Ed's tone & tunes...

[eddie78]

Out here in Boston, they are playing an old school style VH special with vintage interview excerpts & lots of tunes.

My radio isn't even cranked, as it's late night Sunday, but what blows my mind is the fact that, even at low volume, that guitar is just fucking mind-blowing.

Ed's tone is flat-out ferocious.
So far i've heard Meanstreet, Unchained, Cradle will rock, Romeo Delight & So this is love?
His technique is astounding & the intro to 'Meanstreet' never ceases to completely blow my mind....
but his sound...My God, it never gets old or dated.
The brown always sounds fresh & futuristic.

How the hell did he do it?
Fingers, a homemade strat & a maxed out Marshall...
It sounds so simple, yet he can't even match the majestic, crushing tone from 'Fair Warning' & WACF.

I've played 'Unchained' a million times with a flanger thru a Marshall head, but it sounds nothing like FW.
I've heard a million others attempt both 'Mean street' and 'Unchained', many great players, but not even remotely close to that elusive, VH sound.

How the hell does he do it?

How does one get the best rock guitar tone ever, almost accidentally?

Was part of it Donn Landee & Ted Templemen?

It's almost 30 years later and i'm still completely awestruck...

[janarak]

Originally posted by eddie78
Out here in Boston, they are playing an old school style VH special with vintage interview excerpts & lots of tunes.

My radio isn't even cranked, as it's late night Sunday, but what blows my mind is the fact that, even at low volume, that guitar is just fucking mind-blowing.

Ed's tone is flat-out ferocious.
So far i've heard Meanstreet, Unchained, Cradle will rock, Romeo Delight & So this is love?
His technique is astounding & the intro to 'Meanstreet' never ceases to completely blow my mind....
but his sound...My God, it never gets old or dated.
The brown always sounds fresh & futuristic.

How the hell did he do it?
Fingers, a homemade strat & a maxed out Marshall...
It sounds so simple, yet he can't even match the majestic, crushing tone from 'Fair Warning' & WACF.

I've played 'Unchained' a million times with a flanger thru a Marshall head, but it sounds nothing like FW.
I've heard a million others attempt both 'Mean street' and 'Unchained', many great players, but not even remotely close to that elusive, VH sound.

How the hell does he do it?

How does one get the best rock guitar tone ever, almost accidentally?

Was part of it Donn Landee & Ted Templemen?

It's almost 30 years later and i'm still completely awestruck...

Ed has it all ,
He has feel, technique and a style all his own.
He totaly changed how people looked at guitar.
He opened the door to lots of guys we listen to today.
You are spot on about unchained, It never sounds like that when I play it ha ha .
People say he took bits from here and there, who dosnt but he was the first to have it as a full package.
My big hang up with so called guitar heroes is that they sometimes leave the song at the door.
Ed wrote 6 albums of brilliant material.

Its a rare thing a guitar hero who could knock out a tune !

[janarak]

It was ed who got me into Van Halen and then DLR.
My mates had been to donnington in 1984 and had seen Van Halen.
They Knew I played guitar in a band , A sub standard stiff little fingers sort of thing.
We were in the this pub with a video juke box and he said watch this , these are who I was telling you about.
And he put on hot for teacher.
I couldnt believe it , yeah the video was great but what the fuck was he doing to the guitar ? I kept thinking do they realy make that kinda noise . He keeps touching the fret board with his fingers !!! And that riff it could shake you fillings out.
The next day I pissed my holiday money on all the Van halen albums I could get my hands on.
And that was it hooked.

[eddie78]

You nailed it Janarak!
I think what you just said in a few sentences was my point regarding the whole Malmsteen vs. Edward thing.

The guy truly has no equals, because on those six records, he lacked nothing. It was all there & it's almost inhuman on some level.

They just played "Take your whisky home" & even the acoustic guitar part sounds mean. His hands seem to know no limits.

The Whiskey riff, by the way, is just massive.
His tone is so warm, articulate & heavy...you hear every little thing he throws in, every tiny nuance.

By 5150 he was playing with either a Bradshaw rack or something else that over processed his sound.
It was still Ed, but more just within the feel & playing style.

These days, i hear too much sustainer.
I hear too much of that almost Vai/Satriani thing going on there, and it's not quite as menacing as it once was.

[eddie78]

Originally posted by janarak
It was ed who got me into Van Halen and then DLR.
My mates had been to donnington in 1984 and had seen Van Halen.
They Knew I played guitar in a band , A sub standard stiff little fingers sort of thing.
We were in the this pub with a video juke box and he said watch this , these are who I was telling you about.
And he put on hot for teacher.
I couldnt believe it , yeah the video was great but what the fuck was he doing to the guitar ? I kept thinking do they realy make that kinda noise . He keeps touching the fret board with his fingers !!! And that riff it could shake you fillings out.
The next day I pissed my holiday money on all the Van halen albums I could get my hands on.
And that was it hooked.

So true, man.

The intro to 'Mean street', the sound of it combined with the technique & tapped harmonics, is just so unique & unlike anything i've heard before or since.
How does this guy sit down with a guitar & figure something out like that? It's completely off the wall & groundbreaking.
Then he answers that with 'Cathedral' which is another 'how did he do that?' moment.
But the bottom line is the actual songs.
78-84 was like one after another...every song made you wanna pick up a guitar & figure it out!

[janarak]

This is a terrible confession.
I couldnt listen to him when hagar was in the band .
Someone bought me the 5150 album and I hated it , it was the opposite of every thing I liked about van halen.
I was safe, sanitised, the songs were bland and it was though Ed though its time to put the guitar hero bit to bed now and try something else.
But after watching the youtube stuff. He still has it.

Its testament to how good the first 6 were that the stuff that followed didnt put people off.

[eddie78]

Good point.

The day i first heard the new VH album with Sammy Hagar, was a day i'll never forget.
I just could not believe Edward was steering the band in Journey/Foreigner territory & Sammy promptly hacked the balls right off the old sound.
"Why cant this be love" was the extreme opposite of "so this is love?"
No personality, vibe or brown to be found, just blandness & Sammy scatting for a solo.
It felt like a huge, purposeful departure & the so-called rockers like Get up were paint by numbers. Nothing interesting except a decent solo.

[janarak]

You cant compare the new van stuff with the old.
But it would be interesting to hear a new album.
Cos I thought on both cgtsnm and me wise magic ed ripped it up.
It was this first time in ages he sounded like the old guitar master.
I think the solo in me wise magic is class.

[jhale667]

Originally posted by janarak
This is a terrible confession.
I couldnt listen to him when hagar was in the band .

No, it isn't really. It just means you're a CVH fan.
While we're sharing, I have a promo copy of "Balance" that's still in the plastic wrapper.

eddie78, as far as nailing Eddie's tone, many can approximate it, hell, there's a clone of the same serial number series amp available.
Don't troll the actual guitar/amp boards much I see... Or even 'Gear Street' here, for that matter...
But as my old guitar teacher always said "80% of (Eddie's or) any player's sound is in his hands."
That's why no one will ever sound like Ed. It's not only his hands, but also his unorthodox picking technique, for one thing...
Didn't hurt he had cool-as-shit tricked out gear either

[jhale667]

Originally posted by eddie78

78-84 was like one after another...every song made you wanna pick up a guitar & figure it out!

Agreed.

[BrownSound1]

In the old days Ed really pushed himself on guitar. He was always exploring and trying to find something new. However it seemed that once Hagar got in the band he just quit. The ONLY thing I think he did that was cool was his TransTrem work on his Steinberger. In fact he's the only big time player I've heard use one that way. Maybe when Dave was in the band he felt he needed to stand out more, and that was why he pushed himself. Then again, he might have felt that he had gone as far as he could and said fuck it, which just happened to coincide with the departure of Dave. Of course...Ed did explore the power ballad after that.

[jhale667]

What up, BS1?
Was wondering how long it would take you to weigh in on the subject, my esteemed friend.
In my opinion, Dave always brought the best out of Ed. Yin to his Yang, or what the fuck ever.
The pairing has never been equaled, and I think that's why Ed is (again in my opinion) sounding more inspired in the latest clips...

Actually, this might be more appropriate in 'Gear Street'...:p

[BrownSound1]

Absolutely. That's my opinion as well, and that goes both ways. "Is it Mick or is it Keith?" Hell, even Dave knew this and said so in his book.

[jhale667]

In his book, on his radio show...the guy never denied it.
I think it will go down as one of the greatest pairings in Rock history..

Mick & Keith
Ed & Dave
Ozzy & Randy....

You get my drift...:p

[Hummarstra]

Being an alchoholic helps. I'm not kidding.