11R does the VH tune "Women in Love"

Hey bros!

So one of my favorite VH tunes is "Women in Love" from their second album. The intro guitar is just SOOOOOOOO friggin cool.
Anyway, I want to play this song with the band, so I wanted to create the rigs so I could play it live on my 11R.

The clean intro has a chorus with a delay on during the tapped part. I mainly worked on getting the delay+chorus+reverb to sound right, and selecting an amp setting that was fairly clean with minimal gain. After I recorded it, I should have worked on the tone some more as the guitar sounded a bit thin, but I was having a blast playing the intro with the effects, so I didn't bother with any further tweaking! (and yeah, I kinda rushed the intro a bit when I recorded it )

For the main part of the tune... HERE is where I was focusing on the guitar tone, and I was trying a rig using the JCM800 amp, and I was pretty pleased with the results I was coming up with.
But then I tried something else. I ended up using Singtall's "Krunch" rig after I uploaded his SuperPack, and his Krunch rig NAILS Eddie's VH2 tone! I mean NAILS IT!!!!

Since I used 2 rigs for this, I recorded the intro first, then I played along with the actual tune for the main song.

ON the actual song, Eddie's guitar is panned mostly on the left channel, so I tried to have only the right channel of the song playing while I recorded my take on the left channel, to try an have mainly the 11R tone come thru. There are parts here and there where you can still here Eddie's real guitar coming thru (like we're playing together ) , but it's mainly me that you hear. I played it all the way thru in one take, and you'll hear a few mistakes, so please be gentle with me!

WomenInLove

And here is the guitars without the VH track... WomenInLove - naked track

By the way, did I mention that I LOVE this "Krunch" rig?!?!??!

PS....if you haven't done it already, do yourself a favor and donate to Singtall and get his SuperPack! You be happy that you did! He's got some KILLER rigs waiting for you!!!

Peace!

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OMG ... this is crazy good mikefont!

This is SO jaw droppingly good that I can't believe it!!!!!!

I've NEVER heard the 11R sound SO amp like!!!!!!!!

Mike this really is something special you've got going on here.........

You are a damn fine guitar player too!

Tim

WOW! i knew that preset had the right feel to it, but you really nailed the EVH tone and feel on that clip man.

Thanks guys, that is a FUN song to play!



Thanks to YOUR rig my man! The one that I was making from scratch for the tune was pretty good too, but once I tried "Krunch"...FORGETABOUTIT!

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the "Singtall Krunch" preset is the standard i measure all other presets by. i A/B between new presets and that one to make sure i'm in the right ballpark.

Mike - that was AWESOME!!!! Early EVH (Diamond Dave era) is what got me started playing electric guitar. The first four albums specifically really speak to me. Women In Love is one of those songs that never got the notariety of some of the others, but I always loved the voicing/phrasing of it. You NAILED it! Nice job - both in tone and playing!!! WELL DONE!

Beautiful job my good friend.

I actually prefer listing to your guitar without the VH track, very cool sound and glad you included it!

Dude, this is really really really really good. And I'm about the biggest VH fan ever.

X-bro said it, Excuse me while look for my jaw, I dropped it around here somewhere!! Unbelievably awesome Mike!! Can't wait to get some time to try out my SuperPac!!

Awww shoot....thanks guys! you really are being too kind.

I think that I am going to try and tweak the tone of that clean intro rig to get it to sound better.
It was kind of a challenge to get the tapped harmonics to jump out on a "clean amp"!
I was eq'ing it with allot of mids and highs to help it out, and when I'd try to add some lows to get the tone to fill out more, the harmonics would get lost!
So I put the Gray Comp on at the front of the rig and that definitely helped, but it's still too "thin" sounding to me.

If I get it closer to the real song, I'll be redoing the intro...cause it's FUN TO PLAY! (and I wont rush it next time )

And like allot of you, Van Halen was the reason why I picked up the guitar in the first place. I am officially known to all of my friends as the "VH expert" or the "VH nut"!
Even my mom call's me to tell me if she hears something about VH on the news or on the internet! That, and Star Wars...I guess she thinks that I never outgrew either of them! (and she's right)...


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Lol!!!!!!!!! This is WAY funny Mike & may the force be with you in 2013 son!

X

Honestly mikefront, your playing is what is working the magic in that clip! I think the Singtall Krunch patch is a killer classic Marshall tone in a very general sense. You can go in lots of directions with it, and with you at the wheel it totally goes in a Van Halen direction as well. Mad props bro!

With you as well, Lord X-der!!!!!!!!



You are too kind sir...too kind!
And YOUR playing on "Somebody get me a Doctor" has me wanting to jam on that tune too (and try to NAIL IT half as good as you did)!

