Modding '68 Superlead to EVH specs

[@sonnyseabury4051]

Hey George. It's Sonny Seabury in New Orleans. I just wanted to drop by and say hello. I hope that life is treating You and Your Other Family Members Well. I also pray that all of Y'all are in good health. I'm the guy that bought the DVL-1 Amp from you a while back. I'm still truly loving my amp, and I tell all of my guitar playing buddies about you. Every single one of them, regardless of the styles of music that they play. They all go crazy over my DVL-1 Amp that I bought from you, about 1.5 years or so ago. Plexis and Modded Plexis have always been my #1 preferred amps, over anything else, and You and Dave Friedman will Always Remain My #1 Amp and Tone Gods. Much love and respect from Sonny in New Orleans, La.

[@HeadfirstAmps]

Love your work George. ❤

[@DougErapps]

INCREDIBLE!!! George that was SO FUN TO WATCH!!!!!!!! Edge of my seat!!!!! Sounds PHENOMENAL!!!

[@peterschaefer1665]

I actually played that amp in your basement George if you recall and it changed my life. What an experience. The best sounding amp I have ever played. I am eternally grateful for you allowing me! If your new amp sounds anything like it (and it appears that it does) you should sell a ton!

[@jdzialak]

❤

[@brownsfan7753]

Sounds great!! I actually felt your stress when you were working on the amp!!

[@egodzilla777]

LOOOVE this experience!!! Thank you for taking us through the mid pot. swap!!

[@ampyamps]

YEAH GEORGE! I could watch videos like this from you all day. Your reverence and hesitation to disturb even one original solder joint is relatable and so endearing. Tough call, but the results… that amp sounds SO GREAT. Thanks for sharing.

[@samfisherv30]

Worth it!

[@bobbecket2640]

Hooooe Leeeee Shiiiiiiii that TONE! Freaking out over how good this amp sounds, particularly in the hands of someone who can play with skill and feel! Fantastic job, George!!!

[@samfisherv30]

He nailed the sound!

[@fallingmanjutsu]

What George id doing is the very essence of Rock and Roll. Godspeed George, You are a rebel.

[@A2Guitars]

Great to see this - your demonstrated attention to provenance and preservation is unimpeachable. Sometimes you just have to dig in though. It’s been a long time since the Corunna road shop, but it’s great to find you here, doing excellent work as always!

[@sleggarri]

Appreciate what you've done here, George. Ordered mine (50W) last night. Been pursuing 12301 tones for decades. Tried almost everything and have gotten close, but never enough gain. Love all of the early Van Halen tones, especially that first album. Peace, Scott!

[@georgemetropoulos5124]

Thank you!

[@costasavarikas1891]

Gotta push the mids and gain with an EQ, like he did, theres photo evidence. That's the key to getting enough gain to do all the van halen harmonics and squeals and sustain. Not only the solo stuff, push your vintage plexi with a mid boost and level boost of an EQ pedal and its instant running with the devil chord sustain and tone

[@AllenGarberGuitarFun]

Thank you for this and thank you for the forum which I’d been on since 2010…I learned so much from so many smart people there, including of course yourself. I always posted about the physical playing of the guitar and I never once picked up a soldering iron…but I still learned more on your forum than I learned anywhere else! Thanks for everything!

[@jamiegustkey2573]

Allan - you too were responsible for adding to the plethora of great information from the forum that dominated all…. 😂👍🏻 I miss the way that forum moved for so long on the quest! The greatest bunch of participants- I miss strat 78’s clips… his ‘68 files he has on soundclick sound amazing! This amp is going to make some happy for certain! Right on, right on, right on…

[@AllenGarberGuitarFun]

@@jamiegustkey2573 Thanks very much Jamie! I hope Phil is doing alright…he was an amazing player and in my opinion he had the best tones of anyone on the forum. And there were some GREAT tones and great players there, but Phil “Strat78” Easterling was my number one guy!

[@willdenham]

If there ever were a tech who should disturb a 50 year solder on a vintage Marshall, I think George would be that tech. Besides it's for a righteous cause.

