The Pickup Seymour Wound For Van halen

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Ronnie's 3x10 Bandmaster was his main recording amp in the 70s, I don't know about the Champ.

Steve Rosen interview October 1976.

"The stage is free of pedals because, the artist maintains, they always "screw up". but in the studio he does use a Big Muff fuzztone and an Ampeg Scrambler (the former built into a heavy-duty box).

Ronnie's chosen amp for the past three years has been an old single cabinet tweed Fender Bandmaster with three 10" speakers."


Another interview from much later on in 2002.

"Well, one thing you ought to know is that the song almost didn't make it onto the album! (chuckles) We thought it was a "loser" track; just a little ditty that Sammy had written, but it was missing something. Then one day I was sitting with my red, double-cutaway Les Paul Junior, and a Electro-Harmonix Big Muff fuzztone, and the one amp I wish I'd never got rid of, a three-ten tweed Fender Bandmaster. I'd gotten it for ninety dollars, and when I bought it, it was covered with woodtone Contact adhesive paper! The Contact paper peeled right off; it didn't leave any residue and the tweed looked brand new. I used that amp so much I blew it up several times before I finally got rid of it."

Ronnie was using Marshall's live at the time (1976) and recording with the Bandmaster 3x10 and the Montrose album was the Bandmaster 3x10.
 
nitro":1lnile2k said:
It was talked about before that a fender bandmaster which Edward owned a blonde bandmaster and loved the sound of that amp,he also owned a Vox AC 30 amp which was visable on some of the old photos of van halen during the 1977 club days.
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I brought that white Bandmaster head up...Ed said "the best sound I ever get is sittin' on the edge of my bed at home with that little white Bandmaster cranked on 10" through JUST the extension speaker jack "you get a real low output, but it sounds just like it sounds cranked, but quieter...you blow a transformer every 8 months or so, but the sound is worth it". That's what Eddie said about it.
 
The secret to Ed's tone is NOT in his pickup... No sir! Believe it or not, it's in his diet!

My source tells me the secret to Ed's tone is due to a combination of vegetables, roots, and specific amino acids that were discovered by his father. A friend of my source knows a guy who's cousin told him; "Ed has to consume this combination of ingredients at the waxing of every full moon..." Now, the brother of the same guy said that Ed's biology teacher was the granddaughter of the one and only Robert Johnson! Apparently, the recipe was handed down to her by a high priestess of voodoo magic. How Ed's father discovered the recipe is a bit hazy, but it has been said that Ed's dad was having and affair with Ed's biology teacher. Wow! Now, keep this on the down-low... It has also been said that the two of them were dabbling in the forces of black magic, and that a 1-2 punch "two hand tapping-whammy bar" spell was cast on Edward on the evening of his birth.

I have no reason to doubt such reliable sources. I will keep you updated as information is made available... This is truly dread! :scared:
 
I bought one of the Duncan's about 8 years ago which was supposed to be the VH pickup and it had a sticker on the back that said 78' or something so it would not get him sued. It was alnico magnet and like 8.5 ohms, it sounded more like evh's early tone then the Custom. And the Custom is my main pickup. I've since sold the 78' but it nailed the sound, I had it in a Tokai strat with an ash body. It was a special order pickup from Duncan like around 2007 or so.
 
nitro":54iztsky said:
VH1 could have been a bandmaster.
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Not just any Bandmaster, but Ronnie Montrose's Bandmaster that Ted Templeman and Donn Landee had already worked with on the "Montrose" album.

The Bandmaster 3x10 has Alnico speakers and it's own cabinet, and it's not the same as hooking a Bandmaster head up to a ceramic speaker cabinet like a Marshall cabinet for instance.

http://www.vintageguitar.com/special-fe ... mplifiers/

"5. 1959-’60 Fender Bandmaster
($9,000 to $11,000)
Often described as “a Bassman with only three ten-inch speakers,” the Bandmaster is actually a different beast in several ways, with a little less power, an earlier breakup, and an edgy-yet-snappy tone."

The Bandmaster 3x10 is 26 watts and EVH lowering his voltage down to 90 or lower volts with the variac drops the Plexi down to around 30 watts or lower.

EVH doesn't really play a 100 watt Marshall because the variac lowers the amp down to under 50 watts.

It took a week for EVH to record the guitar parts for VH1 starting at the end of August 1977, so Ted could have borrowed Ronnie's amp for a week and given it back to him afterwards and that's the end of it.

EVH thought the 1977 Warner Brothers demos (which were a practice run for VH1 and where EVH used his Marshall) were appalling, and VH was after a Montrose Ted Templeman/Donn Landee sound and they wanted Ronnie's amp for VH1.

If someone just listens to VH1, it doesn't sound that Marshally (to me anyway).

VH1 has that Fender thing about it IMO.

VHII sounds Marshally IMO.
 
The Bandmaster 3x10 had a 4 ohm output transformer going into 3 parallel 10 inch Alnico 8 ohm speakers, so it was a 4 ohm output going into a 2.6 ohm speaker load, which is a bit of a mismatch but part of it's sound as well.
 
Chasing all this original gear (Plexi's, Bandmasters, Echoplexes etc) is not exactly cheap.

It was pretty common in the 70s but now the Bandmasters are hitting 10 grand and over, and working Echoplexes ain't that cheap either and EVH had 1976/1977 Echoplex EP3 models just when they also brought out the Echoplex EP4 and the EP3's and EP4's at that time had Dyna-Comp like compressor boards in them.

