I finally found out what the pot behind van halen VH1 does (it wasn't a master at all)

[Exo-metal]

Guys. I have a confession to make. I am a huge Eddie Van Halen fan. His tone is THE tone and nothing that has come after is even close.

The truth is I have been hiding something from you all. Me and Eddie used to jam together. And he confided in me the secret to the VHI tone. He swore me to secrecy, but with his death this far removed I would like to put this to bed once and for all. Brace yourself for this revelation.
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I knew it. After I bought that pickup from you and flipped it outta phase, i.e. backwards ala dime and paired with the peavey vyper there it was VH1 bro. Ever since its been Schlitz and Marlboros and white lines down every road...sleep is for the weak/haha!!

 

[VonBonfire]

anyone who doesn't fucking suck at guitar can literally just plug a tube screamer into a fender tube amp of some description with a strat and nail SRV tones

just like anyone who doesn't fucking suck at guitar can literally just plug into a dimed superlead and VH1 is right there, just waiting to be had

You can use a big Marshall for Stevie tones too. The 6550 loaded plexi RI I had plus a VS J&H got solid SRV tones. "diDn'T qUiTe nAiL iT tH0" yeah, neither did your chops bro haha. I know a guy that literally dresses the part, gambler hat, vest, has the strat with his initials, the stevie pedals.....can barely play....and doesn't care. It's actually pretty hilarious.

 

[Amp_chaser]

Deraps' tone sounds great here through a stock plexi reissue. No mods necessary.

Live he doesn't sound like eddie at all he uses eq and custom ir

 

[Anje]

So, what would you say to John Suhr to convince him he's wrong?
I'm genuinely curious.
Don't be afraid, talk freely; I now have my coffee securely on hand.

 

[harddriver]

Rudy Leiren perhaps he knows or not. Here is why he was replaced by zeke clark :
"Rudy the guy that had been with him for seven years which uh was a great guy did everything the best that he knew how from what Edward told him to do you know but he never I guess had the the basic understanding or the time to to take it Beyond and know the internal electronic parts of it to understand the thesis behind the electronics and and just the whole theorie".

think about it : would eddie replace a friend easily ? no, if he did it was probably due to technical issues needing serious attention. That means that ruddy was not enough to repair, maintain and improve electronics... He perhaps lacked knowedge about electricity and circuits.

It's possible he knew some enough to maintain and service amp but not enough to make the distiction between a stock super lead and a modded one. One thing suggesting there some issues is that he multiple times identified the head as an early 60's head while zeke directly said it must have been from around 67 which was almost spot on.

here is the source :



here zeke clark says josé completely rebuilt the amp :



if you wanna know what was going on with the electronics go check zeke not rudy. Also by the way you're a great player. I know a famous amp modder you probably know personnaly and who knows what was the main mod that has been done to the head and it's not Dave.

Use you ears and not the legends and stories they fed us. Eddie was very secretive and josé was loyal until death. So it might be that others are still keeping the secret without telling anything to anyone.

Famous guitar players are often on the road and don't have a lot time to do research.
I believe if you learnt how to build amps and if you learnt everything that has been said about the head and the pictures of its inside that dave released believe me that you would be more suspicious of it being modded. The pictures of the amp show it had been butchered and components replaced multiple times the filter is far off from stock. No normal amp even played by rock legends ever need this amount of components replacement. Most of them are still in pristine condition with original components. Finally In a tone talk with Ossie ahsen dave friedman even says he doesn't know if it was modded or not during vh1...

by the way ask yourself i'm a shitty player in terms of skill how could my tone be that close ? i'm using no eq no pedals just some reverb and delay with genome from two notes. The cabs have greenbacks 20w 75hz and 30w greenbacks g12h30 with 55hz which is what eddie had on his live flagsystems cabs but in blackbacks.

I just want to lock your reply to Al Estrada so you can't go back and edit it.

