Hello,
i just began to watch some tone talk épisodes and in this one :
Dave Friedman puts his number one amp as his own 68 plexi which then John Suhr tells
"the one i modded with the van halen cap ?"
So it turns out that friedman replies ah in this one it's me that have done it. You've done it on other of my amps.
Then i remember that John Fryette posted a video about rebiasing friedman's 68 plexi. This video confirms that this one was the amp and guess what ? Here is what Fryette tells us about how dave friedman plays this amp :
"HE USES A VARIAC WHEN HE IS GOOFING AROUND WITH IT"
Here is how it supposedely sounds with the variac on :
so it is a 50w 68 super bass modded into a super lead and played with a variac isn't there something fishy ? plus he says thats the only amp he would never sell.
We know for sure that John Suhr, Dave Friedman and soldano got to see the real van halen head and they all said it is STOCK what does it mean ? that the red dye applied to solder was mostly intact. but that DOESN'T MEAN that it follows the classical 1959 schematic.
During late 1967 and 68 Marshall was in a transition period and they had tons of supply shortage. Add to this that they were experimenting. So what's the big deal ? Many times you'll find extermely out of place and random components in those era marshalls and defining a stock variant is almost impossible cause most 67-68 heads will sound different.
So if dave plays his amp with a variac and it is a 68 plexi i mean this all seems to point out that he is a van halen fan and he like this exclusive tone. This could mean that he would probably reconfigure his super bass to a 68 super lead based on the van halen plexi. Fryette tells us that this amp has been totally reconfigured in the video.
here is a quote of him :
“I mean, I make amps that have a lot of gain too, but that’s not necessarily where my head’s at. I do it for the people that want more. I mean, to me, the quintessential amp is an old Plexi Super Lead circuit with a Variac, on 10. That’s where my head is, which is quite gainy if it’s set up right, but old-school gainy. You know, more the Van Halen school of Plexi, shall we say."
So here are the weird specs of this amp which friedman rebuilt.
- First of all there is a huge argument coming in favor of the fact that this is indeed an amp which has been to try to replicate values from another amp.
- There are 5 bands resistors on this amp for example there are extremely weird values like a 10.4k resistor where a 100k should be. Putting a 10.4k resistor instead of a 4 band 10k resistor tells us that the one putting this 10.4k resistor is looking at extremely precise values. Usually 4 band resistors have enough accuracy to build an amp it is rare to find 5 band resistors on a plexi because usually you don't need killer accuracy for the components.
here are the exceptionnal weird values :
Dont take this board for référence i only put the Big changes compared to a regular 68sl
i forgot to change the 56k tone stack res to a 33k
The 0.022 from the 10.4 is a 0.0022
in the video you can clearly see a
- Correction : 5 band 10.4k ohm following the 820ohm 500pf instead of 100k
- a 5 band 10.4k res instead of 100k going to the Bright channel
Correction this seems to be a 10.4k resistor too.
The first electrolytic cap on v1 is 320-330uf but the second is unknown but i think it is a 250uf.
You can even see a capacitor along the dual 32uf which seems to be a mica cap 291b instead of a regular 10k 2watt resistor...
this thing has some crazy off the charts values and components.
Dave friedman gave us those specs for the VH amp components :
Post by RACKSYSTEMS » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:40 pm
Split cathode V1a 250uF/820,V1b .68/820
All coupling caps are 0.022uF,Bright channel coupling cap is 0.0022uF
470k mixer resistors
500pf [red out of 69 amp] mixer bypass cap
Bypass cap on V2a is .68uF and a 220uf to 470uf
33k/560pF lemco tone stack combo
100k NFB resistor at 4 ohm tap
220k bias splitter resistors
0.1 uF cap on presence control
.022uf output couplers
filtering is
2] 100uf's f&t in series mains
2] 32uf's f&t in series screens
1]100uf lcr phase inverter
1] dual 33 x 33 f&t preamp
which don't seem to be the same as in his own personnal 68 preamp section.
I'm not saying That Dave and suhr lied to us but there may be many possibilities :
- Dave modded this particular 50w amp to sound like a 100w van halen plexi. He and suhr gave us the real complete values.
- Dave copied his preamp section from the VH original Head
in this case perhaps every people to have seen Van halen amp actually signed a paper prohibiting them to tell us what's inside this amp and to copycat the exact same values for amp building and selling. However perhaps that suhr came close to the same sound with his own sl68 preamps specs and that's what Dave Gave us. (The specs dave gave us were almost the same as the suhr sl68). Because it was close enough they gave us those specs for us to stop asking them.
- Dave gave his own shot at how to make a 50w hot rod plexi taking from van halen values mixing with his own.
- They told the truth but didn’t leak every comp value off the charts.
I Guess we will never know but those 68 weird values seem be worth to be tested.
