Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

[MetalManiac]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

without question the '78. It does that EVH sound , but I think a lot of guys were saying an A5 would work better. I think the Evenly Voiced harmonics pickup really shines with a Trem equipped bright Maple necked guitar, such as my Hard Ash Superstrat.
For something like a more balanced guitars, guys there to the Metro-Amp forum who rever Eddie as a Deity were claiming the A5 represents that bite and edgy top end better.
Like I say, I think its the guitar wood and the Trem, although the '78 is bound to do great in other guitars too I would think.
All things being equal ( amp , effects, etc.), a pickup has also GOT to be over wound or hot IMO to nail the sound. That is why people were claiming VH-1 was Eddiie maybe been using a A8 Super 70, or a old Mighty Mite or Super Distortion.
I came close recently to the VH-1 vibe wiht an A2 overwound PAF from a Custom winder , but it didn't 'nail' the sound like the '78 EVH pickup.

 

[MetalManiac]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

^ Oh i forgot, I was talking in reference to VH-1 tone which is my favorite sound, An overwound A2 is my choice for early VH-1 sound using a Hard Ash Trem equipped guitar. A2 is also the choice of Fender and Wolfgang EB with Swamp Ash I think.
The A5 pickup is more representative of the sound on the later albums I think.

 

[revolution]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I thought his tone was great on Diver Down as well. I like the "no covers" concept on Fair Warning to "five covers" on DD concept. I always view FW/DD as a double album...Fair Warning being Ed's guitar oriented point of view and DD as being Roth's "Hit Parade/Showy" point of view. Diver Down is one of my favorite albums by VH and has (I believe) some of their best original material songwise. The covers they did were so good they may as well have been original...not to mention three great Eddie solos and an EXCELLENT Jan Van Halen clarinet solo. Gosh, as far as picking one fave out...whoa! Tough choice...VH1 - Diver Down were all killer. I loved the 1984 album but I hear some of that Custom Custom nasally sound every know and then. SO...with all this being said if I HAD to choose one it would be the "Destroyer" songs on Van Halen I. That tone is just absolutely perfect to me and I disagree that it's all in the playing. Most people get close to the sound with modern stuff but the coolest thing about the VH1 tone was the Lo-mids. It was almost as if the EQ spectrum shifted and his Lo became Lo-mid. Love those mids!! You can get low end anywhere but good highs and "the right" mids take some effort...either in the builder or the tweaker. My point of view anyway. VH1!!!!!

 

[LedSabbath]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

the one i have on this guitar

Wow you actually bought that hunk of junk. That is just sad.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I think if you want "both" of the major tones during the Roth era, the '59/Custom hybrid would probably get a good average. From what I understand, an UOA5 has some of the A2 characteristics with more clarity and magnet strength. That might be a great combo if you are in a VH cover band and want to nail the whole shebang from '78-84.

 

[Brown Note]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

To me VH tone = Ain't talking 'bout love. It has it all: it's not overly compressed to make it sound artificial, but distorted enough to sound powerful. The delay + phaser combo makes it sort of ethereal sounding; you can't really put your finger on it, but something just works. The tone sort of fades in and out of perception. Almost as if it were too awesome for a mere human to understand and every time I hear it, some new and interesting nyances pop up. And then there are the pick scrapes and dives... I mean WOW, the dude's not even playing real notes and it sounds perfect! The tone has reached the plateau of goodness, nothing can be added or removed from it without making the tone worse.

How to get it? I don't know, but there are about a million myths about archeiving that partcular piece of heaven and as far as I can know, It simply does not happen. In recording that piece of music it was either the planets having a correct alignment or some other homeopathic means, but anyway a hint something magical was savoured in that album in that time and in that song! Did van halen ever outdo that recording? No, but he didn't have to. After that contribution to music history, his work was done.

 

[EGEDE]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

are they really ceramic? says who?

Indeed they are thin ceramics. I read it on a forum, so out of curiosit me and a close friend took the pickups out of his new wolfy for a look, and they are indeed, ceramics.

 

[Invader09]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

My favorite Ed tone is Fair Warning. Althought it's prolly my least favorite album (song wise, besides Unchained of course) I like WACF tone alot on cradle will rock

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

Indeed they are thin ceramics. I read it on a forum, so out of curiosit me and a close friend took the pickups out of his new wolfy for a look, and they are indeed, ceramics.

well that is very disappointing.....:28:

Ceramics?! really Ed?!:banghead:

 

[IanBallard]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

It's a strange misconception that "ceramics = bad". The only reason people say that, is because it's a cheaper material than AlNiCo... which, I can say, is mainly because it's production is limited to guitar pickup, speaker and other such specialty items. Same with vacuum tubes.

Ceramic is actually far more versatile material and produces a far wider frequency range. It's very hard to make a "full range" pickup out of AlNiCo and with various types of winds and magnet thicknesses, you can produce virtually any sound with ferrous magnets. I don't think Ed said, "I want ceramic magnets". The engineers who worked on his Wolf pickups (and Peavey) found that the sound he was after, was best achievable with the use of thinner ceramic magnets.

Most people rave about the Peavey pups and the eBay prices reflect that. The new ones are even warmer and more full-range.

 

[EGEDE]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I don't think ceramics are bad at all, I love the pickups in my peavey hp special, but in the context of the wolfgangs pickups they sound thin and trebley.

 

[revolution]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

Of course the possibility exists also that EVH doesn't have a ceramic mag in his actual pickup and that Peavey just got cheap and replicated it with ceramic to save money...hence the "thin" ceramic magnet to replicate the magnetic field of a "thicker" alnico mag. EDIT: Fender not Peavey.

 

[Christopher Caruana]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

Of course the possibility exists also that EVH doesn't have a ceramic mag in his actual pickup and that Peavey just got cheap and replicated it with ceramic to save money...hence the "thin" ceramic magnet to replicate the magnetic field of a "thicker" alnico mag.

I though we were talking about the pickups in the new Fender Wolfies?

 

[revolution]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I though we were talking about the pickups in the new Fender Wolfies?

My bad...FENDER.

 

[marcello252]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

the '59/Custom hybrid would probably get a good average. From what I understand, an UOA5 has some of the A2 characteristics with more clarity and magnet strength

Exactly what I'm in the process to build, I'm just waiting for the uoa5 I ordered. I'll put the pickup in a hard ash trem strat with maple neck/rosewood fingerboard, I'll let you know what will happen.

edit: I forgot to say I want a little air mod around the magnet too .

 

[marcello252]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

To me VH tone = Ain't talking 'bout love

+1
that's the first song I play when I try a strat with an humbucker.

 

[revolution]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I go after the VH1 sound by using a couple of 1977 Ibanez Super 70s like the ones that were in his Destroyer. I had Bare Knuckle rewind one of to them exact specs (7.9k) and it sounds great. Tim from BK said that it was actually built very well with quality materials...and another surprise:It was reverse wound! He even re-did that and I'm very happy with it. It sounds exactly like the old one only(just like I wanted) he tightened up the low end and cleared up the highs...they're all still there, just not brittle like the originals are. I can actually use it in a Heritage Les Paul! My other Super 70 I had Wade from Motor City Pickups rewind to 8.2k and it sounds badass and different from the original. I took the cover off and stuck it in a Super Strat and when I rip out the "You Really Got Me" chords...yeeeaaaahhh!!

 

[Butch Snyder]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I was always partial to the Fair Warning tone; but I also like the tone from Balance. Balance was done with his EBMM sig guitar. The pickups are basically almost a Tone Zone in the bridge and maybe a Norton in the neck. That said, I also think a Custom Custom will get you close to the Hagar-era stuff. I also lik the Air Zone (bridge) and Air Norton (neck) for the Hagar-era stuff. The Fred works for the early stuff, IMHO...

 

[80's_Metal]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

You need to ask Chris Holmes if he has any more destroyers hanging around.

 

[IanBallard]

Re: Your favorite VH tone, and what pickups you feel achieve it best?

I just am not convinced the pickups really made "the difference" in his sound. As we know, he used quite a few guitars over the years and even on the same song, but we get a similar result tone-wise. Maybe the 24.7" scale guitars were "chunkier". I can sort of tell the Frankie because his tone had more of a "bamp" sound to it... spanky, maybe you could say, whereas the set-neck sounds are more growly. But are the pickups the key, or is it that amp and the guitars themselves? I would presume most of his pickups were PAF-type until he switched to a Floyd.

The F.U.C.K tones were partially the MM guitar, but I would say that clean, smooth sustain was from the SLO-100's amazing clean drive channel. If he played those songs with the old Super Lead, likely those tones would not have been so smooth and clean. "Judgement Day" was played with his Kramer 5150 but it's really hard to tell the difference because the amp plays such a huge role in his sound. The only time when it's extremely obvious he is playing a different kind of guitar, is when he used the Steinberger and those awful active pickups... fuzzy, messy and NOT good tone. But hey... it was the 80's!

I think the pickups were important, but I could build a "1978" guitar with a hard ash Boogie Body, maple neck, vintage Fender bridge, brass nut, etc, etc and put a GFS VEH or even a Parsons Street Golden Age pickup ($40-50) in there, plug it into a Metro 12xxx Super Lead replica and you'd probably not tell a huge difference with Ed playing it, if it had a Duncan 78 ($160) instead.