Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Like I said earler in this thread i hear dimarzio super distortion on van halen 1,plus if you look at some of the early photos of Eds guitars especially Eds white gibson les paul custom that he used on the first tour(1978) you can plainly see the cream colored dimarzio super distortion also in his shark guitar(chopped destroyer)you can plainly see a creamed color mighty mite pickup which is a copy of a dimarzio super distortion and the black and yellow striped start(1979) you can plainly see a creamed color dimarzio super distortion,they all have adjustable pole pieces as you can see,so like i said dont believe alot of the early Ed interviews because the majority is BS,JUST USE YOUR EARS.
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

It's the amp, not the pickup. If anything, the SD sounds a little compressed and the highs are too round. The real Ed tone has a more open-sound in the middle and the highs are on the verge of ice-pick with a studio compressor to keep it in check.

My ears say BS to Ed using a SuperD.
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Ianballrad,marshall plexis are clean sounding amps to begin with,when you turn them all the up they get extremely loud with SOME breakup not the breakup distortion that Ed achieved on van halen 1,even with a variac dropping the voltage still wont achieve the distortion-edge that Ed achieved on van halen 1.(Im talking about van halen 1 not the rest of the van halen catalog).If you want to listen to cranked plexis using gibson pafs listen to early AC/DC,Jimmy page,Joe Perry and many others, none of them had the distortion that Ed achieved thats for sure.
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

pittbull said:
Ianballrad,marshall plexis are clean sounding amps to begin with,when you turn them all the up they get extremely loud with SOME breakup not the breakup distortion that Ed achieved on van halen 1,even with a variac dropping the voltage still wont achieve the distortion-edge that Ed achieved on van halen 1.(Im talking about van halen 1 not the rest of the van halen catalog).If you want to listen to cranked plexis using gibson pafs listen to early AC/DC,Jimmy page,Joe Perry and many others, none of them had the distortion that Ed achieved thats for sure.
Click to expand...

Maybe you should head over to Metroamp.com and look up the Van Halen topic. You will clearly hear clips upon clips of guys there including George who will make their Plexi clones roar with that much gain and compression with ease. And they are clones with no extra tubes and master-volumes added.
Most will use a loadbox of some sort,but it's scary how close they come to the V.H. 1 tones.
AC/DC,Page,and Aerosmith did'nt use their Marshalls with loadboxes and variac's. Eddie opened up that door and changed guitar playing after V.H. 1 was released. The reason Ed don't sound like that now is i believe he just moved on wanting to expand his ideas he hears in his head. He could clearly recreate that again if he really wanted to.
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

I used to post on that site(metro amp) under a different user name,i gave that sight many insites on the van halen sound,there was only so much i can share with them,ive been at this van halen sound thing since the 70s,as for marshalls plexis with load boxes and variacs its not just those items alone that are going to create the van halen 1 sound,believe me ive been there,as for AC/DC,Jimmy page,Joe perry they all used marshall plexis to the maxium and none of them had the distortion-gain Ed had,so like I said many times before Ed is a BSer when it comes down to his equipment thats for sure,i have spoken to many amp builders-designers that know marshall plexis and the van halen 1 sound and they will tell you the same thing Im explaining to you(The ones that know not the ones that assume and believe the BS thats on the web or interviews or the ones that did work for Ed in the 90s and they think they know what they are talking about).Jose arrendondo was Eds main guy when it came to his amp sound,Ed knew Jose since 1970 when Eds dad took Ed to jose shop(Arreco Electonics).Im not going to post something that im not sure of thats how rumours and BS starts, so to some on this thread that think i dont know what im talking about or BSing you,thats fine,believe what you want,thats fine with me,anyway this thread is becoming to be extremely long,when i started this thread the only question that i asked was is the custom custom bright enough for the van halen 1 sound that was it and the pickup is working out for me.Everyone have a great Thanksgiving and take good care...................
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Another good listen and I'd say Eric Fraser and his '59 wins the closest tone award to my ear. In fact, I'm starting to think VHII may have been an A5 mag too. There is a certain presence in the treble picking that is unique to the a '59 type PAF. When he did the little solo part from "Outta Love Again", that characteristic pick squeak is spot on!
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

pittbull said:
Ianballrad,marshall plexis are clean sounding amps to begin with,when you turn them all the up they get extremely loud with SOME breakup not the breakup distortion that Ed achieved on van halen 1,even with a variac dropping the voltage still wont achieve the distortion-edge that Ed achieved on van halen 1.(Im talking about van halen 1 not the rest of the van halen catalog).If you want to listen to cranked plexis using gibson pafs listen to early AC/DC,Jimmy page,Joe Perry and many others, none of them had the distortion that Ed achieved thats for sure.
Click to expand...

plenty of plexi's well roar when you crank them. I agree a stock plexi will not get VH1 level dirt, but a plexi with the volume all the way open will have a fair amount
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

I know this player and amp. I have played it personally. It gets VH1 levels of gain easily

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn97ik2S1YU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6OoL_1wJgc


I don't push my Plexi like Geo does generally but I have and it can do it as well.