What's your thoughts about this ?
we see almost everything in the video we just lack some components values to have the main components : the cap behind the 2.7k resistor and the resistor or cap along the double 32uf.
i just began to watch some tone talk épisodes and in this one :
Dave Friedman puts his number one amp as his own 68 plexi which then John Suhr tells
"the one i modded with the van halen cap ?"
So it turns out that friedman replies ah in this one it's me that have done it. You've done it on other of my amps.
Then i remember that John Fryette posted a video about rebiasing friedman's 68 plexi. This video confirms that this one was the amp and guess what ? Here is what Fryette tells us about how dave friedman plays this amp :
"HE USES A VARIAC WHEN HE IS GOOFING AROUND WITH IT"
Here is how it supposedely sounds with the variac on :
so it is a 50w 68 super bass modded into a super lead and played with a variac isn't there something fishy ? plus he says thats the only amp he would never sell.
We know for sure that John Suhr, Dave Friedman and soldano got to see the real van halen head and they all said it is STOCK what does it mean ? that the red dye applied to solder was mostly intact. but that DOESN'T MEAN that it follows the classical 1959 schematic.
During late 1967 and 68 Marshall was in a transition period and they had tons of supply shortage. Add to this that they were experimenting. So what's the big deal ? Many times you'll find extermely out of place and random components in those era marshalls and defining a stock variant is almost impossible cause most 67-68 heads will sound different.
So if dave plays his amp with a variac and it is a 68 plexi i mean this all seems to point out that he is a van halen fan and he like this exclusive tone. This could mean that he would probably reconfigure his super bass to a 68 super lead based on the van halen plexi. Fryette tells us that this amp has been totally reconfigured in the video.
here is a quote of him :
“I mean, I make amps that have a lot of gain too, but that’s not necessarily where my head’s at. I do it for the people that want more. I mean, to me, the quintessential amp is an old Plexi Super Lead circuit with a Variac, on 10. That’s where my head is, which is quite gainy if it’s set up right, but old-school gainy. You know, more the Van Halen school of Plexi, shall we say."
So here are the weird specs of this amp which friedman rebuilt.
- First of all there is a huge argument coming in favor of the fact that this is indeed an amp which has been to try to replicate values from another amp.
- There are 5 bands resistors on this amp for example there are extremely weird values like a 10.4k resistor where a 100k should be. Putting a 10.4k resistor instead of a 4 band 10k resistor tells us that the one putting this 10.4k resistor is looking at extremely precise values. Usually 4 band resistors have enough accuracy to build an amp it is rare to find 5 band resistors on a plexi because usually you don't need killer accuracy for the components.
here are the exceptionnal weird values :
Dont take this board for référence i only put the Big changes compared to a regular 68sl
i forgot to change the 56k tone stack res to a 33k
The 0.022 from the 10.4 is a 0.0022
in the video you can clearly see a
- Correction : 5 band 10.4k ohm following the 820ohm 500pf instead of 100k
- a 5 band 10.4k res instead of 100k going to the Bright channel
Correction this seems to be a 10.4k resistor too.
The first electrolytic cap on v1 is 320-330uf but the second is unknown but i think it is a 250uf.
You can even see a capacitor along the dual 32uf which seems to be a mica cap 291b instead of a regular 10k 2watt resistor...
this thing has some crazy off the charts values and components.
Dave friedman gave us those specs for the VH amp components :
Post by RACKSYSTEMS » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:40 pm
Split cathode V1a 250uF/820,V1b .68/820
All coupling caps are 0.022uF,Bright channel coupling cap is 0.0022uF
470k mixer resistors
500pf [red out of 69 amp] mixer bypass cap
Bypass cap on V2a is .68uF and a 220uf to 470uf
33k/560pF lemco tone stack combo
100k NFB resistor at 4 ohm tap
220k bias splitter resistors
0.1 uF cap on presence control
.022uf output couplers
filtering is
2] 100uf's f&t in series mains
2] 32uf's f&t in series screens
1]100uf lcr phase inverter
1] dual 33 x 33 f&t preamp
which don't seem to be the same as in his own personnal 68 preamp section.
I'm not saying That Dave and suhr lied to us but there may be many possibilities :
- Dave modded this particular 50w amp to sound like a 100w van halen plexi. He and suhr gave us the real complete values.
- Dave copied his preamp section from the VH original Head
in this case perhaps every people to have seen Van halen amp actually signed a paper prohibiting them to tell us what's inside this amp and to copycat the exact same values for amp building and selling. However perhaps that suhr came close to the same sound with his own sl68 preamps specs and that's what Dave Gave us. (The specs dave gave us were almost the same as the suhr sl68). Because it was close enough they gave us those specs for us to stop asking them.
- Dave gave his own shot at how to make a 50w hot rod plexi taking from van halen values mixing with his own.
- They told the truth but didn’t leak every comp value off the charts.
I Guess we will never know but those 68 weird values seem be worth to be tested.
What's your thoughts about this ?
we see almost everything in the video we just lack some components values to have the main components : the cap behind the 2.7k resistor and the resistor or cap along the double 32uf.
Last edited:
