Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

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rgalpin
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by rgalpin » Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:45 am

Brian... thanks for posting! The whole re-mastering thing has always been a mystery to me. Like - how much liberty can be taken by the re-masterers in order enhance but not change the essence of a sound that people have become so familiar with that it is like a part of them. Did you actually work with 24 track tapes? Or just the master mix down - or what? I know that's like a question that probably could require an entire book to answer - but is it possible for you to go through a quick Remastering Van Halen For Dummies description of the process and what you did?
Last edited by rgalpin on Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:11 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by garbeaj » Tue Nov 24, 2015 9:30 am

Sorry, none of what everyone is accusing me of makes any sense. No one seems to know what this "intimate knowledge" actually consists of, so you guys can enjoy your thread. Sorry if for some unexplained reason I have somehow sullied this thread... :palm:

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by jnew » Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:45 am

rgalpin wrote:So, Brian... The whole re-mastering thing has always been a mystery to me. Like - how much liberty can be taken by the re-masterers in order enhance but not change the essence of a sound that people have become so familiar with that it is like a part of them. Did you actually work with 24 track tapes? Or just the master mix down - or what? I know that's like a question that probably could require an entire book to answer - but is it possible for you to go through a quick Remastering Van Halen For Dummies description of the process and what you did?
Well dude, cut and paste this as sticky is on your desktop, as an example of how to ask questions and not insult someone who just wants share and participate. :stars:
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by Strat78 » Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:47 am

Some more food for thought:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMDHwYTeZd0
The guitar tone can be heard through the drum and bass tracks which seems to indeed demonstrate that the solo has no punch ins. It also demonstrates that "studio magic" did not create Ed's tone and that we have not been chasing ghosts here. Sure there is the sound chamber, mic compressors and stereo echo but the amps core tone and feel is pretty much intact on the record.

1)Ed has said that they used two amps on the first record. 2)Ted Templeman said recently that they placed one of Ed's cabs in the reverb sound chamber.3)Dave Friedman talked to Rudy Leiren personally and was told that there was no slaving on the first record. 4)Brian heard that two mics were used kitty corner on the 4x12's.

What I gather from all this is that two daisy chained amps with effects between the heads was used to capture the guitar tone perhaps with a total of four mics? One head with it's own cab in the main studio with two mics recorded dry and the other head with it's own cab at the end of a long cable in the sound chamber with one or two mics recorded somewhat wet. Each mic on the first dry cab went to separate tracks 11 and 12, but the mics on the cab in the chamber went to both tracks? I say this because both those iso RWTD tracks have a curious note separation going on especially in how that little echo slap-back comes through. Can anybody post those RWTD clips, I can't seem to find them.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by Mats A » Tue Nov 24, 2015 3:12 pm

According to Rudy Lieren Eddie didn´t use any slaving or H/H Power amps until later in the 80´s. Also if he used a MXR 6-band eq he can´t have boosted the mids that much. If you do that you get a very nasal like tone. Like Tom Scholtz in Boston or Vivian Campbell in Dio. Eddie never sounded like that. I Believe he used the MXR eq with the Univox echo since it´s a tone sucker. Also his tone sounded much better live then like on the bootleg Midnight Cash. Much fatter and not so trebly and thin like on VHI.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by Strat78 » Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:53 pm

:popcorn:
Last edited by Strat78 on Fri Nov 27, 2015 7:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by mapat » Tue Nov 24, 2015 8:58 pm

Thank you guys for calling out garbeaj on his "bullshit". :lol: It's been long overdue...

He's got the loudest mouth and zero building skills so it makes for an entertaining combo. :palm:

garbeaj, you don't understand why you are getting called out?

Well, then let me spell it out for you... And it isn't about just this thread either... Your tone sucks. And by tone, I don't mean your guitar tone, I mean your posting style, the way you interact with people on this forum.

You will endlessly pontificate on your pet subjects among other things... And even though I know an English teacher like yourself doesn't need me to post the definition of pontificate I'll do it anyways:

pontificate - (to) express one's opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic.

