RPM wrote:

Love it ! Great job man, Definitely enjoyed it !

GCKelloch wrote:

Excellent job on the playing, and that's a convincing EVH tone. I went down that road a while back and learned quite a bit about his setup from some primary sources. I have some suggestions on what was likely hitting the console...or whatever the mics were first plugged into. Please don't be offended. I find this very interesting, and I only hope you might as well.

First, would be the guitar: Of course, "Frankenstein" had a Maple FB, possibly with several poly coats over the frets, That absorbs less high-end than Indian RW, but I don't think the EVH sound generally involves much above ~4kHz from the guitar. I do think he had loaded it by then with the ES-335 PAF he rewound with what was believed to be 43AWG poly wire. Who knows how many winds, but my 11.5k bridge GFS VEH pickup has that kind of midrange sound. Something in the ~5H range should do, but there's a pretty wide margin for what will work. Pete Thorne is convinced he previously had a Mighty Might "Super Distortion" copy in it, which would have likely been in the ~8H range. The body was reportedly Ash, but that's arguably another fine point. Every piece of wood is different, but Northern Ash generally damps less upper-mids and possibly more lower-mids than Alder due to the complex alternating grain structure...that's generally been true in my experience, anyway. I replaced the 4.4lb Ader body with a 6lb (yikes!) roasted-Ash body on a guitar, and that's how the tone response changed. The neck is Maple w/Ebony FB, so it's a pretty bright guitar.

More importantly, is the signal after the guitar. I'm glad you included the screen pic of the signal chain. I found that mainly just boosting 1.1kHz with the Reaper EQ b4 S-gear worked well. That's reportedly what EVH did in the studio. Seems like you are countering the 1kHz+ roll-off of the Drive Thru pedal by boosting 3kHz, but you could discard the Drive Thru pedal and mainly just boost 1.1kHz with the EQ and then drive The Stealer with any simple Volume plugin until it has enough gain. EVH often used an Echoplex b4 his amp. It might be worth looking for a free VST of that to at least get the kind of fat boost sound it contributed.

The Stealer is probably best for the EVH sound, but I'd make a few changes. First, I'd disable the Boost switch. Mike knows the details, but I think that filters above ~2kHz, as well as adding the extra gain stage. There was no such filtering or added gain stage in EVH's Plexi's. Like Hendrix b4 him, he reportedly maxed the tone stack and Presence knobs, and probably both chanel gain knobs. That will drive the amp section much harder than with the Middle knob down. The Bright Contour knob is more of a mystery, but he may have just had both channels maxed. Then, he reduced the output ~3dB by setting his Variac down to ~90V. He once said he set it as low as possible b4 the signal would start dropping out so club owners wouldn't complain as much. That's the most plausible explanation. I'd experiment with higher Sag settings to get closer to that squashed transient response. It's not quite the same as lowering the amp V, but 7~8 should sound about right. I'd leave the Pres Frq at 5, but lowered amp V would indeed reduce the high end, so increasing the High Cut makes sense.

Of course, there was likely some high-end roll-off as well as some Neve console transformer fattening, tape compression, and whatever else applied to the mic'd signal, so it's impossible to discern the sound b4 all that. He did however have two JBL D120F speakers in the top of his Marshall cab, although he may not have used that cab after the first few albums. Michael Anthony was positioned across from the cab in early sessions and said the sound was unbearably bright/piercing...sounds like D120F's to me. The closest S-Gear cab to a D120F would be the S12L, although it really doesn't have the same kind of upper-mid tone. For my EVH preset, I actually bought the Red Wirez K120 Cab IR pack set with the Tab57 mic (has a softer sounding transformer than stock) at Cap Edge 2" distance mixed 4dB down with an S-Gear M25 cab w/Dyn 57 cap 2". I recently watched an interview with a veteran Sunset Sound studio engineer who said one of the SM57's was right up to the speaker and angled out toward the cap edge to reduce harshness. I suspect that would be on one of the D120F's. I don't have that mic pos option, but K120's don't have quite as much high-end as D120F's. There's plenty o' bass with the mic's at 2", but they could be set a bit closer to fatten, and possibly sweeten, the tone. You can then reduce the bass a bit with the Bass knob. I might try that myself.

There's a free Klanghelm plugin called "IVGI2" you can use to cover the post mic fattening, compression and harmonics effects. It does a lot of musically useful things for something with not a lot of parameters. Worth the download if you don't have something better. They also have two very nice free compressors if you want that as well.

asintoras wrote:

GCKelloch wrote:

Excellent job on the playing, and that's a convincing EVH tone. I went down that road a while back and learned quite a bit about his setup from some primary sources. I have some suggestions on what was likely hitting the console...or whatever the mics were first plugged into. Please don't be offended. I find this very interesting, and I only hope you might as well.

