James Brown, designer of 5150 amp, talks about working with EVH

devastone said:
You could say Dual Rectifier too, Soldano drove a lot of the high gain designs of the era.
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Soldano SLO was modeled after the Mesa Mark series amps ive seen Mike himself say so. Who made who ?
By 1970 Randall Smith invented the first master volume and the first cascaded tube preamp in guitar amps about 10 years before anybody else.
Rectifier series didn't come about til 20 years after that.
 
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Mike Soldano and your hero Dave Friedman discussing this exact topic, at 2:17 if the video doesn't post at current time.

 
devastone said:
Mike Soldano and your hero Dave Friedman discussing this exact topic, at 2:17 if the video doesn't post at current time.

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Mike came off sounding extremely jaded in that interview and within a short time after that video is when he decided to retire & sell the rights to Soldano to Friedman. Interesting ain't it ? Some tone stack values on the SLO may line up with the Rectifier but the power section in Rectifiers are night & day different than Soldano's.
I just sold a Rectifier last Friday because i had 3 100 watt heads and i wasn't using it. The guy i sold to loves the amp. I really liked it too but i just didn't play it that much.
With me its not always about the money.
 
Whatever, not trying to argue.

Wasn't saying the DR was a bad amp, just that the preamps are almost identical, the power section is what makes it feel different.
 
devastone said:
Whatever, not trying to argue.

Wasn't saying the DR was a bad amp, just that the preamps are almost identical, the power section is what makes it feel different.
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Its some component values in the tone stacks not the whole preamps.
 
Okay. Not going to argue. Even though I'm not a fan of Friedman's amp names, I'll stick with his opinion. I've also modded a few myself, including my old HR50.
 
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All amplifier circuit DNA comes from the same place starting over 100 years ago. All brown eyes aside.
Im not a fan of Dave's vulgarity either.
 
Yes, they all started from the original RCA data books, not sure about 100 years, but many decades ago. As they discussed in the video, I've been listening while working, the basics are the same, each designer just has his own little footprint that makes it his.
 
devastone said:
Yes, they all started from the original RCA data books, not sure about 100 years, but many decades ago. As they discussed in the video, I've been listening while working, the basics are the same, each designer just has his own little footprint that makes it his.
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The funny thing about the Friedman/Soldano video is Dave wasn't just an unbiased 3rd party talking head. He had ulterior motives and walked away with the keys to the Soldano castle. So of course he's going to take shots at Randall Smith.
Friedman was hit w/a cease & desist order by Marshall UK Bletchley for calling his amps "Marsha" when he started making his own amps. And he promptly stopped.
The guy is a success but the amp community is very small. Everyone borrows from everyone else.
Now that Gibson has bought Mesa its the end of an era for sure.
 
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