I think the take away here was Eddie was able to take an insane fire breathing amount of impractical gain and harness and wield it like some mystical weapon.
This reminds me of the guitar world video where Eddie talks about the time he invited Billy Corgan to the 5150 studio for an interview. When Billy tried out Peavy Wolfgang and 5150 amp he was surprised how out of control the guitar sound was. He asked Eddie how the sound was set up. 🖐🏼 🤚🏻 🎸 to the amp.
Yeah it always bores me when people go on about "too much gain", gain at noon, not scooping too much, mids at noon and so on. What they create sounds "good" but terribly safe and generic. Good if you make tutorial tracka for guitar magazine cd:s....
Funny thing how Dime seemed to be able to do the same thing (waaaaaay different kind of tone tho) there really was something with their hands and style. Absolute legends.
Indeed. Volume was a huge part of Eddie's tone too. A lot of the techniques he used were impossible without shit tons of volume. The amp fights you at those volumes, but Ed was like a bull rider taming the beast.
What is often grossly overlooked with evh is his use of the volume knob. He cranked tf out of the amp, but typically kept his guitar volume at about 80-90% and only went all the way for solos. It’s an old school thing that has somehow gotten lost today. Eddie was a master of manipulating his tone with the volume knob and he was so fast and smooth with it you can’t even tell that’s what he was doing.
4:37 - Yup. It's almost like Eddie knew what he was doing. lol Can confirm: pulling the ol' "Marty McFly A chord" in front of a full 5150 stack, with the "Eddie's way" settings and at volume, is quite satisfying.
@@michaeldoerksen2841 I know. i never understood how people could happily play through a computer. especially as a doom metal head, no way id put my guitar through anything but big ass cabs.
@@malakai.2025 I have a JCM800, a 5150 and a JCA 50, if I plugged into any of them ...I would probably be lynched by my neighbours, terraced housing and thin walls make Computers the only option at home (other than a cheap 10 watt Practice amp)
Totally agree. From the early Marshall days to Soldano and all the different versions of 5150 amps. He had an ear for killer tones and evolved over albums. Everybody likes to cite the early "Brown sound” days, but his tone was always killer and never disappointed. His 5150 amps went on to influence the sound of modern metal for years to come.
I gotta ask, WHAT ABOUT A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH THOUGH? That may be my favorite modern high gain sound ever. It sounds so powerful and huge. It doesn't have the nostalgia people want it to, but it's objectively awesome. It convinced me quick to buy one of those EVH 5150 6L6's. Best sounding amp in the world to me.
Amps and power and pedals and all that change over the years so probably at that time when he was playing it did sound really good and not only that he was one of a kind guitar player that no had ever been able to copy just like dimebag.
Not that much changed tbh. It's just the harmonizer that made it sounds a little extra from the previous one. If you compare Ed's 2015s live tone vs his 1978 tone it sounds pretty close just with extra gain.
If you check the inside booklet of van halen greatest hits vol 1, there is a shot of all the bands gear at 5150. The settings are totally different..if i remember right.. pre gain for the green channel was 8..pre gain for red channel was 8..low was 8..mid was 2..high was 8..resonance was 8 and so was the presence. I forget what the post gain on both channels was.
To me Eddie’s tone and playing was always the most "hard rock” tone you could ever get that straddles the line into straight metal territory. I always loved his sound from the early “brown” sound to the Soldano days to the 5150 in all of its incarnations. He always had a killer ear for tone and knew what he wanted. His playing and innovations to guitar and amps will live on forever.
Eddie was the first guitarist that I really looked up to as a kid and is still one of my guitar heroes and I still credit a lot of my playing style to him, it seriously sucks that we lost him but I’m still thankful for the songs he’s given us over the years and for inspiring me (and every guitarist in some way) to pick up the instrument back when I was 10 years old, and I think it’s time for heaven to experience an Eruption if its own
I’ve read and heard many interviews talking about Eddie’s tone. What stands out to me is his touch. It is feather light which explains how he so easily produces mutes, sustain, and harmonics like no one else. Makes sense why Eddie used such a high gain.
I have to say, Peavey 5150 and 6505 has the perfect tone for me at least. When i purchased my Peavey 6505 (and i still have it!) 2006 i knew, that i would never sell it. It is amp for a lifetime for me.
Same here. I have a dual rec, an engl firebal a Marshall JVM 210 and a 6505+. The peavey gets quite a bit more annoying the neighbors time than the others do.
@Joe Paul the price is definitely appealing. Of all the amps I listed, the Peavey is the only one I bought brand new. Got it on a pretty good GC Memorial Day sale, but still paid less than any of the others used.
