Those are the 6CA7 power tubes Ed liked (click to see way bigger).

Today we continue with John Suhr “talking” – actually posting, in a looooong thegearpage.net thread – about his experience with EVH’s magical Marshall Super Lead amp. We pick it up with John’s comments to some doubters:

“I used to be a solder inspector for the military. It is very [easy] to see what parts of the amp were not original and were or were not original solder joints. The amp had not been mucked with except for few parts.

“I know when an amp has been modified. I know what original solder joints from Marshall look like. The amp was not modified beyond its basic gain structure. Ed himself told me 2 feet from my face that the amp never had any kind of typical Jose mod in it. The two non-typical parts in this amp contribute to the gain in a very minor way. They were not major parts….

“Regardless of me [not] being at the [VH1] recording session or not, I know my sh*t and I know what Ed told me. He was not clueless, and knew the tweaks in the amp which again are very minor.”

The Pickup…And More Amp Info!

Well said John! Here are additional comments he made in the thread:

“I also got a chance to check out his old pickup, which had a shorted coil and was basically working like a single coil. Many years ago he caught his string under the lip [of the pickup] and damaged it. When, I don’t know, but he loved the sound of it even if it was noisy – and said it has been like that for as long as he could remember.

“So…if I was going for that exact tone I would put a single coil in the position of the forward coil of the humbucker going straight across. Use a plexi-based circuit [on your amp], dime the controls, bright channel [top left input of a 4-hole Marshall], variac to 85V, feed the 8ohm tap into a 16ohm load, run a line out into a good power amp and some Scumbacks [speakers that emulate or improve the sound of the old Celestions], pedals of your choice and call it a day. You will get close at low volumes. Better have a good wallet for the tubes though since they don’t last long running this way.”

What Can We Take From That

Here we go:

1. The head has not been modded. John Suhr, Steve Fryette, Peter Van Wheelden, Dave Friedman and everyone else who knows amps and who has seen Ed’s magic Super Lead have said it’s stock – meaning no mods. But during that time of Marshall manufacturing virtually every amplifier was different because Marshall just used whatever they had (as did Gibson and others at the time).

2. That Echoplex preamp – now available in a couple of pedals (review of one soon!) – seems to be important: John mentioned it twice, and several guitar heroes (e.g., Page, Iommi, Blackmore) goosed their amps in the same way or similarly.

3. The Variac is important but not necessarily for Ed! If you mess with a Variac, looks like the magic number is 87 volts. John said: “Until you have that exact [plexi] circuit, which is a little gainier, and run it at 87 VAC with Ed’s touch, guitar and pickup, you would not really hear what I heard.”

4. Am I reading that mismatched output correctly: 8 ohm tap into 16 ohms – which could be a 16-ohm cab? If so, be careful running your amp this way because some amps can’t take it.

5. Ed did slave his #1 amp into other amps – at some point.

6. Ed’s first signature amp effort was with Jose, not Peavey.

7. So the active coil in EVH’s pickup is the one furthest from the bridge – which, if I read that right, has a lot to do with warming up Ed’s sound. Is anyone making humbuckers with a shorted-out back coil?!

8. You too can sound like Ed with a similar amp – but only if you can sound like Ed with your fingers.

9. Dave Friedman is working on Ed’s #1 amp right now! I think I know why!

Words of Warning…

…or at least perspective, from John (in that same thegearpage.net thread):

“To find out exactly what his signal chain was on the first album, you might as well try and find out how the universe got here since until Ed remembers exactly what he did, no one will know. [At the time, VH was] just partying and playing – [Ed] documenting what he used was the furthest thing from his mind (his words).

“I’ve said all I can on this topic. You guys can chase the ghost, but you will never catch it. Why put so much effort into copying Ed’s tone if you are not Ed? It has been done, and there is only one Ed.”

Notable: More on F.U.C.K.

From John about Ed’s tones on that album:

> “I made him two modded Marshall he used for a crunchy clean tone. He used my prototype preamp and then brought me the Marshall….

> “The Peavey amp was not done yet and Ed didn’t use it at all on F.U.C.K. He used my preamp into [Steve] Lukather’s Marshall effects return I did for Luke while I was in NY [John's shop was in NYC before LA] and a SLO100″ [which Ed apparently received from Mike Soldano in 1989].

Notable: Ed’s VH1 Un-Engineered Tone?

There was a LOT of engineering done to Ed’s tone on the first album, which Ed has freely admitted (though in different words). John Surh said essentially the same thing, and this was posted in the same thegearpage.net thread by user RR Classic. Beleving it or not is of course up to you:

“I was told by Michael Anthony personally that Ed’s tone in the studio for VH1 was not all of the glory we hear on the record. He said it was very shrill and trebly, and that is why Ted [Templeman, producer] and Don [Landee, engineer] had to pan him hard right on rhythm and hard left on leads, soak it in verb – and there is a ton of verb on there – along with some pretty damn creative EQing.”

Interesting and believable if you’ve ever heard a dimed (or even close to it) plexi, especially with a hard ash strat and maple/maple neck/fingerboard – even more so if Ed really did at the time use high-efficiency speakers along with Greenbacks (which mellow the vol and tone).

- End of part 2 of 2 -

Here's the back of EVH's Super Lead (click to see it bigger).

John Suhr!

A hundred years from now there will be mythology about Edward Van Halen’s early VH signal chain. But right now the unending discussions about it (which I am not denigrating!) are largely rumor or misinformation resulting from some version of the telephone game: someone heard/read something, told someone else, etc.

Mostly. But once in a while new, or at least reinforcing, facts will come to light. FACTS!

One such instance recently happened on a thegearpage.net thread. You can peruse the whole thing here, but I’ve already done it, extracted the good stuff and thus you don’t have to spend the 60+ minutes it takes to wade through the 30+ pages!

In the thread – which contains the usual opining about Ed’s signal chain – John Suhr chimed in. And more than once. John is of course the guitar and amp wizard behind the company that bears his name, and works with various artists whose names you can see on his website.

One of those artists is EVH, and in 1991 John worked on Ed’s beloved Marshall Super Lead plexi (which refers to the plexiglass control panel). Here’s what he said about it in the thread – edited for readability and brevity. The reason I am writing about it and you are reading about it is that it is a goldmine of detail!

“The bottom line for me is when I saw it the amp was 100% untouched [no mods] except for filter caps and one added part which I prefer to keep to myself (Dave [Friedman, LA amp tech] knows it well of course too). It is a very minor addition that Jose [Arrendondo, the guy who Ed initially said modded his amp and then admitted he didn't] did giving it a slight bit more bass in the treble channel.

“When Ed demo’d the amp for me, he dimed every control. The circuit other than that was stock…but it was not the everyday normal [Super Lead] circuit. There were a few oddball parts that Marshall did use from time to time: Not every Marshall follows the [Marshall] schematics.

“The only change, besides the minor tweaks when I saw it, was the VHT transformer [Steve Fryette, founder and former owner of VHT, worked on the head at one point and replaced the output transformer]. My job was to replace that transformer with a donor from another plexi with a similar circuit and close serial number that belonged to Matt [Bruck, Ed's former tech and now assistant].

Here's John (Suhr photo).

“After me [the amp] went to Europe [presumably to Peter Van Wheelden, documented in an old issue of one the guitar mags]and everything was rewired and became a mess he [Ed? Matt?] wasn’t happy with. I believe Dave [Friedman] has the amp right now and is trying to breath life back in to it….

“Ed even told me personally as he stood 2 feet away that this was ‘the’ amp and the only amp he used up until F.U.C.K. for recording. Now why would Ed lie to me when he was trusting me to restore the amp back to its original condition? He told me everything he could remember.

“I still have all voltages notes and scribbles [about Ed's amp] in my old Groove Tube book.

“When I asked [Ed] about what he did to pump it up for more gain he didn’t really remember except that he probably had the Echoplex goosing it, turned the light dimmer [Variac] down until the [amp] pilot light started to go out or dim when you hit a single note (85-90V). I believe the amp also had a standby jack in the back that disconnected the power tube cathodes.

“Now please understand me: When Ed played through this amp in my shop it sounded EVERY bit like Ed and the first albums with and without the Variac. When I played through it it sounded every bit like me (cry).

“Bottom line is, Ed tired of less gain [with the old Marshalls] and wanted more. I think that amp sounded great back then but Ed was trying to move on. On F.U.C.K. he used my preamp for many of the tracks as well as a [Soldano] SLO100 for solos – that is the time I was working with him, ‘90-’92.

“Ed would make any decent amp sound like Ed. If you heard the dry clips from the original recordings like many of us have you would hear so much was done in the production side.

“Dave or I are both capable of making a reproduction for you, but if you don’t play like Ed did back then and don’t slap whatever he did in front [of the amp] back in the day then you won’t get too far. This is not a friendly, bedroom amp. It is loud, not as dirty as you think and in your face.”

More

That was all from one post! Then he added the following tasty bits in subsequent posts:

“It is just a great, loud plexi, I have heard many similar. The Variac brought it down to 50w and gave it some ‘brown.’ Personally I still can’t play that amp ’cause it is too raw for me. It takes someone like Ed to pull it off, or Pete [Thorn] or Al [Estrada] or Mark [Rockstah on the Metro forum].”

“The amp I worked on was [serial #] SL12301. [Ed] said he might have hit it with the Echoplex (which has gain) or an EQ [e.g., the MXR 6-band]. Jose, rest his soul – I had him [alter a plexi] for me in the ’80s as well – did not tell a lot of truths about Ed’s setup back then [referring to a user's comment about how Jose told him Ed used a distortion box on VH1].

“There was never a master in that amp that I remember – all solder joints that were original were very easy to detect. Jose did put slave outs in the amps and also I believe had a standby jack in there, which would explain some extra holes. I also think that putting a Master in there during [the] holy grail era is something Ed would have remembered to tell me.

“Ed was trying to help out the guy who maintained his amps [Jose]. There were no mods other than one that takes less time to do than it takes to open the chassis, and certainly wasn’t necessary for him to get his tone.

“Ed was working on [a signature] amp with Jose for years until near the end [of Jose's life]. It never got off the ground to sound the way Ed wanted it to sound. If Jose did gain mods on Ed’s amps, which I know is not true, then it would have been a slam-dunk easy thing to put on the market since it was already tried and true and tested.”

- End of part 1 of 2 -

Fingers flyin' in '78!

What did Edward Van Halen really say about his early tone? Did he really mean it? What can we read into it? Following is the remainder of the tone-related excerpts from the November 1978 Guitar Player interview (part 1 is here). Commentary by yours truly.

