Introducing the Secret PRS Eddie Van Halen Guitar Mini Documentary

[Seshmeister]

Introducing the Secret PRS Eddie Van Halen Guitar documentary. Around 1997, EVH had already left Ernie Ball Music Man, and Paul Reed Smith built two guitars for Eddie Van Halen to check out. Eddie decided to stay with Peavey. But why?

[twonabomber]

"I'm not in the business of making guitars."

How things change...

[ZahZoo]

More like the history of dysfunctional business dealings with a lunatic...

He should have just stuck to his secret of boiling strings... LOL

[Terry]

More like the history of dysfunctional business dealings with a lunatic...

He should have just stuck to his secret of boiling strings... LOL

I remember him claiming in guitar mag interviews in the early 1980s that he boiled his guitar strings, and he also poured wax around his pickups to stop them from feeding back. I was just starting to play the instrument back then, and was impressionable enough to believe that stuff, but thankfully never tried any of it myself.


I seem to recall decades later that Ed then said he was just bullshitting in those early interviews about his gear and his modifications because he was just trying to throw people off the trail in terms of his equipment and how he got his sound. Basically punking everybody.

"Um, yeah...I boil my guitar strings. And, um, I pour wax around my pickups."

[twonabomber]

Don't forget "I don't own a tuner, I tune the guitar to itself."

[Terry]

Don't forget "I don't own a tuner, I tune the guitar to itself."

"If you can find a strobe tuner anywhere on my property, I'll give you a million dollars."

Eddie just enjoyed punking people.

Same as with him always blathering on about how Clapton was his primary influence, and downplaying Hendrix, Blackmore, Beck and Page: I hear a lot more of those 4 guys in Ed's playing than Clapton. Ed just kinda liked the image he had when Van Halen first broke of this wunderkind prodigy coming out of nowhere, so he played up to it: you go and listen to those old Van Halen club days bootlegs, you hear Rainbow tunes and Zeppelin tunes and not a lot of Cream.

Much like Ed's claims that he first figured out tapping from be inspired watching some film of Jimmy Page playing Heartbreaker, where during the solo Page reaches behind the nut and pushes down on the string with his right hand to raise the pitch while he is doing pull offs with his left hand. Ed claims he just applied that to both hands on the neck. Decades later, George Lynch, who was a contemporary of Ed's back in the 1970s LA club scene, says he and Eddie were both at a gig at the Starwood in the 70s where they saw Harvey Mandel from Canned Heat doing the tapping prior to either [Lynch or Eddie] doing it.

But I can't blame Eddie in a way for bullshitting people. That guy was so heavily copied in the 1980s. It's perhaps hard for younger people to remember, but you couldn't walk into a music store or see a local hard rock band in the 1980s and not hear someone trying to do Eddie Van Halen type stuff...usually in a not too inventive manner. That whole "who is the fastest guitar player" biz. But, yeah...there were a shitload of Eddie Van Halen copyists out there in the 1980s.

Nowadays, I come across a youtube of some kid not even in their teens playing Eruption flawlessly, and it's like "meh." After literally 30 + years of hearing music store Eruption, that solo is no longer impressive. In 1982, trying to figure out how Eddie did it and trying to break that solo down by ear, pre-tab being readily available? Now THAT was impressive. I'd rather hear a young guitar player today demonstrating a great song they wrote, rather than flawless copies of other people's licks.

[Seshmeister]

Don't forget "I don't own a tuner, I tune the guitar to itself."

There was even an 'I don't use any effects pedals' at one point.

[ZahZoo]

The claim of potting pickups with wax by EVH started a debate fire-storm among gearheads... A look at history has shown Fender was potting Telecaster neck pickups with wax back in the 50's. Others were using lacquer to pot or coat bobbins and windings in the 50's/60's. Gibson was not potting the original PAF's until the late 70's or early 80's.

Odds are Professor Van Halen may have stumbled upon wax potting in some of Fender products he trashed tinkering around and assumed the wax added was standard practice. If you've ever poked around in any old analog electronics from the 50's -70's you'll find wax, lacquer and epoxy potting on old transformers and radio components.

I laugh at claims Eddie never used effects pedals... about the only thing missing from his gear is distortion/fuzz pedals. Everything else under the sun shows up in his recordings from day 1...

[Terry]

The claim of potting pickups with wax by EVH started a debate fire-storm among gearheads... A look at history has shown Fender was potting Telecaster neck pickups with wax back in the 50's. Others were using lacquer to pot or coat bobbins and windings in the 50's/60's. Gibson was not potting the original PAF's until the late 70's or early 80's.

Odds are Professor Van Halen may have stumbled upon wax potting in some of Fender products he trashed tinkering around and assumed the wax added was standard practice. If you've ever poked around in any old analog electronics from the 50's -70's you'll find wax, lacquer and epoxy potting on old transformers and radio components.

I laugh at claims Eddie never used effects pedals... about the only thing missing from his gear is distortion/fuzz pedals. Everything else under the sun shows up in his recordings from day 1...

I think during the CVH days he had a foot switch that slightly boosted the overall volume, which he used sometimes for solos. It wasn't a distortion/overdrive pedal as such...more like an EQ pedal to boost the sound.

But, yeah, Ed used plenty of effects pedals. MXR Phase 90s, various delay / echo pedals, MXR Flangers. This is all CVH era. I have no idea what he used post-CVH, if he went rack mounted or eventually just switched over to his own signature line of effects pedals.

[Terry]

The claim of potting pickups with wax by EVH started a debate fire-storm among gearheads... A look at history has shown Fender was potting Telecaster neck pickups with wax back in the 50's. Others were using lacquer to pot or coat bobbins and windings in the 50's/60's. Gibson was not potting the original PAF's until the late 70's or early 80's.

Odds are Professor Van Halen may have stumbled upon wax potting in some of Fender products he trashed tinkering around and assumed the wax added was standard practice. If you've ever poked around in any old analog electronics from the 50's -70's you'll find wax, lacquer and epoxy potting on old transformers and radio components.

I laugh at claims Eddie never used effects pedals... about the only thing missing from his gear is distortion/fuzz pedals. Everything else under the sun shows up in his recordings from day 1...

I never really got into taking electric guitars apart, or bothering with those kit assembly ones. The closest I ever got to that was having an Aria Pro customized with 2 double coil DiMarzios in the neck and bridge positions and a stacked DiMarzio double coil in the middle, but that was a case of telling the person customizing it for me what I wanted and him doing all the work. That was in the late 1980s. The 2 guitars I bought post-1990 were just off the rack models that I tried out, liked and bought.