Mike Soldano talks about EVH's Marshall

[nitro]

Explain the knob/ pot in the back.Edward would keep a guitar at Jose shop why would he do that hmmmmmmm.Why would Jose tour with Ed hmmmmmm.

 

[Greazygeo]

Some of us grew up playing these amps and developed the touch for getting gain out of them.....for those that didn't, there are "modded" amps to do it.

nothing special about his amp...stick a 57 in front of a marshall cab, use an echoplex, wind up a tube compressor and slam the recording level going to tape.....Frasier episodes are more interesting than this.

My question was rhetorical. I know why there builders and mods out there going after that tone with other extras in their builds or mods. A stock plexi will not get you those tones. Sorry. Just wont happen. Now a cranked stock plexi with a low wattage speakers (greenbacks), phase 90, echo plex, and a variac will. That's why there are amp builders out there. To do all that in one amp with some extras that are not in a stock plexi.

You must have skipped over the bold part in my post. That's ok. I guess I did leave out the variac part and the 6ca7s too. I do happen to have a 1969 plexi 100 that gets those gain levels just plugged into it though. And it is stock minus one component value. I just hope mine never sounds like his....dreadful tone.

 

[TrueTone500]

...

 

[mentoneman]

Rogue your wrong,My info came right from the man who did the master volume mod on Eds plexi that was Jose.Why would I post assumtions.All my info came from people who were around and knew Edward back in the day(1970s).People who seen that band play in backyard parties and clubs they were associated with Ed.Jose Arrendondo,Lynn Ellsworth,Karl Sandoval,Wayne Charvel,Rudy Leiran(Edwards first tech),the guys at Dr Music,Terry Kilgore these are the people I spoke to(and still do)and recieved my info from.Like I said im not going to post assumtions if I had nothing to say I wouldnt be posting anything.Where have some of the game players here recieve their info from.

no reason to doubt your experiences. i tend to feel the same way you do about his tone.

but what is ultimately your goal of adamantly defending your point of view?
that if you succeed in convincing everyone that the amp was modded, that better VH tone amps will be made, for you to enjoy?
or is it just that you will prove every expert that says the amp was stock, wrong, or a liar, and be vindicated someday? just hard to understand what you are trying to accomplish with your crusade.

more importantly, do you still have your rockstah mod

 

[nitro]

Mentoneman,Yes I still have that amp and your right let people believe what they want.

 

[espquade]

The two most powerful forces in marketing are aspiration and nostalgia. Marketing companies sell to the public by dangling "the life you want" or "the life you used to have" in front of you when you don't like the life you have now. Sportswear companies market "being rich" to urban black kids and "being cool" to suburban white kids because that's what those kids want to be. That's aspiration.

The vintage amp and vintage guitar bubble is one of many marketing exercises targeting the richest most selfish and privileged group of people the world has ever known - American Baby Boomers. Vintage Les Pauls and Strats are icons because they were used by anti-establishment music artists in the sixties, and thus represent youth and vitality and independence to a group of rich people who are now old and tired and conservative. That's nostalgia. Selling nostalgia for youth to aging Baby Boomers is the marketing industry's biggest gravy train. A 70-year-old millionaire CEO who can barely play a barre chord is happy to spend $250,000 on a 59 Les Paul because he misses being the teenager who snuck into a club to see Cream in 1966.

(note: this also suggests that the value of "fifties and sixties nostalgia" items will drop through the floor when the Baby Boomers are all dead. If you feel like owning a real 59 Les Paul, just wait ten years. They won't be $250K any more.)

But this isn't just a Baby Boomer phenomenon. Successfully marketing nostalgia only requires a group of people who miss being young and vital and independent. So you sell the images of the 1950s and 1960s to Baby Boomers and you sell the 1970s and 1980s to their children, who are now middle-aged and married with kids. That generation isn't rich enough to buy $250K 59 Les Pauls and to be honest probably doesn't want to anyway, because it's their PARENTS who get all misty-eyed about Clapton and Page. So instead we have the GENUNE FRANKENSTEIN REPLICA - only $20,000! Don't you want to feel young again? - call now with your credit card details!