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Well done! Did you use any eq's ect - I am trying singtall's presets today and they all sound a bit trebly to my ear even on my humbuckers. Am comparing mine to yours (singtall's krunch)Anybody having the same issue and maybe knows how to correct it without messing up the preset?

Thanks

btw they still sound so Great! just a bit trebly to my ears - maybe it has to do with my guitar - there is the perfect distortion but smooth feel that i searched for so long

It could be your particular guitar/pickup combo. But yes, overall I agree it is a bit trebly and has a very pronounced upper-midrange bump. Personally or me, it is an ideal sound signature but that is my preference. I will add though, that these are the frequencies that I've found are what is needed to cut through a mix. I don't know how many times I've dialed up a glorious woody brown sound in my basement, and then showed up to the gig and have our engineer tell me it's getting buried.

Step one of course is make sure all your rig settings are backed up and stored securely. The rig files are so small you can afford to save every iteration. I start with the amp controls, and if they can't get me where I want, carefully begin to tweak the para eq's. A/B the crap out of everything at every stage of the process, and every time you think you're close, save a new copy of the rig. Happy tone hunting!

I should also add, I don't believe tone is *all* in the fingers as some would say, but I do believe a good part of it is. This is a perfect example of that. Mikefont is really doing something special with this preset, with his guitar and his fingers. I can't get the Singtall Krunch patch to sound like that. When I use it, it has more of an 80's arena rock tone. Somehow it turns into a brownsound when Mikefont gets a hold of it. Maybe he can let us in on his secret!

LOL...my secret is to stand on one foot when playing....but I aint gonna tell you which foot!



Seriously though, I appreciate the compliment!
The guitar that I used for it was my old Kramer Focus 2000 (alder body/maple neck/rosewood fretboard) with a SIN EVP humbucker bridge pickup.

@ Mountainking...I just used the preset straight. I did not alter it or add any extra eq.

And actually FWIW, I was VERY aware of my technique when playing this tune. The dynamics of how hard or soft I picked the strings at certain points, rolling back on the volume knob and picking lighter on the cleaner parts, slight palm muting at certain times instead of letting the chords ring out too much, etc.. are all part of it.

I think the slight palm muting when playing a chord is one of the keys to getting the sound into the "brown" range (along with that midrange bump that you mentioned)!

When I play, my pick hand is almost always slightly resting on the bridge. This way I can roll it forward to palm mute...a little forward for slight mute, or way forward for full on mute. And I practically NEVER strum the strings in the middle (like over the neck pickup). When I do, I find that I dont control my tone or unwanted strings from ringing out as well.

And that's my insight on getting the "brown sound" with playing technique...FWIW

Rock on my bruthas!

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Thanks for the reply Jason. I think you mentioned a great point there,I am mainly listening to the guitar only and not mixed with other instruments,so that is something I will surely keep in mind. I agree though - Singtall's presets are ace, you can go from clean to lead in one single preset just by volume knob manipulation alone and thats great

Thanks for the reply - listening to your track again it shows that you are really in control of what you re playing and maybe that is 90% or so of the "Brown sound" we all love! So I need to pay attention to my chops dear brothers

The remaining treble thing I am hearing probably comes from my guitar/pickup configuration since you left the preset untouched. Thanks for helping me out

Brother Mike, this sounds really, REALLY good!

Thanks Michi, I appreciate that bro!

Although, I play the intro MUCH better than what I recorded (I kept rushing the tempo on it). So I should re-record the intro, cause I wanna barf whenever I hear it ...PLUS, I need to tweak that intro rig to get it to sound better!

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Intro sounds okay, might just need rig tweaking. You could then just read-amp it. Why? Because you can!

Thx very much for sharing the performance tips. Looks like I got some woodshedding to do!

Jim......I'm bumping this thread for you......Check this Rig out!!!!

on the high frequency thing:

the presets are designed to work in a mix like Jason said.

you can however tweak the preset to overcome any pickup issues. to do that, adjust the first eq (in front of the amp) and cut some of the highs. this also effects the way the preset cleans up, so be careful not to cut too much.

the other issue with highs has to do with playing too loud. some of my older presets are too woody and warm because i turned up my headphones too loud and eq'd to make it easier on my ears. my rule of thumb is 83-85db at your ears. once you go past that, your ears start to compress and change what you hear. so care with volume is needed.

check out some of my presets on this forum with the letters "GT12-75" behind the name...those are really too warm to work in a mix, but sound good when cranked.

Interesting to hear exactly how much guitar effect and doubling happens on the right. I was always dumbfounded how he got that to work without sounding weird. Sounds great for just one guitar. Seems like it needs just a little speaker breakup or something to mush it down a little not really an EQ or anything.

Thanks Singtall I'll check that out! I was making sure that my 11r is working in good condition as I thought it was a bit faulty since it was a bit old stock (without the expansion pack included)
I will try to play the exact same thing and see if it matches. Thanks