Let me get this straight.......because you have read alot of stuff on the internet, books and come to your own assertions/conclusions about Ed's amp and everything Ed you are going to tell and not only tell, but pontificate to Al Estrada how to get good Edward Van Halen tones and that he doesn't have good ears or the skillset you possess.

 

[harddriver]

Again, I don't care WHAT Jacob says about WHAT HE THINKS about what was used. WHO GIVES A FUCK about what a guy who can play EVH thinks about what EVH used 30 yrs before he was even born???? Why in the hell do you put so much weight into that??

Ok, so I'll ask Al Estrada WHO WAS HIRED BY DAVID LEE ROTH to play and he says....

See what I mean??? Does either player hold weight on their opinion more than the other because they can nail Eddie really well?? I don't think so. It's still just their opinion like it's anyone else's opinion.


He used JBLs.
They are in the pics in the studio.\
He said he used JBLs. He even says he didn't like the high end the JBLs added.
If you EVER TRIED JBLs (easy to do, just FREAKING BUY A PAIR) you'd actually GET IT.
But, you continue to ignore the FACTS THAT ARE STARING YOU IN THE FACE.

I am fairly certain Dave Friedman and others have the raw isolated tracks from VH1 with a greenback and a JBLD120F mic'd up. That clip is out there on YT somewhere and had been posted here in numerous Ed JBL threads. Maybe someone can find it.

Here it is........................Go get em Racer.........1st track is the Greenback, the 2nd track is the JBL.

 

[harddriver]

Guys. I have a confession to make. I am a huge Eddie Van Halen fan. His tone is THE tone and nothing that has come after is even close.

The truth is I have been hiding something from you all. Me and Eddie used to jam together. And he confided in me the secret to the VHI tone. He swore me to secrecy, but with his death this far removed I would like to put this to bed once and for all. Brace yourself for this revelation.
View attachment 442124

Yeah but what you don't know is that Peavey Vyper was secretly Jose modded Mr Smash...................................

 

[Anje]

That reply to Al was indeed golden

 

[harddriver]

The burning question remains...

How did Cheech and Chong get the tone on Earache my Eye?

All those Cheech and Chong amps were secretly Jose modded...............Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeshhhhhhhhhhh......

 

[Amp_chaser]

I just want to lock your reply to Al Estrada so you can't go back and edit it.

Let me get this straight.......because you have read alot of stuff on the internet, books and come to your own assertions/conclusions about Ed's amp and everything Ed you are going to tell and not only tell, but pontificate to Al Estrada how to get good Edward Van Halen tones and that he doesn't have good ears or the skillset you possess.

Seriously i don't care he is a great player but he doesn't know shit about building amps or modding them and he doesn't test mods he soldered himself. I know someone more famous than al estrada and who is an amp tech who confirmed that the mod is the right one... Moreover lots of people know him in LA.

i'm doing the job those players don't want to do which is to get involved into electronics...

The voltacontrol plays a role and i will explain what it is. it was a way to starve a preamp tube threw b+ and according to the voltages and the filtering you put on it, it would create that impressive razor sharp pulsating sound from RWTD when he wants another sound then he could go back to stock voltages just by adjusting the knob and getting back to stock voltages again...

it's like a mini variac for a single preamp tube...

 

[VonBonfire]

I know someone more famous than al estrada who confirmed that the mod is the right one... Moreover many people know him in LA.

Erik Estrada is internationally known.

 

[Amp_chaser]

Erik Estrada is internationally known.

Man that person from LA is more famous than Estrada his status is legendary...
Anyways if any artist wanna test that amp MP me we can arrange that, except for mr estrada because for sure the amp wasn't modded he doesn't need this at all...





it's not exactly the same because the volta shaves mids out and increased the mud a lot and you need to compensate by tweaking it, it will take me a lot of time to tweak it right. But i know i got that razor sound that lacks in many recordings...

Moreover i didn't even use my power section mods yet... and i have 2 of them ready at home...

 

[VonBonfire]

Man that person from LA is more famous than Estrada his status is legendary...

Why not just say who it is then? Why not just tell the board how much you are going to charge for your secret sauce Eddie mod? Anytime someone plays the "secret" game too much it either sounds like hype designed to boost credibility where it might otherwise be perceived as there being none.

 

[Amp_chaser]

Why not just say who it is then? Why not just tell the board how much you are going to charge for your secret sauce Eddie mod? Anytime someone plays the "secret" game too much it either sounds like hype designed to boost credibility where it might otherwise be perceived as there being none.

I'm not even sure i want to release it... Just telling one big thing to all guitar amp builders and modders that tried to get that sound :

You don't play enough with josé mods. Because josé was creative with those mods.... he placed them at different spots and tried different values...

 

[VonBonfire]

I'm not even sure i want to release it...

Lol, awesome.

 

[Amp_chaser]

Lol, awesome.

seing how you guys react to it i prefer leave it secretly and mod amps for my friends who i know for sure won't ever leak the thing or ever sell the amp. I literraly spent 6 months waking up at 7am and modding till 8pm until i found out... doing research for 10 years and 3 years of testing various mods. You don't need to be famous to create that sound... José was just a wacky guy working in a garage he wasn't famous but he made that huge tone...

1. You don't need to be famous to create exceptionnal things.
2. famous people tend ot have great shitty ego and al estrada just proved it to me...
3. if he was at ed's place in the past he would probably never have believed in josé's skills, if he was at ed's place we would never have that tone because he wouldn't have collaborated with a guy modding amps in his is garage...

José arredondo is the greatest amp modder in the planet and he created the greatest tone ever and i think he deserves that recognition that he never got. Unfortunaly i only know 2 persons who know the truth and one is a legend in the guitar world he is from LA and i have his words on video about that mod...

The only other guy who knows is zeke... But the van halen crew seems to be ultra loyal to eddie so you might get some infos but not the full ones !

 

[VonBonfire]

seing how you guys react to it i prefer leave it secretly and mod amps for my friends who i know for sure won't ever leak the thing or ever sell the amp.

I prefer to play my guitar instead of fix amps for someone who does.

 

[harddriver]

Seriously i don't care he is a great player but he doesn't know shit about amps and he doesn't test mods. I know someone more famous than al estrada who confirmed that the mod is the right one... Moreover lots of people know him in LA.

i'm doing the job those players don't want to do which is to get involved into electronics...

The voltacontrol plays a role and i will explain what it is. it was a way to starve a preamp tube and according to the voltages and the filtering you put on it, it would create that impressive razor sharp sound from RWTD when he would want another sound then he could go back to stock voltages just by moving the knob and getting stock voltages again...

And just how do you know what Al Estrada knows or doesn't know about amps?

I think your new voltacontrol adjusted clip speaks volumes.

How are things in Switzerland BTW?

 

[Anje]

Wow, it's been fun for a minute, but now Mr AmpChaser you're starting to call names and talk bad / insult respected people you don't know; sounds like running out of factual & logic arguments and crossing the line.
Why all that secrecy and bad words? What's the point in posting on public forums for that? I don't get it, like so many others here it seems.
Please, you haven't answered my simple question VS John Suhr' words & experience on that very matter; I'd really like to know.

 

[japetus]

Seriously i don't care he is a great player but he doesn't know shit about amps and he doesn't test mods. I know someone more famous than al estrada who confirmed that the mod is the right one... Moreover lots of people know him in LA.

i'm doing the job those players don't want to do which is to get involved into electronics...

The voltacontrol plays a role and i will explain what it is. it was a way to starve a preamp tube and according to the voltages and the filtering you put on it, it would create that impressive razor sharp sound from RWTD when he would want another sound then he could go back to stock voltages just by moving the knob and getting stock voltages again...

Brother, I say this in all seriousness...just stop while you can still turn back and save a little face.