And amp manufacturers will move on from marketing to Baby Boomers (no more ads featuring young Clapton plugging in to a Bluesbreaker combo) and instead we'll have young EVH jumping against a wobbling stack of 4x12s and the tones will be the tones of the late seventies, tones that remind middle-aged accountants of being teenagers. Because that's where the money is. Nostalgia.

Like it or not....There are some very interesting points being made here!

 

[Rogue]

Rogue your wrong,My info came right from the man who did the master volume mod on Eds plexi that was Jose.

Yep, you've already made this claim and it's already been shown that a MV doesn't add gain in any way.

The rest are assumptions on your part.

 

[TrueTone500]

The two most powerful forces in marketing are aspiration and nostalgia. Marketing companies sell to the public by dangling "the life you want" or "the life you used to have" in front of you when you don't like the life you have now. Sportswear companies market "being rich" to urban black kids and "being cool" to suburban white kids because that's what those kids want to be. That's aspiration.

The vintage amp and vintage guitar bubble is one of many marketing exercises targeting the richest most selfish and privileged group of people the world has ever known - American Baby Boomers. Vintage Les Pauls and Strats are icons because they were used by anti-establishment music artists in the sixties, and thus represent youth and vitality and independence to a group of rich people who are now old and tired and conservative. That's nostalgia. Selling nostalgia for youth to aging Baby Boomers is the marketing industry's biggest gravy train. A 70-year-old millionaire CEO who can barely play a barre chord is happy to spend $250,000 on a 59 Les Paul because he misses being the teenager who snuck into a club to see Cream in 1966.

(note: this also suggests that the value of "fifties and sixties nostalgia" items will drop through the floor when the Baby Boomers are all dead. If you feel like owning a real 59 Les Paul, just wait ten years. They won't be $250K any more.)

But this isn't just a Baby Boomer phenomenon. Successfully marketing nostalgia only requires a group of people who miss being young and vital and independent. So you sell the images of the 1950s and 1960s to Baby Boomers and you sell the 1970s and 1980s to their children, who are now middle-aged and married with kids. That generation isn't rich enough to buy $250K 59 Les Pauls and to be honest probably doesn't want to anyway, because it's their PARENTS who get all misty-eyed about Clapton and Page. So instead we have the GENUNE FRANKENSTEIN REPLICA - only $20,000! Don't you want to feel young again? - call now with your credit card details!

And amp manufacturers will move on from marketing to Baby Boomers (no more ads featuring young Clapton plugging in to a Bluesbreaker combo) and instead we'll have young EVH jumping against a wobbling stack of 4x12s and the tones will be the tones of the late seventies, tones that remind middle-aged accountants of being teenagers. Because that's where the money is. Nostalgia.

Like it or not....There are some very interesting points being made here!

Yes, he did... All of them condescending.

 

[mentoneman]

Mentoneman,Yes I still have that amp and your right let people believe what they want.

i'm not trying to be right

i just wanna know where you're coming from. you've been consistent in your pov all these years.

i think your point is the only way to get that tone the way eddie did and to play the legato-ey way eddie did is a true jose mod.

 

[nitro]

some of the others replies are so foolish they have no knowledge of this anyway, they have nothing better to do.......

 

[Rogue]

some of the others replies are so foolish they have no knowledge of this anyway, they have nothing better to do.......

Your "knowledge" on the subject is no more than anyone else's.

 

[yngzaklynch]

Rock n Roll or not... The hair scrunchy as a string mute? you decide!!!

Jim,
We are 5 pages into a thread and I'm having a lot of fun with it. That doesn't happen too often on here anymore.

You are very welcome!

 

[311splawndude]

311splawndude,be serious dont worry about the grammer is that the only thing you can say, stay on target you have zero knowledge on this subject your frustrated I can understand that.

That's like 5 sentences all jammed into one, and quite poorly I might add.

BTW - it is grammar, not grammer.

I am staying on target. I've posted clips AND a quote directly from Eddie Van Halen himself. Not only did I copy/paste the quote into this forum but I cited where it came from and provided a link on where to read more. You have not backed up anything.

