Amp Build: Cameron Aldrich

[technomancer]

Made some progress this afternoon...

NFB

should be wiring up the board tonight or tomorrow...

Make sure to keep wire length to a minimum and loops small.

Good advice, thanks

 

[Racerxrated]

Here is the best example of the Aldrich tone in my opinion. The lead tones are great but really listen when Doug hits chords and lets them ring out. You hear this tone that sounds like a muscle car engine. That is Aldrich tone to me:

Beautiful! That’s it, that is THE tone!
Holy smokes, he plays with a ton of gain!

I've always noticed that when guys play live, they use quite a bit more gain than what they use in the studio.

The suhr guy said that he recently serviced those marshalls doug uses live to reduce the gain as he is using pedals these days

If I remember correctly the amps Doug uses in this video is a Cameron, and not the Suhr modded Marshall. For the Whitesnake live disc I believe that is the Suhr modded Marshall. Pretty similar circuits though.

 

[LP Freak]

Here is the best example of the Aldrich tone in my opinion. The lead tones are great but really listen when Doug hits chords and lets them ring out. You hear this tone that sounds like a muscle car engine. That is Aldrich tone to me:

Beautiful! That’s it, that is THE tone!
Holy smokes, he plays with a ton of gain!

I've always noticed that when guys play live, they use quite a bit more gain than what they use in the studio.

The suhr guy said that he recently serviced those marshalls doug uses live to reduce the gain as he is using pedals these days

If I remember correctly the amps Doug uses in this video is a Cameron, and not the Suhr modded Marshall. For the Whitesnake live disc I believe that is the Suhr modded Marshall. Pretty similar circuits though.

John Suhr just quoted Doug on TGP about this. Doug said he never used a Cameron except at some rehearsals. It was all Suhr stuff. He said he runs the gain around 6 and hits the front end with an EQ.

 

[Racerxrated]

Here is the best example of the Aldrich tone in my opinion. The lead tones are great but really listen when Doug hits chords and lets them ring out. You hear this tone that sounds like a muscle car engine. That is Aldrich tone to me:

Beautiful! That’s it, that is THE tone!
Holy smokes, he plays with a ton of gain!

I've always noticed that when guys play live, they use quite a bit more gain than what they use in the studio.

The suhr guy said that he recently serviced those marshalls doug uses live to reduce the gain as he is using pedals these days

If I remember correctly the amps Doug uses in this video is a Cameron, and not the Suhr modded Marshall. For the Whitesnake live disc I believe that is the Suhr modded Marshall. Pretty similar circuits though.

John Suhr just quoted Doug on TGP about this. Doug said he never used a Cameron except at some rehearsals. It was all Suhr stuff. He said he runs the gain around 6 and hits the front end with an EQ.

Interesting. Because he uses Suhr stuff now and has been for a while....but, somewhere out there is a pic of his road rack at I believe a Dio show, and there's a Cameron Marshall and a Cameron Standel in the rack. And he talks about those amps in another thread but I'm not sure which forum. Not here or TGP, that I'm sure.
I'm sure if he did use Cam stuff he wouldn't say now since I thought there was some bad blood there, didn't get an amp back or something...not sure exactly.
I've had a few Cam Aldrich modded Marshalls and they sounded a lot like the Whitesnake DVD I have here somewhere.

viewtopic.php?t=83745

Pic of the rack here and the thread.

 

[lespaul6]

Yeah.. probably doesnt want to mention the affiliation anymore. You guys really think the suhr sounds like a cam? I cant stand the suhr stuff

 

[Racerxrated]

Yeah.. probably doesnt want to mention the affiliation anymore. You guys really think the suhr sounds like a cam? I cant stand the suhr stuff

I haven't played any of the Suhr stuff but I have owned 2 Golub Lead modded Marshalls, and 3 Cam Aldrich Marshalls and one of the Golub 2203s sounded very close to one of the Cam Aldrich Marshalls I had at the same time. But the Golub needed a slight boost to tighten the low end where the Cam needed nothing extra. Both killer and very aggressive.

 

[lespaul6]

Yeah.. probably doesnt want to mention the affiliation anymore. You guys really think the suhr sounds like a cam? I cant stand the suhr stuff

I haven't played any of the Suhr stuff but I have owned 2 Golub Lead modded Marshalls, and 3 Cam Aldrich Marshalls and one of the Golub 2203s sounded very close to one of the Cam Aldrich Marshalls I had at the same time. But the Golub needed a slight boost to tighten the low end where the Cam needed nothing extra. Both killer and very aggressive.

Was Golub the one who developed that mod originally and suhr just carried it over

 

[Racerxrated]

Yeah.. probably doesnt want to mention the affiliation anymore. You guys really think the suhr sounds like a cam? I cant stand the suhr stuff

I haven't played any of the Suhr stuff but I have owned 2 Golub Lead modded Marshalls, and 3 Cam Aldrich Marshalls and one of the Golub 2203s sounded very close to one of the Cam Aldrich Marshalls I had at the same time. But the Golub needed a slight boost to tighten the low end where the Cam needed nothing extra. Both killer and very aggressive.

Was Golub the one who developed that mod originally and suhr just carried it over

Golub worked for Bradshaw so I think Bradshaw is the one who came up with it, or Suhr when they worked together. But Golub didn't come with it to my knowledge. I also think the Cameron Aldrich is different than what Bradshaw/Suhr does as far as the circuit itself. But those two amps I could dial in very close with exception to the low end tightness. Maybe Psychodave or others with more knowledge on the history of these mods can chime in.....