I sold my 5150. The next day Eddie died!!! I owned it for 25 years. I feel sick. I don't know what I was thinking. I've been on unemployment since Covid hit. Wife and I need the money. 😭
@@paulkline3011 that sucks man, once things get better im sure you could get another one at a real good price, I like the 5150ii the best, crunch channel is great
Eddie used his Soldano 100w SLOs on the For "Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" album but did use early 5150 stacks on the tour after a certain point. It was their longest tour ever and I think he was using Soldanos in the early leg of the tour. Eddie and Peavey claim that the Peavey Sheffield 1200 speakers were what Ed preferred. They claim they sound like a broken-in greenback, but they're more like a G12-65 to my ears. A lot of players hate them but I've never changed mine out as they sound terrific to me with that amp. He recorded the Peavey 5150 head on "Balance" and the incredible 5150 212 combo was used on Van Halen "III" album and 5150 II heads on the tour. Ed's pickups of choice in the Ernie Ball "Axis" were custom-wound DiMarzio humbuckers and later in the Peavey he preferred the DiMarzio "Air Norton" which was derived from those early custom humbuckers. One important note is that the early 5150 "block letter" heads had much better tubes than the later "script" signature heads due to lack of supply. If you're still using the original Chinese tubes in a signature head, it's worth it tube upgrade them. The Low Input channel bypasses a gain stage. Try all of the options of Hi/Low abd Red/Green and you'll be surprised at what this amp can do ✌🏼😎👍🏼🎸
I’ve heard, dont quote me, that his Soldanos were basically clones of his original marshall JCM 800…. Then when he went to Peavey it was a continuation of that….. so are all our peavey 5150s and 6505s just modified JCM 800 clones?
@@wrenchhead4378 his old Marshall was a 100w plexi, not an 800. Soldanos are loosely based on modded Marshalls I guess but they have a pretty different power section. What you may have read is that the original 5150 was inspired by the SLO 100.
Like most old school players Ed rode his volume knob. Some of us from the late 70’s had no choice with 1 channel amps and no gates etc. Like fighting and taming a wild beast at stage volumes.... how I miss those days :)
You still can get benefits from it. I see guys now stacking fifty thousand dirt boxes, and I always think to myself, "Just use your volume, man, and you can get any variety of gain you want." Even if you have a compressor in the chain, stick a volume pedal after and you get the same thing. Now the only gain pedal I have is a tube screamer, to occasionally push the three channels of my EVH amp.
@@kiillabytez Def keeps things tame when doing stops in songs too. I've seen so many guitar players not use a noise gate, and keep their gtr volume cranked.....so when they come to a dead "stop" in songs it's either "noise" or "feedback" city, lol.
@@Mudder1310 There really isn't a lot of gain in the 70s and 80s. A lot less than you think. More guitarist today use it to hide mistakes than use it for an effect. I personally never go above 8.5 Gain in any setup. Sometimes too much is just too much.
I suggest a redo for this one. Find an empty warehouse and mic up a full stack... at Eddie’s volume. I want to hear the amp feeding back as you play it. Crank that sh*t up, man! 🤘🤨
It’s probably worth remembering that Eddie’s settings were optimised for playing live in arena’s, so using them at bedroom volume at home, or straight in to an interface with IR’s, they’re going to sound maybe a bit off from what you’d expect. Still sounds awesome though!
I have a 5150 I bought brand new in the early 2000s and my operators manual does not have those settings. However, I also have the April 1994 issue of Guitar Shop with Van Halen’s “my gear secrets” with personal amp settings included. The settings match what you have there. Regarding input, the question is asked of Eddie in the mag and he responds thusly “Mostly high, unless I’m in the studio and need a nice clean sound. But for live stuff, its always high.”
Wow that’s a blast from the past. I have a lot of old guitar mags from Guitar World, Guitar Player, and a lot of their offshoots and I remember that issue of Guitar Shop. 1994 was the year I graduated high school and was around the time I first seriously got into playing guitar. I read that issue so many times and I still have it.
Sounds good. When I had my 5150 I played a lot of 90’s Van Halen, if you use the clean channel in crunch mode with those settings you get his Humans Being style rhythm tone and then switch to Lead channel for solos.
The only other thing you need is the harmonizer to get closer to his W/D/W setup for that era's tone. Still, once you hit that first A chord, you were absolutely on point as far as pure amp tone goes. Lotta nostalgia hit for a second. Sick video 🤘🏽🤘🏽
Gotta love this guy, looks behind him to check if anyone else is playing...I have done that. As if, ope, that can't be me. Super rewarding when you find out it is you.
