JOSE ARREDONDO

908ssp · Post by **908ssp** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:31 am

I had an Alessandro Attenuator. No line out on it. Nothing in there but two huge multi tap resistors. The resistors were the size of a stick of dynamite. No heat sinks or fins and isolated from the box so the box doesn't get too hot to touch. The resistors could easily have been 300 watt each or more.

Didn't sound bad as an attenuator, didn't go quite low enough and only adjusted in steps.

nitro · Post by **nitro** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 9:55 am

The pedal in the picture is not the mxr micro amp it also has script logo it didnt come out until the early 80s also that pedal is not the mxr distortion + the distortion + has two knobs this pedal only has one also the HH power amps didnt come into play until 1986 when bob bradshaw made his rack. The pedal in the picture is a spare mxr phase 90. His tech at the time was rudy lerian. The stickers that jose arredondo used after he modded a amp would say " arreco electronics " that was the name of his shop .

guitar007 · Post by **guitar007** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 10:01 am

[/b]Necrovore

As far as pedals go I've only seen the Phase90 in pictures and possibly the MXR 6 band, I can't remember seeing that blue box.

Here's his pedalboard from the VH1 tour: Flanger, Phaser, EQ, Rig 1 switch, Rig 2 switch, & switches for his EP3s.

One of the reasons why he used this setup and it would have made sense, if they were playing clubs at the time, was that you can't crank a MArshall in a small club. The H&H setup would allow him to lower the output volume to work in a small club situation and then allow him the extra oomph he would need to play in larger arenas while keeping his tone. As far as why he took so many Marshalls out with him later on, I could argue two reasons. One, he just plain tore up gear and needed that many backup heads to compensate for breakdowns.

You may be right. You've made some good points. I just think it's more likely he used resistors to quite his rig a bit as apposed to a Marsahall pre & a SS power amp for the clubs & the first tour. Remember...the tone was the same & didn't change until the release of VHII.

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 1:05 pm

Yes, the tone did change for VH2, but on WACF the tone was back to what he was getting on VH1 as well as the WB demos and bootleg live shows. The guitars were not as wild as on the first album for WACF on through 1984(this is my cut off point for Van Halen), but the amp and at least the rig setup had to be very very similar. I think from the third album on it was the same rig as VH1, but they made sure that the mix and mastering wasn't as insane in regards to the guitar tone.

Bainzy · Post by **Bainzy** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 1:09 pm

Necrovore wrote:The guitars were not as wild as on the first album for WACF on through 1984

That's probably due to the lack of mid boosting EQ from the desk, mxr phaser during solos, and heavy use of plate reverb that was used on their first album. With those 3 factors, I can get a closer tone with my solidstate Marshall to that album than I've ever heard anyone post clips of on the net. When you do get that tone, you sortof realise why EVH didn't try and keep it though - it's not very versatile, and gets boring quickly.

I think 1984 stands apart from the rest of the first 6 albums, the tone of the amp on that sounds more like a 69 circuit, whereas the previous ones sounded like a 67-68. Definately sounds like a different tone stack to me.

creepingted · Post by **creepingted** » Wed Apr 05, 2006 2:57 pm

I'll chime in and say I don't believe there is a VH1 vs. VH2 vs. WACF tone per se. The tone seems to vary substantially, to my ears, from song to song within each album and is difficult to really define each tone. Notice that EVH has used tons, literally tons, of different guitars, many of which were pretty obviously pieces of slapped together crap. I would submit that this is evidence of him never being satisfied with one particular instrument and also a pretty good likelyhood that he wasn't necessarily using the same effects and amp rig for every song within an album. There are many conflicting interviews, which I've meant to collect in one place one of these days as I've kept all the magazines I've ever had with EVH interviews, one of which he claims that they recorded 40 songs during the recording of VH1 and these basically became the songs on the first three albums with minor changes and only a few additions.

Also, he has said that he got the idea for the load box / power amp from speaking to Alan Holdsworth. Not sure if it was likely he'd have known Holdworth during the club days.

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 7:57 pm

one thing i notice here is everyone is all over the map talking about his tone, vh1, vh2 and his live rig which were all different to my ears. the one tone im speaking of is van halen one, im the one, its apparent there is a distortion there and it sounds like a mxr. the one mike juts bought.

big muff? i think not. u ever play abig muff? hmm i have and its not the sound i hear.

funk49 · Post by **funk49** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 6:19 pm

I think anyone here relying on what EVH said he was doing or playing back in the day is going to be sadly mistaken. He lied non-stop just to throw people off. I have interviews of him saying he ran his Variac cranked at 140 or something like that. Other interviews he told people he would take a line out and run it into a wall socket.

You can't believe anything he said, but I have read that he did use H&H Poweramps for his dummy loads.

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Sat Apr 08, 2006 7:43 pm

I hear ya on the big muff. I remember those, and VH is not what come to mind. At closer look, is that thing even pluged in?

Maybe they gutted it and used the box for something else.

I'm trying out my MXR right now. I think it needs a battery.
Should be louder with it on.

Yngve · Post by **Yngve** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 3:24 am

I know a few PRO's who actually changed the casing of their MXR and Boss pedal to throw off people in what they actually were using, they didnt want people to copy, so l guess we are still going to guess in what Eddie used

guitarforhire · Post by **guitarforhire** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 12:54 pm

I know i would if i would get famous, i would replace everything and throw everyone absolutely

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:00 pm

Hey maybe he hid the MXR Distortion, in the Big Muff.

Namar · Post by **Namar** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:36 pm

Man, am I seeing it wrong, or does the variac in that photo up there have a speaker cable coming out of it?

Would a variac work as a variable attenuator?

What would you do, chop off the power cord, hack it into a speaker in, and change an output socket to the speaker out?

Jeez, that guy was so far ahead of his time.

Here we are, 30 years later, still trying to figure out what he was doing at the ripe old age of 19.

Between what he and Paul Gilbert pulled off in their mid to late teens, I totally sympathize with Salieri in his jealous contempt of Mozart!

Shit...

guitar007 · Post by **guitar007** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:38 pm

I recall someone at the Palace tried it. He had to use a 16ohm/100watt resistor in parallel to keep his amp from squealing.

Namar · Post by **Namar** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 2:07 pm

Crazy, so you put a dummy load on one output, a variac on the other, and you've got a variable speaker attenuator.

The variac on the right doesn't even have a power cable on it, it has been chopped off, and covered with duct tape.

Man, I tell ya...

Looks like both the variacs have speaker cables coming from the output sockets, but only one still has the power cable hanging on.

Sheesh, whatever.

I give up, Ed, you freakin' rule man.