There are people on this board that have incredible ears and building skills and have tried every known and unknown avenue to get closer than anyone else on the planet has ever to Ed's old school sound...

There are people on this board that are much better players than you are...

Not a single one of them puts themselves on a "high horse" like the one that you fancy yourself as being on.

The incessant badgering and hectoring tone in your posts to anyone that doesn't buy into your bullshit is extremely tiresome...

I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again. You have a near-pathological need to get the last word in so I fully expect you to come back with, "Well gee, multiple people have called me out multiple times, it can't possibly be justified, it can't possibly be me bringing this kind of reaction on myself..." :roll:

Anyways, to the rest of you guys, carry on gentlemen. :listen:

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by jape88 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 6:30 am

Ooo, that's a bit venomous mapat, doesn't make for a nice read :(

As a reminder, George did fire a warning over the future of the evh section if things didn't remain civil with each other :peace: It is only a hobby after all.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 7:04 am

Whoa.... what happened to this place? :hide:
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 7:16 am

So are we back to thinking the JBL's where used on VH1?
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by jape88 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 8:21 am

I've always been under the impression they were used and the Backpage clips sort of confirmed it.
My guess has been that one of Ed's early club days fave cab was the mixed jbl/celestion one. Mixing his liking for the fender amp seen in the early pics and probably taking two twin reverb spks or a fender 2x12 cabs spks to get a tonal mix (guessing here!). Strat's comment on the other cab being in the reverb room would back the blackpage clip cab being in the dry room, although I'm not sure why they didn't use the other spk out on the amp to feed the reverb room cab? Surely using say the wood amp to power the other cab, would open problems with matching the tone of 12301, unless this was intentional to give a wider tone to the mix?
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 8:32 am

Baaahhh, you beat me to it Nick!!! :evil:

I was just going to post those tracks!
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by vanhalen5150 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 8:34 am

I think the cab would have been in the echo chamber correct? Not the room with the plate reverb?
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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by Strat78 » Wed Nov 25, 2015 10:34 am

It sounds like two amps to me possibly the wooden amp (slightly wet and faded back) and the 12301 (dry and in your face). The tone as raw and gritty as it is has a clean element to it. Listen to those little rakes over the strings while that D chord is sustaining, they are crystal clear and that slap back seems a little separated from that main heavy tone as well. The wooden amp had higher filtering and the 2.7k instead of the 820R which would make for a cleaner articulated tone like you hear with those rakes. Just thinking out loud, I do have a shitty clip somewhere where I tried this, :scratch:
Here it is:
https://soundcloud.com/iskra68/68-50-100a
-but this was with a 100w and a 50w daisy chained with the echoplex only going to the 50w. Instead of the 50w I think a 69 100w circuit running a little cleaner would have done the trick.

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Re: Old internet article on the recording of Eruption

Post by jnew » Wed Nov 25, 2015 11:13 am

Strat78 wrote:It sounds like two amps to me possibly the wooden amp (slightly wet and faded back) and the 12301 (dry and in your face). The tone as raw and gritty as it is has a clean element to it. Listen to those little rakes over the strings while that D chord is sustaining, they are crystal clear and that slap back seems a little separated from that main heavy tone as well. The wooden amp had higher filtering and the 2.7k instead of the 820R which would make for a cleaner articulated tone like you hear with those rakes. Just thinking out loud, I do have a shitty clip somewhere where I tried this, :scratch:
Here it is:
https://soundcloud.com/iskra68/68-50-100a
-but this was with a 100w and a 50w daisy chained with the echoplex only going to the 50w. Instead of the 50w I think a 69 100w circuit running a little cleaner would have done the trick.
This makes absolute perfect sense to me. Your ears have picked it up in the little rakes and you're dead on the money. All these years, I've always questioned why the little whack whack between the D and E positions, sounded like such a clean amp with all that grit going on. Love it. :thumbsup:
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