Rich at a Hookah Brown gig, in '04 maybe? (audioe.com photo)

Oh man. When a WoodyTone reader hipped me to Hookah Brown (thanks again Greg!), I was elated and bummed at the same time. Elated because it’s just so good, and is what I wish the Black Crowes would sound like: A little heavier, more space in the tunes, different singing. But the band was already defunct, finito, hasta la vista. Bummer.

Still, the tunes are great. Definitely worth tipping you off if you’re unaware of this fantastic band – which, incidentally, Rich Robinson said in this interview “didn’t pan out because a lot of band bullsh*t politics.” Rich is of course the guitar-playing brother of the Black Crowes Robinsons, and is the guy who put Hookah Brown together – and then dissolved it!

Not much on the band, which appears to have evaporated this year, but here’s one music-related Rich quote on the band from a different interview:

> On the four-piece: “I think the sort of raw factor of it stems from us being a four piece. And these are riffs, you know – I’ve always written big rock riffs, but when it’s accompanied by a second guitar, and a keyboard, background vocals and vocals [as in the Crowes], there’s just a lot more added to it. Whereas with a four piece…that’s it.”

Gear

Rich with his Joyce rig.

There are zero YouTube vids for this band, but you can listen to several studio and live tunes at the band’s MySpace page. Since Rich has a ton of cool gear, it’s tough to tell what he played on the studio tracks. But live with Hookah Brown, it looks like a few choice guitars plus his trusty Harry Joyce amps. They look like Hiwatts and Harry built the original Hiwatts for Dave Reeves, so…I assume they sound like Hiwatts but better,

Though I’m no Rich expert, it seems like the Joyces are his live amps of choice since he’s been using them for a while (see the vid below).

Roch's Hookah live guitars.

Notable

> Rich also said a few things about the music biz in the above-linked Glide mag interview. Here’s one quote I thought was funny – don’t read it if you were a Badger! “…it’s some a**hole who got a business degree from f*ckin’ the University of Wisconsin or whatever, and instead of going to work for IBM he goes and works for Sony Music, and he doesn’t know sh*t about sh*t. And he’s telling artists how to write songs, and it’s disgusting.”

Jimmy Page with the Black Crowes on Leno, Wanton Song, 1999 (I think)
> This is guitarist and tone nirvana: Page, Robinson and Audley Freed! Oops: Including this because Rich is also using his Harry Joyce rig here. Page has his Orange and JP-100. Can’t see what Audley is using….

Warren DeMartini/Ratt

Here’s Warren DeMartini recording a solo for the Ratt tune “Lost Weekend” at a June ‘09 recording session. The tune is off the new album, Infestation. I love the way his fingers fly at the beginning. Cool!

New Maiden

Here’s Iron Maiden’s first tune off the new album, called “The Final Frontier.” Not sure I love the tune yet, but the vid is cool. Fun to see the Predator-ish version of Eddie.
The Final Frontier – Director’s Cut

Audley Freed x 2

Does anyone sound more woody than Audley Freed? I tripped over this vid the other day – “Audley Freed plays his Original Senn Pomona [Tele-like guitar] with Gene Parsons “B” bender and Lollar ‘52 pickups through vintage ‘56 Champ amp” – which reminded me of the other one, which I’ve highlighted here before. WOODY!

Notable

Black Country Communion, not just Black Country (the name was taken), is the final name of the band with Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes, Jason Bonham and Derek Sherinian. Check out these two short vids (can’t embed) on the formation of the band and the tunes – no tunes in there, just interviews with the band members. The funniest part is how lukewarm Jason sounds on the whole thing – or am I hearing it wrong?

Those are the 6CA7 power tubes Ed liked (click to see way bigger).

Today we continue with John Suhr “talking” – actually posting, in a looooong thegearpage.net thread – about his experience with EVH’s magical Marshall Super Lead amp. We pick it up with John’s comments to some doubters:

“I used to be a solder inspector for the military. It is very [easy] to see what parts of the amp were not original and were or were not original solder joints. The amp had not been mucked with except for few parts.

