Van Halen 5150 Tone Breakthrough

ledhalen45 said:
Definitely feeling it’s a bit too harsh as well, this is just the closest I’ve gotten so far. There’s a certain roundness and smoothness to the top end of Eddie’s guitars on the album. I’ve been trying the best I can to get it right in the amp block, and I agree that it’s on the brighter side.

As far as the detuning method, I definitely feel like I have that nailed. After stumbling on this breakthrough, it seems that Eddie flips between a number of different methods to detune depending on the album. But the amp tone can definitely improve.
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Care to share what you’ve found about detuning? I agree that it seems that he does several methods. Great clip, you’re very close.
 
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JerichoKing said:
Couple of things you could do is consider adding a PEQ after the cab and cut some high-end. Some folks have a set frequency they use each time they do this, but the best way is to loop your riff on the axe and use your ears to set the right freq. Another is to check out the "smoothing" in the cab block itself. Something of an "ah ha!" moment for most folks looking to smooth out an otherwise great sound.
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I’m currently low passing at 12k in the cab block via the cabs and the preamp (in both places). I messed with the smoothing a bit and I actually think it helped a bit! I think they sounded best around 4?

One other thing I changed is that I was running the CC Boost in the preamp, but at 0db boost. This guts out the lower mids and brightens things up in the midrange. But in this case I think it was adding too much high end content so I shut it off. Also cut the input trim in half which helped round off the bottom end of the notes and made them less bombastic. I’ll record a clip later and show the difference. Thanks for the feedback and tips.
 
Darrin66 said:
Care to share what you’ve found about retuning? I agree that it seems that he does several methods. Great clip, you’re very close.
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So most of us are familiar with his W/D/W setup. This has been well documented in many facets. Eventide Harmonizer Pitch Shifting effects the Left and Dry wet signals positively and negatively respectively by about 5-8 cents. The sweet spot for me is about 6, but honestly it depends on the song and whether or not it was live. Get Up live sounds so much more unhinged and wider than the studio track, so I’m pretty sure this could have been day to day with Eddie. Anyways.. I digress

Another method is just W/D. I feel like this is implemented and can be best be heard in Balance. Left side stays untouched and the right side is effected by the Eventide. The guitar is definitely wide but a bit more focused and more precise in general. Not as washy. The only time it gets washy is when he engaged a Boss Chorus which is well documented that he possessed around that time. You can hear things get more washy in the breakdown in Amsterdam following the solo.

For 5150, what makes it unique is the implementation of the Haas effect in conjunction with detuning. He’d take the dry signal, split it, then delay the other side by a few milliseconds. After he has those two signals, they are hard panned left and right. You get a wide sound but no detuning. From the dry signal, he’d split it into another 2 signals feeding 2 independent Eventide harmonizers (910s for 5150 then 949’s later on). He’d use one harmonizer to shift up a few cents and pan that left, and then another harmonized to shift down a few cents and pitch that right. So long story short, I believe the detuning formula for the 5150 album is D/W/W/D(with Hass effect).
 
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ledhalen45 said:
So most of us are familiar with his W/D/W setup. This has been well documented in many facets. Eventide Harmonizer Pitch Shifting effects the Left and Dry wet signals positively and negatively respectively by about 5-8 cents. The sweet spot for me is about 6, but honestly it depends on the song and whether or not it was live. Get Up live sounds so much more unhinged and wider than the studio track, so I’m pretty sure this could have been day to day with Eddie. Anyways.. I digress

Another method is just W/D. I feel like this is implemented and can be best be heard in Balance. The guitar is definitely wide but a bit more focused and more precise in general. Not as washy. The only time it gets washy is when he engaged a Boss Chorus which is well documented that he possessed around that time. You can hear things get more washy in the breakdown in Amsterdam following the solo.

For 5150, what makes it unique is the implementation of the Hass effect in conjunction with detuning. He’d take the dry signal, split it, then delay the other side by a few milliseconds. After he has those two signals, they are hard panned left and right. You get a wide sound but no detuning. From the dry signal, he’d split it into another 2 signals feeding 2 independent Eventide harmonizers (910s for 5150 then 949’s later on). He’d use one harmonizer to shift up a few cents and pan that left, and then another harmonized to shift down a few cents and pitch that right. So long story short, I believe the detuning formula for the 5150 album is D/W/W/D(with Hass effect).
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I’ve been meaning to tinker with the Haas/delay effect. Thanks for the detailed reply.
 
you have to remember that the album tone was not the sound coming out of his cabinet. It's been produced. I think what you have would be very close. In fact, it would have to be bright to mix properly with Alex's cymbal washes.
 
I would agree with some others that on its own, to my ears it sounds a little trebly - would be nice to hear it in a mix though too. Definitely super close - I love that album and this song in particular as well - nice work, I’ll be watching for you to post a final version if you decide to tweak it at all. If not though and it makes you happy - rock it out man!
 
rzjd said:
you have to remember that the album tone was not the sound coming out of his cabinet. It's been produced. I think what you have would be very close. In fact, it would have to be bright to mix properly with Alex's cymbal washes.
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Oh for sure. I went in depth earlier in the thread as to how the dry guitar was processed.
 
SinglecutGuy said:
The playing sounds like VH but the tone does not. Sounds too phased and almost modulated. Sorry.
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I appreciate the compliments on the playing. I've been trying to be as good as Eddie for close to 20 years now. I'll keep tweaking. It can get incredibly phasey if its collapsed to mono. Theres still a lot to dissect and understand as to why his tone was and is the balls.
 
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