What To Learn from the VH Guitar Hero Isolated Tracks

December 29, 2010 40 Comments

If you’re a diehard Van Halen fan, the only thing you know for sure is that no one can get “THAT” exact sound but Ed himself. Yes, some people’s fingers can sound like Ed’s and some people’s rigs can sound like Ed’s, but to put it all together….

You might swear it’s been done. If so, get me a recording of it!

Anyhow, a couple of tone bloodhounds have taken it upon themselves to separate out the isolated guitar tracks from the Guitar Hero Van Halen game – they are isolated in the game itself, but from what I can gather it’s a b**tch getting them out and synching the tempo properly. Anyhow, these folks have done it, and I’ve heard it.

Incredible stuff!

I’ll probably have to listen to them for the next 30 years or so to really understand everything they’re telling me, but here are my initial several-listen impressions, by album.

Van Halen I and II

A segment of diehard EVH toneheads swears that Ed’s amps were “slaved” in the studio. Slaving basically means that he plugged into one amp, then ran that amp into another amp. Why would he do this? Two reasons: to control volume, and because it incidentally sounds great.

(Ed also wouldn’t have been the first guy to do this, as others – including Tony Iommi, Ritchie Blackmore, Robin Trower and others – did it before him.)

By “sounds great,” I mean that it gives a 3D-like “air around the notes”/headroom quality (maybe epitomized by the “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love” ISO track) that seems impossible to duplicate any other way – and which Ed seems to like, judging by his eventual use of the Eventide Harmonizer (more on that below).

Anyhow, when I listen to the iso tracks I hear three things: a cranked Marshall plexi, that magical “air,” and a TON of echo and reverb. So the question I still have is whether he slaved in the studio, which people who knew him at the time said he did NOT do, or whether the “air”/”bigness” in his sound is the echo, reverb and re-amping (just what it sounds like) of his tracks through Sunset Studios’ reverb room.

Right now I’m voting for the latter, but some people with a lot more sleuthing experience than me disagree!

Incidentally, the Shark guitar (Ibanez Destroyer) sounds much more gainy/distorted on the ISO tracks (”Running With the Devil,” “You Really Got Me,” “Feel Your Love Tonight”).

We also can’t forget to factor in the nuances of Ed’s EXACT signal chain (including effects), and the fact that he was using two very different kinds of speakers back then.

Van Halen II has less reverb and sounds drier – and thus less “huge,” and less like a slaved amp.

Women and Children First

On this album Ed’s guitar sounds the driest, to my ears. Like in “Loss of Control” – that’s just him banging away – sometimes so fast that he barely keeps up! (Makes me not feel so bad….) In “And the Cradle…”, the fills are recorded super-dry – not even any reverb. The two solos have barely any reverb.

His sound doesn’t sound slaved, so it makes me wonder what really was going on on VH I and II. After all, Ed did say that Donn Landee (engineer) and Ted Templeman (producer) made the Van Halen I guitar tracks sound huge.

Fair Warning

For a long, long time, Fair Warning was the Holy Grail of guitar tone for me, and for many others. It’s darker-sounding, chewier, more aggressive and more distorted, and still has all that great Ed note clarity.
READ THE REST at WoodTone.com

ikethebird

The tone is 90% in the fingers.Humidity,mic placement,and Donn Landee are some of the reasons VH I sounded they way it did.They couldn’t recapture that sound even if they were in same studio,same people,same amps etc… We are lucky to have what we have to listen to because it goes away tonewise.Heres to a rockin 2011 with VH!!!!!
J5150C

I’ve always said it, and couldn’t agree with you more “ikethebird”, it truely is more in the fingers than anything else. Good quality tone comes from how you attack and phrase every single note/chord. How hard you press down on the strings, how hard or soft you grip the neck and how hard or loose you hold the pick, etc., etc. You could go through the shittiest amp/guitar and get good quality tone. It’s all in the fingers my friends.

OUT!
Steve 5150

I think Ed would be the first to say we’re way over-analyzing all of it. It’s really just great music and not all as complicated. He’s just doing his thing
Tater Salad

J5150C and Ike the bird:
That’s what Ed has always said, too.
JACK N SAM

Way too technical for me. I think it was all a lot simpler than anyone cares to admit and it mostly comes from Ed’s style of playing. Ed couldn’t even handle overdubs back then – too complicated. I can’t see him having a complex rig. Did Ed slave his amps? Did he boil his strings? Does he have 11 fingers? Did Bill Shatner wear a toupee? Should Dave wear one? Did Bill Clinton inhale? A few of the many questions to which we may never know the answer.
DiamondDean

great stuff !!! he is the master without a doubt , great read too
BA

Over-analyzed? Maybe. But I like learning more about Ed’s tone and and how he (perhaps) got some of it.

