another van halen thread

[hellrider77]

o.k., so i have been surfing some different sites about the guitar evh used during the dlr years. i have read alot about how the guitar was just put together and others that say it was just a stock kramer that was heavily modded.

anybody know? what moddel was the body? what about the neck? what pups did he use?

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: another van halen thread

Franky was a boogie body or a charvel body can't remember which and yes it was put together from parts.

His Kramers (5150, 1984, and hot for teacher) were all special in their own right. They were not production models. But the Baretta was closely designed after one of them.

and

Shortly before EVH announced he was signing w/ Kramer, he had a Kramer R5 maple beak neck put on Franky

 

[pinto79]

Re: another van halen thread

His first one, I'm not sure of the colour, but I think it was white and then eventually red (striped of course) was a Boogie Bodies body (Basswood) routed for 3 singles and an Elsworth Strat-style neck, vintage trem and top mount jack (like a Strat)

He used a Brass nut that was heavily oiled and he wrapped the string to go UP the posts to reduce friction at the nut. Original trem was a Fender style vintage trem (I don't know what brand) the body was modified to fit the humbucker with a screwdriver used as a chisel and the pickup was the neck pickup from an ES-335 (1958 is poking me in the brain, but I could be wrong) I read that he re-wound the pickup himself (scatterwound? ) and it ended up at about 7k. The pickup cavities were filled with a neck single coil pup that was not connected, and a 5 way switch was jammed in the middle opening, again, not connected. The one humbucker was wired to a single Volume control sporting a "Tone" knob (value unknown, I assume 250K to help with that "Brown" sound he liked so much)

Later that guitar got a non-fine tuner Floyd Rose and then he got the 3rd OFR with fine tuners.

I read that in a magazine article from about 10 years ago when Ed gave one of the guitar mags a tour through his "Museum". Apparently he still has the ES-335 that donated that first pup. I paraphrased tho...

Hope this helped!

Damn! 9finger beat me to it! Me and my slow typing... :smack:

 

[Willis]

Re: another van halen thread

Franky was a boogie body or a charvel body can't remember which

It was made by Boogie Bodies, and he got it from Wayne Charvel, so it's kind of both.

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: another van halen thread

I knew the neck was definately Charvel, but wasn't 100% on the body.

 

[hellrider77]

Re: another van halen thread

the franky, or at least the one i've always called the frankenkramer,(red with stripes)
what moddel kramer neck did he use, and was the boogie body just a standard strat body he modded?

 

[Mr 9finger]

Re: another van halen thread

the franky, or at least the one i've always called the frankenkramer,(red with stripes)
what moddel kramer neck did he use, and was the boogie body just a standard strat body he modded?

Franky was an evolution of the black/white stripe guitar on the first album. It ended up w/ a couple different Kramer neck, firstly the maple beak, but ended up w/ a matching striped nana headstock.

It was just a standard strat style body that eddie chisled out.

 

[Captain Tightpants]

Re: another van halen thread

Ed has had a number of different necks on his early guitars. I think Ed's been using the 5150 Kramer again with a new Charvel neck lately, along with some of the new Charvel model guitars. I thought I read somewhere that the original Frankenstrat was out of retirement, too, but I'm not sure about that.

 

[tone?]

Re: another van halen thread

the boogie bodies was ASH , here is a thread i started a while back that says alot.


https://forum.seymourduncan.com/showthread.php?t=45824

 

[WhoFan]

Re: another van halen thread

Ya it was an Ash body. In all the early Interviews i have Ed always claims it was ash.... Both neck and body were said to be cheap discounted 2nd's

Franky was like this

Body-Boogie Bodies, Hard Northern heavy Ash- said to weigh a ton.
Neck-1975-79 it had a hand made Linn Ellesworth neck
Bridge-first bridge was a 1961 Fender Strat Bridge....(sometime in late 78 i believe it had a Charvel bridge for a bit)
Pickup-Gibson PAF from a 1960's Gibson ES 335
Brass Nut
White with Black strips-(see the cover of VH 1)

In late 78 or early 79 a coat of red paint was added as a few companies were copying Ed's stripped design. Pickguard was cut and a single coil strat pickup was screwed to the neck pickup cavity but was not hooked up..... If you look close a strat style switch is screwed into the middle pickup cavity

In 1979 i believe he had broke the neck off Franky and the original Charvel neck from his Black and Yellow one was used for a bit after painting the headstock black. His Black and Yellow one had a new neck and a Floyd Prototype on it in 79. Franky got a Floyd proto type after experimented with the Floyd on the Charvel......