The Whammy

> Remember he’s talking about a vintage-style (6-screw) Fender bridge.

“Nobody taught me how to do guitar work: I learned by trial and error. I have messed up a lot of good guitars that way, but now I know what I’m doing, and I can do whatever I want to get them the way I want them. I hate store-bought, off-the-rack guitars. They don’t do what I want them to do, which is kick ass and scream. Take the vibrato setup, for example. You have to know how to set it up so it won’t go out of tune, which took me a long time to get down. It has a lot to do with the way you play it – you can’t bring it down and not bring it up. Some people just hit the bar and let go – you have to bring it back right. Sometimes you’ll stretch a note too far with your fingering hand, and it’ll go flat. Here you have to pull the bar up to get it back to normal.

“I’ve also found that gauged set of strings will work better than one you make up. Like, I used to use heavier bottom strings with light top strings, and it didn’t work very well. I also buy a different spring from Fender for my vibrato – one that’s a little looser – and this makes a big difference. You also have to watch out for the little string retainers Fender uses because sometimes the strings can get caught in them and go out of tune.”

> Looser springs = more in tune trem. Isn’t this a trick Jeff Beck employs?

> Ed knew his gear backwards and forwards. No doubt.

Effects

Onstage, Eddie uses an Univox echo unit that is concealed in a World War II practice bomb. “I had a different motor put in it,” he says, “so it would delay much slower and go really low. I use this for ‘Eruption.’ I also use two Echoplexes and a flanger for subtle touches. And I use an MXR Phase 90 phase shifter that gives me treble boost for solos, too.”

> Bang! “Treble boost for solos” – MXR phasers didn’t come stock that way. He got his modded.

The Variac

“I use voltage generators, which can crank my amps up to 130 or 140 volts. Amps sound like nothing else to me when they are cranked so high, but you have got to keep a fan on them because they blow so often. You have to retube them every day, and they usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing.”

> This is a tough one. By now, many people have proven – some from watching Ed in private situations – that he turns the voltage down using the Variac, which decreases volume and “browns” the sound. Ed is also supposedly a master of misdirection when it comes to his gear, as are many of his peers. But Ed also said that for the Fair Warning sessions he turned up his variac to 140 volts (if I remember right) and “watched the tubes melt” or something like that. Since doing this would be very bad for the amp, most people feel like he was full of it. But in light of the ‘78 interview, maybe not – because he admits that turning the Variac up so much kills the amps. Also bear in mind that Ed was blowing output transformers left and right on the VHI tour, so…maybe he really was turning the Variac up?

> Messing with a Variac, especially turning it UP, supposedly is dangerous for you and your amp. So don’t try it.

Notable

> This is a cool story. Starting at about 2:24, Jas Obrecht tells the story about how he came to interview EVH for that 11/78 GP issue. Pat Travers blew him off and he got stuck with Edward Van Halen – but there’s more to it than that.

- End of part 2 of 2 -

The man, in '78.

Part 1

By now no one’s exactly sure what Edward Van Halen really said or didn’t say about his tone and technique over the years. Even though lots of folks on this-here Internet thingy act like they know fo’ sho’, they either don’t or are misremembering. You really have to go back to what the man said and evaluate it in light of what has trickled out since he said it.

Because there ain’t no Rosetta Stone for EVH tone, people!

So the only way to maybe get a solid clue is to read the old interviews.

Admittedly, however, everyone doesn’t have copies of old Guitar Player magazines hanging around. I don’t either (okay…I have some). But some of that stuff has ended up on the web – like the recent transcription of EVH’s first Guitar Player interview, in November 1978. That had Roy Clark on the cover, not Ed. The Ed cover was the second time he was interviewed for the magazine.

You can read the whole 1978 interview here at vhnd.com, but following are the tone-related parts, annotated by yours truly.

VH I

“For the first record,” Eddie recalls, “we went in to the studio one day and played live and laid down 40 songs. Out of these 40 we picked nine and wrote one in the studio–’Jamie’s Cryin.’ The album is very live–there are few overdubs, which is the magic of Ted Templeman. I would say that out of the 10 songs on the record, I overdubbed the solo on only ‘Runnin’ with the Devil,’ ‘Ice Cream Man,’ and ‘Jamie’s Cryin” – the rest are live. I used the same equipment that I use onstage….”

> 40 tunes?! I assume most of the other 30 made it onto further albums (even 1984 had some VH I-era material), but maybe not all.

> “The same equipment” – only thing we can take from that is that he played at the same volume.

Frankie

Eddie assembled his main guitar with parts he bought from Charvel. “It is a copy of a Fender Stratocaster,” he says. “I bought the body for $50 and the neck for $80, and put in an old Gibson PAF pickup that was rewound to my specifications.”

> “Was rewound to” means he didn’t do it himself. If, as some contend, Seymour Duncan did it, then it might’ve been rewound a little hot, something which EVH seemed to favor then and since. If so, then a low-output humbucker was not used on VH1! Also, it’s interesting to note that the Seymour Duncan custom shop pickup formerly known as the EVH is now called the “‘78.” Hmmmm. According to the Duncan website, the “‘78 Model” is slightly hotter than vintage PAF range.

“I like the one-pickup sound, and I’ve experimented with it a lot. If you put the pickup really close to the bridge, it sounds trebly. If you put it too far forward, you get a sound that isn’t good for rhythm. I like it towards the back – it gives the sound a little sharper edge and bite.”

