NPD (Sort of)

[Tatosh Guitar]

So this thread got me inspired to try to go for the brown sound again...

https://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/foru ... p?t=246699

As I mentioned there, I went and googled the Wampler Pinnacle, as word on the street has it that nothing comes closer to EVH's classic tone on a pedal than that. 

Before you all go bonkers, I know the whole point about Ed's tone (or Warren, Gary, Lynch or anyone who sounded great) was that they used an old Marshall, a plexi or similar circuit.

I know that. I already have 2. A 1969 and a 1971, both 100 watters, window shattering monsters that I haven't used in years, because I would get kicked out of the house or get the police called on me. I don't gig, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't play a large enough venue to properly crank those fuckers, not to mention the punishment on my back. 

So I have been using a Fender combo for a few years now. 45 watts of tube tone. Still quite heavy to lift, but more manageable. Killer cleans, not so good dirt. That's where pedals come into the equation.

I already have a bunch of pedals. I am sort of an addict to good overdrives. I have a Shur Riot clone, and OCD clone, a Keeley modded DS-1... you get the idea. They all can do the Marshall thing, with a slight variation. They all can probably get me close to the brown sound. I probably set them all up pretty similarly, as i already know what I like. 

But I started to think, I want to get as close as possible. not that I think EVH is the maximum, best tone ever, and I like a lot of stuff that I find just as good (Gary or Schenker, for example). But I want to get as close as possible just to say I can. Plus, the brown sound is a great starting point to most of the stuff I like. 

I already know I already got the best tone I have ever gotten with my Les Paul, a Tube Screamer and the OCD into the Fender amp. But you guys know how it is: You always want more. 

Anyway, as luck would have it, I stumbled into this when browsing Facebook's market place yesterday:

WhatsApp Image 2022-11-08 at 7.01.25 PM.jpeg (249.75 KiB) Viewed 1261 times

 First edition, hand made, and for just $50 bucks. The new, mass produced one is around $200. Can you say score?

I haven't tested it with my set up yet. Dude who sold it to me used it to play death metal, so I know it has plenty of gain. Not going there anyway.

I will provide a full review once I get the chance to fully explore all it can do. 
 
 

[Dinosaur David B]

I already have 2. A 1969 and a 1971, both 100 watters, window shattering monsters that I haven't used in years, because I would get kicked out of the house or get the police called on me. I don't gig, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't play a large enough venue to properly crank those fuckers, not to mention the punishment on my back. 
 

Seems to me, some sort of attenuator would be a wise addition. They're not as cheap as a unitask pedal (although a lot of multitask pedals these days are in a similar $250 range), but at least you'd get some use out of amps you already own and know sound good. 

[merlo_zeppelin]

I have a Pinnacle Deluxe v2 and while it's a great distortion pedal, very versatile, I have never ever tried to recreate a sound be it Eddie's or anyone else 

[Tatosh Guitar]

Seems to me, some sort of attenuator would be a wise addition. They're not as cheap as a unitask pedal (although a lot of multitask pedals these days are in a similar $250 range), but at least you'd get some use out of amps you already own and know sound good. 


 

Well, I actually do have an attenuator, a THD Hotplate. I think it was around $200 new. I got it when I got my first Marshall. 

It is not a bad unit, it does what it is supposed to, but it cuts some of the tone and, while it actually decreases the volume, a non master volume amp, as we all know, is still incredibly loud unless you bring the volume down so much the tone is no longer appealing. 

That said, it does have a line out, which I suppose I could use to get the amps to a computer an use IRs... 

I have a Pinnacle Deluxe v2 and while it's a great distortion pedal, very versatile, I have never ever tried to recreate a sound be it Eddie's or anyone else


 

Yeah, I get what you mean. Thing is, I don't have a single songwriter bone in my body, so I don't play anything you could call my own. I play covers, so replicating other guy's tones is cool by my book. 

That said, I don't obsess over it. Most of the time, I just dial a good usable tone, and go with it. My fingers usually do the rest. And I don't really play like EVH, to be honest. 
 
 

[deanulve]

That will get you some great tones that inspire you to play!


 

[merlo_zeppelin]

I haven't written a song in years, and I basically play covers for a living, so I should probably be good at replicating tones LOL. 
But I found out over time that what actually matters is to have a tone that works. With this I mean, that works in the context of what I'm doing. It might be a recording, a live gig. If I'm playing live I always try to make my tone fit in the mix, that you can hear the guitar clearly without needing to be super loud,  I try to make it work with the tones of the other instruments.
Maybe what made EVH tone so good was Alex's snare sound, and how those two things interact, or maybe it was the bass, it's probably the whole combination, you get the point.
So if my band plays a Van Halen song and I have Eddie's exact tone, it might not sound good if the drum sound is not right, or the bass,  or the room ambience,  or the way things are mixed and combined.
So while I get the fun part of tone chasing, I've come to the conclusion that it's kind of chasing a ghost cause there's so many variables you can't control  and the tricks your ear (and your eyes) play on you. Plus, for all the tweaking I do, I believe in the end I always sound 95$ the same, it always ends up sounding like me for better or worse. 
 

[Tatosh Guitar]

I haven't written a song in years, and I basically play covers for a living, so I should probably be good at replicating tones LOL. 
But I found out over time that what actually matters is to have a tone that works. With this I mean, that works in the context of what I'm doing. It might be a recording, a live gig. If I'm playing live I always try to make my tone fit in the mix, that you can hear the guitar clearly without needing to be super loud,  I try to make it work with the tones of the other instruments.
Maybe what made EVH tone so good was Alex's snare sound, and how those two things interact, or maybe it was the bass, it's probably the whole combination, you get the point.
So if my band plays a Van Halen song and I have Eddie's exact tone, it might not sound good if the drum sound is not right, or the bass,  or the room ambience,  or the way things are mixed and combined.
So while I get the fun part of tone chasing, I've come to the conclusion that it's kind of chasing a ghost cause there's so many variables you can't control  and the tricks your ear (and your eyes) play on you. Plus, for all the tweaking I do, I believe in the end I always sound 95$ the same, it always ends up sounding like me for better or worse. 
 

 

Yeah, I agree. It's like what DDave says: "You don't need and amp that excells at everything. You need one that does one thing right" or something like that. 

As I wrote above, I have a few overdrive pedals, and while they can do a lot of different things, I usually set them up pretty similarly, because I already know in my head what I like: something Marshall based, crunchy, not overly saturated, with enough mids to cut thru a mix, and with singing sustain for leads. 

I have also found that, while gear plays a huge deal in the end results, my hands do just as much. I have a friend that can do the VH very well, and while using the same gear, he sounded pretty close using my old Marshall. Once he handed me the guitar, the result was quite different, closer to early 80's Priest or Maiden. 

Over the years, as I developed as a player, I noticed that I could get close to the tones I liked, from quite different artists, by just varying the pick attack or the way I moved my hands, without changing much in my set up. This became specially evident once I started playing tube amps. But we all know that.