Peavey EVH 5150 - Lead preset

Verified · 92/100 confidence. Complete schematic. All component values readable. Parameters derived directly from the circuit.

The Peavey EVH 5150 was co-designed by Eddie Van Halen and Peavey's James Brown, and when it landed in 1991 it put the brown sound — that tight, saturated, percussive high-gain attack — into a production amp for the first time. The Lead channel runs five cascading 12AX7 gain stages through a switchable effects loop before hitting four 6L6s, producing a tone that tracks fast palm-muted rhythm playing with a precision that no previous American amp could match. It has less low-end bloom than a Dual Rectifier and more midrange presence, giving chugged rhythms an almost mechanical tightness that proved enormously influential on the second wave of 90s metal.

Known for: Eddie Van Halen, Zakk Wylde, Alex Skolnick, Kerry King.

Heard on: Poundcake — Van Halen (1991); The Seventh Seal — Van Halen (1995); Spoke in the Wheel — Black Label Society (1999).

Tags: american, high-gain, modern.

Schematic-derived preset files for 16 Fractal and Line 6 modelers: Axe-Fx II/XL/XL+, Axe-Fx III, FM3, FM9, and the full Helix family (Floor, LT, Rack, HX Stomp, HX Stomp XL, Native).

Gridleak extracts amp parameters from original circuit schematics using AI vision — component values, gain staging, tone stack topology, tube types — then generates native preset files for every supported modeler. Every extraction is scored 0–100 and the score is published.