Everything We Know So Far

The man, the band, and everything else

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Tone Slinger
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Tone Slinger » Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:08 am

I think that the brass block on the vh1 era Franky reissue is an attempt to split the difference between the old Fender bridge that he had on it, and the brass mighty mite bridge thats on it on the vh1 album cover. Its been debated as to which bridge was on it for the recording. There was a thread here about that way back.
Pics ( texas jam '78) definately show a stock ( vintage) fender block.
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by chrisom » Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:32 pm

That makes sense to me. I put one of those 'FU' Bell-brass upgrade blocks on my '80's Floyd Rose on my KnE 'Frank'..! Sounds RICH. Good to hear from you again, Tone Slinger! :rock: :vh:

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Roe » Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:27 am

Ralle wrote:
Mon Jul 16, 2018 9:32 am
Aren't forgetting the Marshall 2003 Master PA head? A sure must have for that sound...
Isnt this essentially a superbass circuit?
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Tone Slinger
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Tone Slinger » Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:58 am

Yeah its been awhile, but good to be back Chrisom.
I think that the vhi era reissue strats are probably very close to how Ed's was back in 77-78. I dont think they are aware of the ring orientation of the wood (open book or closed book center seamed join). Ed probably had that old early '60's Fender bridge on it the whole time, but for the album cover there is that brass mighty mite bridge. I think the album shoot would have been a couple of months after the albums recording........maybe Ed was trying to make it look purdy for the album, but didnt really like it over the Fender ? There is no picture evidence of him hybridizing the two units, BUT, that is exactly what is being done to the reissue's :scratch:
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Ralle
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Ralle » Sun Jul 22, 2018 8:40 pm

Roe wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 3:27 am
Ralle wrote:
Mon Jul 16, 2018 9:32 am
Aren't forgetting the Marshall 2003 Master PA head? A sure must have for that sound...
Isnt this essentially a superbass circuit?
Well, yes... the PA has more channels, but looking at just one of'em, it's very simular to a bass circut. The differnces are no brightcaps and just one 68k resistor on the input. And after mixer ( 470k/470k ) you hit a master volume before going into
the 2nd stage... BEFORE the eq...One more thing; there's a tonecontroll ( 1M with .005uF ) hooked up in parallel with the gain, wich in reallity makes the value 500k instead of 1M... Look at this circut, and tell me that it doesn't play a big part of his sound... Further more, the load/line box... I assume it was a resistive load with a ouput tap set to fit the input on the PA head, or any head with a powerstage, really. I have mine set at .68 ohms ( I chose that value after looking at a schem in a fender amp that had a line ouput back in the day, so I figgurerd it must be a good place to start. One could have an adjustable effect resistor/pot with a value of all the way up to 1 ohm without recking the OT of the first head. The louder you have the loadbox set, the more gain you get into the first stage of the PA head, + the volume you choose in the channel you hook up your amp to ( I mean, what happen if you crank the volume in an amp? It distorts, right? ). So you see, there's more than just one way to get an insain gain without any boxes or boosters. Or just keep it nice and easy and get with the gain you allready have from the first head... it's all yours to decide... I belive that's what Ed did...
I'm not taking away anything regarding the use of the variac, I mean how can I, but don't tell me he didn't use this set up as well... This is just too perfect to let go...

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Ralle » Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:00 pm

Couldn't resist it... I just uploaded a clip I recorded just a couple of days ago, with this setup... Same cab I allways had, a Shure 57 mick just off center, and my Les Paul. That's all there is. A little plate reverb from cubase 5 :wink:

https://soundcloud.com/user-158645024/r ... -the-devil

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Tazin » Mon Jul 23, 2018 6:09 pm

Ralle wrote:
Sun Jul 22, 2018 9:00 pm
Couldn't resist it... I just uploaded a clip I recorded just a couple of days ago, with this setup... Same cab I allways had, a Shure 57 mick just off center, and my Les Paul. That's all there is. A little plate reverb from cubase 5 :wink:

https://soundcloud.com/user-158645024/r ... -the-devil
Your sound clips always sound good regardless of the setup you use. The top end crunch on this clip has a bit of the Gene Simmons Demo vibe to my ears. Did you use a plexi Super Lead spec or a hybrid spec for the main amp?

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Ralle » Mon Jul 23, 2018 8:08 pm

Not the normal superlead speqs, but the Plaap/C***** speqs... been using that for allmost two years now. And it's cool that you mention the Gene simmons tapes, cause according to my theories Ed used only his amp and probably was told by Gene ( or who ever was the tech in that studio ) to adjust the amp with the eq, just like it was done normally back then... When I play with those demos I lower the volume to like 9-10 aclock, letting the brightcap ( 5nF ) do the work, and take of some of the edge with either the precense or treble. Basically asdjusting a sound. Everybody knows how you needed to struggle with the lack of gain back in the day when you played a 100 w head, it became simply too loud. That is very obvious on these tapes...

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Tazin » Tue Jul 24, 2018 4:42 pm

Ralle wrote:
Mon Jul 23, 2018 8:08 pm
Not the normal superlead speqs, but the Plaap/C***** speqs... been using that for allmost two years now. And it's cool that you mention the Gene simmons tapes, cause according to my theories Ed used only his amp and probably was told by Gene ( or who ever was the tech in that studio ) to adjust the amp with the eq, just like it was done normally back then... When I play with those demos I lower the volume to like 9-10 aclock, letting the brightcap ( 5nF ) do the work, and take of some of the edge with either the precense or treble. Basically asdjusting a sound. Everybody knows how you needed to struggle with the lack of gain back in the day when you played a 100 w head, it became simply too loud. That is very obvious on these tapes...
How does this setup handle pedals (echoplex, phase90, Flanger, Eq., etc.,) on the front end?...Any adverse side effects running the pedals this way?

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Ralle » Tue Jul 24, 2018 6:10 pm

This, however, I don't really have any experiance of... I haven't tryied any pedals what so ever, really... I did try this echoplex preamp once, and I had it infront of the main amp... It worked I guess... but back then I hadn't come as far as I am now so I can't really comment on that... But in theory, I guess it would be perfect to run any effects after the line/load... as they should be. How Ed did I really don't know. There's pics and info on how he did, but as we all know it doesn't have to fit the way he really did it to get the sound we're talking about... Sorry...

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by jnew » Mon Jul 30, 2018 3:38 pm

Credibility to the re-amping thing is VERY HIGH in my humble opinion. And I’m on the hunt for one of those PA heads. I’ve used another plexi with bass on 10 and all else on 0 with VOL I as a master, I’ve used that same 2nd plexi converted power amp only and I’ve used a Peavey rack mount tube power amp. Re-amping is seriously good for VH I tone with a good plexi circuit being the first amp in the chain. But a lot of the magic is in post EQ. VH II is not re-amp’d, doesn’t have the same saturation and gain as a lot of the stuff on VH I, doesn’t have the big reverb and ambience like VH I, but definitely has that Post EQ fingerprint. I think Ralph is right about the input circuit and master arrangement with that PA Head. That would probably be the most accurate way Ed’s re-amp arrangement could be and we know he had heads that were used and modded for re-amping. It makes sense based on what we know so far.
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Tazin » Mon Jul 30, 2018 3:55 pm

jnew wrote:
Mon Jul 30, 2018 3:38 pm
Credibility to the re-amping thing is VERY HIGH in my humble opinion. And I’m on the hunt for one of those PA heads. I’ve used another plexi with bass on 10 and all else on 0 with VOL I as a master, I’ve used that same 2nd plexi converted power amp only and I’ve used a Peavey rack mount tube power amp. Re-amping is seriously good for VH I tone with a good plexi circuit being the first amp in the chain. But a lot of the magic is in post EQ. VH II is not re-amp’d, doesn’t have the same saturation and gain as a lot of the stuff on VH I, doesn’t have the big reverb and ambience like VH I, but definitely has that Post EQ fingerprint. I think Ralph is right about the input circuit and master arrangement with that PA Head. That would probably be the most accurate way Ed’s re-amp arrangement could be and we know he had heads that were used and modded for re-amping. It makes sense based on what we know so far.
Just curious as to which heads are known to be modified for re-amping during 1977 - 1978?

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by jnew » Mon Jul 30, 2018 4:18 pm

I don’t know which specific heads but I do know that Dave F. has talked about some of Ed’s amps, he had done this for. The peeled wooden amp I believe was one of them.
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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by Ralle » Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:43 am

As I see it, he could've had used any of his other heads for this... basically all that is needed is to remove the brightcaps in the mixer... takes 2 secconds... It could've been the stripped head, or ( how's this for thoughts; ) it could have been the 12301 head with the white knob in the back ( since that's the most fitting possition for the same master as the pa head has )... This last remark is just a mindblowing thought I have about that ( my own theory, I could be wrong ) you don't get this kind of sound with the Friedman speqs. Another theory that comes to mind is when they recorded the first album, it is said that he RE-AMPED ( tapping the signal from the studiomixer into another head... probably the PA head ), but live he might just have been using it as a slave amp.
Again, the thing here is that however you use it, the PA head allows you to adjust the both gain and sound, eq, in a way that just isn't possible otherwise... a big part of that is how hard you hit the input of the PA... in the studio, well ofcours it very easy to adjust the gain into the PA, and the same goes using the slaving method as long as you have a volume knob on the load/linebox... or at least some opptions to adjust the volume...
He may or may not have used several different amps for this... it actually sounds different from song to song, but with the same core, If you know what I mean...

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Re: Everything We Know So Far

Post by jnew » Tue Jul 31, 2018 9:28 am

I do know what you mean. So to do this with another plexi, you could just use CH II low input because it only uses one 68K at the input, doesn’t have bright cap on the volume pot and doesn’t have a bypass cap on the 470K mixer resistor. So this is almost the PA Head, minus a Master Volume and Tone Sweep that you spoke of earlier. I suppose .1 output couplers would be preferable (like bass spec) but really not sure how noticeable that would be in this kind of re-amp arrangement.
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