PS: I'm not frustrated. I'm not frustrated at all. Honestly, I don't care if his amp was modded or not. I really don't. I have NO dog in this fight. You are the one that keeps making baseless claims and telling other people they are wrong and frustrated.

The players that I mentioned above all played plexis did they have the same type of gain that Edward had,answer no.

It doesn't matter if they were using the same amount of gain or not. How is that even relevant? Those player had a different vibe. EVH was going for that end of the world your children are going to die sound.

The knob/pot in the back was a master volume and Im sure Jose done other things inside Eds amp to achieve the gain levels.

Horse is dead. We have reputable people saying that Amp #1 was stock. You stay on track man. The video in the OP has Mike saying it was stock. Are you telling us he is lying on youtube in front of the whole world? And why would Eddie himself tell people 35 years after the fact that it was stock if it wasn't?

I dont assume,I know......so believe what you want.

Prove it.

This is a place to talk about gear and tone not a place for typing or grammer.You should take a class on becoming a adult I hope you understand.."dude"....

I don't speak (type) perfectly all the time. I was just saying that if you want to come across as more credible, you may want think before you type. It doesn't really take that much effort. Otherwise, you come across as uneducated and it weakens your argument.

I called you out originally for this and your argumentative posting, which you seem to have a habit of doing. It is just like your Marshall Vintage Modern thread. You posted a thread about a clip you found on youtube that reminded you of VH1. You didn't even take the time to post to link, you made other go look for it. Then, when people didn't agree with you - you argued with them. Troll.

Otherwise, you seem like a fine chap with some valuable history to share.

PS: When you contract 'You are' it is You're not Your.

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?

The amp I worked on was SL12301
He said he might have hit it with the Echoplexi (which has gain) or an EQ. Jose rest his soul ( I had him do one for me in the 80's as well) did not tell a lot of truths about Ed's setup back then. There was never a master in that amp that I remember, all solder joints that were original were very easy to detect, Jose did put slave outs in the amps and also I believe had a standby jack in there as I said before which would explain some extra holes. I also think that putting a Master in there during a holy grail era is something Ed would have remembered to tell me. Until you have "that" exact circuit which is a little gainier and run it at 87VAC with Ed's touch, guitar and pickup you would not really did not hear what I heard. I've said all I can on this topic, you guys can chase the ghost but you will never catch it. Even still why put so much effort into copying Ed's tone if you are not Ed? It has been done and there is only one Ed.

https://www.thegearpage.net/board/showpo ... tcount=262

Full thread here complete with nitro arguing with everyone like he always does: https://www.thegearpage.net/board/showth ... p?t=746279

This post/info says it all for me

 

[guitarmike]

You guys are all wrong. Eddie used to stop at my house in 1975-77 and he showed me "the" amp. It was a heavily modded Carvin with a built in variac. He was going to give it to me but I felt he should use it for the album he was recording.

 

[gibson5413]

Please explain why there are so many amp builders and mods out there trying to achieve the "brown sound" if a stock plexi will do?

Some of us grew up playing these amps and developed the touch for getting gain out of them.....for those that didn't, there are "modded" amps to do it.

nothing special about his amp...stick a 57 in front of a marshall cab, use an echoplex, wind up a tube compressor and slam the recording level going to tape.....Frasier episodes are more interesting than this.

That's what I'm talking about George! This has been an entertaining read.

 

[Gearhog]

Hi guys. I love these threads. Sorry but I don't post much so this is going to be long. Heres my two cents. In the early 90's, I saw a guy playing in a club here in Salt Lake, two nights in a row, in a band with my ex singer. To this day he had the best tone I've ever heard. I asked his tech, and he was using two Jose modified Marshalls. I finally found Jose's phone number in a November '88 issue of Guitar Player magazine, that I still have. I called him up and asked him if he'd work on an amp for me. He apologized and stated that he'd had a heart attack and retired and wasn't taking on any more work. I stayed in touch with him for a while and we became friends. Eventually he told me that he'd do a couple heads for me. I ended up driving down to California three or four times and took two heads with me. The first time I went to his house, I asked him if he'd do one of my heads the same as Eddie's. He told me that Eddie's sound had more to do with how he was using his heads, rather than what he had done to them. He drew a diagram on a piece of paper right in front of me, he explained that he ran one distorted Marshall and one clean Marshall and ran them both at the same time. One or both of them had slave outs. That he said, along with all of his effects, was Eddie's sound. He was from Chile, and had a heavy accent, so he pronounced it Yeddie.

I have right in front of me a Young Guitar interview from 1978. Here's a direct quote, "When I record, I use two cabinets. One with Celestions, the other with JBLs AND TWO MARSHALL HEADS. I run them full blast on stage and in the studio." Maybe that's why that tone sounds so gainy to some and just like a dimed Plexi to others. I think everybody is right. I agree that one Plexi that he pulled out and showed to everybody was mostly stock. A lot of the threads are fixated on that one head. That was probably his first one, and probably was his favorite. But he clearly stated that on that first world tour he used six heads. If you took a Friedman Marsha BE, which gets really close to that sound for some, it has the same amount of gain stages as a Jose modded Marshall - which isn't a lot of gain. And it also has that 330 MF cap in it that everyone's talking about that was in Eddie's main head.

I have pics of me and Jose in his front room - and pics of my ex and Jose in his front room, if anybody would like to help me figure out how to post them. While I was down there I also got to spend all day at a guys condo that played guitar in the DLR band. Rudy either helped him set up his rig or was his tech, I don't remember. He had extensive experience and knowledge about how to achieve that sound. Out of all the info I've heard over the years about the VH1 sound, Nitro's info is the most accurate (in my opinion). He might not have good grammar, but it seems like to me he has been researching this for a long time and he has talked to people a lot closer to what went on than most. He's the only person besides myself that's ever stated that they knew where Jose lived. Remember folks - this is all a long time ago, and it was easier to get info from techs before Eddie brought out that one Plexi and said that Jose didn't really work on his amps.

Anyway, I only got to know Jose for a few years before he passed, and he was a really really nice guy. He didn't try to sell me anything. In fact before he retired, he was charging $400 bucks to do a head. Which I didn't think was a lot for all the work he did. He also sent me a bunch of Phillips Sylvania 6CA7s because he knew he did not need them anymore. The whole time I knew him, he was dying and he knew it. He didn't really want the work and he didn't need the money. I like to think that he did those two heads for me because he liked me and he knew what a huge fan I was of his. It took two years for him to get them done. In the middle he called me and he said "I want you to know that these are the last two heads I will ever do in my life". A while after that he called and said he was sorry but he was too sick and he was not going to be able to finish them. I never got talk to to him again. A long time after that his daughter Maria called me and said he had finished them, got my address and shipped them to me. I don't really have a way of knowing if they were the last two heads that made it out of his shop, but wouldn't that be wild if that were true. Somebody had to be the last.

I think Jose said he toured with VH for four years. They were working on a prototype head together. Eddie switched to Soldono's when Jose got sick. If I were trying to decide if that tone sounds like a stock plexi, a Jose Modded Marshall or both, I would listen to the Pasadena Civic center show. There he has what sounds to me like the tone without the studio processing. How about them 25 watt Soldono's? Steven.

 

[RG955TT]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... IDPDO0if1U

 

[Stramm8]

Roth insisted that Vai use a Jose modded Marshall on that Eat Em And Smile

Jose; Really??? Try Lee Jackson:

http://www.guitarworld.com/sale-steve-v ... mile-album

https://www.ebay.com/itm/STEVE-VAI-S-EAT ... 7675.l2557

Are you just making this shit up or did you forget there was an internet?

 

[TrueTone500]

Hi guys. I love these threads. Sorry but I don't post much so this is going to be long. Heres my two cents. In the early 90's, I saw a guy playing in a club here in Salt Lake, two nights in a row, in a band with my ex singer. To this day he had the best tone I've ever heard. I asked his tech, and he was using two Jose modified Marshalls. I finally found Jose's phone number in a November '88 issue of Guitar Player magazine, that I still have. I called him up and asked him if he'd work on an amp for me. He apologized and stated that he'd had a heart attack and retired and wasn't taking on any more work. I stayed in touch with him for a while and we became friends. Eventually he told me that he'd do a couple heads for me. I ended up driving down to California three or four times and took two heads with me. The first time I went to his house, I asked him if he'd do one of my heads the same as Eddie's. He told me that Eddie's sound had more to do with how he was using his heads, rather than what he had done to them. He drew a diagram on a piece of paper right in front of me, he explained that he ran one distorted Marshall and one clean Marshall and ran them both at the same time. One or both of them had slave outs. That he said, along with all of his effects, was Eddie's sound. He was from Chile, and had a heavy accent, so he pronounced it Yeddie.

I have right in front of me a Young Guitar interview from 1978. Here's a direct quote, "When I record, I use two cabinets. One with Celestions, the other with JBLs AND TWO MARSHALL HEADS. I run them full blast on stage and in the studio." Maybe that's why that tone sounds so gainy to some and just like a dimed Plexi to others. I think everybody is right. I agree that one Plexi that he pulled out and showed to everybody was mostly stock. A lot of the threads are fixated on that one head. That was probably his first one, and probably was his favorite. But he clearly stated that on that first world tour he used six heads. If you took a Friedman Marsha BE, which gets really close to that sound for some, it has the same amount of gain stages as a Jose modded Marshall - which isn't a lot of gain. And it also has that 330 MF cap in it that everyone's talking about that was in Eddie's main head.

I have pics of me and Jose in his front room - and pics of my ex and Jose in his front room, if anybody would like to help me figure out how to post them. While I was down there I also got to spend all day at a guys condo that played guitar in the DLR band. Rudy either helped him set up his rig or was his tech, I don't remember. He had extensive experience and knowledge about how to achieve that sound. Out of all the info I've heard over the years about the VH1 sound, Nitro's info is the most accurate (in my opinion). He might not have good grammar, but it seems like to me he has been researching this for a long time and he has talked to people a lot closer to what went on than most. He's the only person besides myself that's ever stated that they knew where Jose lived. Remember folks - this is all a long time ago, and it was easier to get info from techs before Eddie brought out that one Plexi and said that Jose didn't really work on his amps.

Anyway, I only got to know Jose for a few years before he passed, and he was a really really nice guy. He didn't try to sell me anything. In fact before he retired, he was charging $400 bucks to do a head. Which I didn't think was a lot for all the work he did. He also sent me a bunch of Phillips Sylvania 6CA7s because he knew he did not need them anymore. The whole time I knew him, he was dying and he knew it. He didn't really want the work and he didn't need the money. I like to think that he did those two heads for me because he liked me and he knew what a huge fan I was of his. It took two years for him to get them done. In the middle he called me and he said "I want you to know that these are the last two heads I will ever do in my life". A while after that he called and said he was sorry but he was too sick and he was not going to be able to finish them. I never got talk to to him again. A long time after that his daughter Maria called me and said he had finished them, got my address and shipped them to me. I don't really have a way of knowing if they were the last two heads that made it out of his shop, but wouldn't that be wild if that were true. Somebody had to be the last.

I think Jose said he toured with VH for four years. They were working on a prototype head together. Eddie switched to Soldono's when Jose got sick. If I were trying to decide if that tone sounds like a stock plexi, a Jose Modded Marshall or both, I would listen to the Pasadena Civic center show. There he has what sounds to me like the tone without the studio processing. How about them 25 watt Soldono's? Steven.

Excellent post!

 

[Chubtone]

Are you just making this shit up or did you forget there was an internet?

Nice.

Do you consider Guitar Player magazine from that era a better source than a 2012 ebay auction trying to generate high bids? if so, you may care what Steve Vai says to Guitar Player in 1986 about his TWO BEST MARSHALLS that were stolen from the rehearsal studio after EEAS was recorded and they were prepping to go on tour.


