Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

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unimind
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by unimind » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:11 am

I still believe that the "extra" or "edge" that everyone talks about is just power tube saturation. Take a Plexi and set the bias at 95-98% dissipation then dime everything and see what it sounds like. You will hear the "edge" that is on VH1. Now before everyone starts flaming me, I have not heard any clip of any pedal or boost or mod that gives the same "hairy edge" that is on VH1(close but not it) but I have heard it with over-biased power tubes. I have not heard anyone here post a clip of a Plexi on 10 with over-biased power tubes nor does it ever come up in these discussions about the VH1 tone. But we all know Ed used to crank his bias all the way up. I am not sure why no one takes that into account when attempting to achieve that tone. So someone please try it and post a clip.
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by rgorke » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:33 am

unimind wrote:I still believe that the "extra" or "edge" that everyone talks about is just power tube saturation. Take a Plexi and set the bias at 95-98% dissipation then dime everything and see what it sounds like. You will hear the "edge" that is on VH1. Now before everyone starts flaming me, I have not heard any clip of any pedal or boost or mod that gives the same "hairy edge" that is on VH1(close but not it) but I have heard it with over-biased power tubes. I have not heard anyone here post a clip of a Plexi on 10 with over-biased power tubes nor does it ever come up in these discussions about the VH1 tone. But we all know Ed used to crank his bias all the way up. I am not sure why no one takes that into account when attempting to achieve that tone. So someone please try it and post a clip.
you won't get flamed by me....

The tube bias thing has been talked about. Dave Friedman talks about raising the bias to 80ma with the voltage as 110 or 120, then reduce the voltage to 90v.
"If you make a mistake, do it twice and smile and let people think you meant it." Jan Van Halen.

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by stef » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:54 am

When you crank the bias pot all the way it is high (above 70% for sure), but with the variac set to 90v the bias goes down. On the other hand maybe EVH didn't use the variac that much on VH1 :scratch:

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by Marshall SL12301 » Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:56 am

unimind wrote:I still believe that the "extra" or "edge" that everyone talks about is just power tube saturation. Take a Plexi and set the bias at 95-98% dissipation then dime everything and see what it sounds like. You will hear the "edge" that is on VH1. Now before everyone starts flaming me, I have not heard any clip of any pedal or boost or mod that gives the same "hairy edge" that is on VH1(close but not it) but I have heard it with over-biased power tubes. I have not heard anyone here post a clip of a Plexi on 10 with over-biased power tubes nor does it ever come up in these discussions about the VH1 tone. But we all know Ed used to crank his bias all the way up. I am not sure why no one takes that into account when attempting to achieve that tone. So someone please try it and post a clip.
YOU make a very good argument because like you stated NO ONE has actually done a clip with the bias running real hot.
Ed was a maniac and if his marshall burnt out a tube or two he wouldnt give a shit in the studio! Live is a different story but in the studio enviorment you blow a fuse,tube or whatever you stop tape fix roll tape. God only knows how he set that marshall for that recording all i do know is the it sounds different on various tracks, eruption and the last F chord in AP sound like the marshall is ready to blow up!
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by unimind » Wed Mar 07, 2012 1:28 pm

Marshall SL12301 wrote: eruption and the last F chord in AP sound like the marshall is ready to blow up!
Exactly. Also in the bridge of I'm The One, the C to D to E (Cb, Db, Eb whatever) chords, listen to the ISO track and you can almost smell the amp smoking.
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by Good Guest » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:15 pm

I wouldn't dispute the fact the bias was turned up for vh1 and the tubes were probably bright red and burning up , but I do believe he used a box also ..the whole distortion character is just too rich for amp alone...and a zillion years ago when 6ca7's were dirt cheap in tecky school , I remember some one brought in a fender bassman head they picked up at the local pawnshop to experiment with and we converted it too plexi specs....back then the words nos didn't exist and a lot of what we call valuable now was dirt cheap stuff..... stuck in - 4 phillips ecg 6ca7's and it was instant van halen...the guitarists were pissing themselves , and there were quite a few back then...the tubes were burning up red, orange and we had to bug our ex US marine microwave instructor (who's hobby was old tube devices,radios etc) for his input ..the reason ..the biasing was too high...so we adjusted it all and lo and behold the magic disappeared. ...this was all stock stuff nothing fancy, but enough to say EVH was nuts :mrgreen:

But yeah I'm with you on burning red tubes for EVH tone... :thumbsup:

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by jp0971 » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:24 pm

unimind wrote:I still believe that the "extra" or "edge" that everyone talks about is just power tube saturation. Take a Plexi and set the bias at 95-98% dissipation then dime everything and see what it sounds like. You will hear the "edge" that is on VH1. Now before everyone starts flaming me, I have not heard any clip of any pedal or boost or mod that gives the same "hairy edge" that is on VH1(close but not it) but I have heard it with over-biased power tubes. I have not heard anyone here post a clip of a Plexi on 10 with over-biased power tubes nor does it ever come up in these discussions about the VH1 tone. But we all know Ed used to crank his bias all the way up. I am not sure why no one takes that into account when attempting to achieve that tone. So someone please try it and post a clip.
I agree with this, but I was sure a few people in the 12-series build journal forum had recorded clips with their amps setup like that. Sounded pretty close to me anyway.

