Thoughts on Van Halen and his live tone history

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I've got a Hughes & Kettner Duotone (hifi jcm800 with more gain and nice cleans) and I'm messing around with a 1987 Ibanez rg440p

I used to own a peavey 5150 head/cab and the combo version, I had an rg550 that sounded great through that amp with a dimarzio breed neck in the bridge (@10k). I posted a cover of Panama on the forum with that combo years ago.

It's the 1st rg I've had in a long time, (the rg440p has a basswood body, original edge trem). I put a breed neck in the bridge and sounded nothing like I remembered through the duotone, I get this bland mid presence.

So after a lot of back and fourth, put a 59 in the rg440p and really enjoying the 5150/OU812 tones

I was thinking about Van Halen and his core live tone history:

Duncan 59 in his 5150 kramer and big brass block - 5150/OU812 tour

Dimarzio's in his musicman through peavey 5150 - Balance tour

Peavey pickups in is peavey wolfgang and peavey 5150 - Cherone tour

Fender wolfgang pickups fender wolfgang fender 5150 III - Current tour

Thoughts on Van Halen and his core live tone history?

When I find a used wolfgang bridge pickup at a good price, I'll be on it
 
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Re: Thoughts on Van Halen and his live tone history

I'm amazed at the restraint of the forum members today, usually the mere mention of EVH tones causes a cyclone of posts about '78 models, Custom Customs, Super Distortions, Etc. surprisingly to me VH never released a live album from back in that Era of Pre Hagar so we could fight about those tones. I haven't seen or heard a lot of great VH bootlegs from back in that era either. Having played around a little on the newer 5150 Amps I feel like I could close to any of the modern tones (not playing) with ANY of the guitars you listed, heck they have enough gain I might be able to get my Sss American Standard Strat in that territory.
 
Re: Thoughts on Van Halen and his live tone history

Yeah, the recorded live shows are a great reference, some of the earlier live roth stuff you can definitely hear the broken coil, his playing then was so ferocious, his string attack with both hands was so crushing and powerful. That period to me, the gear is irrelevant.

I'm into Ed's creamy, harmonic tone from the 5150/OU812 and balance DVD's, the live right here right now dvd has too much studio magic The live in Sydney with Cherone has the peavey x 3 raspy, honky tone. I had that peavey x 3 combo, at lower volume, it sounded buzzy, grainy and jagged.

With Satriani/Chickenfoot, his Ibanez dimarzio combo seems to work because he's gets running a clean amp with gain from distortion pedals.
 
Re: Thoughts on Van Halen and his live tone history

I've seen a lot of recent footage, and I bought the Live in Tokyo album ( Roth ruined that with his singing and general shenanigans on the microphone IMO). Eds playing is spot on but much smoother and less aggressive than the old days. I guess that's 60 year old hands vs 25 year old hands!
 
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