[@RozsaAmplificationLLC]

I have a 50-watter I converted over to EVH-spec with support and direction from Friedman on the complete spec! I also put in a 3-way power switch, so could have LO-OFF-HI modes. I did the Mark Cameron trick he gave me like 10 years ago and for the LO-mode, use the 100V and 240V taps instead of 0V and 120V! What you basically have is a 140V spread instead of 120V spread with a 120V input. This cuts the voltage across the entire amp, both B+ and heaters to about 86%, hence a built-in Variac without an external unit being needed! Since that time, other amp builders, like Suhr have it in the SH-68 and I believe Friedman is going to put one in his upcoming amps, but people have already been doing it for a while...and now you know!

[@bavarianmonkey8326]

Are you sure the 240 V tap is rated for the current the amp pulls at 110 V? In a lot of transformers I know, the higher voltages are wound with thinner wire! (I have no idea about these marshall transformers, this is why I am asking...)

[@RozsaAmplificationLLC]

@@bavarianmonkey8326 yes, it's fine.

[@DirtySouthConnection803]

I'm pretty sure I recall Eddie and others saying, he played through a Fender Bandmaster. On some of the early albums. The EVH rabbit hole continues.

[@leosun8469]

Awesome, George- thank you for sharing this. It’s pretty incredible that you have dedicated yourself to getting HERE and have actually replicated THE tone!🤘🏻

[@vmc37]

Awesome! THis is like when they used to battle with the morality of dissecting a human, to learn anatomy in the name of science!

[@yourefromdownsouth9728]

😂

[@davidwilson7042]

Sounds wonderful.

[@markslaughterofficial]

Fantastic work, George! You are a Tonechaser king !

[@superman-el9jd]

Eddie said in an interview that his tone was accidental.I think the same can be said for Hendrix and many others that were in the right time and the right place. Not to take away from their ability and unique phrasing and arrangements in their playing. They are all guitar hero’s to countless players,including me.They did the searching and found the answers for their tone. We are all,grateful to builders and players of the past ,and those who continue the search for tone. Rock on brothers .

[@alexc2680]

Wow!! That sounds Amazing!!

[@jamiegustkey2573]

George....! 👏🏻 The mighty =V//= (amp builder)

[@joea9608]

Thank you George!

[@ianmcfarland512]

Way to go, George!

[@markkinney5030]

Crap man that amp just wanted to say hi and let kick ass! That sounded good!

[@micoklokoc654]

Nice George

[@gussywellz9714]

U rock George, always enjoy your vids!!! cheers

[@Turboy65]

What always mystified me is that in the late 60s, people with Marshalls tended to use fuzz boxes of various kinds to get distortion, but yet the best distortion there ever was just comes from a cranked Marshall. I wouldn't shed one tear if every original (and replica) Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face on the planet were to be fed to a grinder.. Because THIS, a cranked Marshall, is infinitely better sounding. I guess it must have been the drugs.

[@chrisjones8592]

It’s the volume. You can’t get that sound unless the amp is really really loud unless you use a power attenuator or a variac. Most Marshall plexi style amps don’t start that really cool sounding breakup until the volume is at about 6 or 7 which is extremely loud which is why most guys ran them at about 3 or 4 with a fuzz box. I do agree with you however, there is no better guitar sound.

[@RobertJohnson-uo7nj]

Wow!!!

[@russlora]

Some of that solder used in the late 60's early 70's does'nt melt till 465'c /// another rumor about eddies early amp was that it was ran around 105 volts ...which would give sag ,or breakup quality to the sound

[@qddk9545]

I think that with the temperature is a fairy tale. I worked with electronics back then.

[@chrisg5237]

What’s crazy to me is the fact the builder had no idea what he just did when he finished building that amp…. Using whatever parts available and maybe taking shortcuts to get the amp in working order… they created an entire universe “accidentally.” Not only changing the course of rock music forever but also inherently causing the white rabbit effect where thousands have traveled down the rabbit hole.