> Moving the bridge pickup around definitely alters the tone from that pickup a lot. he found where he liked it and screwed it in place. Many guys – me included – still try to get VH tone out of a bridge pickup with standard spacing. Probably not wise….

“I also put my own frets in, using large Gibsons. There is only one volume knob – that’s all there is to it. I don’t use any fancy tone knobs. I see so many people who have these space-age guitars with a lot of switches and equalizers and treble boosters – give me one knob, that’s it. It’s simple and it sounds cool. I also painted this guitar with stripes. It has almost the same weight as a Les Paul.”

> Bang! “Almost the same weight as a Les Paul.” That means Frankie was northern ash, end of story. Swamp ash and alder don’t weigh that much and, to my ears, don’t sound the same.

> Supposedly the $25K EVH Frankie replica guitars have lightweight bodies. Some have speculated that this is because Eddie’s guitar aged over the years, dried out and got lighter. Others think it must mean that the Frankie was not northern ash. Well, it was northern ash.

Other Axes

Eddie’s other guitars include an Ibanez copy of a Gibson Explorer [an Ibanez Destroyer which was NOT korina], which, he says, “I slightly rearranged. I cut a piece out of it with a chainsaw so that it’s now a cross between a [Gibson Flying] V and an Explorer, and I put in different electronics and gave it a paint job. I’ve also recently bought a Charvel Explorer-shaped body and put a Danelectro neck on it and an old Gibson PAF pickup. And I also found a 1952 gold top Les Paul. It’s not completely original – it’s got a regular stud tailpiece in it, and a Tune-o-matic bridge. I have rewound Gibson PAF pickups in it, too. I use a Les Paul for the end of the set because my Charvel is usually out of tune, and the Les Paul’s sound is a little fatter.”

> “Different electronics” in the Shark. Does that just mean different pickups? Tone control not hooked up?

> “Rewound Gibson pickups” again probably mean hotter-than-normal. Remember that all of Eddie’s signature pickups, including on his signature axes, have been hot.

- End of part 1 of 2 -

Take a listen. It’s good! The band’s founder and lead guitar player, Jeff Waters, is a huge EVH fan and does justice to the parts. Naturally he doesn’t nail the solo – maybe he doesn’t even try. It’s a tough one.

Other than that, what struck me most about the cover is how stiff the drums sound. Too metronomic, if that’s a word. Don’t know if that’s Pro Tools or just the precision of a metal drummer, but it really hammers home how much interplay and looseness there was and is between the Van Halen brothers. Alex Van Halen is a hugely underrated part of the VH sound and vibe.

Anyhow, here’s an excerpt of an interview with Jeff Waters about the why and how of the cover, followed by both versions of the tune. The cover version sounds like it has some skips in it – don’t know why.

At the end of the record, there’s a cover of Van Halen’s “Romeo Delight”. It’s quite a surprising choice for a thrash metal band. Actually, not a lot of bands would risk covering Van Halen mainly because of Eddie’s incredible guitar skills… Was it the challenge that motivated you in covering this song?

I wasn’t planning to pick a song because I liked it, but because it had changed my career, or my guitar playing, or my musical direction or something. That album from Van Halen, Women And Children First, in 1980, had a big influence on my guitar playing career. Actually, “Romeo Delight” was a very heavy song in 1980. Of course nowadays we see it as a party rock song with David Lee Roth and great guitar playing, but back in 1980, it was considered a very heavy and aggressive song. That turned me on to bands like Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. That song was very influential for me, and that’s why I covered it. I was trying to do a cover song of the best guitar player in history, but I wasn’t worried. I’m such a fan, I love Eddie and I love his playing, so it was a lot of fun to try it.

Your guitar sound seems different on this cover song compared to the rest of the record. Were you trying to get closer to the classic Van Halen sound? Actually, you’re even using the phaser effect Van Halen’s well known for using…

What Eddie did in 1980 was use only one guitar. Usually, you put one guitar in the right speaker, and one in the left speaker; but Eddie only had one. I tried to copy that idea, that production style. I also used the same pedals he was using. I collect Van Halen things, like shoes and guitars and pedals, everything. I just tried to have fun doing this, the whole thing was fun.

It sounds like you really had a blast while doing this cover! How come you did so few cover songs before in your career? The only one I can recall is a Judas Priest song…

We never had anything on our official CDs, but we had Judas Priest’s “Hell Bent For Leather” as a bonus on our Set The World On Fire LP in 1993. We also did an AC/DC cover for a live album. This is the first one that’s on an official album, and it was cool to do it. It’s probably the last one I’m gonna do on an Annihilator CD. Someday, when I get really old, maybe I’ll do a cover album or something, but not now. “Romeo Delight” meant a lot to me and it was a lot of fun.

When listening to Annihilator’s albums, and especially this new one, we can really hear that you put a lot of creativity not only in your solos but also in the rhythm parts. This is also something which is particularly striking in Van Halen’s songs. In this regard, could we say that you’re somehow the Van Halen of thrash metal?

If I said yes, I’d look like an asshole! But the one similarity is that Van Halen was very good at rhythm guitar playing, songwriting and guitar solos. I think in my own way, in my own style of music, I’m good at writing songs, playing rhythm guitar and doing solos. Same thing with Michael Amott. Not all guitar players have all three of those qualities, many have only two. For example, Hetfield is a great songwriter and rhythm player, but he’s not a solo shredder. Glen Tipton is the best example of all these qualities: he writes great songs and shreds on guitar and is great at rhythm playing. But there are not many people that do these three things very well. So yeah, maybe there’s a little comparison!

Annihilator cover

The original – Woody!

VH live version, 1982, Largo, MD

Notable

> When I saw the above photo of Jeff, I remembered where I’d seen him before: a vid promoting his signature Epiphone V. I was impressed because in it he rips – very fluid and comfortable. I tracked it down and here it is. Now we know why he uses the phaser so much!

Here's the 'Summer Nights' guitar.

I have to say up front that Van Halen’s 5150 is one of my least-favorite VH albums. Naturally the songs and playing are good (truth be told I’m more of a Dave-era fan), but I’m not a huge fan of the buzzy guitar tone and the electronic drums. The VH brothers lost so much wood on that album!

So for those reasons, I never was motivated to sit down and really learn any tune form that album – at least that I can remember. But my son the drummer (for now) wanted to jam the tune “Summer Nights,” maybe because it was as hot as a fox in a forest fire (Skynyrd reference) this weekend. So I sat down with the tune and figured it out enough to satisfy his urge to jam and my picky ears. Not exact – not sure I’ve ever gotten a VH tune exact – but okay.

Here’s what I realized/figured out:

1. That tune is played on a Steinberger with the TransTrem, the bridge that transposes the entire guitar up and down in tune. Cool toy, I’m sure, but since it was just me and the Les Paul I had to figure out the intro in whatever version of A440 +/- EVH was using that day. Could it be done? Yep. It all happens in what I’ll call in my uneducated way the 1st- and 3rd-fret bar chord positions.

2. The verse riff is cool! In fact, the whole tune is cool. I shouldn’t have been surprised, but it’s always a treat to see what Ed throws into his tunes.

3. The tone is…achievable. Ed’s playing his small-bodied (I presume) Steinberger – which sounds less woody than his other guitars – through what I believed was a Soldano SLO-100. BUT it looks like the SLOs didn’t hit the street until 1987, and the 5150 album came out in 1986. So what was he using? Google was no help. Anyone?

Anyhow, here’s what you can use to get close to that buzzy tone:

> Any pickup + Soldano SLO-100 (or any Soldano) + any cab.

> Any pickup + Peavey 5150 + any cab.

> Any pickup + any good fuzz/OD/distortion box + Marshall-style amp + any cab. This combo is tough to beat for Ed’s 5150-style tones. The Marshall has more balls at lower volume, and a good stompbox can put you into that territory.

If you want to get fancier, throw in pristine chorus reminiscent of an Eventide Harmonizer.

Ed’s tone always has a good amount of mids, usually pronounced upper-mids like Marshalls, and lots of “clear” distortion – meaning no mud. He also plays and sounds very articulate even with all that distortion, and his riffs reflect that. So having all that buzz won’t help and can actually hurt unless you can nail the notes and the feel.

Here’s the tune from the Live Without a Net DVD. The tune is faster than the album version, but the tone is very similar.

Here’s a 1989 version with the tone a bit (just a bit) cleaner.

Who needs a neck pickup?!

And finally, here are the final highlights from the April 1980 Guitar Player cover interview of Edward Van Halen.

Is [having a lot of Marshall heads live] to refine the sound?

It’s to make a good tone even louder. Some people get a sound like an amplified AM radio. I like it to be like a nice home stereo amplified – you now, the difference between tone and no tone. I have some other tricky stuff in my amps which I don’t even want to talk about because if someone reads it in the magazine they are going to hit up Jose, an old guy from Argentina who knows a lot of tricks and does stuff for me. He doesn’t want people to know who he is because he’s getting mobbed. He also puts little things inside my MXR stuff, like permanent gain controls that boost when I kick them on. I don’t even know what they’re called. They reduce noise and boost the signals. [Hmm. So this is how Ed gained volume with the phaser and made his flanger sound so huge....]

Other Tidbits

How loud do you play in the studio?

Very loud. I use four 100-watt Marshalls, which are cranked up to close to 600 watts with the Variac. I like to feel it, you know, make my arm hairs move. If you stand in front of a big PA you vibrate. It’s the way I get off. I don’t wear earplugs, either, so I’m surprised I’m not deaf yet. We used to get kicked out of clubs because I refused to turn down. It’s the only way I could get a sound – crank it all the way up. [Unlike many other guit-slingers, no small Fender amps for Ed in the studio!]

How far can you reach on the fingerboard?

On the high E string I can reach from the 5th fret to the 12th. From the 12th fret I can hit any note on the fingerboard above. That’s how I get weird noises. [Not so much tone-related, but wow!]

Do you feel that your playing is constantly progressing?

I don’t think it’s ever progressed – it just gets weirder all the time. How much can you progress? I’m as fast as I can possibly get. I can’t picture myself being too much faster. I mean, you can only hear so much. What I’m trying to do is be weirder and different.

How did you get that scratchy sound in “Atomic Punk”?

A phase shifter was on, and I rubbed the strings by the bridge with the heel of my hand — I’ve got calluses on it. I do the same thing on “Everybody Wants Some” (Women and Children First). I just love doing weird things.

Did you double-track the harmonic intro to “Women In Love?”

