Pix or a link for the back's of Ed's 70's era JBL's?

[bortz]

Totally missed that thread.
I agree, we know enough now to begin the testing phase.
We need our own raw clips of clones/reconed/original d120's and greenies mixed and effects added post to draw some conclusions.

[vanhalen5150]

I've got a D120F on the way with the original cone in good condition. I'm sticking it in a 2/12 cab with a Scumback. Might take me a little while but I'll do some clips when I get it done.

[vanhalen5150]

Any other recording artists using Marshall with JBL's?

not that I know of. actually, when i first read that Ed was using them I thought it was a lie, since there's such an emphasis on his use of greenbacks. but it explains a hell of a lot about his tone.

Allegedly, the Allman brothers tone comes from the LP/Marshall/JBL chain, and since that's obviously not early Ed tone, maybe it is Ed's specific amp combined with the JBL/Celestion combo cab, plus the recording and mastering work, with the emphasis being the Ed amp/jbl combo.

the implication is that the celestions cover the lows, and the jbl's handle the highs. it's also been suggested that EQ is added in post production that boosts the 8k and 10k frequencies. listen to the raw tracks again. this is all substantiated by comparing the raw (that's with no post and no reverb) to the recording. The celestions sound almost muffled, and the jbl's are fairly bright. add the verb and EQ in post and you've got THE tone. no secret/magic boxes, no insane marshall mods, just Ed and the gear we've already had proof he used. the result is that wide bandwidth, huge sound that everyone loves. studio tricks are the key to the tone. if I had the cash i'd be investing in trying different JBL clones, and some extra mics.

Everyone really went off on that big resistor sticking out of Ed's amp early on. Perhaps this was just a single load from the 2nd out put for the amp to recognize. Since only a few speakers were mic'd why have both 4/12's going? Here is something from Jim at Scumback regarding amp wattage.



"Please understand one thing. Most amps are rated for their advertised RMS wattage at clean signals. On most amps that's going to be at 3-5 on the volume knob. So your 100 watt Marshall puts out 100 watts at 4. You like to play it at 7, and if your amp is healthy, that's when it puts out 150-180 watts (or more). The guys at Marshall knew what they were doing when they put the "100" logo in the corner of the cabs, but that still meant that you needed two of them to handle a 100 watt amp that put out 180 watts at the levels you set the amp! Get your amp tested for it's real output wattage, no one likes the smell of a melted speaker, OK? Always figure you need twice your RMS wattage in speaker power handling to safely run your amp on 10.

If you get two 30 watt speakers to run with your 50 watt amp, and dime it, they'll be good to go for awhile. I don't know what timeframe "awhile" is. I've safely done it for 2 hours straight, without issues. I have not done that for extended periods, so you want to take that into consideration with all the OD pedals, clean boosts, and so forth that push speakers to raise your level for solos. Use your good old common sense here. Sure, your old small block sounded great and was running awesome at 8000 rpm for "awhile", then the crank, piston, or connecting rod broke, and you weren't mobile anymore. Use the same common sense judgment with choosing your speaker wattage."

So, perhaps that was just take the place of a second cab.

[leadguy]

Slaving is BS.
Magical boxes are BS.
VH1 is just Ed and some bright sounding gear.

Ed's first album tone is the JBL/Celestion mix but with some added things like either using a separate daisy chained amp for the Echoplex or just the main amp with the Echoplex in the jumper loop (rgalpins thread http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=26218" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) and the Destroyers A8 Super 70 pickups through the JBL's give the main VH1 tone that dominates VH1 because the A8's have a wide frequency range with a big top end which goes directly to where the JBL frequencies are strong ie in the top end so it's a top end/brightness double whammy A8/JBL combo, with the Franky not quite as much but it's still pretty bright due to the JBL's. A5's or even A2's though JBL's is still a bright sounding combo just not as much as A8's through JBL's. The Destroyer's pickup covers give the A8's a bit more of a warmer sound as well.

Ed didn't like it that bright so no JBL's for VHII and also no A8 for VHII.
Ed and Rudy came up with the JBL/Celestion combo before VH1 but that was for live playing and Ed thought it turned out too bright in the studio. Studio/Live are different things.

The A8's are wide frequency range pickups and the JBL's are wide frequency range speakers. Celestions cut off a lot of the top end of the A8's and the JBL's don't.
With the A8/JBL combo it gives a wall of wide frequency sound and the Celestions give more of a less harsh bottom/mid thing so combine these 2 together and it's a wide frequency sound with depth.

Ed's Echoplex delay is too clean for it to be setup standard in front of the amp after his effects.
If Ed had a cascaded channel mod, then he would probably be using a second amp that's daisy chained to the first amp for the Echoplex rather than using the Echoplex in the jumper loop.
Ed's Echoplex sounds like it's got it's own channel and is separated from the main plexi tone.
Ed's amp had that knob on the back which could be a cascade/master volume mod.
Anyway, Ed has the volume loud for VH1 and is recorded in isolation at Sunset Sound.
The Variac is part of the tone as well but not really for the brightness part of the tone.

The JBL/Celestion tracks were mixed probably with a EQ boosting some frequencies like Dave says and reverb from the Sunset Sound studios live room (not plate reverb) was added by reamping the guitar tracks in the reverb room.

[vanhalen5150]

+1
If Ed slaved it was for volume purposes only. The "power soak" he talked about was just a 16-20 ohm resistor stuck in output 2 acting as the second cab to reduce the overall load. My opinion of course, as well as speculation.

[908ssp]

I gotta shack my head about this thread because I said years ago that there wasn't enough top end in a M greenback for Eddie and that an H is closer but no nobody would listen to me.

[vanhalen5150]

I've been here 10 months. I hope my head doesnt look like yours in time. They have put you through a lot here.

The raw tracts obviously have no effects on them. It was all added later. Ed had to use his hands to get the most sustain he could out of the notes, and then when they did add the echo and reverb.....VH1.

[spaceace76]

Everyone really went off on that big resistor sticking out of Ed's amp early on.

there's supposedly a picture of this big resistor, but i've never seen it. anyone have that shot?

[leadguy]

The raw RWTD tracks have the Echoplex on them which sounds very clean and Ed's main sound isn't clean but I've heard sinasl1 get very close to ATBL http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... &sk=t&sd=a" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; just using the delay and effects on one channel in a standard way in front of the amp with a Variac so who knows but sinasl1 wasn't using JBL's and the delay wasn't a Echoplex so the tone is really emulating the real ATBL.
I do think Ed's got a separate channel for the Echoplex though like rgalpins thread or Ed's using a 2 amp setup with one amp mainly being for the Echoplex and the other amp for the main guitar sound.


There is no big resistor photo, it's a big myth.

[Good Guest]

Fine to have jbl's reproducing those 8khz frequencies but if you don't have them to begin with...it's pissing into the wind. The old garbage in/garbage out.

Eddie slaves and soaks his amp ....presto frequencies you don't hear coming out your speaker...but the celestians don't reproduce them linearly. Enter the jbl. furthur on down the road he finds that boosting 8khz after slaving can make the celestian sound jblish.

As far as the echo goes it's no secret that Eddy used an echo inbetween the slave setup..getting that nice post distortion echo.

The resistor hanging out the back pic ..I know I have a copy on a floppy that can only be viewed on a mac..mac needs a battery and is out of commission, otherwise I would search. Surely someone else must have the pic....it is real. Some believe the resistor is a big cap that's part of a master volume circuit.

[leadguy]

Well, slaving just results in a combo sound of the 2 amps and so does daisy chaining 2 different amps together and miking them.
No magic frequencies from either setup.

There is no evidence that Ed slaved and had the echoplex after the first amp in the pre H&H days.

Just remove the Macs hard disk and put it in another computer for the photo.


RACKSYSTEMS

Well here is what i was told by Rudy Leiren his long time tech. This was just last week. His setup was flanger phaser echoplex amp. His main 100 watt was used on everything. The bias was turned all the way up and the variac was set to 91v. into only 1 cab. There is a pic of the early days with a 50 watt and a vox. He told me the 50 was a back up to the 100 and the vox was a last ditch back up. He often borrowed amps for his back ups. In fact he told me a story that at a party they were playing ed blew a fuse in his main amp and did not have a backup and had to rum home to get a fuse while the band was playing. After this he always made sure he had a backup. Now Rudy said the eq pedal was used only for certain guitars or sometimes when he used rental gear that sounded bad. Also the univox echo was patched in by hand for eruption only and then was taken out of the chain after. Later there was another cab on Mike side that was driven from another amp they used a splitter to do this. As time went on more cabs where used and so where more amps. The amps would only drive on cab though. Now he did say ed was always trying shit but would always come back to this set up. This info follows everything ed has ever said to me personally. Also when 84 hit he changed his set up to H&H power amps and some different effects etc. He still used a cab off the head though no load resister. The Load resister came for the 5150 tour.

