EVH's "Brown" Sound...How?

A significant testing delay occurred when my daughter gave birth to grandchild #11... a healthy baby girl named Rosalie. Some interruptions you just don't mind. :)

Ok, ear plugs in place, test 1 was conducted. I unhooked the Ox Box and all its paraphernalia from the loop. 50 watt HXDA, straight to 2x12 cabinet, dB meter approximately one meter from front of cab. Master dimed. HXDA Gain about noon, Bass Gain about 9 o'clock, DA/HX/DA on switches, 594 Soapy as tester. The first tests I had the meter on C Weighting, which I don't pretend to understand, though I know A Weighting is supposed to be tilted towards the human hearing spectrum. I tried both and, although the actual numbers differed, the difference caused by the voltage drop to 90 VAC was the same... 6 dB. I used the opening lick from "Adam's Apple" by Aerosmith as it has a combination of single notes and chords and ends in a sustaining open G that is one of the best Marshall karang chords in existence.

C Weighted (I think this is normal dB), 117 VAC
120 dB on the sustained G

Same settings, regulated to 90 VAC
114 dB on the sustained G

A Weighting showed the same range, but the top was 113-114 dB

So, that gives good evidence that the Variac cuts volume significantly* when VAC is lowered about 25%. I did not attempt any re-biasing, the only thing changed was the voltage.

* "Significantly" will still make you deaf or get you fired in my neck of the woods. Definitely quieter, tone still great. But still loud. Real loud. But if you aren't diming the master and just need to shave some off the dB level, you'd be there.

Impression #1, Ed was right, and it does work. It would probably be even more effective on a 100 watt amp. It still sounds great, but I wasn't removing my ear plugs to get an accurate bare eardrums comparison. I like hearing. I will need to set up a recording to compare. Ear-plugged and all, it sounded great both ways, and was concussively punchy untethered. It is absolutely clear why people like to play this way. :)

Is it better than an Ox Box? No, no contest there. But at about 18% the price of entry, it might be a good option! I will do some more "turned down" tests and see what's what there.
 
A significant testing delay occurred when my daughter gave birth to grandchild #11... a healthy baby girl named Rosalie. Some interruptions you just don't mind. :)

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Congrats on the grand daughter! Hoping you played this during your testing...............


 
Congrats on the grandchile' ! Cool report on the Variac. I'll be really interested to hear how the next round goes, as you drop into the 80s. :)
 
...So, that gives good evidence that the Variac cuts volume significantly* when VAC is lowered about 25%. I did not attempt any re-biasing, the only thing changed was the voltage...

...Impression #1, Ed was right, and it does work. It would probably be even more effective on a 100 watt amp. It still sounds great, but I wasn't removing my ear plugs to get an accurate bare eardrums comparison. I like hearing. I will need to set up a recording to compare. Ear-plugged and all, it sounded great both ways, and was concussively punchy untethered. It is absolutely clear why people like to play this way. :)

Rick, just a heads-up...early on, Eddie used a 100W Marshall with 2 power tubes pulled and re-biased plus the Variac so as to reduce the volume level but add saturation...thought you'd like to know this just in case you were doing the EVH thing in its entirety...
 
Rick, just a heads-up...early on, Eddie used a 100W Marshall with 2 power tubes pulled and re-biased plus the Variac so as to reduce the volume level but add saturation...thought you'd like to know this just in case you were doing the EVH thing in its entirety...
Thanks! I didn’t know he pulled tubes. In total transparency, I’m not really chasing Ed’s sound exactly, just having fun chasing a few of his discoveries to honor his passing. Ed was notorious for blowing things up, which isn’t a part of his tone chasing I’d like to replicate. Voltage fluctuations are a relatively safe portion of his sonic path I can join him on. The funny thing is that any guitarist who is a big EVH fan seems to know immediately what the Variac is. The man made big changes on what can constitute guitar gear!
 
Thanks! I didn’t know he pulled tubes. In total transparency, I’m not really chasing Ed’s sound exactly, just having fun chasing a few of his discoveries to honor his passing. Ed was notorious for blowing things up, which isn’t a part of his tone chasing I’d like to replicate. Voltage fluctuations are a relatively safe portion of his sonic path I can join him on. The funny thing is that any guitarist who is a big EVH fan seems to know immediately what the Variac is. The man made big changes on what can constitute guitar gear!

Yup. Ovibos in post #2 showed this in the article below. And , yeah, Eddie's basement was littered with blown speakers and burnt tubes, the tubes specifically because the lowered AC wore them out more quickly.

https://www.premierguitar.com/articles/28272-signal-to-noise-the-brown-sound

Here's also a vid of Pete Thorn scoping out EVH's tone and rig...it's a bit lengthy, but dives deep into EVH's tone...FTR, I got thru about 30 minutes before my head began spinning...lots of tech info here that's a bit difficult to digest...

 
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You gotta just dig Pete's music room. He's got some of the stuff that's been on my radar for some years now. Though being realistic, I'd have no place to put all the gear Pete has in my space, it's OK to dream a little. Only issue with Pete's vid is it includes a lot of info. One can easily overthink this, but might not need to...
 
You gotta just dig Pete's music room. He's got some of the stuff that's been on my radar for some years now. Though being realistic, I'd have no place to put all the gear Pete has in my space, it's OK to dream a little. Only issue with Pete's vid is it includes a lot of info. One can easily overthink this, but might not need to...
Pete also points out many of the things provide subtle differences. The eq pedal(much easier to digest if you don’t wanna get into the ultra technical stuff), gives a more noticeable difference right away. I found the video interesting and well done even though I don’t have much interest in trying to capture the brown sound. I like the deep dive stuff when it comes to analog gear. Deep dive into the AxeFx Ultra I had years ago was tedious and annoying to me.

Problem with all of Pete’s gear is he makes it all sound awesome. Most mortals won’t accomplish such things!:D
 
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