A
Amp_chaser
Active member
Hello Guys,
i'm a Brown sound fan and it has been almost 10 years that i'm trying to search threw every rabbit hole to get the tones of VH1 and VH2.
I look for old pictures, testimonies and even books. Soon i'll release a vidéo about this long journey : new findings and a lot of controversies. Some will be debunked while others will still retain some truth. It's impossible to know everything with the amount of disinformation existing about eddie's tone. But in the end you'll see that even the techs we believe to be right cannot be trusted.
Here you have the Ibanez Destroyer during the japanese tour after the first record : You can see one thing. It has not the hexagonal screws on the bridge pickup. First myth debunked the mighty mites humbucker were never used on the VH1 records. When Eddie recorded VH1 the guitar was still painted in white and with 3 fender knobs. It had humbuckers with chrome covers and the guitar was probably stock with the only changes being the painting and the knobs. The mighty mite 1300 was used for some songs in VH2 but not in VH1. The second proof being the clips of RWTD where the guitar has 2 black humbuckers probably the same without the covers. Those were probably Ibanez super 70's humbuckers. They are alnico 8 at 7.7k-8k.
Here you have the amps. What's interesting is that the second amp from left bottom uses a MXR 6 band eq. Interestingly enough the Top jimmy kemper pack which is the best sounding reproduction of eddie's early tone also uses an EQ in front of the amp. After buying an early version of the mxr 6 band eq and trying it with this eq pattern, I can tell you that it gets you closer to the tone we are chasing. However you get a lot of noise from it (however there is a solution to make it disappear, continue reading). We can also see that amps are being slaved. There is a mullard box probably for preamp tubes and finally both 2 variacs.
The original amp which was used for the records is the the second right from the bottom. You can see that it is used as a slave one but not as the main amp.
Here you have the back of the amps and you can clearly see there are no 6CA7 tubes in 1978. So 6CA7 cannot be one of the first records ingredients for tone. Instead those are German ERA RFT El34. Those are ultra rare and almost impossible to find (good luck). According to dave friedman telefunken tubes were eddie's favortite tubes and that's what he apparently used for vh1. But who knows if eddie with its old age has mistaken those ERA for telefunken...
Next thing we can see is that the original amp that was used for the records is the second from the bottom left in this picture. You can clearly see that the potentiometer or button which has been present during the VH2 records was already present in 1978 during the japanese tour which means that it was probably already there during the recording session of VH1. Dave Friedman made the mistake to say that there was no potentiometer in the 1978 pictures because he only got access to the blurry version of this picture.
the sticker on the bottom left of the pot could probably be an Arcco sticker which josé arredondo used to put behind the amps he worked on. You can also see that someone (probably eddie) tried to remove the original sticker (the bigger one) and put another small one over it.
In the top you have eddies pedalboard in HD. You can see a second mxr 6 band eq that was used for eruption and some other songs. You also have 2 switch boxes. The one looking like a tonebender used to have black plate over it and it seems it perhaps had knobs over it. What was it used for ? Perhaps a wet and dry signal control or anything else
In the bottom this is a picture when Van Halen used to open for black sabbath. You can see that the early version of the tone bender had a black plate and it looks like it has 2 knobs on it too.
Here you can see the racks and console for VH1. Interesting fact there is no UREI compressor but you instead have the dbx160 and dbx162 compressors. Interestingly enough sunset sound studio also have those dbx units.
This is the VH2 tour in japan. You can clearly see the schaffer vega unit at the bottom of the amps on the right. You can see that the amps are in majority Mark 2 plexis except the old wood one. You can also see on the top another wireless system called the Nasty Cordless or named later Nady Cordless those systems had a boost for guitar incorporated in their units. Eddie seems to use the Nady for it's guitar and schaffer as a boost only. The schaffer Vega unit is where a lot of the gain comes from. If you didn't know this is a wireless unit which could boost your signal and increased its gain. It was used by angus young and many other guitar players to boost their plexis in the 70's. It also had it's own compressor/limiter. We are very lucky because solodallas reproduced the schaffer unit as a pedal called the schaffer storm which is a faithfull reproduction of how the unit impacted the tone. I don't know if you guys used the shaffer storm with a plexi the result is quite impressive. You get tons of gain. I also tried it with my vintage mxr 6 band eq and it nulifies the noise coming from the EQ. Everything becomes way easier to play.
Here you have the racks for VH2 you can clearly see that the DBX units disappeared and UREI compressors are now used. Those were used at sunset sound and also in the 5150 studios. Now people will ask if eddie used dbx compressors for his VH1 tones why didn't he used them in his 5150 studio ? Well it seems that eddie didn't like his VH1 sound because it was too bright. That's probably why he kept the later recipes for recording in his 5150 studio and not the early ones.
Finally there are other interesting explosive discoveries. Eddie used to slave in his early days into early 2203 units YES the early versions of jcm 800. vintage plexis + a 2203 = vintage tone + a grain of modern tone and slight boost in gain. This is clearly a 2 holer :
I also foud an old picture that contains a really explosive content about how eddie got his early tone. Keep patient, the video will come out in about 1-2 months.
i'm a Brown sound fan and it has been almost 10 years that i'm trying to search threw every rabbit hole to get the tones of VH1 and VH2.
