Pete Thorn - EVH Tone pickup deep dive

I got through about half of it and had to run an errand. Did anyone else think that some of the core tones sounded a bit on the twangy side? I mean I have heard better early VH tones from videos that he did 10 years ago.
 
All Pete's tonz tend to 'err' on the brighter side ..., that's what he prefers .... I was going to send him a note and ask if he had the EchoPlex Pre-Amp on the pedalboard he was using ? Obviously he had the Phaser, Flanger, etc; But the EP-3 Pre-Amp usually makes a huge difference in the high-end for sure !

I've got a Bare Knuckles VHII in my guitar and his video made me wonder what the same pickup w/ an A2 magnet would sound like ( instead of the A5 ) ?
 
Sixstring said:
I got through about half of it and had to run an errand. Did anyone else think that some of the core tones sounded a bit on the twangy side? I mean I have heard better early VH tones from videos that he did 10 years ago.
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To me it sounds like brand new strings are making the twang. It's there in all of the first 3 pickups I'm listening to. I get the same twang for a day or two after new strings.

Edit: I watched the (or scrubbed through) each of them.
1. #10 SD Frankenstein A2 ~ 14.2K
2. #9 SD 78 A2 ~ 9.0K

The hotter pickup drove the tone and helped cover up the 'twang' that I hear, especially on D.O.A. The lower output PUs kinda sounded like there was a tele-ish twang on that particular song.

I wished he would've rode the volume knob and cleaned up each of the pickups. This was a really good video for me because I'm in the market for something to replace my JB with. Of course different wood equates to a different tone but it was good to hear the difference in the 8 or 9K vs. the hotter 13 to 14K pickups. Pete has Ed's attack down and is one of the best at covering Eddie, IMO.
 
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And the fun part is that EVH doesn't even like his early tones. He obviously preferred the 5150 sound over his variac Marshall sound.
 
And some folks like and want those "hotter" pickups even though all accounts are that Ed
wasn't too hot on that either. ;)

Crazy how we can get caught up in chasing the trail of the masters even as they
have moved on.
 
Bman said:
To me it sounds like brand new strings are making the twang. It's there in all of the first 3 pickups I'm listening to. I get the same twang for a day or two after new strings.

Edit: I watched the (or scrubbed through) each of them.
1. #10 SD Frankenstein A2 ~ 14.2K
2. #9 SD 78 A2 ~ 9.0K

The hotter pickup drove the tone and helped cover up the 'twang' that I hear, especially on D.O.A. The lower output PUs kinda sounded like there was a tele-ish twang on that particular song.

I wished he would've rode the volume knob and cleaned up each of the pickups. This was a really good video for me because I'm in the market for something to replace my JB with. Of course different wood equates to a different tone but it was good to hear the difference in the 8 or 9K vs. the hotter 13 to 14K pickups. Pete has Ed's attack down and is one of the best at covering Eddie, IMO.
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I think thats the main reason he liked well broken in strings! Not quite as twangy once the brilliance is gone.

There were all kinds of secrets Ed did to get his sounds almost impossible to attribute it to one thing.

I always like the old Curt Mitchell "In the style of vids"! The guy was off the rails but he nailed the VH tones. I can't remember which pickup he used in his Warmoth but it sounds right on the money.

 
Sixstring said:
I think thats the main reason he liked well broken in strings! Not quite as twangy once the brilliance is gone.

There were all kinds of secrets Ed did to get his sounds almost impossible to attribute it to one thing.

I always like the old Curt Mitchell "In the style of vids"! The guy was off the rails but he nailed the VH tones. I can't remember which pickup he used in his Warmoth but it sounds right on the money.

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EVH is such a rabbit hole. I used to spend hours on the Metro Vintage Amp forums and that tone was dissected to the nth degree. Of course each album is different and lately I've been trying to dial in a 5150 album tone to use in my EVH preset. The song 5150 has a dry, unique tone, IMO. For the early tones, I just go with my stock tone and add a quick echo and make sure there's a flanger and phaser in the preset. I prefer MY tone. But I also have Andy Wood's 90's EVH tone in that preset too. I didn't really get into much of the 90's albums and going back and listening to Amsterdam, Cabo Wabo, etc. is kinda cool. I feel like I have him covered except for the 5150, which I am still tweaking to find. It's ironic to me because I'm not chasing an old or new tone but am chasing that song's tone. And I don't know why .... but it's fun.
 
Sixstring said:
I think thats the main reason he liked well broken in strings! Not quite as twangy once the brilliance is gone.

