Brown Sound Pickups

Searching for tone I go down different paths and gravitate towards different sounds. That said I keep on coming back for the early Van Halen brown sound. Over the past few years I have gone more towards tube amps, and the simple ones like my Orange Tiny Terror and a Silverface Champ I had a few years back have been my favorites. A one channel tube amp makes the pickup differences clear to me.

My guitars over the years have been numerous and I am familiar with and have played with a range. Early Van Halen music has the best tone I can imagine from a guitar and that is what I was trying to achieve. Van Halen tone is good whether it's Van Halen's Little Dreamer or Johnny Cash's Walk the Line. Through the years I found I needed to understand what makes an Eddie Van Halen sound.

My first stab at the sound was a Duncan 59' Humbucker because the original Van Halen guitar had one Eddie rewound. I still have that Fender Stratocaster and still love the sound, it is definitely brown but is the most vintage sounding of the group. The second in the progression was the Duncan Custom Shop 78' E.V.H. (Evenly Voiced Harmonics) I really like this one as it nails the first album's tone. This one is a keeper and it replaced a Duncan JB which some say has the A.D. (After Dave) early Sammy tone from the Kramer era. The JB sounded good and I will probably put it in something again someday.

The next run at it was a DiMarzio Tone Zone Humbucker which is a really great later Sammy sound. It was supposed to be similar to the Music Man pickup. This era is what the pickup is about and sounds very different from the others. Old VH can be gotten but it is hotter and can be heard that way. Still a great pickup, and once again in a guitar that is in my heavy rotation.

The final stop was the EVH Frankenstein Humbucker, it was a nice journey but I would have preferred to go straight to that the first time. There was no official pickup ever issued for the Roth era Van Halen, so you went on rumors of a friend who had a cousin that hooked up with Michael Anthony after he spilled all Eddie's secrets after a bottle of Cabo Wabo (or Jack Daniels for the Roth Freaks).

The EVH Humbucker exceeded my expectations. When I went to pick it up from Don Meyers, who makes my ideas work, the first thing he told me was that the pickup was pretty hot. He gives me a demonstration as he always does and had a lot to say about it. When we went back in the shop I saw a CD case for Van Halen's Women and Children First and I knew that the guitar had been well tested.

The best test was when I got it home to myself with nobody around, when cranked through a straight up tube amp the distortion is incredible. Warm distortion fills the room and is very controllable, it is what I think of as riding the edge of distortion and clean depending on how you pick and where the volume is. As brown as many of my pickups are I thought I would have to listen for subtle differences, but this is not he case as my EVH equipped guitar comes alive.

The first thought was that the EVH brand could be a placebo and that I already had what I bought. After time the harmonics and good tone have shown as my girlfriend has commented on the tone and the difference becomes more evident daily to me as I play. If you would like more information on the Charvel I installed the pickup in check out my article on it.