Metropoulos Forum

I assume this is a noob question...how noob I've leave up to you guys.

What I know is that these 2 guys are basically using cranked late 60's Marshall Plexi's yet to me the amps sound so different from each other. I know they're different players, different styles so what is the difference?

What I'd like to know is can one get the same tones from each player using one amp or would I need 2 amps?

Let's assume I have both of their guitars.

I think that Ed would have been pleased to use and DID use the same era Super Leads as Hendrix did .

As a matter of fact, Hendrix more than likely brought a couple of 12 series Marshall tops (read George's descriptions and demo regarding Super Lead era descriptions) back with him from England, when he moved back to New York in early '68. IMO,the tracks on 'Electric Ladyland' where Hendrix used a Marshall (maybe half of the record), was a 12xxx.Imo,the 1968 live gigs from the Experience have Jimi's warmest distortion tones,which indicates the lower filtering, voltages, etc of the 'transitional' 12xxx tops (though Hendrix used a Sound City top some then too). By '69,Jimi's tone got a bit 'stiffer' and harder and the distortion wasnt as warm. Different speakers, fuzz circuits and Amp specs all contributed .
Eddie used a variac too, which dampened a bit of volume and high end. His sound was 'softened' a bit by its use.
I hear a similarity in tone on the short 'Voodoo Child' and say 'DOA'.

you can get there with the same amp. these aren't 1 trick ponies. single coil, alder body, high capacitance cables to warm things up and a 68 super lead will get you Jimi. may need to get a bit more NFB to get a bit of squish.
TS nailed the points on Eds tone.

Interesting stuff. Thanks.

Jimi didn't play his amps fully cranked ... the fuzz was working a lot with his strat volume.
Eddie ... i'm not a specialist, but i bet it was quite close to 10 ..

Xplorer wrote:Jimi didn't play his amps fully cranked ... the fuzz was working a lot with his strat volume.
Eddie ... i'm not a specialist, but i bet it was quite close to 10 ..

It always sounded fully cranked to me or is that when he hits the fuzz?
Live that is.

after verifying, even the super wilde tones on bog : the amp isn't crancked. i had the best results for it with the amp really clean, at 4-5 ! less than half way up !
that's the strat volume getting up, with the fuzz on most of the time, IHMO.

I will go out on a limb here and speculate that not only was the EVH Rose Palace marshall a very special early super lead
but that it probably has an interesting history prior to Eddie picking it up in the mid/late 70's

Based on what I think the circuit was (I have no proof) I suspect it was modded before Eddie got his hands on it.
I suspect it would have been an ex Hendrix, Jeff Beck or Jimmy Page Marshall.

I have Zero proof of this except for the following circumstantial bits of evidence

per Eddie
it was an English 230 volt Marshall and Eddie needed to buy a variac to make it work

It is from an era when most of the Marshalls arriving in the US were being brought in via Touring bands
right as distribution was being Picked up by westbury/unicord

We all know its is an exceptional sounding amp, I think Roger Mayer or someone else was inside of Hendrix, Clapton Beck and Pages amps ... not major tweaks but perhaps little things like dropping a 330uf bypass cap on V2
(perhaps not so much for Clapton... but even to this day Beck gets incredible gain and saturation out of a "stock marshall")

and of course Jimmy Page says his " amps were Boosted to 180 watts, which is either BS or what he thinks it sounds like"
Page also says "roger used to make us all cool stuff, then Hendrix came along and he forgot about us"

Anyway that's my personal theory
Yes the Plexi was stock the way EVH found it, but it had already been well tweaked for a Major British artist who
"lost it on tour"

While y'all may think I am nuts I have been inside some famous 70's Canadian Artists Marshalls and they were all very hacked up...
The best sounding one, and still one of my all time favorite live tones was a 72, or 73, 100 watter with the .68 caps replaced with 25uf caps from a fender. the amp was not hacked up and I remember thinking "that is the smart way to mod a classic amp, you'd only know if you read the part values" Add p-90 ... and rock out

Back in the Day the Local FM Rock station and City TV would hook up and do live simulcasts you'd crank your stereo
and tune in the TV very high tech ... the announcer was JD Roberts now John Roberts of CNN
They also did great stuff like featuring a then UNknown SRV at the El mocombo


enjoy... live the tone was staggering
http://youtu.be/VlZGyPywouw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


p

Hendrix ran his amps cranked. He even said on several live recordings you can find that he is sorry for the volume being so loud. A friend of mine saw him live and said his guitar was so loud you could not hear the vocals

yes, Hendrix was super loud, but his amps weren't set with a volume on 10. The fuzz played a role in the loudness.
+ some had a higher wattage output , with mods.
a friend also saw him live and personnaly, and is ok to say it was about 8 at max.

Tone seaker wrote:Hendrix ran his amps cranked. He even said on several live recordings you can find that he is sorry for the volume being so loud. A friend of mine saw him live and said his guitar was so loud you could not hear the vocals

Tone Seeker is correct because I read an article about Jimi's swap to 6550's (at least towards the end of his life/career) where it was stated that he was running his amps flat out which is one main reason for the swap from EL34s to 6550s. The article said he was blowing up amps but in our parlance we would say he was taking out his OTs. I'll try to find the article and post it. I know I've posted this very same response before in another thread and everyone either ignored what I said or didn't believe what I said. I guess its a hunting I will go.

I'm still searching for the article (probably in a book) about Hendrix's conversion to 6550s where 3 were made for him and stolen from the git go, but right off the bat there are many references to Jimi's running his Marshall amps flat out including a Wikipedia reference here:

Hendrix usually turned all of the amplifier's control knobs to the maximum level, which became known as the Hendrix setting.[277] During the four years prior to his death, he purchased between 50 and 100 Marshall amplifiers.[278]

[277]http://books.google.com/books?id=fpUuXZU9-1QC (ISBN) 978-0-7603-3693-7

[278]http://books.google.com/books?id=HDrIjd5FQ8QC&dq (ISBN) 978-1-84836-002-0

if wilkipedia say so .... ha ha ha ha.
sure, this is what most people believe, and what some write, but it's not. Just following the ears will tell too.

Agree with Xplorer - you can frequently see him adjust the controls on his amps. Sometimes you can see that he turns them all up, for a wild finale like Wild Thing, but 95% of the time or more he is not running everything flat out. Turned up high, yes...but I'm thinking 7-9 on the volume most of the time.

shakti wrote:Agree with Xplorer - you can frequently see him adjust the controls on his amps. Sometimes you can see that he turns them all up, for a wild finale like Wild Thing, but 95% of the time or more he is not running everything flat out. Turned up high, yes...but I'm thinking 7-9 on the volume most of the time.

Do the research like I did. You noticed that I gave references (from Wikipedia) to backup claims ahem because I knew there would be backlash.