Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Just finished building this... sort of a tribute to van halen. My original phase 90 gets real ugly if you crank some distortion through it so I had to build a replacement... I think it turned out pretty nice!

Cool.

I was a fan back in the day. Not so hip on em these days.

But that is one sweet looking pedal.

thanks sans.

yeah, I'm not a 'die hard' vh fan or anything.
Truth be told, I think eddies i giant prick... but he sure can play the git-fiddle and I've always thought he had an incredible sense of rhythm.

Fact.

Agreed, the man has skills but too many imposters of late thinking they can jump on his band wagon.

GUESS AGAIN.

pretty sure that band wagon sailed like 15years ago...

still if you can play like evh... you ARE good, just not nec interesting.

Mike...all of that stuff that you build is so damn impressive to me. Seriously. I have absolutely no idea how in the heck that you know how to do all of that. Pretty awesome man!!!

As far as being a fan of VH...I used to be just as many others, but I guess that it just wore off as time passed on.

Nice looking pedal.

I always like Van Halen, more with Sammy Hagar than the buffoon they started with, and Eddie is an excellent player. I never tried to "play like" Ed, but did try to develop a few tapping licks to use here and there, nowhere near the level he took it to though. He started that because he was originally a classically trained piano player, and wondered if piano technique would work on guitar. The rest is history. I'm not a die hard fan, but have always liked his playing and a lot of VH songs.

I've read a couple of interesting articles on the guy, yeah he may be an a$$hole, but is also pretty intelligent and approaches guitar from a unique perspective. He admitted he started some of the rumors about his rig, like using a Variac and turning it up, actually he sets the voltage around 89 so he won't blow amps onstage. The guy in California who supposedly "hot rodded" his amps, actually did nothing but replace tubes and set bias, standard tune up procedures. But he got loads of business due to Eddie's claims that he souped up his amps. His original sound was just a single humbucker guitar through a Marshall, with an Echo Plex, that's it.

The Frankenstein guitar was single pickup because he didn't know how to wire in two of them. The quarter under the bridge was an emergency fix when something went haywire 20 minutes before a show, nobody could find a washer so he drilled a hole in a quarter, it's still there. He also sets his strings just barely high enough to eliminate buzz, and plays everything as simple as possible. Plain old everyday power chords usually.

When Fender delivered the first prototype of his 5150 MkIII amp, he put it in a room, plugged in a bass, cranked it to 10, laid the bass down and left it sitting there screaming feedback for a month. When he checked a month later and found it still working, he figured it would stand up to anything he could put it through onstage.

Most of this is his own words, or as close as I remember from the magazine interview, rather than direct quotes.

Interesting guy...

When Fender delivered the first prototype of his 5150 MkIII amp, he put it in a room, plugged in a bass, cranked it to 10, laid the bass down and left it sitting there screaming feedback for a month. When he checked a month later and found it still working, he figured it would stand up to anything he could put it through onstage.

Most of this is his own words, or as close as I remember from the magazine interview, rather than direct quotes.

Interesting guy...

this would make an interesting thread on its own, I love hearing musician gear testing "procedures" lol Jason Newstead used to soak potential new basses in a bath tub of saltwater for a week, if they didn't play when he took them out they got rejected...he figured, that was way more "sweat" than he could produce, thus the bass wouldn't crap out on stage due to sweat running down into the pick ups. sorry for the hijack..

metal... thanks I'm flattered.
Most of what I know I've read in a book or on the inet... it's not as complicated as you'd probably think.


Pete... that's some interesting stuff. I have do disagree on sammy though... his lyrics were awful IMO and DLR was a way better singer... then again DLR is a big prick like Ed.

Eds def a smart guy... misdirection was a great idea!

There was more but I can't remember it all. He did, though, admit to starting some of the EVH rumors himself, and misinforming people about his rig. I had to laugh, all those gullible fools paying a tech to hot rod their amps to try and match Ed's plain old stock Marshall...

I always liked Hagar better, but then I've been a Hagar fan since the 70's when he was singer for Montrose. He's also a great songwriter, and if you think about it, they had a lot more hits with him on vocals than with Roth by far. Then again he had over 10 years to do it too. He's also done better with his solo stuff.

But I'm biased, I admit that, I'm a long time Hagar fan and always thought he was a great addition to VH. Roth is a good singer, but a clown, a buffoon and party animal, I could never take him seriously.

I don't mean to start an argument, just explaining my comments. Whichever you prefer is your business, and we all have different tastes. Some people even like Madonna, Boy George and Lady GaGa...no accounting for that...

Pedal looks tight! I'd like to hear it.

I love VH! First concert I went to was VH on the 1984 tour when I was 10 or 11. It was Alex's birthday. They all grabbed him and threw him into a huge cake. My only complaint was that Roth was too drunk to do any kicks and jumps...which is what I always wanted to see. Still, one of the best shows I ever saw.

At the show, they dragged this kid to an ambulance because he was rockin' out with his ear next to the PA speaker. Busted his eardrum real bad, blood all down the side of his face.

I understand on the haggar thing pete... no worries about our opinions.
I like sammy... can't drive 55 was a fav back in the day....
and I always hated dlr rubbing himself with the mic and stuff... so I'll give you that.


kruliosis... wow, image of dude with ear bleeding... that's gonna take a while to get rid of! thanks for the comments.

DUDE SWEET PEDAL I HAD A STRAT AND FRANKENSTIENED TO TRY AND MIMIC AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE HIS SOUND BY PUTTING A FLOYD ROSE AND A SWEET P.A.F HUMBUCKER IN THE BRIDGE!! AND A LITTLE ON EVH!!!! evh is one of the best guitarist then, today and will still be in the future! evh did alot for rock and roll!! safe to say more than majority of musicians then and today!! evh is some one who i (as a guitarist regardless of his attitude as a huge prick) will always appreciate for the music and mind blowing guitar licks, riffs, and solos oh and cant forget that rhythm he has!!! eddie was the only guitarist in his band so his lead and rhythm has got to be top notch for pulling of thing that even most bands cant do even with two guitarist! evh is a guitarist that i think every guitarist (who hasnt acomplished anything close to wat he did or can do LIKE MY SELF im no where near evh) should at least tip their hats to the man and forget about his personality cause in the end 99.9% of us are never gonna hang out with the guy but 99.9% of us are gonna listen to or have listened to his sh*t and its not cause hes a nice guy its cuz hes a damn good no great guitarist!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

right on.
very few guitar players have had the same depth of impact... def one of the greats.