EVH tone deep dive feat. DAVE FRIEDMAN and PETE THORN

You can also replace the resistor with a pot and dial it in by ear. Once you find the spot you like, you can then measure the pot's resistance at that setting and replace it with the closest fixed resistor value. If you want to leave it as adjustable, I'd wire in a small resistor in series to serve as a minimum resistance value if the pot gets turned all the way down. If you dial in too much negative feedback, the amp might go into oscillation. The small fixed resistor sets your max feedback amount and helps avoid that.
 
Thanks!

Actually I just finished trying the 16-ohm tap and I liked it lot, I gained a good amount of headroom and a lot of fizzyness I had with the master cranked went away. Next step is reducing the feedback resistor, I'm quite confident I'll like it even more.
Maybe, maybe not. The more feedback the harder the distortion. Most people like less feedback. You also have to be careful as the greater the feedback the greater the chance of instability.

The best solution is a pot that you can adjust the negative feedback to your liking.
 
This ↑.

It's a trade off. More negative feedback gives you more headroom so the power section clips later, but when it does clip it does so harder. You'll get a more fizzy, crispy kind of breakup. Contrast that to something like an AC30 with no negative feedback. It breaks up early, but softly so you have a more compressed and smooth, creamy sounding breakup.
 
Pickups too. Low output PAF vs a hotter darker pickup like a SD or Custom has a big impact on EQ and gain.
 
The best bit about this vid is where he realizes the eq in front of the amp has so much more effect than all these specialist tweaks

This times a thousand! All I did after watching this vid is put a 10 band in front of my favorite plexi model and it was instant VH tone. I mean, not perfect, but I am NOT VH, so there you go.
 
Maybe, maybe not. The more feedback the harder the distortion. Most people like less feedback. You also have to be careful as the greater the feedback the greater the chance of instability.

The best solution is a pot that you can adjust the negative feedback to your liking.
Adding a pot, even temporarily is an excellent idea, thanks!

This ↑.

It's a trade off. More negative feedback gives you more headroom so the power section clips later, but when it does clip it does so harder. You'll get a more fizzy, crispy kind of breakup. Contrast that to something like an AC30 with no negative feedback. It breaks up early, but softly so you have a more compressed and smooth, creamy sounding breakup.
Well, this amp is meant to be used as a pedal platform so my goal is to increase headroom so that I can avoid breakup even at a high SPL.
I just hope a 2x el84s power amp can be able to do so if properly tweaked
 
If you want to recreate 47K from the 4-ohm tap with the Plexi 100W model you would reduce Negative Feedback by 1/sqrt(2) = 0.71. The default value is 6.6 so the new value would be 4.7.

If you want to replicate changing the resistor value you scale by the ratio of the old value to the new value. I.e. if the original value is 100K and you want to simulate 47K you would double the negative feedback.

Excuse my ignorance but with this method wouldn’t you have to do one or the other as you are changing the negative feedback twice ?
 
I think it was Rudy Leiren, Eddie's old tech who talked about Eddie slaving the Bandmaster into other amps using the extension speaker out.

There is a 1985 Steve Rosen interview with the real Robin "Rudy" Leiren and the slaving theory before 1984 is destroyed by Rudy.

Rudy: We already had, uh…most of the amps. And for the first time in 1984, we were uh…we were bi-amping…the guitar. I was feeding, uh…signal from, uh…from a Marshall into, um…some H&H power amps. Every other year previous we had powered everything onstage with a Marshall for every cabinet. But you know…I…like…you know…as you know, one Marshall doesn’t necessarily sound like the next…

SR: Right…

Rudy: …Marshall. And so, Edward always used to complain when he used to walk up across the stage…or when he’d stand on the riser, at how bad the guitar sounded, you know like for Alex, you know, or f-…or on Michael’s side of the stage. And then last year with uh…with uh…(the) use of the power amps, everything sounded the same across the stage.

SR: Mmm…

Rudy: Everything was the same. Ever-…I… you know, like…In 1984, Edward did spend a lot more time, like, standing up on the riser…

SR: Yeah…

Rudy: …jammin’ with Alex.

SR: Right.

Rudy: Because it sounded good…

SR: Yeah…right…

Rudy: …up there. For the first time.

SR: Yeah…

Rudy: And uh…but that was a big innovation. A BIG innovation for Van Halen. And it made it…oh…I left… (long pause) I took eight Marshalls with me on the road last year, and all I…you know, all I used was one…basically, because I used the power amps. And I left, uh…four Marshalls home-I never even took ‘em on the road.

SR: Really?

Rudy: And I could’ve left another four…home.

SR: You…so you’d mentioned that the original head that Ed was using in the early years, he retired and is now for the studio…

Rudy: Right.

SR: …and you replaced that with that other one?

Rudy: Right. It w-…

SR: …that you guys found out there somewhere?

Rudy: Another…another old head that we found. Yeah.

SR: Where’d you find that? Do you remember?

Rudy: Umm… (long pause) I think we could’ve bought that on the road somewhere. I think we might have bought it from a guitar store somewhere out there on the road. We just…we kinda keep an eye out for ‘em.

SR: The remaining heads that you brought out, were those new heads?

Rudy: Umm…no, one of ‘em was a new head. But it had been modified…

SR: To the same…

Rudy: …to sound like the old ones, yeah. But, uh…the other three, uh…no there were seven of ‘em. I think three of them were new…three of ‘em, they were the new models and uh…or four of them were the new models and four were the old ones. But uh…uh…oh I just, I had a thought for a second. Oh yeah, interesting story about the old head. The very first year we went on the road, he not only took, umm…his original guitar with him back then in those days…before he built…the pre-Kramer days…but he also took the original, you know his “baby”, the amp with him on the road.

SR: Right.
 
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