was the house amp. Probably everyone and their brother played through it. It remained stock throughout its life.”

----

ESQ: You used a light dimmer on what?

EVH: I bought an English version, I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn't know. So I plugged the thing in, but I'm going, "Fucking thing doesn't work. I got ripped off." I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there's sound coming out, but it's really quiet, cause it's running on half voltage. So I go, "Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to all the way up, but it's really quiet." So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box. Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, "Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?" They go, "Yeah, it's all Variac, variable transformer, you know." And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it's on 220 and it's that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work. Well, it enabled me to turn my amp all the way up, save the tubes, save the wear and tear on the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I'd lower it down to 50.

-----------

ESQ: That's amazing. But still, that was it? That was the only modification you did?

EVH: Just out of necessity. I need an amp I could play in clubs. We wouldn't get hired, I would play so loud, you know, I'm going, what can I do? What can I do? Okay, I turned the voltage, the wall voltage into my volume knob.

ESQ: Did you lie to Guitar Player?

EVH: Wait, wait, wait, what I was gettin' at was when I did my first interview, I told people the complete opposite. I told them I raised it up 140 volts. I felt so bad. I felt so fucking horrible, man. They said, "Please don't attempt what Eddie Van Halen said in the last interview, because everyone was blowing their amps." Everyone fried their amps 'cause of me. I felt so bad. I never lied again after that.
 

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He would have gotten further pulling two tubes out and cutting it to 50 watts and THEN putting the Variac to it.

And/or installing a triode/pentode (half power) switch.

The Jose master with the zenier diodes would have increased saturation, even with the Variac.
 
None of EVH's back of the amps photos from 1978 have any tubes pulled.

I don't know how his mind worked, but maybe he wanted the full 100 watt deal and no boost pedals ala Clapton sort of deal.

The variac just dropped the output wattage and the amp stayed on 10 and didn't require boost pedals, so it was like a 100 watt Marshall on 10 but lower output.

The half power switch was probably beyond him, EVH was a dude that couldn't solder pickups and pots properly.

Jose wouldn't have known great rock tone from an Elephant's Tool.

Jose would have known the diode clipping from what others did in pedals and amps, nothing special.

It's building pedal diode clipping into the amp and zeners are used because of the higher amplified signal voltages in the amp.

Jose was just a small backyard operator and not of the younger generation when EVH was first dealing with him.

I'm not putting Jose down and he apparently worked at Vox or something like that and he would have known a lot about amp circuits but it would have been like asking your grandfather in the 70s about great hard rock tone.

It was up to EVH to work out what tone he liked and what worked for him.

If it was a master volume in EVH's amp then it doesn't automatically mean that zener diodes were involved, it might have just been a master volume.

Jose's zener circuits that I've seen are from later on in the 80s as far as I know but I could be wrong.
 
It does not sound like a Jose / diode. They are always a bit harsh and grinding.
 
My Atomica has the diode master and I wouldn't say it's harsh or grinding at all, if you use the bright switch on the front it CAN be if you don't decrease treble and or presence
 
Jose did different mods to suit the occasion.

The zener diode master was only one of them and it was copied by Peavey for their VTM amps.

The Jose zener diode master mod also included an extra amp stage and was towards the higher gain end.

Jose also often used the front panel input sockets for new knobs and EVH's main amp isn't like that at all and neither are his other old Marshall's.

All of that points to Jose making it up and adapting as he went along to suit what the player wanted IMO and I don't know how much of it relates to EVH or if any of it relates to EVH.
 
If ed really said he used a variac at 140v , that is a Dick move in my book
 
Rocksoff":aezyt0ib said:
Jose did different mods to suit the occasion.

The zener diode master was only one of them and it was copied by Peavey for their VTM amps.

The Jose zener diode master mod also included an extra amp stage and was towards the higher gain end.

Jose also often used the front panel input sockets for new knobs and EVH's main amp isn't like that at all and neither are his other old Marshall's.

All of that points to Jose making it up and adapting as he went along to suit what the player wanted IMO and I don't know how much of it relates to EVH or if any of it relates to EVH.
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I don't know about an extra stage automatically being included with a Jose master, there was a HG and a LG Jose...
 
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