Mike Soldano talks about EVH's Marshall

[AmpliFIRE]

Did someone say Vai playing moded Marshalls?

 

[jerrydyer]

also is the consensus here that a Jose master volume is the way to go?
I was thinking loading a plexi down then using a matrix etc... as the volume was the best way to go? I've pretty much concluded that regardless of mods, Eddie had a way to load the head down, then feed it into another head for lower volume

I've heard that particular master that's floating around doesn't work too well with non cascade amps, but I've never tried it myself.

I'm guessing he wouldn't be running a cranked 100 watt super lead here for example, so he's keeping the volume down somehow...or using a magic box

i do hear splashing like a variac.
Also, I'll just leave this here.

 

[nitro]

If some remember Vai's Jose modded marshall was stolen.Steve talked about that during a interview.

 

[thisguy]

If some remember Vai's Jose modded marshall were stolen.Steve talked about that during a interview.

Don't have a dog in the fight but I was curious and a quick search turned this up. Love Eat Em And Smile!


http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/inte...anted_to_do_a_concept_record.html?no_takeover

"The Carvin Legacy has been your main amp for many years. Is that why you recently sold one of your Marshall 100-watt JMP amps you used when you were with David Lee Roth?

One of them. I had four and one of them was stolen. Three were modded by Jose Arredondo and you know his story? And one of the ones I had from him was stolen and one of the others was modified by Lee Jackson. That's the one I sold and I still have two Jose amps."

 

[TrueTone500]

A friend of mine knows a guy who lives in Santa Monica who has a cousin who knows a guy who is the brother of a guy that use to work for Jose who said that Jose did mod Ed's '68 Marshall with a MV that was removed from an amp that belonged to a guy who use to work for a guy who never worked for Jose, but always wanted to.

 

[Michi]

A friend of mine knows a guy who lives in Santa Monica who has a cousin who knows a guy who is the brother of a guy that use to work for Jose who said that Jose did mod Ed's '68 Marshall with a MV that was removed from an amp that belonged to a guy who use to work for a guy who never worked for Jose, but always wanted to.

Hey! I know a guy who knows a guy who's heard of your friend! Go figure.

 

[Chubtone]

Is that why you recently sold one of your Marshall 100-watt JMP amps you used when you were with David Lee Roth?

"Three were modded by Jose Arredondo and you know his story? And one of the ones I had from him was stolen and one of the others was modified by Lee Jackson. That's the one I sold and I still have two Jose amps."

No Steve we DON'T know his story. You mean the story of how he modded Ed's amps so that when Roth wanted to recreate that sound he brought you right to Jose to do it? You mean that story Steve? Or do you mean the story that Ed changed later in that Jose never did anything to his amps?

Steve references Jose like it is a well-known, totally established, common knowledge that Jose had a large part in Eddie's sound. Doesn't seem so anymore. It seems the consensus now is that Jose didn't do squat.

And let's re-cap. Steve had a Lee Jackson modded Marshall and sold it, but for some reason kept two of his Jose mods.

 

[Rogue]

No Steve we DON'T know his story. You mean the story of how he modded Ed's amps so that when Roth wanted to recreate that sound he brought you right to Jose to do it? You mean that story Steve? Or do you mean the story that Ed changed later in that Jose never did anything to his amps?

Entirely supposition.

I'm curious why you believe, with your assertion that Roth forced Vai into modded marshalls so it'll still sound like Van Halen, the guitar tone did not sound like Van Halen?

And let's re-cap. Steve had a Lee Jackson modded Marshall and sold it, but for some reason kept two of his Jose mods.

I brought up the Lee Jackson, as that is what was used on EEAS and on tour, which would fly in the face of the claim Roth forced Vai into Jose modded marshalls.

I don't get it. There are a few vids posted showing stock plexi's getting into VH levels of gain. Add any pedals in front, which we clearly see, and it should not be a mystery at all. Eddie may have used a modded marshall for more gain, but it's pretty clear it can be done with a stock circuit.

 

[nitro]

How can you tell that the marshalls in the Vai clip are stock..

 

[311splawndude]

Mike Soldano said in the amp demo linked in the OP that Eddie's amp was bone stock.

Other experts have said his amp was stock.

I'm not going to call these guys liers. Why would they lie?

Now did Eddie lie about his amp back in the day? Yes. Yes he did. He's also since admitted that and to some degree, apologized for it.

Here is the last word from him on the topic (that I am aware of) regarding his amp back then and his lying about it. This is a snippet from the Esquire interview in late Winter 2012.


