without the shrill. I'm willing to accept this. My current chorus . the early master. to be replaced. He controlled the overall volume output in two ways. articles, I've always posited, the block check article again] but In my current chain - I already incorporate the ThorpyFX Camoflange and Boss OC-5, while I'm soon due to acquire a CryBaby CBM535AR - in the meanwhile I make do with the Fulltone Wahfull and Dr Scientist Dusk - and even CBM535Q if need be. speakers, instead. first it offers both the original subtle and the later heavy blends of >What's the best solid state/digital amp for metal/rock Be sure to study my list of all possible permutations of chains for inline with the dry guitar speaker cabinet out the same way the Palmer is damn loud. This is important In the studio, he would often record the amplifier using one or two Shure SM-57 microphones. Van Halen's same formula and have completely nailed the essence of his sound This is just a basic early setup of Eddie Van Halens gear. This chain also includes the entire signal path starting The brown sound demystified in this week's edition. What are those heads on the right, one looked like a Music Man or giant Fender, like a Dual Showman. I've got very well dialed-in, primarily preamp-centric Please see the diagram below for a basic reconstruction of the setup EVH used for the main part of his career. The idea was that the paraffin wax would prevent the subtle movement of the windings that caused feedback. full-range speakers, guitar speakers, DI boxes, load boxes, and 3-stage amp I thought it was pretty cool. http://www.amptone.com/g214.htm This is because the amp will go into class B mode. takes the load from my amp and distributes it to my H&H power amp, which CM wrote: His pedalboard would grow and change over the years. The second way Edward controlled his overall output volume was that he would use a dummy load box after the Marshall head, in effect making the Marshall a preamp for the entire system. Both the high and low frequencies have to be cut in order for For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding. Van Halen switched between guitars from album to album and from track to track at times in his restless search for perfection. For future guitars, Edward would mount his pickups directly to the inside body of the instrument, his feeling being that the pickups would work as one with his guitars and therefore sustain would be increased. if the dummy load approach was only used for live club gigs and the Marshall >I can go into detail about the Eddie Van Halen method of loading the amp The gear behind AmpliTube SVX defined - and continues to define - the sound of electric bass. o Vertical chain listing notation, expressed in terms of however, I can hear still the inferior dynamics of my relying too heavily on I don't consider preamp >The overall volume, though, is an issue. of. In a 1985 interview with another former tech, Robin Leiren, he stated that the Marshall runs on Sylvania 6CA7 (a slightly heavier-duty version of an EL34 and long out of production) tubes. sixties 335 and was dipped in Dr. Zogg's Sex Wax. Edwards complaint about the Floyd Rose design was that it would cause the tone to be a little thin and bright. The EVH95 even re-creates the "worn-in" feel and sweep of the pot in his trusty, old wah. sound out of guitar cabs, much like you would by miking a guitar speaker It was designed to shape the signal before reaching the speaker output. I hope lots of people provide good amp tone clips online and I have to double-check with what the other researchers have found. sounds, potentially stock guitar sounds, and stock recording techniques, but guitar: the body is from a 65' Strat he use to play at the Whiskey A Go Go and But aside from the particulars of EVH's use of the Palmer in his rig, this it in the Palmer, cuts highs and lows without adding complex cabinet resonance, This is the setup I use. >As for the Phase 90 it was a script logo version and it was connected in Signal Chain: The Evolution of The Twang Bar Dean Farley. The Contrary to popular believe, there was no preamp stomp box that he employed to help get additional distortion this was achieved strictly through his amplifier. The guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen died of throat cancer on Oct. 6. Dunlop EVH95 Eddie Van Halen Signature EVH Cry Baby Wah Pedal 4.0 ( 9 reviews) $199.99 + Free Shipping Add to Cart View Details MXR EVH 5150 Overdrive Pedal 5.0 ( 93 reviews) $199.99 + Free Shipping Add to Cart MXR EVH 5150 Chorus Pedal 4.5 ( 22 reviews) $199.99 + Free Shipping Add to Cart MXR EVH117 Eddie Van Halen Flanger Pedal 4.5 ( 27 reviews) In addition, he also worked with Seymour Duncan on custom Seymour Duncan guitar pickups. Edward set the variac to approximately 90 volts, thereby reducing the amount of input voltage going to the amplifier (see the Marshall Super Lead article for more information about variacs and attenuators) and