Why Eddie Van Halen lied about how to get his sound
When Eddie Van Halen first hit the rock scene in the late 1970s, he was a singular entity. Nobody could understand how Van Halen was able to produce such unique sounds from his instrument. Eventually, Van Halen’s tapping techniques, pedalboard, and amp preferences all became common knowledge, but for a while, Van Halen held the secrets to his sound close to his chest.
His legendary Frankenstrat guitar was the perfect example. A self-made mix between the best features of a Fender and a Gibson guitar, the Frankenstrat was a unique-sounding instrument that also had a strikingly original look. It only added to Van Halen’s mystique with its custom paint job and even some misleading specs that threw fans off the scent.
When it came to curious interviewers looking to figure out Van Halen’s secrets, the guitarist decided to employ a bit of strategic trickery. With an assist from original Van Halen lead singer David Lee Roth, Van Halen came up with some alternative facts to keep the specifics of his sound away from anyone who might want to steal it. That included his innovative use of a voltage transformer to crank his amp without blowing it up.
“It wasn’t until the first interview I ever did that I tried to explain how I got the sound out of my Marshall with the Variac [a variable voltage transformer], except our singer said, ‘Don’t tell ’em the truth, lie!’. So I told them that I cranked the thing up to 140 volts instead of lowering it,” Van Halen explained. “And, god! The editor’s note in the next magazine was, ‘Don’t do what Eddie said!’ – because everyone was frying their amps!”
“The real reason I did it was I had my main baby Marshall, except it was too loud, and it would blow up on full voltage,” he claimed. “So not only did lowering the voltage take care of the amp not blowing, it also enabled me to contain it and play anywhere between 60 to 90 volts, depending on the size of the room. Everything was all the way up on the amp, and the Variac was my volume knob.”
The Variac also helped Van Halen minimise the number of pedals and equipment he had to operate himself while onstage. Lowering the voltage was something of a trade secret for Van Halen during the band’s earliest years, but as the band ascended to one of the most popular and successful acts in the world, Van Halen felt like it was okay to disseminate the information so that players didn’t have to get swindled the way he originally did to find what worked.
“What made me think of lowering the voltage was I bought another Marshall head, not realising it was a European model,” Van Halen also revealed. “So I plug it in, and there’s a really dim pilot light. I’m waiting and waiting, and there’s no fucking sound coming out! ‘Goddammit, I got ripped off!’”
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