The particularities about Eddie Van Halen plexi 12301

[pat_rocks]

The black knob you circled is the knob on the mxr phase 90,Box #2 was ehx gutted for a switching box Box #1 was a old gutted tone bender box

Yeah i agree with you, it looks like a tone bender but it is much much more biger.

 

[pittbull]

And if you look carefully you can see the blue mxr 6 band eq

 

[pat_rocks]

There was no middle pickup is was a humbucker and a single coil pickup to a selector switch so he just went to the humbucker to the volume pot he just couldn’t hook up the single coil to the selector switch

Evidence EVH Used Hum+Single Pickup Combos : WoodyTone!

www.woodytone.com

there was a middle pu at some point :

/

and eddie knew how to wire pu in his 5150 studio bench work you can cearly see a soldering unit. The guy was not like most of the rockstars. He knew about gear, he knew how it roughly worked, he experiment even if it destroyed gear, he modified and tried things. He was manual and crafty. I didn't know how to wire pickups i red some articles about it and knew how to do it when i was 20... it is no big exploit.

 

[pittbull]

And? Just say that the middle position single coil pickup and single coil neck pickups worked(which I don’t think so) have to do with Ed’s drive sound

 

[pat_rocks]

And? Just say that the middle position single coil pickup and single coil neck pickups worked(which I don’t think so) have to do with Ed’s drive sound

Nothing but you seemed to allude that he was not able to modify things in guitar gear equipment. that proves that ed was capable of moding things. Look at how much tape there is. this was clearly not charvel or duncan way of doing it. The guy loving tape was eddie. look at the paint job and his duct tape for the pick. So this implies that yes :

N°1 : he was not a dumbfuck with gear : he knew how it worked.
N°2 : He was able to solder unsolder things in the correct way.
N°3 : He probably was able to add mods and remove them. How ? simple : you take a picture of the circuit before removing the mod and sending the amp back to the tech.

 

[pittbull]

Yes with guitars and guitar pickups but when it came to amp electronics NO he would have that done and explain what he wanted,the variac thing he leaned from Jose Arrendondo

 

[chocol8]

The fake single coil and selector switch in the franky was there because Ed had no idea how to hook it up right so he left it that way

You made this claim, which is what Pat Rocks and I are saying is not believable. Eddie was clearly capable of removing a pickup switch and wiring up a single pickup. He did way more complicated mods than that. He was also working with Wayne and Seymour at the time, plus Jose. If he had a simple electronics question, he knew people to ask.

 

[echoplexi1974]

There was a guy on this forum named Nitro, he had a lot of knowledge of Eddie's gear. He even talked with Jose a few times. I wish he would chime in.

 

[junk notes]

the variac thing he leaned from Jose Arrendondo

Incorrect. He knew early on, on his own. He took it upon himself after blowing up the house to finally go to a place in Pasadena called Dial Radio on Colorado Blvd., went in and ask if they had any industrial transformer, and they showed and explained to him what a variac was, had taken it home with him to plug his amp into it.

 

[pat_rocks]

Yes with guitars and guitar pickups but when it came to amp electronics NO he would have that done and explain what he wanted,the variac thing he leaned from Jose Arrendondo

Man 6 months ago i didn't knew shit about amp building but i was able to build an amp with a picture without knowing nothing about amps. that's what is called a layout :




with this alone even if you know nothing about amps you can build one by yourself alone if you know how to avoid to touch metallic parts when the amp is on. SO YES with a picture you can build an amp if it has enough details even if you know nothing about it.

i'm at my third build now. You just have to be able to read a schematic or a layout and you can build one if you know how to solder. You don't even need to know how it works even if it is better...




See i almost don't know shit about how an amp works but i built those 2 amps and they sound good (althought the second one has some issues with hum and grounding).

for a mod you can just take some pictures with a polaroid and then you know where the components are to be soldered. Old amps were way simpler than today amps with PCB.

the best way for beginners is to enter rob robinette website and begin with a micro bassman or micro jtm 45. the layouts and explainations are there and it is pretty easy. Plus those amps sound almost as good as the big ones and are not expensive to build.

So to conclude yes eddie with a simple picture could mod an amp : true.

 

[pittbull]

Jose Arrendondo taught Edward about the variac yes he did and for the single coil pickup was a dead pickup he couldn’t and didn’t bother with it go to YouTube if you don’t believe and look up 5150 studio tour and Eddie sez it himself about the single coil pickup he talks about the Frank guitar

 

[pat_rocks]

Jose Arrendondo taught Edward about the variac yes he did and for the single coil pickup was a dead pickup he couldn’t and didn’t bother with it go to YouTube if you don’t believe and look up 5150 studio tour and Eddie sez it himself about the single coil pickup he talks about the Frank guitar

I believe you that he perhaps did say it however if i remember correctly there was a discussion between chip ellis (the masterbuilder for the evh frankenstrat replica) and evh about the single coil. Apparently it was used at some point and he decided to not use it anymore. It was used at some point with a push pull pot. it was probably used before with a click system mentionned in woody tone.