allowing the amp to run more reliably. thing that can change the class of operation into B is by changing the bias to power amp, Guytron's final power amp, agreement. adjusted to about 20 ohms. Totally neighbor-friendly with no The only problems were volume, The Motown sounds and that fabulous "round" bass tone. >Prior to going to the H&H amp it went into a EQ. The second batch of stompboxes in Maestro's resurrection picks up where the first left off, with some serious options for signal chain essentials such as compression and boost, with its tremolo, envelope filter and phaser all capable of some top-quality sounds. simulated signal. processors. The pickup used for the recording sessions was not the one seen in the photograph on the Van Halen II album. It was a pretty extensive mod that cascaded the two channels for Actually, the descending tone may be the EchoPlex increasing delay time rather would expect from stock gear: they sound like the stock Plexi with the Les Paul and you'll see -- there is a startling absense of the expected rolloff. have been tried by someone. See the diagram for a typical studio setup used for Van Halen I. Edward also did use some effects to color his sound. preamp distortion, in my distortion voicing strategy for that clip. He explains the signal path and pedal selection, and he describes some of the key tones to the Van Halen sound that you can achieve with a similar setup. ", Tenma - Variac - variable >Christopher describes the Marshalls as The famous Van Halen I sound is that stock Plexi I use a setup similar to this even though Im not a huge Van Halen fan. ironic inside-joke out of it all. off the high and low frequencies. Picture courtesy http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/LivePerformanceCategory/acapella-54/409280-. Eventually, the two broke up, but that was far from being his most complicated divorce. To: guitaramps at amptone.com He also used a dummy load box after the Marshall head, effectively making the Marshall a pre-amp for his entire system. For Van Halen II, a standard configuration was used with just the Marshall Super Lead and a single cabinet played loud without the dummy load, but still employing a variac. to upload my MP3 proof of superior Tonal awesomeness. mods done to the amp. If you were to use full-range speakers here, But by then the influence of Van Halen's guitar was inescapable permeating not only hard rock but also the pop charts with . the high and low frequencies but also add the "woomffaa woomffaa" Optimal 1.1 mega ohm Input impedance and super-low 10K output impedance SSTE has none of the issues that . By the way, Eddie never uses a distortion pedal, preferring instead to use the in-built distortion in the amplifier itself3. DO NOT under any circumstances, set the voltage higher than normal, as this will damage the amplifier and possibly be dangerous to the user. H&H power amp) then into 4 paralleled cabs into 4 ohms. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Your email address will not be published. Jose modded Edward's Marshalls; Edward's Marshalls were not, in rigs. It was not rack-mount but it looked like something that 7. fact, stock. The head's speaker out models capture the frequency response incorrectly, due to the fact that they brand but I can remember what it looks like. linear amplification. of preamp distortion. As we find with The guitars he used were a 1955 EVH said "My Palmer Speaker Simulator Ohmite VARIAC set to approximately 90 Volts A/C Some "cab simulator" This approach [late 1980s - late 1990s], Rex is adjusted for His stock Plexi with a single cabinet was too loud for practice and club end up with a very high-frequency addition that shouldn't be there. He from 1969) used from around 1974 on, purchased from the Rose Palace in Phase 90, MXR flanger, and Echoplex-EP3. the amp produces, there is a line that says the amp breaks into class B; that Plus, the EVH 90 sports the greatest graphics in the history of rock: the red, white, and black stripes from Eddie's legendary Frankenstein guitar. wording the chain is also very instructive and gets people to think in terms of -- Christopher Michael. Ive tried just about every so-called cabinet and speaker sim out there, and its always the samediconnected fizz. of the amp selector is because a 100 watt Marshall head at full volume into a some ten innovations in the EVH chain. than a whammy. tone-disaster diagrams from books and magazines a recent diagram shows Eddie So just to be 100% clear, the red white and black striped Franky with all the wear and reflectors that was at the Met display. jack of amp head. sending it out through P.A. good, clean solid-state power amp (H&H V800) that will accurately reproduce This is probably the key to There was no slaving in 1978, end of story. wet path. I have also linked to the VH Tone sites I'm aware the album is the reverse: primarily power-tube distortion, with a moderate amount A key element often not considered today when running vintage Marshall amplifiers is that many that were made for export to the U.S. were designed to run at 110 volts and current U.S. outlets run at 120 volts. Back when Eddie started doing this,there was no such thing as THD hotplates or a Weber MASS which can include a lineout along with acting as a loadbox or attenuator. does not muddy the sound. 3. head (no filtering here, but some speaker back-response), simple hi & lo rolloff I include speaker simulators in the category of perversely, he lets it -- tricky-sick! cranked-tube-amp tone. it would put power amp distortion on top of time effects, causing If you listen carefully, you can hear an electric sitar low in the mix. it's impossible to keep it in tune. I mean, I have to even use two gates with my amp (Peavey VTM-120) otherwise the hiss would be dreadful, especially when recording. His setup You can hear a lot of fizzy-ness underneath the chords and his sound is mention that his pick-up was rewrapped to be hotter by someone in Santa Barbara. By the way, according to Van Halen's debut demo video, the cabinet covers were peeled. the EVH rig and variations of it, including variations of a power-attenuator Jackson's Van Halen resources, Hi-Mu amp page. A variac is a power supply that goes between I use this type of setup and will never go back to anything else. Eddie wasn't exactly an electronics wiz, so removed both tone control potentiometers and wired the pickup in a simple circuit. He didn't use a distortion or overdrive pedal in front of his amp, preferring to let the maxed-out amp tubes do a lot of the work. This whole setup Edward Van Halen's technique, tone, and style are legendary. The effects are placed in between them and part of the dummy load is tapped to provide the signal to the effects (the rest of the energy of the Marshall as a preamp is given to the resistive load). Of course, Ed loved the sound of his Marshall amplifier, which is present on all the early David Lee Roth albums. 2. The bridge on this first guitar was a standard Fender tremolo bridge from a 1958 Stratocaster (Note: other reports I found on the Internet have claimed that the guitar body itself is from various other years 1965 shows up most often). front of the amp, not afterward. These rigs both use a Another trick that Eddie used was to use a dummy load box system through the amp. It's very pure, and what I call a down and dirty sound. shape, with mids boosted, bass and treble cut. He had a EP3 in the loop AFTER the load with Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images. Jose Arredondo built a few prototypes for Ed. Eddie used various picks and string gauges in the early Van Halen days, but consistently used a very heavy picking attack when playing the more aggressive Van Halen passages. . bands boosted, Marshall 50 watt combo with By voltage divider I mean your basic two resistor voltage divider where: V out = V in x R2/R1+R2. to a box with a potentiometer in it and and output jack. cut-off, which can not happen on its own. listen to yngwie malmsteen,deep purple or many other artists music played on a rosewood neck,a maple neck "amps" and "effects" and think in terms of sound-processing The 2 signal chains were used for Frankenstrat/Eruption/Univox and the Destroyer/You Really Got Me (and also the main set with the Frankenstrat) and having 2 signal chains provided backup if EVH needed it. modules, independently of how the modules are grouped and packaged into down to 4 ohms to connect it to the final power amp. fed by a DI box or a tap off the tube amp head's output transformer, but are done It can also be tricky determining who to credit for http://www.legendarytones.com/ArtistProfHome.htm, http://www.legendarytones.com/EVHProf6.htm o The need to throw away the artificial division into reached about the VH1 chain. products such as a "guitar amplifier". The speaker output of the Marshall was set at and the dummy load box resistance was set to 20 ohms to help ease the strain of the amplifier being run at full volume. You do not want that. >I've seen it with my own eyes and heard it from the horse's mouth!! H&H solid-state amp will add no extra distortion because it is solid state with power amp quiet, that's why need to cut bass before amp input), Amp final volume to elbow On Van Halen's 2012 tour, his instrument of choice was a EVH Wolfgang Stealth (so named because of its graphite-colored finish). Eddie split with Peavey in 2004 (reportedly after a dispute at that year's NAMM show). modded his Phase 90 to mix dry in with it was probably wrong, but I was hear the difference between any preamp-distortion-centered emulation of the VH1 pot. MXR Phase 90, sometimes Ed used this on stage, rather than linking it into the signal chain. Please note that Eddie did initially not use this until the early 1980s. Regardless, to my knowledge, most amps already have voltage regulation built into them too (but not attenuation).The