I've got one amp I've been meaning to try it on. It's an amp dialed in by Dave Friedman, but it appears to be pretty much a good plexi spec. Sounds very close with 6CA7s biased at about 50mA at standard wall voltage, but I'm sure it would be even closer when setup like Dave said.
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by sinasl1 » Wed Mar 07, 2012 4:50 pm

In the SL68 vid, I'm at 90V with the bias cranked up (it's running on the hot side). The amp rebiases for 90V i.e. the bias gets cranked up when you switch to 90. It's part of the design.

Guys you don't need a box, you don't need anything else other than the right amp with the right spec, an echoplex pre, phase 90 and flanger, the right guitar with the right pickup, and then you gotta play it right (that's like 80% of it, and of course the tough part). That's it, that's all the man with the magic hands did (EVH). And of course a bit of studio magic (recorded well, the verb, etc.) :vh:

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by unimind » Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:02 pm

sinasl1 wrote:I'm at 90V with the bias cranked up (it's running on the hot side).
Pete, would you happen to know what the plate dissipation is set at when running at 90v? Maybe John does not want information public but I figure it's at about 85%. Just enough to give you a little hair without adversly affecting the tubes. But for VH1 I think you got to go as hot as you can without red-plating. Maybe 90ish %.
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by Marshall SL12301 » Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:20 pm

sinasl1 wrote:In the SL68 vid, I'm at 90V with the bias cranked up (it's running on the hot side). The amp rebiases for 90V i.e. the bias gets cranked up when you switch to 90. It's part of the design.

Guys you don't need a box, you don't need anything else other than the right amp with the right spec, an echoplex pre, phase 90 and flanger, the right guitar with the right pickup, and then you gotta play it right (that's like 80% of it, and of course the tough part). That's it, that's all the man with the magic hands did (EVH). And of course a bit of studio magic (recorded well, the verb, etc.) :vh:
Pete your clip with the SL68 is the closest ever IMHO so who am i to disagree with what you say?
Actually i would be thrilled to know that if you buy a SL68 and have the other goodies in the chain with it that you can get the tone like the last chord in atomic punk! :shock: :mrgreen:
When you go into that A chord of eruption on the vid it is damn near exact as the A chord on the record :thumbsup: click URL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... XZc#t=704s" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by Thorny » Wed Mar 07, 2012 5:38 pm

sinasl1 wrote:In the SL68 vid, I'm at 90V with the bias cranked up (it's running on the hot side). The amp rebiases for 90V i.e. the bias gets cranked up when you switch to 90. It's part of the design.

Guys you don't need a box, you don't need anything else other than the right amp with the right spec, an echoplex pre, phase 90 and flanger, the right guitar with the right pickup, and then you gotta play it right (that's like 80% of it, and of course the tough part). That's it, that's all the man with the magic hands did (EVH). And of course a bit of studio magic (recorded well, the verb, etc.) :vh:
+1000
Its pretty simple when you think about it. I mean listen to the SL68 clip. To get that tone and that gain level without a pedal, who would say to themselves, "Well damn that sounds fantastic, has all the sustain I need, sounds aggresive and is still a big bold musical sound, I think I'll add a pedal to that and compress the hell out of it and basically screw it up!!!!

The other thing here is to listen to the actual recordings! They are still our best reference. Anyone who has gone into a studio and done any recording knows that the first thing you find out is you have to back your gain levels down to get a good recorded sound. You go in thinking you got your sound dialed in only to find out it sounds thin and scratchy when recorded. On the first album Ed cleaned up with the volume knob on alot of parts. You cant do that with a box in the mix, unless you are gonna tell me that during the verses of RWTD he clicked off the fuzz and backed down the volume knob....Speaking of that verse notice how he can make the A chord distort more with just a little harder attack...Also you could never get the sound that Ed does on the unwound strings with a pedal being used.

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by MrBeasty » Wed Mar 07, 2012 6:02 pm

+1 ... just push everything to the max, hot pick-up, dimmed amp, maxed-out bias, overloaded speakers and a Variac to keep it all under "control".

There is some boosting in front of the amp (EP and/or EQ) and an aggressive speaker (such as a Blackback) but not much else. I really cannot see what kind of "distortion" Ed would have used. We are still in the pre-Distortion box area, all he would had are fuzzes and treble boosters and that is really not what we hear on VH records.

Now, it takes the right amp circuit, and the right tubes, etc but it is still do-able! ... but we have the recipe down.
The big issue is to have all the right parts.

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by unimind » Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:32 pm

Here is the end of I'm The One. First with bias at 70% dissipation then at 90%. I can definitely hear the extra gain and "hair" on the chords at 90%.

The One 70%:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11493538" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The One 90%:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11493540" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Les

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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by unimind » Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:36 pm

I think maybe I should change my sig to read

You wanna be like Ed, you gotta cook a lotta tubes.

:drummer: :hairband: :shred:
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Re: Is this the lone tweak of Ed's plexi?

Post by Marshall SL12301 » Thu Mar 08, 2012 10:11 pm

unimind wrote:Here is the end of I'm The One. First with bias at 70% dissipation then at 90%. I can definitely hear the extra gain and "hair" on the chords at 90%.

The One 70%:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11493538" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The One 90%:
http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11493540" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
:champ: point well proven! thanks for posting this :wink:
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