NAD: "Frankenmod" (Modded Marshall Content)

[Silverwulf]

Yes, yet another NAD thread... I give you quite the oddball of an amp, stitched together seemingly from parts spanning the late 60's to around 1978, so the legends say...by amp witch doctor Mike Fortin that brought the beast to life. I give you..."Frankenmod"...







Frankenmod started life as a 1978 Marshall Super Lead, CSA (Canadian) model...according to the serial number. The interesting thing is the anomalies it has, which seems to be commonplace with Canadian models. Uncharacteristic layouts, random parts from much earlier models, etc. One Marshall fanatic noted the head shell looks to be from a late 60's model, who knows?

From there, it was off to Mike Fortin for initially what he calls his "Cali" Mod. This is also unique - relatively speaking - as far as Cali Mod's go. First off, it's the first and only 2 Channel Cali Mod. The front has the typical Cali Mod features, where as the back left features controls for a fully independent clean channel with it's own Treble, Mids, Bass, Gain and Volume knobs...with a Pull Bright feature. The channels are switchable in via a standard tip/ground footswitch via a jack located on the back. Beside it is Fortin's tube buffered FX Loop that's switchable from Series to Parallel.

The next somewhat unique feature is the transformer in it. Unlike most 70's Super Leads with typical transformers and running around the 450v plate voltage range, this one comes equipped with a "lay down" transformer (ala earlier models) that has it's own thermal fuse in it (odd, I know). Along with that, when Mike measured the plate voltage, it wasn't reading 450v-ish like one would expect. Instead, it's measuring out around 520v! To my understanding, that hasn't been typical since the late 60's and possibly very early 70's models. Just another oddity giving it a unique twist. From random parts (notice the switches, one old school plastic and one later metal toggle), a lay down transformer and running at 520v, a serial number from '78, a configuration more akin to the early 70's, a head shell speculated possibly from the late 60's...and you have "Frankenmod." It has minor swaps from there...was recently recapped I believe with F&T, Mike installed a new impedance selector switch to get rid of the old faulty one, the red light was replaced with a Fender style jewel lamp, fully retubed, etc.

The 520v actually lends a different vibe to the amp, in Mike's words makes it more "alive." It also lends to more output wattage, probably running somewhere between 120W to 150W.

[Drew]

Wow, that's pretty damned cool. How about more pics? I can't for the life of me figure out what all those back panel knobs are.

[James]

The clean channel controls on the back is actually kinda cool lateral thinking to cope with the lack of space.

[technomancer]

Damn that is awesome! I've got a 2203 at Mike's now for a Cali. How's the clean channel on this?

Drew, you need to get your eyes checked son First 5 knobs on the back are channel controls (gain, volume, bass, mid, treble) next two are send and return volumes on the loop and the last one is a depth knob.

[Silverwulf]

Originally Posted by James

The clean channel controls on the back is actually kinda cool lateral thinking to cope with the lack of space.

Yeah, and notice the volume and gain are are slightly off towards the corner. That's intentional so you can adjust them on the fly with a "reach around" (haha) without having to look behind the amp.

[Drew]

Ahh, I didn't notice you could enlarge the pics. I could catch the preamp channel and now can make out the send/return and depth.

What's the other stuff? The big black thing looks like it reads "California Mod," but no clue on the others.

[technomancer]

Originally Posted by Drew

Ahh, I didn't notice you could enlarge the pics. I could catch the preamp channel and now can make out the send/return and depth.

What's the other stuff? The big black thing looks like it reads "California Mod," but no clue on the others.

Big black thing is the ohm selector for the speaker hookup... At a guess the rest the things are speaker outs, line out, fuses (though usually a line out would also have a volume control so not sure on that).

[Silverwulf]

There's standard issue controls, though the OD channel has a Gain 1 and Gain 2 that work together. There's a push pull for "Tight" and "Spongy" type settings. There's a toggle switch to select different bright cap values and a saturation switch that selects the level of clipping (none up to guillotine style), etc. There's standard controls on the back for the clean...Treble, Mids, Bass, Volume and Gain...with a Pull Bright switch. A Depth knob for the sub-lows, a jack for a footswitch to change the channels, a tube FX Loop that switches series or parallel with send and return levels, etc. I'm probably missing something, haha.

[noodles]

Oh, shit, I gotta play this! You guys still over at Bob's?

[eelblack2]

That is extremely YES.