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njshred
Well-known member
Ironically the only guy not trying to emulate VH1 tone was Eddie Van Halen. He was very amused by all this, that’s why he lied about it all the time.
Strong hints that Van Halen 1 68 lead was just a slave amp and not the main amp.
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Meanjoegreene
Well-known member
People also forget about the modded blues driver that had the tone control bypassed
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kurtsstuff2003
Well-known member
"Come on Dave.....give us a break" :/
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Cless357
Active member
Sounds simply like a dimed plexi.
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Amp_chaser
Active member
That shows you how much of ignorance there is amongst guitar players...
1. In a tone talk episode it was mentionned that the JBL d120f were used to fill the holes of the upside cabs eddie didn't want to use 4 speakers verticaly because it woud be too loud so to fill the voids of the 4th hole he put jbl d120f. That explains why the silver domes were beaten up the team didn't care to damage those speakers... they were dummy speakers. Even if David lee roth was sitting on a cab with jbl d120f those were not connected. Moreover there are no studio pictures of van halen 1 except one in black in white. The pictures from david lee roth sitting on the cab comes from van halen 2 not 1. Get your sources straight...
HERE IS THE PROOF that it was on van halen 2 the right picture was taken by Neil Zlozlower during van halen 2, aka the same person who followed eddie and wrote a biography in which it says that van halen 1 amp was modded by josé arredondo :
2. I contacted someone selling the original flag systems cabinets from the early 80's made for eddie those were filled with blackbacks g12m 75h but also with g12h 55hz speakers...
Man i'm like a tone archeologist and i'm working on van halen for at least 10 years...
the thing of removing 2 tubes by Jim Gaustaad I discovered it threw modding and way before him and even posted on tdpri here and the marshall forums. If you remove the 82k or 100k resistors (only one of the two) of the phase inverter it will sound exactly if you removed half of the power tubes. I discovered it way before Jim plus i did it threw modding he discovered it threw testimonies...
You can ask any neutral amp builder even if removing the 82k or 100k resistor isn't exactly the same things the result is the same tonally it forces half of the power tubes to work harder and if you look at the dates it's before jim even published anything about this on the net. Another thing if this sounds bad on my audio samples it's because at that time i had no experience in recording, irl it sounds awesome.
sources :
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Amp_chaser
Active member
Not at all there are interviews like this were he clearly states he has secrets on how to achieve his tone and that he doesn't want to share them because he doesn't want others to copy his tone. READ THE FIRST PARAGRAPH :
Here it's even implied that eddie used a paper bag over the mic to record some songs... Low tech device associated with hiccups... yeah a paper bag was used back in the days to cure hiccup.
Anje
Member
Couple things I know for sure from 1st hand experience about this overall EVH tone chase:
- I don't really like/favor the "tone" he had on the VH1 record (the "finished product" I mean); much prefer the "tone" he's had on the later albums and/or live back then.
- for all those other "tone references", a stock-ish old Marshall and the proper related old cabs & Celestion speakers are more than "super close enough"; the main part from there really is in the player's hand & playing attitude.
And it's all like a cooking recipe right, what works for someone may not be the best for someone else; lots of subtile different ways to put the pieces together and achieve a goal.
That being said, still fun to follow/watch/read
- I don't really like/favor the "tone" he had on the VH1 record (the "finished product" I mean); much prefer the "tone" he's had on the later albums and/or live back then.
- for all those other "tone references", a stock-ish old Marshall and the proper related old cabs & Celestion speakers are more than "super close enough"; the main part from there really is in the player's hand & playing attitude.
And it's all like a cooking recipe right, what works for someone may not be the best for someone else; lots of subtile different ways to put the pieces together and achieve a goal.
That being said, still fun to follow/watch/read
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Amp_chaser
Active member
There is a reason why multiple amp builders, amp gurus and even tone specialists came together on the metropoulos forums some years ago to researh how eddie got his tone, why ? because they couldn't achieve it with a stock plexi. Because they failed to find the answers they put it on the studio or on eddie's hands. However those recent years a lot of things have been coming out of books and interviews but people don't read or watch those... People don't even see the the incoherence between what amp gurus say and the pictures of eddie's head that shows clearly signs of modding in it.Couple things I know for sure from 1st hand experience about this overall EVH tone chase:
- I don't really like/favor the "tone" he had on the VH1 record (the "finished product" I mean); much prefer the "tone" he's had on the later albums and/or live back then.
- for all those other "tone references", a stock-ish old Marshall and the proper related old cabs & Celestion speakers are more than "super close enough"; the main part from there really is in the player's hand & playing attitude.
And it's all like a cooking recipe right, what works for someone may not be the best for someone else; lots of subtile different ways to put the pieces together and achieve a goal.
That being said, still fun to follow/watch/read
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Amp_chaser
Active member
for the monkeys saying it was not modded despite all the evidence from the amp gut shots. DO you even read books ? Neil zlozlower was a friend of eddie he was the main photograph of the band he wrote a biography and he intrviewed josé some year before he died.
then you have rudy leiren the first amp tech of eddie he was his high school friend... :
You have David Lee roth also
Pete Frampton :
Kevin Dugan the bass tech of Michael Anthony :
those are all recent interviews and testimonies that came out...
then you have rudy leiren the first amp tech of eddie he was his high school friend... :
You have David Lee roth also
Pete Frampton :
Kevin Dugan the bass tech of Michael Anthony :
those are all recent interviews and testimonies that came out...