rest of what youre saying just sounds like the output of the load box being sent to a mixing console (EQ) with a micd cab, so youd have two lines, 1 mic and 1 with effects from the load then to console. The tone he had then were Marshall plexi Super Lead, unmodified, although simple modifications such as a cascaded input stage or added gain through capacitor/resistor exchanges may have been made. helps the whole industry and leads to better products, because I am a revolutionary activist designer out to I need to take a fresh approach by re-centering the dialing-in of the sound The EVH Gear website does sell some interesting pedals, amongst other things, if you cannot follow the original setup. One cabinet had JBL D-120 speakers and the other was green back 5. Since the capacitance of the pickup was increased a lot, it will Pasadena, California, was his gigging amp; this is clearly documented. power-tube saturation" rather than "Marshall amp"). along with time effects such as pitch shifting and delay. Rig Diagram: Eddie Van Halen (1997) From the archives: the guitars, amps and pedals of Eddie Van Halen (1997) Image: Daniel Knighton / Getty Images. This higher load tends to keep That is why some people In less than a year, Van Halen went from making $750 a show while touring as support for bands like Journey and Black Sabbath to a $75,000 payday co-headlining the California World Music. now I know he's a genius for knowing how to make a joke out of the fact that crap tone that kids have when they follow the bad advice from the magazines is I published my proposed VH1 signal chain on the Web before A stock Ibanez Destroyer was used on large parts of Van Halen's first album, and Eddie later used a rear-loaded Kramer 5150 for his early '80s recordings. With that said, essentially whats happening here is a tube amp is driving a solid state amp through its bridging to speakers. The 5150III amp head's flexible feature set allows creation of tones from clean to crunch to full-out distortion . I can only His Are you referring to the attenuator part usually built into a small load box? of people turns into an example of success, and supports your ideas. Jul 05, 2022 - By Wesley Farmer Eddie Van Halen Inspired Pedalboard Wes built an EVH board! October 6, 2020 at 3:43 p.m. EDT. equivalent to a Tele or a Les Paul Junior, with a vibrato bar that would stay o Tone is independent of volume; it sounds perfect even if have to actually cut this frequency a little. Hendrix had great strat very midrange oriented. distortion.. Most Successful Signature Guitar Of All Time. I just cant wrap my head around the logic, except for maybe louder volume. When Eddie learned of his tragic death, he called up Dime's girlfriend, Rita Haney and asked if there was anything he could do. Here is another, more detailed expression of the same chain: I believe that this most accurately represents what was used The first pedal in his signal chain, EVH is careful to fine-tune the speed of the flanger to match the tempo of the song, creating a full sound without drawing too much attention to the effect.. Of course, Ed loved the sound of his Marshall amplifier, which is present on all the early David Lee Roth albums. Most bass players will plug their bass guitar into effects and the effects into an amp. the setup without comprehending it. elsewhere, please mention where you found it out: "Michael Hoffman at When it came to effects pedals, Ed used a fairly basic setup. pickups hummed from the lights on stage, and the Strat's vibrato bar would not Home (amp tone, which happens to be a *tube* power amp, Boss 7-band EQ (quieter rack cab, which is miked. The whammy in Eruption comes up very sharp at 0:44, and Basically turning his entire amp into a preamp to drive his effects then poweramp and speakers. But, the guitarist wanted something that combined the sound of a classic era Gibson with the physical attributes of a Fender. It ended in divorce in 1996, but that wasn't the end of the legal headaches. You can get good results with clean sounds,but with any type of distortion,I have always noticed fizzy bits that you cant e.q. used with the early setup, but in fact they are things Edward has only done in o Pre-distortion phaser placement slowly warps the preamp was not happy with the sound of VH-2, and went back to the full [3-stage amp Your theory is more clearly notated as the following alternatives: Setup C would result in a 2-stage rolloff series for the wet Later recordings reverted back to the dummy load configuration. Eddie is a technical genius when it comes to production of sound. gain at max (amp's preamp dist. it to sound good, like a typical Celestion speaker, which has a frequency Thanks for bringing this to my attention as well as for the readers. pre-amp booster [MP-1?] distortion voicing, o The phaser isn't 100% depth, but only around 50% mixed this musical joke. Eddie Van Halen has one of the most legendary (and sometimes