Re: Custom 78 in my Frankenstein Replica
I dig your rough and cut version of Unchained, especially the solo from the video (as opposed to the album)!
As for pickups...the only thing I've decided is that he used a lower output pickup. Also, keep in mind that he often recorded with a Destroyer, and even a Flying V.
I go back and forth over his tone. Sometimes it really has that mid-push of an A2, and sometimes it doesn't. I think for the early albums, I would lean towards a lower output A2 humbucker. A Custom/59/A2 hybrid comes remarkably close, but the output is just too hot. The 78 didn't do it for me. But, a few years ago I did try a 59 with an A2, and my memory tells my that it sounded pretty darned close to EVH. I'll need to try it again to see what I think now. Perhaps a Pearly Gates might do the trick (after all, EVH's tone sounds a lot like BG's).
As for the later years (post Fair Warning), I haven't really paid much attention to his tone. Having said that, I was jamming to 1984 recently, and his tone changes from track-to-track. Hot for Teacher sounds like a bright mahogany guitar. In this case it was a 50's Flying-V, and by the sound of it, I would have guessed that it was equipped with an A5 pickup (but I thought Gibson tended to use A2's back then, but I've also heard that their QC was all over the place). You have the mids of mahogany, but the slightly scooped sound of an A5.
But then if you listen to 'Jump', his tone is much thicker. Frankie with a CC?
Zip over to 'Panama', and the one guitar in my collection that matches that tone through a Metropoulos Plexi is a mahogany Warmoth strat with a ceramic Custom. That guitar fits that tone to a 'T' - bright, yet thick.
'House of Pain' -- bright, yet dark. Perhaps an A5 pickup? That song does have a hint of twang to it, and the tone is a bit hollow.
In the end, EVH was all over the place. If you want an all-around guitar that gets most of his tones, make an ash Floyd-equiped strat was a PAF pickup. For a little bit more variety, add a mahogany fixed-bridge guitar with a pickup slightly towards the hot end of the PAF range.
