EVH at Kens shop in the 80's

[Plexified]

Hey Gang ,
I posted this on the gear page tribute to Ken thread and thought I would copy it here as well . I typed out quickly and edited it as quickly in hindsight with some added space or paragraphs to read easier as it was apparently a tough read initially for them . Just thought it was a snapshot that was never talked about ... David




Ken was an integral part of my love of music and EVH was a huge impact on my love of guitar as was Randy from Ozzy and eventually Zach Wylde or Jeff as he was one of my mates as a kid . Shoveling snow and mowing lawns with dreams of Les Pauls and Marshalls . I took a job at the Kramer factory in the 80's and became great friends with Paul DeCeasare who ran the artist endorsement department at Kramer . Here Paul was the liason with all the big talent and a great mind in vintage and everythhing EVH . He was commissioned by Edward to buy vintage Marshalls , clean and mean all day long to deliver to Ed . He was also a great friend and client of Kens .

He introduced me to the maestro and we spent many a day in the basement with Marshall after Marshall to look over and tweak . The pics that Darko had presented of Ken with Eds axe are so cool , it brings back so many memories. Paul was a larger than life fellow with the best spirit and knowledge let alone skills to play . He was playing a 50 watt JMP four hole with the german Groove Tubes #2 tuned by Ken that was amazing . Ed wanted it of course , but it was the Asbury Park Press and Plexi's @ 500- 750$ for days with matching 4X12's that were in order here . Ed had such a bird dog captain at his side it was not even funny . Paul bought them all , and they went through Ken every time . Ken was a repair while you wait kind of person his skills were that bad ass .

Ed was definately their a monstrous amount of times and Paul was imbedded in the heartbeat of the New Jersey Music scene all through the 80's and early 90's until Kramer left us . The amps Ken built were a labor of love in comparisson to the amps he got back on their feet . It didn't matter if it was a PA for a local bunch of kids or the big guys in the day . Captain Ken Dubman was one of the greatest that comes to mind . Ken and Captain Dubman put together a huge Babe Ruth moment back in those days that was epic . The guys at Marshall with Richie Fliegler had a contest for the best blues player contest to celebrate the reissue of the Marshall Bluesbreaker and the prize was a brand new proto Les Paul Flametop and a Bluesbreaker combo as the top prize and Trainwreck threw down the gauntlet and said he would win it hands down with Captain Kenny Dubman . Done . He absolutely won the contest with a nicely green stained Tele that Dubman owned and with a Marshall set up for the ages that Trainwreck tuned and set up . Unreal .

In the New Jersey area Kenny Dubman was the bomb . He had guys like Dave DiPitro from TT Quick and Jeff Wylant from Zyrus who became Zach Wylde with Ozzy playing together all day long . While guys like Bob Speck from Zenon and Hiroshi Yagi and BB and the Stingers were all playing Wrecks to the masses all season long and it was the golden ages at a club called Birch Hill and a place called the Playpen that Art Stock ran . So Ken knew a tune or two times ten . Ken had empirical testing going on where he would have blind listening tests where people from the neighborhood would be asked to judge sounds and tonal comparissons to give unbiased opinions ! Family , kids from the neighborhood and anyone that could help here . No internet back then or sound clips , just a curtain and an opinion . So cool to think of all the folks he helped in a pinch and most waited in the shop while he performed the work ! Nuked Fenders , Hot Marshalls and Everybody in the know was his client . Not to take away from great guys like Dave from Daves Sound in Whippany and others that did fabulous work ( to this day ) but they were his friends too .

Dubmans set up was a 100 watt master volume as the slave to a 50 watter Ken tuned up as the main show that played night after night as Dubman played with Prophet or his cover gig as Edgar Cayce for years . Ken was tubing 100 watt Marshalls with 6v6 tubes and voicing them to Van Halen I as an example and when Ken said 'Hot Marshall' he wasn't kidding . One night Dubman was ripping as usual and he had his 100w loaded with 6550's melt a tube . When I say melt a tube . Ken described the event as the tube was so hot it melted the glass and the vaccuum sucked the tube into itself , it imploded . It went on to play in half power mode through the set , but his safegaurds kept it alive through such a crazy event . Was pretty cool . Same night Dave Dipetro from TT Quick had his prized Les Paul Custom , black of course fell off the guitar stand , pulled from a cord and broke the headstock . Zach had a limo pull up not too long after to suck him off to play with Ozzy and left us from the Kramer factory at that time , but Paul continued to buy great Plexi amps for Kenny to check out . EVH loved Ken believe it or not . He was a case of Wild Turkey and a carton of Marlboro reds back then and I really believe a treasure trove of Trainwreck tuned Marshalls reside in his stable to this day . Many were recorded , and many were shopped out to other techs to see what they could offer . Complicating what the discussion on the EVH metro boards forever chased in our discussions .

