How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

[zzmoore]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

If you do find the actual schematic, please let me know. [emoji12]

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Me thinks we need to befriend an "Authorized Factory Bugera Tech" for that.......

 

[GilmourD]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Me thinks we need to befriend an "Authorized Factory Bugera Tech" for that.......

Truth...

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[ErikH]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Without killing yourself over schematics and other finer details, the best way to get that sound is to crank the snot out of an old Marshall, play a Strat with a humbucker in it and then play the licks with some feeling and a little recklessness. Going note for note like a robot loses the entire feel (as I have witnessed by many VH clones and tribute acts). There's so many finer details but it all starts with the playing and having the right amp and guitar.

The OP definitely got there with his gear. And different from how most would have gotten there.

 

[zzmoore]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Truth...

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Unless we are planning on building a Bugera Factory, I probably meant to say.....Factory Authorized, Bugera tech. :smack:

 

[GilmourD]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Unless we are planning on building a Bugera Factory, I probably meant to say.....Factory Authorized, Bugera tech. :smack:

LOL I knew what you meant and didn't even realize how you actually worded it.

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[GilmourD]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Without killing yourself over schematics and other finer details, the best way to get that sound is to crank the snot out of an old Marshall, play a Strat with a humbucker in it and then play the licks with some feeling and a little recklessness. Going note for note like a robot loses the entire feel (as I have witnessed by many VH clones and tribute acts). There's so many finer details but it all starts with the playing and having the right amp and guitar.

The OP definitely got there with his gear. And different from how most would have gotten there.

You mean like...

Bugera 1960--Jettenuator--Peavey 412MS - quiet: http://youtu.be/-ZIBTnaETAc


Sorry for the mess. When I did that I was in the midst of unpacking after moving. LOL

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[ErikH]

How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

You mean like...

Bugera 1960--Jettenuator--Peavey 412MS - quiet: http://youtu.be/-ZIBTnaETAc


Sorry for the mess. When I did that I was in the midst of unpacking after moving. LOL

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No, I mean Marshall through a 4x12, preferrably loaded with Greenbacks.

That's an interesting little amp.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

No, I mean Marshall through a 4x12, preferrably loaded with Greenbacks.

That's an interesting little amp.

Well, it is a 4x12, but not a Marshall with Celestions, and the Bugera 1960 Infinium is basically a 100 watt Super Lead with Randy Rhoads mods. The original 1960 was a straight Marshall 1959 clone, no PPIMV or cascading option.

I have been looking to get some WGS Green Berets, though, for that Greenback tone.

That was also recorded with my phone about two feet off the cone. Motorola made the Droid RAZR HD MAXX really well, but I don't think it was meant to seriously record audio. LOL

Oh, as you can see in this pic, not so little. LOL

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[ErikH]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Well, it is a 4x12, but not a Marshall with Celestions, and the Bugera 1960 Infinium is basically a 100 watt Super Lead with Randy Rhoads mods. The original 1960 was a straight Marshall 1959 clone, no PPIMV or cascading option.

I have been looking to get some WGS Green Berets, though, for that Greenback tone.

That was also recorded with my phone about two feet off the cone. Motorola made the Droid RAZR HD MAXX really well, but I don't think it was meant to seriously record audio. LOL

Oh, as you can see in this pic, not so little. LOL

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Nice. How's that Jettenuator? I've been looking for an attenuator but haven't found one that I really really like so I've been using a volume box in the FX loop of my Marshall. Not the same as an attenuator but it does the job.

 

[Aceman]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Watch me get all zen and $h!t and just take all the air out of everything:

Only Ed can get Ed's tone in his way. Your path to that tone will be your own. And there are many, many paths….

 

[NT02]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Here's a clip I did last week with a Fargen Olde 800 MkII in the 60s mode, a Gibson SG with BB#3 bridge pup, and a Suhr Koko boost:





I've never been one to chase EVH tone, but when I got that sound just messing around, I had to go learn a tune. A quick switch from the Koko to a Timmy, and I had some thick AIC sounding stuff.

 

[GilmourD]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Nice. How's that Jettenuator? I've been looking for an attenuator but haven't found one that I really really like so I've been using a volume box in the FX loop of my Marshall. Not the same as an attenuator but it does the job.

I've been pretty happy with it. Again, take that as a caveat because I was looking for EVH type tone out of it. A lot of people complain that attenuators knock treble off but EVH just used a big resistor between his Marshall and the H&H power amp.

That said, at any setting I've used, the amp attenuated is bright and lively. I've been using it clean (if I smash the strings it gets dirty) with pedals a lot lately since the band I'm in now has a lot of clean sounds. It works really well to keep the rest of my band from being killed and sounds good, just like Mike Soldano intended.

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[Red_Label]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

I don't think anyone's making fun of the OP's efforts. It's commendable. But it's also a formula that can be arrived at a dozen different ways, although the formula has to be pretty close.....plus guitar skills.

