SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by herbvis » Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:04 am

zz666 wrote:Great interview


In England, the power runs @ 220VAC. Running the amp in the US (110VAC) made the amp run quieter, according to Eddie. So I assume he bought the Variac to lower the input supply to his US version amp. Then he lied in the interview, saying to turn UP the voltage, rather than lower it, hence the blowing up of peoples' presumably US version amps at 140VAC.

Sorry for the dumb question, What happens if you just put your voltage selector at 220VAC(or wire your pt for 220ac) like EVH did the first time he turned it on and though it was broken? Is it too quite? is it dangerous?

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Rich_D » Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:24 am

somethin'else wrote:Alright, drugs in the EVH section!

Seriously, people die comin' down off of shit.
My buddy from NOLA would reach for the absolut for breakfast, went in for bad liver & detox, and he died from shock within two days.

Fortunately Eddie's a 1st generation baddass with the Old Blood (now new I suspect).

He got a stunt girl to keep him in line for chrissake! Now that's a cowboy!
He truly is one of the luckiest men alive, and I'm damn proud that he's here.
Yes. Fuck you rock Babylon. We got to keep one this time.
Interpretation?! I thought I was playing it right!

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Good Guest » Wed Apr 18, 2012 1:48 pm

Great interview and great man ....

Still can't wrap my head around his marshall story tho as ....many years ago on this forum I mentioned you can run your power tubes in a marshall all the way down to 80vdcB+ yep eighty and crank the living hell out of it and you still don't get that vh1 sound ..there has to be a box..go ahead try it you'll see..and all that crap about headroom goes out the window too as it's all relative..you just need massive voltage for massive power...cold plate distortion it can only get so cold..still no EVH...

6ca7's will last forever running yer marshall like that and nothing we heard adds up ..like the boxs of transforners required and tube that needed weekly replacement..something doesn't add up. Can't believe his amp story. :palm: gad he must belaughing :mrgreen: :D his head off... :clap:

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by cary chilton » Wed Apr 18, 2012 3:10 pm

Goodguest, I think Ed definitely saying that he experimented running his variac to 140volts.... I am sure he did, right? That whole- " I love the sound of pushing an amp to verge of it dying and pull it back a bit" -thing... Also I am sure I read his amp caught on fire on the studio from overheating - prolly from the 140V thang! So that blistering, dripping heat sink sound you hear in the EARLY stuff is probably for real, esp AFTER VH1 when Ed had some money to blow...esp on a healthy collection of sourced trannies, tubes and old marshalls he had and a small army of tone buddies who helping this whole venture out...
I really think WACF and FW were the recordings or the crazy era for Ed, really diving into dynamic types for recording, pickups, amps, speakers etc... Common sense and getting a sense of Ed from interviews tells you everything you need to fill in the blanks. I absolutely believe Ed used a variac for the purposes he said, especially LIVE and the volume thing. Even with 50 Watt cranked would be wayyyyy loud -as he said many times.

I think Ed started with what he had, found a great fuckin marshall -serendipidity (spl?) and his Ibanez with SD pu's -which is what everyone in rock used bar none, Seymour who? Even Jazz monster Di Meola used them, still does, too. The variac put down 90V DOES save tubes and get cranked marshall tone, even saturation than a cranked marshall with 120 V..... The cranked Marshall 120V has much more bass, less sag or close, cleaner, more sustain.

The 90V cranked amp has more sag, a little rasp, less compression, warmer highs. Power Scaling is the ultimate variac, gets you 1 watt to half power to 90 V or full, which is what my 67 spec has. Anyway, as Ed steer away from a mid-flat or mid-scooped, modern ( way before his time -think about it! VH1 is the birth of modern rock amps) slightly hifi-ish to a cleaner tone, more mids, warmer highs. Ed then chose a lower output Alnico pu which gave him the clarity of the note and into much more bluesy tones if he wanted, but it killed the fire so to speak. Here I think he went on a tone quest to get the fire in the tone back via amp and keep the guitar relatively constant. I had a high output pu for ages in my old guitar and never knew it - a tone zone- which was a fun pickup, I miss it actually.... I got into the whole low output A2 pu's and into my amp at the time a 5150 modded to be slightly more of a jcm800, sounded heavenly.... less bloated than the tonezone..... but much more difficult to play... I found myself turning up the gain ( saturation) up more often than not... So again, the old adage here: high gain amp > lower output pickups lower to mid gain amps> A5, A8 and Ceramic high output pu's..... this is the balance... simple. mixed that up and you have too over the top, compression and artifacts and bloated slew of horse piss or tone that is great for cream or a first album of ACDC. Ed NO DOUBT was used to the ceramic >90V CRANKED amp in the studio and fell in love with the feel and the open sound and sustain of a cranked marshall. You CAN'T replicate that with any other set up.... Ed tried.... 140V of a cranked amp in the studio with lower output pickups, the sustain was prolly better, the heat from the searing amp translated, too, but is a different sound than before. Listen to Romeo's Delight, really listen, tell me if that isn't what I am saying here ! Listen to the END of the song, than INSANE feedback, compression,....tell me that is a normal MArshall set up!!!!!!!! Tell me that is simply microphone or monitor feedback!!!! NOPE. I think that amp was cooking steaks and baked potatoes friends.... really. I think it is interesting that the follow DIVER DOWN, the amp tone radically changed to insane treble. Total 180. Crazy shit, huh?

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Good Guest » Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:02 pm

Yep the 140 volt variac .... he probably did do that especially if his amp was so low volume from using a 120 volt outlet in a 240 volt amp....half everything , no wonder he thought he was ripped off..so he gets a variac and cranks it up to 140 ac ..still short of the 240 ac required....He then goes to Jose and says I want the cranked tone at low volume enter the C*** mod...that would do your romeo delight thing in spades...that internal feedback of powertube interacting with OT....Maybe old twisty neck will chime in and straighten us out...if he aint to busy changing diapers. :palm:

I can see where the confusion is happening and developed now ...how do you tell people to crank too 140 in a 120volt amp when you had a 240 amp..you tell them to crank to 90 if they have a normal 120 marshall....to acheive the same tone , but you make sure you leave the C mod out of the answer...leave that to those who really know what they are doing ... and avoid that like the plague...

Can you imagine the poor guy has all these mods that he really doesn't understand and the guitar interviewers are pounding him with ..the How do you get that tone ? What do you say when you don't know how to explain it. You short your emancipator capacitor ignition switch to a computerized primary and shlaap there you go. :clap:

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Marshall SL12301 » Wed Apr 18, 2012 5:09 pm

I aint buying the "it was just a old marshall and variac" BS never will. if that were true as he claims that tone would have been nailed 1000 times over and it has not,the closest IMHO is pete thorns sl68 demo in the "more brown please" part :thumbsup: :rock:
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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by dirtycooter » Wed Apr 18, 2012 6:23 pm

I think if
a. It was some cranked abusive deal on parts in the amp and rough on things-maybe its why he got tired of foolin with it. And went hi gain.
B. If it ain't stock its just a secret he won't come out and ever admit

We have heard the Mod 5 and the cranked variaced plexi-BOTH work to get the tone. As always there are some differences everyone gets no matter how subtle-just like the shades of brown clear up to 1984. Its just life of the tone fearin guitarist.

I give up on Ed just handing it to us-it just isn't gonna happen ever. His legacy is built on that.
Once that is gone I think it would be like how we take the world for granted that its round. No big deal, the world is round and its fact. But once upon a time it was flat you know. Look at everyone here and the clips-they are the best evh tone clips anywhere and gotten in tons of different ways. I think some of us just cling to our expectations of how it ideally should be or happen and there is no one sure way thats proven totally right.

I look for good tone in a cascaded MV amp-I cannot afford to beat on low watt speakers ,tubes and parts nor do I like all the volume issues of the other way and the hassles of keepin it liveable. But thats me. But its far more practicle in the real world in the end of things.
Even today Ed has done the same-no more variac, no more load box (if he ever used one).

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by herbvis » Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:27 pm

herbvis wrote:
zz666 wrote:Great interview


In England, the power runs @ 220VAC. Running the amp in the US (110VAC) made the amp run quieter, according to Eddie. So I assume he bought the Variac to lower the input supply to his US version amp. Then he lied in the interview, saying to turn UP the voltage, rather than lower it, hence the blowing up of peoples' presumably US version amps at 140VAC.

Sorry for the dumb question, What happens if you just put your voltage selector at 220VAC(or wire your pt for 220ac) like EVH did the first time he turned it on and though it was broken? Is it too quite? is it dangerous?

Tried it, Results = Very Very LOW Volume. :|

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Strat78 » Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:15 pm

This interviewer again does not know the right questions to ask Edward. I remember the radio interview VH did back in July 78 that seemed so pivotal to Edward, it was either at KOME or KSJO in San Jose, the DJ was not a man, but a women named Tonn Mastry(?), at one point she asks Ed about his guitar and he mumbles: "A piece of wood, a saw.....wire" and that's that, you can hear someone say, "this is what we call dead air". I had the whole crazy interview on cassett, I'm sure Ed would love to hear it now, or not. By the way, there was nothing wrong with that first radio station appearance, Roth and Alex were hitting on Tonn and the rest of them were screaming and yelling most of the time, I thought the moments of silence were kind of cool and real.
Edit: Tawn Mastery was the spelling.
Last edited by Strat78 on Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by fivecoyote » Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:30 pm

Strat78 wrote:This interviewer again does not know the right questions to ask Edward.
Zactly. Been interviewing people for a couple decades now. There's always a way to get at the info even if the person doesn't think they remember. Like any treasure hunter or fisherman or whatever, you have to know what you're looking for and have an idea of how to get there. Send me in coach!
At it awhile, still learnin'

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Good Guest » Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:00 am

With all the stuff on this forum EVH would be right at home if you ask me..He'd be able to talk gear, wood , strings , amps ,cabs,speakers and virtualy everything he loves about playing a guitar and tone till the cows come home , with people that actually know and appreciate what he has to say. He doesn't even have to say who he is..

Remember that Robin L thread...big mistake coming on as a heavy hitter...note to Ed come on as a nobody and have fun.This is your place. :thumbsup:

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by DaveMcLain » Thu Apr 19, 2012 10:45 am

That interview was very good. After reading it though it makes me wonder if due to his health issues, Ed doesn't perhaps see himself as a "short timer" and it's motivated him to do his best to make music with his son who he obviously admires greatly.

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by FL6 » Thu Apr 19, 2012 10:56 am

Strat78 wrote:This interviewer again does not know the right questions to ask Edward..
I'm surprised they even asked about the amp! What does Esquire know or care about modified plexi's?

We should start a serious thread of questions we would like an interviewer to ask and send them out to all the mags.

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by Tone Slinger » Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:14 am

A good sounding 100 watt Marshall ('68-'73 type preamp circuit, probably '68 filtering,etc), bias possibly set a little hot, a ohmite Variac, a 4/12 cab with some old greenbacks, a hot ceramic pu. Thats what the 1st album was. That tone has been captured here and abroad lots of times.

The two parts to the equation that are missing are,

1) Only Eddie is Eddie

2) The recording gear/process at Sunset Sound.

Imo, on more than a few occasions Ed's early live sound (minus Sunsets studio magic obviously) has been captured by members here, and in many ways possibly bettered by some here.

That first record is an anomally.
Rip Ben Wise (StuntDouble) & Mark Abrahamian (Rockstah)

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Re: SIAP Esquire Interview with ED!!!

Post by efraser68 » Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:50 am

Tone Slinger wrote:A good sounding 100 watt Marshall ('68-'73 type preamp circuit, probably '68 filtering,etc), bias possibly set a little hot, a ohmite Variac, a 4/12 cab with some old greenbacks, a hot ceramic pu. Thats what the 1st album was. That tone has been captured here and abroad lots of times.

The two parts to the equation that are missing are,

1) Only Eddie is Eddie

2) The recording gear/process at Sunset Sound.

Imo, on more than a few occasions Ed's early live sound (minus Sunsets studio magic obviously) has been captured by members here, and in many ways possibly bettered by some here.

That first record is an anomally.
+1 :thumbsup:

Does anyone here think that Ed's hands were ever inside the chassis of his #1 Marshall to do any mythical tinkering back in '77?
Not saying he didn't know anything about amps, circuits, etc. But probably at least knew about the affect of good transformers and hot biasing tubes.
Remember Ben Wise (aka Stunt Double) & Mark Abrahamian
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