Metropoulos Forum

People always say Eddie lied about his gear to throw people off but I don't see it. I've gotten ahold of many interviews he did through the years, and all the info you need seems to be there. He's quoted as saying that in the studio he cranked the variac up to 140 volts and "watched the tubes melt". But he's also said that the variac is used to lower the voltage, like a light dimmer, and thus lower the volume. I don't think he was delibrately trying to confuse people by stating that he increased the voltage, but rather just stating that, on occasion, he turned it up. People say he lied about Jose modifiying his amp but I don't see where he ever said "modify". What he did say was the Jose "beefed up" his transformers. And I've heard from reliable sources that his OPT was not original. He's said that he ran the amp's speaker out into H&H power amps. He's said that he rewound and wax-potted his PAF's. All the so-called "truths" about Eddie's gear have been spoken by the man himself, as far as I can see.

good point!after all of the things i have tried i allways seem to come back to a stock plexi(12series)

it has seemed to me that eds amp was stock for the longest time.- i have heard that many times early on my journey anyway.
now with understanding the spec we can see why a particular amp doesnt sound good and tweek it up better or even build the amp that we want!

the magic to me now knowing the specs ands using great parts.

This really deserves it's own thread, but regarding the PAF's, people are always trying to get vintage spec PAF's for the brown sound, in the 8-9K range. But he rewound his pickups to "my own specs". Now why would somebody rewind their pickup? More output, of course! Now this is speculation on my part, but I'm sure that rewound PAF ended up being well over 10K.

Crunchboy wrote:People always say Eddie lied about his gear to throw people off but I don't see it. I've gotten ahold of many interviews he did through the years, and all the info you need seems to be there. He's quoted as saying that in the studio he cranked the variac up to 140 volts and "watched the tubes melt". But he's also said that the variac is used to lower the voltage, like a light dimmer, and thus lower the volume. I don't think he was delibrately trying to confuse people by stating that he increased the voltage, but rather just stating that, on occasion, he turned it up. People say he lied about Jose modifiying his amp but I don't see where he ever said "modify". What he did say was the Jose "beefed up" his transformers. And I've heard from reliable sources that his OPT was not original. He's said that he ran the amp's speaker out into H&H power amps. He's said that he rewound and wax-potted his PAF's. All the so-called "truths" about Eddie's gear have been spoken by the man himself, as far as I can see.

You hit the nail on the head Crunchboy! Man i've been saying this to people for years and they just NEVER want to believe it. I think when something is too simple people tend to think it must not be true.

Crunchboy wrote:This really deserves it's own thread, but regarding the PAF's, people are always trying to get vintage spec PAF's for the brown sound, in the 8-9K range. But he rewound his pickups to "my own specs". Now why would somebody rewind their pickup? More output, of course! Now this is speculation on my part, but I'm sure that rewound PAF ended up being well over 10K.

Didn't he use thinner wire for the rewound of his PAF, to make it hotter maybe?? Would it make it hotter with thinner...??

im really stating to believe his pickup wasnt an over wound paf,just a good sound paf !

Very interesting point about Ed's descriptions. I personally think Ed was being a tad bit vague about his setup, but I don't have a problem with that really. I do think he pretty much had a stock Marshall, with maybe a value or two off. Of course what is an "off" value in a 12000 series amp?

The pickup rewind is pretty believeable for me, but I don't know why.

I think you might be right about this. The source of all this stuff about him lying probably is the 140 volt variac comment. I bought that Guitar Player new off the shelf when it came out in the early 80's. At the time he was totally blowing everybody out of the water. No one had heard anything so revolutionary in terms of his technique and incredible energy. So everybody went and got a variac, turned up the voltage and destroyed tubes and tranformers in the process. So for years amp techs were telling you to NEVER use a variac. And I think it was because he said the 140 volt thing. Then people found out later that he actually turned it down. So they think he lied on purpose. Well maybe he actually did turn it up in the studio and wasn't lying about it. In the same interview he said that he rewound and potted his pickups. The 140 volt comment caused alot of trouble therefore the conclusion peopel made is that you can't trust his statments in interviews.

All you young guys out there don't know how great you got it. Back then you didn't have transcriptions and all the info that you have now, the internet and all that. Back then you just read the interview, got a variac, turn up the voltage thinking that you'll get that incredible tone and end up destroying your amp and then you get mad at Ed.

Compared to 2006, the guitar was in the dark ages in the late seventies and early eighties. In terms of educational tools and information. To learn guitar you had to have a good ear or develop one by transcribing yourself. Or find someone that could actually play to show you. I didn't know anyone so I spent all my time dropping needles on records wearing them out. It paid off because now I can transcribe anything no problem. Even Jazz.

i remember it and your describe it well. i remember back in the early 80's trying figure stuff out that was half speed and an octave down! - i had an old record player back then - took out a tuning fork and a file and grinded down the gear inside so my record player could play at half speed.( everything was an octave lower of course) i never even dreamed they would come out with half speed machines without changing the pitch!

I used to record it over to my dad's reel to reel recorder, and play it half speed. He would have beat my ass for dinking up the record player. LOL

Yeah those were the days. We also had to walk to school with no shoes on. In the snow! Oops, I grew up in Texas. (Mark, If I'm ever in the Austin area visiting my dad I'll look you up.) I actually had to learn how to tune my guitar too. Didn't get a tuner until I had played a few years. I've run into so many people that can't tune their guitar. Those damn old pitch pipes were shit and often pathetically wrong. And what about those capos with the strechy stuff and holes and knocked your guitar so far out of tune that you had to retune it.

And theres even a Led Zeppelin book that came out in 1988 that is blatantly wrong on many tunes. It was widely published. One day in the early nineties I sat down for a few hours and figured out the tuning to the Rain Song DGCGCD. But this book had in it standard tuning. I got into two arguments with people when I told them that the book was wrong. Now its easy to find the correct tuning for that song. But I did it by ear.

I really should have gotten into this transcribing business. I got a masters in music theory from the Univ. of Michigan in 1989 and taught eartraining for two years. But my health took some unfortunate turns. I'm presently thinking that I really should try to break into that business.

Pitch pipes! Holy hell, I hated those things. What I want to know is why capos always had that Southwestern design material on the stretchy part.

You are right about kids today having it so good. All we had was Mel Bay books that had pictures in them from 1957. I still have a music book for VHII somewhere that was basically written for piano. In fact I think I have one from Diver Down as well, and of course all of the guitar chords are written in 1st position. By the time tabs got popular I already knew the tunes the correct way. Certainly helped you develop an ear, that's for sure.

Thats right Brownsound. I bought the book of VHI only to find that it was piano arrangements and chords in first position. I was quite dissapointed when I realized it wasn't going to help me at all. Like any piano player in a bar was going to play an arrangement of runnin with the devil. Hello! I also bought the piano arrangement book of Aerosmith Live Bootleg too. What the hell is that all about? It sucked. And there weren't as many good guitar teachers back then either. All you could do was figure it out for yourself. Honestly my transcriptions in my early years weren't very good. Much like what you see all over the interent now.

All the guitar straps had those damn southwestern designs too.

bmf5150 wrote:im really stating to believe his pickup wasnt an over wound paf,just a good sound paf !

Then why would he rewind them? One his rewound PAF's got cloned by Seymour Duncan. It became the Custom Custom. I have one in my Strat. For the brown sound, I don't think you can go wrong with it. Stan, you must try. They're cheap.