Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

[fivecoyote]

As many of you know I have the WoodyTone.com blog. Since I started that, several folks who appear to be in the know or were in the know about cetain artists' gear have posted comments that I haven't made public for various reasons. This is one I've been sitting on, had no luck getting in touch with the guy so here it is fyi. I am not an amp builder (yet), know squat about it so I can't comment on it...but I'm sure you guys can. Also, if it's old news, at least this may be some verification. Here 'tis:


Before the Dutch guy, before Suhr, the amp came to us at Soldano. I worked for Soldano in the late 80's-early 90's when Ed bought three SLO 100's (one of which he took to Peavey, which resulted in the 5150). Anyway, Ed's amp was totally stock except for the one little mod that everyone wants to keep secret. Well, here it is: On V2, there is a 820 ohm cathode resistor. Some plexis have this resistor bypassed with a .68 capacitor. Most Marshalls have no bypass cap here, just the 820 ohm. Well, Ed's amp had a 330uF electrolytic capacitor bypassing this 820 ohm resistor. If you look at Fender schematics for the tweed Bassman amp, Fender already tried this idea on the 5F6 Bassman (with a 25uF), but removed it on the next model, the famous 5F6A. Just adding that capacitor adds more gain than you might think. Add that cap to the Variac set at about 85 volts and all the other stuff, and there you are.

[YMI5150?]

well that jives with the shot floating around that is illegidly Ed's baby. No sign of a .68 mustard on V2, just the fat cap. I'm relatively new to the world of Plexis but I dont think its a true statement to say that most plexis have just an 820 ohm resistor on v2. I believe they actually came with a 820 in parallel with a .68uf mustard.

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[Good Guest]

Yeah thats been flogged to death for years ...way back to the plexi palace forum days of old....even here it was a standard thing later I think it became part of the R stash mod 5 but @ 25 uf instead of the huge 330 uf thru many years of experiments by various amp builders and tweakers ...Jeez I even think it's standard on the ceritone brown sound amps ,,which seem to be direct copy's of plexi palace exposse's complete with 100pf snubber cap...dead giveaway... the pic is Mark C'.'s EVH amp pic and it says it all.

[YMI5150?]

GG, remind me how it would affect tone, in theory?

[SteadyEddie]

It's referred to as the "fat" cap. It thickens up the tone as it allows more low frequencies to bypass the cathode resistor, vs. the upper mids that the stock .68 cap gives you. I think it's a bit extreme, myself.

[rgorke]

Thanks for the insight and reconfirmation of what Dave Friedman has said before.

http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... 15#p338576" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Good Guest]

GG, remind me how it would affect tone, in theory?

Yep like steady edddie says ...

A bypassed cathode (one with cap) increases gain and a higher plate resistor will increase gain....bigger the cap the lower the frequency....the .68 uf to me is the perfect balance for less mud...but I can see how an amp that is being overdriven with something with not to many lows in it can benefit from the larger 330 uf cap, like dsd pickup or an overdrive.

[axeman]

Not aGAIN.

[Marshall SL12301]

I personally really like the Metro 12000 and the surh sl68 cranked all the way for the VH tones and for the lower volume VH stuff the MOD5 is hard to beat

[leadguy]

Ed had a few plexi's back then(mid 70s).The so-called magic marshall that was sent to Soldano did it have the hole or pot in the back where the master volume was added(see VH II studio photo of knob in back of the plexi).Many of the amp tech's that supposenly looked at Eds plexi in the 90s didnt see that knob pot in the back,it was then plugged by a screw to fill in the hole.Did Ed send them THE plexi or just one in his collection.

John Suhr has given the serial number of the amp that Ed and Matt Bruck took to him in the early 1990s.

The serial number John Suhr gave is the SAME serial number as the serial number in a photo of Ed's main Plexi from the 1990s WITH THE HOLE IN THE BACK PANEL BOLTED UP.

So the amp John Suhr saw WAS Ed's main Marshall that is also in the staged VHII studio photos with a knob or switch in the back panel instead of the bolt.

So it's a non issue and has already been solved.

Steve Fryette saw the same Ed's main amp as John Suhr did because John Suhr saw Steve Fryettes VHT transformer in Ed's main Plexi with the same serial number as in the photo of Ed's main Marshall.

John Suhr gave out hints about the larger capacitor on V2 and I think I was posting in the Debate about Ed''s Plexi thread about Ed's circuit that I thought was a split cathode with .68uf capacitors on V1 and V2 because of the gain in the mids and Dave Friedman came in and posted that Ed's main amp had a split cathode and a .68uf on V1 and a larger capacitor on V2 that was a mod, which was what John Suhr said previously and what this Soldano dude is saying.

When the larger capacitor was put on V2 is not known, it could have been in the mid 80s for all anyone knows.

Ed would have had a .68uf on V2 before the larger capacitor mod, and it would have been a split cathode .68uf on V1 .68uf on V2 stock 12 series circuit.

Notice how none of them, John Suhr, Dave Friedman, Steve Fryette and this Soldano dude ever say that the front end was a cascade and John Suhr said that the solder joints were original in the preamp section when he saw the amp in the early 1990s and a cascade would usually involve the preamp solder joints to be interfered with but there were no signs of interference.

John Suhr said that other solder joints in Ed's amp had been interfered with and were not original, including the solder joints where the larger capacitor was on V2 (makes sense as it is a mod) and the output transformer solder joints were not original (which also makes sense because Steve Fryette had just replaced the output transformer just before it was taken to John Suhr and the output transformer was probably changed back in the 70s as well).

