Eddie Van Halen and the Sylvania 6CA7's

[DJPattP]

I heard EVH would blow heads and have the ability to footswitch them off. His amps flamed out.Talk about crazy.

He ran the Sylvania's to the max. does anyone know what he did? I heard that he was lucky to get 2 weeks out of a set?

What would you expect from the best guitarist that ever lived.

It's like Michael Jackson and his white glove, Eddie Van Halen and the Sylvania 6CA7's.

THANKS

 

[Boogiebabies]

Michael Soldano retubed EVH's #1 Marshall and said it was bone stock. He used Sylvania 6CA7 fat boy's and biased them
at 75% MPD and said the amp sounded nothing like EVH. Soldano then put the amp on a variac and when he hit 85-90 Volts
it was the EVH tone and putting out 30 Watts. The rest in in the wood, pickup and the hands. Studio magic too because I saw EVH in Charlotte years ago and his tone was not that life altering. Randall Smith saw EVH at a sound check and notice he was using a variac.
Thus, the variac switch on the Dual Rectifier was born and also the MK IV. Now Soldano uses a variac type power transformer on the Hot Rod anniversary model to the same effect.

 

[dodger916]

Michael Soldano retubed EVH's #1 Marshall and said it was bone stock. He used Sylvania 6CA7 fat boy's and biased them
at 75% MPD and said the amp sounded nothing like EVH. Soldano then put the amp on a variac and when he hit 85-90 Volts
it was the EVH tone and putting out 30 Watts. The rest in in the wood, pickup and the hands. Studio magic too because I saw EVH in Charlotte years ago and his tone was not that life altering. Randall Smith saw EVH at a sound check and notice he was using a variac.
Thus, the variac switch on the Dual Rectifier was born and also the MK IV. Now Soldano uses a variac type power transformer on the Hot Rod anniversary model to the same effect.

I saw that video Ed; very cool. The funny part is EVH telling everyone he turned the variac up, not down! :evil:

At 90 volts, wouldn't the tubes last longer, even at 75% MPD?

 

[Boogiebabies]

Michael Soldano retubed EVH's #1 Marshall and said it was bone stock. He used Sylvania 6CA7 fat boy's and biased them
at 75% MPD and said the amp sounded nothing like EVH. Soldano then put the amp on a variac and when he hit 85-90 Volts
it was the EVH tone and putting out 30 Watts. The rest in in the wood, pickup and the hands. Studio magic too because I saw EVH in Charlotte years ago and his tone was not that life altering. Randall Smith saw EVH at a sound check and notice he was using a variac.
Thus, the variac switch on the Dual Rectifier was born and also the MK IV. Now Soldano uses a variac type power transformer on the Hot Rod anniversary model to the same effect.

I saw that video Ed; very cool. The funny part is EVH telling everyone he turned the variac up, not down! :evil:

At 90 volts, wouldn't the tubes last longer, even at 75% MPD?

EVH has so many urban legends it's insane. I heard a guy at the local music store when I was a kid telling a customer to boil his strings in honey, that's how EVH got his tone. I also don't think he used three fat boy's and ran the amp until the tubes blew. I had a Blankenship Vari-Plex on my bench and at 90V it was putting like 360V to the plates !!! If the amp does not have a variable bias supply to match the lowering of the plate voltage the tubes would be running rather cool and last at least as long as they were designed.
Soldano on the other hand admitted that his cascading gain was gleaned from a MK IIC as well as the switching, in turn Randall Smith
copied the SLO-100 almost verbatim with the Dual Rectifier. As much as I appreciate my Marshall's and SLO-100 without RCS and the MK I and C+ we would probably be playing banjo's.

 

[gts]

EVH has so many urban legends it's insane. I heard a guy at the local music store when I was a kid telling a customer to boil his strings in honey, that's how EVH got his tone.

Clover, Tupelo, Orange Blossom... with over 300 varieties of honey to choose from I could never find the "right" one.
Now you tell me it was all an urban myth! All these years chasing down the right honey to boil my strings in and all for naught. Ughh ::shock:

...... without RCS and the MK I and C+ we would probably be playing banjo's.

Yeah but have you ever heard a banjo with a pick-up run through a Mk I or a C+... heaven! Who needs honey!

 

[dodger916]

All these years I thought the TUBES were boiled in honey...

 

[psychodave]

I think eddies amp had a Jose master with zeners. It makes sense since clubs never allow Marshall amps to run flat out. So he needed something that help sound like a cranked plexi. Another interesting thing people don't know is that the zeners wear out when DC flies across them when the amp is turned on. Considering how eddies sound got cleaner as the albums went on... VH1has more gain than Fair warning and FW has more gain than Diver Down, etc. Plus we have pictures of eddie in the studio and you can see what looks like the shaft of a pot sticking out the back of his plexi. Knowing that Jose A worked on his amp, it seems totally logical for it to have the Jose Master. I had this conversation with Mark Cameron who had access to a ton of Jose modded amps right after Jose died.

Not 100% proof, but it is simple and logical.

 

[Trey Blue]

EVH has so many urban legends it's insane. I heard a guy at the local music store when I was a kid telling a customer to boil his strings in honey, that's how EVH got his tone.

He said that during an interview in one of the guitar mags in the 80s.

 

[stephen sawall]

Ed never sounded anything like Jose...... That is a very different sound.

I have been running the same 6ca7's in my Tremoverb for 20 years. I like them better than any other tube I tried in this amp.

 

[Pulsonic]

since the Meshuggah head is supposedly close to if not a José mod; wonder if a pr. of nos Sylvania 6CA7 glass would make things interesting ?

amp is pretty fun w/ production valves (i think russian 'tung-sol', yeah right). i will say this, mf did dial in a massive tight bottom end eq..