Strong hints that Van Halen 1 68 lead was just a slave amp and not the main amp.

[chumbucket]

In addition to my previous post. Since getting the 78/79 Brown sound package and spending some time with it I find the 300-350ms slapback delay with 0 repeats, low mix like 20-25% and correct reverb settings has even more to do with the recorded tones as well as all those Eq's and preamps that gave Ed's amp so much bite, crispness an aggression on VH1. I highly recommend the 78/79 package if you are into all this VH1 stuff, it's alot of fun to mess with and you will find without the correct delay and reverb the VH1 album/recorded tone vanishes.

As noted above the best anyone is going to do is get close to his Live amp tones and then go down the recording rabbit hole like Gaustad did with all the Eq's and preamps, delays, reverbs or use the UA OX box like alot of people do. Trying to get that exact recorded tone out of a live amp is ludicrous when the room mics clearly show the amp was warmer and had all the plexi characteristics underlying what is heard on the processed mastered tones put to tape for VH1.

Van Halen - Live in St. Paul, MN (April 13th, 1980) - Super 8 Film​

Hey @harddriver, have you tried the new 80/81 pack yet? It's very cool too. There's some raw amps in there now for using your own IR or a power amp/cab setup.

 

[harddriver]

Hey @harddriver, have you tried the new 80/81 pack yet? It's very cool too. There's some raw amps in there now for using your own IR or a power amp/cab setup.

No not yet, I still haven't gotten the latency issue fixed yet on my interface. To be honest I haven't been playing it much right now been busy with everything but music

I did watch Gaustads video where he said he thought the Celestion G1265 was used on the 80-81 era, I found that to be interesting.

 

[TheGreatGreen]

One thing you have to understand VH1 is unique from the rest.

The mods that were in it probably didn't last long. Eddie didn't like that sound. It's probable that just after the recording the amp was brought back to stock just leaving the pot there.

you can see that in japan he tried slaving amps in 1978. Then in 1979 you can see the power tubes changed and it was probably just a plexi biased very hot. Then rudy leiren said a lot of mods were done including that zeke clark mod to the ot. it's safe to say that mid early 80's the amp was very different from a stock 68 lead. Dave even said it had weird components and weird filtering in it and he brought it back to stock.

Another thing that was explained by some people on all those online shows is that some records had multiple amps and that the 68 lead was not used for everything. There is also the possibility of slave setups for recording.

In fact guitar magazines and some people say a second amp was used in van halen 1 as a power amp.

There are nda about eddie's tone and it's probable that the evh company and the vh family will sue anyone that will spill the beans about all those mods that went into that amp around the years. Plus eddie didn't want people to copy his sound. Just remember when seymour duncan run this add for the van halen humbucker ? what did ed do ? he said he will sue seymour so seymour retracted...

Eddie saw first hand probably dozens of times that when it comes to his sound in particular, the tone really is mostly in the hands. He’d hand his guitar to other players while it was plugged into his rig all the time and there’s a ton of interviews with those other players, and they all came away saying the exact same thing. “I played the rig and didn’t sound like Ed, I sounded like me.” Nuno, Zakk Wylde, and Billy Corgan off the top of my head are all on record saying exactly that.

NDA’s about Ed’s tone? Seriously dude? So his tone, gear, and mods supposedly changed constantly, all the time, but Ed still demanded total and complete secrecy about what he was doing to the point that he had contracts drawn up about it, even though by the time the ink dried, he’d have moved into something else?

Serious question, have you considered therapy?

 

[Racerxrated]

Eddie saw first hand probably dozens of times that when it comes to his sound in particular, the tone really is mostly in the hands. He’d hand his guitar to other players while it was plugged into his rig all the time and there’s a ton of interviews with those other players, and they all came away saying the exact same thing. “I played the rig and didn’t sound like Ed, I sounded like me.” Nuno, Zakk Wylde, and Billy Corgan off the top of my head are all on record saying exactly that.

NDA’s about Ed’s tone? Seriously dude? So his tone, gear, and mods supposedly changed constantly, all the time, but Ed still demanded total and complete secrecy about what he was doing to the point that he had contracts drawn up about it, even though by the time the ink dried, he’d have moved into something else?

Serious question, have you considered therapy?

Let's not forget Nugent; on whatever tour VH & Ted were on, Ted played Ed's rig and sounded just like Ted.....Ed played Ted's cranked Fenders and sounded like Ed.
Gear plays a huge part too, of course but no one is going to sound like Ed, except Ed. Even the great ones like Al and the other players...still not exact. Damn good though.

 

[harddriver]

Eddie saw first hand probably dozens of times that when it comes to his sound in particular, the tone really is mostly in the hands. He’d hand his guitar to other players while it was plugged into his rig all the time and there’s a ton of interviews with those other players, and they all came away saying the exact same thing. “I played the rig and didn’t sound like Ed, I sounded like me.” Nuno, Zakk Wylde, and Billy Corgan off the top of my head are all on record saying exactly that.

