Matt Bruck Demo (old EVH tech)

[plexified]

Some time ago Eds main marshall was supposedly restored by Peter VanYahoo in Amsterdam . Well it wasn't his main amp and the story was just BS . But Eds tech at the time , Matt Bruck supposedly used the amp on his personal demo .

It was called Zen Boy .

I did quick you tube search and it was a joke .

Was interested if anyone has heard it has it or would care to comment .

Supposedly the amp was used on the Balance album , but can't be discerned from winter european yodeling .

[dirtycooter]

I remember that article-still have it too. My sentiments are- whatever

but I don't recall anyone using nor ever heard of Matt making use of it either though.

There are Marshalls-that sound pretty much like "really stock marshalls" though on Balance in places-its there- you just gotta listen for it. Mostly its on the cleaner parts seriously.

I bet it was Ed having someone redo the amp making them think it was for Ed's personal use only to get the best possible work done on it for his buddy Matt. I mean if you're a tech-and you're working on Ed's amp-you gonna muck it up and do half ass work on it???

[dirtycooter]

If Ed was smart though-he'd call Peter Van Rockstah today-I bet he could do a better job than Van Yahoo

[grockr1]

matt bruck is still evh,s tech.

[beaulieu]

Pretty Sure Matts not going to get a "bad amp job" considering who he is.Don't think they would have to say its Ed's to get a good job.IF they did a bad job Ed's surely going to hear about it and the amp guy wouldnt want that..I'd hope

[Mr. Beasty]

matt bruck is still evh,s tech.

Nah, Matt is Ed's personnal assistant ... they have people to take care of the amps and guitars these days.

[plexified]

yeah man , the article was written by the former president of Fender and Marshall Ritchie Fliegler and the article was about Eds main amp and the Dutch guy that restored it .

I outed the process long ago because a simple word play on Peter Van Wheeldens comments stated he wanted to strip the chassis and replate it .

Simple Marshall history tells you Eds chassis was raw steel . I have the closest chassis # to Eds to boot .

Its put up and shut up at its best .

Eds tech , the president of Marshall writing the article and Matt Bruck telling he used that ass kicker to record his personal demo Zen Boy .

Yes the Marshall can barely be discerned buy this demo removes the doubt .

I know this was not Eds main amp but still calling out bullshit is what it is .

[leadguy]

And the C e r r e m mod BS came from some post at the Plexi Palace about Peter Van Wheelie seeing a big resistor that came separate to the amp when working on Ed's amp which doesn't make any sense at all because why would Matt Bruck or whoever send a amp and a big resistor to a amp tech, it would only be the amp that was sent.

Who makes this stuff up?

[sherman]

And someone please tell me why a "tech" for Eddie F'ng Van Halen has to send a Marshall to anyone else for any reason? Maybe I am overestimating the job requirements.

[dirtycooter]

The absolute truth will be pretty well known information someday-very soon. Its been what 32 years now?
The myth and mysteries are dissovling very rapidly about getting this tone-especially here.

Just like the type of chassis metal makes a tonal impact and drifting values of old components making the "magic tone" and making people feel it was unacheivable to recreate-all BS BS BS. Well that didn't stop alot of guys here from doing it

And one would ask-why Matt couldn't do it all. So true.

I really think Ed does have a personal beef with Marshall. Step back far enough away from things and take a whole big picture look and yep-looks pretty fishy

[vanhalen5150]

It would not surprise me in the least that when the Fender amp stops selling, there will be another company making a 5150 amp. Marshall? Why not.

[dirtycooter]

I am suprised Marshall hasn't come out with a new serious amp aimed at this one channel-one specific tone monster. 5153 isn't really bad but-its not the exact same thing at all still.
They wouldn't have to advertize it as EVH or VH or nothin-as long as it made "that tone"-people would figure it out I think.

Or would most people have sense enough to know it if they plugged into it???

Of course ALL their other amp models would probably stop selling

[fivecoyote]

So that full page article plus at least 1 pic (if I remember right) is BS? Van Weelden also sells at least preamps made to "sound like Ed" -- all or most of the sound clips are VH riffs. Anyone else catch what you caught about that article pfied?