[vanhalen5150]

I'm certain I've seen that pic here somewhere.

[Good Guest]

Well, slaving just results in a combo sound of the 2 amps and so does daisy chaining 2 different amps together and miking them.
No magic frequencies from either setup.

There is no evidence that Ed slaved and had the echoplex after the first amp in the pre H&H days.

Just remove the Macs hard disk and put it in another computer for the photo.


RACKSYSTEMS

Well here is what i was told by Rudy Leiren his long time tech. This was just last week. His setup was flanger phaser echoplex amp. His main 100 watt was used on everything. The bias was turned all the way up and the variac was set to 91v. into only 1 cab. There is a pic of the early days with a 50 watt and a vox. He told me the 50 was a back up to the 100 and the vox was a last ditch back up. He often borrowed amps for his back ups. In fact he told me a story that at a party they were playing ed blew a fuse in his main amp and did not have a backup and had to rum home to get a fuse while the band was playing. After this he always made sure he had a backup. Now Rudy said the eq pedal was used only for certain guitars or sometimes when he used rental gear that sounded bad. Also the univox echo was patched in by hand for eruption only and then was taken out of the chain after. Later there was another cab on Mike side that was driven from another amp they used a splitter to do this. As time went on more cabs where used and so where more amps. The amps would only drive on cab though. Now he did say ed was always trying shit but would always come back to this set up. This info follows everything ed has ever said to me personally. Also when 84 hit he changed his set up to H&H power amps and some different effects etc. He still used a cab off the head though no load resister. The Load resister came for the 5150 tour.

The thing is the output transformer is quite capable of putting out way beyond 8 khz...So when you hook up your speaker cab you have now rolled off everything like a low pass filter above 5khz...This doesn't sound like Eddies tone. I say he uses the resistor and soaks the power for furthur processing ie "the univox and eq" to produce a nice bright true echo tone that has been boosted in the 8khz range. Then off to the power amps it goes but this time it goes to the celestan 5khz cutoff and the jbl 8khz high freq speaker.

This bullcrap about only using the univox for eruption is horse shit. Just look at the evh 2 studio pics....not one but 2 univox echos and not one input output combo but FOUR in/out combos. Each univox has 2 inputs and outputs ..Ed uses all four..and he aint playing eruption on vhll. And so the story goes that after the univox went, so did the vh1 and 2 tones and jbl's and mxr 6 band and the shorting pri. mods and the resistor hanging out, and the fender whammy and the magic wood and the magic pickups that show zero on the ohmeter... All the things responsible for it.

Except after that the palmers and other soaks and emulators and power amps came into the picture. All leading to the creation of the EVH amp..maybe one should just bite the bullet and get one of them 5150 lll's and a ua 1108 mic pre and call it a day..cause we are going around in circles.

Actually the first 2 stages of that amp sound real good going into a plexi ..very vh1 and 2 ish. EVH should come out with a little booster with 1 tube in it for plexi die hards. Here I go again doing r&d for gawd knows who.

[bortz]

Ed said in an interview that his phase 90 was broken and he was using it mainly as a treble boost. Dweezil Zappa was later quoted as saying the phaser was that "one lucky piece of gear", referring to how it effected Ed's tone. I think it's that treble boost that gives those screaming solos up in the 8k range that just wail. And we also know that Ed said he kicked in the phaser for most of the solos on the first LP. that is why he liked it so much. The JBL's enhanced that emphasized 8K area and there is what most people hear and misconstrue as being the pickup, the amp, the guitar wood, the magic resistor, the boiled strings, etc. etc.
What's needed is a speaker with a nice spike in the 8K range similar to this frequency graph except with a deeper low freq. and the right size.
I was told Jensen makes what we need but I just have to locate the right model:

http://www.usspeaker.com/jensen%20p15n-1.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ROCK€]

Ed: "And I use an MXR Phase 90 phase shifter that gives me a treble boost for solos, too" (Guitar Player, November 1978).

Ed: "He (Jose, an old guy from Argentina who knows a lot of tricks and does stuff for me) also puts little things inside my MXR stuff, like permanent gain controls that boost when I kick them on. I don't even know what they're called. They reduce noise and boost the signals" (Guitar Player, April 1980).