Van halen 1 sounding overdrive-distortion pedal

[Ice-9]

hear how much post-processing was done to get that sound.

http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/AtomicPunkGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/EruptionGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/FeelYourLoveTonightGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/I'mTheOneGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/MeanStreetGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/SomebodyGetMeADoctorGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/YRGMGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/Ain'tTalkin'BoutLoveGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/AndTheCradleWillRockGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/BeautifulGirlsGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/DanceTheNightAwayGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/EverybodyWantsSomeGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/HangEmHighGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/HearAboutItLaterGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/Jamie'sCryin'GuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/JumpGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/LittleGuitarsGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/LossOfControlGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/PanamaGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/PrettyWomanGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/RomeoDelightGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/RunningWithTheDevilGuitarTrack.mp3
http://www.studiobergman.com/VH/UnchainedGuitarTrack.mp3

Is it just my PC or do these clips not play properly , mine stutter speed up and slow down. i Would like to listen to them properly. DOH !!!

[Ripdivot]

It does the same thing on my computer, drives me nuts...

[Ed G.]

Was listening to the radio today and heard "Beautiful Girls" and thought, man, that was some damn good tone (and a great groove).
It seemed a little less gainy, chunkier and meaner than the vh1 album.
Believe it or not, I think there was great tone on 1984... Drop Dead Legs sounds like it was recorded LOUD... or maybe just the right amount of slapback delay will get you that ambience. Nah... I bet it was LOUD.

[Paul Marossy]

Was listening to the radio today and heard "Beautiful Girls" and thought, man, that was some damn good tone (and a great groove).
It seemed a little less gainy, chunkier and meaner than the vh1 album.
Believe it or not, I think there was great tone on 1984... Drop Dead Legs sounds like it was recorded LOUD... or maybe just the right amount of slapback delay will get you that ambience. Nah... I bet it was LOUD.

I think that they were at their peak when they recorded "1984". That guitar tone was great, too.

[spaceace76]

the tracks posted were pulled from an XBOX360 copy of the new guitar hero Van Halen game. the current copies are glitchy, but are being worked on.

and yeah, lots of post processing to get that sound, a lot more than you'd think. especially on Van Halen 1, where the Sunset Sound reverb room was used to create the wet tracks you hear on the album. Real reverb is almost impossible to capture in a plugin or stompbox, and is definitely an integral part of the sound. this and many other reasons make it way too hard for the average joe to accurately reproduce the album tones. a simulation is definitely possible, but the accuracy some folks seek is probably a recipe for disappointment. the same can be said for nearly any professionally recorded music. without the proper tools it won't matter if you have the right amplifier, stompbox, or guitar.

[Ice-9]

Was listening to the radio today and heard "Beautiful Girls" and thought, man, that was some damn good tone (and a great groove).
It seemed a little less gainy, chunkier and meaner than the vh1 album.
Believe it or not, I think there was great tone on 1984... Drop Dead Legs sounds like it was recorded LOUD... or maybe just the right amount of slapback delay will get you that ambience. Nah... I bet it was LOUD.

Absolutely, "Beautiful Girls" is one of the best of the brown sound tones I've heard and also one of my fav riffs, I also think Eddy's sense or rhythm is fantastic, no matter how many times i play that song i can never get it the way eddy does.

I also agree that "Drop Dead Legs" has that great sound that you ONLY get by playing LOUD. You can hear on the intro before the guitar vol control is turned up that the tone is there just asking " Go on turn the volume knob if you dare" and what a riff that is as well.

I also have to mention the sound on the album "Diver Down" not a great album but the tones on "Hang Em High" are fantastic

I just read on some Van Halen site that there might be some new tunes getting released in 2010 with DLR singing as well. Rock on

[halen]

spaceace76 you post on metro amp

[lonewolf]

back in 1979 In a issue of a r&r mag there was a picture of van halen surrounded by beer cans ..roth's ankle was in a cast...on the floor there was a marshall amp sitting backwards with the back cover off....It was a 66-68 marshall plexi ..the model with a Lay-Down Mains..with no filter caps on the top of the chassis...those amps sound much better than the ones with the caps on the top...I own both of those models...the lay down version sounds much better in my opinion.....also I would say Ted Templeman probably had something to do with the sound on that record..in 1978 he had a large bank of amps stacked up...which included various marshalls..and musicman among others...so who knows for sure...If I was him I wouldnt say either...It is a combination of things  amps/guitars/playing approach/direct mics/room mics...even different brands of recording tape affect the sound

[WGTP]

What we end up doing is trying to build is a pedal that not only sounds like the original amp, but also includes the studio processing that occurred, plus whatever coloring your playback system adds to it and the amp your playing it thru and the difference in your guitar, etc. 

[fpaul]

I've come a lot closer to "the sound" building and modding amps than I ever did with pedals.

[liquids]

I've come a lot closer to "the sound" building and modding amps than I ever did with pedals.

Just as a counterpoint to this view - I've worked with both a fair amount, and gotten better to as-good-as results from semiconductors as compared to amps.  I think it depends on what you do with either one.  

I think that no one should feel like they have the short end of the stick if they can only do pedals, because I am one person who can do both, and prefer the tones I get from semiconductors (into my dead clean tube amp )

Both 'sources' are potentially good sounding, and potentially awful sounding - it depends what you do with them, and often moreso, how familiar you are with either.  I've come to think that with enough know-how, any tone is within reach.  Actually, why wouldn't it be?
Pedals do unfortuanately also depend quite a bit on what you are doing with the amp you run the pedals through...so there are 2 variables in that realm.  Fewer variables can make things simpler to hone in, though it also can be a limitation...it often depends how your brain is wired.

I think that in general, if someone is merely following available schematics and doesn't have the time/patience/investment to get creative in adjusting and compiling circuit pieces, one WILL probably get a lot closer, faster, to the 'classic' guitar sounds by working with amps.  ...well, unless you have to play them very quietly.  

9v stuff has the too-overlooked advantage of being a lot more compact, and a lot safer, all else being equal.  

[strassercaster]

my guess is he used an mxr micro amp for that little bit of edge pr gain on top ofthe plexi at. 89volts through the variac

[blackieNYC]

Bet it's the pick.  Ed says he uses a .6 now, and used "thinner ones in the eighties".  Gotta be the pick.

[Electron Tornado]

One word: "Variac". I submit to you that he could have gotten that sound simply by cranking the amp while it was operating on a Variac, which is something that he reportedly used to do back in the day. What that does is lower the B+ voltage in the amp, which in turn lowers the headroom, which in turn makes it distort more. This might also account for the crunch in the tone. He might have also used a pedal of some sort, too, but I think his use of the Variac is probably the biggest factor in his tone on the early albums.

http://mr5150.vhvault.com/evh-brown-sound.html

+1

Having read some interviews with EVH from "back in the day", he had his Marshalls modified. There was also often a disclaimer by the editor that basically said "kids, do not try this at home". If I can find my old issue of Guitar Player from 1981 or so, I'll see if there's any tidbits in the interview with him. I think I recall the variac mentioned as well as a capacitor that was "as big as a stick of dynamite".

Regarding pedals - Phase 90 and maybe a flanger are all I recall him mentioning. Back then, his pedal board was his two pedals duct taped to a piece of plywood. There is an interview on You Tube from the last couple of years where Eddie states that he doesn't use any distortion before the amp because "it takes away from the sound". 


I do agree with other posts that EVH's sound is the result of a combination of things, with the indispensable item being his hands.


(Apologies if I've repeated something already mentioned. Too lazy to read through the entire thread.)

[GreenTeaZ]

I got close to the basic sound by using a power starve box on my Boss OD-3.

[HOTTUBES]

Ah  !!!   the elusive EVH tone from a $79 overdrive or distortion box .... lol

Sorry , i just see this so many times over the years .

Think of your overdrive box like a mechanics wrench , it takes several tech's many tools to get John Force down the track weekend after weekend !
Same goes for the pro guitar player recording an album etc , the list of variables to make the guitar tone like Eddie did back then is numerous ...

Myself personally , i've had better luck trying to get EVH tone by driving a Marshall with an overdrive pedal , than any distortion pedal ..... but thats just me .

[J0K3RX]

Myself personally , i've had better luck trying to get EVH tone by driving a Marshall with an overdrive pedal , than any distortion pedal ..... but thats just me .

Yeah, I would have to agree on that.

Looks like this post was resurrected from 2009.... 

You can stop searching for that tone! I found that you have to be a 14 year old girl with a Vigier endorsement and a Digitech RP500 FX processor....   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV6SmY04WdE

[Ice-9]

I had forgotten how much phaser EVH used on eruption and in the early days.

[DougH]

https://youtu.be/Sl59RPs7PiI

[Ice-9]

https://youtu.be/Sl59RPs7PiI

Cheers for that Vid Doug, Eddy is sounding back on form and off the drink, but when you hear DLR singing it's like WTF. There is always something to upset the apple cart in the Van Halen camp.