[leadguy]

"Just recently, this Dutch guy named Peter cleaned the amp for me and restored it to its totally original state."
Edward Van Halen - Guitar World, February 1995

http://home.wxs.nl/~visser70/news.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The (C e r r e m) resistor Peter Van Wheelie story is BS, made up by some dorks at Plexi Palace and the Usenet http://www.vintageamps.org/plexiboard/v ... =16&t=3579" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ed did apparently send his main amp out for service around the early/mid 90s because he thought there was something wrong with his amp but it came back sounding the same so Ed said that he was probably just bored with his amp and he retired it http://azdz.tripod.com/articles/intdz-evh1995.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... highlight=" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"Having worked on the supposed IT amp on more than one occasion, I can speak first hand on some of this.

First of all, hate to blow anyone’s bubbles, but there’s not a thing especially outstanding or unique about this amp. Matt Bruck brought what he said was Eds main amp to me in 1990/1 to “bring it back to life” He said Ed felt it just wasn’t the same as it once was and thought the output transformer was “getting weak”. I told him OT’s don’t get weak, but went ahead and checked it out from top to bottom and found not a thing wrong with it at all. In fact it was bone stock and rather clean inside. It sounded like a stock Marshall, put out full power and all of the caps were in good shape. I might add, and this is just from memory, but I recall that the circuit was actually closer to a 70 JMP than it was to a plexi, something I attributed to this possibly being a transition model, seeing as how it had a plexi panel, but apparently the newer input and feedback configuration. All that aside, Matt insisted that something needed to be done so I gave it a complete once-over and I then took the liberty of installing a Pittbull Classic output transformer into it to see if anyone would notice. Upon getting it back, Matt told me that they noticed no difference in sound and they still thought it sounded weak. I just presumed that something else was amiss or had changed and thought no more about it. I still have the receipt and copy of the check for the work signed by Ed, in case anyone wants to try to discredit this claim. I don’t usually talk about it, because frankly Scarlett…but since you went to the effort of posting this here, I though it might be fun to respond to some of the idiots history items:

“Eddie would keep it loaded with four Sylvania 6CA7 power tubes (Ed used this American brand because they run slightly cooler than their European counterpart).”

In the mid to late 70’s most available EL34’s were horribly unreliable and the Sylvania 6CA7 was king because it was the only available reliable replacement. It was well known at that time that if you had an EL34 amp you either used the Sylvania 6CA7 or in the case of Marshall, the popular thing to do was swap it over to 6550, which Marshalls US distributor was doing to cut down on warranty claims for failed European EL34s – you know those coveted NOS ones people pay big bucks for now…and by the way, the back was off because tubes got replaced frequently and everybody at that time left the backs off or lost them.

(Although he did crank the Variac up to 140 volts in the studio for Van Halen I)!

Anyone who has ever tried this knows it's BS and the reason you know it’s BS is because after you tried it the guy who replaced your blown power supply capacitors or transformers told you it’s BS. When the first interview where this appeared came out I was a repair tech at Valley Arts Guitars, and I can tell you that article made me a lot of money. But I lost a lot of respect for the big E for being so thoughtless as to say such a thing in print and potentially help people put their lives in danger, or at the very least sacrifice their gear over such a stupid comment.

"Early in Van Halen's career, Ed used to say that his amps were heavily modified by Jose Arrendondo of Arrco Electronics to throw people off that were trying to imitate his sound."

And if it ended there, I would have thought fair enough, but it didn’t end there. He allowed Jose to promote and sell “Eddies Mod” to anyone with cash. As a result, legions of guys got reamed and their amps butchered with a bunch of terrible sounding and horribly executed mods (some now considered desirable as “Cameron Jose mods”) which caused lots of noise, hum, output transformer failures, etc, etc. I had lots of players coming to me wanting to find out why their amps with the blessed Jose/Eddie Grail were giving them so much grief. In most cases it went something like “fix the problem with the amp but don’t touch the mod”. Response: “The mod is the problem, so I either dump the mod or you take it back to Jose”."

[leadguy]

http://www.bluesmagazine.nl/interview-peter-van-weelden" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

In conversation with ... .. Peter van Weelden
By Andre White Pants
Now many readers are likely thinking: Who has the white pants are now cackling?
That's right: Peter van Weelden so, have you read his name still good!
Who is this guy doing? Well, one of the best guitar amp builders in the world. As any loyal reader of Blue Magazine is known, all done interviews with the artists themselves. A small change seemed highly desirable and so the idea arose to have an artist to ask someone else. Now Peter was no stranger to me since we met several times already met and spoken at shows (sorry Heino) Joe Bonamassa. The more we were talking, the more I became interested in people and technology behind the musician. So I had during Freischladershow Henrik at Wuppertal has a very entertaining conversation with his guitar tech and a world opened up to me. Since signing any instrument can play, really a big fan 40 years of guitar music, a discovery because I had no idea of all.
So Peter called and made an appointment for an interview in his office in Apeldoorn. He also liked to try to show what he is doing so, a few days later on the road to Valhalla in amp building!
Arriving at his office I thought at first to be wrong. A rather dreary building from the outside seemed to me an icon from the workspace. Check with neighbors! I stepped inside to have been reached as yet the workspace. Peter was already waiting for me and led me inside to a cozy and well equipped workshop with storage, sitting area and office.
- We have know each other, Joe Bonamassa. How did you come into contact with each other?
At one point I was called by his manager if she could come visit us to see what I like doing, they had serious interest. It appeared that Joe, when he was 15 years old, I had read an article in Guitar World magazine in which I was called a sort of quack. Joe that was already cut and always kept. Maybe it's still useful! A small 15 years later, he was on the sidewalk. Result: he always plays with my amps, even at the Royal Albert Hall! I am rather proud to hear!
- Which guitarists are more customer of yours?
The first known was Eddie Van Halen. He also asked if I wanted to look at his broken amplifier. Of course I wanted, was in Los Angeles to stand! So I flew soon afterwards (never flown!) To LA, according to Eddie did a very good job and my career got a tremendous boost. Then came Richie Sambora (Bon Jovi), Tony Spinner (Toto), Tony Mc Alpine (Steve Vai), Michael Katon, Paul Croke (Anthrax, Meat Loaf) and the Netherlands the guitarists from Normal, Kane and Talk Talk, Vandenberg
- How did you ended up in this business, there seems no training?
In my youth I discovered the passion for guitar and talent for electrical engineering and was logically an electro-training. After the training have completed the guitar and the technique remained around me fascinating. I worked for a living as a repair technician in household appliances. In my spare time I was already busy with repairing guitars and so slowly it got more and more about my name in that circuit. After contact with Van Halen I decided to set up a small business not only for professionals but also for the amateurs. That was more difficult than I thought because there is money being asked for a repair and my customers were not so accustomed. Many then went into another friend, neighbor, who did it for free, or lower quality of course.
- What are your trademark amplifiers become?
Let me first state that you are not I buy the cheapest amps. All construction and hand myself! (Here let me an example of Peter the labor intensity: a wire to connect the amplifier to have a total of 7 actions are required and that many times). About an amplifier wiring I do about three days so work it out. I did a short time since the record company that makes cabinets for me. It was too time consuming to do even that. In the beginning I made them yourself, many saw, measuring, sanding, etc. So now no more. I design the cabinets to the computer with the lettering, to be yet another knock millimeter else fits together not later. The TWINKLE COUNTRY is my best and most famous amplifier and build the most, the GAIN LAND is a known but is probably out. Repairing other people's stuff I regret to reduce too much time and employing people I'd rather not. As your own boss, I have the freedom to go directly to a customer if somewhere in acting problems!
- What will the future bring for you, there are special plans?
Hush. ... Secret, but I can reveal that there are two projects in the pipeline, which in the not too distant future should be completed. Then he shows them to me but I can not say and did not shoot. Very understandable if you know how much work it in and sit there with your ideas off other people always want to go!
- Dear Peter, thank you I want you received in your domain, and certainly we see each other again at a Joe Bonamassa show.
Thank you also for your visit and interest and we both hope that the readers of Blue Magazine also found an interesting article!