Ed's Best Use Of His Whammy Bar?

[buckshotjenkins]

i think ed's the best bar user bar-none. heh. some of my favorites:

top jimmy! the thing he does at about 1:57 WHAT GIVES HIM THAT RIGHT?!?!

i'll wait - the bar at the end of the solo

house of pain - there's a great one at the end of the fadeout. (ed OWNS fadeouts!)

i know there's plenty more, but i heard that that's the first album he

had the actual floyd on the guitar...

in pleasure dome (i know! don't yell!) at 4:17 or so he does a great one. that solo section RIPS, then sam whines about not finding his way home. boo hoo. i edit the song on mixes so just the solo breakdown remains. sorry spam fans! i cut the fat!

oh yeah, the back to the future riff in mcfly's headphones!!!

[DlocRoth]

H.O.P IS nice....

[Nitro Express]

I have to agree with Eddie's old guitar tech Rudy Lerien who said Eddie's best play was done on non-trem guitars because he used to bend the notes so beautifully. Rudy actually said EVH got so fast in the club days, he wanted to use a trem to break his playing up.

On a standard EVH axe the trem is set to go down in pitch only. Ed really used it as an effect; nothing he really did with the bar was mindblowing. His playing was mindblowing. Stuff like Meanstreets and Unchained.

Eddie later used a Steinberger Trans Trem to full effect. The bar has a little cam rachet thingy that you can transpose up or down the neck. Ed would use that for songs like Summers Nights and Get Up! Better yet, he used it for Me Wise Magic with David Lee Roth.

[Terry]

Not sure if 1984 is the first time EVH used his Floyd Rose on a VH record. You're probably right, though.

Fave EVH tremolo tunes:

Dead Or Alive - guitar solos mid tune and end of tune
House of Pain - end of tune on fade-out, for sure, But don't forget the pinched harmonic whammy bar antics mid solo, too.

Top Jimmy - end of the solo was clever. Beginning was verging on wanking.

He really overdid his vibrato stuff with Van Hagar, but definitely didn't abuse the bar with CVH, really. Least not on record. Definitely used sparingly when Dave was in the group; some open, low E string growls and a dozen or so points where he'll depress or pull up on the bar quickly during mid note (I'll Wait excepted, which was a pretty lame use of the bar and almost substandard far as EVH classic solos went)

[academic punk]

I LOVE the fuckin' dive-bomb at the end of the solo on DOA.

The end of the I'll Wait solo is also among his (or anyone's) best work with a whammy.

[Nitro Express]

I love the Floyd Rose but it turned many people into cronic wankers. I agree, Eddie's best tremelo work was done on that old Fender unit he had before he replaced it with the Floyd.

I've been playing a Yngwie Malmsteen Strat a ton lately and it has the old Fender trem on it with the six screws and a brass nut. Exactly the same nut and bridge setup Eddie was using in the early days. On my guitar it stays in tune amazingly well and the G and B strings only go a half step sharp after I have wanked the hell out of them and that is will the trem set the standar 1/8th inch up.

Eddie was getting a great sound with that old guitar and trem. I don't think he really topped that with the Floyd Rose. Sure he could dive bomb more but it became too much. With the Fender trem Ed used it more like a legitimate instrument.

[Redballjets88]

eddie is good with the bar but ill take steve vai over him. by the way has anyone else seen Vai's guitar collection its sick

[buckshotjenkins]

i agree that ed's taste is the key, and that it was the bar being used in the context of his brilliant madness that made it special. ed is the man at ending his runs with a nicely bent or vibrato-ed with his fingers-notes. i also dig the fact that his guitars were set up just to dive bomb and couldn't go up. that's how mine is. it adds some sustain, and lets you keep your palm on the bridge without putting yourself out of tune. takes a bit more muscle to pull it down though. i played a wolfgang and it was REALLY hard to pull down. gotta adjust it yo.

because i love ed when i started on guitar, i learned all the harmonic dive bombs and fun whammy shit before i could play the steady chords of a CCR song! pathetic! now i'll only throw a "floyd" guitar on here and there, because if i see the bar there i'll use it. and only if it's used sparingly is it a BIG step up in intensity. can't overdo it though.

[larbo]

atomic punk
everybody wants some
and I like the horse whinny thing. I do that shit all the time. I'm guilty of abusing the whammy sometimes and play for a while on a les paul to get it out of my system.

[Nitro Express]

I go whammy crazy and harmonic crazy on my Wolfgang. The guitar does one thing well. Van Halen. I find I approach the bar completly different on a Strat and YES, if feel naked without a Les Paul around. I always run back to the Les Paul to get anchored again.

Give me a good Strat, Les Paul, and a guitar set up with a good Floyd Rose and humbucker and those are the three guitars I need. The rest is just filler.

[larbo]

I agree.

[buckshotjenkins]

never was a fan of les pauls.

my strat doesn't have a bar, and it's got 10's on it so i reckon it's a rhythm guitar.

i'm trying to fix up a cheap kramer whith an "eddie kramer setup" as a stunt guitar. i love that zappa said that about steve vai - "stunt guitar"!!!

i'd like a dean hardtail!!!

[guitarboy5150]

i like that dive bomb on the intro to panama

[SammySucks1984]

Originally posted by academic punk
I LOVE the fuckin' dive-bomb at the end of the solo on DOA.

The end of the I'll Wait solo is also among his (or anyone's) best work with a whammy.

your absolutely right his use of the whammy bar is fuckin amazing

[guitarboy5150]

i also like the whammy hits in the beginning of the solo of hang em high