Ronnie Le Tekro’s Amps and Effects

Mids!

In part 1, we learned that Ronni Le Tekro prefers pickups with Alnico 5 magnets. Seems odd that Ronni would use A5 pickups if he loved mids so much, but he more than made up for any “lost” mids with his amp and effects setup….

Amps

For amps, seems he used modded 1970s master vol JMP heads. There appears to be some ambiguity on exactly how the heads were modded. For example:

> Someone on harmony-central posted this: “This was given to me by someone who used know Ronnie: 1978 50w Marshall heads with master volume, modded for more midrange…not gain.”

There's the JMP....

> Someone else posted: “[Ronnie] has said recently that his amp was modded for less gain. There is a video on the International Guitar Academy where Ronni runs through his gear and he plays his favorite late ’70s JMP 2204 without his pedals after saying it’s ‘modded for less gain’…. I think that his amp may have been modded in the preamp section for better ‘clarity’ or something like that which when translated from his Norwegian tech to Ronni’s English maybe becomes ‘less gain.’ He used to say his amps were modded for more midrange, which I can believe….”

So it appears the amps were modded for less gain and possibly more midrange – which may be confirmed by a liner note on the Tell No Tales album, which apparently says (I ditched all my vinyl a while back) that the Marshalls were modified by Johnny Jelstad from Trondheim, and the mods were “less distortion on the preamp tubes.”

Also:

> He apparently prefers National Electronics EL34 tubes. No longer made, but seems Ronni bought a bunch of them way back when and has plenty.

> His 4×12 Marshall cab(s) apparently was loaded with Celestion G12H30s, 30-watt speakers that have more in common with Greenbacks than V30s.

Effects

Between the guitar and the amp were effects that both pushed the front end of the amp and added MORE MIDS! Here’s what various posts said about that:

> Roland Space Echo before the amp to hop up mids and add gain.
> Modded Boss OD-1 before the amp, modded to roll off the highs.
> Boss BF-2 Flanger
> Boss CE-2 Chorus
> possibly Ibanez or Crybaby wah, DigiTech Whammy II, Boss SD-2 (dual overdrive pedal)

The two main influences to his tone here seem to be the OD-1’s mids, and the flanger – which was not used as a flanger, but as a mid boost and/or compressor. One user posted: “It’s the flanger that acts like the EQ in order to get that midrange hump. How he figured that out is beyond me. All knobs to the left except Manual, which is all the way to the right.”

According to one poster, Ronnie pots the OD-1 last in the chain, which, if so, is unusual.

> Some said that on the Tell No Tales album, Ronni’s guitar was processed with an Eventide SP 2016 reverb, Roland SRV 2000 reverb and a Korg Digital delay for yet more reverb.

More

> Somehow I tripped over this quote from Zakk Wylde: “Ronnie Le Tekro is where I got all the pings from. Ronnie Le Tekro is the man.” I’d always figured he got those pings from John Sykes.

Category: Boss/Roland, Celestion speakers, DigiTech, Dunlop/Cry Baby, Eventide, Ibanez effects, Marshall, Ronni Le Tekro/TNT, Zakk Wylde