Ultimate Rhoads

well when you crank a marshall like his (i have a vintage jmp) it distorts quite a lot, not enough for stuff he does, but if you add a tad of drive to it, itll have enough. it would make no sense to stack the overdrive with a d+ the noise level would be insanly high. (the static comming from the amp because of stacking pedals) there would be no reason for it and wouldnt use it. If that truley is a od-1 he is either using it w/o the mxr d+ or in case the d+ battery dies. but he explains his pedalboard to the fans in his '82 interview and he doesnt mention it. and ive seen close up pics of his pedalboard without it. if he used it, it would only be for a short period of time, and rarely would turn it on.

look at this picture. that looks like it. but its not a od-1. it looks like its yellow, similar shape... but definatly not the od-1. its on top of his space echo on the table...

and in the first photo you can clearly see that at day on the green he didnt have it.

Oh, so maybe it was because people don't turn their amps up all the way (Does using a powerbrake take some of the distortion out too??)

Yeah, it would create an insanely high amount of noise. Unless he had it on minimal distortion settings, just to add a slight bit of "kick" to it or something..

After a while, I think he ditched it and grabbed another Marshall head, cause in some pictures he has four heads, where as in the earlier pictures he only has three. The whole time he only has 6 cabinets also, so he would have needed to slave it or something.

At the day on the Green show, he has four amps, not his "usual" three. So, that may be why.

well he hides his other heads and cabs behind the others trust me. he probably had 3 on and the rest off... ive talked to a few touring artists, the ones who arnt yngwie malmsteen carry a few to use and a few in case some breaks. yngwie carrys around marshalls whole factory with him.

even if both had the distortion all the way down the noise just from running the pedals at that high volume would be uncontrollable.

the eq was to add a kick, along with the volume pedal. remember he true bypassed his pedals through his board and although the eq didnt have a on off switch the true bypass loop did.

sorry guys i think i debunked this one...

and i dont think he used a powerbreak... not even sure if they made them then... but a powerbreak isnt too good for your amp, get a higher quality attenuator... but even at that a powerbreak wouldnt take away distortion really...

and he probably did, from my recalling the shows were LOUD... now the volume comes from the pa system but ive seen pictures of him not micing his amps... so most probably his amps were really realy LOUD!

i dont see a mic really... cept maybe maybe at the bottom right of his amp on the left... but that doesnt look too much like a mic...

anyone have any better pics of his amp cabinets to see if theyre miced i have so many pics that itd take hours to find one thats good haha

No way he didn't mic his amps live, maybe early on at some of the smaller venues, but I would doubt that also, any of the shows where a soundboard tape exists would nearly about have to have a mic'ed signal going through the board, or you would barely hear the guitar. There were a few powerbreaks around back then, I know Tom Scholz from Boston used "powersoaks" as he called them, but I doubt Randy ever used one live. Too many people who know more about his pedal set-up than me so I can't comment on that, I do remember Bernie Torme mentioning that at some point Randy's cabinets were side-stage rather than right behind him so he could hear better. Don't remember where I saw that interview but he did say that, I know Jake did that also when he was with Ozz. By the way Eagle, what year is your JMP, great amps, that's what Doug Aldrich uses ( a 71' and a 73',albiet very modified) and they sound great.

i have probably an exact year randy did... a 78 non master jmp... im sure randy had a plexi, but mostly 70s jmps... his white one would be one of the last jmps a 1980 one. and he probably had one dating very close to 78 is not a 78.

yeah thats probably true they did mic him, but i highly doubt he used a powerbrake.

yeah i remember reading randy side staged his amps put them in all different places... which wouldnt make sense if he was miced...

Were the Altec speakers he used known for their break-up (like greenbacks) or were they clean like the EV's that Jake prefereed? I think I remember reading where they sounded "brighter", but am not sure about that.

im not sure. i only know randyu switched because they were less noisy. but the distortion diff in them would be negligible. a cranked marshall(s) is gona have tons of breakup

Here's the spec sheet for the Altecs Randy used http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/vintage ... _sheet.pdf

Thanks for the info Ritchie, you to Eagle. They (Altec) remind me of the old Peavey Black Widow speakers, huge magnet and voice coil, absolutely no break-up and you couldn't break them with a sledge-hammer, lol!!!!

yeah they made good speakers... i guess they dont break up but trust me at his volume itll distort

Yea those older Marshalls were all about "power-tube" distortion and the more you crank them the better they sound. The guys at Peavey told me that Eddie Van Halen has very little higher frequency hearing left from all those years of cranking his Marshalls up. It makes sense that a speaker like an Altec would match up to that well, of course guys like Eddie like Greenbacks because of the way they break-up. God, I could talk about guitar tone all nite!!