Van Halen Mean Streets

Danny Danzi

Danny Danzi

Power User
Been reading that quite a few of you are into the VH stuff. I got some pretty cool things I may be able to share soon. Got this stuff sounding killer through my live rig, but still working things out for direct/studio. I think I'm pretty close on quite a few things. Just need to mess with verb, a little less gain and panning. Here's where I am so far.

Eddie is first, I'm second.

 
Other peoples Tone Matched presets don't usually work for me ..., but that said I'd be dying to at least try ....

The Meanstreets riff is ( IMHO ) the best recorded tone V.H. ever produced !

AWESOME job !
 
Danny Danzi said:
Been reading that quite a few of you are into the VH stuff. I got some pretty cool things I may be able to share soon. Got this stuff sounding killer through my live rig, but still working things out for direct/studio. I think I'm pretty close on quite a few things. Just need to mess with verb, a little less gain and panning. Here's where I am so far.

Eddie is first, I'm second.

Click to expand...


The tone is definitely nailed on the left channel; I had to get a listen with the headphones to analyze that one.
The only mentionable difference I could find, the right channel of the original track is very distant with loads of reverb and a slight delay to the left channel, giving somewhat more space to the whole sound. Excellent work!
 
Danny Danzi said:
Been reading that quite a few of you are into the VH stuff. I got some pretty cool things I may be able to share soon. Got this stuff sounding killer through my live rig, but still working things out for direct/studio. I think I'm pretty close on quite a few things. Just need to mess with verb, a little less gain and panning. Here's where I am so far.

Eddie is first, I'm second.

Click to expand...

I forget about that song, going to relearn it today. Can't wait for the patch!
 
Thanks guys. Yeah I felt good about this one to the point of when I played and analyzed them, the hair on my arms stood up.

Don't take me wrong, I've heard some guys on here totally nail vh perfectly with the playing to boot. BUT.....one thing you will notice in this patch is, what all the others have been missing. 12AX7 artifacts.

Every vh tone I have ever heard that sounds nearly identical that isn't a real amp is always missing Eddie's pinch harms. Remember that guy that was posting a few years ago that didn't want to share his vh sound because it was how he made his living?

He had one of closest I ever heard but he STILL had that synthetic, transistor tone. You won't get that with this patch. I chose this amp and how it breaks up on purpose.

With the patch will be five scenes that you can use on various vh songs like Ain't talking, Jaime's crying, unchained (there is actually another tone match for that patch as the mean streets tone doesn't cut it, but you'll be OK using mean streets) everybody wants some, eruption, and atomic punk and hear about it later.

I've added what I felt was the closest in flangers, delays and phaser. None of it is spot on, just my take on one of my fave guitarists and some of the stuff I use in my vh tribute band....which I'm probably the worst Eddie as I play more of my own licks "inspired by" Eddie.

I've even got a pretty good 1984 type patch with the drop dead legs octave going on. Now, here's the deal....

I think I've brought these patches to the limit as far as what I can do and what my ears tell me. I usually do all my vh splitting with the reverb and panning etc inside my DAW. I can release these patches as they are if you want and you can split the verb up, or if you insist I can do it. But it may be better for you to do it so you can have the patches immediately.

I would say you probably want them immediately since you guys can fix the verb block in seconds. So I'll see what you guys say about that and in the meantime, I'd like to make a video explaining what actually happens in the scenes because there is quite a lot going on.

I also am doing a blues type video today also showing how important a good cab block is. One cab block, if it's the right one, can be used on several different amps with little to no change for classic rock, blues and gritty sounds. So that vid is coming hopefully today.

My issue there is I want to use a stock cab for it and don't like any but 2 or 3 and didn't feel my own cab IR helps show what you guys can do, understand? It's like cheating if I use something that I created, where my points are to try and get the best out of the unit stock. But anyway, let's get this vh thing sorted first. See you in a few hours....I got a client in 8 minutes then I'll work on it. :)
 
Danny Danzi said:
I can release these patches as they are if you want and you can split the verb up, or if you insist I can do it.
Click to expand...

I vote for you dialing in the verb in the patch. The VH verb is difficult to dial in correctly, so it's always good to check out another persons approach to see if they can come closer to nailing it. Thanks!
 
Danny Danzi said:
I think I've brought these patches to the limit as far as what I can do and what my ears tell me. I usually do all my vh splitting with the reverb and panning etc inside my DAW. I can release these patches as they are if you want and you can split the verb up, or if you insist I can do it. But it may be better for you to do it so you can have the patches immediately.:)
Click to expand...

I've never had any luck splitting & panning the Reverb myself. So, I might like you to do it ..., except my feeble attempts have always sounded SO terrible, that I'd kind-of given up on the idea ....

Maybe a better approach would be to just explain how you do it in the DAW, and if we want to try within the patch then we can do that ourselves ? I would think the mixing technique would be very similar wouldn't it ?

THANKS !
 
The main difference is in the reverb. The reverb time on the original sounds longer and is mostly panned right. You've got almost nothing in the right channel. It should be 100% wet reverb with a bit of predelay.
 
Yep yep, and yep to everything you guys said. That's the reason you didn't get the patch. LOL! The other reason is, I don't do the pans inside of my AxeFx because I play with my band and like to be down the middle and centered here in the studio. I HATE the panned off to one side thing. When I recorded our VH demo for the tribute band, all the processing was done in my DAW which is why the sound you guys heard is like it is. I wanted you to listen for the tone, not the verb. :p

Trust me, I've been at this stuff for what feels like 100 years and have a little bit of a clue. Hahaha! (ok not much of a clue, but I got something?!) The new patch (video is rendering for it because I think you'll dig seeing all that is going on) is ready and the verb is pretty close...for what I had time for. Busy day today/tonight.

One of the issues (not really an issue, just something I didn't add in) is the sound on the left isn't totally dry if you listen to Ed. You hear room sound, you hear snare rattles, it's "alive". If we pan the reverb all the way to the right, we sound a bit dead on the left. So I panned to 60% right leaving us a little effect in the left channel. Feel free to edit it any way you wish. My fix for this would be to use a small room verb. I didn't get into all that though.

Quick rundown of notes if you do not want to watch my video...

The patch is like it is with multiple effects because it was originally created using my MKII and I now also have an XL+ so it hasn't been XL+'d yet.

Any gain you wish to reduce, try the input drive where I have it set to 2.50. For easy adjustment, right click on input drive and reduce it from controller unless you remove the modifier.

I don't tune like you guys do, so I have a lot less tension on my strings therefore needing more gain or my stuff dies out. I'm tuned to a C under your E, yet I play at 440...go figure.

If that fails to reduce the gain, reduce compressor output level if need be. But you should be fine reducing input drive.

5 scenes 1-5

Scene 1: Delay-on which will work for Runnin with the Devil, Everybody Wants Some, Dance the night away, So This Is Love and most general delay tones. Flanger block is controlled via expression pedal Extern 3 on the flange mix knob. Extern 2 controls gain using wah pedal.

Scene 2: Hear About It Later. Flange on, turn on using expression pedal, delay, clean amp, panned center in stereo. Sound isn't perfect, but it will get us through for now.

Scene 3: Aint Talkin...control flange from Expression pedal Extern 3

Scene 4: Dry sound with just verb. Flanger controlled the same way...on-off with expression pedal.

Scene 5: Lead sound with phaser set to on. To shut phaser off, expression pedal down controlled by Extern 3.

Chorus can be turned off and on for all patches for a diver down type sound. Or on for scene 1 is a panama type sound.

That should do it.

 

Attachments

  • Eddie Van Danzi.syx
    12.6 KB · Views: 421
Lookin' forward to checking this out Danny. One of my fave amp sims is the, Brit Super which is a Cliff Chase modified version, (I believe) of the Brit AFS 100. Thanks a lot for the time and effort you've put into these vids with a great job in explaining the inners, (and outers) of your patches/effects and the vids in general. Teaching is a gift... and you have that gift, sir.
 
swass said:
Lookin' forward to checking this out Danny. One of my fave amp sims is the, Brit Super which is a Cliff Chase modified version, (I believe) of the Brit AFS 100. Thanks a lot for the time and effort you've put into these vids with a great job in explaining the inners, (and outers) of your patches/effects and the vids in general. Teaching is a gift... and you have that gift, sir.
Click to expand...

You're too kind, thanks brother. Trying to do the best I can with these vids to help people. Thanks again! Gonna go test that preset. So sorry it didn't work. :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom