People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

IanBallard said:
My take is that the amp was the key and the guitar and pickups were a secondary concern. The use of a 10-band EQ and good studio compressor was also important.
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I agree completely with this here.

Another way you could look at it is with a good Marshall and a killer set of hands you can make any piece of junk guitar sound good.

I think if people could actually sit down and play the frankie they would find that it isnt oozing with some magical tone but was rather a tool for a very talented set of hands.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

I would almost be willing to bet that if you could get people to sit down with the real frankie and not knowing what it was (impossible yes i know) evaluate it sonically would find it lacking in some way and one of the first things they would look for would be a pickup swap.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

IanBallard said:
I think he only used the Shark for "You Really Got Me", "Runnin'..." and maybe some backing rhythm tracks on a few others on the first record. As far as I can tell, it was mostly the Frankie. The pickups, however, are a different story. I would bet anything that he was using something hotter and ceramic on the first record. The bass is tighter and the tone is "harder", whereas the 2nd record, the tone is more spread out, softer and "PAFish".

My take is that the amp was the key and the guitar and pickups were a secondary concern. The use of a 10-band EQ and good studio compressor was also important.
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Hadn't been sharked yet, back then. He's stated in multiple interviews that he used the Ibanez Destroyer everywhere on the 1st album except where he was doing dives. The bass is indeed tighter with the Destroyer.

Also, on the harsher tone on first, he's said he's frustrated with the bright post-EQ on it, which made it far harsher than he wanted, and that VH II is what it sounded like without that.

And absolutely agree the amp and EQ were more important than the pickups. Lowered amp voltage really changes the way an amp behaves. Also lets you get away with beat up old speakers without blowing them as often.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

I could be wrong about the VH1 pickup, but a Plexi isnt' exactly a "warm" amp when it's running hot. I'm thinking he had Seymour wind a pickup, using his old PAF bobbin, to help warm and soften the tone for the second record. You could be right about the EQ being part of the harshness issue. But some tones like Jamie's Crying seems smoother than, say, I'm The One, so there were some variations of the tone they were getting in the studio.

The pickup is important, not only just for the EQ going to the amp, but also the feel and harmonic content. You can't fake that with an active EQ.

Then again, he used the same amp until OU812 and his tone was WAAAY different at that point. To me, the biggest departure started with 1984, when he used the Kramer prototype and his '58 Flying V. The abuse of the harmonizer and using "JB-like" pickups really ruined his tone and the amp then became irrelevant.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

IanBallard said:
I could be wrong about the VH1 pickup, but a Plexi isnt' exactly a "warm" amp when it's running hot. I'm thinking he had Seymour wind a pickup, using his old PAF bobbin, to help warm and soften the tone for the second record. You could be right about the EQ being part of the harshness issue. But some tones like Jamie's Crying seems smoother than, say, I'm The One, so there were some variations of the tone they were getting in the studio.

The pickup is important, not only just for the EQ going to the amp, but also the feel and harmonic content. You can't fake that with an active EQ.

Then again, he used the same amp until OU812 and his tone was WAAAY different at that point. To me, the biggest departure started with 1984, when he used the Kramer prototype and his '58 Flying V. The abuse of the harmonizer and using "JB-like" pickups really ruined his tone and the amp then became irrelevant.
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it is pretty much confirmed that ed used a mighty mite super distortion pup in the strat for the first record. which is a dimarzio super d clone, 13.6K large ceramic magnet.

file.php
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

That could be so. I also saw double-creams in his Frankie in later Roth years as well. Being a "tone chaser", I'm sure he was very wishy-washy about what he wanted. I can relate... changing picks, strings, drumsticks, drum heads constantly to achieve tones I wanted; one minute I'd favor one thing and a couple weeks later, I'd do something else.

Of course now, his pickups of choice (14k Frankie, JB's in the 80's, hot EBMM DiMarzios and the Wolfgang variants) more closely spec with that Might Might than any PAF-type. His PAF preference was fairly short-lived and people reference a few interviews from the very early days.
 
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Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

I tough that dimarzio own the patent for double cream !!!:scratchch
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

IanBallard said:
That could be so. I also saw double-creams in his Frankie in later Roth years as well. Being a "tone chaser", I'm sure he was very wishy-washy about what he wanted. I can relate... changing picks, strings, drumsticks, drum heads constantly to achieve tones I wanted; one minute I'd favor one thing and a couple weeks later, I'd do something else.