Joe Taylor had a flagship Plexi Super Trem that had german 34's with china man tube retainers that was the ultimate . Paul found that amp for him and I could not throw enough C notes at him to sell it after he heard it through my Ampeg V4 with vintage pre rola 25s in it minus the insulation . He made an about face and I was Kicking myself forever doing that demo , destructo deal . EVH , in Kens basement , how cool is that . It doesn't stop .

I had ventured to do an extensive documetary on Ken and when the family decided to do what they have done really threw me for a loop and I have been a deer in headlights ever since . Milo was an integral part as is Hogy but I cannot to this day find the light to rekindle this project because of the 'new' direction that to me comes from left field . I cannot find a deciding factor that determines that Ken would want the name to go on as it has . His nickname was Trainwreck and his life became Trainwreck . How can that specifically go on ? No body has jumped forward except maybe Chris Merren with the expertise on Transformer knowledge alone . Chris was instrumental more than 15 years ago in design and the reserection of the iron . Not just spec sheets , but the actual winding and the understanding of such things as grain orientation and the quality of copper and winding reason . Albion alone is a buzz word that gets the juices flowing regarding design . The best Vox iron OT but it rusted from the inside out , why ? The power transformer , the most overlooked component and why ! Slew rates and concept aside , why ? So old school guys like I have mentioned like Bob Wood and family expereince fall by the wayside to spec sheets and reverse engineering . Fix enough of the inherent problems and you master them , see the promise and create the solutions in what becomes a resonant issue . Up to and including the wood chosen to enclose the solution . Hard to imagine to all of us , but not at all more obvious to the masters . It takes alot of time and experience and I find it very hard to swallow that just because you have a seat at the helm you can build and lets be honest clone a mans lifes work in a week , year or even a lifetime . Without the internet go ahead and build that REAL knowledge and create , freely , without limitations , owe it to no one and be yourself . The phylum guitar amp is a box . Get outside it and be your own person , with new things to offer and then you may be able to digest the genious . Not just compare a build sonically to a soundcheck . Make it your own .

[Colossal]

Really great story man. Thanks a lot for sharing it.

[Bob S]

Very Cool - Thanks for sharing.

[Littlewyan]

Thanks Plexified

[Progear]

Very nice ....

[rooster]

That was a good read, Plexified. Thank you!

[MFuzzheimer]

Plexified, I really enjoyed reading that post (and I'm not even a EVH or hard rock afficianado)

[Mark]

Albion alone is a buzz word that gets the juices flowing regarding design .

I'm not sure I agree with this. I have played Vox AC-30 with Albion transformers and I liked them, but the folks at Mercury Magnetics much prefer the Haddon and Woden transformer sets over the Albions. I think they refer to the Albion transformer sets as Vox meets Plexi, I've heard other people complain they are too bright.

This amp has a Mercury Magnetics Woden transformer set in it. Not a great clip of the amp though. I have played a similar amp and it was vintage AC-30 all the way, and I've played quite a lot of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0XOCGGsT8o

[Clyde]

I'd have to agree Mark. I built a Vox style awhile back with the MM Albion as I was wanting more grind and wound up taking it out because of the upper midrange presence which was a little overbearing. Since it was under the board, the board had to be unwired and removed, ton of work. I've since found another application for this iron that sounds killer.

[Mark]

The vintage Vox's with Albion transformers I played had a good overdriven sound, but the Woden has the cleans and a pretty good overdriven sound to boot.

[RJ Guitars]

Thanks Plexified, It was reassuring to see Chris Merrin's name mentioned... I've had several history exchanges with Derek Ferwerda through the days and he always refers to Chris as having a significant part in the TW transformer history... It's great to get a little more authentic Trainwreck history as well as some more technical insight as to how everything works together. rj

[Mark]

No body has jumped forward except maybe Chris Merren with the expertise on Transformer knowledge alone . Chris was instrumental more than 15 years ago in design and the reserection of the iron . Not just spec sheets , but the actual winding and the understanding of such things as grain orientation and the quality of copper and winding reason .