Honestly, while Ed was a tinkerer and fearless when it came to modding stuff, I think we give him a little too much credit in terms of his real knowledge about how things worked back then. I absolutely believe the Plexi was stock. The more important question is what speakers are in the cabs. I suspect he blew up a lot of them in the clubs and probably had to replace with whatever he could find and afford. Even if they were stock, if they had the 20w models in them that's a very different sound than the more common 25w speakers. The guy in the clip above at least used to have a cab with the 20 watter and they were a different animal completely
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

AudioWonderland said:
I know this player and amp. I have played it personally. It gets VH1 levels of gain easily

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn97ik2S1YU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6OoL_1wJgc


I don't push my Plexi like Geo does generally but I have and it can do it as well.

Honestly, while Ed was a tinkerer and fearless when it came to modding stuff, I we give him a little too much credit in terms of his real knowledge about how things worked back then. I absolutely believe the Plexi was stock. The more important question is what speakers are in the cabs. I suspect he blew up a lot of them in the clubs and probably had to replace with whatever he could find and afford. Even if they were stock, if they had the 20w models in them that's a very different sound than the more common 25w speakers. The guy in the clip above at least used to have a cab with the 20 watter and they were a different animal completely
Click to expand...

That sounds pretty sick! :clap::fing2: Is he using any OD pedal to boost the gain? or just the Hotplate to crank it?
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Christopher Caruana said:
That sounds pretty sick! :clap::fing2: Is he using any OD pedal to boost the gain? or just the Hotplate to crank it?
Click to expand...

EDIT: There is pedal used in the clips. it is annotated in the video.

I have heard him and that amp many times it is capable of VH1 level gain without a pedal
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

Christopher Caruana said:
I also think it's BS that Ed used a superD on VH1
Click to expand...
+1..! I dont hear no 13.5k mighty mite ceramic either! People are really starting to stray from what pup ed used back then. His childhood bud a guy named TERRY KILGORE even said that eddie loved gibson P.A.F's and said that is what ed used on the early records. He even sold ed P.A.F's. Listen to HFT or TOTW where ed played a bone stock gibby V with 58 real deal P.A.F's. I can hear why he liked the P.A.F's... They are the S&@T!
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

I had a plexi 100W and the day I finally set full on I discovered the sound nirvana.
Way, way more distortion than I ever thought, so the stuff about VH using amp (with variac) only dist it's not that crazy. Even with single coil the sound was gorgeous.
But all the mind ramblings about what he used seems a bit useless, none of us can't really know what kind things were playing that days, nor Ed himself will tell you.
One thing for sure it sounded pretty marshally and pretty humbuckingy, other than that will be very hard.
 
Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

marcello252 said:
I had a plexi 100W and the day I finally set full on I discovered the sound nirvana.
Way, way more distortion than I ever thought, so the stuff about VH using amp (with variac) only dist it's not that crazy. Even with single coil the sound was gorgeous.
But all the mind ramblings about what he used seems a bit useless, none of us can't really know what kind things were playing that days, nor Ed himself will tell you.
One thing for sure it sounded pretty marshally and pretty humbuckingy, other than that will be very hard.
Click to expand...
I think most forget this point u made. Ed played his slp on ten! He said that over and over again. A DIMED SLP and a P.A.F has his VH1 gain.He was getting distortion from the pre and power tubes as well as his celestions. Just try it...
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

marcello252 said:
I had a plexi 100W and the day I finally set full on I discovered the sound nirvana.
Way, way more distortion than I ever thought, so the stuff about VH using amp (with variac) only dist it's not that crazy. Even with single coil the sound was gorgeous.
But all the mind ramblings about what he used seems a bit useless, none of us can't really know what kind things were playing that days, nor Ed himself will tell you.
One thing for sure it sounded pretty marshally and pretty humbuckingy, other than that will be very hard.
Click to expand...

+1 Right we will never know...just like we'll never KNOW what really happened to JFK... etc, etc. ;)

HOWEVER, you pointed out a clue to how one can get there... you didn't need a dirt box to get close. You've seen video after video of dudes playing Eruption on a Plexi clone plugged straight in... *voila*.... sound clips on this site and very thread, that approximate the sound without a lot of gimmicks. Gibson-y humbucker in Strat into a cranked Marshall. Everything else is for tribute bands that actually make money trying to get "that" sound.

A key factor is Eddie's dynamics and picking power. Even with a moderate power humbucker, his technique seems to make the distortion even when the guitar isn't geared for that. Apparently he prefers metal picks in the studio, which might also be a big factor in the sharp attack and powerful treble attack he gets.
 
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Re: Seymour duncan custom custom Van halen sound

pittbull said:
Ianballrad,marshall plexis are clean sounding amps to begin with,when you turn them all the up they get extremely loud with SOME breakup not the breakup distortion that Ed achieved on van halen 1
Click to expand...


I have a Plexi.

It is not clean.

It easily gets insane, over-the-top distortion, just like the first four Van Halen albums.

Easily.

All you need to do is crank it. Heck, it get's 75% of the way there, with a PPIMV. Having said that, 75% of the VH tone is a Plexi + Greenbacks.
 
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