What did Eddie use...

[jeff300]

Re: What did Eddie use...

Originally posted by horns666:
Variac turned down to 90 volts

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I was re-reading this thread, and I saw something I missed. Can you explain what this is, and what it does? Thanks.

[charvelguy]

Re: What did Eddie use...

It controls voltage from 0-130 volts..some go higher (UK). Plug it into the wall and plug an amp into it and it will control the amount of voltage going to the amp.

Techs in audio repair use it when testing equipment. They bring up the voltage slowly to see if anything blows before a voltage spike takes out the fuse and maybe something else which would require more work. Some units..you use it to control voltage going to your amp to be a consistant setting. (steady 110v)

Essentially, from what I understand, it is used to control plate voltage past the point of bias.
(to encourage tube breakup and control volume)

How Eddie used it... well he's misled some in his articles in GP into thinking he used a light dimmer initially..or a variac. He would crank it up past 120v to get a hot sound, "watch the tubes melt". He may have done this in experimentation and most likely anyone who read that article and wanted to cop "his" sound risked frying their amp.

Usually, how the "brown" sound is achieved is voltage is turned down to (90v) to starve the output section into early breakup at lower volumes..
It's a nasty unit if you use it incorrectly. It can shorten the life of your tubes and possibly your amp as well.

Aspen Pittmann (groove tubes) says "don't".
Personally.. I do not have an issue with using it on my amp in a 100v operation until I read more about the in's and out's of using it.

And yes..I used the flanger on those notes..

[ July 28, 2003, 11:38 PM: Message edited by: charvelguy ]

[charvelguy]

Re: What did Eddie use...

It's possible..I've never seen Gilmore but some Ocilloscopes do come with a variable power supply (a variac)
best way to see the various ones available to you is to look on a place like eBay.

Ocilloscope

Eddie used a more basic unit (I forget which brand, but I believe it was an ohmite)
But it looked something probably more like this
Variac

Some have a VU meter on them which can be nice.
I think Blues Saraceno is using a Variac in his REH video if I'm not mistaken. think his Dad built it into the face of one of the Dirty Boy amps.

Personally I would use a 12-20 amp (at least a 10amp) and with a VU just to be on the safe side of having one that is heavy duty. I have one, but I have yet to try it with any of my heads.. tho someday I will as I am planning on getting into more repair work with electronics. I just need to read more about it.

If you fry your amp because of this, I'm not responsible. [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ July 29, 2003, 09:05 PM: Message edited by: charvelguy ]

[jeff300]

Re: What did Eddie use...

Charvelguy, if you've ever seen David Gilmour play (the guitarists who play with Roger Waters in his solo shows use it too), he has this device in his rig which looks to me like an ocscilloscope. Is this a variac?
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