Names such as Derek Ferwerda I'm sort of familar with, but I can't work out where Chris Merren fits into the events. Ken used Stancor transformers then Pacific transformers. Did Chris Merren work for Pacific?

[Plexified]

Hi Mark ,
yeah its a very good question . Chris was heavily bitten with the vintage bug too and as an extremely competent engineer he spent his lifetime collecting the vintage build spec sheets and reverse engineered them all . Ken most don.t realize had an extensive knowledge of magnetics and his parts box or treasure trove was immense from all the repairs and custom solutions or modifications . He turned to the parts on hand as does a master chef in the kitchen to create a flavor . The guy had preferences for the date of manufacture of a plate or a getter in a tube or the person that assembled it . Chris applied his knowledge in his own persuit which was hired by the likes of Nasa to really find out what was going on . Thats why I mentioned the scrutiny of metals , grain orientation of the aforementioned , tensions , geometry , thermal and flat out mistakes discovered in the origional irons to create and understand all the spices in the recipe. (sp?) Thats why I even mentioned ALbion . Ken was a Vox master that loved a "hot Marshall". Not to say it was the best in a Vox , but he found something in it that he gravitated and ran with . I so wish we could have had him write the how and whys of alot of what he did but it was so master chef , it was a norm for him . I should have said 30 plus years regarding Chris , but I was just bangin on the keys . If you can stop and think of all the flavors in a PAF considering everone that winds them these days , Transformers have a similar relationship . The most overlooked is the power transformer really . Spend some time thinking about copper gauge wire alone and tension and it gets realy fun . Cheers , David

Oh and I would say its fun to ponder where Ken really started from with a build because a part would be injected for effect . Sometimes simply because he liked a design and lineage like Dynaco St 70 . He was a why does this sound good here in this design and where could I use this spice down the road kind of guy . Cooking is the best analogy I can think of as I love to cook and reverse engineer a five star meal and get into the nuts and bolts of why its so good . Hope that kinda makes sense and helps a bit .

[Mark]

Thanks for your reply. I find the time line a little difficult to follow at times. I remember there was another guy who claimed to make greenback clones for Ken too. Do you remember him and what he did for Ken?

The last I heard he was working on an Altec clone. I haven't heard from him since though.

[Plexified]

Mark , offhand I am not aware of that in particular , but I can dig around a little . I have a company in the heartland that is very dedicated to altec lansing and JBL and recreates many of their models and are all significant engineers from the origional factories that spun off to create their own company . I say that because they have exact recreations of the H1777's from what I remember . The same ones stock in VT-22 Ampegs and the ones Randy Rhoades used . I have to dig around in my notes a bit to pull it up . I think this weekend I can get to it . Keep in mind Ampeg V-4 cabinets actually came loaded with these silver dustcap monsters . And that is one hell of a great sounding cabinet . It is THE heaviest 4x12 I can think of , as well as one of the best sounding . 100+ lb cabinet ! very rare but I would call it a holy grail if you can find one in good shape . I would venture to say their may be less than 100 in the world today . The speakers always get pulled out of those cabs and the ones doing the pulling were not thinking about the cabinet . I think a cork seal is necessay on these front loaded cabinets as well as a mindfull thought of torquing the screws carefully not to distort the frame . Any front loaded cab for that matter could use a cork gasket . The idea of a raw frame on wood is an opportunity to improve and protect . Great stuff . If Ken did have a guy make hime recreations of the greenbacks Ken would be the last guy in the world I would want to do it for . Just because he would have been such a stickler . Michael Doyle unleashed the numbers on the cones in his history of marshall book but Ken was always talking cone numbers and where the material was sourced to make the cones . It was really sick . I was just like , really ? just like the internal tube parts , I was always like , really ? you can hear that . To me it was just very , very hard to imagine . But an NHRA pro stock engine builder trying to make 2000 naturally aspirated horsepower out of a 500 cubic inch displacement motor has me doing the same . In racing thousands of a second or inch in the game is just what it takes to get there . But those Altec guys I think are the guys , I will report back soon , Regards , David