 

[paulyc]

All I know is that the Suhr mod is an extra tube added to the front end of the amp, not sure what the Cameron Aldrich is. Reb Beach used the Suhr mod before switching to Suhr’s amps. Reb used them for most of the Winger stuff, and supposedly the Warrant record he did as well as the Dokken stuff. He kept the gain lower and used a boost for solos only because he wanted to be able to stop playing and not have the amp go into run away feedback between rhythm strums.

 

[Racerxrated]

All I know is that the Suhr mod is an extra tube added to the front end of the amp, not sure what the Cameron Aldrich is. Reb Beach used the Suhr mod before switching to Suhr’s amps. Reb used them for most of the Winger stuff, and supposedly the Warrant record he did as well as the Dokken stuff. He kept the gain lower and used a boost for solos only because he wanted to be able to stop playing and not have the amp go into run away feedback between rhythm strums.

I know 1 or 2 Winger albums was an early Rectifier? Or so I always thought....like proto early. But not sure which album, maybe Pull since that was 93.
I know that Cameron had this mod going as early as 93, because the last Aldrich I had was a JMP 2203 with a white headshell that had some history here on RT, I know Gary(Glip22) owned it at one point and talked with Mark C about it. Of course in 93 it might not have been called the Aldrich mod.

 

[technomancer]

Here is the best example of the Aldrich tone in my opinion. The lead tones are great but really listen when Doug hits chords and lets them ring out. You hear this tone that sounds like a muscle car engine. That is Aldrich tone to me:

Beautiful! That’s it, that is THE tone!
Holy smokes, he plays with a ton of gain!

I've always noticed that when guys play live, they use quite a bit more gain than what they use in the studio.

The suhr guy said that he recently serviced those marshalls doug uses live to reduce the gain as he is using pedals these days

If I remember correctly the amps Doug uses in this video is a Cameron, and not the Suhr modded Marshall. For the Whitesnake live disc I believe that is the Suhr modded Marshall. Pretty similar circuits though.

John Suhr just quoted Doug on TGP about this. Doug said he never used a Cameron except at some rehearsals. It was all Suhr stuff. He said he runs the gain around 6 and hits the front end with an EQ.

Interesting. Because he uses Suhr stuff now and has been for a while....but, somewhere out there is a pic of his road rack at I believe a Dio show, and there's a Cameron Marshall and a Cameron Standel in the rack. And he talks about those amps in another thread but I'm not sure which forum. Not here or TGP, that I'm sure.
I'm sure if he did use Cam stuff he wouldn't say now since I thought there was some bad blood there, didn't get an amp back or something...not sure exactly.
I've had a few Cam Aldrich modded Marshalls and they sounded a lot like the Whitesnake DVD I have here somewhere.

viewtopic.php?t=83745

Pic of the rack here and the thread.

I wasn't going to get into it with John Suhr over there obviously but I do remember an interview previously with Doug saying the Dio DVD was using Cameron amps. At this point Suhr is Doug's bread and butter so not shocking he would say something different now. I also didn't want to mention that my next build will probably be an SE100 since there is no way I am dropping $4k on a straight single channel Marshall amp. I love Suhr's products but their prices have gone batshit crazy and the whole what used to be a standard top is now a premium or select build that is $2k+ more just pisses me off.

The SE100 is also four gain stages but has a cathode follower to drive the tone stack as opposed to the plate fed on the Cameron. Both are four gain stage Marshall-derived designs though.

I've got all the leads on the board now for this one and should be installing it soon-ish. I'll get a photo up later. I basically lost the day I had to work on this over the weekend as our power was out...

 

[Racerxrated]

^^^Pretty apparent why he wouldn't admit to using the Cam stuff esp if Doug was also ripped off.

Build looks great, can't wait to hear a clip when you're done!

 

[technomancer]

^^^Pretty apparent why he wouldn't admit to using the Cam stuff esp if Doug was also ripped off.

Build looks great, can't wait to hear a clip when you're done!

Pretty sure Mark and Doug are still on good terms, but Mark isn't sending Doug any royalty checks for sig gear or free amps for tours...

Thanks, hopefully I'll get this wrapped up in the next week or two

 

[psychodave]

Mark and Doug are still friends.


Regarding the Suhr/Bradshaw amps/mods, they sound great, but don’t feel good under the fingers. Maybe if I slammed the front with a furman or pedal when I tried them it would help....

 

[technomancer]

Slowly making progress... if all goes well I might be able to power this up this weekend.

 

[CrazyNutz]

Very nice, you're on the home stretch!

 

[technomancer]

That awkward moment when you power up and are reading 27v off of the 15v tap from the transformer...

 

[psychodave]

That awkward moment when you power up and are reading 27v off of the 15v tap from the transformer...

Ahh, 12 volts...

 

[V2a]

were the power tubes installed? If so, you may still get 15v when there is a proper load....

 

[technomancer]

were the power tubes installed? If so, you may still get 15v when there is a proper load....

Nope no power tubes. Even without them I still thought that seemed a bit high though...

I'm going to double check a few things, and I want to move the voltage regulator onto the chassis with a thermal interface anyways.