Van Halen Stories #31 Martin Smith "Chasing The Brown Sound"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2023
- English Producer, Engineer, Guitarist Martin Smith joined me to talk about The Brown Sound, seeing Van Halen Live at the recently leaked Castle Donington Show in 1984 and so much more!
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Great interview, only 17 minutes in. He just mentioned when he was in LA when the chili peppers were looking for a new guitar player. I guess it was 93 or 94. My friend, who I was in my first band with, tried out for them at that time also. Great stuff. Small world.
i was there tried out it was a few roadies not the peppers still glad i tried
Me, too, man!!
The aluminum dust cap on the JBL D120 is not super shiny it's more a mat finish when seen through the heavy cloth of a basket weave cab. JBLs don't sound very good in a sealed 4x12 cab! Too bright with a weird buzzy tone
Brilliant interview Jeff. Martin is a great guy , ( a fellow Brit too ) and has some excellent VH chops and insight into Edwards tone. I don't know how you do it Jeff, as these episodes keep getting better . A1 !!!
Thanks! I loved hanging with Martin! Next week I have another guest coming, that had been around Ed from Mammoth until the Final Show at The Hollywood Bowl. Really excited for everyone to hear his amazing times with Van Halen!
@@FinalResonanceTV Thank you Jeff - we all appreciate the effort you go to in these videos as well as the informative content too. All the best .Rich.
Martin’s stuff is awesome, great guest!
Edward Van Halen 1980 interview quote with Jas Obrecht "I like a clean sound with sustain. I hate the fuzz box - real raspy sound"
and this one is really revealing "Some people get a sound like an amplified AM radio. I like it to be like a nice home stereo amplified"
I was at that Atlanta show in 2007! Such a memorable moment with the PA going down during Eddie's solo.
Absolutely wonderful, fun and educational interview guys! Martin, your POV on all things EVH is refreshing to hear. I'm freaking out about the "slave" in the bomb. Could it be??? lol. Time will tell, I guess. Great conversation and I look forward to the next episode and/or part 2 of Sir Martin! Cheers! ❤🤍🖤🎸
Hey, Jeff! You guys are talking about records right now. I finally came to that same conclusion as you guys did, just a few months ago or so. During the pandemic, my mom found my old record collection that we thought was lost years ago-maybe sold by accident at a yard sale.
So that’s all I’ve been listening to at home for the most part the last almost 3 years. Then it finally hit me that the guitar on those records really poke through the mix, much better than anything digital I had been listening to for so long now. I’m thinking, wow, I never really quite noticed the entirety of that lick kind of buried in the mix. 😝🤘🏻🎸🇺🇸
So glad you talked about slaving. Of course, that’s how one achieved that sound back then.
Satch Vai Eric getting together another G3 tour .. coming city near you.. saw them with Yngwie -
I saw that! I saw the Yngwie too!
The stories about Mandel teaching Terry Kilgore how to tap and then Terry teaching Eddie and then the story of George Lynch going to The Whisky to see Canned Heat featuring Harvey Mandel (who was doing tapping that was more advanced than what Eddie did on the first several albums back in 1973) ARE verified by Lynch and by Kilgore and Greg Renoff and I have no doubt in our minds that Eddie got tapping from Kilgore who was taught by Mandel (which was seen by a reliable eyewitness who has no reason to lie about this) and by verifiably seeing Mandel tapping live at least once-Canned Heat did play The Whisky exactly when Lynch said he and Eddie saw that show. Also, Danny Johnson from the Derringer band was tapping and doing the "moveable capo" technique before Eddie and it is known that Eddie saw Derringer live and likely heard their live album before the first Van Halen album sessions.
What’s the source on the info from Lynch? I’d love to read or see that discussion. Was it the Tone Talk w/Lynch?
@@msw812 It is in Greg Renoff’s ‘Van Halen Rising’ book.
@@AllenGarberGuitarFun I read that book. Guess my photographic memory is outta film lol.
@@msw812 I forget a lot of things in it as well…Greg is tired of answering my questions that he already answered in the books so I need to re-read them regularly!
@@AllenGarberGuitarFun I should too! It’s absolutely re-read worthy!
31:48 - I know exactly what Martin means here. Think Jeff missed that one. Listen to the first fill in I'm the One', and play it slowly, it sounds nothing like what it becomes at speed. It IS amazing how Ed knew that these angular / irregularly spaced licks would be such compelling phrases at full speed. What a great guest, and how is Martin 54yrs old??
I know he says that back in the day he couldn't afford a distortion pedal, but there must have a been a point where it was at least a possibility to buy one, and he never did. I think he was always hyper focused on his tone, and I'm sure there was something about the pedals available at the time that made him ignore them. Probably the harshness of the fuzz and distortion as described to Jas. I think if you can dial in a fuzz, you can get a great warm tone - but its not the VH I sound.
It's confusing. He couldn't afford pedals, but he had these stacks of amps and cabs? They were selling 3000 tickets to Pasadena Civic. There was some money coming. Certainly enough to buy a pedal or two.
@@e.l.norton I guess he means before they were famous. I don't know. He had other pedals by the time 78' came around, definitely a flanger and phaser.
did 5150 exist when Ed did the beat it solo? "thriller" came out in '82.. im thinkin there still 6mos -1yr out on 5150.. might explain why he had no gear avail?
No it wasn’t really until Don worked on it in 1983 as far as I know.
I would like Friedman or someone techy show how to mod a set biased marshall into a variable biased amp with the potentiometer.
So we can try using a variac.
Dave Friedman has confirmed EVH's original main Marshall(SLP12301) was a 220 volt European version
and not a 115V like standard in the USA. So you use the 220V Marshall SLP and set the variac to around 70v'
then bias the amp to that.
@Thesegotoeleven1968
If your amp can not be biased, like old plexis.....you cannot dial in the bias.
Freidman and others have installed a potentiometer in those types of amps (somewhere on the circuit board) so that you can then manipulate the bias.
I'm pretty sure that's what my original post said.
@@These_go_to_eleven_1959 the marshall amps of that era all had 220 & 110 v capable power transformers with a tap on the rear panel..
@@bobc.5698 all tube amps can/have to be be bias adjustable... the trick is to starve the amp of voltage to meet tone & sound levels & bias the amp to whatever the plate voltages are at that variac settimg..
@@Gorilla.Guitar th-cam.com/video/M5uTYptNG2U/w-d-xo.html&si=opNMblL9MgVbqym-
Eddie said early on that he didn’t use a distortion pedal he said he would use another marshall as a distortion pedal
He actually never said that he “would use another Marshall as a distortion pedal”. Re-amping is a totally unproven theory for first album Van Halen tones, but in fact Eddie has specifically denied that he used re-amping.
@motoman968, I have read every EVH interview since 1979 and i do not ever recall him ever saying anything like that.
He exact quote was "I like a clean sound with sustain. I hate the fuzz box - real raspy sound".
The only time he mentioned any Marshalls outside of his No.1 SLP(12301) was when he stated live he was using new Marshalls.
Because his old original got lost by Pan am so when he finally got it back he retired it from touring. in the studio he ALWAYS stressed he only used his No.1 with a 4x12 cab.
@@These_go_to_eleven_1959 Agreed. Re-amping was a solution for people chasing the first album sound, but it wasn't what Eddie did.
Jeff, Your audio levels are so unbalanced in this video. Martin is obviously struggling to hear you the whole time, but is too polite to say anything. Maybe run this video through a compressor and re upload.
Sorry my mic was overloaded. You’d think I should know how to operate one 🤷♀️
I did run it through a compressor post with some mega compression. Looking at my podcast audio solutions now for my podcast. Maybe I’ll split the sources, so I can level them independently, that would be ideal to the Zoom Summing that happens. Thanks for the feedback, definitely was aware of this.