-------------
ESQ: Tell me about your amps, though. How much would you tinker with your amps back in the day?

EVH: Always. We were tinkering until we left on tour.

ESQ: I'm talkin' back in the old days, with your Marshall. What did you do to that thing?

EVH: That was a stock amp.

ESQ: Come on man, rumor was that you rebuilt the damn thing.

EVH: I lied in. Okay, this is a long story, actually. I think this is also my paranoia of interview, because, is because the very first — Dave and I did a promo, a radio promo, an interview promo thing before the first record came out. And here we were on live radio, and the guy's going, "We have Van Halen, a brand-new band from L.A. here in the studio. So Dave, tell me" ... And here's Dave, "Bop, bop, yabba, dabba, doo," you know? Then he turns to me and says, "I understand you and your brother, Alex, are from Amsterdam, Holland." And I went, "Yeah." Dead air. Dead air. And then the guy starts going like this, and I go, "I'm over here." And I'm looking at him, and I start gesticulating, too, and then I say, out loud, "What the fuck does this mean?" It was a fuckin' disaster. So afterwards, Dave goes, "Here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna lie. You're gonna make up some shit so they don't remember it." And, you know, I had to say something. I couldn't just say, "Yeah." But he asked me a stupid question. "Yeah" sufficed. You know, I wasn't about to say "Van Gogh's from there, you should see it during the winter," you know? I'm not good at elaborating in that respect. So anyway, I do my first full-blown interview with Guitar Player, and that whole thing is in my head. You gotta make up shit. You gotta keep it interesting. All that Dave told me. So — oh, Joe Walsh calling me?

ESQ: Really? Joe Walsh?

EVH: Yeah. Grab it. Tell him I'm in the middle of an interview. But, so — okay, what I did was the amp was completely stock, but I used a light dimmer.

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.



Read more: Eddie Van Halen Interview - Esquire Eddie Van Halen Interview - Esquire
Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
Visit us at Esquire.com
---------
http://www.esquire.com/the-side/music/e ... 12-8147775


Bottom line....it was a bad bad thing that he lied about his amp 35 years ago. He's a sober man now and I personally have no reason to believe he is lying these days. I'll take the man on his word.

 

[rp108]

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?

 

[Chubtone]

No Steve we DON'T know his story. You mean the story of how he modded Ed's amps so that when Roth wanted to recreate that sound he brought you right to Jose to do it? You mean that story Steve? Or do you mean the story that Ed changed later in that Jose never did anything to his amps?

Entirely supposition.

I'm curious why you believe, with your assertion that Roth forced Vai into modded marshalls so it'll still sound like Van Halen, the guitar tone did not sound like Van Halen?

And let's re-cap. Steve had a Lee Jackson modded Marshall and sold it, but for some reason kept two of his Jose mods.

I brought up the Lee Jackson, as that is what was used on EEAS and on tour, which would fly in the face of the claim Roth forced Vai into Jose modded marshalls.

I don't get it. There are a few vids posted showing stock plexi's getting into VH levels of gain. Add any pedals in front, which we clearly see, and it should not be a mystery at all. Eddie may have used a modded marshall for more gain, but it's pretty clear it can be done with a stock circuit.

Of course it's supposition. He's supposing we know the story already so what else are we to do?

And we KNOW for a fact that Vai used the Lee Jackson exclusively on EEAS and the world tour for it? Personally, I didn't tech for him so I don't KNOW that. What I do know is that when the time came to sell that amp, it was sold as the rig he used on Eat Em and Smile. That is called a sales pitch and probably had some basis in truth whether 10% or 100%. In what way was it "used" on EEAS? Was it where he set his beer while he recorded through the Jose mod? Was it used to cut lines on? Or was it used exclusively for all guitar sounds on EEAS? And on tour, was that his main sound? Was that a backup amp? Was it a second amp blended in for a combined sound? Or, did his tech use it to tune guitars up backstage? Regardless, they all make his sales pitch "true", but how true?

And I don't think there has been a time in recent history that Vai has been hurting for money. I can't imagine a guy with as much gear as he has deciding to sell the crucial rig he used to record one of his landmark albums and for sure the album that put him firmly on the map. And oh yeah, I'll just keep these two Jose's that are of no importance to me that I never used.

