Strong hints that Van Halen 1 68 lead was just a slave amp and not the main amp.

[Amp_chaser]

vic called gh30s the anti harsh speakers.
he won me over to the holmes thing one day when i was at his shop and one of his customers brought in a vintage marshall. guy had a mcinturff gtr and claimed his amp was missing some plexi magic and wanted vic to mod it for vh tones. guy goes “strum strum” and it sounded cold and thin.

vic plugs in his holmes loaded strat and BA-WANG!!! huge and totally in the brown ballpark.
guy was in shock.

“nothing wrong with that amp dude..may wanna change the gtr/pus.”

zeke mentions that eddie used g12h30 pre rola then for the tours he had to use blackbacks to fill the new cabs so this is confirmed. Thank a lot for your insights too.

 

[ZEN Amps]

mh but zeke clark explains it clearly.

it was written multiple times that VH1 were 2 amps.

even if i had multiple theories it makes more sense now that i discovered that final piece of the puzzle in that video.

The OT voltages directly controlled by a variac could only be created by an external power amp that's why they needed another marshall amp.

what they did was using variac A on the 68 lead to lower b+ but used the variac B on the second amp which b+ was connected to the center tap of the OT of the 68 lead.

this would allow you to raise or lower the OT voltages of the 68 lead while keeping the overall b+ of the 68 lead lower.

this is an extremely unstable setup when those voltages are unbalanced it leads to OT and tube arcing and replating. this really makes much more sense and would explain why 2 amps on VH1.

this could even add bloom if the amp B is tube rectified.

however even today there is almost no way to make this amp and setup safe to sell that's probably why their idea to mass produce and sell it never hit the market... it would be too unstable. That's probably why this was only used once in the studio and not kept live.

You could be right about everything, or nothing, or something in between. My point is that it's really not that hard to get quite close with a good player - Plexi - M loaded cab - SM57 or two. That's just one path, there are many that get the vibe in minutes flat.

Once you accept this it leaves a whole lot of time for more important things in life, like obsessing over tubes and pickup magnets.

 

[mentoneman]

The only real mystery about EVH's Marshall at this point is how the Rose Palace got a '68 Super Lead in the first place. Leftover from Jeff Beck's tour, maybe?

now that would be a cool story…who originally purchased/owned THE amp prior to EVH..?

 

[mentoneman]

zeke mentions that eddie used g12h30 pre rola then for the tours he had to use blackbacks to fill the new cabs so this is confirmed. Thank a lot for your insights too.

i’m definitely not trying to claim i know more about anything vh, beyond what i learned through my experiences and the web. i got close enough 20 yrs ago, checked the box, and went “cool..next.”

same with SRV, EJ, Robben Ford, Landau…
admired their tones, had fun chasing, got close enough, learned alot and always ended up in the same place.
“Now what..?” I’m not them nor plan to assume their identities in a tribute or cover band.
So i take away elements of their playing and inject that and some of their tonal DNA into my style/rig/sounds. the end.

 

[Meanjoegreene]

i’m definitely not trying to claim i know more about anything vh, beyond what i learned through my experiences and the web. i got close enough 20 yrs ago, checked the box, and went “cool..next.”

same with SRV, EJ, Robben Ford, Landau…
admired their tones, had fun chasing, got close enough, learned alot and always ended up in the same place.
“Now what..?” I’m not them nor plan to assume their identities in a tribute or cover band.
So i take away elements of their playing and inject that and some of their tonal DNA into my style/rig/sounds. the end.

That’s me

Not necessarily nailing tones…just the main characteristics of the tones that let me pull off the vibe, techniques, ect.