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Amp_chaser
Active member
you should take a look at my recent posts upside.
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matttornado
Active member
Ed's amp sounded like a cranked PLEXI should. What are you talking about? He didn't have that much gain back then but very typical for PLEXI.
Ed could have used just about any other PLEXI and after the studio EQ and mastering, it would have sounded similar.
Ed could have used just about any other PLEXI and after the studio EQ and mastering, it would have sounded similar.
Anje
Member
There it is
Just one example: doesn't recent Jim G's work sound "close enough" to you?
Again, I truly believe that:
1/ there is a 99.99% probability we will never now for sure what was used/happened in the studio for VH1 recordings that made it to the record, in the kind of minute details you're writing about; and
2/ there is anyway multiple ways to achieve something "close enough", depending on each player's preference, so that it doesn't really matter anymore; especially almost 50 years later.
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matttornado
Active member
After listening to the raw tracks from VH1, I don't understand why some people think he was getting more distortion from his amp compared to other of the same type. Sure, maybe his sounded a little different, or maybe better than others in his opinion. Or maybe had a tube in V1 that just gave that little bit of extra something.
Jim G. nailed it and it doesn't get better than that IMO. He put an end to any speculation. Now it's time to find YOUR sound so no one can say, "Your guitar sounds like EVH's 1st album". I wouldn't like that too much since I try to sound like me.
Jim G. nailed it and it doesn't get better than that IMO. He put an end to any speculation. Now it's time to find YOUR sound so no one can say, "Your guitar sounds like EVH's 1st album". I wouldn't like that too much since I try to sound like me.
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Amp_chaser
Active member
jim can't replicate the bloom there is in the album and no studio rack can recreate an amp blooming except an amp itself just listen at rwtd isolated guitar sound tracks the amp blooms a lot. Blooming is caracteristic of early fender and marshall amps. The la2 is the only device that was used that could add bloom but not this much this is bloom coming from the amp itself. The issue is that a 68 lead doesn't bloom like that at all.
plus are you telling me that the testimonies of those above are lies ? it's guys who were there with him since his youth. José was old and probably out of business and retired when he gave the testimony and for the others Ed is dead why would they lie ?
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thegame
Well-known member
Looking forward to the OP’s video when he finally nails the tone, plays the opening chords to You Really Got Me then puts the guitar permanently in it’s case and looks at the camera while saying, “that’s that, I’m done”. Next step; taking up needlepointing. I hear vintage yarn is all the rage these days.
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DanTravis62
Moderator
Judging from his playing, it's gonna be a long, loooooong time because we get there.
thegame
Well-known member
Based on that and quite ironically he needs a slightly different and more forgiving amp to actually get closer to the EVH grail than what EVH really used.
Anje
Member
To be honest, I don't hear/understand what you are talking about with that "bloom".
CarlF
Well-known member
He never mentioned the MXR Distortion+ in those old interviews.
I go back to 1970/ 1971 with guitar playing and gear. I was well aware of gear when Van Halen came out in78.
By that time, I had seen zillions of club bands with Marshalls, and my guess from watching those guys, was that Eddie was using a Distortion plus. It was the only decent American distortion pedal around at the time.
I go back to 1970/ 1971 with guitar playing and gear. I was well aware of gear when Van Halen came out in78.
By that time, I had seen zillions of club bands with Marshalls, and my guess from watching those guys, was that Eddie was using a Distortion plus. It was the only decent American distortion pedal around at the time.
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harddriver
Well-known member
If one listens well to the isolated room mic clips and has played actual 1968-1972 Marshall plexis/superleads with a similar effects chain/guitars with similar pickups with similar skills quite a few of the people commenting in this thread have done so and know that what we are listening to is a variaced Marshall plexi with some factory variances(50K midpot)(820/.68uf for V1B) or even up to including pulled V4 V5 power tubes, Two EP3 echoplex preamps, and at times an MXR 6 band Eq driving the front end with Ed at the helm for VH1. That really is all the gain that Ed was working with and the studio room mic clips seem to prove that out if you are honest with yourself.
Now the nastier, rattier crunchy nature that rides the notes of VH1 versus VHII and later albums is another topic. but not a topic of gain from a 68 plexi.
We all know that Ed's amp had that pot on the back of the amp, that infers some type of mod. But what type of mod would a house amp from the Rose Palace have that was eventually removed sometime later when it was photographed quite a bit later????? But even this dissection is irrelevant when Ed's tone sounded as good or better from July 1978 to December 1978 since he was using replacement Marshall's on the tour both plexi's and superleads.
While a standard cascaded Jose modded Marshall sounds good it does change how the amp sounds compared to a stock non cascaded preamp with only two gain stages anyone that plays a good cranked 2203 compared to a good cranked 68-72 Plexi/Superlead will tell you they are different both for the player and listener.
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