Great video! Am a huge VH fan.Saw them 3 times in concert and own the 5150 II and the EVH 50 watt EL34. Watching this reminds me of what Eddie said in an interview about Billy Corgan trying out his own rig.He said it was howling and feeding back on him big time.I think Billy's a great player but I guess it just goes to show,everyone's own personal settings are a world unto themselves.Thanks again Fluff!
I bought a 5150 block letter brand new, still own it, even has original tubes, for years those were my settings. Lately I have been playing some more modern djenty stuff, just back off the gain, boost the mids a bit, add resonance and throw a tubescreamer in front and bam, I'm there. Such an incredible amp.
If you think about when Eddie started playing live and was using dimed Marshalls, his ability to play an amp that is on the brink started then. It just shows how good his technique was to play cleanly. The amp hides nothing and will expose your lack of technique. Cool video. Thanks!
I had an original "block logo" head and I used the amp settings as indicated in a magazine back in the day as I bought the head used and no manual. I used the crunch channel, rather than the high gain. I used a separate amp for clean, a Fender Super Reverb. The cab for the head was a Marshall with Greenbacks. Ed's settings were just about spot on but I did adjust the bass and mids as you did. I also turned the presence down one notch as it was a little bright. To lower volume I used an attenuator which also created the need to adjust Ed's settings, which was a Tom Scholz Power Soak and later a Hot Tuna Hot Plate (blue one for 8ohms).Oddly. nearly 20 years later, I wished I kept that head. I would have played it differently, put it through a 212 cab with Vintage 30s, kept an attenuator of sorts and somehow would use the clean and high gain channel and ditch the Fender combo. Too much to lug around. I could turn the attenuator down low enough to not blow my house up. The only limitation of the Peavey 5150 was the common eq. Its hard getting the clean channel to sound good when the eg was set for either dirty channel. Ed solved that with the 5150 II that came out in the late 90s with two separate eqs for two of the channels which relates quite well to the EVH 5150 III, which sports completely independent eq and resonance controls for all three channels. Peavey still makes the 6505 in both 5150 versions including a smaller lower watt head that all sound pretty darn good and are less money than the new EVH stuff. Ed. Edward. King Ed or Eddie.The great Van Halen. EVH. He was the reason why I started playing. He was easily the greatest guitarist since Hendrix and reinvented rock guitar at a time when it was needed. Imagine if his little band never showed up and you realize his contribution. Long live Ed. RIP EVH.
I wish Marshall and Eddie hooked up and made an Eddie Van Halen Plexi for the original tone. “Brown”. I have an EVH EL34. And do like it. But Eds best tone and the tone for him was his Plexi set up in my opinion. Fit him best.
Not to knock the Ox Box because it is a great unit, but I bet these settings were made to push some air on stage and in the studio live room. Theres something that studio monitors can't really replicate that a amp in a room makes you feel and play, and being he only guitarist in the band he could get away with some a big tone haha
The crunch channel of that amp was killer!! I discovered that when the lead channel stopped working. HAHAHA!! I owned 2 of the original block letter amps. Bought with my graduation money in 1992.
My God! 5150 will always be my go to. I wouldn't necessarily use those settings either but it still sounds amazing. It's just a tough amp to beat when it comes to tone.
It has a lot of things behind that settings. Edward used a mid barky, high output pickup but he lowered the pickup so much. Plus the harmonizers and all the rack fxs.
Eddie used Alnico 2 magnets with a hot humbucker about 14kohms. Makes a huge difference in tone when using that pickup in that amp. That would be why it sounds different in your setup.
This tone sounds uncontrolled in a studio setting but in a large venue like they were playing in those days it probably sounded great. He also rode the volume knob quite a lot too.
My dream amp! Lots of great info here and in the comments. James Brown deserves credit for bringing EVH's vision for the amp to life, and of course Mike Soldano and his SLO-100, high gain predecessor to the 5150 amp.
So getting into mixing and being a guitar player I realized that getting that crisp clean and full vocal to pop with the guitar you really need to scoop a good bit depending on the vocal frequencies. I would venture to think Eddie realized this when trying to replicate the studio sound or something. I have recorded guitars then set the studio eq then went and tried to match the amp to what sounded best for the mix and it sounds like crap by itself; however, once keys, vocals, drums, bass, etc.. are all in the mix it sits well. Point being, you can't dial in your sound in isolation guitar players! Your sound is drastically influenced by your band instrument and vocal dynamics. You have to work on sound as a whole together just like practicing your songs. So many people miss this important step.
@@user-wv5gv3dw5u Totally agree. These kids on here are acting like EVH actually recorded with a 5150 or something. All his best work was all Marshals, period! A few songs on Balance and Vh3 is the only time you hear the Peavey ever recorded and that's as far from his best work as you can get.
