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Stormhenge SuperThump
  • So, as some of you know, aside from film and video production, I also produce and engineer music. In that endeavor, finding it hard to get the guitar tone I wanted, I decided to build my own amp. It's based on Eddie Van Halen's classic "Magic Marshall" the 1967 Marshall SLP "Plexi" with a couple of custom circuits added. I don't know yet if I'm going to accept commissions to build these in any commercial sense. - for now, just for myself and my friends. But since I know there are tons of musicians on this site as well, I figured I'd share.

    Shot with an unhacked GH2, kit lens, and lit with a clip on 40watt desk lamp clamped to mic stand, and a couple of hanging lamps in the rafters of the garage. No Color Correction. Sound recorded with a Shure SM57, through an old Mackie 12 channel board into a Tascam DR07 mp3 recorder. (The hum is me pushing up the gain in post on the amp mic so we can hear Bryan talk.)

    It's hard to see cuz it's hiding behind Bryan... but it's not much to look at for now. Still in a generic cabinet.

    I had Bryan's mic turned off, and was starting to break everything down after wrapping up a pedal demo for Cusack Music. Without realizing it I left the camera and amp mic on while Bryan decided to jack into the SuperThump proto and fool around.

    Les Paul Standard direct into the amp, reverb added in FCP X.

    The "F...all this... and that" Bryan is referring to is his entire pedal board and the DSL behind him that he normally plays through.

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  • 11 Replies sorted by
  • @shian Holy Shit..You build guitar amps? Where have you been all my life! Seriously it's sounds really good!

  • Great! What do the switches above first three pots do?

  • @inqb8tr reroutes the signal through the extra circuits. One is a Jose Arredondo mod to one side, the other a Cameron Doug Aldrich mod, and the other 2 switches are different bright/gain circuits in different gain stages. All with center bypass

    I'll be adding another switch for the resonance control - to select between 2 different kinds of caps.

  • 2 favorite amps of all time. The Plexi and JCM800.

  • and now add to that - my Mod of the popular DSL into a DSL MAX - [Mean And eXtremely clean]

  • It's nice to hear what happens when you pair up excellent equipment with excellent players.

  • The SuperThump can create almost any tone... just by adjusting the volume knob and or PU selector. [guitar straight into the amp, no pedals in front. Plate reverb and tape delay in the loop]

  • My buddy Bryan played my prototype and begged me to build him one, so I built the first full "production model" SuperThump for him. This was his first day testing it out before I built the case for it. [Fuzz switch engaged - which is a gain stage circuit alteration for a Hendrix type tone with a little Van Halen ooomf]

    The 3rd knob is the Master Volume...so you can see this is at bedroom volume. 1 and 2 are gain's one and two.

    (I also built his guitar, cuz stock just doesn't cut it for me. And so I built my own axe. Again Bryan played it and begged me to build him one.)

  • And finally, all the golden goodness in one video. And be on the lookout for the article about me, and my crazy modification obsession in Make Magazine next week.

    [Shot on GH4, V-log, Speedbooster, 50mm Nikon 1.8, lit with my old reliable arri 650 and a 2foot off the shelf flo bar, and posted in FCP-X]

  • So, not next week, but like 2 months later...the article finally comes out. (I could have taken more time with the video instead of rushing it out. Dammit)

    https://makezine.com/2021/01/27/building-a-brown-sound-amplifier-inspired-by-eddie-van-halen/

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  • Congratulation shian!!! Mission acomplished.