There were all kinds of secrets Ed did to get his sounds almost impossible to attribute it to one thing.

I always like the old Curt Mitchell "In the style of vids"! The guy was off the rails but he nailed the VH tones. I can't remember which pickup he used in his Warmoth but it sounds right on the money.

Click to expand...

He is a trip and an original video guy, from the days of VHS tapes. He didn't need to shill for YT subscribers, he just told you how it was. To be honest, he did gather a LOT of great info about EVH and his techniques prior to the Internet. It's pretty impressive he figured out some of the things he did without the help of YT and Google.
 
Sixstring said:
I think thats the main reason he liked well broken in strings! Not quite as twangy once the brilliance is gone.

There were all kinds of secrets Ed did to get his sounds almost impossible to attribute it to one thing.

I always like the old Curt Mitchell "In the style of vids"! The guy was off the rails but he nailed the VH tones. I can't remember which pickup he used in his Warmoth but it sounds right on the money.

Click to expand...

Before the Internet I'd buy any guitar magazine that had any nuggets/interviews of Eddie and recall reading one where he talked specifically about the tone he got when they recorded the Title track to '5150'. His guitar had really old strings which just had that character and if I'm not mistaken he added a heavier gauged string on the low E to get that extra beefiness to that chug line. Plus his magical fingers of course.
 
Admin M@ said:
Gotta love Pete and his nerding out. Hanging out with him, Andy Wood, and Dweezil at the same was a pretty expanding experience for me.
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Pete is such a force out there. Amazing player and man does he ever nail Eddie's playing so well. He has clearly studied and practiced those little nuances in the smallest of notes or bends that just adds to that authenticity. one thing I didn't realize until this deep dive was the slight tuning variations Ed used on certain songs. No wonder when I'm playing along to some songs there's just something a bit off there.

I think Pete touched on that on a few occasions. Runnin with the devil was one I think or perhaps it was Unchained. Best of both worlds is one of those songs that I like playing along to where he must have tunings on some strings +/- a few cents as my guitar as well tuned as it is sounds off a bit
 
I've found the WCR Godwood to be my fave pick for that EVH sweetspot (covers multiple VH album tones amazingly). Would have loved it if Pete had that in his deep dive...
 
Muad'zin said:
And the fun part is that EVH doesn't even like his early tones. He obviously preferred the 5150 sound over his variac Marshall sound.
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I don’t think its the sound per say that he didn’t like.
More likely its the ease of play that the higher gain gave him that he liked.
 
Bman said:
EVH is such a rabbit hole. I used to spend hours on the Metro Vintage Amp forums and that tone was dissected to the nth degree. Of course each album is different and lately I've been trying to dial in a 5150 album tone to use in my EVH preset. The song 5150 has a dry, unique tone, IMO. For the early tones, I just go with my stock tone and add a quick echo and make sure there's a flanger and phaser in the preset. I prefer MY tone. But I also have Andy Wood's 90's EVH tone in that preset too. I didn't really get into much of the 90's albums and going back and listening to Amsterdam, Cabo Wabo, etc. is kinda cool. I feel like I have him covered except for the 5150, which I am still tweaking to find. It's ironic to me because I'm not chasing an old or new tone but am chasing that song's tone. And I don't know why .... but it's fun.
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"Rocco" got the 5150 tone nailed down spot on and he just used a stock Chapman ML-1 Hot Rod!

5150 VH Tone

I loved listing to the Sammy years but never really got into Ed's tone with those recordings for some reason. At that point for me I think it was a tad to commercial sounding or something IDK. The first 4 records are the VH sound that I prefer and I think the mystery of it all was the intrigue, the whole what was that and how did the hell he do it!
 
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IMHO – the “secret” if you want to call it that was in the instrument panning …. The dry-er guitar panned left and the effects ( reverb, etc; ) panned right made a HUGE difference ! It seemed to preserve all the dynamics & punch as well as kept the overall aggressive nature of his Plexi …. Plus it was unique in the aspect that no one else was doing it at that time !

Years later …, they started panning everything more to the center ( or left/right w/ effects ) and it homogenized and softened the tone ( again ALL IMHO ) ….

I’m having a blast w/ the Axe by doing something similar …. My guitar cab is panned -65 left and the effects are panned +65 right …. Try it ! It works GREAT unless you want a stereo chorus or delay ..., then obviously you’d need to pan everything more back to the center otherwise the stereo field is lost ….
 
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