Mike Soldano talks about EVH's Marshall

[Chubtone]

Gainfreak? Never heard of the guy. I can tell you the tone you have in that video is reminiscent of Brent Muscat's tone on the 9th Faster Pussycat album. Also, we don't like direct clips of the actual poster here on RT. We need you to talk big but never post a clip of yourself playing.

Also, this Mike Fortin cat is an imposter. How do I know? He works at Randall and does not have a beard.

PS. Your clip sounds a lot like the soundtrack to Pacino's "Crusing" movie.

 

[Gainfreak]

Gainfreak? Never heard of the guy. I can tell you the tone you have in that video is reminiscent of Brent Muscat's tone on the 9th Faster Pussycat album. Also, we don't like direct clips of the actual poster here on RT. We need you to talk big but never post a clip of yourself playing.

Also, this Mike Fortin cat is an imposter. How do I know? He works at Randall and does not have a beard.

PS. Your clip sounds a lot like the soundtrack to Pacino's "Crusing" movie.

You sir.. NEVER Disappoint!!

 

[stephen sawall]

No.... I use a Tremoverb. Mike Soldano offered to modify it right after I got it back in 94. It sounds nothing like evh..... Then or now.

 

[crwnedblasphemy]

i don't know who this gainfreak fellow is?

 

[Bob Savage]

Also, this Mike Fortin cat is an imposter. How do I know? He works at Randall and does not have a beard.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!! <BURP>

 

[Chubtone]

i don't know who this gainfreak fellow is?

Nobody does. Just some noob who popped in here and tried to stir things up. I banned him because he posted a clip of himself playing in order to let us know that maybe he knew what he was talking about. That crap don't fly on the RT of the last couple of years!

We need blow hards, working harder and harder to one up each other without ever letting anyone know if they can actually play one of these fiddles.

 

[JackBootedThug]

No.... I use a Tremoverb. Mike Soldano offered to modify it right after I got it back in 94. It sounds nothing like evh..... Then or now.

i apologize stephen, i typed my post with my "serious" finger.

 

[stephen sawall]

No.... I use a Tremoverb. Mike Soldano offered to modify it right after I got it back in 94. It sounds nothing like evh..... Then or now.

i apologize stephen, i typed my post with my "serious" finger.

This stuff does get a bit too serious sometimes. Mike offered to put a depth knob on my Tremoverb. But the red channel would have been too altered for me.
The endless evh debate continues....

 

[Mailman1971]

No.... I use a Tremoverb. Mike Soldano offered to modify it right after I got it back in 94. It sounds nothing like evh..... Then or now.

i apologize stephen, i typed my post with my "serious" finger.

This stuff does get a bit too serious sometimes. Mike offered to put a depth knob on my Tremoverb. But the red channel would have been too altered for me.
The endless evh debate continues....

hear evh used a depth knob on the first album. That's why it sounds so killer.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I would also point out that Ed stated that the BEST tone he ever got was sitting around his house with the white Fender Bandmaster cranked on 10 plugged into ONLY the extension speaker jack, bypassing the main speaker jack, which causes fuzzed out mayhem at low volume levels, which makes me wonder if the Fender is blended with the Marshall on the first record...the Marshall would give it the balls and power and the Fender would give the fizzy/fuzzy stuff, then add in that EMT plate reverb being super bright and there you go... If the Bandmaster was his favorite tone, I'm sure it was at the studio for VHI, and Eddie being an experimental kind of guy would probably pipe up and say mic this up and blend it in...

Shouldn't this be easy enough to try out? Anyone have a bandmaster with a speaker jack?

Further to this, why is it so hard to believe that he probably ran one superlead cascaded into another for the VH1 tone? That or an eq up front with a variac and a hot pup. Lots of ways to get that tone if you have a good sounding amp. Who cares, he would have sounded bitchin with an 800 boosted with an SD-1 because he had the chops.

 

[stephen sawall]

No.... I use a Tremoverb. Mike Soldano offered to modify it right after I got it back in 94. It sounds nothing like evh..... Then or now.

i apologize stephen, i typed my post with my "serious" finger.

This stuff does get a bit too serious sometimes. Mike offered to put a depth knob on my Tremoverb. But the red channel would have been too altered for me.
The endless evh debate continues....

hear evh used a depth knob on the first album. That's why it sounds so killer.

This would explain everything. My jmp does not have a depth knob.

 

[Rdodson]

Y'all...I worked for the band for awhile. There were no big mods and Ed used that head just like everyone who worked with the band says he did. That spec of '68 12XXX circuit will sound just like that. Sheesh. No magic. Lowering the voltage with a variac helps with the sag and squish...several builders now offer a voltage-lowering circuit in the power amp. Metro, Suhr...even the new HR25 from Soldano runs the power amp at a "browned out" plate voltage. The circuit values in the preamp in that specific transitional era are pretty public knowledge, there are a couple of values unique to that era that get the 12ax7s into a much gainier zone in that split-cathode setup. But you have to have the whole amp set up just right or you get the bass flubby, ghost notes everywhere, or whatever. It is just WAY EASIER to tighten the power section up with the filtering (like a metal panel SL) and add a gain stage (cascade like a JCM800) or that + a tube. Why? Because it is a pain in the ass to get everything just right - and then the amp will just do that one thing. Listen to George Metropoulos, Mike Soldano, John Suhr, Dave Friedman, Reinhold Bogner and Steve Fryette who have all worked on 12301. They all say the EXACT SAME THING.

 

[Rdodson]

There was never ever a depth mod on 12301.

Here is a 1968 Marshall Super Lead 12000 circuit built to the same values as Ed's #12301 with the power section running at 90v (just like a Variac). No pedals, nothing at ALL adding gain. I did this super quick clip while home from work during lunch to show somebody else who didn't believe a Marshall SL circuit could get gain:

https://youtu.be/Uh-iqH12pbI?list=UUA7lF ... iLsseJDxjQ

 

[Rdodson]

Oh, just one more thing...that Unchained clip was done with my old Frankenstein replica I built in '89 and has a Gibson '57 Classic + in it at 8.7dc resistance. No crazy output pickup...just a good ol' spanky PAF.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

gainfreak's amp sounds unbelievable!

 

[stephen sawall]

Ron.... We are joking around about the depth modification. I believe you are completely correct about this entire issue. I also believe the reason that album sounds the way it does is because of how it was recorded & produced.... Not from the amp being modified.

 

[4406cuda]

I also believe it was a stock Marshall with a variac. I also he believe he used a Dimarzio and/or Mighty Mite pickups or some pickup that had similar specs.

 

[Rdodson]

Ron.... We are joking around about the depth modification. I believe you are completely correct about this entire issue. I also believe the reason that album sounds the way it does is because of how it was recorded & produced.... Not from the amp being modified.

Yeah, the production gave it space that you don't get otherwise. That said, the demo recording (where they ran through ~ 20 songs with no crazy production) sounds great too.

The only mods Ed EVER cared about were getting the amp quieter and more dependable. That's where the 6CA7s (very dependable tubes) and the VARIAC came from. The fact that those two things also led to tonepocalypse was an accident. That is also the reason he ultimately left the Marshall...the higher gain of the Soldano was not the goal. The fact that it was bulletproof and quiet and controllable were the main selling points. That led to him being into the higher gain thing.

THIS (from '88) is why he tried the Soldano:

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

and just for fun, another variac and stock amp example that this is totally possible. The guy isn't even using a hot pup:

So now that we have been through there, any specific variac I need to buy to try this with a 50 watt 1987x?

 

[evhfan]

I liked the world better when I believed in a MAGIC MARSHALL