Like a dog chasing after a car...

[ErickC]

...what are you gonna do once you get it?
Ofcourse im talking about the EVH Brown Sound tone. After acquiring all the gear, parts, tweaking etc, what do you plan to do with it?

[guitar007]

Play....

[efraser68]

I use it in my own band, sounds awesome, makes you look forward to playing the crappiest of venues!

[dirtycooter]

There are guys who have just played and not really cared how it sounded. Played the songs but the tone was.......so so
I find this annoying to hear. Its like they don't care. They don't wanna sound their best even though they play pretty good.

Then there are guys who have their own sound and play out and its cool.

The guys who pull out there own tone and its great plus they play great cause they know and love their own tone

Then there is the last rare breed-the guys that not only play great cause they like their tone

But it sounds LIKE THE RECORD. And THATS TOUGH AS HELL TO PULL OFF for alot of things and bands.

I like the last two best. But I woulda saved alot of money if plugging into Crate practice amp was gonna sound awesome to me, but it doesn't.
Maybe we should all just limit ourselves to PODs and play direct and see who the greatest player makes it to the top

[projectx102]

The dudes with the tone are the ones people go to see.

[Tone Slinger]

I play, hit lots of old EVH riffs and licks, smile, then play some more . My set up allows me to pretty much get at the sound/s that have inspired me over my playing span.

[ErickC]

The only reason i bring this up is because there are a lot of people seeking THAT particular tone, i'm just curious if after the chase is over, will they eventually use it and how. There's the VHI tone for example, once you "get it" will you only play VHI tunes?

[guitar007]

Yes...

[Tone Slinger]

Nah, not just vh1 tunes. If I play my Les Paul through my setup, I can easily conjure up old, UFO era Michael Schenker. There are certain things that get you 'there' (VH1 tone) besides the amp,obviously. My reissue '74 Phase 90 obviously gets used alot when I'm shooting for VH1 tone, as well as the particular guitar I use ('56 reissue Tokai(1983) w/dsd and Warmoth neck, 6 screw tremelo,etc. If I am going for, say, 'Fair Warning' (Mean Street for ex.) tone, then I plugin my Hrad Ash Warmoth with floyd Rose. So, to use certain guitars & effects through your rig can get you lots of mileage, even though the amp itself is geared towards early Ed. My own stuff, at times, sounds nothing like Van Halenfor instance. My amp is a Metro 12xxx with Mod5 spec, so, in many way's I sort of emulate,or simulate 'certain' cranked plexi tones, but with more ease and flexibility. I was actually half way to 'stock' circuit,but decided that a good attenuator would be 'out of my price range at the moment. I guess I really need tobuild another amp, cause I really like this Mod5 spec,but, here again,I cant really afford to .

[mr.twistyneck]

I use it everywhere. If I have to play "867-5309", it just got a little dirtier. If I have to play "Harder To Breathe", then it just got stickier. If I have to play "I'm All Shook Up", then I roll back the volume to let the vocals cut through, and then salt and pepper some whomp wherever it seems appropriate.

Let us look at the Top five regrets of the dying. Here's what I do with respect to guitar tone/attitude to address these regrets:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. So I use the tone I want. Screw the haters, purists and corksniffers. They hate everybody.

2. I wish I hadn't worked so hard. Play more! And when you play, simplify the rig!

3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings. I like, what I think is, the brown sound, and I really don't care if you don't like that.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I stay in bands....and come to the Metroamp Forum!

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. All of the above. Play often, how you want, with what you want, while you can, as much as you can, without concern to naysayers.

Whether your sound is brown, purple or plaid - smile! and Play!

[garbeaj]

I find that getting closer to the tone has helped me appreciate the playing. It gets me closer to an understanding of what was going on in a particular player's hands and mind and emotions when I have a good approximation of the tone that said artist was using (or at least a close enough approximation for me...we all have our own threshold for how exact that is).

Learning something as close to note for note correct goes hand in hand with chasing the tone. It is all about gaining greater understanding about music, playing and sounds that move you.

I mean you really don't fully understand Stevie Ray's "Lenny" until you plug a nice maple neck strat straight into a vintage Super Reverb and play it as note correctly as you can with just the right spring reverb going from the amp. Even if you never play that song "out" anywhere, this will lead you to a far deeper understanding of the tune than you can get by using an Ibanez Jem with monkey grip into a Soldano 100W stack.

Then I usually pilfer the things I've learned from all these tone searches and quests for understanding into some of my own music or when I play on other's recordings. That's basically what all the greats did, especially the great electric guitarists. Ed did his level best to chase elements of Clapton's tone and he did his absolute best to copy Clapton's playing note-for-note. Then he turned all this (and licks from others) and his own brainstroms into his own style. Clapton attempted with all his might to try to sound like various players and learn their licks as note correct as he could...Freddie King, B.B. King, J.J. Cale, etc. then he did what Ed did and mashed it all up into his own style.

[rgorke]

I agree with most if the answers. Some say this tone is a one trick pony. I totally disagree with that. What Garbeaj said about people copying what others have done is what Ed says and he wants people to take what he has done and to take it in another direction. Will I ever sound like Ed? Well more like Roger playing Ed's songs. It makes me happy to have my 5 year old run down when I play DTNA, one of his new favorite songs. I think I can put that in a few of Twisty's categories.

[mr.twistyneck]

I mean you really don't fully understand Stevie Ray's "Lenny" until you plug a nice maple neck strat straight into a vintage Super Reverb and play it as note correctly as you can with just the right spring reverb going from the amp.

G-bizzle is correct. getting as close to your target's setup does lead to greater understanding, as does study of their style. You just have to dance with how far you want to go - and y'all know what i mean.

"Grokking" (google it) tone takes time. Time is limited. I'd rather know one tone really well, and futz my way through another half a dozen. Other players have different goals. There is no right or wrong metric as pertains to How Much Tone You Grok.

It makes me happy to have my 5 year old run down when I play DTNA

Rizzy-Gizzy, we share a common feeling here. My 13 year old daughter is me made over -but plays about 15 instruments. My 3.5 year old daughter plays the full size drum kit i put in the living room (with spousal approval, to boot). I have no idea what will become of my 3 month old boy - perhaps he will be smart and be a lawyer. it just seems more important that they like music - whatever they want to like -than for them to care about how good Daddy's umpty-billionth rendition of Eruption was.

[rgorke]

It makes me happy to have my 5 year old run down when I play DTNA

Rizzy-Gizzy, we share a common feeling here. My 13 year old daughter is me made over -but plays about 15 instruments. My 3.5 year old daughter plays the full size drum kit i put in the living room (with spousal approval, to boot). I have no idea what will become of my 3 month old boy - perhaps he will be smart and be a lawyer. it just seems more important that they like music - whatever they want to like -than for them to care about how good Daddy's umpty-billionth rendition of Eruption was.

Just as long as VH gets a similar amount of play time as Bruno Mars in my house, I am happy.

[mr.twistyneck]