I was surprised to read a few articles back how Mike said Ed sounded thin recording VH I, and how they really fattened him up in the studio. Listening to the bootlegs of the club days, he doesn’t sound as thick, but you never know if that was Ed or the crappy recordings.

And on a different note, (no pun), it seems the entire record industry is waiting to see if the mighty VH can bring “album buyers” back. With over a decade of slumping sales, maybe a shot of VH is just what the industry, VH fans, music fans, a new generation of kids, and indeed the whole world, is desperately needing. I know I do.
Snake

I notice how guitar magazines have been attributing Eddie’s sound to his guitars and amps. I know these things affect his tone. But I think the biggest thing that affects his tone is his phrasing and the way he lays back into the groove.
alex

I know that at least for balance, twister soundtrack, the best of volume 1 new releases and VH III he slaved. I know it from very very close and I saw the set up. it all doesn’t matter though, it is in his fingers and the way he plays, at least he gave us a great sound! VH rules!
Steve

I don’t care if he paints his ass purple and had wolfy add pink dots while wearing a clown outfit. The bottom line is it doesn’t matter. it’s about the music. This is like someone explaining how a car works when really we just turn the key and drive it. But the car won’t make us better drivers
jeff adams

Ed’s brown sound, Dave’s (cool) whiskey voice, Mikes high backing vocals, and bad ass rythem, and Alex on the skins (also bad ass)= the coolest music ever. “In a Simple Ryme”, Full Bug”, Fools”, Outta Love”, Girl Gone Bad”, Sinner Swing”, On Fire. Gives me chills just thinking about it.
keith

His tone DID and DOES still come from playing LOUD thru a kick ass guitar and amp. I don’t think he’d sound so great with a J.Turser strat with rusty out of tune strings thru a Kustom 15 combo .
JACK N SAM

I think it bothered Ed that everyone wanted to know what his secret magic box was and he would always say it starts with the fingers – in other words, HE sounds the way he does, not the equipment. “Well he makes his own guitar so that must be it”, but then Ed says it was a piece of junk so the guitar doesn’t matter either – it’s just about finding something that works with your style of playing. I remember he said when he first started playing his mom telling him he wasn’t playing the G chord right and he said it sounds better (fatter) this way and she argued that the book said to play it that way. So he was like that from the beginning and when he started to develop his own style he learned to choose what notes to play and what not to play to always sound big and fat; thus was born the brown sound. After that I think it has always been a matter of finding the equipment that kept the true sound that was coming from his playing. He said he could never afford any effects pedals so he had to learn to make the sound he wanted come from his playing.

Having rambled all that, I agree it is still great to talk about it and learn about his technique and the set ups he has used.

Just one other thing – I think it is sad if everyone is waiting on guys in their 50s to rock the world (which they will). Guys in their 20s ought to be doing it, but they have no clue – they all sound the same…
Aftershock

In the beginning, there was great music coming from a Teisco del Rey and Broken Combs. Ed can make great music out of almost anything.
ikethebird

True,but out of 1,000 people that play through EVH’s rig,only one will sound like him.That one person is EVH himself.
dude

What? I love my Target-bought strat and my Pignose 4 watt amp! I sound better than Eddie ever did! Har-har.

Here’s to quality guitars and amps played well and loud! There really is no substitute!
http://www.ievolvedintothis.com Ken

For people who just want a Van Haleny sound, just plug a guitar with a mid-output humbucker into a vintage Marshall with everything turned up. Garnish to taste. That’ll get you right in the ballpark.

Everything else–the straight-on placement of the SM 57 slightly off-center from the speaker coil, for example–is strictly for hardcore fetishists who sweat the small stuff. And there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s more of a fan thing than a player thing.

The “tone is in your hands” maxim is a pacifier for tone hounds who despair that their faithful Van Halen replica rig doesn’t get every single note to sound exactly the way it does when Ed plays it. The technique can be learned, but there’s no accounting for taste.

There is also the concern that equipment wasn’t factory-produced then like it is now. You could buy everything that Ed bought and even learn to play everything the way he plays it, right down to the angle of the pick, the way it grinds against the windings of the string, the precise pressure from the left hand, etc. And you’ll still be off because your transformer is hand-wired slightly differently from his, or that his amp has some random capacitor in it that yours doesn’t.