Yeah, I played it twice. It sounds like a Harmonizer, and live I get the same effect using the Harmonizer. I like that chime, clock-like sound

What is the strange effect at the beginning of “And the Cradle Will Rock”? It resembles the sound of a prop plane starting up.

I pinged my strings above the nut and asked Ted to play it backwards so the attack comes at the end of the note. In conjunction with this, I scraped the springs in the back of my guitar. I also took my vibrato bar all the way down so that the strings were limp and then with my left thumb I flapped the low E string around the 3rd fret. Sounds great. I love it.

Do you experiment with open tunings?

No, because that’s kind of a rule too that’s been done. I don’t care that much about things that have been done, where most players have only done what’s been done. They look at the guitar as if that’s all it’s for. They don’t even go beyond to think. Like they don’t know how I get some of the weird noises I make, but it’s just the guitar. Just do anything to it! I could drop a guitar and get a noise out of it. The guitar is not designed for one purpose. You can do anything with it. I’ll do my damnedest to squeeze every noise out of this thing I can.

Notable

Since it’s been 30 years since that interview, here’s a pertinent question asked back then:

What do you picture yourself doing in 30 years?

Same thing we’re doing now. That’s what I want. I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future – maybe somebody else in the band will get egoed out and quit or something – but I’d love Van Halen to be forever. And if not, I know I can always make it playing guitar somewhere, because I’m getting hit up left and right now: “Will you play on my record, will you do this, will you do that?” And I go, “No, Van Halen is my family. I’m not gonna wash your dishes. I’ll wash dishes for Van Halen alone.”

Fund Drive

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, appending posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, pleasedonate! Options for a one-time $20 or $10 below. Gracias!

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> Dave’s laugh at around 2:53 in this vid always cracks me up….

Love this guitar (click to see the pic bigger).

Here’s part 2 of highlights from the legendary April 1980 Guitar Player cover interview of Edward Van Halen.

Do you do anything special to your pickups?

I usually use old Gibson PAFs, and I always pot them. I submerge the whole thing in paraffin wax, and this cuts out the high obnoxious feedback. It’s kind of a tricky thing because if you leave it in there too long. The pickup melts. I take a coffee can and melt down some wax — the same kind that you use for surfboards — and put the pickup in it. See, one of the reasons a pickup feeds back is that the coil windings vibrate, and when the wax soaks in there, it keeps them from vibrating as much. It will still feed back, but it’s controllable. After I dip the pickup in paraffin, I put copper tape around it. You have to be really careful if you do this to a pickup like a DiMarzio. You can throw an old PAF in there and let it soak [wax] up. It doesn’t melt. But with DiMarzio, if you blink, all of a sudden your pickup’s ruined.

How do you keep tuned while using a standard vibrato?

It’s a combination of a lot of things. For one, some manufacturers don’t keep in mind that the distance from the bridge to the machine heads has got to be straight line so the string windings won’t get caught anywhere. A lot of people drill the machine holes off center, and the strings get caught up. I have extra-wide notches in the nut, and string trees for only the high E and B strings. I also set the vibrato bar so I can only bring it down; you can’t pull back on it. See, I rest the palm of my hand on the bridge, so If I use a standard vibrato, I sound like a warped record. Sometimes I’ll bring the bar down before I hit a note and then let it up.

Do you own any stock factory-made guitars?

Yeah, I have a new Gibson ES-335, and two ‘58 Les Paul Jrs — a single-cutaway and a double-cutaway. I’ve got a whole load of Japanese Strat copies [= a lot of experimentation – who knows what parts were swapped where!]. I also just two vintage Les Pauls — a’59 flame top and a ‘58 gold top. These are pretty much in immaculate condition. I bought them as an investment; I don’t play them. My main stage guitars are the ones I build myself for under $200. I have an acoustic, too — the one I used on “Spanish Fly.” It’s an Ovation nylon-string, not the real expensive model. I’ve never owned a steel-string.

How do you hold your pick?

Between my thumb and middle finger. Sometimes when I play fast I’ll put the tip of my index finger on the corner of the pick. [I've come to believe that this is one key component to Ed's attack and rhythm.]

Do you put new strings on every night?

Yeah, Fender 150XLs [these are 9s!]. I stretch them to death. With that new Rose thing, I boil the strings so they stretch, because if you just put them on and clamp it down, the strings stretch out on the guitar. I just take a pack and let it boil for 20 minutes in the hot water. And then I dry them in the sun, because otherwise they rust. But I only use them one night anyway, so who cares if they rust?

Amps and Effects

What’s in [his pedalboard]?

It’s a piece of plywood with two controls for my Echoplex on it, an MXR Phase 90 that I’ve had for years, and an MXR Flanger. They’re all taped to a piece of board with black duct tape [that's the secret! LOL]. And like a lot of big name players laugh themselves silly when they see it, but after they hear me, then they go, “Can I plug in?” Some of these guys have got four out-of-phase switches, and a this and a that, and a biamp crossover, and blah, blah, blah. And I just go, “Is it on? Is it working? What’s it for? What’s it do?” I can’t tell! At least when I use an effect, you know I’m using it. My main tricks are in my amps.

What kind of amps are you now using?