[@georgemetropoulos5124]

Totally agree! Just another amp on another day at work. You could include the vacuum tube era in that happenstance too. Still crazy to me that three of the most iconic guitars in history were created by 1952. How did they get that so right?

[@chrisg5237]

@@georgemetropoulos5124 George, by any chance do you still have the build journals for the 12xxx series?

[@stevencancel1727]

Let's go!!

[@youngandrew66]

Wow

[@waynetoneseekerandersen2213]

I like to add a 10 k resistor to ground on all my Marshall builds on a 25 k pot. I usually end up with it at around 8.

[@stephenchow5161]

woah………nice

[@CountryBoyShane]

My God in Heaven, this sounds INCREDIBLE!!!

[@ratiug61]

When are we going to get a 12301 synergy module

[@RocketinExile]

wow man

[@tooManywaystoFall]

smokin... 🎵r0ck0n 🎵

[@kingcormack8004]

wow

[@taggmanibanez]

George would it be possible to add a 25k resistor to the ground lug on the normal 25k pot to "somewhat" simulate this, maybe put it on a switch, of course I understand you'd still only get 25k resistance on the other side. I'm guessing you may have already try to do something like this in your normal models.

[@rickya3877]

Niiiiiiice

[@stephenfrancis303]

The mid pot and the fat cap you need to sell this evh 12301 series spec clone. How much for one

[@georgemetropoulos5124]

Lots of requests for that! I have some ideas, watch for something in 2024.

[@riccardococcia]

You have rheostats in place of the screen resistors?

[@stephenchow5161]

wow!,,,,,

[@walth9092]

Is there a schematic for this conversion? I already switched to the 50K Mid Pot, But I don't quite know what's the procedure is for adding the 25K clipped, and the extra cap.

[@DANTHETUBEMAN]

If Metro George can't build the brown sound amp no one can. 😊

[@Fender308]

You should get George Lynch tone with your designs!

[@soapboxearth2]

What was the extra cap ?

[@sting1111]

I absolutely understand keeping these amps original. But to keep them alive we need to change aging components. Is it better to put them on a shelf or let them live on doing what they were designed to do? I know we have choices here. Its a tough one. I appreciate both sides but I choose to keep them going.

[@matttornetta9049]

awesome! so did you add a 330uF to 0.68uF cap? And what did you to the neg feedback?

[@superman-el9jd]

George What pickups are in your Les Paul?

[@metroampcom]

Throbak Mick Taylor's

[@superman-el9jd]

They sound Good in combination with the amp.

[@Guiohms.m50]

So you changed the 25k mid pot to 50k, .68uf to 330uf in V2 and NFB to 100k/4ohms only?

[@BPToneReview]

Couldn’t you of alligator clipped in a 25k resistor over the pot without desoldering?

[@waynetoneseekerandersen2213]

It would make the pot be like a 15 k pot

[@BPToneReview]

@@waynetoneseekerandersen2213 in series with the wiper would equal 50k

[@qddk9545]

@ericandrews1661 Yes it has to go in series with the pot, not across the pot (parallel).

[@sollybrown8217]

You know eddie would have ripped it apart without a thought lol.

[@pmkrak]

Hey George, what guitar are you playing? It doesn't look like it says Gibson on the headstock.

[@lastscatteringsurface9950]

I assume less negative feedback?

[@masecardrums]

Also definitely curious about the negative feedback!

[@georgemetropoulos5124]

100k on the 4 ohm tap

[@lastscatteringsurface9950]

Thanks brother@@georgemetropoulos5124

[@miguelrichartmellado2834]

No se activan los subtitulos ? Mensaje para youtube: me cago en ti!

[@Relicsun]

I’m not going to touch it.

[@bonzology322]

ehhhhh, really? Ever heard of a Hakko 808?

[@milesfifer171]

Man I can get the same tones from my cheap JCM 900.

[@adamp2]

Can`t take it with you lol

[@TheKeithbruce]

I wish people would STOP Fu@kin up these vintage amps

[@qddk9545]

My Grandma always said: "You can wish whatever you want, but you can not count on getting it" 🙂