I look for old pictures, testimonies and even books. Soon i'll release a vidéo about this long journey : new findings and a lot of controversies. Some will be debunked while others will still retain some truth. It's impossible to know everything with the amount of disinformation existing about eddie's tone. But in the end you'll see that even the techs we believe to be right cannot be trusted.
Here you have the Ibanez Destroyer during the japanese tour after the first record : You can see one thing. It has not the hexagonal screws on the bridge pickup. First myth debunked the mighty mites humbucker were never used on the VH1 records. When Eddie recorded VH1 the guitar was still painted in white and with 3 fender knobs. It had humbuckers with chrome covers and the guitar was probably stock with the only changes being the painting and the knobs. The mighty mite 1300 was used for some songs in VH2 but not in VH1. The second proof being the clips of RWTD where the guitar has 2 black humbuckers probably the same without the covers. Those were probably Ibanez super 70's humbuckers. They are alnico 8 at 7.7k-8k.
Here you have the amps. What's interesting is that the second amp from left bottom uses a MXR 6 band eq. Interestingly enough the Top jimmy kemper pack which is the best sounding reproduction of eddie's early tone also uses an EQ in front of the amp. After buying an early version of the mxr 6 band eq and trying it with this eq pattern, I can tell you that it gets you closer to the tone we are chasing. However you get a lot of noise from it (however there is a solution to make it disappear, continue reading). We can also see that amps are being slaved. There is a mullard box probably for preamp tubes and finally both 2 variacs.
The original amp which was used for the records is the the second right from the bottom. You can see that it is used as a slave one but not as the main amp.
Here you have the back of the amps and you can clearly see there are no 6CA7 tubes in 1978. So 6CA7 cannot be one of the first records ingredients for tone. Instead those are German ERA RFT El34. Those are ultra rare and almost impossible to find (good luck). According to dave friedman telefunken tubes were eddie's favortite tubes and that's what he apparently used for vh1. But who knows if eddie with its old age has mistaken those ERA for telefunken...
Next thing we can see is that the original amp that was used for the records is the second from the bottom left in this picture. You can clearly see that the potentiometer or button which has been present during the VH2 records was already present in 1978 during the japanese tour which means that it was probably already there during the recording session of VH1. Dave Friedman made the mistake to say that there was no potentiometer in the 1978 pictures because he only got access to the blurry version of this picture.
the sticker on the bottom left of the pot could probably be an Arcco sticker which josé arredondo used to put behind the amps he worked on. You can also see that someone (probably eddie) tried to remove the original sticker (the bigger one) and put another small one over it.
In the top you have eddies pedalboard in HD. You can see a second mxr 6 band eq that was used for eruption and some other songs. You also have 2 switch boxes. The one looking like a tonebender used to have black plate over it and it seems it perhaps had knobs over it. What was it used for ? Perhaps a wet and dry signal control or anything else
In the bottom this is a picture when Van Halen used to open for black sabbath. You can see that the early version of the tone bender had a black plate and it looks like it has 2 knobs on it too.
Here you can see the racks and console for VH1. Interesting fact there is no UREI compressor but you instead have the dbx160 and dbx162 compressors. Interestingly enough sunset sound studio also have those dbx units.
This is the VH2 tour in japan. You can clearly see the schaffer vega unit at the bottom of the amps on the right. You can see that the amps are in majority Mark 2 plexis except the old wood one. You can also see on the top another wireless system called the Nasty Cordless or named later Nady Cordless those systems had a boost for guitar incorporated in their units. Eddie seems to use the Nady for it's guitar and schaffer as a boost only. The schaffer Vega unit is where a lot of the gain comes from. If you didn't know this is a wireless unit which could boost your signal and increased its gain. It was used by angus young and many other guitar players to boost their plexis in the 70's. It also had it's own compressor/limiter. We are very lucky because solodallas reproduced the schaffer unit as a pedal called the schaffer storm which is a faithfull reproduction of how the unit impacted the tone. I don't know if you guys used the shaffer storm with a plexi the result is quite impressive. You get tons of gain. I also tried it with my vintage mxr 6 band eq and it nulifies the noise coming from the EQ. Everything becomes way easier to play.
Here you have the racks for VH2 you can clearly see that the DBX units disappeared and UREI compressors are now used. Those were used at sunset sound and also in the 5150 studios. Now people will ask if eddie used dbx compressors for his VH1 tones why didn't he used them in his 5150 studio ? Well it seems that eddie didn't like his VH1 sound because it was too bright. That's probably why he kept the later recipes for recording in his 5150 studio and not the early ones.
Finally there are other interesting explosive discoveries. Eddie used to slave in his early days into early 2203 units YES the early versions of jcm 800. vintage plexis + a 2203 = vintage tone + a grain of modern tone and slight boost in gain. This is clearly a 2 holer :
I also foud an old picture that contains a really explosive content about how eddie got his early tone. Keep patient, the video will come out in about 1-2 months.
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