Van Halen's first record

Hee-man · Post by **Hee-man** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:44 am

Okay, so I was doing a rough mix for a song with drums, bass and crunchy electric guitar (with a Crazy Horse vibe). So I remember reading about how VH's first record had Eddie's guitar hard panned, with a reverb-send hard panned to the opposite side. So I pulled up the iTunes store and listened to some clips, since I was too lazy to dig my CD copy out of the attic.

Some things I noticed (from 30 second clips):

- The hard panned reverb thing seemed to work pretty well - there's actually a lot of reverb going on. I don't think I've played this album since I started listening to albums critically, so the wetness was surprising.

- The recording sounds really dark and atmospheric. Most of that must be Eddie's "Brown Sound" and the reverb, but even the vocals were lacking hype compared to something like Def Leopard's Hysteria and other hard rock of the 80's (yes, I know this was still the 70's...)

- Alex's snare sounded really pathetic. Maybe it's the remastering or the mp3 compression. I listened to a clip from one of their greatest hits CD (instead of the remastered version), and it sounded a bit fuller.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:00 pm

Alex's snare drum has always kinda sounded like wet cardboard on the original albums. For all the hype about the guitar tone on those records the drums and bass generally sound surprisingly awful.

AstroDan · Post by **AstroDan** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 2:30 pm

It's obviously a famous record, but it seemed the recording techniques hadn't caught up with the genre it originated. It was like whoever (Ted Templeman? I don't know...) recorded them wasn't ready for the theatrical, slick, and bombastic music that became metal. It sounded like the same microphone and preamp settings used for The Mamas and The Papas or Simon and Garfunkel and recorded in the same studio.

When Van Halen 1 came out it was like "Holy shit. We need three D112's on the kick, snare drums the size of mountains, reverb on the bass, and at least 10 tracks for one guitar part."

PeterAuslan · Post by **PeterAuslan** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 5:44 pm

I love the production. To me its what a rock record should sound like - but I am sure a lot of that is due to the guitar sound which is absolutely stellar in my little opinion. Whats interesting is that while it may or may not appeal to the folks on this board there are other music sites (non-engineer related) who find this record to be very appealing production-wise. We do hear things differently.

hammertime · Post by **hammertime** » Fri Nov 17, 2006 6:47 pm

I think the production was phenomenal considering how lousy the band was live. About 10 years ago some of the bands first demo's were floating around, and they were absolutely egregious.

PeterAuslan wrote:I love the production. To me its what a rock record should sound like - but I am sure a lot of that is due to the guitar sound which is absolutely stellar in my little opinion. Whats interesting is that while it may or may not appeal to the folks on this board there are other music sites (non-engineer related) who find this record to be very appealing production-wise. We do hear things differently.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Sat Nov 18, 2006 12:47 am

PeterAuslan wrote:I love the production. To me its what a rock record should sound like - but I am sure a lot of that is due to the guitar sound which is absolutely stellar in my little opinion. Whats interesting is that while it may or may not appeal to the folks on this board there are other music sites (non-engineer related) who find this record to be very appealing production-wise. We do hear things differently.

As a record, it sounds great. Individually some of the instruments sound like ass, but many records are that way. A prime example is Fleetwood Mac's "The Chain." Beautiful mix, and then when the bass riff comes in by itself the bass sounds lifeless and horrid. But within the mix it's fine.

joeysimms · Post by **joeysimms** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 2:30 pm

I prefer the sound on Women and Children First, but there's plenty of great sounds on VH I. 'On Fire' sounds awesome..

jmiller · Post by **jmiller** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 5:23 pm

I got the impression that the band was tracked together in one room. I could be wrong, though.

I was listening to "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" yesterday and could clearly hear the snare leaking into Eddie's reverb on the right channel.

JGriffin · Post by **JGriffin** » Sun Nov 19, 2006 10:19 pm

jmiller wrote:I got the impression that the band was tracked together in one room. I could be wrong, though.

