Ed's 1978 touring rig.

[vanhalen5150]

Ed had pretty big hands for his size to begin with. Play guitar all day for 15 years, and you too will have banana fingered lobster claws.

[rgalpin]

Robin,

The placement of the EPs in the rig are not what I would expect.

[Some members may be compelled now to explain to me the pros and cons of before and after Amp 1. But we can talk about that in another thread. I played out for years with slave setups and I have used every imaginable configuration in live and studio situations. I want RL's take. If he's still around...]

Robin -
Would you happen to have any insight into Ed's reasoning on for putting the EPs before Amp 1 in the setup you described?

Do you know if he tried putting the EPs after Amp 1?

While you were around did he ever move them to after Amp 1, maybe in later setups, post-1978 rigs?

Thanks,
-Rob

[45auto]

i alwas thought he started using the "post" fx because of the way the digital ones sounded. flangers & such sound so much better. maybe he just wanted the boost from the ep's in front? i thought it maybe a little weird to not have the eq first in line, boosting the noise, but i'm sure he experimented plenty

[redozzman]

Robin,

The placement of the EPs in the rig are not what I would expect.

[Some members may be compelled now to explain to me the pros and cons of before and after Amp 1. But we can talk about that in another thread. I played out for years with slave setups and I have used every imaginable configuration in live and studio situations. I want RL's take. If he's still around...]

Robin -
Would you happen to have any insight into Ed's reasoning on for putting the EPs before Amp 1 in the setup you described?

Do you know if he tried putting the EPs after Amp 1?

While you were around did he ever move them to after Amp 1, maybe in later setups, post-1978 rigs?

Thanks,
-Rob

I'm Like you Rob, I have tried the echoplex in front and quite frankly it sounds like crap when you crank the amp, I tried it with the slave setup and it still sounded bad in front, but in between the two amps it sounds great!

[BURN]

If you loop it to the channel 2 on the amp it sounds good also...

[rgalpin]

[... But we can talk about that in another thread . . . I want RL's take. If he's still around...]


-RICHARD G.

[T.J.Fuller]

It also seems that Ed was pretty fast at working the guitar's volume knob.
If he did in fact use these time based effects at amps front end he would really have to rely on that talent

I really think those 1984 noodling clips let you hear how much noise is in his signal but, he is very quick with the volume knob - could be good reason it doesn't sound crappy because Ed is a human noise gate.

[dtdionne]

Shew...ive been debating asking this and have flip flopped quite a few times...anyway, what does jumpering mean in this application?

[dtdionne]

I havent finished the thread but I wanted to say something, and I could be wrong, but I wish we all could stay on point and try not to speculate, and only post questions about the 78 touring rig. He said he'd get to other stuff in later posts...let the story unfold in its own time.

[dtdionne]

Did Ed us the same rig for the 78 tour as he did for the "The last show at the Pasadena Civic" (which I think was in 77)? That bootleg also known as the nightmare before halloween has my favorite tone of his.

[rgorke]

Robin, did Ed us the same rig for the 78 tour as he did for the Nightmare before Halloween show (which I think was in 77)?

Or probably a better way for him to remember the show, as DLR says, "The last show at the Pasadena Civic."

[Crunchboy]

Hey Robin,

Question about the EP3 settings...

On the boots and the albums I hear a relatively long slap echo a lot - practically all the time. It's about 300ms give or take (for reference: this is about the length of an 8th note in Runnin' w/ Devil. Back then who knew or cared how many freakin' milliseconds! ).

I assume one of the EP3s was set like that all the time.

Is this the one you refer to as being a slap? and being on most of the time?

Someone on here assumed that the SLAP you referred to was like 110ms. I don't hear that - I just hear the longer slap around 300 ms. And then there's another echo effect he used sparingly, for instance, in Down in Flames which is more of a spacey trippy Hendrix kind of effect.

So is there a tight 110ms type of slap somewhere in his chain that I am not hearing?

Thanks for any details you've got on this,
-Rob

A good example of the shorter slap can be heard at :51 of "You Really Got Me"
A good example of the longer (300 ms) slap can be heard at :58-1:00 of "On Fire"
I always assumed that shorter slap was an outboard unit patched in at the console.
The longer, dirty slap, is clearly the Echolplex.

[MikeO]

It also seems that Ed was pretty fast at working the guitar's volume knob.
If he did in fact use these time based effects at amps front end he would really have to rely on that talent

I really think those 1984 noodling clips let you hear how much noise is in his signal but, he is very quick with the volume knob - could be good reason it doesn't sound crappy because Ed is a human noise gate.

+1 !

[dtdionne]

So his main plexi only had one cap on top? Does top mean where the tubes are? i ask cause I'm building the metro 100w kit spec'd to a 12xxxx series (for one reason and one reason only EVH1 tone baby!) and mines got 6 caps on top...what am i missing?

[dirtycooter]

Run two separate tape style delays in series guys and go for slap 120ms on the 1st one and around 300ms on the 2nd one then f with the mix knobs. Look for adding in the second one to compliment the first one like a two tap delay thing