Berkeley amps

[bill bokey]

I was watching the Berkeley video last night and I think it's during soundcheck, at the beginning of the film that we can have a close look at the amps. Billy Cox is using two Tremolo heads on which the two tremolo knobs (speed and intensity) have been removed. He's plugged into the hi normal input and both heads are sitting on top of two "bass" B cabs. It's the Tremolo thing that surprised me most, and the normal input. It makes sense but I've never tried it, I guess I'll be playing bass today !

Then there's Jimi's gear : three stacks, 6 knobs only so they must be Superleads but the cabs (three A +B) don't have any logo in the top left corner. What's the reason ? Was he using lead G12M cabs or had the logos been removed ? Then I had a look at some Isle of Wight pics and I can't see any logo either !
Come on !! I thought he was always using T1281s ? But they don't have no Marshall logo either...

It won't make no difference to me, my favourite stack is T1221 A + T1281 B but I thought some of you might have some info (secrets ?) to share.

[JimiJames]

I don't have any secrets, but riddle me this; why did both Marshall & Celestion collaborate to make the G12C ?
Their excuse was the didn't know what he really used . Perhaps Eddie knew what speaker he was mic'ing. no?
Some say you can get better Jimi tones from the G12M 55hz.
I say yeah... O.K. ...for what shade of Jimi ?

[Xplorer]

"For what shade of Jimi" ... Exactly !
T1281, G12M55 ... also G12H 75 !
i could hear some jimi shades with the t1281, but the classic jimi shades came from the t1217 for sure ... no contest. absolutely evident without a doubt.

i suppose that the cab itself doesn't proove that was inside was stock. This is Jimi Hendrix .... working a lot on his sound quest, having roger mayer, eddie kramer arround, travelling, blowing speakers, running strat necks through it, having them replaced ..... it beats every records, so : why would these logo or non logo cabs would come ... stock ??

[bill bokey]

I still don't know how you can be so sure about the T1217...I know the "secret mysterious speaker" story but it's not a T1217. And as marshall didn't use T1217s in the 60's I don't see no evidence of Hendrix using that speaker at all.
Regarding the G12C is it not just a marketing move to make us buy a "new" speaker no one has but no one actually needs ?

But still, Billy Cox is using a pair of Tremolo heads, no Superbass. Why would that be ? What's the point in using a Tremolo head if you're so sure you're not gonna use the actual tremolo that you remove both knobs ?

[Xplorer]

i'm not saying that this is an evidence, or a proof.
i'm sure of ... just what i heard, stuffs played through the t1281, and stuffs played through some t1217. My ears instantly made the difference. also, some peoples told me stuffs. Just use whatever jimi shade you'd prefer anyway.

marshall perhaps didn't use the t1217, right .. but why didn't jimi try these, in his marshall cabs, for some period ?
do you say it's impossible and that his cabs had to be stock ... or nothing ?
Especially with Jimi, the use of different speakers is possible i think.

using some tremolo amps ... Well, maybe because these amps were there, for some reasons, and they picked these just because they were good enough, without need to use the tremolo.

[bill bokey]

The thing is, I had a pair of T1234 which are the 8 ohm version of the T1217 and they never sounded Hendrixy to me, not as much as my T1281s do anyway.
And then why would they use whatever amp was there (the tremolo heads Cox used) and then at the same time replace 24 speakers in JH's cabs ?
It doesn't make much sense to me

And then how do we know JH isn't using T1221 that night ?

[Xplorer]

man .... i don't know !

the t1217 16 ohms i've heard, pre rola, over the t181 pre rola, sounded so much more hendrixy, that's all i know.
maybe recorded differently, with a different amp, a different cab, a different strat, i don't know ...

why do you say : replace 24 speakers ?
In the beginning, he seems to have used some G12M 20 watts ... at some point, he never replaced them ? even with some t1281 ? or some other G12M 25w ?
i think that his cab were loaded and unloaded a lot of times, with different speakers, some mix of speakers, some speakers to repair some dead ones .... etc .

[bill bokey]

I can imagine he burnt a few G12M20 but these were in Pinstripe cabs, not basketweave like at Berkeley. Then if some needed replacing why use a speaker Marshall didn't use back then ? How would he know about it at all ?

But the recorded sound has to be different to what we hear in the room with our amps : the amps and speakers were brand new then, weren't they ? And at berkeley there is definitely only one mic on one of the A cabs and it's pointing at the (missing) Marshall logo. Same for Billy Cox' rig but it's a top B cab.

[Xplorer]

if Jimi's rig was as simple as "Stock" : we would know that since decennys ^^.... but .... there's a BUT ....

[bill bokey]

Well, maybe it IS that simple, and we just keep looking cause we don't have his fingers !

Who knows ?