"Brown Sound" ??????????

[Vivek]

What is "Brown sound" ?

What pre-distortion EQ and post-distortion EQ do I need to get the Brown sound ?

Which pedal is considered the brownest of them all ?

Are there any detailed analysis of each stage of some famous Brown sound pedal, similar to ELECTRICDRUID's Metal Zone analysis ?

[iainpunk]

when asked about it later Eddie said that the ''Brown Sound'' was a description of how a certain drums sounded on one of the Van Halen albums.

but what people seem to refer to as the brown sound is more complex than just pre and post eq... its a Marshall JCM800 powered through a variac, lowering the mains voltage for less headroom. i can't recall the specific voltage tho.
an important part is also the full stack cabinets, and mic. placement.
i guess the LittleJim would come close to that sound.
https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=125174.msg1190435#msg1190435

cheers, iAIN

[garcho]

Ay caramba

Van Halen tone chasing, like all tone chasing, is silly. You can't recreate the sound of a guitar on a record unless you make a record and listen to it on a stereo. If that's your goal, you need a hell of a lot more than a guitar pedal. Live performances are also a lot more than a rig, if not as convoluted as recording studios. Of course, the right gear is part of the equation, but far overstated in my opinion.
Also, if EVH was such a genius guitarist who came up with the greatest tone ever, why did his gear and style and studio change over the years? Part of that great tone was the novelty of it in 1979, and the zeitgeist of the era.

Brown Sound In A Box, a.k.a. BSIAB is the classic DIY emulator for that sound from way back, 2000-ish? Aron had a hand in it if I recall correctly. Eventually it became this.
RunOffGroove (ROG) is (was?) a website that was full of these kinds of experiments: taking tube amp designs and swapping out tubes/valves for FETs. Those were heady times but it seems the magic has worn off and the lack of TH FETs sort of nailed the coffin closed. There are still plenty of FET overdrive designs of course but I think the idea you can somehow recreate a tube amp with FETs, specifically a Marshall tube amp turned all the way up, has been relegated to the pipe dream category.

Out of curiosity, what is your goal Vivek? Sometimes you sound like you're doing preliminary R&D for a corporation, no offense!!

[vigilante397]

Van Halen tone chasing, like all tone chasing, is silly.

+1000

Plug things in and play them, find what sounds good to your ears. If you're doing R&D for a company, prototype something and have some product testers try it, find what sounds good to their ears.

[GibsonGM]

Van Halen tone chasing, like all tone chasing, is silly.

+1000

Plug things in and play them, find what sounds good to your ears. If you're doing R&D for a company, prototype something and have some product testers try it, find what sounds good to their ears.

+10,000.

Grab some 'isolated tracks' of Eddie in the studio, and other favorite great-sounding idols.  Sounds pretty thin to me, actually    Now mix it with bass & drums, maybe some keys...that thin sound is exactly what was needed to have its place in the mix and also punch you in the face.   More low end would have been just MUD.    It's all subjective, little 'tricks' based on experience and skill.

Playing ALONE may mean you want a big-@ss fatter tone; add the band, nope.   So, to me, that's how you get BROWN SOUND...good TONE in the proper place.

[Ben N]

To really brown it up, it needs to be delivered by UPS.

[Fancy Lime]

True brown round is when you only play the Brown Note.

Andy

[Vivek]

Ha ha ha Andy

I know about the Blue note

Brown note is new to me

[Vivek]

"I am a tone chaser... I love chasing tone..." - Eddie Van Halen


https://m.soundcloud.com/danarchx/tone-chaser-original-remembering-eddie

[kaycee]

That 1st VH album blew my socks off. I was a youth listening to punk rock and classic British rock. There wasn't much US rock that I cared for other than Ted Nugent and Mahogany Rush, but I played the heck out of that album! Never wanted to play that way, but loved listening to it, they seemed to be having fun.

[davent]

Hearing the first Van Halen album when it was released i immediately thought of the first Ronnie Montrose album i'd bought in 73 or 74, turns out Ted Templeman was the producer of both, Montrose knew him from working on a Van Morrison album. In any case the brown sound could be the Ted Templeman sound as i'm sure i read somewhere Eddie wanted him because of that Montrose album. Maybe recognize the vocalist.

dave

[marcelomd]

My favorite piece of EVH tone trivia is that, at some point his signal chain was Marshall+variac > attenuator > delay, reverb > big hifi amp > speakers.

I also read that sometimes they'd place a series of mics at increasing distances from the cabinets, to get some sort of delay.

All this is fun, until you see him noodling on a SSS strat and a practice amp. And it sounds just like him.

[eh la bas ma]

I was curious about the brown sound too, and about the circuits supposed to emulate this sound.

I ended up building a BE-OD clone from pedalPCB. I guess I lost my primary goal in the search process.
Unless... is the Friedman Be-Od a sort of "brown" distorsion ?

[Rob Strand]

Isn't brown sound more like one of those farty sputtery fuzzes from the 60's  .

[Vivek]

Drschwartz' Analysis of the BSIAB 2 in October 2008

https://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=71466.0