16.05 Test

With a tube amp the Variac makes a big difference. I use one with one of my Plexi which was built with a 68/69 spec and the other one which is a Metropolus 12000 series which was modified by Dave Friedman which I asked him to mod it like EVH's Plexi has the Variac built in. When lowering the voltage the amp sounds brighter and more saturated. Both amps have no master volume.


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Ahhhh so what will all the guys who have been chasing Eddie's "Brown Sound" since 1978 obsess about now 8)?

Mixed in with the other instrument tracks, that EVH tone is really amazing in how it sounds so much like the original recording.

A lotta magic in the guitar tones we chase happens post-amp/cab chain and it's very, very exciting to have those tools available shortly to address that 'last mile' in guitar tone shaping. Absolutely fantastic development....
 
Hi Cliff,

Sorry to get involved here as I'm probably (as usual) off the mark. However, I've been messing around with some VH type stuff as well. Of course I'm nowhere near your caliber for sound and creating etc, but I did stumble onto something that helped me get a decent VH tone for Unchained. I'll explain.

I got the tone as close as I could first, then did a tone match of EVH. From there, I brought the sound into my editor (Sonar X3) and ran a UAD Studer tape simulator on it. That gave it just enough sizzle to make a difference sort of like what Ed had because it sounds to me like they hit that tape hard with his tone. The Studer I used saturates in a "good way" not a digital way and I was quite happy with the results. From there, I tone matched myself and came up with this.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/UnchainedAxFx_DZL_Master_16_44.mp3

I know it's in the wrong key and I'm a terrible representation of EVH but I'm quite happy with this sound as well as the flanger hits.

This is the studio version of the sound Axe FX II using the Brit AFS100 2. My reason for choosing this amp is due to the pinch harms sounding like Ed's where they go right through you. One of the artifacts in Cliff's tone for Meanstreets is the pinch harms have that synthetic, transistor sound. I mean no offense Cliff...your tone is pretty dead on (and closer than mine) other than copping Ed's pinch harms. Try your experiment with that amp I used...you may get closer. My live version of this sound has less high end as THIS sound doesn't seem to transfer as well to my 25 watt greenback cabs. When I listen to Eddie doing Unchained through my cab using Ax Fx along with my live tone, I can barely tell the difference.

Song/band info for anyone curious: This is my tribute band Van Halen Nation. We recorded this years ago and today I replaced the old guitars with my latest AxeFx tones just to see how I may or may not have evolved from using my 2101. I wanted to do a little something different and keep the flavor of VH along with our identity. One of those things was I created the 1984 drum kit (always loved that kit) and tried to mix it in with the Fair Warning instruments. :) None of it is right or anything....but I sure have fun destroying things in my own flavor.
 
aww man!
quit yanking us and give it to us already!!
pretty please....

isn't it amazing that the quest for eddie's tone never gets old
we are talking 1978... that's more than 3 decades..
relatively speaking, if this was 78, we would be talking about ww2 tunes...
 
FractalAudio said:
Here's a sample of with and without preamp modeling. The first half is amp->cab->reverb. The second half is amp->cab->pre->reverb.

www.fractalaudio.com/tmp/pre_test.mp3
Click to expand...


ups, i prefer first half. second half seems to be subjective a bit quieter, i tried to compensate it, but liked #1 still more. #1 feels less "rounder", more pick attack/Transients. That said, i think that tool could be useful to help embedding things into mix ...
 
Morphosis said:
#1 feels less "rounder", more pick attack/Transients.
Click to expand...
true. but that's kinda exactly why a lot of people push preamps, tape machines etc. to make things "rounder". also a thing some analog purists don't like about any kind of digital devices. I like both actually. all depends on taste and the application I guess...
 
Yep, the preamp gives it a bit more body, but i had to switch from my flat screen speaker to my studio monitors to hear the difference, which is not surprising. Awesome.
 
Last edited:
Great job Danny. I can see what you're talking about with the harmonics Your sound sounds a bit thicker with a bit more saturation, but it's quite close. EVH tone didn't have as much sustain although it sounds like it does. You can tell by listening really closed and from listening to the old live stuff.


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Danny Danzi said:
Hi Cliff,

Sorry to get involved here as I'm probably (as usual) off the mark. However, I've been messing around with some VH type stuff as well. Of course I'm nowhere near your caliber for sound and creating etc, but I did stumble onto something that helped me get a decent VH tone for Unchained. I'll explain.

I got the tone as close as I could first, then did a tone match of EVH. From there, I brought the sound into my editor (Sonar X3) and ran a UAD Studer tape simulator on it. That gave it just enough sizzle to make a difference sort of like what Ed had because it sounds to me like they hit that tape hard with his tone. The Studer I used saturates in a "good way" not a digital way and I was quite happy with the results. From there, I tone matched myself and came up with this.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4909348/UnchainedAxFx_DZL_Master_16_44.mp3
Click to expand...

Brilliant method!
 
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