NDA’s about Ed’s tone? Seriously dude? So his tone, gear, and mods supposedly changed constantly, all the time, but Ed still demanded total and complete secrecy about what he was doing to the point that he had contracts drawn up about it, even though by the time the ink dried, he’d have moved into something else?

Serious question, have you considered therapy?

Let's not forget Nugent; on whatever tour VH & Ted were on, Ted played Ed's rig and sounded just like Ted.....Ed played Ted's cranked Fenders and sounded like Ed.
Gear plays a huge part too, of course but no one is going to sound like Ed, except Ed. Even the great ones like Al and the other players...still not exact. Damn good though.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
His backstage amp in these 1984 videos is a S/S Gallien Kreuger ML250

 

[Amp_chaser]

Eddie saw first hand probably dozens of times that when it comes to his sound in particular, the tone really is mostly in the hands. He’d hand his guitar to other players while it was plugged into his rig all the time and there’s a ton of interviews with those other players, and they all came away saying the exact same thing. “I played the rig and didn’t sound like Ed, I sounded like me.” Nuno, Zakk Wylde, and Billy Corgan off the top of my head are all on record saying exactly that.

NDA’s about Ed’s tone? Seriously dude? So his tone, gear, and mods supposedly changed constantly, all the time, but Ed still demanded total and complete secrecy about what he was doing to the point that he had contracts drawn up about it, even though by the time the ink dried, he’d have moved into something else?

Serious question, have you considered therapy?

Eddie's studio gear wasn't the same as his touring gear. That's why he sounded so different live from the studio and many artists don't use the same grea live than in the studio. As proof of this if you look into the japanese 78 tour pictures ed's 68 is not the main amp he is just one the many amps that are daisy chained.

I'm sorry but even his mxr phase 90 was modded.

did you even saw the interview with zeke clark he was ed's tech after rudy leiren ? he clearly says José did rebuild the amp and modded it.



Then you have this :

this comes from neil's zlozlower's book he was friend with eddie and make a biography about him.

Even Kevin Dugan michael's anthony bass tech says some of ed's amps were modded :

Eddie said it clearly during vh1 he used a combination of 2 amps in a guitar interview one which voltages were lowered and the other one boosted. Probably transformer changes and caps changes. getting higher voltages in a guitar amp cleans the tone and removes fuzziness and muddyness. Guitarist Bryan Jay confirmed that josé did indeed replaced transformers with new ones and changed stock marshall components. Guess who also said that ? eddie. He said that josé changed his transformers and put beefier ones in his amp. However as eddie didn't like the tone of vh1 he then changed back to stock.

He also mentionned that his mxr pedal was modded by josé. Dweezil zappa said in one online article that it was indeed modded and that it was a very important element of ed's tone. In a blog someone reported that joe Holmes confirmed it and he even has the same josé mod in his phase 90 :

When acdc played with van halen once angus young made fun ed's gear saying something like : it's like the nasa here. Implying there were heavy mods on ed's gear...

Can you get the sound of RWTD with a stock plexi ? never only in your dreams the same with feel your love tonight compare it to any isolated vh track and you'll see you're way off with a stock plexi.

VH1 is clearly not a stock plexi. Perhaps a plexi with some kind of cascade that's possible and the r/t mod from mike audette seems to indicate that it's possible that it was a simple cascade + a kind of slave. Because people think it was still a stock plexi despite many testimonies they say it was the studio and they heavily eq the tone of a plexi to approximate that sound.



finally there is this obvious marshall head in ed's studio it sits on top of 5150 amps this means it was still heavily used. Eddie had a hangar with lots of amps. Whatever was in the studio recording floor was used. As this amp was not in the hangar but in the studio room it was used on some recordings :

Even if it proves nothing, Carl Esperanza which worked with josé when he was young told me that one mod of josé was to turn a plexi into a single channel amp and add a master volume. That mod was done to his brother's amps. That's exactly what we see on this amp in the 5150 studio, a plexi turned into a single channel amp.

On the metroforums days one of the most successfull vh modders was rockstah who made the mod 5. If i remember correctly someone in the forum wrote that chris merren told him to try to turn a plexi into a 2203 and 1959 hybrid. Why is that important ? Chris did apparently see the amp guts during its glory days but he always said it was stock but sometimes he wrote some interesting stuff that contradicted the stock statement. He was apparently the one who wrote about the cerrem mod and how it was done.

finally for those don't believing that there aren't nda and secrets around ed's tone. Just look at what eddie says :

this doesn't meant it was modded for sure but there are strong hints that it is. As all of this conflicts with the main stock statement we should be in between saying we don't know and that it's possible that it was indeed modded. Everyone can have it's own opinion but denying this possibility will all those elements is not rational.

