Best Pick up for EVH tone?

[JacksonMIA]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

I own and frequently listen to ALL of Van Halen's albums, even Van Halen 3 (except Diver Down, which I can't really get into). But I will, per your request, go back and listen to it again.

Soulful yet flashy is one of the defining factors of EVH. It happens any time he picks up a guitar. I just don't feel it was up to par with his other work. I'm wasn't knocking Eddie's songwriting, just his playing. And it's still head and shoulders above everyone else.

--The Van Hagar Nazi

[kevlar3000]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

To back up my statement........heres the link.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...&hl=en&start=1

This has been floating around a couple years too.... This is some text I snatched up. I am not the I in the start of this paragraph.


'I managed to get this information from Mr Peter Van Wheelden (who happens to live about 30 minutes from my house just outside amsterdam) Can anyone on this board please tell me if this sounds plausible? , and if so, how would this differ from any bog standard 1967 slp 100? surely someone other than Peter has seen the internals of this amp over the years? Dear Plaap, Edwards amp's internal measurements were as follows: 1.The first 820 ohm resistor (carbon type) measured a little over 1K. It was bypassed with a blue 330uF resistor can 2.His treble cap was a 250pF Murata flat ceramic one. The cap across his 470K was a Murata hollow round 330pF cap <BR>3.His second stage 820 ohm (which also measured a little over 1K, was also bypassed with the exact same type 330uF blue colored cap that was on the first cathode resistor 4.The filtering caps for the middle of the board were gray colored RS caps that had dual 16uF values 5.The screens were 2 blue caps in series (DALY 32uF's) 6.The voltage doubler were two big blue caps (100uF DALY's). The one on the outside was a blue Daly - and was a single 32uF 7.The feedback resistor was a 47K of unknown origin 8.His power transformer was the smaller one of that era. His OPT was also the smaller one with 1.5" stack The amp was either left stock into a load resistor or, a big Ohmite(or other) power resistor was placed somewhere in the circuit to cut the power of only the output stage meaning Sylvania 6CA7's were the only valves to hold up to this.

[VHoholic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

Here's some live VH video clips. I figured i would post them here for the heck of it. Enjoy! Ed's sound is incredible in these imo.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5
Video 6
Video 7
Live without a Net solo part 1
Live without a Net solo part 2
1984 Tour solo - part 1
1984 Tour solo - part 2

[shredaholic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

wow nice one thanks man

[VHoholic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

wow nice one thanks man

Anytime bro.

[WICKED LESTER]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

The amp was a bone stock 67 SL. He was putting BS in the public, I can only imagine how many people toasted their amps variac'd to 140 volts. I bet he was laughing the whole time... Pretty funny stuff.

it was NOT bone stock
put on ERUPTION and really listen to that tone or the last F# chord in "atomic punk" when that marshall is begging for mercy and THEN try to still tell me it was BONE STOCK!
I now for a fact that it was modded.

[WICKED LESTER]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

to the original poster of this thread, listen man since you obviously dont have a 67 modded SLP get the custom-custom it is about as close as you can get in a stock pup without a 67 SLP
here check out this,

http://www.toneninja.net/cc.htm

[Faraday]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

to the original poster of this thread, listen man since you obviously dont have a 67 modded SLP get the custom-custom it is about as close as you can get in a stock pup without a 67 SLP
here check out this,
http://www.toneninja.net/cc.htm

Some say its close to a CC, others say '59, others say 59/C5 hybrid, the only difference I see was it A2 or A5 mag for Eddies pups. Didn't he migrate towards A5's ?

[WICKED LESTER]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

Some say its close to a CC, others say '59, others say 59/C5 hybrid, the only difference I see was it A2 or A5 mag for Eddies pups. Didn't he migrate towards A5's ?

when he hooked up with dimarzio he started using 5's
the peavey pups are also 5's

[Majestic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

it was NOT bone stock
put on ERUPTION and really listen to that tone or the last F# chord in "atomic punk" when that marshall is begging for mercy and THEN try to still tell me it was BONE STOCK!
I now for a fact that it was modded.

Hilarious. You've got a great handle/name, by the way.

Anyway: yes, his amp is made of vintage/stock parts, albeit mixed & matched from replacement parts/caps/resistors/etc. from that era.

Everyone and their mom knows that Templeman HEAVILY altered Ed's tone at the mixing board, which was supposedly a friggin' nightmare. The board-mix treble is ALL Templeman's idea.....much to Eddie's chagrin. He hated the tone, which is why he never used it again.