 

[pittbull]

Chip Ellis(areal nice guy)wasn’t around in the early days Edward was changing pickups on the franky many time Edward wasn’t a real neck pickup person to begin with even on the shark guitar until he went with Music man guitars then peavey then EVH guitars it was a selling point and more versatile guitar(for the buyers) to use with a neck pickup

 

[junk notes]

Jose Arrendondo taught Edward about the variac yes he did

Incorrect. He knew early on, on his own. He took it upon himself after blowing up the house to finally go to a place in Pasadena called Dial Radio on Colorado Blvd., went in and ask if they had any industrial transformer, and they showed and explained to him what a variac was, had taken it home with him to plug his amp into it.

All good that you feel strongly about Jose, but seems like you have been misinformed.

 

[pittbull]

Because Jose was explaining to Edward about lowering the voltage on the amp and it would make it sound like this or that that’s why Edward blew the house fuse when he was experimenting he got the idea from Jose

 

[BluezMe]

EVH

There was no middle pickup is was a humbucker and a single coil pickup to a selector switch so he just went to the humbucker to the volume pot he just couldn’t hook up the single coil to the selector switch

Ok.. we all know the last Incarnation of the Frakenstrat had a non functioning single coil in the neck... and for giggles... Ed puts a Selector Switch in the Middle routing

attaching a Single Coil and Humbucker to a Strat style selector is not a difficult task...

My first thought was... he took a Dremel to shape that middle Rout to fit the Selector... the second photo shows... it was already shaped this way


also notice below... the Bridge pup Mounting Screws... Military Grade... over Engineered or... this will work until I can replace some weakened wood (mismatched screw holes maybe)... probable a similar case with the missing screw below the A string on the 6 hole floating Bridge.
Put a wooden Match stick (or 2) in that screw hole... that will shim it up well enough to hold.

You don't screw those 6 hole floating bridges down Extremely Tight (more if you want it to Float both ways... less if you want it to sit flush on the body) I suppose Ed could have had some sort of Acidic condition in his perspiration that weaken it so much... a slight tightening of the screw snapped it off.

Switching the Volume Knob to a Tone Knob... guessing that was intentional... and you have to be Bigger than Life to make it Cool

 

[pat_rocks]

Because Jose was explaining to Edward about lowering the voltage on the amp and it would make it sound like this or that that’s why Edward blew the house fuse when he was experimenting he got the idea from Jose

Ground guitar says this about evh :

"Eddie used this same Marshall amp to record the first six Van Halen albums. He bought it secondhand from England, which sparked up some stories that the amp was unable to run on 110v. The truth is that in Europe, all amps come with a switch to vary the AC voltage that you wish to plug into. Eddie however didn’t know about this at the time. So when the amp was delivered to him and he plugged it in, it sounded very quiet because of the voltage difference. Eddie’s solution was to buy a Variac transformer which allowed him to run the amp on lower voltage. He played with the settings and found that the amp could still run well if he kept the dial at around 140v. This allowed him to essentially save the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. From that point on he would usually set all the knobs on the Marshall to 10, and control the volume using the Variac."

however i must admit that if the switch was labeled it would have been impossible. Perhaps they weren't back in those days ? Uptade : there wasn't a switch for this at the exterior of the amp. perhaps inside the chassis ? that would explain many things...

another interesting quote from eddie :

In the studio I use my old Marshall, which gets a slightly different sound. Live I use new Marshalls, but I do little tricks to them too.

but I do little tricks to them too = Mods ?

 

[pittbull]

Right Jose did little tricks to them Eddie didn’t know anything about amp electronics,read one of Neil Zloz books titled “Eddie Van halen” Eddie compliments Jose Arrendondo for making his Marshall amps sound the way they do

 

[Derrick111]

i must admit that if the switch was labeled it would have been impossible. Perhaps they weren't back in those days ? Uptade : there wasn't a switch for this at the exterior of the amp. perhaps inside the chassis ? that would explain many things...

Consider my own story... back in the mid 90s, my friend phoned me up and said there was an old Park plexi at a shop about an hour from my place. I called them up and put a hold on it right away before anyone else could buy it before I got there. I made the 2 hour round trip and was excited as hell when I got home. I went strait up to my room, placed the plexi on my cab, connected it up, and powered it up. My heart sank when I saw the power lamp slowly come on... very dim. I had enough Marshalls to know immediately there was a problem. I thought 'too good to be true... it's not working right'. Then I realized that the power selector on the back was set to 240v! Apparently it had come from England to the shop here in the USA and the shop tested it like that. Dumb! Boy was I happy that's all it was. So Ed surely could have had a similar experience. The moments before realising it was still to 120v was enough time to trigger the idea for playing the amp that way because he apparently thought it sounded good like that.

 

[pat_rocks]

Right Jose did little tricks to them Eddie didn’t know anything about amp electronics,read one of Neil Zloz books titled “Eddie Van halen” Eddie compliments Jose Arrendondo for making his Marshall amps sound the way they do

Yeah i believe you when he says i do little tricks to them he went to josé for the mods. But what i believe is that when their love story ended (with josé) eddie just learnt how to remove the mods when he went to other techs which didn't knew about the mod.