So it all makes sense and there is no big deal about it.

Ed's main Plexi was a stock 12 series Marshall (no cascade) and had an additional larger capacitor installed at some point and had a few transformer changes.

The knob or switch at the back of Ed's main Plexi could have been anything, including a half power switch etc etc
Whatever it was, Ed got rid of it and it had nothing to do with Ed's preamp gain section.

John Suhr, Dave Friedman, Steve Fryette and this Soldano dude can't all be BS artists BS'ing about the same Fat Cap mod and also not mentioning any other mod they saw because the Fat Cap was basically the only mod done to the circuit.
There was no Mod 5 or Marshall 2203 cascade mod in the preamp stage, ever.

[rgorke]

Ed had a few plexi's back then(mid 70s).The so-called magic marshall that was sent to Soldano did it have the hole or pot in the back where the master volume was added(see VH II studio photo of knob in back of the plexi).Many of the amp tech's that supposenly looked at Eds plexi in the 90s didnt see that knob pot in the back,it was then plugged by a screw to fill in the hole.Did Ed send them THE plexi or just one in his collection.

John Suhr has given the serial number of the amp that Ed and Matt Bruck took to him in the early 1990s.

The serial number John Suhr gave is the SAME serial number as the serial number in a photo of Ed's main Plexi from the 1990s WITH THE HOLE IN THE BACK PANEL BOLTED UP.

So the amp John Suhr saw WAS Ed's main Marshall that is also in the staged VHII studio photos with a knob or switch in the back panel instead of the bolt.

So it's a non issue and has already been solved.

Steve Fryette saw the same Ed's main amp as John Suhr did because John Suhr saw Steve Fryettes VHT transformer in Ed's main Plexi with the same serial number as in the photo of Ed's main Marshall.

John Suhr gave out hints about the larger capacitor on V2 and I think I was posting in the Debate about Ed''s Plexi thread about Ed's circuit that I thought was a split cathode with .068uf capacitors on V1 and V2 because of the gain in the mids and Dave Friedman came in and posted that Ed's main amp had a split cathode and a .068uf on V1 and a larger capacitor on V2 that was a mod, which was what John Suhr said previously and what this Soldano dude is saying.

When the larger capacitor was put on V2 is not known, it could have been in the mid 80s for all anyone knows.

Ed would have had a .068uf on V2 before the larger capacitor mod, and it would have been a split cathode .068uf on V1 .068uf on V2 stock 12 series circuit.

Notice how none of them, John Suhr, Dave Friedman, Steve Fryette and this Soldano dude ever say that the front end was a cascade and John Suhr said that the solder joints were original in the preamp section when he saw the amp in the early 1990s and a cascade would usually involve the preamp solder joints to be interfered with but there were no signs of interference.

John Suhr said that other solder joints in Ed's amp had been interfered with and were not original, including the solder joints where the larger capacitor was on V2 (makes sense as it is a mod) and the output transformer solder joints were not original (which also makes sense because Steve Fryette had just replaced the output transformer just before it was taken to John Suhr and the output transformer was probably changed back in the 70s as well).

So it all makes sense and there is no big deal about it.

Ed's main Plexi was a stock 12 series Marshall (no cascade) and had an additional larger capacitor installed at some point and had a few transformer changes.

The knob or switch at the back of Ed's main Plexi could have been anything, including a half power switch etc etc
Whatever it was, Ed got rid of it and it had nothing to do with Ed's preamp gain section.

John Suhr, Dave Friedman, Steve Fryette and this Soldano dude can't all be BS artists BS'ing about the same Fat Cap mod and also not mentioning any other mod they saw because the Fat Cap was basically the only mod done to the circuit.
There was no Mod 5 or Marshall 2203 cascade mod in the preamp stage, ever.

Yep, what he said!

[Santi]

Leadguy,from the value's you listed above on Eds amp and from my experiance,even with the amp wide open-variac to 90-85 volts will not have the distortion that Ed had on VH1 unless a distortion pedal( some type) was used.

Couldn't it be just the MXR 6 band EQ that was on all the times for VH1 And Perhaps just used as a solo boost from VH2 onwards? Don't forget the Ed started using the boss 10 band EQ from 1979. The famous Box 1 or 2 could have just been a switch for the 6 band EQ. Just an opinion....

[rgorke]

Here we go again and again and again.

[Strat78]

[rgorke]

Rgorke,if the sound is not there after all the so-called items ED used then there has to be something else plain and simple.Im sure there are many that have been though this,you cant believe everthing you read.

Honestly, I don't just believe things I have read. It is what I have heard on this forum (in terms of clips) and what others have posted vis a vis Youtube (Pete Thorn, etc.).

There are important things on VH1, IMHO, that set it apart. The biggest aspect is that VH1 was recorded in Sunset Studio 1 and the remaining albums at Sunset 2 or 5150. Sunset 1 has the reverb room that Sunset 2 does not. Any additional gain or what have you, I believe is due to the reamping process to get that reverb and other recording techiniques.

To get the exact VH1 tone is impossible with out that studio, NOT merely because some believe that there is a mystery stompbox or distortion pedal.

Finally, IF there were such a contraption, Ed would have marketed it long ago. That would be an easy way to make money rather than deal with developing an amp, etc.

The statements like Ed was lying, there HAS to be a box of some sort, so and so told me this or that, is just frankly, old.

Believe what you want but to say people have not achieved Ed's original tone is just wrong.