Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

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slashsound
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Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:43 pm

Hi, read this first if you dont know what im talking about http://www.slashsworld.com/equipment/th ... se-closed/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ok, I dont want the number 39 amp , I want a clone made of the number 36 amp, which is the actual one used in the Guns n' Roses album Appetite for Destruction. The only person in the world that has those schematics and parts list is Frank Levi. I have searched high and low on the net for Frank Levi, he supposedly moved to New York, but as you can imagine there are at least 100 Frank Levi in New York. Can some please for the love of God help me get in touch with him. I want to get those schematics and parts list from him, or have him make me a number 36 amp. I will never be happy until I have that tone, and the Caswell amp simply does not cut it for the AFD tone. It sounds good, but different from the Levi 36, to my ears at least. Thanks

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by paulster » Sun Mar 29, 2009 1:58 pm

Did you ever hear the clips MrMiniMite recorded of the Caswell modified amp be bought from a guy called Brian in Texas, I think it was?

That was the sound, absolutely no question about it.

The Caswell production amp doesn't sound the same and I reckon that his (questionable) choice of Mercury Magnetics transformers is a good part of that. Plus having the kind of brand new parts that you would have to use in a production amp.

The Levi amp was built as an exact tonal copy of #39, such was the demand for #39 as a rental amp.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:12 pm

Thanks for that bit of info, I will check out MRminimites recording. From what I read in the article posted above, number 36 could not have been an exact copy cause they did some guess work as to what parts to use from what I remember. It was supposed to be very close but not exact, if im not mistaken. Also I called Glenn Buckley and he had told me that with one of the amps it was ON all the time and the the standby switch was inactive in it or something vs the other amp which it did work or something like that.
I really hope I can find Frank Levi.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by paulster » Sun Mar 29, 2009 6:24 pm

They had #39 back at SIR at the time they modified #36, so they had it in their hands to compare. The reason for the existence of #36 was due to massive demand for #39, and Levi essentially copied Caswell's mod.

Slash specifically requested #39 for the recording of AFD and either didn't notice or wasn't bothered by the substitution of #36, so one can assume that either it sounded very similar, or better.

One difference was #39 had the boost always on and #36 was switchable, or vice versa. Can't remember which way round, but I think it was that way as #39 was a bit of a one-trick pony. They also had to raid the parts bin and and old Fender for components for the #36 mod, which would have been for caps/resistors of the right values.

It would be really interested to get Levi's take on the mod though. I can't remember whether MisterMiniMite ever got hold of him when he unearthed this entire story, as it was a few years ago now.

If you haven't read all of his articles and posts on the subject they're over at the Les Paul Forum in the Amplifiers forum, so you'll need to be registered.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by Big Mike » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:05 pm

Man you're on a mission.
Sadly I think even with the same guitar, no one could recreate that.

Engineering has too much to do with it as well IMO.
I love Slash's tones...but AFD's never been recreated.
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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:25 pm

paulster wrote: The Levi amp was built as an exact tonal copy of #39, such was the demand for #39 as a rental amp.
This cant be true, maybe similar but not exact. I got this Email from Tim Caswell, the original designer of the #39 from which Frank Levi derived the number #36.

He writes:

I had a link to a website that I have since lost, where Frank Levi described
what he thought he had done on #36, altho he said it had 2 preamp
controls, which is not how other people remember it. It is essentially the
2 existing
channels in series, with an added gain stage. It is extremely (nearly
uncontrollably) gainy, and rather woolley sounding, but is usable by
cutting the preamp control way back. I could do that to a Marshall, altho
I would rather not, since it isn't the way I like to do things.
I don't know how to reach Frank.
TC

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:36 pm

This is as far as my wild goose chase had led me. I have called this number numerous times, I think the last time was almost a year ago. Nobody ever picks up. http://www.newyorkmusician.com/Link%20S ... music.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Mon Mar 30, 2009 2:54 pm

Ok after much research and some out of the box thinking I was able to find his phone number. I called, guess what...he said he is in the hospital and to call him in 10 days. I was like " Oh Im sorry sir, I hope you get better soon" and so Ill have to wait :( . Obviously I can not give out his number without his permission, so it will be at least 10 days till I talk to him again.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by paulster » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:05 pm

slashsound wrote:
paulster wrote: The Levi amp was built as an exact tonal copy of #39, such was the demand for #39 as a rental amp.
This cant be true, maybe similar but not exact.
Read my words - exact tonal copy.

They were getting so many requests for #39 from the likes of Lynch who took it out on an entire leg of a tour that they decided to clone it into a couple of others. One was #36 and the other one hasn't been reported.
slashsound wrote:I got this Email from Tim Caswell, the original designer of the #39 from which Frank Levi derived the number #36.

He writes:

I had a link to a website that I have since lost, where Frank Levi described
what he thought he had done on #36, altho he said it had 2 preamp
controls, which is not how other people remember it.
So you've got Tim, who had left SIR by then, reading a website that he's subsequently lost that had Levi describe what he thought he'd done, although it contradicted other users' experiences and you are using that as the basis of your assertion that they had to be different?

Presumably you haven't read this yet (Glenn is Glenn Buckley, formerly of SIR)
Although #39 had been S.I.R.’s number one amplifier for almost as long as Glenn had been there, George Lynch’s rental of the amp in early 1986, in particular, served as an important turning point for Glenn and others at S.I.R.. First of all, the intense reaction to #39 by a player of George’s caliber was even further validation of the amp’s special and unique qualities. Secondly, and most significantly, when George rented #39 from early January through mid-March 1986, the amp was sorely missed by S.I.R. and its customers during this fairly long-term absence.