First, would be the guitar: Of course, "Frankenstein" had a Maple FB, possibly with several poly coats over the frets, That absorbs less high-end than Indian RW, but I don't think the EVH sound generally involves much above ~4kHz from the guitar. I do think he had loaded it by then with the ES-335 PAF he rewound with what was believed to be 43AWG poly wire. Who knows how many winds, but my 11.5k bridge GFS VEH pickup has that kind of midrange sound. Something in the ~5H range should do, but there's a pretty wide margin for what will work. Pete Thorne is convinced he previously had a Mighty Might "Super Distortion" copy in it, which would have likely been in the ~8H range. The body was reportedly Ash, but that's arguably another fine point. Every piece of wood is different, but Northern Ash generally damps less upper-mids and possibly more lower-mids than Alder due to the complex alternating grain structure...that's generally been true in my experience, anyway. I replaced the 4.4lb Ader body with a 6lb (yikes!) roasted-Ash body on a guitar, and that's how the tone response changed. The neck is Maple w/Ebony FB, so it's a pretty bright guitar.

More importantly, is the signal after the guitar. I'm glad you included the screen pic of the signal chain. I found that mainly just boosting 1.1kHz with the Reaper EQ b4 S-gear worked well. That's reportedly what EVH did in the studio. Seems like you are countering the 1kHz+ roll-off of the Drive Thru pedal by boosting 3kHz, but you could discard the Drive Thru pedal and mainly just boost 1.1kHz with the EQ and then drive The Stealer with any simple Volume plugin until it has enough gain. EVH often used an Echoplex b4 his amp. It might be worth looking for a free VST of that to at least get the kind of fat boost sound it contributed.

The Stealer is probably best for the EVH sound, but I'd make a few changes. First, I'd disable the Boost switch. Mike knows the details, but I think that filters above ~2kHz, as well as adding the extra gain stage. There was no such filtering or added gain stage in EVH's Plexi's. Like Hendrix b4 him, he reportedly maxed the tone stack and Presence knobs, and probably botchannelel gain knobs. That will drive the amp section much harder than with the Middle knob down. The Bright Contour knob is more of a mystery, but he may have just had both channels maxed. Then, he reduced the output ~3dB by setting his Variac down to ~90V. He once said he set it as low as possible b4 the signal would start dropping out so club owners wouldn't complain as much. That's the most plausible explanation. I'd experiment with higher Sag settings to get closer to that squashed transient response. It's not quite the same as lowering the amp V, but 7~8 should sound about right. I'd leave the Pres Frq at 5, but lowered amp V would indeed reduce the high end, so increasing the High Cut makes sense.

Of course, there was likely some high-end roll-off as well as some Neve console transformer fattening, tape compression, and whatever else applied to the mic'd signal, so it's impossible to discern the sound b4 all that. He did however have two JBL D120F speakers in the top of his Marshall cab, although he may not have used that cab after the first few albums. Michael Anthony was positioned across from the cab in early sessions and said the sound was unbearably bright/piercing...sounds like D120F's to me. The closest S-Gear cab to a D120F would be the S12L, although it really doesn't have the same kind of upper-mid tone. For my EVH preset, I actually bought the Red Wirez K120 Cab IR pack set with the Tab57 micwhich (has a softer sounding transformer than stock) at Cap Edge 2" distance mixed 4dB down with an S-Gear M25 cab w/Dyn 57 cap 2". I recently watched an interview with a veteran Sunset Sound studio engineer who said one of the SM57's was right up to the speaker and angled out toward the cap edge to reduce harshness. I suspect that would be on one of the D120F's. I don't have that mic pos option, but K120's don't have quite as much high-end as D120F's. There's plenty o' bass with the mic's at 2", but they could be set a bit closer to fatten, and possibly sweeten, the tone. You can then reduce the bass a bit with the Bass knob. I might try that myself.

There's a free Klanghelm plugin called "IVGI2" you can use to cover the post mic fattening, compression and harmonics effects. It does a lot of musically useful things for something with not a lot of parameters. Worth the download if you don't have something better. They also have two very nice free compressors if you want that as well.

Wow, many thanks for the detailed information!! I will give it a try to your suggestions, but of course, I only can do with what I have at hand, and I don't have Frankensteinin with those characteristics, or the cabs you described.

Also, my goal was only to get into the ballpark, because every album had a slightly different tone, so in other words, a tone that could fit the bill for all classic VH and adjust with the volume.

I tried moving both EQ's (Reaper and Soundtoys) before the amp and anywhere in the chain, and I thought that the final position got me closer to the tone, but yes, I was aware that Eddie used a MXR graphic eq before the amp, plus the pre-amp section of the Echoplex. However, it is always easier to shape the tone after the amp, but back in the day and outside of the studio, Eddie could only really do it in front of the amp, as most likely he could not rely on the PA they had.

I also tried the Decapitor from Soundtoys, which I believe could do a similar job to the Klanghelm. Have you tried it?

And final question, just out of curiosity: what do you do for a living? You seem to be very deep into the technicalities , so I presume you are a sound engineer of sorts?

Thanks again for the feedback, and I don't feel offended at all!