I'm an amp, guitar, and pickup fanatic, as well as VH skillz student, so I've explored these tones pretty heavily. My own formula turned out to be a Fender strat loaded with a C/59 Hybrid into the blue channel of a Bogner XTC set to the best emulation of Ed's rig. It's got the natural tube compression that sounds similar to a plexi w/variac, and with Greenback 412 is pretty darn close......probably better. I've also got a 78 ADA Flanger and MXR EVH Phase 90.

The C/59 Hybrid will put you there pretty nicely, and I'm thinking that the Whole Lotta Hum bridge falls into the right specs too. Most guys take the WLH bridge into Page territory, but I'm sure it overlaps into the old EVH tone as well with the other variables in place.

Ditto this.

Closest I ever got to Ed's early tone was running my Carl Martin Plexitone into my XTC Classic blue channel, set to plexi mode. I'd always wanted the brown sound, but once I achieved it... it was sort of anti-climactic. Because then the realization dawned on me that unless I was going to be playing in a VH tribute band... what good was it (for me)?

At any rate... it's still an awesome tone and very cool how close we can get with various bits of gear these days -- whereas it used to be something that very few were able to get.

 

[zenmindbeginner]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Am I the only person who thinks that the brown sound sounds great with playing non-VH riffs?

The brown sound is my sound... it might have a little George Lynch, Warren Demartini, Vito Bratta and Jake E. Lee flavors sprinkled in there but those tones are still the best high gain tones ever achieved.

Everyone should be chasing the brown sound IMHO.

 

[zzmoore]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

For you guys that actually KNOW.....was Eddy really hip to all that stuff.?
Is the brown sound the efforts of some other people and/or studio personnel from back then.?
To hear the story repeated...it sounds like Ed decided to grab a Vari-AC, one day, and see if that would get him where he wanted to go. :dunno:

 

[Red_Label]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Am I the only person who thinks that the brown sound sounds great with playing non-VH riffs?

The brown sound is my sound... it might have a little George Lynch, Warren Demartini, Vito Bratta and Jake E. Lee flavors sprinkled in there but those tones are still the best high gain tones ever achieved.

Everyone should be chasing the brown sound IMHO.

While "THE brown sound" may be my favorite electric guitar tone ever recorded... I do disagree with your premise.

Should SRV have been chasing that sound? Eric Johnson? Gary Moore? Joe Bonamassa? Jeff Beck? Alex Lifeson? Andy Summers? Brad Paisley? Jerry Cantrell? Etc, etc, etc? Would their bands have sounded "better" if they'd have carbon-copied Eddie's early tone? Would they have sounded "right"? Why did Eddie more or less completely abandon that sound after "Fair Warning" or "1984" ('cept the outro to "Drop Dead Legs")?

 

[LLL]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Since using the amp at lower voltages with the variac requires a different bias than stock (albeit the same principle; ~70% plate dissipation while running lower voltage), flipping from this setup to stock and back would require more than just a few knob changes. As such, the tone is so good (playing EVH or not) that I have kept it this way for a couple years now and haven't changed a thing nor changed back to stock. It just sounds that good, and can be used for lots of styles and mixes very well with different boosts/tone enhancers. The other point being this kind of amp distortion (which is technically "vintage") isn't so overpowering that with different guitars, it's the same tone every time... there's enough leeway to get different "shades" with different guitars; you can still hear the guitar in the tone.

Going back to EVH - all in all, it is very amazing that a stock amp, variac'd and with a slightly overwound PAF and Echoplex (and don't forget the studio side of things) can get such an aggressive tone. On the grand scale of amps past and present, there's really not a ton of distortion going on and what it does have for distortion is shockingly clear and not muddy in the least (fancy chords ring out). Not to mention the chimey clean tones when turning the volume knob on the guitar down. It's quite the grand tone illusion. Therein lies the huge mystery and everybody saying "no way that amp is stock" or "he must have used a distortion pedal or something", etc...

 

[ErikH]

How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Michael Anthony was talking about the recording session in an interview and he stated that there was so much treble in the band room that it was almost unbearable. What is heard on tape is not what it sounded like standing in the same room.

 

[RealtyViking]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

For you guys that actually KNOW.....was Eddy really hip to all that stuff.?
Is the brown sound the efforts of some other people and/or studio personnel from back then.?
To hear the story repeated...it sounds like Ed decided to grab a Vari-AC, one day, and see if that would get him where he wanted to go. :dunno:

From an Esquire magazine interview:

"I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn't know. So I plugged the thing in, but I'm going, '****ing thing doesn't work. I got ripped off.' I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there's sound coming out, but it's really quiet, cause it's running on half voltage. So I go, 'Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to all the way up, but it's really quiet.' So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box.

"Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, 'Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?' They go, 'Yeah, it's all Variac, variable transformer, you know.' And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it's on 220 and it's that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work... So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I'd lower it down to 50.

"I told people the complete opposite. I told them I raised it up 140 volts. I felt so bad. I felt so ****ing horrible, man. They said, 'Please don't attempt what Eddie Van Halen said in the last interview,' because everyone was blowing their amps.'... I felt so bad. I never lied again after that."

 

[Rafito]

Re: How To: The Early VH Brown Sound

Wampler Pinnacle Deluxe is not a bad idea, here is a small demo I made: