Eddie Van Halen's Original '78 Rig Exhibit

[Braciola]

http://www.vhnd.com/2019/04/01/eddi...rig-and-original-frankenstein-guitar-exhibit/

 

[firebird1999us]

Lol that Test Bomb rack is awesome! Anybody have any background on why he de-tolexed the cabs?

 

[sahhas]

Kind of cool to see the wear patterns on the guitar and the paint that came off....

 

[moore-fiend]

Great post....I always liked the white with black stripes best of the EVH guitars.

 

[Gridlock]

I made it back to the Met 2 weeks after they closed this exhibit.
Thanks fo sharing.

 

[ant_riv]

Lol that Test Bomb rack is awesome! Anybody have any background on why he de-tolexed the cabs?

Not sure why EVH did it, but back then it was common to have different cabs, if you were able to have a stack, (fawn, black, black grill, checkerboard, etc.) so by removing the tolex and grills, there was a uniform appearance.

 

[dazar]

Kind of cool to see the wear patterns on the guitar and the paint that came off....

I believe the guitar on display was a replica.

 

[MkIII Renegade]

Kind of cool to see the wear patterns on the guitar and the paint that came off....

Yeah, I wonder who did the Relic job for him?

 

[johngalt2004]

http://www.vhnd.com/2019/04/01/eddi...rig-and-original-frankenstein-guitar-exhibit/

typical gear nerd: "I don't want to buy that strat because it weighs 7.5 lb and I only like them 7.4lb and under.
Eddie Van Halen: "I'm gonna stick some reflectors on the back of my strat because"

 

[MkIII Renegade]

typical gear nerd: "I don't want to buy that strat because it weighs 7.5 lb and I only like them 7.4lb and under.
Eddie Van Halen: "I'm gonna stick some reflectors on the back of my strat because"

TGP Correct Guitar authorities would be AGHAST if someone posted here about adding reflectors or some such to their homemade guitars. I'm sure the snobs of the late '70s must have sniffed at Eddie's homemade guitars, too....until they heard him play.

 

[Boeing bloke]

it is truly a monster....and I love it!

 

[PBGas]

Such a cool exhibit. Wish I could have seen that in person.

 

[Pidgin English]

I believe the guitar on display was a replica.

Yes isn’t the original guitar now the red Frankenstein?

 

[Chuckracer]

There's a bit of double-talk in that article, you have to read it carefully. They are not claiming the black and white guitar is the original. They are claiming the red, black and white guitar is the original.

Anyway, re-creating Eddie's rig, amp or guitar, is more akin to a moving target. Exactly what week's set-up was "The Rig"?

 

[Bloomfield fan]

The guitar on display was not the original. The original was repainted with red added to the black and white and the unused strat pickup in the neck with toggle switch as well as modified pickguard. There is a mod I have seen where you can activate the strat pickup to work in series with the bridge humbucker creating a gain boost.

 

[S. F. Sorrow]

Cool. The Univox echos are there. Still have one too.

 

[WordMan]

Such a cool exhibit. Wish I could have seen that in person.

It was badass. Seeing this, as well as Jimmy Page’s LP rig, as well as his LZ1 rig with both the restored Dragon Tele and his Supro - just Yay. And as a Jeff Beck, Prince, and well, everyone else Fan - it was wonderful.

 

[RCM78]

The guitar on display was not the original. The original was repainted with red added to the black and white and the unused strat pickup in the neck with toggle switch as well as modified pickguard. There is a mod I have seen where you can activate the strat pickup to work in series with the bridge humbucker creating a gain boost.

I’m guessing you didn’t actually read the article and look at all the pictures.

 

[Rackerman]

Looks like a great exhibition, but how can it be Eddie’s early rig with no load boxes or amp slaving...

 

[fenderlead]

There was no slaving in 1978, end of story.

Slaving came much later around 1984.

So much BS around the net about EVH and slaving (and other things).

His pedalboard was just a simple switching setup to manage the Univox and for his pedals and straight into the amps via the Echoplex.

EVH's pedalboard has the MXR EQ hooked up to the Univox signal switching (Box 1) to bring in the Univox for Eruption (Univox is left out of the signal for the rest of the show).

The MXR EQ was used as a buffer for the Univox's low input impedance input (the Univox wasn't specially designed for guitars).

For Eruption/You Really Got Me, EVH/roadies would plug the Ibanez Destroyer guitar lead into the Flanger/Phase (main set signal chain) and plug the Frankenstrat guitar lead into the MXR EQ and then the MXR EQ and Uniivox would be used for Eruption and also one of the Echoplexes was also hooked up into that signal chain and it all went to another separate set of 3 amps especially for Eruption (they also served as back up amps).

The Ibanez Destroyer was used for You Really Got Me and went into the main set signal chain (Frankenstrat/Destroyer guitar switch into the main set signal chain and the Frankenstrat into the MXR EQ/Univox set up by roadies/EVH just before Eruption/You Really Got Me came along in the set).

He would then footswitch the Univox oscillations off at the end of Eruption using the Box 1 footswitch and the roadies would pass him the Destroyer and then they would immediately launch into You Really Got Me which was their hit at the time and VH replicated the album by doing Eruption and then a very quick change to You Really Got Me.

The quick change required the Univox to come into it for Eruption and then be switched off for You Really Got Me and it required a guitar change from the Frankenstrat to the Destroyer, so it had to be pre setup and so 2 signal chains were used.

Main Set: Franky->Flanger->Phase->Echoplex->main set of 3 amps.

(Eruption/You Really Got Me pre setup)

Eruption: Franky->MXR EQ->Univox->Echoplex->different set of 3 amps.

You Really Got Me: Destroyer->Flanger->Phase->Echoplex->main set of 3 amps.

The roadies would hand him the Destroyer after Eruption/Frankenstrat.

For the main set (not Eruption) it was the Frankenstrat guitar into the Flanger and then Phase 90 out to the other Echoplex and then out to a set of 3 amps (a different set of 3 amps to the Eruption set of 3 amps).

So, he had 2 signal chains, one signal chain was for the main set/You Really Got Me and the other signal chain was for Eruption and both signal chains had their own EP-3 Echoplex/EP-3 Echoplex footswitch and their own set of 3 amps.

The Eruption signal chain had the Univox in it and therefore the MXR EQ and Box 1 signal switches/Univox footswitch.

The main set signal chain had the Flanger and Phase in it (no MXR EQ or Univox).

The 1978 World tour had 2 amp sets of 3 amps each, but previously in the clubs it would have been just 2 amp sets of 1 amp each (his main Plexi and his wooden Plexi) which was on display in the 1978 gear display, he added amps into the 2 sets of amps for the world tour. so they went from 2 sets of 1 amps to 2 sets of 3 amps daisy chained together and each amp set had it's own variac that's why there is 2 variacs in the display, 2 amp sets and 2 variacs.

When EVH ditched the Univox after VH2, the MXR EQ and the Box 1 and Box 2 switching boxes were also ditched from his pedalboard (meaning that they were used for the Univox).