As far as the pickup thing goes, the pickups in Eddie's Music Man guitars were made by Dimarzio and were based on the Tone Zone and Air Norton. Dimarzio even says they're pretty much interchangeable on their website.
On that VH settings the mids are way more present than one would expect at those settings !!! Speakers. It's actually quite neutral eq wise, not too much of anything, and you added what you thought would be good it sounded tinny
Block letter with the Sylvanias? He liked basswood and 9’s, so that may be where the wild bass/mid settings. Prolly Alnico 2 mags back then as well. GREAT video to pair with my morning cuppa joe! See ya over on RT bro!
I don't think he used Alnico 2 magnets. His Ernie Ball guitar had Alnico 5 mag DiMarzio's in it and the Peavey Wolfgang pickups were based off the pickups from his Musicman guitar. Not sure if Peavey changed the magnet when re-creating those DiMarzio's or not though. Also most people use the wrong DiMarzio pickup. They use the Tone Zone instead of the Air Zone which IMO is much closer to the EVH sound of the period. Both are very similar pickups the Air Zone just has a little less output. For some reason they(Dimarzio, EBMM, Peavey) won't tell people it's the Air Zone. They just say Eddies pickup very similar to Tone Zone which is the Air Zone.
Another thing about these amps is 100 ohm screen resistors on power tubes, biased as cold as a witch’s tit in a brass brassiere on the shady side of an iceberg! Weird because Ed’s old school tone was variac’d low voltage, but with the bias run up super hot! If you have an amp with a low-power switch that reduces B+ (power tube voltage), use that and rebias hot. It is a very addictive sound!
Eddie is a more traditional player, whereby he rides his volume knob a lot, so he probably has his gain set up higher because he backs off his volume a bunch. And the guitar pickups give a mid boost when you back off the volume, thus why he probably mid scoops his amps. And then uses his volume as a boost.
Without an attenuator, anything after post gain 2 is scary loud. Lead past 12 is a lot of gain as well. I'm not saying any of that is bad. I have a Mesa Boogie MarkIV now as well, and in comparison, you can run the 5150 EQ any way you want, and it still sounds usable. Not like the mkIV. I love both amps. They're both absolutely awesome. Good video. Super fun stuff..
Eddie used to play the crunch channel on his amps, also he picked lightly and used his guitar's volume for the most part... so might explain those settings
Lot of variables, how much moisture is in the air and temperature can impact the sound greatly. How high the volume on your guitar is does as well...Eddie said Billy Corrigan played his rig and disortion was uncontrollable... there is one undeniable fact Eddie's sound was in his fingers.
Played a 6505+ for years and without ever knowing my settings were very close to Eddie's. Speakers make a big difference. Thats why Eddie used alot of bass.
Damn..... nailed it pretty well from that era. Low end of four..... Listen to the beginning of what love can do and you can hear the thump. Not typical of today's guitar tones. I think in the 90's we all played a bit scooped due to Eddie's tone.
I had a friend who was roadie for Van Halen in New Zealand in the 90s when they came He said they had Soldanos under the stage miced up, cranked and the 5150 amps on stage were empty, except for one, with led lights on each one to make it look like each was powered up
Ed's live heads were always off-stage in his pit. The stage set-up is just that. For visual pop only. That entire wall of cabs and amps were for show, except for three 4x12s for the w/d/w set-up. I saw his 2012 set-up, and there weren't even power cables going to any of those heads on-stage. For looks only.
It’s Interesting to me how amount and type of gain used on electric guitar changes with the tastes of the era. Toward the 90s we thought guitar tone would keep getting heavier and gainier yet a modern metal tone actually dials back the bass and gain and turns up the compression.
Many guitarists that have watched him play in person over the years said he attacks the strings harder than any player they've ever seen so not sure that's true
He didn’t have a light touch. He man handled his guitar and had excellent touch. He always played loud and he was very good at muting unwanted sounds so he never sounded sloppy.
Wish. I still had my manual. I remember that part of the manual. I don’t remember it being in color. I lost that and the foot switch. But I still have the slant cab and the speaker cable when I got it in September 1993. 😊
You also have to put in mind that Ed was boosting his input starting from Low mids Freqs to high Mid freqs with what's been known with after by ( Sad Face Eq ) & Ed's 5150 was modded as well & different from the normal production line! so the settings here is way not like his & he has much more mids as well than this
Rumor has it that during the F.U.C.K. tour Ed had 5150's on stage, but was actually playing through the Soldano SLO 100.... ( which the 5150 circuit was basically modified from ).
Got the exact sound of rig review from Ed's settings after doing the sensible thing when you think you have to much gain. Then I fell up the stairs and thought I was drunk...
