EVH Tone - Pickup Roundup

[Strat78]

I keep listening to the eruption and ITO iso track and can't figure out how it sounds so spongy yet sharp and clear. Could these have actually been played with a hollow body guitar? On another note, I grabbed a super 70 P-90 a couple months ago and finally got around to putting it into an ash strat with vintage tremolo. It sounded weedy and twangy as hell, picking up any kind of string buzz present and amplifying it horribly. I raised the strings as much as I could but will have to shim the nick to eliminate all the buzz. I finally hooked up the mxr 6-band and was able to dial out the twanginess somewhat and boost the bass which had interesting results, it sorta has that sponginess now that I was looking for yet it has that very cool bight and a soaring tone. Hmmm, I think this deserves a little more experimentation. Edward did say that he had to use "fuzz boxes" to make his single coil strats sound good, so perhaps this is what he meant. Seems like you can pump in more bass from the p-90 to the amp with the 6-band with out muddying up the low E string which always seems to be the case with PAF's. I also want to try this with a Lindy Fralin vintage hot bridge pickup. This just never ends.

[jimi22812]

This just never ends.

Nope. It's like some Bizarro Warren Commission trying to prove/disprove the "single bullet theory" by watching the "Zapruder Film" over and over and over again...

[paulscape]

Paulscape, is that a Epi or Gibson Explorer ? Your in the ball park for sure with that amp/guitar combo. I like the bray modded stuff alot. He knows how to get the sweetness out of the plexi.

Its a cheap japanese Toyamma destroyer/explorer. I stripped it back, painted it and had a friend make a proper explorer/banana headstock. Its fun to play! Its even got yellow fret dots

[vanhalen5150]

[/quote]


What year would this be? That looks like the melted bucker. Is that a toggle switch on the 3rd pot hole. There is a definate shadow there.

[Tone Slinger]

I think that must be around January to march of '79, since those Sunset Sound photo's in Dec. 78 show the Franky as still being White with Black Stripes. Ed even put back on what looks to be the Rosewood board neck of the '77 era solid black strat BEFORE he painted it again. Alot of swapping around in a short amount of time.

[vanhalen5150]

Your probably right. The red has no distinct sratches yet.

[Tone Slinger]

Is that the same pu from the 1st tour, I never noticed that slight melted look. Maybe that is why the Franky had that weaker sorta single coil sound on some of the VH2 stuff, like the rhythms on 'Bottoms Up' and ' Light Up The Sky', but not on others, like 'Your No Good', 'SGMAD', 'DOA' and 'Beautiful Girls', which sounder fuller with more mids. Or maybe it was just some with an eq box and some without. Maybe Ed swapped the pu during the recording though ?

[Tone Slinger]

Cool guitar for sure Paulscape ! Authentic tones.

[jimi22812]

I think that must be around January to march of '79, since those Sunset Sound photo's in Dec. 78 show the Franky as still being White with Black Stripes. Ed even put back on what looks to be the Rosewood board neck of the '77 era solid black strat BEFORE he painted it again.

You are correct.

[jimi22812]

Hi jimi22812,

What software do you use for the picture enlargment ? I have some pics I'd like to do that on

Thanks.

Nothing special... I use "Microsoft Office Picture Manager".

[rgorke]

Which neck is on the Bumble Bee? Is that the one that is the final one on franky? Or did the "Gibson" logo neck get a Floyd nut?

And, for those of you who have kids, that yellow one looks like Wow Wow Wubsy. I thought I recognized the body shape.

[jimi22812]

Which neck is on the Bumble Bee?

This one...

Is that the one that is the final one on franky?

No. That's this one...

Or did the "Gibson" logo neck get a Floyd nut?

It eventually got prepped for one...

...but during that photo shoot it was still in it's original state.

[Tone Slinger]

Right, the FIRST neck that Ed put on the Franky with the floyd was also the Bumblee's first with a floyd, which was the Bee's second neck.

After Ed put a floyd on the Bee, he put it's original neck ( the bee's/ Black headstock) on the Franky (by this time it was red), cause he didnt put a floyd on the Franky until sometime on tour for WACF in '80.

See ,the neck pocket on both the Bee's and the Franky, was cut for the standard Fender style bridge, which sits lower than a floyd on the guitars body. This means the neck pocket is deeper, to make the action/string height right.

If you look at pics of that Floyd Rose neck that Ed had on the Bee, it was Thick in depth (as was the one on the extra thick Mahogany strat, later to be the 'Rasta' strat)

This was done (thick neck in depth) to bring the fretboard up high enough so the action wasnt a mile away with the floyd.

Later, companies made/make the neck pocket more shallow for 'Top' mounted floyds (early Ed) or they use stock Fender depth and 'recess' the floyd into the body.

The neck that is on the Bee in the pic with Ed with The Maddox, that was ALSO the neck Ed used on the Franky when he first put a floyd on it ('mid '80). Ed had the creme Dimarzio or Mighty Might Looking PU on it.

Even Zlozower put some era incorrect photo's in his book. Like some '79 photo's (Ed with the maddox) in the 1980 section.

[Strat78]

So Instead of trying to make a humbucker sound like a single coil, I'm going to try and make a single coil sound like a humbucker. -Or maybe just let it sound like a single coil!!!! I used a lindy fralin vintage hot bridge pickup with a 250k volume pot. I slapped this guitar together with spare parts, the tuning is still very unstable and I had to raise the action way up because the single coil picks up any kind of string buzz (sorry about the sloppy playing, this guitar is very hard to play with the strings so high). The frown curve with the old mxr 6-band did wonders for what initially was a very twangy and piercing tone. Perhaps it is soundclick, but the clip came out very dark, I'll try this with a 500k pot next and then I'll try it with the weak neck pickup combo. Paulscapes ATBL clip with a single coil got me to thinking that we have be approaching the VHI tone from the wrong direction. Lindy Fralin makes a pickup called the "un-bucker" that has one coil wound hot and the other very weak, this might be worth a try as well. There is something very sweet and rich in the single coils tone that is not there with a humbucker.
http://soundclick.com/share?songid=8648213" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[azazael]

You can hear the Sound of Sin EVH PAF (early batch) that I have in my Frankenstrat here.
http://forum.metroamp.com/viewtopic.php ... 01#p292201" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Vid & Mp3.