If someone is trying to chase EVH's VH1 tone seriously for whatever reason, then they need to at least have the original gear and not reissues or clones or some Echoplex jFET pedal and all of that crap.

They also need Ted and Donn and Sunset Sound Studio 1 with the echo chamber and EVH himself.

Good luck.
 
I just bought an EP3 Echoplex for 500 bucks...needs some work (cleaning, de-magnetizing, new tape), but I thought that was a bargain...
 
Rocksoff":32qkkh25 said:
As I already said, there is a good chance that a Marshall wasn't even used for VH1
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sounds like his old marshall to me :confused:
it is just gainier and brighter than VH II
If i could get a fender amp to sound like that i would be using them :thumbsup:
 
charvelstrat81":1wxpbf6o said:
Rocksoff":1wxpbf6o said:
As I already said, there is a good chance that a Marshall wasn't even used for VH1
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sounds like his old marshall to me :confused:
it is just gainier and brighter than VH II
If i could get a fender amp to sound like that i would be using them :thumbsup:
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Quite a few thought that Ronnie Montrose used a Marshall on "Montrose".

The clean bits starting around 1:49 on the clip below sound Fendery to me and also Alnico speakery to me as well, but that's just my opinion.

An amp like a Bandmaster 3x10 can sound as full and heavy as any Marshall Plexi.

The point is that EVH wanted to use Ronnie Montroses Bandmaster 3x10 amp for VH1 as told by Ted Templeman.

Don't forget that no one had an EVH Marshall fetish before the first album was released and EVH didn't like how his Marshall came out in the Warner Brothers demos recorded just a few months before VH1.

VH were nothing much at that stage and Montrose was like their heros and if you could get your hero's amp then you would get it.


 
Have you guys listened to the 70's demo? Who am i kidding.. of course you have, you are a bunch of VH geeks. The song writing is what is important, not the holy grail tone which could have largely been the result of the guy sitting behind the desk as it much a mystery juiced up plexi. I listen to this and I think it kicks ass anyway even if it clearly has less gain. It also has seems to use chorus which was a sign of the times. Sounds great to my ears: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Cmrugqgbs . Kind of reminds me of a slightly gaineier Pat Travers here also in the 70's but with less chorus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vjDZAocnkc.

All this to say that if he is presumably using the same gear for all of this stuff (demo and VH1), then it is likely he was goosing a pinned and variac'd plexi with an EQ pedal on VH1 to get more grind out of his amp. Again though, I will gladly play any of the pickups mentioned in this thread through a plexi and be happy.
 
For me it was a really rare occurrence to hear eddie have a awesome tone outside of the studio.
There were a few shows in 78 where his live tone was a lot like the VH I record but that was before he retired that 12301 plexi from touring because of Pan am losing it.
once he started using newer marshalls,laney's,music man's live his tone was nothing special.
 
EVH has never had the VH1 tone live as far as I've heard, which is not surprising seeing that it's a Montrose influenced Ted and Donn studio sound and if EVH used Ronnie's Bandmaster then that was just a one off for that album only and nothing else.

Maybe EVH whipped out his Bandmaster for some shows around VH1, like he did at Gazzari's.

No one would really know for sure what EVH was using at a particular time unless they saw it or it was photographed.

On some of the old VH boots there is EVH probably using a ES-335 and a LP Jnr and anyone who can ID on what boots wins first prize.

He's also apparently using a Tube Echoplex on some boots before he picked up his EP3 1976/1977 models, which boots have the Tube Echoplex on them and can anybody hear the Echoplex differences?

EVH's pickups changed in his Strat (2 different Strats) at least 3 times just in 1977, and who knows for sure what the tone differences were.

The 1978 World Tour is all Marshall's and his so called main Marshall is not the only amp that is heard on those shows because EVH was running a 3 head combo at any given time (he had 3 sets of 3 combo heads) and the stage sound is a combo of the 3 heads and only one of those heads might have been the main Marshall and he was micing 2 cabinets (he switched between 2 main 3 head combos) and one cabinet might have been the main Marshall but not the other one.

So the 1978 World tour is not a great "tone" indicator of his main Marshall at all.
 
The best example of EVH's so called main amp is on the Letterman show where the amp is alone and variaced down (pilot light off) and it just sounds like a Marshall and it doesn't sound like VH1 at all to me.
 
Rocksoff":2wna1pye said:
The best example of EVH's so called main amp is on the Letterman show where the amp is alone and variaced down (pilot light off) and it just sounds like a Marshall and it doesn't sound like VH1 at all to me.
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well then i am not all that impressed since i have heard guys on the forums get their plexi's to sound as good or better than that.
Just goes to show chasing his old tone is pointless since he has a different tone on just about every track.
For me the one tone that still gets me is his "eruption" tone but i am thinking these days it is more the way he played it than the actual tone that impresses me.
That tone is not all that hard to get in a room by yourself but getting it to tape or a clip is a lot more difficult.
 
From EVH himself,

"One of the areas that guys put too much emphasis on is equipment.

Once when Van Halen was on tour, we were opening for Ted Nugent and he was standing there watching me play, wondering how I did it.
The next day at the soundcheck when I wasn't there he asked our roadie if he could plug into my stuff.

Of course it still sounded like Ted.
In other words, it doesn't really matter what you're playing through.

Too many guys think a certain player's sound has to do with equipment, but it doesn't make any difference.

Your sound is in your fingers and brain."
 
Rocksoff,if you had to buy a amp today to achieve the first van halen album sound which would it be.
 
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