Metropoulos Forum

The new Ted Templeman book has the only picture I've seen of the band recording VH1. It's taken from the control booth by Donn Landee. If it's Ed's slanted cab seen in the picture, it looks white or more likely stripped of tolex. Anyway pretty amazing to finally see. Unless it's been out there and I missed it!

Cool Ive always wanted to see it.

Interesting photo. Since there appears to be a single slant 4x12 cab there is no way Ed is running a 'normal' 100w head full bore...So somehow he's running a modified setup (i.e. variac'd way down or possibly slave setup). Equally interesting is the cabinet seems to have the unpainted pine strip of wood running horizontal across the middle of the cab which is something that you don't see on his cabinets until after January 1978. Also, the pair of JBL speakers seemed to always be loaded in that one straight cab and never in a slant cab which kinda contradicts the understanding that the JBL's & Celestion's were mic'd and mixed together...But you can clearly see that the cabinet is mic'd with two microphones. I see that Alex didn't have is modified kick drum(s) setup yet (two shells connected together).

The ceiling height looks so low.

Alex looks to be on a riser. The baffle configuration is interesting, with the amps right on the other side, and in front of the drum baffle. They are all pretty much pulled in as tight as possible, instead of spread out in the room. Alex looks like he is right behind EVH's amp, and Mike more off to his right. And they are set up facing the closer wall, as opposed to pointed out towards the farthest wall.

Wonder where the room mic is.

Great pic. Always cool to see more history of the recording of VH1.

Here's a video of an attempt to recreate the VH1 album in that room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpiZCV5iUU4

I'm guessing the Ibanez destroyer was still white at this point in time? (aug/sep '77)

Also, I haven't been here in a while... was it ever determined for sure if for these recordings whether Ed's strat had the painted B&W stripe pattern w maple fingerboard, or still as black w white pickguard and rosewood fingerboard?

Interesting talk on VH1... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkq7eUy8Rf0

Seabean wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 08, 2020 3:49 pm

Great pic. Always cool to see more history of the recording of VH1.

Here's a video of an attempt to recreate the VH1 album in that room:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpiZCV5iUU4

I'm guessing the Ibanez destroyer was still white at this point in time? (aug/sep '77)

Also, I haven't been here in a while... was it ever determined for sure if for these recordings whether Ed's strat had the painted B&W stripe pattern w maple fingerboard, or still as black w white pickguard and rosewood fingerboard?

I had an interesting exchange with Warren on this. He thinks we are cooks for thinking the guitar, bass and drums were recorded in the same room, even though there are photographic evidence for VH2, W&CF, and now VH1; as well as testimony from folks who were there. This is why he put his guitars in the ISO booth. He is clearly a better engineer than I, but it seems obvious that he does not to like baffles.

The phot from VH1 is great because it clearly shows one slant cab, which has to be the only one EVH had that had JBL Ds in it. Which means the Celestion was probably a pair of Blackbacks on the bottom. We can see that the mic is not particularly close to the speaker either. If they were recording all live, in the same room, my feeling is that the Variac was set relatively low. It wasn't a magic tone machine, but more of a giant master volume. By the time you get down there you 100w Plexi is a ~25w amp, which is totally manageable with baffles and clever positioning, IMHO.

My $0.02!

Well everyone should view the deep dive on Ed's sound that Pete Thorn did on youtube. That and the interview in sunset sound. The one where they play Eruption that was captured with a room mic. All these things would've sparked a 10 page thread in here 8 or 9 years ago!

monkface wrote: ↑

Fri Dec 11, 2020 8:10 pm

Well everyone should view the deep dive on Ed's sound that Pete Thorn did on youtube. That and the interview in sunset sound. The one where they play Eruption that was captured with a room mic. All these things would've sparked a 10 page thread in here 8 or 9 years ago!

True ... except there was nothing revealed that was not already discussed at nauseam on this forum ten years ago: the 50k mids pot, the 470 fat cap, the JBL, the blackback, the Super 70, the PAF, the EP pre-amp, etc.

... even things they did not discuss like the cable type and length, the mic-pre-amps, the compressor, the volume pot value, possible magnet mods, amp slaving, etc. I think we tried it all already.

Ha ha I was watching that video thinking of the over 100 thousand posts over here that I've read for over 10 years. Still it was a good summation and example of it all.

Re the Frankensteins state at the time of the first record. You can hear in this bootleg the recorder around 12:40 remarking how Eddies guitar had one pickup:
https://youtu.be/6s_YVE5UxM4?t=748

I think this show is a month or so after they tracked?