I know what do you do with a 1971 quarter. BUT what to do with TWO 1971 quarters??

[indeedido]

Everyone knows when you find a 1971 quarter you are obligated to build a Frankenstrat. But what do you do when you find two of them? Hmmm, you go balls deep for some tone!

A few weeks ago I got change at the hardware store. I always look at the dates on the quarters, old habit. I got a '71. A couple days later I'm out and about and get change somewhere and low and behold another '71 quarter. This is a sign! I've been wanting to get a Marshall 1959slp RI for sometime now and have it modded. I was talking with David Bray last year but couldn't pull the trigger. I had been hanging out at the metroamp forums too watching those guys dial in their plexis for the most brown tone I've ever heard. One guy imparticular Mark. He started calling his the Mod 5. By all signs it is the most CVH out there, more so than Cameron, Jose, Fortin, Metro and Friedman. So I do my do dilligence and have finally after much research pulled the trigger. He has started his own business called Rockstah Amps.

I found a 2004 Marshall 1959slp for a good deal and sent it off to Mark. He has gotten it done and is shipping it back to me today. Here is a little clip of my amp in action. What do you think??

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=503988&songID=10800192&showPlayer=true

[Etienne]

... sounds very much like an early brown sound Marshall, authentic, wonder how does it feel to play

[VAiN]

Holy shit that sounds great, and goddamn I say - you're a fucking monster! Bravo!!

[indeedido]

I can't take credit for the clip (as much as I would like to). It was made by the guy doing to mod to give me a taste of what I was in for while he was dialing it in. His name is Mark Abrahamian. I think at one point he was the touring guitarist in Starship recently. He's out of Austin, TX and is a complete badass on the guitar. The amp is in route to me as we speak and should be here early next week. From what I've read, one of the keys to the early VH tone is lowering the filtering of the amp. It helps make it a bit more spongy. The read over at the metro forum on all of this is enough to give you a headache. Friedman and Cameron both chimed in as they have actually seen the inside of Ed's amp.

Here is the fifty cents that started it all plus the original 25 cents on my Franky. That's 75 cents worth of tone right there!

[VAiN]

I can't take credit for the clip (as much as I would like to). It was made by the guy doing to mod to give me a taste of what I was in for while he was dialing it in. His name is Mark Abrahamian.

Gotcha.. well, Mark is a hell of a player.. great sounding amp, congrats, bro!

[Hardrock69]

Right on, man!

[Hardrock69]

Due to my crummy dialup connection, the flash player would only play half a second at a time, then stop, for the entire clip.

But what I heard sounded kickass!

[jhale667]

VERY nice! I've debated with the idea of modding a reissue or just buying a kit from scratch and having it built from the ground up...THAT sounds killer, though. Standard or Mercury Magnetics transformers in the mod?

Oh yeah, and I've got like 3 1971 Quarters (besides the one I already sent to DJ a while ago)...they're not as hard to find as you think!

[Diamondjimi]

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=503988&songID=10800192&showPlayer=true

Fawwwk, that sounds fuckin amazing! Good on ya man!

Let's cut to the chase here. How much for the head & mod?

VERY nice! I've debated with the idea of modding a reissue or just buying a kit from scratch and having it built from the ground up...THAT sounds killer, though. Standard or Mercury Magnetics transformers in the mod?

Oh yeah, and I've got like 3 1971 Quarters (besides the one I already sent to DJ a while ago)...they're not as hard to find as you think!

The kits that are available have been tweaking my interest lately. Thinking about getting one. Gonna research a bit more before I do....

[indeedido]

I searched for a bit and found the head for $1000. I was going to do the 1987X 50 watter, but the 1959slp was priced the same. Plus I like the big box look. The mod was $550 including shipping back to me. Sometimes you can catch the 50 watter for a little less. I sold my Peavey 6534+ and my Ace Frehley model Epiphone so it didn't really cost me any money out of pocket. I turn most of my gear every year or part of my gear so I always have something new to meet my G.A.S.

I asked Mark about changing the PT and OT and he said nothing wrong with the stock ones in these amps so they are stock. He modded the circuit and dialed it in. Each head sounds different so he dials each one in to achieve this tone with different values of some of the caps etc. The PPIMV is the LAR/MAR and sounds awesome! Such good cranked tones down low. In fact, the clip he recorded above it was on "1". I bought a Marshall Powerbrake this week and am going to do the one wire mod to it which will make it totally transparent. That way I can start to cook the tubes and really get this thing moving. I can control the output with the PPIMV and Powerbrake. I'm going to eventually get a wet/dry setup going.