Steve Vai's Stolen Guitars

- Stolen Guitar Inventory - (GP 10/86 )

"Most of my guitars were ripped off this June [1986] from the rehearsal studio [for the DLR Tour] in Pasadena." - Steve Vai (GP 10/86 ). All except his green Charvel, his main ax, were stolen "Thank God I had that one with me" he sighs. "I keep it with me all the time. But all the others are gone. They were left locked up in a theater in a big giant container... left overnight. They just went in ther and snip-snip." (GW - 3/87)
•"The guitar from the Yankee Rose video with all the holes in it; it sort of looks like intergalactic puke. I designed it, and Joe Despagni made it for me."
•Jackson - Yellow "Steve Eye" with Eyeballs and pyramid.
•Guild - Custom made 24-fret pink zebra stripe
•Guild - Custom made 24-fret cream white
•Ibanez prototype - "Pukey green Ibanez that has like a pink-green-black snakeskin front"
• Valdez Stratocaster - Rootbeer with scalloped neck. This wasn't a real (Fender) strat but similar to a Strat and was made for me by Valdez in Hollywood. It was the only one I really cared about that got stolen. (Steve Vai 11/2002)

- •"Two best Marshalls"

•"Guitar cords"

Guitar World (1/87) had further coverage of the stolen guitars. Steve's longtime guitar tech Elwood Francis commented on the details of each missing ax:

First: "Eyeball "Steve Eye" - yellow Jackson soloist. The finish has Steve's personal design of a pyramid with an eye in the middle and the number seven on each outside corner. Loaded with a Floyd Rose tremolo and custom-wound DiMarzio pickups, this is one of the axes seen on the "Yankee Rose" video." (found - see below)

Second: "The second was a custom-designed green swiss-cheese guitar built for Steve by Performance Guitars of Hollywood. The bdy was metallic green withholes carved through the body and various sizes and colors. There's a handle carved in the body as well, to enable Steve to hold the ax and play with one hand. Loaded with a gold Floyd Rose and one humbucker, this beauty also shares the spotlight in the "Yankee Rose" video."

Third: "a pink and black tiger-striped Guild 284 Avitor with left handed headstock. This axe had a Floyd Rose, two EMG humbuckers and one EMG single-coil in the middle position. The serial # is HC100788."

Forth: "a white Guild 281 Flyer, serial # HC101025. This guitar was built for Steve to use while touring with Alcatrazz. It's loaded with a Floyd Rose, two EMG humbuckers and one EMG single-coil."

Fifth: "an Ibanez two-humbucker Strat styled ax with a flourescent snakeskin print for a finish. No further descriptions were given. This ax was used as a backup."

- "Steve's custom rebuilt Marshalls were missing as well. Two 100-watt heads rebuilt by Jose Arredondo; Vai commented; "Those amps weren't especially loud, but they had a great tone; they won't be easily replaced." "


So yeah, I'll keep making stuff up hoping that none of you guys know how to do a Google search. Here's another one I made up from Guitar Player mag 1988:

- Guitar Player, May, 1988, Vai's setup for the Skyscraper album and tour:

So, following the signal chain:
Marshall 100 watt head (year unspecified), modified by Jose Arrendondo.
Out to Bob Bradshaw rack, featuring:
Boss SD1 Super Overdrive, Roland sde 3000, Yamaha 1500 delay, Ibanez Reverb 1000, Eventide H3000 Harmonizer, Eventide 2016, TC Electronics Stereo Chorus, Yamaha SPX90, Drawmer Noise Gate then into a Carvan power amp (unsecified) with Marshall cabinets featuring 30 watt Celestion speakers.

And more Steve Vai/Jose Arrendondo connection nonsense imagined by me.

- Passion and Warfare, Vai authorized transcription book, in the equipment section he lists the main amps for the majority of the album being "any one of seven Marshall 100W tube heads, all modded by Jose Arrendondo."

So uh, yeah. That Lee Jackson amp was the turd of his Marshall collection. That's why he sold it. And he obviously was never into Jose mods at all, amassing 7 of them by the time he recorded Passion and Warfare.