Of course now, his pickups of choice (14k Frankie, JB's in the 80's, hot EBMM DiMarzios and the Wolfgang variants) more closely spec with that Might Might than any PAF-type. His PAF preference was fairly short-lived and people reference a few interviews from the very early days.
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he stopped using the P.A.F when he started using OFR. after he had a OFR put on his main guitar the tone was too thin brittle so he had seymour wind him a pup that was paf based but chock full of mids and a softer top end to compensate for the floyds brittle tone.. this pup is very similar to a duncan CC BUT not exactly the same. if you play a EVH fender frankenpup it is more open,and has less output than the CC even though both are 14K alnico II models.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

I wish Seymour would chime in, at least to give some input on the early "Custom" design. He already did the JB, but the "Custom" was apparently an attempt to achieve a "PAF-like" character with a hotter 43 gage wind. Perhaps the real and apparently final "Frankie" pup was one of the early Custom models only with an Alnico magnet instead of a ceramic.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Love this:

"It keeps you fit - the alcohol, nasty women, sweat on stage, bad food - it's all very good for you." -Bon Scott

Yeah, well, apparently not........:laugh2:
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Ed Hunter said:
it is pretty much confirmed that ed used a mighty mite super distortion pup in the strat for the first record. which is a dimarzio super d clone, 13.6K large ceramic magnet.

file.php
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I'm not a big VH head, but confirmed where? How? By whom?
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Here's an interesting bit from his 1979 interview:

"And I've gone through every amp on the market. I mean, first tour I started out using my old 100-watt amp, which breaks down every other song, so I started using new Marshalls. I didn't like the way they sounded, but I had to have something that would make it through the show. Then I lost them somewhere on an airplane, never got 'em back. And I started using Music Mans, Laneys. I used just about everything, and they all pretty much sounded the same, just because I play the same."

So... it really IS "all in the fingers". OK, I give up...
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

IanBallard said:
Here's an interesting bit from his 1979 interview:

"And I've gone through every amp on the market. I mean, first tour I started out using my old 100-watt amp, which breaks down every other song, so I started using new Marshalls. I didn't like the way they sounded, but I had to have something that would make it through the show. Then I lost them somewhere on an airplane, never got 'em back. And I started using Music Mans, Laneys. I used just about everything, and they all pretty much sounded the same, just because I play the same."

So... it really IS "all in the fingers". OK, I give up...
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Ian i cant buy that "its all in the fingers" after hearing several other players do a damn convincing EVH.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Ed Hunter said:
Ian i cant buy that "its all in the fingers" after hearing several other players do a damn convincing EVH.
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Just because it comes from the fingers doesn't mean someone else can't sound like someone else. Its all in the player and how they interact with their gear. There's more than one to skin a cat with guitar tone and alot of these idealistic tone chasers don't realize that. Someone could be given Eddie's "holy grail" setup and might not sound like him, but there may be a combination of gear out there that can make them sound like that. Tone is in the fingers, but it somewhat still lies in the gear and how it interacts with said player.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

It is all in the fingers AND all in the equipment.
 
Re: People forget two things when chasing the early Van Halen tone.

Barron1 said:
Many people are after the early Van Halen tone. So they get on a never ending quest of buying different pickups to get it. There are some aftermarket pickups out there that get close. But people forget two little things when they install it:

1) Angle the humbucker like Van Halen did. I know some people say it really doesn't matter how the strings are lined up. I disagree. How the poles line up or don't line up with the strings does make a difference, not a huge difference. BUT my ears do detect a slight difference. Find a photo of how his strings and poles line up and copy it.

2) No tone pots. Having no tone pots does sound different from when you load the pickup with a tone pot. Without tone pots the pickup sounds louder and brighter. Early VH connected his pickups to one volume knob. That's it. Disconnect those TONE pots or throw them away.


These are just two little tweaks that will get you closer the that early Van Halen tone.
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Nope. You forget much of the first album was recorded with an Ibanez Destroyer. No crooked pickup and it had tone controls. Plenty of ways to skin a cat.
 
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