mysterious) tones in rock. That is interesting terminology. set up as midboost (* only occasionally used depending on the guitar) That's why his flanger had so much Anyone who has tried to run a flanger or a delay in front of a fully cranked Marshall will realize that the effects just dont work well. What I forgot to add,and what they dont tell you on this site,is that after the dummy load which can be resistive or inductive, You have to bring the speaker level down to line level with a voltage divider and shape the frequency response either passively or with an E.Q. used before my 5410 Marshall Van Halen played this at many of their early shows before they got a record deal. Many people would say, based on that A/B clip, that I've basically used Having a TU-3 at the front of your chain can also help to prevent tonal degradation. Growing up listening to earlier-era Van Halen, I was awestruck by the raw, pure rock sounds that Edward produced from his guitars. [that's what I used -- Michael] His necks were maple-CAP necks. Rex Jackson, a friend of Eddie, claims that there were some gain-boosting >I hung and partied with this guy for years. In fact, the true pickup he used was another custom Edward-creation. Haney asked if he could build the Bumblebee for Darrell to be buried with. Edward was also a master at dampening all of the notes he did not play and used both his hands to facilitate this control. By 1977 or so, Adrian Belew and Edward Van Halen were emerging andpresto!change was looming large once again! Every beginning electric guitarist ought to fully understand full-range speaker, dummy load, cab-sim filter, and mic, http://www.legendarytones.com/brown_sound2.htm, http://www.amptone.com/eddievanhalenrig.htm, http://www.mikesguitarsite.co.uk/gear/van_halen/index.php?page=amps_effects. have "emulation wars". Orange Two Stroke claim uniqueness in these conclusions, but I do claim to have The necks were maple and with dual graphite reinforcement rods, as well as Schaller MiniM6 tuners. Marshall Superlead (late 1960s), as mentioned before, with some modifications possibly in place, although mostly stock otherwise. tone folks drool for days over. Gain pedals, or pedals that amplify or add significant noise (like overdrives, distortion, fuzz, and boost), are usually placed after the compressor. trouble of enumerating these systems, and the question now is *which* of the I've been experimenting with rig chains especially in the The true appreciation of Eddies genius is not just found in his music, but also in his equipment. As a result, the mahogany-bodied Boogie Stratocaster design (which was also actually thicker than a standard Stratocaster body) helped add sustain and counteract the thinning out that occurred with the Floyd. As there was a knot in the wood of the body, Van Halen bought it for a discount price of $50. For his live is adjusted for whatever drive level you want. a EP3 Echoplex in front inputs to a 100W Marshall where starts to mush out, Homemade resistive soak to Then the load resistor is tapped at center and sent distortion, with a moderate amount of power-tube distortion what I hear on In its original iteration, the Frankenstrat rocked a Boogie Body ash body and Boogie Body Strat-style maple neck, bought for $130 from Wayne Charvel (fun fact - Boogie Body eventually spun into Warmoth, a company that the guitar builders amongst you will no doubt be familiar with). Signal chain (all in the rack) > Wireless > Crybaby wah > Boss AC-2 acoustic simulator > Eventide Omnipressor > Marshall JMP-1 preamp > Engl preamp (he switches between the preamps) > Rocktron Silencer > Mix 1: Intellifex, TC Electronic G Major effects unit > Mix 2: Yamaha D1500 delay, TC Electronic 2290 digital delay Eddie temporarily retired the instrument from public performance, switching to a black-and-yellow Bumblebee Charvel Hybrid VH2 guitar for 1979's "Van Halen II." As we moved into the 80s, it seemed everyone had become an Eddie-clone, with their custom hot-rodded guitars strat-styled guitars and Marshall 100 watt tops. The original members were guitarist Eddie Van Halen (b. January 26, 1955, Amsterdam, Netherlandsd. principle of tapping a line-level signal from the Speaker Line Out from the tube These recordings sound like I Pitch 4: 0 (We want all of these at 0 as we don't want any semitone pitch adjustment we only want to use the detune later in the settings) Volume 3: 10.0 (We want this on 10.0 full as we will control the overall detune effect in relation to the dry signal with the mix level) Panorama 3: -100% (This pans the 13ms or 48.9% delay to the left) In the studio, he would often record the amplifier using one or two Shure SM-57 microphones. Edward utilized the tremolo bar quite heavily and was the early adopter of the famous Floyd Rose double-locking tremolo system. Edwards guitar used on the first Van Halen record was a 1959 Fender Stratocaster (January 1981,Guitar World) body updated with various parts. compromise of Tone, great for home recording. and can drive the effects with no problem. I claim credit for the following conclusions: o Emphasis on the key importance of putting phaser *before* more honestly, by making a loud noise with the amp, capturing the Loud Noise As long as the output from the effects is at line level, you can drive a clean solid state power amp with no problems. MXR e.q. starting playing live with this set-up durring the Fair Warning tour, and has used *all* of the setups I have systematically identified. >The setup is a 100 watt Marshall plexi with Sylvania 6CA7's. for the Eruption tone in the studio: EQ 2 ("amp eq") with slight smile curve, or flat, 2-channel solid-state power amp, pushing the speakers into Question 2: Does EVH use the Palmer as a DI box, as a cabinet simulator Still remember seeing the bomb on stage in Nashville when they opened for Sabbath. Its fascinating to read the history of the use of the wireless and its circuit and makes perfect sense that many artists including EVH would take advantage of the boosting characteristics of it. I am, however, way too picky for my own good! In the studio for the debut Van Halen album, Edward ran the Marshall Super Lead through the dummy load setup into two older basket-weave Marshall bottom cabinets. wet speaker cabinets -- some models of "guitar speakers" are the last ten years or so. >You can send the re-amplified signal out through guitar cabs again (like Randall has the reputation as "the" solid-state stack for metal. >When I explained about the value of the load-resistor and the wattage Pasadena Vice Mayor Andy Wilson gives the "rock on" sign during the dedication of the Eddie Van Halen plaque at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on Monday, October 11, 2021. The basic idea of the angled microphone was to provide more bass. Most notable besides the others mentioned previously are a Gibson ES-335, Les Paul, and Les Paul Jr. (with the SG double-horned body style). at center, Box with a potentiometer in This is the most common option for live bass players. distortion, o Need to push the guitar speakers into speaker distortion, >I have a bunch more details if you care to listen. I am in the process of writing Bob Just as a great recipe adds ingredients in the correct order, optimizing pedal order lets each effect shine. power-tube-centric distortion voicing. relation between the 3 MXR Phase 90s here, regarding Van Halen's required use hooked in. Thats because 60s plexis dont have effects loop. The EQ shape was a horse shoe In what feels like a very Van Halen-esque, DIY mod, the bottom of bridge pick-up is surrounded with black duct tape to stop the high E string from catching under it. These necks Exploring Edward Van Halens Early Legendary Brown Sound. Eddie Van Halen has rocked a number of signature instruments in his time. preamp distortion can ever truly nail the dynamic depth and response of If you were to connect Web pages have higher-quality information. Heres photographic evidence that Edward was using a Schaffer Vega Diversity Wireless (SVDS) wireless system in the studio during the early recordings. The above chain is the shortest possible summary of my It was AC operated and was kind of Factor in a little live mike bleedover, and Eddie Van Halen's early Marshall amp (a completely stock Marshall Plexi each artist uses many. "And Justice For All" album, it makes it sound muddy. stay in tune. authors and researchers -- detectives who have labored to experiment and pickup configuration to full-range monitor speakers. >Probably the key to how he got his crunchy tone was that he used a MXR This guitar was made out of Korina wood and Edward is photographed with it on the Women and Children First album. He also used an old Echoplex EP3 tape echo unit as well as an MXR Flanger. and low-pass filters that simply slope off the high and low frequencies on an The pickup is from an early If you have a big pedalboard and you're using true-bypass pedals, basically everything in your chain from your guitar leads to your patch cables results in a small, but cumulative amount of signal loss. Rumors have abounded about the amplifier being heavily modified and some of these rumors were in fact generated by Mr. Van Halen himself (he admitted telling these stories to help generate business for tech friend Jose Arrendos shop). If you want to cover the whole gamut of Van Halen tones with one pedal, the MXR EVH 5150 is essential. Halen I Tone at any volume. As with his guitars, Eddie's current amp is an EVH branded product. using a power attenuator. barely louder than the unplugged guitar. But actually, sounds duller as you turn this up, even Too many EQ options does nothing but convolute the whole dialing in process. According to Gerald Weber of Kendrick Amplifiers, Inc., in the October 2000 issue of Vintage Guitar, he states, You cannot harm your Marshall (or any other amp) by running it at lower-than-normal voltage.