Nailing Van halen's tone

[wadthefish]

Recently i stumbled onto a video and i was amazed by how close his tone were compared to van halen's tone. He was using a wampler pinnacle and i guess the analog echo from wampler too.

His videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZzDhUnSW3Y&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x1aq4ffmzM&feature=channel

 

[Wildchild666]

Wah,that's awesome. The brown tone.....
Quite close...

 

[Gr3y]

consider the amp he is playing though, the delay/reverb he is using, the mic-ing method, post recording eq and other stuff that is transparent to you now..

 

[Schon]

any1 tried 1 of these?..

http://www.thevintagesound.com/stor...2.html?zenid=0ba11eb7a6abc3263f5435cf0155718f

 

[junkiemanxl]

I tried the pinnacle II at SV once.
Its a hell of a pedal.
Very Very nice tone.

 

[dudelove]

i used to have a pedal that was made to nail van halens tone in Van Halen I.

the bsiab II. (brown sound in a box II)

u guys should check it out at general guitar gadgets. the kit is extremely affordable.

just add a nice amount of reverb, a short and subtle delay. and there u go. VH1 tone. a good pair of humbuckers will help also. especially pafs

 

[penta-tonic]

thanks for posting this, seems ive held on to my crunchbox for too long. time to move on.

 

[kernelspy]

Sometimes it's not only about the pedal though... it's how you execute the song and technique. :-D

just sayin...

 

[naviros]

I have the Pinnacle 2. I must say the brown sound isn't the only thing that it can achieve. It is a decent pedal on its own...

But if you want a transparent distortion, look somewhere else... Ain't exactly the most transparent distortion, and 4 knobs is difficult to use... I'm still looking for my sweet spot on this pedal...

 

[leecs]

How do you define transparent tone? can see through????

 

[naviros]

When you can clearly hear the nuances produced by the guitar, the little things...

This pedal (my opinion) basically shapes much of the tone to a certain characteristic, not much of a difference if you used an RG or Les Paul, tone comes out to be rather consistent.

 

[Phil]

To detract slightly..
You're right.

I've always treated 'transparent' as the quality of retaining my guitar's or amplifier's base characteristics, while simultaneously value-adding to it.

When you say you're running a Tele into this particular 'transparent' overdrive/distortion. I would immediately assume that it means it adds dirt to your tone but still retaining the tele twang.
The opposite would be a distortion pedal that colours your tone so much that you can't differentiate a Tele from a Strat, a Les Paul from a semi-hollow through that 'non-transparent' distortion pedal.

When your pedal can retain your playing nuances and the other small things, I'd say it's articulate.

Just my 2 cents',

 

[naviros]

I must say, rather than not detect your playing nuances, its more of a lack of characteristic from the guitar itself.

Experiment with different picking techniques, it plays rather dynamically. Apply the same techniques on a different guitar, it'll sound plenty consistent though (albeit with minor changes to the tone or contour).