Early VH Tone ? Echo Plex or Reverb for Live FOH ?

Bam5150

Bam5150

Member
Really trying to nail that early VH 1 & 2 tone..more 2 for live gigging. I got the amp & cab tone down but the delay and or reverb is where I’m having trouble. It seems to my ears that he is using more reverb when I listen to the isolated guitar tracks on you tube ( like light up the sky, somebody get me a doctor)
I’m also aware of the echo plex anomaly ( can Axe do that ?). Any guidance on what he was predominantly using and if something already exists for the Axe 3 ???

Thank you in advance
 
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Will Schut said:
Believe it or not, an Echoplex in front of the amp and a then a truckload of reverb after. Pan dry guitar hard on one side and the reverb hard on the other site. With some aftertweaks that should get you close.
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Can the Axe 3 simulate an echo plex that I can put before amp block ?
 
A lot of the tunes on the first two records (and even some on the next two) has the Echoplex delay in front of the amp as mentioned above. Put a digital mono delay in front of your amp and set it to ~100ms. Set the feedback to where you hear about 1.5 "delays". Adjust the output to where the delay does not overwhelm the dry signal. This will get close to the echoplex in front set up. As for "guitar in the left, reverb in the right," I typically do this in my DAW (no reverb in the Axe, pan the dry guitar hard left, add reverb 75% right and adjust to taste) because most rhythm tracks that I record are in mono. This can be done in the Axe and sound quite convincing, but then a guy must use the stereo output from the Axe.

Dance The Night Away is a great example of that slapback delay sound he used that you can pretty easily hear to get your delay output and time set up with. ATBL and RWTD have it quite a bit as well, as many of the older tunes.
 
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Greg Smith said:
A lot of the tunes on the first two records (and even some on the next two) has the Echoplex delay in front of the amp as mentioned above. Put a digital mono delay in front of your amp and set it to ~300ms. Set the feedback to where you hear about 1.5 "delays". Adjust the output to where the delay does not overwhelm the dry signal. This will get close to the echoplex in front set up. As for "guitar in the left, reverb in the right," I typically do this in my DAW (no reverb in the Axe, pan the dry guitar hard left, add reverb 75% right and adjust to taste) because most rhythm tracks that I record are in mono. This can be done in the Axe and sound quite convincing, but then a guy must use the stereo output from the Axe.

Dance The Night Away is a great example of that slapback delay sound he used that you can pretty easily hear to get your delay output and time set up with. ATBL and RWTD have it quite a bit as well, as many of the older tunes.
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Awesome input. I should have put that this is for a live set up
 
darkknight91 said:
According to Ted Templeman the reverb was not panned to one side. It was in stereo. It just gets drowned out on the guitar side.
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Interesting. And sounds like it makes sense. So a tad bit of echo plex in front of amp and a shit ton of reverb after amp ?
 
darkknight91 said:
Someone released a plug in of the Sunset Sound reverb chamber. You could get that if you were really hardcore about it to duplicate it. Maybe someone already has.
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I have it. Just use a Chamber reverb in the Axe, 100ms Predelay, etc, the same things you have to do in the SS plugin to get a Ed’s reverb. Once I did that, the Axe sounded so close I didn’t even bother to AB.
 
Bam5150 said:
Really trying to nail that early VH 1 & 2 tone..more 2 for live gigging. I got the amp & cab tone down but the delay and or reverb is where I’m having trouble. It seems to my ears that he is using more reverb when I listen to the isolated guitar tracks on you tube ( like light up the sky, somebody get me a doctor)
I’m also aware of the echo plex anomaly ( can Axe do that ?). Any guidance on what he was predominantly using and if something already exists for the Axe 3 ???

Thank you in advance
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Check out Rocco Pezzin’s VH preset, killer.

 
Blix said:
Have in mind EVH did not ever use reverb live and reverb with hard rock sounds usually gets quite mushy on a stage.
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This is good to note. If you're recording, throw the reverb on there. Using the reverb Pre-Delay setting is key. On my live EVH tone, I use some delay similar to the above info and a touch of reverb for a little bit of nod to the recordings, but you definitely don't want to use much of it as you won't cut thru, which would be very non-EVH like. As Blix said, it's not something that EVH did live (and he reportedly didn't like it too much on the recording). And you definitely don't want a heavy reverb with the dry left/wet right configuration for live use. Anyone on the right side of the stage would just hear distant guitar that's out of time. :tearsofjoy:
 
The tone on VH-1 does not translate live very well. The isolated tracks are VERY bright with tons of reverb panned to the right. Ed didn't use reverb live.

The delay is easy. I use a mono tape, 335MS, feedback is 5%, mix is 1.2%. The mix has to be VERY low to work in front of a cranked superlead. For the amp, I use the 1959SLP with everything on 10. Look up Dweezil Zappa's Gift of Tone and grab his IR's. Eruption Cab Bright and Dark. I lower the bright cab -30db's. The IR's are not panned.

Here's a screen shot from each of my blocks...
 

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Darrin66 said:
I have it. Just use a Chamber reverb in the Axe, 100ms Predelay, etc, the same things you have to do in the SS plugin to get a Ed’s reverb. Once I did that, the Axe sounded so close I didn’t even bother to AB.
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How can I get that reverb plug in or your saying I can get it by adjusting a chamber verb already in axe 3 ?
 
Rock Chalk said:
Have you tried the blocks from Dweezils GOT preset?
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No
rcm78 said:
The tone on VH-1 does not translate live very well. The isolated tracks are VERY bright with tons of reverb panned to the right. Ed didn't use reverb live.

The delay is easy. I use a mono tape, 335MS, feedback is 5%, mix is 1.2%. The mix has to be VERY low to work in front of a cranked superlead. For the amp, I use the 1959SLP with everything on 10. Look up Dweezil Zappa's Gift of Tone and grab his IR's. Eruption Cab Bright and Dark. I lower the bright cab -30db's. The IR's are not panned.

Here's a screen shot from each of my blocks...
Click to expand...
Awesome ! I’m using the Atomica and 5153 red blend. So put in front of amps at those parameters. No reverb after amps ?
 
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