Ed's Knob

[jape88]

This was the pic above the back of amp pic...

[Mr. Beasty]

The wood amp is the amp that was supposed to re-amp the Slaved #1 "magic" Marshall. It can be seen in several Club Days pictures and the 1986 rig built by Bob Bradshaw for the 5150 tour.

Never seen these pix before! Very nice pictures.

[Good Guest]

So I guess the question is now which amp has the screw at the back..the #1 magc marshall or the wood panel amp....I still wonder if the wood panel is the amp they used as the pattern for the rumoured "golden amp" Ed and Jose designed.

[leadguy]

The Japan 1978 photos show which amp is the knob one because there are front and rear views of the same amps in a rack and the knob amp is the no logo Marshall and not the wood Marshall.

The pulled tube could be just that, a crapped out tube waiting to be replaced.

From the Dweezil Zappa interview and some amp techs, Ed was sending it out to techs around the early 1990s because he got bored with it and didn't like the tone much anymore (using the same amp for around 15 years or whatever would probably tend to result in boredom) and thought it might not be him but something wrong with the amp and it came back from the techs not sounding a whole lot different so then he moved on to other amps.

[leadguy]

Some things the knob could be

A channel bridger
A cascade switch
A half power switch
A tonestack bypass switch
A master volume pot
A line level pot
A bias adjust pot
A thing that does nothing, that Ed or someone put in to fill up the hole at the back of the amp

etc etc

[vanhalen5150]

Could be a white thingy Ed found on the floor and stuck it in the amp because he didnt like the hole that was there. Later on Dave, jumped off the Drum riser and a screw fell out of his head. Ed thought it was better than the white thingy so he stuck in the back of the amp. Once Dave had a few more screws loose, VH went down hill from there.

[spaceace76]

Could be a white thingy Ed found on the floor and stuck it in the amp because he didnt like the hole that was there. Later on Dave, jumped off the Drum riser and a screw fell out of his head. Ed thought it was better than the white thingy so he stuck in the back of the amp. Once Dave had a few more screws loose, VH went down hill from there.

this is the most plausible theory on the white knob i've yet read. spectacular work, vh5150!

[bob barcus]

I love this shit,even 35 years later,someone invent a new sound.I thought Jimi was IT!!!

[guitar007]

We're trying...Ed's just our Benchmark.

[leadguy]

Some Zener clipping stuff.

There is a lot of BS around about these Jose Zener circuits because they have been taken up by different amp builders with sales in mind.

Basically, Zener clipping is Zener clipping is Zener clipping.

Sometimes something other than a Zener can be used, as long as it clips.

Peavey reverse engineered a Jose modded Marshall back in the 1980s but didn't promote it as a Jose mod, it was just a comp switch.

The Peavey Jose mod turns out to be similar to another Jose modded amp schematic floating around, so looks like Jose at least did the mod to 2 different amps.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jose Zener clipping on the back of a master just after the cathode follower and just before the tonestack.

Zener values can vary.

Peavey used 24 volt Zeners back in the late 1980s.

Jose Zener.



Peavey Jose Zener redrawn.
Basically the same as the Jose Zener but has a fixed 1M resistor instead of a 1M (master) pot and a 1k resistor instead of a 10k resistor in the RC part.



Peavey Jose Zener.




Zener clipping just after the first stage.

This one is also suitable for amps with no cathode follower, like an Epiphone Valve Junior or whatever.

Zener value is 5.1 volts or maybe 4.7 but could vary.

Hooked up on the back of the gain pot means it's basically is the same clipping no matter what the gain pot setting is.



Hooked up on the wiper of the gain pot means that the clipping kicks in when thee gain pot is around 8 or whatever.




Early Ed http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=39419" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No sign of a distortion pedal, only a wah.

No Marshalls, which makes me think that Ed could have bought his main Marshall off Jose around 1974 or maybe as late as 1976, as it's the only Marshall Ed had with a Arco (Jose shop) sticker.

If Jose was servicing Ed's amps and the Arco sticker was a service sticker, then the Arco sticker would be expected to be on Ed's other amps, but it's not, judging by the back of the amps photo from Japan 1978.

So maybe the Arco sticker on Ed's main amp is a Jose sales sticker and not a service sticker.

Maybe Ed just tried it out in Jose's shop and liked it and didn't know what the white knob on the back was.

It could have been a Jose Zener Master for all anyone knows and Ed wouldn't have known, seeing that Ed wasn't an amp tech.

Maybe Jose installed the mod for someone else and then somehow it ended up back in his shop and Ed bought it.

Ed said his main amp had more balls than his other amps and if it had some clipping from Zeners then that might explain it.
Basically Ed's main amp is a 12 series Marshall and wouldn't be that different from other 12 series Marshall's because a circuit is a circuit and if different brand same value components are used (Marshall sourced from various companies) then it can result in some variation but not drastic more balls variation.

