Ed's 1978 touring rig.

[papawoofer]

Well that's really interesting, because that amp never sounded like Ed's mid 70's metal plate super leads.

See, when he bought it, that amp had the master volume knob in the back, it was bought secondhand.
Maybe when he bought it,, its circuit had already been changed or modified to that of a mid 70's superlead(hence the master volume in the back).
So it wasn't a plexi from the beginning !
Frankly I don't think this is correct but ...

I would tend to think it had the 68 circuit when Ed bought it, because it sounded a lot sweeter than the later mid 70's metal plate Marshalls (more mids, crispy highs but not ice picky).
It sounded just like those 50 watt smallbox plexis Ed owned, but had more chest.
Having seen that amp fry and blow up so many times because of Ed's abuse, its transformers replaced many many times, and considering all the repairs and service done by Jose, it 's likely that it wasn't the same amp by the time you serviced it.
What year was that Mark ?

Its just what Jose would do. I can hear on boots that it first had the stock circuit. I don't think one Marshall sounds the same as the next Plus there are so many other things too.....His amp does...even these days...have something about it tho...

I agree with you about the stock circuit for the first few years, because that's what I heard when he'd play.
I assume it was the stock circuit up to Fair Warning sessions, because the amp caught fire in the studio and everyone thought it was gone for good.[/quote]

No Jose did that ...Id say....the first time Ed brought him the amp..before VH1..Jose liked that circuit better..and he was right for this type of tone...it is[/quote]

Robin was talking about EDs amp always needing repair, like this is a brutal way to run your amp. This is the big question, Robin, Mark, I love that sound but I love my amp more. In your opinions will running our amps like that eventually tear them up Or will we just go thru tubes?

[RACKSYSTEMS]

Robin was talking about EDs amp always needing repair.This is the big question, Robin, Mark, I love that sound but I love my amp more. In your opinions will running our amps like that eventually tear them up Or will we just go thru tubes?

The problem with running amps this way has to do with the bias being all the way up. Ed just shoved tubes in with no matching and no reading of the bias etc. So let say you put some tubes in read the bias when is the pot is all the way hot it might read about 85ma or so at a 120 wall voltage. Now if you drop the variac to 85 or 90 then it will read around 40 to 50 ma with a plate voltage of 380 or so perfectly safe. Now lets put in another set of tubes these tubes read about 150ma at 120 volt wall. So you see that depending on what tube where thrown in would depend on if the amp would redplate or not or melt tubes or not etc. Now if tubes are being thrown in you can see why amps would blow,melt catch on fire etc. Now if you set the amp up right with matched tubes and pay attention to what the bias is doing then you should have no problems and be able to get the sound. As far as the circuit I mean it was split cathode from the beginning. With the low filtering of the 12 series so yes it would sound a lot different then the early 70's amps. Also in all of this remember flanger,phaser and 2 echoplex in front all with no true bypass and a long guitar cable makes a huge difference in tone from plugging straight in.

[blfrd]

Hey Robin,

Question about the EP3 settings...

On the boots and the albums I hear a relatively long slap echo a lot - practically all the time. It's about 300ms give or take (for reference: this is about the length of an 8th note in Runnin' w/ Devil. Back then who knew or cared how many freakin' milliseconds! ).

I assume one of the EP3s was set like that all the time.

Is this the one you refer to as being a slap? and being on most of the time?

Someone on here assumed that the SLAP you referred to was like 110ms. I don't hear that - I just hear the longer slap around 300 ms. And then there's another echo effect he used sparingly, for instance, in Down in Flames which is more of a spacey trippy Hendrix kind of effect.

So is there a tight 110ms type of slap somewhere in his chain that I am not hearing?

Thanks for any details you've got on this,
-Rob

I believe the 300ms delay you hear on RWTD is one Echoplex and the second Echoplex was used for the solo in Atomic Punk.

If you listen to the album version, you can hear it. It's louder much shorter delay time. It's much more prevalent on the boots from that tour.

You could say that he was using the Univox, but I don't believe this was the case.

That's my two cents.

[leadguy]

Also, if he was slaving then why isn't he running the effects after the load box. That's one of the big advantages of slaving, that and volume control. Ed wasn't using volume control in a stadium.
Ed is running the effects in front of the amp as in a non slaving setup.


Franky straight into BOX 1 no flanger or phase or it might be going into the flanger (hard to tell).

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/pedalboard23jul1978.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Destroyer using EQ

http://epi3.hp.infoseek.co.jp/1978julusleft.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JerryP]

WTF is wrong with you people? This guy comes in here to share info we all want to know about and you can do nothing but question everything he says and ask him for DNA to prove who he is? He doesn't owe any of us a fucking thing. I am happy to have him here contributing to the knowledge of EVH's tone.
I am very good friends with Dawk who worked with Ritchie Blackmore and I can tell you he doesn't rememeber every detail either. It was 30 years ago, these guys weren't thinking at the time that later in life there would be a test on all that shit. They just did their thing and they were there.
It's pretty clear to me he knows quite a bit about the way things went down. He has clearly stated he's not a tech and doesn't know electronics. It sounds like he has some understanding of things and a basic knowledge of guitars. From what I see, and I've read it all, he hasn't misrepresented himself or lied about anything.
Jerry

[Grosh_Guitars]

Also, if he was slaving then why isn't he running the effects after the load box. That's one of the big advantages of slaving, that and volume control. Ed wasn't using volume control in a stadium.
Ed is running the effects in front of the amp as in a non slaving setup.


Franky straight into BOX 1 no flanger or phase.

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/pedalboard23jul1978.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Destroyer using EQ

http://epi3.hp.infoseek.co.jp/1978julusleft.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes Robin said in the beginning that his pedal board was in front of the amps. The reason to slave is to use the plexi as a big distortion box or overdrive the second Marshall amp "poweramp" at a reasonable volume. Simple as that! This was common in he late 70's or early 80's to slave amps to get more overdrive. We didn't have attenuators or decent overdrive pedals like we do now. Plus there really weren't that many amp techs doing good mods back in the day. When I was in Hollywood back in the 70's and 80's that's just what we did until Caswell, Soldano, Levi, and others came around doing decent mods. It was guys like Ed that really paved the way for amp techs to come up with mods and new amp designs to achieve what Ed was trying to do with his gear and try to design a single amplifier that would do all of this in one. i.e. PPIMV Master volumes, effect loops 2 or 3 channel amplifiers, etc, etc, etc. it's a no brainer.

[leadguy]

WTF is wrong with asking basic questions he should know the answer to?

[leadguy]

If Ed is slaving in those photos above, then it is a no brainer to put the effects after the load.
If Ed's techs knew how to slave then they knew that effects are better placed after the load.

[blfrd]

Also, if he was slaving then why isn't he running the effects after the load box. That's one of the big advantages of slaving, that and volume control. Ed wasn't using volume control in a stadium.
Ed is running the effects in front of the amp as in a non slaving setup.

Franky straight into BOX 1 no flanger or phase.

http://wwwc.dcns.ne.jp/~epi/pedalboard23jul1978.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;



Destroyer using EQ

http://epi3.hp.infoseek.co.jp/1978julusleft.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I think I can answer some of these questions:

1. Why didn't he run the FX after the load?
Because they sounded better in front of the amp.

Like you said the major advantage to the load setup was volume contorl. The load setup's 1st priority was controlling volume and possibly saving speakers.

Sounds like it also provided the 'preamp' tone to feed the other 'power' amps aka other Marshalls.

What makes you think he's not slaving in these pics? I don't see an amp anywhere in your pics...

The slave setup provided the 'TONE' for the other amps.

Otherwise, he'd have to have more 100 watt non-master volume amps and figure some other routing config.

This setup kept it pretty simple when you think about it.

One tone generator and the rest is just pure power...

I think we're overthinking this here.....

[blfrd]

If Ed is slaving in those photos above, then it is a no brainer to put the effects after the load.
If Ed's techs knew how to slave then they knew that effects are better placed after the load.

Says who?

I've tried an original MXR Flanger in front and after the load and can tell you it sounds better in front.

Also, an Echoplex after the load might make the echoes cleaner, but you lose the FET boost in front of the amp. Which explains why they're out front.

[ROBIN L.]

WTF is wrong with you people? This guy comes in here to share info we all want to know about and you can do nothing but question everything he says and ask him for DNA to prove who he is? He doesn't owe any of us a fucking thing. I am happy to have him here contributing to the knowledge of EVH's tone.
I am very good friends with Dawk who worked with Ritchie Blackmore and I can tell you he doesn't rememeber every detail either. It was 30 years ago, these guys weren't thinking at the time that later in life there would be a test on all that shit. They just did their thing and they were there.
It's pretty clear to me he knows quite a bit about the way things went down. He has clearly stated he's not a tech and doesn't know electronics. It sounds like he has some understanding of things and a basic knowledge of guitars. From what I see, and I've read it all, he hasn't misrepresented himself or lied about anything.
Jerry

Thank you, I couldn't have said it better .

Folks, please go back to my original post here and read it again.
I have edited it dozens of times making sure the info is crystal clear for all.
All you need to know lies in the post, I mean every word of it.

[ROBIN L.]

The pedalboard seems to have 2 separate hookups. One with the Flanger and Phasor and the other one with the EQ. Ed is going directly into the EQ hookup with the EQ not used.

The photos I have seen of the Echoplex setups look like they are setup in parallel and not series. Ed has said that he only used one Echoplex at a time.

In these photos which are before Ed's pedalboard appeared, if Ed is just slaving why does the bottom amp have a connection on the other channel.
If Ed is just slaving the bottom amp through the Vox then he only needs one input into one channel of the bottom Marshall (the black lead) and it's output would be loaded and taken to the Vox, but there is a second channel connection on the bottom Marshall.
The top Marshall is unused.

Please, don't start again.

[ROBIN L.]

Hey Robin,

Question about the EP3 settings...

On the boots and the albums I hear a relatively long slap echo a lot - practically all the time. It's about 300ms give or take (for reference: this is about the length of an 8th note in Runnin' w/ Devil. Back then who knew or cared how many freakin' milliseconds! ).

I assume one of the EP3s was set like that all the time.

Is this the one you refer to as being a slap? and being on most of the time?

Someone on here assumed that the SLAP you referred to was like 110ms. I don't hear that - I just hear the longer slap around 300 ms. And then there's another echo effect he used sparingly, for instance, in Down in Flames which is more of a spacey trippy Hendrix kind of effect.

So is there a tight 110ms type of slap somewhere in his chain that I am not hearing?

Thanks for any details you've got on this,
-Rob

Rob,
I couldn't work the EP if my life depended on it, I'm sorry.
Ed was always fiddling with those anyway.
He dumped them in 1984.

[MarkCameron]

WTF is wrong with asking basic questions he should know the answer to?

YOU are not asking questions, YOU are being a dick. Why should he know the ans swer, because you say so? Were you there to know one way or the other? Do you have any concept of how tours work and what life on the road is like?
You've been hovering around in these threads trying to poke holes in the story and find fault in what Robin and Mark have posted.
Jerry

leadguy....try it.....it works...Im not trying to BS you.
Ive tech-ed for bands sence I was 13...and this is what we did back then.....because it was done by other people......as you have said and Ive said....but.........you need to really try it to understand it and get it to work.

In that pic.......it looks like there was some problem before they whent on and they where messing with the EQs but said....F it we need to play!!

[rgalpin]

Hey Robin,
Question about the EP3 settings...
So is there a tight 110ms type of slap somewhere in his chain that I am not hearing?

Thanks for any details you've got on this,
-Rob

Rob,
I couldn't work the EP if my life depended on it, I'm sorry.
Ed was always fiddling with those anyway.
He dumped them in 1984.

Thanks for your thoroughness in going back and catching this question. Much appreciated.
Your posts make for an extraordinary read. -Rob