Glenn recognized that S.I.R. simply wasn’t able to meet its customers’ demand with only one amp that sounded the way #39 did. The decision was made to modify a couple of other Marshalls to serve as “substitutes” for #39 for times when the amp was being rented out or routine maintenance was being performed to it.

One of the earliest of these experimental “substitutes” for #39 was Stock #36, which was modified in Spring 1986. The modifications to #36 were performed by Frank Levi (who had just recently been hired by S.I.R. as Tim Caswell’s replacement) in conjunction with Glenn. The two men collaborated on the project, with Frank doing most of the physical modification work.

Frank was very skilled and experienced when it came to all sorts of tube-based gear. When Frank first started work at S.I.R. in Los Angeles, Glenn introduced him to #39. After taking a listen and a look inside #39, Frank was very impressed with Tim Caswell’s work. When Glenn spoke with him about making “more #39s,” Frank was able to make it happen. Frank and Glenn both agreed that #36 was a good test subject to begin their tinkering.

Like #39, #36 was a 100W pre-master volume, “Metal Panel“-era (early ’70s) Marshall. However, while #39 was a Super Tremolo, #36 was a regular (non-tremolo) Super Lead (Model 1959). As such, because #36 didn’t have a tremolo circuit, the amp didn’t have a fourth pre-amp tube as a stock feature. Therefore, when Frank and Glenn applied Tim Caswell’s #39 extra pre-amp gain stage design to #36, an additional (fourth) preamp tube was mounted in a hole drilled next to the original (three) pre-amp tubes.

Frank and Glenn also did some additional tweaking to #36. Specifically, through trial and error experimentation, the switched out certain stock capacitors and replaced them with others obtained from vintage “donor” amps, including some old Fenders, until they were satisfied with the results.

As far as other physical and cosmetic characteristics are concerned, Glenn recalls that #36 had the small, “classic” Marshall logo on the front. The amp had “36” stenciled in white, one-inch numbers on each end (whereas two-inch stencils were used on #39). “S.I.R. LA” was stenciled along the top of the back of the amp (also in one-inch letters), with S.I.R.’s phone number below that. The amp was in fairly good condition for its age at the time.

Another interesting variation between #36 and #39 was that the modification to #36 was always “on.” Whereas #39 had a metal toggle switch mounted in place of one of the amp’s four input jacks (which was used to turn Tim Caswell’s mod on and off), the modification to #36 did not include a toggle switch or any other mechanism to turn the mod off. In fact, to someone looking at the outside of #36, the only perceptible modification would have been the addition of a master volume knob. Even this master volume control would only have been noticeable to the trained eye, since it was done in such a manner as to preserve the amp’s otherwise stock appearance.
Italics are mine. There is the considerable likelihood that the circuits between the two amps were different to start with (cathode bypass caps) because of the difference in ages. Nothing in here suggests that they tweaked #36 to be particularly different from #39 as tweaking it to sound the same using old components that wouldn't necessary have the stock values over time, or that the trial and error was deciding which of the different value caps (filter caps for example) to replace.

If you're dead set on this quest then you probably want to get hold of MisterMiniMite and, from him, get hold of Glenn Buckley since he would have the same information.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Mon Mar 30, 2009 5:16 pm

paulster wrote:
If you're dead set on this quest then you probably want to get hold of MisterMiniMite and, from him, get hold of Glenn Buckley since he would have the same information.
Thanks bro, yes I had red this article a good while back, which is how I heard of Frank Levi to begin with. I talked to Gleen over the phone several months ago and he said that he didnt keep schematics or anything that the only person who could possibly remember how to make the amp was Frank Levi. Glenn told me that he pretty much just put it together while Frank was the "brains" behind the amp.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by wdelaney72 » Tue Mar 31, 2009 10:58 pm

Caswell's current mod sounds different because he added a B+ sucking effects loop that alters the tone. Period. It's a bad loop and then it puts a drain on the B+ through the preamp screen filter supply affecting the tone outside of the loop.
Walter

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by RACKSYSTEMS » Wed Apr 01, 2009 12:49 am

So Slash has a amp that has appeared on most of the records that was modded by Frank Levi and I just worked on it. I can only imagine that this is the same mod. So I know what it is. By the way it is #34 sir amp.
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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by thousandshirts » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:10 am

RACKSYSTEMS wrote:So Slash has a amp that has appeared on most of the records that was modded by Frank Levi and I just worked on it. I can only imagine that this is the same mod. So I know what it is. By the way it is #34 sir amp.
Wow, look at that, guys. There you go. Dave to the rescue. 8)

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by slashsound » Wed Apr 01, 2009 1:35 am

RACKSYSTEMS wrote:So Slash has a amp that has appeared on most of the records that was modded by Frank Levi and I just worked on it. I can only imagine that this is the same mod. So I know what it is. By the way it is #34 sir amp.

Hi there, please elaborate on this, this is extremely interesting to me.

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Re: Help me find Frank Levi, the designer of the Slash AFD amp !

Post by RACKSYSTEMS » Wed Apr 01, 2009 9:45 pm

Well its really sort of a jcm800 circuit with some mods to it. The amp also had 6550's in it. It really is just 3 parts different then a jcm 800 circuit. Again it has a sticker on it modified by frank levi and it is #34 SIR amp. Dave
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