Humbucker that can get brown sound

[eh13093]

What humbucker can get the early van halen sound?

[strat78]

Never understood the "brown sound" description but the SD 59 or the SD EVH pup are about the best.

[jothan2004]

Don't forget to also look into the other half of the tone thing--the amp.

[DREW-OU812]

Yeah, the amp is generally associated with the brown sound. I'd suggest any seymour duncan humbuckers and dimarzio. The pickups in a Wolfgang I guess would work lol. I can't remember what kind of pickup EVH had in his frankenstrat.

[wahwah]

Seymour Duncan Hot Rails gets my EVH sound...probably moreso than the Edward designed pups that are in my Wolfie. I think it has more to do with the guitar; the wolfie is a denser wood than the strat....the strat is much brighter.

[Rocker35]

There are many variables to Ed's sound (his early or so called Brown sound), a lot of it to do with the 4 digit's on his left hand!!! The pickup in his original Frankenstrat I believe came from a Gibson 335 or similar but remember that a lot of Ed's recorded work was done on either an Ibanez destroyer or Flying V.
As Strat78 says, any lower powered Seymour Duncan pickup will get you ball park (59, EVH 78, Custom Custom etc). Of course you've got to factorin the cranked Plexi and the fact that the band tuned down (you can't quite get the tone right in standard pitch). Hope this helps

[SayFool]

I've tried a few different ways but about the closest I've come to getting his sound is with the Seymour-Duncan Screamin' Demon(George Lynch) pickup on my Washburn w/Marshall 50 head...I'm sure with more $$$ you could buy better equipment that will get you closer but whose got more money, I sure as hell don't....

Factoid: Actually the brown sound name originated with Al's snare drum sound, somehow it was construde as Ed's guitar sound over the years.....


Just my 2 cents.....

[Rythameen]

Everyone's right, it'll take a lot more than just one pick up to get his sound, pickup, guitar, amp, fingers....................practice.

[guitaral]

yeah, all it will take is 8 hours a day with a drummer, experience with the piano, and some beefeater... :drunk:

[Plstrcast]

SD Custom Custom works well for me. I popped that in to my PRS and I friggen LOVE the tone!

[Mad-Mike]

I find it's just about any basic humbucker with an alnico magnet, and an ohms reading between 8.9-11K Ohms. So far the "brownest sounding" guitars I have are my Home Brewed Explorer (Ibanez L.A. neck position in bridge, 11.4K Ohms), Striker/Warmoth Hybrid (Peavey Nitro, 11.8K if I remember right), My two Kramer Focus 3000's (with the stock white one coming real close, which uses an S.D. 59' style pickup of some sort, and the other sounds a bit more like the first album, particularly the stuff with the Destroyer for some reason, and it uses EMG Selects which are around 8.4K Ohms according to the spec sheets, though I think my bridge rated at 8.6). My B.C. Rich Warlock also sounds a lot like the VH1 version of the Destroyer (Before he cut it up), and it uses some non-adjustable pole-piece hums rating around 10K Ohms the last time I whipped out a VOM on a Bronze warlock's pickups. I know most of those are "cheap crap" pickups, but they seem to work great for me.