1980 saw a new neck again.... It was some unknown Strat style neck.... The headstock looked a little larger then some... Most likely a Charvel but who knows..

One point of interest is in an interview Ed did sometime around the Fair Warning era he claimed that for the studio he changed necks and bridges on Franky for recording... He said that in the studio for better tone he uses a nonlocking trem and a different neck....

In the early 80's you can see different floyds on Franky... Gold and Chrome ones..

For the 1982 tour Ed had an early Kramer non banana style headstock... that stlye of neck stayed on there until the mid 80's... it is in the Jump video i think...

Sometime mid 80's a banana headstock Kramer neck was added.... And that is the way it is today...

For the 1984 tour Ed had switched his stage guitars over to his custom Kramers.... the 5150 was the main one and his 1984 was the back up.... he also had a bunch of other Kramers with stripes too... There is a photo of Ed's storage spot above 5150 studios and there is a stack of striped kramer bodies on the ground... must be 12 of them or so.. He could throw together a custom guitar anytime.

WhoFan

 

[MattPete]

Re: another van halen thread

WhoFan has it: no basswood, no kramer, just a Boogie Bodies (now Warmoth) northern ash body with various necks.

Keep in mind that a good chunk of his early recordings were done with the Ibanez Destroyer. Basically, if a song didn't use the trem, he used the Destroyer, which was made out of either limba or swamp ash.

 

[SlyFoxx]

Re: another van halen thread

Actually the Destroyer is made of korina wood. After doing VH1 he tried to modify the shape of the body and took out a huge chink behind the bridge and ruined the tone. He bought another but it's body wood was different and didn't sound as good as his original.

 

[elvhfan]

Re: another van halen thread

that kramer "beak neck" that he had on franky is now up for sale...

 

[Dankerella]

Re: another van halen thread

Wow, I'm learning a lot here. Very interesting stuff guys.

Anyone else find it weird Eddie went from a nice strat style (aside from the Ibanez) to his clunky Music Man guitar. That Music Man just looks like an uncomfortable ton of bricks compared to his old guitars. I'm sure it holds its own, but it just doesn't seem like him...

 

[ErikH]

Re: another van halen thread

The Music Man is actually very comfortable to play. I like it better than the Peavey Wolfgang.

 

[WhoFan]

Re: another van halen thread

Wow, I'm learning a lot here. Very interesting stuff guys.

Anyone else find it weird Eddie went from a nice strat style (aside from the Ibanez) to his clunky Music Man guitar. That Music Man just looks like an uncomfortable ton of bricks compared to his old guitars. I'm sure it holds its own, but it just doesn't seem like him...

Ed's favourite guitars were Les Pauls but they didn't suit his small body... The EVH Music Man was designed to have some of the feel of a Strat, a tele, and a Les Paul all in one guitar... The Wolfgang added an arched top for even more of an LP feel to it...

On a side note i feel Ed's best recorded Early VH tone is Running With The Devil.... Which is said to be the Ibanez Exployer.... Ed was upset that when he went out to buy a 2nd Exployer that Ibanez had stopped using Korina...

WhoFan

 

[MattPete]

Re: another van halen thread

Actually the Destroyer is made of korina wood. After doing VH1 he tried to modify the shape of the body and took out a huge chink behind the bridge and ruined the tone. He bought another but it's body wood was different and didn't sound as good as his original.

'

There are some questions as to whether the Destroyer was actually Korina (Gibson's name for limba). Later Destroyers were actually ash dyed to look like korina. I've googled the heck out of it, and the best answer I've come up with is that it might have been korina, but there is a chance it was really ash.