It's like all those people who bought 6ca7 thinking it was the secret, when you look at the japanese tour just after the 1978 record eddie had regular el34 ERA german tubes in it. Many people bought them not even knowing why eddie switched to those tubes because some of his later mods made his amp redplate. Eddie even said to dave friedman that his favorite tubes were in fact regular el34 from telefunken. So why would he use sylvanias 6ca7 ? because those tubes are tougher and they resist high currents and voltages way better... The amp was biased very hot and ruy leiren confirmed that there was indeed a bias mod in the amp.

 

[Racerxrated]

Eddie's studio gear wasn't the same as his touring gear. That's why he sounded so different live from the studio and many artists don't use the same grea live than in the studio. As proof of this if you look into the japanese 78 tour pictures ed's 68 is not the main amp he is just one the many amps that are daisy chained.

I'm sorry but even his mxr phase 90 was modded.

did you even saw the interview with zeke clark he was ed's tech after rudy leiren ? he clearly says José did rebuild the amp and modded it.



Then you have this :

View attachment 414545

this comes from neil's zlozlower's book he was friend with eddie and make a biography about him.

Even Kevin Dugan michael's anthony bass tech says some of ed's amps were modded :

View attachment 414562

Eddie said it clearly during vh1 he used a combination of 2 amps in a guitar interview one which voltages were lowered and the other one boosted. Probably transformer changes and caps changes. getting higher voltages in a guitar amp cleans the tone and removes fuzziness and muddyness. Guitarist Bryan Jay confirmed that josé did indeed replaced transformers with new ones and changed stock marshall components. Guess who also said that ? eddie. He said that josé changed his transformers and put beefier ones in his amp. However as eddie didn't like the tone of vh1 he then changed back to stock.

He also mentionned that his mxr pedal was modded by josé. Dweezil zappa said in one online article that it was indeed modded and that it was a very important element of ed's tone. In a blog someone reported that joe Holmes confirmed it and he even has the same josé mod in his phase 90 :

View attachment 414552

When acdc played with van halen once angus young made fun ed's gear saying something like : it's like the nasa here. Implying there were heavy mods on ed's gear...

Can you get the sound of RWTD with a stock plexi ? never only in your dreams the same with feel your love tonight compare it to any isolated vh track and you'll see you're way off with a stock plexi.

VH1 is clearly not a stock plexi. Perhaps a plexi with some kind of cascade that's possible and the r/t mod from mike audette seems to indicate that it's possible that it was a simple cascade + a kind of slave. Because people think it was still a stock plexi despite many testimonies they say it was the studio and they heavily eq the tone of a plexi to approximate that sound.



finally there is this obvious marshall head in ed's studio it sits on top of 5150 amps this means it was still heavily used. Eddie had a hangar with lots of amps. Whatever was in the studio recording floor was used. As this amp was not in the hangar but in the studio room it was used on some recordings :
View attachment 414555

Even if it proves nothing, Carl Esperanza which worked with josé when he was young told me that one mod of josé was to turn a plexi into a single channel amp and add a master volume. That mod was done to his brother's amps. That's exactly what we see on this amp in the 5150 studio, a plexi turned into a single channel amp.

On the metroforums days one of the most successfull vh modders was rockstah who made the mod 5. If i remember correctly someone in the forum wrote that chris merren told him to try to turn a plexi into a 2203 and 1959 hybrid. Why is that important ? Chris did apparently see the amp guts during its glory days but he always said it was stock but sometimes he wrote some interesting stuff that contradicted the stock statement. He was apparently the one who wrote about the cerrem mod and how it was done.

finally for those don't believing that there aren't nda and secrets around ed's tone. Just look at what eddie says :

View attachment 414557

this doesn't meant it was modded for sure but there are strong hints that it is. As all of this conflicts with the main stock statement we should be in between saying we don't know and that it's possible that it was indeed modded. Everyone can have it's own opinion but denying this possibility will all those elements is not rational.

It's like all those people who bought 6ca7 thinking it was the secret, when you look at the japanese tour just after the 1978 record eddie had regular el34 ERA german tubes in it. Many people bought them not even knowing why eddie switched to those tubes because some of his later mods made his amp redplate. Eddie even said to dave friedman that his favorite tubes were in fact regular el34 from telefunken. So why would he use sylvanias 6ca7 ? because those tubes are tougher and they resist high currents and voltages way better... The amp was biased very hot and ruy leiren confirmed that there was indeed a bias mod in the amp.

View attachment 414558

Dude. Seriously.

I have a large stash of Siemens EL34s. I also have a few Sylvania, and GE 6CA7s. You do know that a 6CA7 is basically an EL34 right? Pop in and play, they run the same bias settings. The only difference I can tell with any 6CA7 is they have a touch more low end. Same mids, same highs. In fact I'd venture to say KT77s and 6CA7s might be damn near indistinguishable.

If I compare Winged C El34s to 6CA7s, they sound surprisingly similar in the lows. If Ed recorded with half an album with Siemens 34s, and the other half with 6CA7s nobody would know. The differences aren't THAT drastic.

When I goose my 68, if I have 34s or 6CA7s no one could tell the difference.