This is obvious by VHII, when Templeman caved to Ed's wishes, and voiced his Marshall the way Eddie intended.

The "mysterious" distortion/boost pedal that was always on Ed's orginal crap pedal board was almost definitely used on many/most of the tones on VH1, and later on "Fair Warning", albeit in a different form.

VH1 is by far his most trebley and jangly tone, and it's due to Ted Templeman. Not a "modded" Marshall.

While it may be inaccurate to say that it's "stock", it certain isn't "modded".

More like, "replaced" or "mixed".

Anyway, use common sense. You don't send your d*mn amp to Denmark back in 1994 when you want it cleaned/fixed, and it's a modded Marshall. There are 50 techs in every major US city who can do that.

It was sent there to be dealt with by a master of stock amps. Period.

If it was a d*mn modded or "hot-rodded" Marshall, Matt Bruck would've cleaned it up/refurbished it himself.

[inter]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

It's always interesting to read the different version's on Ed's pickups, gear, etc.

Love it

[shredaholic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

The "mysterious" distortion/boost pedal that was always on Ed's orginal crap pedal board was almost definitely used on many/most of the tones on VH1, and later on "Fair Warning", albeit in a different form.

That's probably the most interesting post here so far. Ed used his MXR Phase 90 on pretty much every solo on the first album, he said it didn't do much phasing, he preferred to use it for a boost (and obviously Atomic Punk effects).

[shredaholic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

Everyone and their mom knows that Templeman HEAVILY altered Ed's tone at the mixing board, which was supposedly a friggin' nightmare. The board-mix treble is ALL Templeman's idea.....much to Eddie's chagrin. He hated the tone, which is why he never used it again.

Any idea how to get that trebly sound with an eq? Like what frequencies to boost, eg. 3000Hz?

[Majestic]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

I'm not an authority on getting the "sizzle" he had on a few of those tracks.

All I know is that he's famously maxed-out his powertube distortion, so to get a tone w/ that type of sizzle AND have that mushy powertube distortion, the engineer likely did something on the back-end. Nowadays, I'm sure players would use the "treble-correctors" that are built in on some of their powersoaks.

You don't hear that same tone EVER again in any VH track, although the dark, growling, almost "muted" powertube tone is still there until 1991.

I don't think using a treble boost pedal is going to effectively simulate whatever board-work was done by Templeman. I could be very, very wrong.

And I didn't mean to sound like I was "spouting off", or whatever. I like Wicked Lester, I like his name, I like his Avatar, and I like his messages.

I have no doubt that Eddie's supposed "stock" amp has many replacement parts, goofy caps, and goofy filters in it, but I interpret them as just that.....REPLACEMENTS. Not some goofy, late-70's era hot-rod cascading gain mega booster Marshall mod.

In other words, I don't believe, based on the more recent truthful interviews Eddie has given, that he's taken an old car, and beefed it up with new car parts.

I think he's taken his old car to the junk yard, and found replacement parts that either WERE from the same era, or are built to FUNCTION like parts from the same era.

Again, if he had some lame-azz early-80's hot-rodded Marshall, he could take it a half mile down the road and have Steve Vai or Dweezil fix it. He sent it to Denmark for a reason.

That said, I should state that I firmly (and maybe incorrectly) believe that whatever filters, caps, resistors, etc. that are in his Marshall, are very important to getting his smokey, warm tone. In other words, I believe the "recipe" is certainly relevant, but I think it would be easier to achieve if we just all knew the damn combination, and could also play like Eddie.

Ed's playing style is sneaky-violent. He's able to play a low output pickup into an old-a** amp BECAUSE his left hand technique is so articulate and thorough (his fingers "micro-pluck" during pulloffs, etc.), and his right-hand technique can switch from silky to violent with the flick of the wrist.

Go ahead and try to play that scrambling, violent intro lick on "I'm the One" that's about 10 seconds into the tune at ALBUM SPEED, with ALBUM CLARITY. You could plug right into Ed's exact rig, but if you don't can't cross-pick like that, you're gonna sound like an a**-clown.

Even Curt Mitchell and VHaholic are a step slow on that one. Although they've both come the closest to nailing that lick. Hell, EDDIE couldn't even play it when he was rehearsing during the VH III tour, and HE WROTE IT. Took him a week to get it right.....those were were his words.

[twoheadedboy]

Re: Best Pick up for EVH tone?

What do you think about the Fair Warning tones as compared to eddie's earlier work?