Interestingly, sometime after the white knob was removed (early 1990s back of the amp photos), Ed sent it around to multiple techs (with the white knob removed) saying that it had lost balls and thought a output transformer change was needed but as Steve Fryette said, a working output transformer doesn't really lose balls and he couldn't find anything wrong with the output transformer but changed it anyway to please Matt Bruck and Ed.

If a service tech or whoever (maybe Jose) had previously removed the white knob before Fryette and Suhr etc saw the amp in the early 1990s due to loss of balls, and Ed and others didn't really know what the white knob did, well it might explain why Ed thought it lost balls and sent it around to multiple techs thinking that it was the output transformer.

Main amp with white knob and Arco sticker, mid 1978 Japan.





Main amp with white knob and Arco sticker, late 1978 VHII.



Main amp with white knob and Arco sticker removed, early 1990s.



The story behind the Peavey VTM Jose Zeners.

I think these quotes are about the Jose Zener Master.

Basically Jay asked Jose for the VH1 sound and Jose installed the Zener Master mod and Peavey copied Jay's amp for the Peavey VTM.

Peavey didn't know about Jose mods, they just copied Jay's amp and called the Jose Zeners a comp (compressor) option.

Ed didn't seem to have the optional extra pre-amp tube mod done though, according to John Suhr.

“What I basically wanted was that kind of that first Van Halen album sound, and he seemed to know exactly what I wanted.”

"Jose gave the amp an extra pre-amp tube, as well as a pull knob. “When you pulled the knob out, it dropped the volume, but you still had all this gain,” Jay says. “It sounded like it was on ten.” (John Sykes reportedly has this same mod)."

http://guitarinternational.com/2010/08/ ... arredondo/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Jose Arrendono

Except for Lee Jackson, who modified amps for Paul Gilbert, George Lynch, Steve Vai, and Zakk Wylde, and Caesar Diaz, who gained fame as Stevie Ray Vaughn’s tone doctor, the amp wizards usually didn’t advertise, preferring to let their tones speak for themselves, and let their businesses grow by word of mouth.

One of the most mysterious amp wizards was the late Jose Arredondo, who is both one of the most well known, and at the same time unknowable, tone gurus in history. He didn’t save his secrets for future generations, and trying to track down any biographical information, or any of his amp secrets, is like trying to catch fog in a butterfly net.

Although Arredondo worked for Vox, (he had a hand in their Super Beatle amps), and for Ampeg, where Paul Rivera believes he knew him from, he was of course best known for working on Eddie Van Halen’s amps. If Van Halen mentioned he used Charmin toilet paper, it would have put their sales through the roof, and sure enough, once he started dropping Jose’s name, Arredondo was modifying Marshalls like crazy. Several satisfied Jose customers included James Hetfield, Vai, Steve Stevens, and John Sykes, among many others.

Bryan Jay, who played guitar in the ‘80’s metal band Keel, had a Marshall modified by Jose, and recalled that even back in Arredondo’s hey-day, he wasn’t the easiest guy to track down. “You had to know somebody that knew somebody that knew him to get a hold of him,” Jay recalls. “Thinking back, (my mod) was kind of difficult to get.”

Jay, and Keel’s second guitarist Marc Ferrari, got in touch with Jose through Keel’s management, and they brought over two brand new, fifty watt Marshalls. Jose usually didn’t work on fifty watt models, and Bryan and Marc’s were two of the first he modified. “I don’t know this for a fact, but I think what it was because of the transformers,” says Jay. “What he did was he took old transformers, old parts out of old Marshalls, and put ‘em in the new ones, he’d modify them. And I think the 50 watts didn’t go back that far, so he couldn’t get those parts.”

Jose had a shop, Arrco Electronics, but Jay recalls going with Ferrari to Arredondo’s home (both were in the San Fernando Valley). As they arrived in a regular middle class neighborhood, Jay wondered, Is this it? When a man who looked to be in his sixties answered the door, again Jay thought, We don’t have the right place. But once it was clear the man was expecting them and invited them in, it was indeed Jose.

In Arredondo’s garage, Jay saw several Marshalls sitting around with name tags on them: George Lynch, Yngwie Malmsteen, Jake E. Lee. “Oh, you’re doing an amp for Yngwie?,” which apparently was another fifty watt Marshall Jose was working on. Although Arredondo was a friendly and talkative guy, he never talked about what he was doing with anyone else’s amps. “He was very secretive,” says Jay.

Although Jose was much older than the musicians he worked for, “He was definitely young at heart,” Jay recalls. “Definitely had some fire in him.” Arredondo was from Argentina, and he spoke with a heavy accent that at times was hard to understand, but when it came to tone, there were no communication problems. “What I basically wanted was that kind of that first Van Halen album sound, and he seemed to know exactly what I wanted.”

When Jay picked his amp up several weeks later, he was very pleased with the results.