For practical purposes, just do the first thing I said.
BA

Didn’t the Detroit City Madman himself, (Nugent), hook into Ed’s rig? And it sounded just like Ted Nugent?

Someone I know who is a very accomplished player told me he thought Ed was the best, (although not necessarily the first), to really learn how to control a hot rodded amp. Ed himself has said he just turned everything up to 10, (or maybe 11?), and went from there.

And while I’ve loved everything he’s put out, (OK, I just liked VHIII), I personally liked his tone better during the Frankenstrat years. There are certainly differences in his sound throughout the first 6 albums, but all similar. 5150 changed. I love that album, but to me the old VH I and FW sound was gone. Sometimes I’ve thought he tried to go too far. Could’ve stuck with the original brown sound, because at some point it isn’t brown anymore.

Long live The King.
Long live the Mighty Van Halen.

P.S. Just rented Over The Edge on Netflix, the story of my teens. You Really Got Me rocks in that movie. Go get it if you haven’t seen it. Cool, corny 70′s teen movie with a GREAT soundtrack.
JACK N SAM

I always wondered if Ed tricked Ted and didn’t really plug him into his rig, like maybe he had some fake setup. He has also said that he used to lie about what effects he used and he also didn’t deny or correct people when they assumed he used certain things. He always wanted to protect his sound and style. In the club days he not only played with his back to the audience so they couldn’t see his technique, he also hid his rig and said guys were alwyas snooping around the stage trying to see what he used. It’s possible he may have had all kinds of stuff up there but just not plugged in – who knows?

This is not the same thing, but he said in the early years when he had the big stacks of Marshalls on stage he said only the bottom row was on; the rest were just props.
freddiegirl

I remember reading about Nugent hooking up in Ed’s rig…and it didnt’ sound right. I agree with Ed that tone starts with your fingers although good equipment you’re comfortable with helps. I do think Ken’s recipe for a VH-y sound is correct and as he said, ” It’ll put you in the ballpark”. I’m a chick with small hands so I gave up trying to sound like Ed a long time ago and just tried to play what I like and learn what I can.
undercover1

Jesus… give it a rest….it was the producers , and the room and Ed being Ed..AT THAT TIME !!!!!! can not duplicate the room kids !! Stop over analysing this. Let it be cool, thats all it was….cool at the time
Roth_Kicker

The Mighty Van Halen in their late 50′s can still bring in 2011 what they brought to the table 30+ years ago — PLENTY OF ATTITUDE.

To me, that’s what set VH apart from so many other bands. They seemed so organic — as if they really were pot-smoking surfer dudes with too much time on their hands and too much pussy to fuck. It came across so clearly in their music.

Just get back to the basics, guys. Don’t try to outdo the bullshit Auto-Tune crowd like all these fake assholes these days. Get back to the roots….let the balls hang out….swig some whiskey….BE THE REAL VAN HALEN.
ftgjr

I agree that how you play will mostly determine how you sound but the right equipment will get you even closer.

When I learned to play Voodoo Child, I went and bought equipment that was supposed to give me that sound (fuzz face, vox wah). Even with the right equipment and lots of tweaking, It didn’t sound like I wanted it to until I started playing it more properly. Once I was able to sound more like jimi, through my playing, I was able to get close to that sound with any guitar and amp but the effects helped bridge the gap.
Karl

Love all the “it’s all from the fingers” comments. Shows how many people don’t know the difference between tone and style. Tone comes mainly from kit, style comes entirely from the fingers. Big difference. The only thing you can say as far as fingers and tone is concerned is that style will have some effect on tone is as much as things like attack and how you squeeze the strings will have some effect on tone. But it’s marginal compared to what comes from the kit. This takes nothing away from the genius that is Ed, it’s just how it is.
Tommy Boy

vh…music….awesome…happy…new…year…peace.
Steve 5150

in 1993 Sammy Hagar plugged right into Ed’s rig in concert every show. He even used a red Music Man and it didn’t sound even close to Ed
Handy Solo

but…..why copy? Already been done and it’s awesome. Unless you are in a paying Van Halen cover band and you need to sound like Ed, why bother? You gonna get a trophy? Gonna be interviewed on TV? How about y’all try to sound like yourself and make that sound awesome? It’s good to know what Ed did to sound like he did…we all can learn something from that..but take that and build on it and own your own sound. Nothing sounds worse than a bad copy cat.
gadal595

