The Sad State Of The Van Halen Wannabe

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:17 pm

if i really want to dive into this topic?!?!

- carry on

Guitar Adjuster · Post by **Guitar Adjuster** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:42 pm

Welcome Charlie,

Now that we got the V1 pre-amp tube under control.........what about the little things like guitar cable, picks.......?

Allen

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 6:42 pm

Anonymous wrote:My name is Charlie.

No. I'm Charlie. I don't know who that Wannabe was.

See? Pick a name and log in with a password. Or we'll never know it's you.

I know, I know, you're inimitable as well as omniscient.

But anyone can say they are Charlie the Guest.

carson5150 · Post by **carson5150** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:28 pm

The guy kinda seems like a dick, if you ask me. The tone obsession can get overboard, by overboard I mean that it controls everything about your guitar playing. It gets to the point where you worry so much about the tone that you stop trying to get better on the guitar. What's the point in having a great amp/guitar tone if you don't know how to express yourself ? The music I've heard from Rockstah has been great, damn good guitar playing, he gets IT. I think it's great fun to try and nail Eddie's playing (and many others) nuance for nuance, but I'll be the first to admit it's pretty much impossible to nail it like that. The best tone you'll ever get is that of your own style, it's natural baby! There are some guys that certainly come frighteningly close to Ed at times, but they're still always gonna sound like themselves in the end, which makes the guitar the BEST and most expressive instrument of all time, IMO. So, in the words of the Late-great Frank Zappa: "Shut up and play yer guitar".

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 7:32 pm

carson5150,
great words there and great quote also

welcome aboard!

Mark

JD · Post by JD » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:09 pm

Yeah, my $.02 (even though nobody is asking)...

First, who are you (the Guest) to judge anyone for doing what they want? From what I see, Rockstah is enjoying his pursuit of a certain sound and learning quite a bit along the way. I don't think that makes him or anyone a wannabe. Let's face it, by most definitions EVH had great tone, whether or not you can copy his style (who can?).

And who are you to tell anyone what is and is not "EVH correct" anyway?

People come here to share a common interest and discuss it, not to be judged or insulted. Not everyone is a working musician. For some guys this is a hobby.

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:37 pm

I think Charlie should post some sound clips of his results.

JasonC · Post by **JasonC** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 8:50 pm

carsons got it right.

Some related, and possibly pointless thoughts:

I personally don't have the time to do what rockstah is doing, meticulously making relatively small changes, recording clips, comparing, etc. I appreciate that he's posting his results here for us all to learn from.. so I don't have to do the work. Thank you Rockstah for your efforts.

In terms of recreating his tone on the early records... I personally think it takes an old MCI console, 2 inch tape, an 1176, a big ass old school reverb plate, and whatever else they used to track and mix it, and then you gotta get it mastered by someone who's got the fabled Pultec eq, etc. All this stuff (and the knowlege of the engineers) combined with the tone coming out of his rig makes that tone we hear on the recordings. Ok, maybe you can get reasonably close without every element, but a 57 into a modern digital recorder and some plug ins is just never going to do it. What you can do is get an approximation... which is great, but that's what it is. More reasonable would be to listen to some decent live boots to hear what his rig tone sounded like.

One of my favorite elements of Eds playing is the 'out on a limb damned near out of control' factor. It's the spotenaity. It's the fact that you can hear how much fun he's having. He's cracking himself up! I have heard some really great impressions of Ed's stuff from Ralle and vhaholic and others - players who have obviously spent some time really learning those chops, and who are playing rigs that do that tone pretty damned good. But that 'fun factor' element isn't there for me. This is where I have to agree with our guest: you gotta just be yourself and let it fly - have fun with it and just f**kin rock man... that's what Ed did.

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 9:47 pm

I've enjoyed Mark's clips. His original, and EVH stuff.
His amp is to die for, and he built it. My first build was nowhere as nice.
He never tried to sell himself as a EVH clone, just his amp.
His clips speak for themselves, and they were done with very limited recording gear. He was able to nail the tone. I don't want to put anybody down , or name names, but Mark gets better VH tone than some people
who've dedicated their lives to VH. Some of these other players would sound 1000 times better if they were playing through Mark's setup, because their playing (In VH style) was as good or better than Mark, but
their amps can't touch his.

That must be very frustrating.
Keep up the excellent work, great attitude, and enthusiasm.
Your buildomenatary will help future builders, and your evolution
into custom amp builder was fun to take part in.
You really did a nice job on that amp.
I look forward to seeing your future projects.

rockstah · Post by **rockstah** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 10:07 pm

mightymike wrote:I've enjoyed Mark's clips. His original, and EVH stuff.
His amp is to die for, and he built it. My first build was nowhere as nice.
He never tried to sell himself as a EVH clone, just his amp.
His clips speak for themselves, and they were done with very limited recording gear. He was able to nail the tone. I don't want to put anybody down , or name names, but Mark gets better VH tone than some people
who've dedicated their lives to VH. Some of these other players would sound 1000 times better if they were playing through Mark's setup, because their playing (In VH style) was as good or better than Mark, but
their amps can't touch his.

That must be very frustrating.
Keep up the excellent work, great attitude, and enthusiasm.
Your buildomenatary will help future builders, and your evolution
into custom amp builder was fun to take part in.
You really did a nice job on that amp.
I look forward to seeing your future projects.

hey thanks for that mike! - I really appreciate it - there will be alot more builds for me and alot more shared information here for the builders here at metroamp - its a pleasure truely!

i love the smell of solder in the morning and im a freak without warning!

Mark

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:14 pm

I kinda think I'm a "dick" too. At least my girlfriend next door keeps saying so, and as long as I'm enough of a "dick" that it keeps her crossing the hall into my sack, great, I'm happy!

Meanwhile, cables make a difference. Yes. They have their own tone. Some give more high end, some subtract it and on and on. The VansEvers line is AMAZING. Want BIG signal flow? Get a Blue Nile speaker cord and a Red River guitar cable. There are several good cables on the market, but assuming you want the most 3D-ish sound, there ya go. Now, where's that broad next door? I just love being such a "dick!"

JD · Post by JD » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:20 pm

Anonymous wrote:I kinda think I'm a "dick" too. At least my girlfriend next door keeps saying so, and as long as I'm enough of a "dick" that it keeps her crossing the hall into my sack, great, I'm happy! Meanwhile, cables make a difference. Yes. They have their own tone. Some give more high end, some subtract it and on and on. The VansEvers line is AMAZING. Want BIG signal flow? Get a Blue Nile speaker cord and a Red River guitar cable. There are several good cables on the market, but assuming you want the most 3D-ish sound, there ya go. Now, where's that broad next door? I just love being such a "dick!"

Now we all KNOW you're full of shit loser.

JasonC · Post by **JasonC** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:28 pm

well said mightymike.

I think after reading my post what I didn't manage to say is that I think rockstahs clips are great too, and I'm damned glad to have found a site where lots of player post all kinds of clips... and the journey of building an Ed type tone is pretty damned fun to follow.

awangotango · Post by **awangotango** » Fri Feb 17, 2006 11:54 pm

'guest's' info sounds like it could be boiled down to this : "drop 20 grand on vintage tubes, cab, amp, guitar, cables" and you will have a great sounding rig." That's true of course, but how is that great advice? Most of us are trying to get 90% of that tone for a couple grand and that's a much more difficult task.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 12:07 am

I think you guys should buy a 59' Les Paul. Then you can be loser like me too! Viva the stock market! Damn the copycats!