“We’d put up different amps in our rehearsal studio, play through this one, switch to that one, and the Jose always blew everything away. It was unbelievable how good it sounded.” Jose gave the amp an extra pre-amp tube, as well as a pull knob. “When you pulled the knob out, it dropped the volume, but you still had all this gain,” Jay says. “It sounded like it was on ten.” (John Sykes reportedly has this same mod).

Arredondo didn’t live long enough to have his own model amp on the market, but ironically, an amp based on Jay’s Jose modified Marshall was released, the Peavey VTM.

“The Vice President of Peavey was best buddies with one of our managers,” says Jay. “They wanted us to use their equipment because they were real big on the country side, but they were really trying to break into the rock world. They said if they borrowed the Jose amp, designed an amp that sounded as good or better, would we use it? We said okay. They took it apart, saw what he did, and modeled the VTM after it. They didn’t know the amp was based on a Jose modified Marshall.”

As for the Marshalls that Jose modified over the years, they remain as elusive as the man himself. Anyone who still owns one has a rare, and valuable, commodity. “I know you could get a good penny for it,” says Jay. “I remember somebody offering me like $15,000 for the thing. Now I feel like I should have sold it for that, but I never would have seen it again.”

Jay did end up selling his Jose Marshall to a friend, so he knows where it is if he ever gets the urge to play through it again, “And I know he won’t sell it.”

btw, hardly anyone gets Jose's company name right (including me ).

It's Arrco.



Looks like Jose's mod might have been removed on this one and the mod hole is plugged up.



Jose story I came across on a forum somewhere.


I personally new him. He was Jose Omar Arredondo and he was like a second Dad to me.
I grew up with his youngest daughter. His company was ARRCO Electronics, back in 1976 when I first met him, the company was located right there on Sepulveda Bl. just So. of Roscoe Blvd. It was a small shop right next to a pawn shop. They lived directly across the street in a huge old fashion Victorian house, before it was torn down and apts were built in that vast lot.



Anyway...... he had no lackadaisical attitude when it came to his ingenious work. He was way ahead of his time.
The he moved, from there to Encino in the late 70's and made the back garage his work shop.
His daughter and I would go out there from time to time to watch him work on these amazing amps. His wife Raquel would be in the kitchen always cooking or preparing food for something..... and we would sit in the shop drinking iced tea [we were about 17 and 18 years old] He was already working with Eddie at the time, because when either David Lee or Eddie were on their way over, Jose would make his daughter and I go inside the house. We weren't allowed near those guys. But while we were in that shop, I remember sitting on a stool watching him work, on these amps that to me.... looked like an amazing wizard of oz city that was being built.
The back of the amps were clear, and when you looked through them... you just didn't want to stop looking because there was so much to see... all the intricate detail.
As the years would pass, we went to the US Festival in 1983 and I still have pictures of that fest, but only all from back stage, because that was the only place we were allowed. We stood next to Valerie and Eddie & Alex's Mom [Mrs. Van Halen] first time ever, I noticed she was oriental.


More time passed and I remember the group breaking up and then Sammy Hagar started coming over to the house. When his daughter and I were there....... we were shoosed out again, and not allowed to be around him either.

I guess all those guys seemed to have some very discombobulated thoughts. lol



If you still want those amps, I do believe his Son Omar or daughter Maria still have some of his amps. Who knows, maybe they would be willing to part with them now? I remember Maria paying storage for many years fr those amps, then she moved them again. The son is still a automobile mechanic, and they both live locally in the Valley.


I was there at Holy Cross Hospital when Jose died. His family called him Poppy, as did I... He died peacefully with his family by his side.
I believe..... that was Sept 17th 1997



Hopefully I was able to attribute a good ole' "Jose" story for you guys...

[fhn_lopes]

NOw, and ONLY now I've figured out this amp is a US export model

[Maverick]

There is no knob there, its a pot with a plstic shaft

[Good Guest]

Yep master volume zener mod ..just about anyone who has seen the amp or got info from the Jose shop has a model with a zener master volume ....that reeks of EVH tones galore...the proof is in the ears..and in the people that claimed it is from the beginning that have credibility.

Even the company that patents everything it sees ..copied the Jose zener mod...in there somewhat EVH sounding amp.


You would have to be tone deaf not to hear the magic of the Jose zener clipper/clamper..

[rgorke]

Yep master volume zener mod ..just about anyone who has seen the amp or got info from the Jose shop has a model with a zener master volume ....that reeks of EVH tones galore...the proof is in the ears..and in the people that claimed it is from the beginning that have credibility.

Even the company that patents everything it sees ..copied the Jose zener mod...in there somewhat EVH sounding amp.


You would have to be tone deaf not to hear the magic of the Jose zener clipper/clamper..

Are there clips somewhere?

[Good Guest]

Read'em and weep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_JVL91V3OE" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;