Keith, Ken and Freddiegirl are right. You need a good Marshall type (or high gain cranked tube amp) to sound like Eddie.
There is 2 different things here.
The tone on 1 side and the way Eddie sounds (his technique, phrasing and fluidity). The tone is what you hear from the amp when you play, let’s say an A chord. It depends mostly of the amp and the settings (about 50%), the pick-up (about 30%) and the rest is from the type / quality of the wood, the way you attack the strings, the frets size, the strings gauge and even the pick. I’m sure any good guitar player can sound like Eddie on a single A chord with the same equipment. Ted Nugent didn’t know much about VH when he tried Eddie’s rig (back in 78) so he probably played one of his own riffs / song, which made him sound like himself, of course.
On the other hand, you have the way Ed plays, which is very personal, unique at the time, inventive, simply said a genius. And this doesn’t have much to do with the equipment. This is why people say it’s ALL in the fingers (more in the brain actually but you get the point).
If you learned and can play Eddie’s licks exactly like him on an unplugged guitar, you will sound like him when played on his rig if you’re not intimidated to play as loud as he does.
Remember Eddie was pissed when the Japanese airline lost his Marshall amps in the late 70′s. He knew he would need a lot of money and time to find several of these great Marshall (he got them back months later).
With my Telecaster direct into my Twin tweed 57, there is no way I’m gonna sound like Eddie and neither would he. He will sound like himself in “Finish what you started”. Nice but thin Fender tone. No matter how hard he tries. That’s why he put a GIbson PU in his Frankenstrat in the 1st place.
So yeah, equipment makes a huge difference.

With my Frankenstrat (Duncan SH11) I can sound like him as long as I play exactly his part AND with a high gain TUBE amp. Certainly NOT not with the Twin Fender amp.
Atomic Pete

As far as the iso tracks go, my fave is
“Somebody Get Me a Doctor”. The tone on that one
rips your face off.

Happy New Year VHND, freddiegirl, scar, and all the rest of
the cool people on this site. Look forward to debating,
analyzing, bitching and whining or just generaly
sharing my appreciation for the mighty =VH= with all of you in
the coming year.
Cheers all!!
Ted

I’m with Handy solo here, play your own style. But you can’t copy any player, there will always be things they know that you don’t. But I’m no expert here…
SCAR

Fuck this lame drama!!!! Happy Fucking New Years!!!!! I’ll be cranking VH tunes right into the new year!!!! A toast and a toke to the Mighty VH and to the Foot!!!! Party on folks!!!!!
Greg Miner

Why not try to make it sound better? On the 2007 tour, Eddie took his own stuff and made it sound even better than it ever has. Let’s move forward and stop living in the past.
http://VHND HIKER MAN

ITS ALL GREAT
Tater Salad

Happy new year Halenheads!!! Get ready, I have a GOOD feeling about 2011!!! Time to rock WACF as the first album I listen to this year rock on!!!
Karl

One important point is that Ed has never sounded as good since he stopped playing shitty mashed up guitars and amps. His tone went down hill they day he started playing decent kit.
ikethebird

Find me one person on youtube or anywhere else with 5150 or Marshall etc.. that sounds exactly like VH I.Happy New Year!!!
http://www.ievolvedintothis.com Ken

I personally don’t think there is a kit as decent as a bright, humbucker-equipped guitar into a classic Marshall. It’s an unbeatable sound. That said, I’ve heard people ape a pretty close classic VH sound using the signature EVH gear. Any updates in the Van Halen tone since the early days seem to be a matter of his preference rather than equipment, because the signature stuff can go back to that sound if he wants it to.

The only Ed tones I outright dislike are on 5150 and the 2004 studio tunes. They’re unusually nasal and fuzzy compared to what he usually uses.

For a long run of albums, his tone was very consistent. Excluding Fair Warning, he kept pretty close to the same sound from VHII through 1984. This leads me to believe that this was THE tone for him in those days. That is what I tend to think of as the famous “brown sound.”

That’s what I tend to go for in my own sound, even though I am an unrepentant advocate for imitation, budget-line gear. It doesn’t have to be a famous, vintage amp–it just has to sound like one.
http://none 12beerstogo

Good point ikethebird,one I was going to state myself and as far as good tone coming from equipment or “the kit” as someone stated-Yes you want something good but how many times have you seen someone with all the right stuff in his kit as it were and sound like shit.More than half of it is in your fingers folks.
freddiegirl

Happy New Years to you too, Atomic Pete and to all the other cool peeps on here like Scar, Dirty Duck, Tater Salad..etc! Here’s to a rockin’ 2011!
ringostore

I seen a guy get booed off stage one time when he just started out to play ‘eruption’. I’m tired of people doing that, make your own ‘eruption’, be original.