“I know when an amp has been modified. I know what original solder joints from Marshall look like. The amp was not modified beyond its basic gain structure. Ed himself told me 2 feet from my face that the amp never had any kind of typical Jose mod in it. The two non-typical parts in this amp contribute to the gain in a very minor way. They were not major parts….

“Regardless of me [not] being at the [VH1] recording session or not, I know my sh*t and I know what Ed told me. He was not clueless, and knew the tweaks in the amp which again are very minor.”

The Pickup…And More Amp Info!

Well said John! Here are additional comments he made in the thread:

“I also got a chance to check out his old pickup, which had a shorted coil and was basically working like a single coil. Many years ago he caught his string under the lip [of the pickup] and damaged it. When, I don’t know, but he loved the sound of it even if it was noisy – and said it has been like that for as long as he could remember.

“So…if I was going for that exact tone I would put a single coil in the position of the forward coil of the humbucker going straight across. Use a plexi-based circuit [on your amp], dime the controls, bright channel [top left input of a 4-hole Marshall], variac to 85V, feed the 8ohm tap into a 16ohm load, run a line out into a good power amp and some Scumbacks [speakers that emulate or improve the sound of the old Celestions], pedals of your choice and call it a day. You will get close at low volumes. Better have a good wallet for the tubes though since they don’t last long running this way.”

What Can We Take From That

Here we go:

1. The head has not been modded. John Suhr, Steve Fryette, Peter Van Wheelden, Dave Friedman and everyone else who knows amps and who has seen Ed’s magic Super Lead have said it’s stock – meaning no mods. But during that time of Marshall manufacturing virtually every amplifier was different because Marshall just used whatever they had (as did Gibson and others at the time).

2. That Echoplex preamp – now available in a couple of pedals (review of one soon!) – seems to be important: John mentioned it twice, and several guitar heroes (e.g., Page, Iommi, Blackmore) goosed their amps in the same way or similarly.

3. The Variac is important but not necessarily for Ed! If you mess with a Variac, looks like the magic number is 87 volts. John said: “Until you have that exact [plexi] circuit, which is a little gainier, and run it at 87 VAC with Ed’s touch, guitar and pickup, you would not really hear what I heard.”

4. Am I reading that mismatched output correctly: 8 ohm tap into 16 ohms – which could be a 16-ohm cab? If so, be careful running your amp this way because some amps can’t take it.

5. Ed did slave his #1 amp into other amps – at some point.

6. Ed’s first signature amp effort was with Jose, not Peavey.

7. So the active coil in EVH’s pickup is the one furthest from the bridge – which, if I read that right, has a lot to do with warming up Ed’s sound. Is anyone making humbuckers with a shorted-out back coil?!

8. You too can sound like Ed with a similar amp – but only if you can sound like Ed with your fingers.

9. Dave Friedman is working on Ed’s #1 amp right now! I think I know why!

Words of Warning…

…or at least perspective, from John (in that same thegearpage.net thread):

“To find out exactly what his signal chain was on the first album, you might as well try and find out how the universe got here since until Ed remembers exactly what he did, no one will know. [At the time, VH was] just partying and playing – [Ed] documenting what he used was the furthest thing from his mind (his words).

“I’ve said all I can on this topic. You guys can chase the ghost, but you will never catch it. Why put so much effort into copying Ed’s tone if you are not Ed? It has been done, and there is only one Ed.”

Notable: More on F.U.C.K.

From John about Ed’s tones on that album:

> “I made him two modded Marshall he used for a crunchy clean tone. He used my prototype preamp and then brought me the Marshall….

> “The Peavey amp was not done yet and Ed didn’t use it at all on F.U.C.K. He used my preamp into [Steve] Lukather’s Marshall effects return I did for Luke while I was in NY [John's shop was in NYC before LA] and a SLO100″ [which Ed apparently received from Mike Soldano in 1989].

Notable: Ed’s VH1 Un-Engineered Tone?

There was a LOT of engineering done to Ed’s tone on the first album, which Ed has freely admitted (though in different words). John Surh said essentially the same thing, and this was posted in the same thegearpage.net thread by user RR Classic. Beleving it or not is of course up to you:

“I was told by Michael Anthony personally that Ed’s tone in the studio for VH1 was not all of the glory we hear on the record. He said it was very shrill and trebly, and that is why Ted [Templeman, producer] and Don [Landee, engineer] had to pan him hard right on rhythm and hard left on leads, soak it in verb – and there is a ton of verb on there – along with some pretty damn creative EQing.”

Interesting and believable if you’ve ever heard a dimed (or even close to it) plexi, especially with a hard ash strat and maple/maple neck/fingerboard – even more so if Ed really did at the time use high-efficiency speakers along with Greenbacks (which mellow the vol and tone).

- End of part 2 of 2 -

Here's the back of EVH's Super Lead (click to see it bigger).

John Suhr!

A hundred years from now there will be mythology about Edward Van Halen’s early VH signal chain. But right now the unending discussions about it (which I am not denigrating!) are largely rumor or misinformation resulting from some version of the telephone game: someone heard/read something, told someone else, etc.

Mostly. But once in a while new, or at least reinforcing, facts will come to light. FACTS!

One such instance recently happened on a thegearpage.net thread. You can peruse the whole thing here, but I’ve already done it, extracted the good stuff and thus you don’t have to spend the 60+ minutes it takes to wade through the 30+ pages!

In the thread – which contains the usual opining about Ed’s signal chain – John Suhr chimed in. And more than once. John is of course the guitar and amp wizard behind the company that bears his name, and works with various artists whose names you can see on his website.

One of those artists is EVH, and in 1991 John worked on Ed’s beloved Marshall Super Lead plexi (which refers to the plexiglass control panel). Here’s what he said about it in the thread – edited for readability and brevity. The reason I am writing about it and you are reading about it is that it is a goldmine of detail!

“The bottom line for me is when I saw it the amp was 100% untouched [no mods] except for filter caps and one added part which I prefer to keep to myself (Dave [Friedman, LA amp tech] knows it well of course too). It is a very minor addition that Jose [Arrendondo, the guy who Ed initially said modded his amp and then admitted he didn't] did giving it a slight bit more bass in the treble channel.

“When Ed demo’d the amp for me, he dimed every control. The circuit other than that was stock…but it was not the everyday normal [Super Lead] circuit. There were a few oddball parts that Marshall did use from time to time: Not every Marshall follows the [Marshall] schematics.

“The only change, besides the minor tweaks when I saw it, was the VHT transformer [Steve Fryette, founder and former owner of VHT, worked on the head at one point and replaced the output transformer]. My job was to replace that transformer with a donor from another plexi with a similar circuit and close serial number that belonged to Matt [Bruck, Ed's former tech and now assistant].

Here's John (Suhr photo).

“After me [the amp] went to Europe [presumably to Peter Van Wheelden, documented in an old issue of one the guitar mags]and everything was rewired and became a mess he [Ed? Matt?] wasn’t happy with. I believe Dave [Friedman] has the amp right now and is trying to breath life back in to it….

“Ed even told me personally as he stood 2 feet away that this was ‘the’ amp and the only amp he used up until F.U.C.K. for recording. Now why would Ed lie to me when he was trusting me to restore the amp back to its original condition? He told me everything he could remember.

“I still have all voltages notes and scribbles [about Ed's amp] in my old Groove Tube book.

“When I asked [Ed] about what he did to pump it up for more gain he didn’t really remember except that he probably had the Echoplex goosing it, turned the light dimmer [Variac] down until the [amp] pilot light started to go out or dim when you hit a single note (85-90V). I believe the amp also had a standby jack in the back that disconnected the power tube cathodes.

“Now please understand me: When Ed played through this amp in my shop it sounded EVERY bit like Ed and the first albums with and without the Variac. When I played through it it sounded every bit like me (cry).

“Bottom line is, Ed tired of less gain [with the old Marshalls] and wanted more. I think that amp sounded great back then but Ed was trying to move on. On F.U.C.K. he used my preamp for many of the tracks as well as a [Soldano] SLO100 for solos – that is the time I was working with him, ‘90-’92.

“Ed would make any decent amp sound like Ed. If you heard the dry clips from the original recordings like many of us have you would hear so much was done in the production side.

“Dave or I are both capable of making a reproduction for you, but if you don’t play like Ed did back then and don’t slap whatever he did in front [of the amp] back in the day then you won’t get too far. This is not a friendly, bedroom amp. It is loud, not as dirty as you think and in your face.”

More

That was all from one post! Then he added the following tasty bits in subsequent posts:

“It is just a great, loud plexi, I have heard many similar. The Variac brought it down to 50w and gave it some ‘brown.’ Personally I still can’t play that amp ’cause it is too raw for me. It takes someone like Ed to pull it off, or Pete [Thorn] or Al [Estrada] or Mark [Rockstah on the Metro forum].”

“The amp I worked on was [serial #] SL12301. [Ed] said he might have hit it with the Echoplex (which has gain) or an EQ [e.g., the MXR 6-band]. Jose, rest his soul – I had him [alter a plexi] for me in the ’80s as well – did not tell a lot of truths about Ed’s setup back then [referring to a user's comment about how Jose told him Ed used a distortion box on VH1].

“There was never a master in that amp that I remember – all solder joints that were original were very easy to detect. Jose did put slave outs in the amps and also I believe had a standby jack in there, which would explain some extra holes. I also think that putting a Master in there during [the] holy grail era is something Ed would have remembered to tell me.

“Ed was trying to help out the guy who maintained his amps [Jose]. There were no mods other than one that takes less time to do than it takes to open the chassis, and certainly wasn’t necessary for him to get his tone.

“Ed was working on [a signature] amp with Jose for years until near the end [of Jose's life]. It never got off the ground to sound the way Ed wanted it to sound. If Jose did gain mods on Ed’s amps, which I know is not true, then it would have been a slam-dunk easy thing to put on the market since it was already tried and true and tested.”

- End of part 1 of 2 -

He notes that kicking in the Coreblade on a few songs makes it sound like there’s another player on stage, giving the guitar a bigger footprint in the mix.

Each amp runs into a Palmer speaker simulator, then into the PA, and each also has its own 2×12 in the steampunk “cabs” (more like furniture) behind Alex.

Alex has had consistently good live sound – can’t wait to hear it this year!

The Vids

The first is with Alex, who goes over what’s on-stage. The second is with Alex’s tech, Scott Appleton.

To follow up on the “amp as an instrument” post: I stumbled upon this here vid of Anthrax’s Scott Ian playing through Angus Young’s rig this year. I will leave it to your discerning ears to agree or disagree, but to me it sounds “like” Angus.

Enough like Angus that I’m pretty convinced that with that amp and speakers – okay, maybe dialed in by Rick St. Pierre, Angus’ tech and the guy who owns and builds Wizard amps – and a similar guitar with low-output humbuckers, anyone with some Angus-like riffs/chops could sound like the short man with the schoolboy clothes. Bear in mind that Scott Ian is a well-known metalhead (though a fan of classic rock and obviously a pro player), so it’s not like he’s 24/7 AC/DC.

I assume that’ why so many AC/DC fans own Wizards – those who can afford the mid-$3K to mid-$4K per head price tag, anyhow!

After hearing this and many other clips on YouTube, I’m bummed that I didn’t take the time to blast away through these amps at the recent NY/NJ Amp Show. Next time for sure. I wouldn’t mind sounding like Angus (or Malcolm) for a while!

Jimmy Somma tweaking one of his instruments (Sommatone photo).

Is it? Do you consider it one? You should. Because your amp – a good amp – is at least 50% of your tone (not including your fingers) and it’s what you and other people actually hear. If it wasn’t that important, you would just get the cleanest amp/speaker combo you could find to faithfully reproduce the sound of your fingers on your guitar(s).

But no one does that because that’s not what guitar tone is about – probably not even those deedlee-dee-bee-bop jazz cats.

I got the amp-as-instrument idea from a convo with Jimmy Somma of Sommatone Amplification. Jimmy’s also a well-known and -respected guitar/amp tech here in the NY/NJ area, as well as a gigging musician. Obviously he’s passionate about amps (his amps are stellar, btw), and since he hipped me to that idea, I thought he’d be a good guy to talk to to get some insight into it.

WoodyTone: Why is the amp an instrument too?

Jimmy: Well, it’s an instrument itself, and it’s more a part of your tone than the guitar is. I always tell customers that you can put a great guitar through a crappy amp and it won’t sound great. But you can put a crappy guitar through an amazing amp and still get good sound out of it. That right there tells me that the amp is a bigger part of the equation.

What kind of reactions do you get when you tell people an amp is an instrument?

Most of the time it’s kind of like an epiphany, like, ‘Yeah that makes sense.’ The perfect example is we have a Danelectro here at the shop. It’s a $250 guitar with the stock crappy lipstick pickups in it. When you play slide guitar on it through one of our amps, it sounds phenomenal. That’s the proof right there.

How many people have come in and already believed that – that the amp is an instrument and is responsible for most of the tone?

Players are definitely more educated today because of all the information available. But it’s still a challenge to get people to realize that an amp is an instrument.

I was talking to [Sommatone endorsee] Earl Slick the other day and he said, ‘You’re one of the only amp guys I know who really gets it.’ That’s a huge compliment. Here’s a guy who’s 15 years older than me, who’s worked with all kinds of people and played a lot of amps. What’s he’s talking about is that you have to play the amp.

He said people grow up with the mentality today that the amp is a clean platform and you use a pedal for your dirty sound. But it should be the amp is the dirty tone and you control it with your volume knob. You have to learn to control the amp, and work to control it. It makes sense. You have to put in your time to learn this stuff to be able to use [the amp] as an instrument.

When you’re designing an amp or playing an amp that’s not yours, what are you doing to it to make it your instrument?

It’s like a Strat and a Les Paul – you’re going to approach the instruments differently because they are different. The tones are different, you have different inspirations – different things are happening because they’re…different [laughs].

The same thing happens with amps. If you’re playing a Fender blackface, you play different things than when you play a Marshall plexi. So it’s combination of things, and what you’re hearing influences what you’re going to play. Sound is an art when it comes to guitar tone.

About design, the way I approach amp-building is I don’t have a set [tonal] goal specifically in mind. I really do approach it like an art. As I’m building it, I let the amp sort of guide me. I know this might sound silly, but it guides me in the way it wants to go – so I’m not trying to fight it. I’m not trying to come up with something specific in mind initially to force the amp be something it’s not.

So if I feel the amp is going to certain realm tonally, I say, Okay, I’ll enhance that. The perfect example is the Overdrive 35. I knew I wanted to do a 6L6 amp, but didn’t have a specific idea of how I wanted the amp to sound. So I’d be [designing it and feel] like, Wow, I like this direction. I like this speaker with it so I’ll stick with that, I like this specific 6L6, and it sort of all comes together like a recipe. The final result is sort of a compilation of things that make the amp sound its best.

So the amp is art, and is an instrument.

People will think nothing of owning multiple $1,000 guitars, but not amps. Is that because amps aren’t as sexy somehow?

I think it’s because you don’t hold it in your hands. It’s good to own a Les Paul, a Strat and a Tele because they all have different sounds. But different amps will give you different flavors and colors like owning different guitars.

The guys who are pros will have different amps because they like to have different sounds at their disposal, for the studio or gigs, and they know they won’t get it all from one amp.

I think the average person has several guitars and one main amp, and on some level it should be the other way around. You should have same amount of amps as guitars. So if you have a Strat, Tele and a Les Paul, you should probably have three different amplifiers too.

Notable

> My amp epiphany was the 2009 NY/NJ Amp Show. I had no idea I could sound so good, that I could get places tonally that the big amp companies couldn’t take me. That’s why I started the blog AmpGAS.com. If you haven’t ever done this or not done it in a while, do it: Take a trip to a guitar store that has several different brands of “boutique” amps. Leave your credit cards at home if you must, but you will be floored at how great you can sound. I ga-run-tee!

Jimbo in '73.

F the iPod, my brothers. Nothing sounds as good as blasting tunes out of speakers, particularly in the car. I don’t know what it is – the enclosed space, the audio engineering, the proliferation of high-end audio stuff in vehicles…. Don’t know and don’t care. The bottom line for me is that when I crank tunes in the car, it’s frickin’ awesome.

For the last couple of weeks my favorite has been the one and only “Black Dog” of the Zeppelonius bros. It is the bone-crushing sound of rock and roll. Tone everywhere. Wood! The guitar riff is amazing, the singing riff is cool, the bass part very cool (listen to it!) and the drums – forget it. Immense, powerful. We might even say, “pachydermic.”

Don’t know why recordings these days don’t sound nearly that huge, or why everyone isn’t trying to make them sound that huge. Maybe we need to put the English back in charge of rock.

Anyhow, do yourself a favor and crank the Blackest of Dogs in your bestest of wheels. And while you’re listening, bear in mind that the maestro, Jimmy Page – who as everyone “knows” went from using small Supro amps in the studio to Marshall Super Leads – apparently did not use an amp on “Black Dog.”

No amp.

Seriously.

Check this out, from a May ‘02 interview of Led Zep IV producer Andy Johns by the Universal Audio webzine. Here’s the applicable part:

Andy: Would you like the “Black Dog” guitar tone story?

UA: Absolutely – which Led Zeppelin album was that? [Doh!]

Andy: That is the fourth one, the really, really big one. “Stairway To Heaven,” “Levee Breaks” and “Black Dog.” It sold about 18 million – something bloody ridiculous. Who would have known, you know? I had been trying to get this sound from Buffalo Springfield for a long time and I met Bill House [producer? engineer?]. He said, “Just put two 1176s in series.” He didn’t really want to let me know what “they” were. It was a direct sound and I thought that I knew what to do.

There were three guitars on “Black Dog” so I triple-tracked it. When I mixed it, these three guitars were down here and the rest of the tracks were up here. Since the sound was so loud, it gave me much more room for the other stuff. Anyways, he meant two 1176s in series, one of which has the compression buttons punched out, so it is like an amp. You hit the front of the next compressor really hard and make the mic amp distort a bit with the EQ – a bit of bottom to make it sing.

So “Black Dog” has a direct Gibson Les Paul Sunburst ‘52 or something [Page's '59 'burst], going right into the mic amps on the mixer, which is going through two 1176s, and it sounds like some guy in the Albert Hall with a bunch of Marshalls.

I couldn’t have done it without the 1176s. There is not another compressor that will do that because you can take out the compression stuff.

What?

The 1167 is a Universal Audio non-tube compressor with a built-in amplifier (I think). So not only was the “Black Dog” guitar(s) not through an amp, it was solid-state!

But does it really matter? As user rynugz007 said on a gearslutz.com thread about this stuff, Page’s “guitar tones are all over the place – Teles, Pauls, Strats, Marshalls, Supros, Vox, direct, room mics, close mic, etc. The consistency lies in the special sauce which is Jimmy’s technique, his ear and the riffs.

“If you have a great riff played by Jimmy Page it really would be difficult to make it sound bad. He has that raunchy, drunken bluesy thing going on in everything he plays that completely drips with vibe.”

Well said, sir!

Notable

These items are from a July ‘77 Guitar Player interview (Zep IV was released in 1971).

> He used Herco heavy-gauge nylon picks and Ernie Ball Super Slinky strings (9s).

> The interviewer asked: Do you think that when you went from the Telecaster to the Les Paul that your playing changed? Jimmy said, “Yes, I think so. It’s more of a fight with a Telecaster, but there are rewards. The Gibson’s got a stereotyped sound, maybe – I don’t know. But it’s got a beautiful sustain to it. I like sustain because it relates to bowed instruments and everything, this whole area that everyone’s been pushing and experimenting in. When you think about it, it’s mainly sustain.”

Behold the power!

Different version w/ Jimmy and Robert.

Fingers flyin' in '78!

What did Edward Van Halen really say about his early tone? Did he really mean it? What can we read into it? Following is the remainder of the tone-related excerpts from the November 1978 Guitar Player interview (part 1 is here). Commentary by yours truly.

The Whammy

> Remember he’s talking about a vintage-style (6-screw) Fender bridge.

“Nobody taught me how to do guitar work: I learned by trial and error. I have messed up a lot of good guitars that way, but now I know what I’m doing, and I can do whatever I want to get them the way I want them. I hate store-bought, off-the-rack guitars. They don’t do what I want them to do, which is kick ass and scream. Take the vibrato setup, for example. You have to know how to set it up so it won’t go out of tune, which took me a long time to get down. It has a lot to do with the way you play it – you can’t bring it down and not bring it up. Some people just hit the bar and let go – you have to bring it back right. Sometimes you’ll stretch a note too far with your fingering hand, and it’ll go flat. Here you have to pull the bar up to get it back to normal.

“I’ve also found that gauged set of strings will work better than one you make up. Like, I used to use heavier bottom strings with light top strings, and it didn’t work very well. I also buy a different spring from Fender for my vibrato – one that’s a little looser – and this makes a big difference. You also have to watch out for the little string retainers Fender uses because sometimes the strings can get caught in them and go out of tune.”

> Looser springs = more in tune trem. Isn’t this a trick Jeff Beck employs?

> Ed knew his gear backwards and forwards. No doubt.

Effects

Onstage, Eddie uses an Univox echo unit that is concealed in a World War II practice bomb. “I had a different motor put in it,” he says, “so it would delay much slower and go really low. I use this for ‘Eruption.’ I also use two Echoplexes and a flanger for subtle touches. And I use an MXR Phase 90 phase shifter that gives me treble boost for solos, too.”

> Bang! “Treble boost for solos” – MXR phasers didn’t come stock that way. He got his modded.

The Variac

“I use voltage generators, which can crank my amps up to 130 or 140 volts. Amps sound like nothing else to me when they are cranked so high, but you have got to keep a fan on them because they blow so often. You have to retube them every day, and they usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing.”

> This is a tough one. By now, many people have proven – some from watching Ed in private situations – that he turns the voltage down using the Variac, which decreases volume and “browns” the sound. Ed is also supposedly a master of misdirection when it comes to his gear, as are many of his peers. But Ed also said that for the Fair Warning sessions he turned up his variac to 140 volts (if I remember right) and “watched the tubes melt” or something like that. Since doing this would be very bad for the amp, most people feel like he was full of it. But in light of the ‘78 interview, maybe not – because he admits that turning the Variac up so much kills the amps. Also bear in mind that Ed was blowing output transformers left and right on the VHI tour, so…maybe he really was turning the Variac up?

> Messing with a Variac, especially turning it UP, supposedly is dangerous for you and your amp. So don’t try it.

Notable

> This is a cool story. Starting at about 2:24, Jas Obrecht tells the story about how he came to interview EVH for that 11/78 GP issue. Pat Travers blew him off and he got stuck with Edward Van Halen – but there’s more to it than that.

- End of part 2 of 2 -

The man, in '78.

Part 1

By now no one’s exactly sure what Edward Van Halen really said or didn’t say about his tone and technique over the years. Even though lots of folks on this-here Internet thingy act like they know fo’ sho’, they either don’t or are misremembering. You really have to go back to what the man said and evaluate it in light of what has trickled out since he said it.

Because there ain’t no Rosetta Stone for EVH tone, people!

So the only way to maybe get a solid clue is to read the old interviews.

Admittedly, however, everyone doesn’t have copies of old Guitar Player magazines hanging around. I don’t either (okay…I have some). But some of that stuff has ended up on the web – like the recent transcription of EVH’s first Guitar Player interview, in November 1978. That had Roy Clark on the cover, not Ed. The Ed cover was the second time he was interviewed for the magazine.

You can read the whole 1978 interview here at vhnd.com, but following are the tone-related parts, annotated by yours truly.

VH I

“For the first record,” Eddie recalls, “we went in to the studio one day and played live and laid down 40 songs. Out of these 40 we picked nine and wrote one in the studio–’Jamie’s Cryin.’ The album is very live–there are few overdubs, which is the magic of Ted Templeman. I would say that out of the 10 songs on the record, I overdubbed the solo on only ‘Runnin’ with the Devil,’ ‘Ice Cream Man,’ and ‘Jamie’s Cryin” – the rest are live. I used the same equipment that I use onstage….”

> 40 tunes?! I assume most of the other 30 made it onto further albums (even 1984 had some VH I-era material), but maybe not all.

> “The same equipment” – only thing we can take from that is that he played at the same volume.

Frankie

Eddie assembled his main guitar with parts he bought from Charvel. “It is a copy of a Fender Stratocaster,” he says. “I bought the body for $50 and the neck for $80, and put in an old Gibson PAF pickup that was rewound to my specifications.”

> “Was rewound to” means he didn’t do it himself. If, as some contend, Seymour Duncan did it, then it might’ve been rewound a little hot, something which EVH seemed to favor then and since. If so, then a low-output humbucker was not used on VH1! Also, it’s interesting to note that the Seymour Duncan custom shop pickup formerly known as the EVH is now called the “‘78.” Hmmmm. According to the Duncan website, the “‘78 Model” is slightly hotter than vintage PAF range.

“I like the one-pickup sound, and I’ve experimented with it a lot. If you put the pickup really close to the bridge, it sounds trebly. If you put it too far forward, you get a sound that isn’t good for rhythm. I like it towards the back – it gives the sound a little sharper edge and bite.”

> Moving the bridge pickup around definitely alters the tone from that pickup a lot. he found where he liked it and screwed it in place. Many guys – me included – still try to get VH tone out of a bridge pickup with standard spacing. Probably not wise….

“I also put my own frets in, using large Gibsons. There is only one volume knob – that’s all there is to it. I don’t use any fancy tone knobs. I see so many people who have these space-age guitars with a lot of switches and equalizers and treble boosters – give me one knob, that’s it. It’s simple and it sounds cool. I also painted this guitar with stripes. It has almost the same weight as a Les Paul.”

> Bang! “Almost the same weight as a Les Paul.” That means Frankie was northern ash, end of story. Swamp ash and alder don’t weigh that much and, to my ears, don’t sound the same.

> Supposedly the $25K EVH Frankie replica guitars have lightweight bodies. Some have speculated that this is because Eddie’s guitar aged over the years, dried out and got lighter. Others think it must mean that the Frankie was not northern ash. Well, it was northern ash.

Other Axes

Eddie’s other guitars include an Ibanez copy of a Gibson Explorer [an Ibanez Destroyer which was NOT korina], which, he says, “I slightly rearranged. I cut a piece out of it with a chainsaw so that it’s now a cross between a [Gibson Flying] V and an Explorer, and I put in different electronics and gave it a paint job. I’ve also recently bought a Charvel Explorer-shaped body and put a Danelectro neck on it and an old Gibson PAF pickup. And I also found a 1952 gold top Les Paul. It’s not completely original – it’s got a regular stud tailpiece in it, and a Tune-o-matic bridge. I have rewound Gibson PAF pickups in it, too. I use a Les Paul for the end of the set because my Charvel is usually out of tune, and the Les Paul’s sound is a little fatter.”

> “Different electronics” in the Shark. Does that just mean different pickups? Tone control not hooked up?

> “Rewound Gibson pickups” again probably mean hotter-than-normal. Remember that all of Eddie’s signature pickups, including on his signature axes, have been hot.

- End of part 1 of 2 -