Right Now - Van Halen intro sound (with vid)

Chewie5150 said:
I just read this the other day. Funny you mention it. The Tele. I had no idea. Yeah there's def some doubling with his baritone /silhouette bass that he has. I saw a Pete Thorn vid few weeks ago and he recreated that runaround sound doing that pretty much.
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Could the Silhouette Bass be what he used in the Right Now intro, perhaps doubled with the piano?
 
ruso said:
Could the Silhouette Bass be what he used in the Right Now intro, perhaps doubled with the piano?
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Yes, or basically the same thing on the Spanked doubleneck if he had that at the time, panned left, with a standard guitar an octave up panned right. There's a separate bass part too, and I think the distortion part(s) that eventually fade in might be there too w/ vol. knob rolled back, not doing anything notably different from the right clean part. Also this aspect isn't super clear until later but the bass is DGCF tuning (not Drop D like Michael Anthony used live), played with a pick, and if I had to guess, played by EVH.
 
Chewie5150 said:
Yeah I could totally see that being used. The spanked doubleneck. Might be it!
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I don't think he had the doubleneck until the tour - there's footage in Wolf's Distance video of him playing the guitar I suspect it actually was - has an unpainted EVH/Axis body but with a long scale neck and the same lipstick pickups that are on the doubleneck.

 
ruso said:
Listening again, it definitely sounds like a clean baritone doubling the low note on the piano.
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I'm gonna experiment layering in bass/baritone with the Roland D50 underneath the Piano this week. The D50 just cuz i think it adds a cool texture to those bass notes. Not necessarily going for 100% authentic
 
Chewie5150 said:
I'm gonna experiment layering in bass/baritone with the Roland D50 underneath the Piano this week. The D50 just cuz i think it adds a cool texture to those bass notes. Not necessarily going for 100% authentic
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I kinda dig the effect you’re getting with the synth. It has a little bit of that “crystal” effect going on.
 
ruso said:
I kinda dig the effect you’re getting with the synth. It has a little bit of that “crystal” effect going on.
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Yeah I'm really diggin that. In the demo its buried a bit under the Piano esp with how my iphone recorded it. I plan to upload another vid soon showcasing some other VH synth presets I have and I'll make sure to mix in that airy/crystal patch more prominently for Right Now so you can hear it. I'll also try doing a direct recording and not the iphone.

edit: Messing around layering bass. I have an acutal bass but since I want to layer in with keys easier to use VST in this case. I just downloaded a trial of EZ bass. Loaded up Vintage Effects Pick. Some chorus adds some of that bell quality...now Ive mixed that in with the D50, probs pull out the OBX on lower register, created a duplicate Addictive keys instance so on the lower half of keyboard can lower the volume without affecting higher register of keyboard. What I love about Ableton is the ease of making instrument racks and quickly assigning the key ranges for each Instrument. I have this live set not for recording per se but mainly for when I want to jam out on these VH songs.
 
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Chewie5150 said:
VH purists aren’t crazy about
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VH Purists are the worst. They're the ones who basically forced Ed to stop writing new shit, hire DLR again, shut up and play the hits and then die of cancer.

The joke about the difference between Star Trek fans and Star Wars fans: "The difference between ST fans and SW fans? ST fans don't hate 6 out of 9 of their movies" - totally applies here. The Van Halen Taliban have been beshitting everything EVH has done since 1984 and it took it's toll.

Anyway, to me it kinda sounds like fretless bass. or so affected that the attack and decay makes it kinda sound fretless.
 
just because it's eddie doesnt mean all his music was great. vh3 was awful for the most part. Me Wise Magic and Cant Get This Stuff No More followed that album. both great.

...and eddie was my first love.
 
Starting off with a lot of caveats here....take with a huge grain of salt as I'm recalling this off interweb. I had read that Mike Post who produced that VHIII album worked with Eddie in a different way than usual. For one, Eddie wanted to do its all sober. Al apparently was in the throes of a difficult time with his divorce and wasn't quite himself so Ed did much /most? of the drumming. Gary wasn't really so much 'collaborating' in equal parts. Mainly following Ed's directions as how he wanted things to sound. Some call it an Ed solo album but it seems mainly he more or less just controlled the production with Mike Price's light guidance. For better or worse it was definitely a different flavour of VH. Not my go to but I enjoy a lot of musical aspects to the album.
 
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