Author Topic: What Pickup will get this kind of tone? (Read 2707 times)

JamesHealey · « **on:** May 01, 2006, 08:53:03 PM »

listen to "Top of the world" by van halen.

What pickup will do that kind of tone?

indysmith · « **Reply #1 on:** May 01, 2006, 09:42:54 PM »

uhh what album is that one on?

steve · « **Reply #2 on:** May 01, 2006, 10:46:26 PM »

Its on F.U.C.K, which was released around 1990. I would suggest a couple of contenders to the tone, VHII and the Mule.Its quite a bright almost glassy tone which has a touch of single coil to it. i would'nt go to hot pickup wise.

steve · « **Reply #3 on:** May 01, 2006, 10:49:29 PM »

Although thinking about it im sure he was using a pickup similiar to a dimarzio tone zone at that time which has a lot of mids.maybe a Crawler would suit (and sound better).

SonicGator · « **Reply #4 on:** May 02, 2006, 01:43:39 AM »

Quote from: steve

Although thinking about it im sure he was using a pickup similiar to a dimarzio tone zone at that time which has a lot of mids.maybe a Crawler would suit (and sound better).

I have a Music Man EVH model (1992) and I've had a Tone Zone, neither of which sounded similar nor responded alike. IMO, I've found the Air Norton to be a real good match to what is in the EVH model; I tried the Norton, but it seemed a more powerful pickup with more magnet pull than the Air Norton. I can't say for sure that the custom pickup in the EVH sparked the Air series of DiMarzio's, but they seem to have some similar responses

BTW...I also had a 5150 half-stack :oops: during my "wanna be like someone else" phase and could never get a good VH sound out of it. I read somewhere that EVH used a Soldano SLO-100 for much of that album, but credited the tones to the new 5150 or old Marshall.

Andy Lindsay · « **Reply #5 on:** May 02, 2006, 08:21:30 AM »

I remember reading that 'Top of the World' was recorded with an old Gibson Korina Flying Vee and the Marshall Plexi head. With regards to the amps, I had an SLO 100 till it died, and am using a mk2 5150. Neither sound like EVH (not in my hands anyway) It depends on how you play 'em as to how they sound, more so than choice of guitars/pickups, etc. Obvously pickups and stuff will fine tune your sound, but the bulk of it comes from how you dig in. You know what I mean? Buy a new amp, a few days later when the novelty's wore off, it still sounds like you. I have wasted a LOT of money learning this..lol. My opinion of course....... :D

Tricalibur · « **Reply #6 on:** May 02, 2006, 10:21:45 PM »

^ its a good one though. And with that in mind I think you should head up to a local music store, plug into some amps and just fiddle around until you find a sound that you think sounds like EVH