Well, in the studio I use my old Marshall, my precious baby. It gets a slightly different sound. Live I use new Marshalls. I made the mistake of taking my main one out on the road last year and I lost it on the way back from Japan. It was flying around India somewhere and six months later, thank God, I got it back. This is the one I bought when I was a kid. I didn’t even know what I had until now. It’s very old; it has a Plexiglas front. It used to be the house amp at the Pasadena Rose Palace; whoever played there has played through it. It’s a real good amp – unbelievable balls!

How do you modify your amps?

Okay, I use a combination of two different kinds of amps. They’re both Marshalls, but one kind actually has less power than the other, which is boosted. I use them together. The ones that have less power have a giant capacitor in conjunction with the fuse; if anything happens, the fuse blows first. The capacitor has something to do with the computerized ignition system of a car. I can’t give you the exact specs, but it looks like a stick of dynamite, only fatter. What it does is suck juice. I hook it up to the fuse holder and the mains, and it lowers the voltage about ten volts so the amp lasts a little bit longer. It doesn’t really change the sound, but whatever I use, I use to the max. I just turn it all the way up. So this capacitor lowers the voltage and the amp lasts a little longer. I still have to retube them once a week. (Editor’s Note: This is not a recommended procedure for modifying amps and should not be attempted by anyone inexperienced in the field of electronics and amp modification.)

What is done to the other kind of amps?

I use a Variac, which is like a dimmer on a lighting system. It’s an autotransformer which goes all the way from 0 to 160. In the studio I crank it up to 140 and watch the tubes melt! (Editor’s Note: Again, this is not a recommended procedure for modifying amps, as Paul Rivera of Rivera Research and Development points out: “You can cause severe damage to the amp besides melting tubes. Since a Variac is an exposed transformer, by hooking it up incorrectly you could get the hot of the AC line on the chassis of the amp and electrocute yourself. Anyone wishing to attempt this sort of modification should go to a knowledgeable repairman.”) [Ed might have turned up the Variac here and there, but usually kept it at around 85-90.]

- End of part 2 (of 3) -

Fund Drive

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, appending posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, pleasedonate! Options for a one-time $20 or $10 below. Gracias!

$20 one-time

$10 one-time

But like anything that gets obsessed over – especially in this Internet age – after a while it becomes pretty much impossible to separate fact from fiction, even if you’re hearing or reading it from the horse’s mouth. Did Ed mislead, lie, fudge, omit or simply tell the truth? Can anyone really know for sure?

With that in mind, here’s just some of the legendary April 1980 cover story from Guitar Player magazine – it’s what Ed actually said at the time. The interview “was conducted while Woman and Children First was in its final mixing stage,” GP wrote in the intro. The intro also said the conversation was SEVEN HOURS – where the F is the rest of that tape?!

Anyhow, here are the most interesting parts. I’m going to highlight the stuff I think sometimes gets forgotten and is just as important as the better-known/remembered “macro” stuff about Frankie, etc.

Guitars

GP: What made you decide to build your own guitars?

EVH: A Les Paul to me was just the cliched guitar, the rock and roll guitar. I liked the sound, but it didn’t fit my body. I’d have to wear it too high to be able to stretch as I do, and it looks funky. So I wanted to get that type of sound, but with tremolo. And Bigsbys have got to be the worst. So I bought a ‘58 Strat years ago when we played high school dances, and Dave and Al just turned and started throwing sticks at me! They said, “Don’t use that guitar — it sounds too thin!” You know, single-coil pickups. They had a real buzzy, thin sound unless I used a fuzz box, and that’s even worse [he did not like anything other than amp distortion]. So I sold that and then two years later I bought a router and dumped a Gibson PAF pickup into a ‘61 Strat. It got very close. All of a sudden the band said, “That’s okay, It doesn’t sound like a Strat anymore.” Then I heard that a company called Charvel made exact duplicates of Fender guitars, but out of nicer wood.

Is this where you got the wood for your first homemade guitar?

Yeah, this very first one was the black-and-white striped one on the first album. I went to Charvel and had them rout a body out for just one pickup and one volume knob. I had to cut my own pickguard to cover everything up because it was originally a three-pickup Strat body. I used the vibrato tailpiece from a ‘58 Strat for that guitar [he recorded with that non-Floyd Rose guitar through Fair Warning]. I also had Charvel make me a really wide neck. I hate skinny necks. I like it bare wood because I hate to slip and slide when I start stretching strings. Now at the same time, I built what I call my shark guitar, which is actually one of the first Ibanez Destroyers [shaped like Gibson Explorer] made out of korina wood [not really]. I made the mistake of taking a chainsaw to it and putting a bunch of weird stuff on it.

Did it lose some tone?

It lost the tonality I want….

Did you make another guitar for your second album?

I made the yellow-and-black Strat. It has an ash body by Charvel. It was my idea to have it rear-loaded so I wouldn’t have to have a pickguard, and Charvel routed it for me. The pickup that’s on the photo is not really what I use — I had just finished slapping it together and painting it when they shot the album cover, and just stuck some garbage pickup in it to look like a complete guitar. Then I took the pickup out of my first guitar and stuck it in there, but it didn’t sound too good. I don’t really go for DiMarzio pickups because they’re real distorted. I like a clean sound with sustain — I hate the fuzz box, real raspy sound. So I put a PAF magnet in a DiMarzio pickup and rewound it by hand, which took a long lime. I actually ruined about three pickups, and by the fourth time it worked. I didn’t count the windings — I just did it by sight.

What are the most difficult aspects of building your own guitar?

Making the neck fit the body. Another problem is that the strings on a Stratocaster are spaced differently than a Gibson’s: If you use a humbucking pickup, the strings don’t line up with the pickup holes. So I’ve tried slanting the pickup so the high E string will be picked up by a front pole and the low E will be picked up by a rear pole. For the sound I like, it is also important to get the space between the bridge and pickup right [very important for an early Ed sound!]. I do it almost like Les Paul. If I put it too far towards the neck I get the Grand Funk and Johnny Winter tone, and if I put it too close to the bridge I get a real trebley Strat sound. So I move it up towards the neck a little bit from the Strat sound to get a beefier tone.

Have you any special methods of refretting necks?

Yeah, I hate the way people refret necks. I do it real simple: I sand them down with some 400 wet-or-dry sandpaper and then use some steel wool. I hate flat frets because the more space you have for the string to rest on, the more room you have for the intonation to be off. I like big frets height-wise, but I make them come to a peak. From a side view, one of my frets would look like the tip of a pick. It doesn’t come to a complete point, but it would be rounded as opposed to flat. Another thing is that you have to put them in from the side rather than from above, and a lot of people take them straight out and rip the wood. I toured the factory and saw how they did it and said, “No wonder I ruined so many fenders by pulling them straight out!”

- End of Part 1 (of 3) -

Fund Drive

Since everyone doesn’t read every post, appending posts with this for a bit. C’mon fellas!

Doing a “keep the lights on and do more cool sh*t” fund drive. If you dig and look forward to WoodyTone, and find the info fun and valuable, pleasedonate! Options for a one-time $20 or $10 below. Gracias!

$20 one-time

$10 one-time

Here's the real deal, the EVH Wolfgang.

This cool post was submitted by WoodyTone reader and avid EVH tone-chaser Trev Morson. More about him and his band is at wolfscrossing.net.

How many of you want to own a new EVH Wolfgang but can’t afford the $3K asking price?

I saw a guitar in Guitar Center a few weeks ago that in looks, and for all intent and purposes, was an EVH Wolfgang – but the asking price brand new was only $540. It was the Music Man Sterling AX40. These are low-priced guitars made in Indonesia, and I knew instantly that it had potential.

By default, the Sterling AX40 does have some issues, but to be fair, you would expect that for such a low asking price. But still….

The Issues

You may remember the debacle with Fender Stratocasters made in Japan in the early ’80s: Fender’s concern was that they were actually manufactured with a higher quality in Japan than they were in USA at the time. (I happen to know because I own a 1983 ‘62 Strat reissue made in Japan.) You’ll find a somewhat similar situation with the Sterling AX40 in that the basswood body [it only has a maple veneer top] and maple neck are very well made in Indonesia. But there are some issues:

> The wiring is sub-standard and should be replaced. When I got mine, I found the toggle switch loose, and upon tightening it, it snapped off the neck pickup wire from the switch pot.

> The frets are medium-jumbo, but are not sanded very well. The high E can get stuck under the frets at the side of the neck.

> The Floyd Rose licensed trem is not set up correctly (even though these are quality-checked in the U.S.). The strings by default are tuned concert pitched with Ernie Ball 10-gauge strings, and I was not convinced the intonation was set exactly as it should.

It does not by default have a D-Tuna installed on the low E, but I have heard that for gigging musicians, the D-Tuna may not be a good idea: I heard that once these are installed, you can no longer fine-tune the low E string on the Floyd Rose.

One other thing I noticed is that the default pickups are not only screwed directly to the body, but are glued as well. By default they are hot and kind of okay, but a replacement bridge pickup is a good idea. However, replacing the pickups is tricky: I found that the routing was not as deep as it should be for a replacement.

The Potential

Don’t let all of the negatives put you off, though. Again, the asking price is $540, so you would expect some issues. The key is recognizing this guitar’s potential.  I have noticed that many reviews on the web are given by bedroom guitarists, and I find myself always asking the same question: Is the gear being reviewed ‘gig tested?’

I decided to upgrade my Sterling AX40 so I can use it with my band for gigs. Having the $3K Fender EVH Wolfgang in mind, I made the following upgrades and I was astonished on how much money I saved.

Custom work I had done:

> Completely rewired.

> New pickup toggle switch.

> New pickup selector, added tone pot.

> New linear 500K volume pot.

> Replaced volume knob with MXR volume knob, added MXR tone knob.

> Installed Seymour Duncan SH12 Screamin’ Demon bridge pickup, pole pieces adjusted.

> OEM neck pickup and pole pieces adjusted.

> All frets filed and sanded, top and sides.

> Floyd Rose trem-stopper installed, another spring added, Floyd set flat and level.

> Floyd Rose sustain block installed.

> EVH Wolfgang decals applied (original 5150 decal coming soon).

> Intonation set for Elixir NanoWeb 9- to 42-gauge strings tuned to Eb.

> Swapped out strap nuts for EVH loop types.

> String/fret, nut and bridge oil applied.

The Result

The cost of the new AX40 was $540. The cost for upgrades was $250. Total = $790, still a bargain at today’s prices, and it plays, sounds and feels like a real $3,000 new EVH Wolfgang. Total Savings = a whopping $2,200.

Note the ENORMOUS cost-savings. I just knew this guitar had a lot of potential.

On the left is the Music Man Sterling AX40 when I got it new. On the right is the same guitar after I customized it – it is now my EVH custom.