Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

[Bob Zombie]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Great stuff! I had to break out the jiffy pop for this one.

 

[Reckless Abandon]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

That would make sense, since it said he converted the tremolo driver into another gain stage.

Oh, this reminds me, I own CC Deville's ADA MP-1. I doubt anyone cares though. :laugh2:

CC did some great stuff. When I was 8 years old I bought my first tape...Open Up and Say Ah! I played it so much I broke the tape

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Oopps...I must have missed the previous thread about this. Sorry about that. I just really have this obsession about the guitar tone on AFD. To me it's akin to the "brown sound" on VH's first album. Just one of those classic tones that makes you go....yeah...that's it.

AFD is in the top 5 debut albums ever, IMO. Not only for song quality, but for tone.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Oopps...I must have missed the previous thread about this. Sorry about that. I just really have this obsession about the guitar tone on AFD. To me it's akin to the "brown sound" on VH's first album. Just one of those classic tones that makes you go....yeah...that's it.

AFD is in the top 5 debut albums ever, IMO. Not only for song quality, but for tone.

Jeff...keep this in mind buddy...the Brown souind is a dead stock 100 watt Plexi...the AFD tone is a 100 watt Plexi with on extra gain stage and a master volume! They are really quite close!

 

[Mr Wolf]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Thanks for that, awesome read

 

[lit31686]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

I did some research about this after reading this article a few months back. I'm a little skeptical about the guy who did the mod to the Marshall Tremolo. I don't really know too much about him. If there was an amp I modded, and people asked me "Did Slash use this on AFD?" I would be pretty damned tempted to say yes. I guarantee he's already gotten a lot of business because of this speculation.
Second, Slash admitted a while back that the amp was actually an 800 from S.I.R. After years of trying to buy it from them, they finally made a deal with him.

 

[joelap]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

TGWIF - The guy who modded this amp who I've been in contact with is Tim Caswell. His website is Studio Electronics.com. Basically, since that thread exploded on the les Paul forums he has been getting a lot of emails and sending out a generic email to everyone who emailed him. I posted his reponse in the previous thread. Here it is again:

Thanks for your interest in 'the mod'. I have been getting a lot of
interest in it
lately, thanks to the discovery that #39 was most likely the amp used on

Apetite For Destruction. That was a 1959T. I used the extra tremolo tube

to get the extra gain, but the ones I did for George Lynch had the extra

tube
added. The older Marshalls with point to point wiring are the easiest
ones
to mod, but their collector value is higher if they are left stock.
Fortunately,
the JCM 800 (2203, 2204) mods very nicely, and they are
quite plentiful. The amp I modded
for my friend Bryan is one of these. The older amps have to be
configured like
a JCM 800 anyway, so yes, they will sound like #39. (no 2 amps I have
modded
sound EXACTLY the same- lots of variables, especially tubes- but they
all
have the character of #39). As far as price and delivery of 'the mod',
we are still
trying to work out how we (Studio Electronics) are going to handle it.
When we
figure it out, we will post the info on our web site, and also attempt
to contact
everyone who emailed us.

Tim Caswell,
Studio Electronics
3-31-05

Basically he's just going to cash in on the fact that his mod is no different from any mod that almost anyone else is doing, BESIDES Jeff Seal who COMPLETELY rewires the dual channel 800's into a monster of tone. The thing that makes the amp mod so sought after was the fact that it was the Appetite Tone. IMO, any non-extreme gain marshall (plexi, early 800's), les paul guitar (shorter scale) with Alnico 2 pickups will almost NAIL the appetite tone.

NOT TO MENTION there was a thread earlier this week in with Aleclee mentioned how the RECORDING of the amp's sound also colors the tone. What comes out on a recording is not necessarily how the amp will sound. Now lets see all the diehard GnR people trying to figure out the signal path Slash used on the Appetite Sessions... :laugh2:

Just to clear it up... Tim Caswell of Studio Electronics modded Slash's amp. The one that Christian mentioned (Dave Freidman), is another modder I have spoken with. He modified Dean DeLeo of the Stone Temple Pilots wah pedal, who as you know are one of my favorite bands.

If anyone has any questions, I'l keep this thread open in a Firefox tab and check back often, otherwise PM me.

 

[joelap]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

I did some research about this after reading this article a few months back. I'm a little skeptical about the guy who did the mod to the Marshall Tremolo. I don't really know too much about him. If there was an amp I modded, and people asked me "Did Slash use this on AFD?" I would be pretty damned tempted to say yes. I guarantee he's already gotten a lot of business because of this speculation.
Second, Slash admitted a while back that the amp was actually an 800 from S.I.R. After years of trying to buy it from them, they finally made a deal with him.

Yeah, that's another thing that threw me off when I was investigating myself. Me and Christan talked on the phone about this, and pretty much came to a consensus that the reason he didn't speak up was that the mod didn't consist of anything that any other modder wasn't doing. Adding an extra gain stage from the tremolo is not difficult, TGWIF recently did it with one of his amps. My other conclusion is that if you go to www.studioelectronics.com, you'll see that their site consists of mainly recording, microphone gear. Very little is geared towards the guitarist. Therefore, I'm led to believe that Tim Caswell didn't think much of the mod, since anyone handy with a soldering iron can perform it.

Here's my response to his email trying to get more information out of him, followed by his response:

Tim, thanks for the reply.
>
> I had no idea that your mod was becoming so sought after. You're really
> making a name for yourself! The tone that Slash gets on Appetite for
> Destruction is one of the best rock tones to date, and it's crazy to
> hear that the mod consisted of just taking a tube from the tremolo
> circuit and adding it as a gain stage. Is that all the mod consists of,
> or are there other tweaks in the circuit as well?
>
> Thanks again for your reply, I look forward to sending you my amp sometime!
>
> Joe

and Tim's reply to that was...

It's not quite that simple. It takes some tweaking to keep this much gain
from squealing & howling. Again, all amps are different, and can take
different measures to make them work. TC

A much shorter reply than his first email, not to mention any technician will know how to keep an amp from howling.

Now just outright I'd like to say that I am NOT KNOCKING TIM OR ANY OF THE WORK HE DOES. Tim has done great things, and his website will prove that for itself. All I am saying is that, say he charges 350 for the mod plus shipping for a single channel amp, well we could go to our own Jeff Seal for the same price and get a Dual Channel JCM 800 modded. But not just modded by Jeff... completely rewired by hand, with WHATEVER CIRCUITRY YOU WANT. No offense to Tim or any modders out there, but Jeff Seal has them all beat. Not to mention, Jeff is a great guy and has given me more advice towards helping me learn how to build/modify amps and pedals than I could ever have hoped for from anyone else.

But maybe I'm biased...

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Thats all my bad! I got the names mixed up...I have been on pain killers all damn day and I'm pretty much out of it!

 

[joelap]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Sorry about the long posts, but when it comes to investigating mods or getting in contact with people who seemingly are impossible to get in contact with unless you are in the music industry... leave it to me friends. I'll be the Seymour Duncan Forums Private Investigator hahaha

 

[Willis]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

long post

Have you posted that here before? It seems familiar.

Does Jeff Seal have a website?

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Sorry about the long posts, but when it comes to investigating mods or getting in contact with people who seemingly are impossible to get in contact with unless you are in the music industry... leave it to me friends. I'll be the Seymour Duncan Forums Private Investigator hahaha

Can you get hold of Mr. Dumble, and get him to do a few freebies for forum members?

 

[Jeff_H]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Have you posted that here before? It seems familiar.

Does Jeff Seal have a website?

www.speakersurgeon.com

The site does not go into any detail about the mods...but the pics he has on his site are of the inside of the amp he did for me. Shoot him an e-mail or a PM, and he will get right back to you.

Pics Here

 

[Willis]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Sorry about the long posts, but when it comes to investigating mods or getting in contact with people who seemingly are impossible to get in contact with unless you are in the music industry... leave it to me friends. I'll be the Seymour Duncan Forums Private Investigator hahaha

Hmm... I might want a few mods. I might mod my ADA MP-1 and will probably mod a Peavey Classic power amp. I found a place that can mod the Peavey, but I'm guessing most modders prefer old Marshalls.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Hmm... I might want a few mods. I might mod my ADA MP-1 and will probably mod a Peavey Classic power amp. I found a place that can mod the Peavey, but I'm guessing most modders prefer old Marshalls.

VooDoo amps offers mods on both Peavey amps as well as ADA MP-1's...there are sound clips of the MP-1 mods...it's pretty impressive. Jeff Seal might even tackle that...

 

[Willis]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

VooDoo amps offers mods on both Peavey amps as well as ADA MP-1's...there are sound clips of the MP-1 mods...it's pretty impressive. Jeff Seal might even tackle that...

That's the place I had in mind. I was listening to the MP-1 clips earlier today, and they sound great. I'm going to see if a booster in front of the MP-1 will give me the sound I want first. Most likely it will. I'm not sure about the Peavey though, since I haven't gotten it yet, and I tend to prefer a more Marshall sound.

 

[joelap]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Have you posted that here before? It seems familiar.

Does Jeff Seal have a website?

Yeah, this was just clarification. It was posted earlier in another thread.

Jeff Seal's website is www.speakersurgeon.com, but there is very little information on it. Your best bet is to private message him. He will be more than helpful. His forum name is Jeff Seal, if you don't know.

 

[joelap]

Re: Here's A Great Read For Any Slash Fans - AFD

Can you get hold of Mr. Dumble, and get him to do a few freebies for forum members?

I said private eye, not prostitute hahaha. Then again, I could call up a few of my "cousins" in Sicily and ask a "favor" for someone in the family... :burnout: Just kidding.