Van Halen "Unchained" Isolated Guitar Track

[Kazrog]

He used the Variac to increase the voltage? I always thought it was to decrease it, cutting killing the headroom on everything so it broke up sooner...? (I'm a total electronics n00b though, so I could be to totally backwards on that) But yeah, that tone is just incredible, jesus

Some great info in his first interview:

http://www.vhnd.com/2010/06/07/eddi...st-from-california-hits-the-charts-at-age-21/

I use voltage generators, which can crank my amps up to 130 or 140 volts. Amps sound like nothing else to me when they are cranked so high, but you have got to keep a fan on them because they blow so often. You have to retube them every day, and they usually don’t work for more than ten hours of playing.

I'm not an electronics expert myself, I know a few things, but there it is from Eddie himself.

 

[Chryst Krispies]

If it weren't for Eddie, I'd never even have looked at a guitar.

I hope homeboy up there was kidding about vintage 5150 tone or he's on the double crossing metal brothers list...

 

[Proggm]

He used the Variac to increase the voltage? I always thought it was to decrease it, killing the headroom on everything so it broke up sooner...? (I'm a total electronics n00b though, so I could be to totally backwards on that) But yeah, that tone is just incredible, jesus

This. I'm sure I've heard him talking about things like decreasing the voltage to 90 V, going from the loop to his pedalboard and then to an H&H power amp, etc...

In fact, I just googled it:

>I can go into detail about the Eddie Van Halen method of loading the amp then driving the effects and echo at line level into a power amp (he used H&H power amp) then into 4 paralleled cabs into 4 ohms.

>I've seen it with my own eyes and heard it from the horse's mouth!!

>The setup is a 100 watt Marshall plexi with Sylvania 6CA7's. The head is plugged into a Variac to lower the mains voltage to about 90 VAC or whatever he's in the mood for. This browns the sound slightly and helps lenghten the tubes' life. The speaker out is set at 8 ohms. The dummy load resistor is adjusted to about 20 ohms. Then the load resistor is tapped at center and sent to a box with a potentiometer in it and and output jack. The output jack is a line-level low-impedance source and will not muddy up the tone anywhere. The pot. is adjusted for whatever drive level you want. It then goes into the MXR Phase 90, MXR flanger, and Echoplex-EP3. This then goes to the power amp, usually a low-powered one, 100-200 watts. This is to prevent fucking up good real low-power vintage speakers, as opposed to today's higher-powered shit Celestions. The final power amp he used was by H&H and he paralleled 4 cabinets down to 4 ohms to connect it to power amp. This IS the setup for his early days. Nowadays it's a chorousy-sounding pile of buzzy horse shit!

>The reason why the load resistor is set higher than the selected impedance of the amp selector is because a 100 watt Marshall head at full volume into a resistive load set to the same impedance as the head will put out way over 100 watts, try 160-180 watts. This is because the amp will go into class B mode. When a cabinet is being played at full volume its impedance climbs, especially higher if it is a sealed closed back cabinet. This higher load tends to keep the amp at around 100 watts. A head played into a resistor of the same value will fry the primary windings of the transformer due to the excessive A.C. currents. So increasing the load resistor by at least twice sort of keeps the A.C. currents in the range that the output can deal with, at full volume. This does not muddy the sound. After the potentiometer, it is low impedance source and can drive the effects with no problem. That's why his flanger had so much of a strong effect. The Echoplex is quiet in this setup. If you were to connect a EP3 Echoplex in front inputs to a 100W Marshall on full volume, the noise and hiss levels would be insane.

>I hung and partied with this guy for years. He even told me about his guitar: the body is from a 65' Strat he use to play at the Whiskey A Go Go and is Alderwood. The necks were from all over, some from Mighty Might and some from old Charvel and some from who knows where. The pickup is from an early sixties 335 and was dipped in Dr. Zogg's Sex Wax. This is surfboard wax that he melted in a coffee can and potted his pickup in. This is probably the key to his sound. Since the capacitance of the pickup was increased a lot, it will brown the sound, roll off the highs and will also be more distorted sound. His amp itself was dead-stock. The person who introduced him to this amp setup was Jose Arendondo.

Here's it

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Trying to cop this tone is like trying to cop a fairy in a jar. Eddie could plug into a car battery and rip your balls out yer throat.

 

[grywolf627]

He used the Variac to increase the voltage? I always thought it was to decrease it, killing the headroom on everything so it broke up sooner...? (I'm a total electronics n00b though, so I could be to totally backwards on that) But yeah, that tone is just incredible, jesus

Lynch did the same thing with a Variac during the Dokken days, mainly the Under Lock And Key sessions, if I remember correctly (article/interview in a Guitar For Practicing Musician back then...I still have somewhere). He said it would fry the tubes...but it sounded awesome just right before they fried.

