cary chilton wrote:I said this before, sure the super 70 has more edge and sounds closer to the album post mix sound - but guys, racksystems already proved in SPADES where that edge and extra sizzle came from.... the JBL track that was mixed into the celestion track.
If you REALLY want the REAL tone ED had in his amp and celestion 4x12 you DON'T necessarily want the the pickup that has MORE edge and brightness at all.... It is already known has recorded with DRL using the same magic Marshall... which is warm and gainy, not super bright... That is the source or the character of the his tone. So even with the phase 90, the 1176's, studio EQ'ing, the JBL's his tone still sounds pleasing. If his core tone was in anyway thinner and Ted added the above to the signal chain, EVH's tone would have been legendary at all.
Don't forget, in their are any recordists here, if the source signal has more resonance the better... adding highs with a JBL or with EQ pedal, EQ outboard or your DAW is easier and more natural sounding than trying to put bass in..... if you disagree, I am all ears.
Kenung,
However, it's not just a matter of one pup having more top-end than another. There are other variables to consider, and IMHO A2 pups influence the amp in ways that I don't hear until later on in Ed's sound. There's a "furriness" and a little bit of "fuzziness" to an A2 in the mids and low-mids that is all over Fair Warning and 1984, but I don't hear it at all in the 1st 3 albums...and I definitely can't hear it in VH1, which isn't to say I'm right...I just don't hear it.
What I do hear is a rasp and a scratchiness to the top-end that sounds like an MXR 6 band EQ pushing the front-end. In addition, to my ears, the A2 influences the nature of the breakup of the amp in a way that just sounds diferent to me, and I don't know that I can do an adequate job of describing it other than to borrow Mark's description that "it is more laid back with less headroom"...a softer attack, wheras an A5 to some degree and especially an A8 has an "imediacy" to it that makes it just snap out at you. A2s remind me of pouring syrup from a bottle, there's a little lag and it's like you gotta wait for it; listen to "Drop Dead Legs"; there's just a gooiness when he digs into the strings that is so A2, and I'm not downing it; I freakin love it.
The mids of the A8 are so radically different than the other two, that to me it's so hard to re-create by EQ'ing, it just has that characteristic "quack" that distinguishes it from other pups, and I think early on, that's why Ed had the EQ with the mid-boost going on in front of amp1, b/c the A8 can sound scooped and a little goofey without it. From my experience using both the MXR 6 band and the GE-10, that setting tames the highs, tightens up the lows and fattens the mids and just makes the A8 sound pissed...esp the MXR EQ in a way that is characteristically VH1. If you go back and A/B Strat78's A5 and A8 mighty mite clips it is just night and day, and I gotta say that sealed the deal for my ears as to what the pup was in frankie for VH1...like I said, just my ears though; I've been wrong once or twice before.