And yes, once again I am using supposition in this thread. Everyone else is presenting purely indisputable facts in this thread. Their facts are achieved by clicking on a different link than I did in my Google search. I knew I should have typed "facts only" into my google search.

edit, oops, forgot to put a smiley face. I am not arguing from an angry standpoint here at all. Just loving to hear every ones take on this. I'm sorry, I'm goofy. I love this subject and I know half the content on the internet is about EVH's main amp. All my SUper Leads are bone stock and some days I play through them and think, "you know I think his amp could have been stock." Then other days I think, "no way was that amp stock" and start using a pedal in front which oftentimes makes me think that this is all there was to it.

Still though, some of the most incredible tones I have ever heard are well-known as Jose mods. Joe Holmes tone. John Sykes more recent tones. Freaking phenomenal and no question they are using Jose mods.

 

[londaxe]

i do hear splashing like a variac.

Splashing? Never heard that one before

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?

I imagine because it's not very practical. They have to be run with the bias cranked with 6CA7s with the voltage lowered by a variac, and the volume cranked way up.

Here's what Dave Friedman said in an interview about his amps (which I think can do VH pretty well!)

TubeTone: What amps inspired you?

Dave Friedman: As far as amps I was always into vintage Marshalls.. the old Plexis.

TubeTone: Yeah, we kind of see that. Because most of the Friedman modded amps are Marshalls. Is there a general idea behind your modifications? Is there anything specific you do with the tone of the amplifier?

Dave Friedman: That’s a little tough. The sound I hear in my head is what I make. And that stands from a 60s Plexi Marshall. But what I wanted to accomplish with a lot of the mods was being able to play it at much lower volume. And have more control over the amount of gain it has and EQ. So basically it’s like a big badass Marshall tone! With varying amounts of gain depending on what kind of a player you are. You know, even the high gain tones are still in the Marshall land. As far as tones I like everything from classic rock tones to heavier Alice in Chains kind of tones. I think the amp can do a variety of stuff depending on what kind of a player you are and what guitars you’re using into it.

more here:

http://www.tubetone.ru/index.php?option ... Itemid=139

 

[Rogue]

Of course it's supposition. He's supposing we know the story already so what else are we to do?

And we KNOW for a fact that Vai used the Lee Jackson exclusively on EEAS and the world tour for it? Personally, I didn't tech for him so I don't KNOW that. What I do know is that when the time came to sell that amp, it was sold as the rig he used on Eat Em and Smile. That is called a sales pitch and probably had some basis in truth whether 10% or 100%. In what way was it "used" on EEAS? Was it where he set his beer while he recorded through the Jose mod? Was it used to cut lines on? Or was it used exclusively for all guitar sounds on EEAS? And on tour, was that his main sound? Was that a backup amp? Was it a second amp blended in for a combined sound? Or, did his tech use it to tune guitars up backstage? Regardless, they all make his sales pitch "true", but how true?

And I don't think there has been a time in recent history that Vai has been hurting for money. I can't imagine a guy with as much gear as he has deciding to sell the crucial rig he used to record one of his landmark albums and for sure the album that put him firmly on the map. And oh yeah, I'll just keep these two Jose's that are of no importance to me that I never used.

And yes, once again I am using supposition in this thread. Everyone else is presenting purely indisputable facts in this thread. Their facts are achieved by clicking on a different link than I did in my Google search. I knew I should have typed "facts only" into my google search.

edit, oops, forgot to put a smiley face. I am not arguing from an angry standpoint here at all. Just loving to hear every ones take on this. I'm sorry, I'm goofy. I love this subject and I know half the content on the internet is about EVH's main amp. All my SUper Leads are bone stock and some days I play through them and think, "you know I think his amp could have been stock." Then other days I think, "no way was that amp stock" and start using a pedal in front which oftentimes makes me think that this is all there was to it.

Still though, some of the most incredible tones I have ever heard are well-known as Jose mods. Joe Holmes tone. John Sykes more recent tones. Freaking phenomenal and no question they are using Jose mods.

It's all good. I can't answer your questions and you could be right that it was used as a drink holder and nothing more. I'm not sure it makes sense though he would even worry about a Lee Jackson modded Marshall if Roth told him specifically "Jose modded". Now I do think it's entirely possible Vai comes walking in with a Carvin and DLR said, "WTF is that? I don't think so".

I'm sure Ed had tweaks done to his amp, but many folks have said it was basically stock. I'm not entirely sure why he would have modded it to have more gain, but then mod it back to stock, then build a sig amp modeled after a SLO. But, who knows? Maybe he did.

 

[nitro]

What don't some understand Edward played nothing stock from his guitars to his amps.Players that used stock Plexi's,angus young,joe perry,Hendrix,pager,Townsend,Blackmore the list goes on none of them and the tone/gain Edward had.The knob/pot that was in back of Eds Plexi would explain that it wasn't stock the photos show that also.The techs that looked at Eds Plexi in the 90s probably seen a stock Plexi because by then it was put back to stock values.

 

[Kevin11]

So add up all of the tone/gain altering components post guitar we've talked about here so far: Echoplex + Plexi with planet-aligned stock components + Sylvania 6CA7 tubes + Variac + JBL speakers added into the mix = VH1 tone? I used to say a stock Plexi could never do that, but I never had all of the ingredients. You could throw hot-ish ceramic pickups into the stew too for a little more chew and sizzle. Maybe an MXR EQ too. That's another can of worms though.

Regardless of whether any work was done to the amp before VH1 by whomever, I'm convinced the above recipe will get you darn close. I hear the same amp on the Warner Bros demo, the Pasadena show (Nightmare Before Halloween?) and VH1. Same amp, different environments. Completely different amp on the Gene Simmons demo (possibly Ace's Marshall).

With that said, if the the amp with the pot in back is definitely Ed's #1, then it's obviously not stock. Perhaps Dave, John and the other builders are referring to all of the components that "matter", possibly skirting around the definition of "stock" a little bit. That mod could have been removed ages ago and apart from an extra hole in the chassis, it's 90 - 99% original. I saw the amp in Dave's shop when he had it and he told me it was stock. I heard it first-hand long before he ever posted it online.

My confusion comes from all of the folks who supposedly did significant and blatantly obvious mods to it before Dave, John and those guys saw it (90s to present?). If someone rewired it, replaced transformers or whatever, those changes would stick out like a sore thumb wouldn't they?

Mix Eds occasional misdirection, the passage of time and the fact that he owned a lot of Marshalls, all of which I'm sure needed work at one time or another and I guess it's anybody's guess. Which makes these threads so freaking entertaining!

Someone asked why builders are putting out their own versions of the amp. It's infinitely easier for a schlep like me to buy one of their amps and get THAT tone, or close to it than to track down a killer sounding old Plexi (that still works), an Echoplex (that still works), and a Variac, and then get the amp all biased and set up to run at 88V. What a hassle. There is money to be made off of lazy guys like me.

 

[Anonymous]

Just read this whole thing waiting for a plane. I love you guys!

Steve

 

[311splawndude]

What don't some understand Edward played nothing stock from his guitars to his amps.Players that used stock Plexi's,angus young,joe perry,Hendrix,pager,Townsend,Blackmore the list goes on none of them and the tone/gain Edward had.The knob/pot that was in back of Eds Plexi would explain that it wasn't stock the photos show that also.The techs that looked at Eds Plexi in the 90s probably seen a stock Plexi because by then it was put back to stock values.

Dude. You really need to stop. In addition to the poor grammar/spelling/sentence structure your assumptions, even if true, are not holding water.

1.) So your assumption is that everything, including the echoplex and variac, was not stock because Eddie would never play through a stock item. It HAD to be modded? Good one.

2.) Other players that used Plexis do not have the tone and gain that Edward had? Seriously? I'm not even sure where to start on that one. Can I have some of what you are smoking?

3.) The 'hole' in the back of the amp has pretty much been explained. At best is was some sort of volume control. Again, that is not even tone altering. And chances are it is not a volume control. You would introduce a lot of potential unwanted noise by doing something like that I would think and I'm not an amp tech. A killswitch or something - I could see. I think the general consensus when it comes to amp work (at least around most of the forums I hang out on) is that an amp 'Mod' is something that modifies the tone of the amp. Mike Soldano, Eddie Van Halen and others that I respect said it wasn't modded. What more do you need to hear?

4.) A Plexi 'put back to stock condition' would most certainly be very obvious.


Look man, I don't know you from Adam but your typing skills and argumentative demeanor come across as very childlike. Sorry.

PS: My guess is that there are tons of people out there that would be/are devastated knowing Ed's amp is stock because they've spent most of their adult life chasing that tone.

 

[RG955TT]

What don't some understand Edward played nothing stock from his guitars to his amps.Players that used stock Plexi's,angus young,joe perry,Hendrix,pager,Townsend,Blackmore the list goes on none of them and the tone/gain Edward had.The knob/pot that was in back of Eds Plexi would explain that it wasn't stock the photos show that also.The techs that looked at Eds Plexi in the 90s probably seen a stock Plexi because by then it was put back to stock values.

Are you suggesting Blackmore didn't manipulate the gain into his Marshall cause its very well known he did...

 

[TrueTone500]

Bring on the dancing poodles!