 

[Notuern]

This is a common misconception. Eddie never got any of his amps modded by Jose. He plugged Jose's services for a while as a personal favor, and was friends with him, but none of Eddie's Marshalls were modded. 100% stock. I've read this in interviews with Eddie, and I also met producer Ted Templeman one time and asked him about it, and he confirmed to me that Eddie's Marshalls were all stock.

The amp used on fair warning is a Marshall 1959SLP, and its definitely modified.
Before that the only mod he had was a master volume inserted to the back of his live rig.

I know all about Van Halens rig, all from the Variac to the loadbox with the loop in it(Which apparently did ALLOT to his sound.), spiral cables, all the way down to his metal picks.. but that was during the first Van Halen records, in the late 70's/early 80's he had his amps modified(Probably to keep the "same sound" live.).

There ARE small tone altering and/or gain altering mods.
I do have pic's so I CAN physically see that the amp has a split cathode arrangement.

To try to wrap up is ED thing...
His head was a 67/68 and he had the first stage valve with BOTH cathodes tied together sharing the same 820 ohm resistor that was bypassed with a 330uF blue cap...
His treble cap was a round shaped ceramic that was a 250pF that said MURATA ... With 56K on the tone circuit feed..
One of the 470K mixer resistors was bypassed with a round hollow tubular MURATA cap 500pF... If memory serves me right on the value, or it was a 330pF..I will check my notes....
The real kicker, his phase-inverter "get-rid-of-the-FIZZIES" cap was a 100pF instead of the normal 47pF ....and this my friends is how the "brown sound" with that added compression happens..
Oh, BTW those 820 ohm resistors were carbon-comp and drifted in value up about 1.1K and make the amp much more gainy and warmer, since these re-bias the 12AX7 valves in a bit more non-linear region..
I am pretty sure the feedback resistor was a 47K ...I will have to check my notes...
The filter cap in the center of the board was a dual 16uF gray RS cap...
The screen filtering was 2 DALY 32uF light-blue caps in series... The voltage doubler were 2 100uF DALY royal-blue caps...
Rear cap on top of chassis was a royal-blue HUNTS 32uF or 16uF...need to check notes..
The value of the coupling cap between V1 and V2a....022uF.
At least that was what it was in 1980...

 

[Skinny Viking]

Nerd War

 

[TheWinterSnow]

This. I'm sure I've heard him talking about things like decreasing the voltage to 90 V, going from the loop to his pedalboard and then to an H&H power amp, etc...

In fact, I just googled it:



Here's it

while I agree with you about the 90v thing, as dropping the voltage simulates a brown out, that dude has NO FUCKING CLUE what he is talking about. A class B 100 watt amp putting out 170 watts but actually only puts out 100 watts because the speakers are in a closed back cab, that you have to double a purely resistive load because of "AC current" and that sticking a pedal on the power amp out without a load will cause an "insane amount of fizz"? Jesus Christ it should be illegal for that fuck to talk about electronics AND illegal for him to touch a computer, especially one with internet.

 

[kaomao]

This is a common misconception. Eddie never got any of his amps modded by Jose. He plugged Jose's services for a while as a personal favor, and was friends with him, but none of Eddie's Marshalls were modded. 100% stock. I've read this in interviews with Eddie, and I also met producer Ted Templeman one time and asked him about it, and he confirmed to me that Eddie's Marshalls were all stock.

He always used the Variac, up until he switched from a Marshall to a 5150. When you crank the voltage of an amp, it makes EVERY section of the amp have more gain. Eddie also had to change tubes daily on tour, he said he never got more than 10 hours out of a set of tubes when using the Variac.

Totally true, he never had modded marshalls, just used the variac

 

[pipaguapique]

variac, 5150, whatever!! Van Halen army...i salute you!



yes...i'm drunk right now...

 

[Notuern]

Totally true, he never had modded marshalls, just used the variac

Yes, he did.. read my post above.

variac, 5150, whatever!! Van Halen army...i salute you!

yes...i'm drunk right now...

Rock 'on brotha'!

 

[ahjteam]

This is a common misconception. Eddie never got any of his amps modded by Jose. He plugged Jose's services for a while as a personal favor, and was friends with him, but none of Eddie's Marshalls were modded. 100% stock. I've read this in interviews with Eddie, and I also met producer Ted Templeman one time and asked him about it, and he confirmed to me that Eddie's Marshalls were all stock.

He always used the Variac, up until he switched from a Marshall to a 5150. When you crank the voltage of an amp, it makes EVERY section of the amp have more gain. Eddie also had to change tubes daily on tour, he said he never got more than 10 hours out of a set of tubes when using the Variac.

Fun fact from wikipedia when I was reading this...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_van_halen#Amplifiers

Eddie's Van Halen I recorded guitar tracks were re-amped [...] From the mid 1980s, Eddie has used a real time re-amping or Master/Slave slaving amplifier setup that was originally designed by Bob Bradshaw and was published in the September 1986 issue of Guitar World Magazine




note: Cunniberti Reamp was invented in 1993