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

jeremy said:
where id you hear that? i heard it was a fender champ in the bathroom
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Everyone knows it was a Metal Zone into a Roland JC-120 . . . played really quietly. The key is the quiet. People are always turning their amps up loud and ruining the tone.
 
Interestingly it only uses 2 12AX7 preamp tubes, so the preamp is definitely a SS/tube hybrid, probably has some Amptweaker SS type stuff going on too. I haven't tried one of those, but I hear they are great in front of a clean amp or into a power amp.
 
devastone said:
Interestingly it only uses 2 12AX7 preamp tubes, so the preamp is definitely a SS/tube hybrid, probably has some Amptweaker SS type stuff going on too. I haven't tried one of those, but I hear they are great in front of a clean amp or into a power amp.
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Back in the Peavey days, there was a lot of tone shaping which kept reducing the gain. I think one reason they had so many 12AX7 preamp tubes was to bring the gain back up.

Do you know if the phase inverter is tube or SS in this incarnation?
 
I don't know anything more than the website says. I would guess the PI is SS, but take that with a grain of salt.

Yeah, he talks about adding tubes in the link, but it is 3.5 hours, I was listening to it at work, every once in a while I was say "what?" (or "WAT?") and have to back up.
 
In most cases, the PI is half of the last 12AX7, in this case V2, and the first half would be the recovery stage of the tone stack. V1 is usually the input gain and tone shaping pre tone stack. But, there could be some different design tricks in there.

I'm really curious about this one.
 
That is where I was going. If it is a tube PI it is down to 3 triodes for gain. Although the Peavey 6505 Piranha Micro uses 1 12AX7, possibly some TransTube (SS) gain stages, a TransTube power amp and it gets really close to some Peavey 5150/6505 tones.
 
The PI uses both halves of the last 12AX7, that's where the signal gets split for the AB (push/pull) power amp. I'm guessing it is similar to the Blackstars where the tubes are used in the gain stages and the PI and, I'm guessing, tone shaping, is done with SS.

If you look at the 3rd sheet of this schematic you can see that both sides of the PI is used, if it is an AB tube amp with a tube PI, they all work the same.
https://el34world.com/charts/Schematics/files/Peavey/Peavey_evh5150.pdf
 
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devastone said:
Didn't know he had sold Amptweaker and moved to Fender/EVH
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Wow, I didn't know that either, kinda blown away by that.
However, maybe a clue...
During that 3-hour tech-fest, his wife Phyllis walked into the room for a brief second.
As she walked out, he mentioned she did the assembly for about 90% of the pedals manufactured here in the US.

I'd bet they're both getting up in age and she probably had had enough of it.
If Fender's offer was good enough, yeah, I can see it.
Just a guess...
 
devastone said:
The PI uses both halves of the last 12AX7, that's where the signal gets split for the AB (push/pull) power amp. I'm guessing it is similar to the Blackstars where the tubes are used in the gain stages and the PI and, I'm guessing, tone shaping, is done with SS.

If you look at the 3rd sheet of this schematic you can see that both sides of the PI is used, if it is an AB tube amp with a tube PI, they all work the same.
https://el34world.com/charts/Schemat...ey_evh5150.pdf
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Sorry, I like to think of English as a second language. I was interested in the one you noted has two 12AX7s in the preamp.

If this has a third 12AX7 in the power amp for the PI it would be easier for me to see 5150 gain levels. Then again, I already acknowledged Peavey gets really close with one tube in the Piranha. So, it is likely irrelevant.
 
My 30W Laboga has only two 12Ax7's in the preamp (+ 4xEl84's for the power). No solid state components for gain (clipping diodes etc). They stress that fact in the advertising (ie ,,,no ss/all tube) ...'cause it makes you go WTF?? as you turn up the gain.

In fact, it's the gainiest amp I own by far..even more than my SS amps (AMT Stonehead & Randall T2) ...chunky old-school death metal all day long without a boost & gain to spare. The EQ is limited ( just one treble 1 Bass + 2 voicings for the gain channel & a do-it-all "morph type" knob for the clean channel) So I'd say it's possible to have stupid gain levels with just two preamp tubes/no ss yeah.. :bigthumb:


Covering Bolt Thrower's "Return From Chaos" with it (2nd guitar..)..


 
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So, what happens when you kick in a boost, especially a clean?

Sent from my SM-A115A using Tapatalk
 
Just compresses it more/tightens it up. I'm actually not a fan of "tight" rhythm tones. I prefer how this amp sounds without a boost. (squishier/rounder/more open/more organic).

I just brought it up because it has nuts levels of gain from just 2 12AX7's....

Here's a demo by fluff. Pretty much A-Z ..no boost/boost and all (this is the 30W version like mine...)

 
Unless your 30W is Class A, it also loses at least one triode to the phase inverter.

I get huge levels of gain from my Triple XXX and JSX, which effectively have three preamp tubes or six triodes, but not 5150/6505 levels. That is why I was surprised the current/next EVH can get 5150/6505 levels on two preamp tubes. But Peavey does a lot of tone shaping between triode stages and typically they are attenuating the signal to accomplish that.

I will A-B my Triple XXX and my.6505 Piranha. If the Piranha does not win the gain war, I will borrow a 5150/6505 head to A-B. I may be giving the 5150/6505 credit for more gain than it truly has.
 
Don't think it's class A but the proof of the pudding's in the eating as they say. No idea how they do it....but there's crazy amounts of insane gooey liquid gain on tap. With the lead channel voicing on "normal" and gain @12.00 - 1.00 o'clock it sounds like textbook Metallica (MoP/RtL). With the low-mid boost voicing engaged and the same gain setting it's pretty much perfect Arch Enemy...anything higher and you get into super thick Bolt Thrower/Asphyx or even CC territory. Leads are liquid with gain past 1:00 o'clock....I never use a boost with it :bigthumb:

I've used the Bugera version of a 6505, and a Peavey JSX..both of which have about the same amount of gain as my Bugera 333XL (The JSX a bit less & Bugera 6202 or w/e i'ts called might be a bit more saturated)....but the 30W Beast actually has even more gain on tap...extreme grunt, but saturation too...especially when it's (gain knob) anywhere past 3:00 o'clock. Power chords just keep sustaining forever & I can't get enough of the solo tones :D
 
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Recorded this the day I got it using the emulated output into my digital handheld recorder. The speaker-emulated output kinda sucks on this amp tbh (way too bassy/shaves off a whole lot of top end..get's worse as you turn up the gain) I've since learned that it's sort of usable if you turn the bass down way low .. but might be good enough for a rough idea of what I'm talking about. Gain's actually turned down pretty low here.... (11-12 o'clock)

 
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