T
he guitar tone achieved on
early Van Halen records, which
guitar people commonly refer
to as "the brown sound," has
been enormously influential, as well
as legendarily elusive. Many players
achieved similar technical feats in Eddie's
wake, even surpassing him in terms of
pure virtuosity, but none have ever truly
replicated his tone. As most of us know,
trying to cop another guitarist's tone is
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TONE TALK //
ultimately an exercise in futility, but this
fact has done little to dissuade legions of
EVH-obsessed shredders from chasing
that brownest of sounds. The Internet
is full of magazine and blog articles
that attempt to painstakingly dissect
each minute element that contributed
to Eddie's tone, breaking it down to a
near-molecular level in an attempt to
capture his magic. Many of these dubious
dissertations contain wild theories
The Brown Sound: 5 Boxes That Nail It