Eddie's comment, from a guitar mag i just found--

"We barely had any input in the early days of the band. I mean, there are so many things wrong with those early records-the drums sound like shit on the first album and the bass is barely audible. We just played live, they recorded it, and it got put out."

and another, from a Guitar player article in the late 1970s:

"The album is very live with no overdubs ? that's the magic of Ted Templeman. I'd say out of the 10 songs on the record, I overdubbed the solo in two or three songs. One of them's doubled in "Ice Cream Man" and "Jamie's Cryin'." All the rest are live! I used the same equipment I use live, the one guitar, soloed during the rhythm track, and Al just played one set of drums [laughs]. And Mike, you know. And Dave stood in the booth and sang a lot of lead vocals at the same time. The only thing we did overdub was the backing vocals, because you can't play in the same room and sing with the amps ? otherwise it will bleed on the mikes. The music, I'd say, took a week, including "Jamie's Cryin'," which we wrote in the studio ? I had the basic riffs to the song. And my guitar solo, "Eruption," wasn't really planned to be on the record. Me and Al were dickin' around rehearsing for a show we had to do at the Whiskey, so I was warming up, you know, practicing my solo, and Ted walks in. He goes, "Hey, what's that?" I go, "That's a little solo thing I do live." He goes, "Hey, it's great. Put it on the record." So the music took a week, the singing took about two. "

Studio2roll · Post by **Studio2roll** » Mon Nov 20, 2006 7:46 pm

I'm a big fan of this recording. And in contrast to what was said about them live, I have a big collection of bootlegs throughout their career and even years before they got a deal they sounded almost exactly like the record (just more bass and drums in the live mixes) There is a demo that Gene Simmons made of them (the bootleg is called "Zero") where they sound awful, and completely not like live VH - but if you listen to the KISS box set demos its the same vibe - so that comment may have been about Simmons' poor production choices on that particular record.

Templeman has said that he specifically pulled back on the other instruments to give room for as much guitar tone as possible. Thats part of the reason theres only reverb on the right speaker - so the other instruments/voices can actually be heard and not completely drowned out!
Even live Alex's snare sounds really small/tight/gated. But Don Landee (the engineer) forced him to remove all his drum heads and mic'd everything from the inside, right on the head to just let the attacks slide through the mix. On "I'm the One" (track 5) they forgot to even turn the kick drum mics on, and the only kick sound is coming from the overheads!

Personally I think the remasters sound a lot more like my vinyl copies than the "best of's" or the original transfers. I also feel their best quality recordings were either "Van Halen II" - (It's live like VHI, but the production is much smoother) or "Women and Children First".
Both VH 1 and VHII were recorded at Sunset Sound with (supposedly) a Neve 8088 and frequent use of an 1176. The only mic used to pick up the guitar was one SM57 on Ed's marshall, and all the echo was from his echoplex unit.

BrianK · Post by **BrianK** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:03 pm

There is NOT just reverb on the right speaker! I don't know why everyone keeps saying this. It's just masking - the guitar is on the Left and covers up most of the sound behind it, like the STEREO plate reverb they used!

Not somethiung they planned other than they had a single guitar track panned hard to one side - it was not doubled (like Jimmy Page and Black Sabbath did before), which was a bold move in itself.

BrianK · Post by **BrianK** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:44 pm

BTW - they used two mics on his amps (I know as I've seen the master tapes), one channel very dark and one kinda bright. Together, they make "that sounds" but not one by itself.

The echoes were also 1/4" machine, especially as heard on "Eruption".

They also used Compex limiters in addition to 1176. So it's hard to say where the tone came from. Mostly his amp and fingers, yes.

Studio2roll · Post by **Studio2roll** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 7:05 am

BTW - they used two mics on his amps (I know as I've seen the master tapes), one channel very dark and one kinda bright. Together, they make "that sounds" but not one by itself.

The echoes were also 1/4" machine, especially as heard on "Eruption".

They also used Compex limiters in addition to 1176. So it's hard to say where the tone came from. Mostly his amp and fingers, yes.

Thanks for the extra info. It's very cool that you've seen the masters. Theres very little info that I've found about Van Halen in the studio, just a couple of interviews with the band, and one with Don Landee.

chris almighty · Post by **chris almighty** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 3:46 pm

It's amazing what raw talent sounds like. Now days people are so used to fixing things and editing the shit put of bad playing that raw recordings sound under produced. I read that there are only two songs that have over dubs on that album. Out of the early Van Halen recordings I think Diver Down sounds the weakest. The recording anyways.

majortom · Post by **majortom** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:59 pm

Hey,

Just gota comment on the VH not being any good live comment,

are you seriously judging by bootleg tapes?? recorded on what and where, My first show ever was van halen in Madison wi on the first tour (they even give thanks on the album to the hotel they trashed in madison).

I smuggled in my "small" tape recorder and put it on the seat next to me, yep it sounded like shit...but come on! the show was incredible To this day I think Roth epitomizes that time in rock more than anyone, maybe it sounds korny but it was so much....well, fun! By the way Roths auto biography might be the funniest thing I've ever read along with zappas. Tom

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