No, not the brown note. Brown sound–the elusive guitar tone championed by Eddie Van Halen on the old Van Halen recordings–is one of the most successful attempts to formalize and refine distorted guitar. It’s one of those holy grail sounds that guitarists can spend their entire lives chipping away at, including Van Halen himself. As I understand it, though, there are some misconceptions about it that have derailed a good many quests to achieve this elusive tone.
Yes, I believe I know brown sound, at least enough to discuss it. I’m not saying I have it nailed, but I do think I’ve made some observations that others may have missed, and have developed some basic principles that can lead you towards brown sound. The big one, which many people likely don’t realize or haven’t taken to heart, is that there is no one “brown sound.” “Brown” is a set of tonal characteristics, and the use of color to describe sound is deliberate. When Van Halen refers to sound as “brown,” he’s referring to a sonic aesthetic best described as natural and earthy. If your rig sounds more like an electronic noisemaker or a buzzing piece of electrical equipment than a natural wooden instrument, you’re barking up the wrong tree. As Van Halen himself put it, brown sound is like a nice home stereo, rather than a busted radio.
So, within the boundaries of the electric guitar, which sounds are natural and which are not? Try palm muting a few notes. Does it yield a woody “clunk?” I’d argue that’s brown. If you’re getting thumping “chunk” or even a mushy “shuck,” that’s not very brown to my ears, and it probably means you’re using too much drive, in the form of gain, distortion, compression, or whatever. And if all you’re getting is a thin, wimpy “tunk,” you’re probably not using enough. It’s beneficial to pay close attention to a marked trend in the Roth-era albums: more or less, the guitar sound on each album has less drive than the one preceding it. On 1984, most of the heaviness in the sound is coming from Van Halen’s aggressive picking, rather than the fuzz.
Now mash on a few chords and listen to the vocal characteristics of your tone. (If nothing else, vocal chords are a fairly natural musical sound.) Adjust your EQ to emphasize the lower midrange, because that’s where your guitar is going to sound like a gutsy, throaty human voice. One error that I’ve seen tone chasers make over and over again is placing too much emphasis on the treble end of the midrange. This is wrong, because in the lower register, your guitar is going to sound like it’s singing through its nose, and the higher register is going to sound like an icepick. So many people who have come so close have undone themselves with this one mistake. You want the lower notes to sound like they’re coming from the throat or the diaphragm. It’s okay for the really high notes to sound nasal, because (everyone should be writing this down) that’s how the natural sound we’re emulating behaves. Van Halen himself screwed it up on the 5150 album, on which the guitar sound was a victim of thin, papery production. Your sound should never be harsh, nor wimpy.
Other errors are more easily forgiven, because Van Halen spread a lot of misinformation in the early days. While he merely intended to discourage imitators, many of his old false claims are still regularly reported as fact. Many of these rumors surround the equipment he used, the most persistent one being that he had special modifications made to his amplifier. It is true that Marshall’s amplifiers from the 1960s, being handmade, were never two alike in their exact characteristics, but that’s it. More relevant is that he was using a Marshall amplifier in the first place, renowned for its warm, fat sound, plus a homemade guitar with moderately bright tonewood and–very importantly–a lower output humbucking pickup. The signal he got from this setup was thick, punchy, and dynamic, yet not harsh or razory.
To further emphasize the brownness of your sound, be sure to make only subtle use of your effects. While Van Halen was coining words to describe sounds, he came up with “jape,” which seems to describe an effect that’s applied as a subtle color to the sound, rather than being overpowering and transformative. Listen to the flanger in “Unchained” or the phase shifter in “Eruption”–they add to the sound, rather than changing it entirely. They’re almost transparent. For the most part, some reverb and a slight touch of chorus will be all it takes to lend a natural roominess to your sound, without sounding like it’s swishing around or coming out of a cave.
Brown sound can be worked toward with just about any equipment, expensive or inexpensive, so definitely don’t feel the need to break the bank in an attempt to replicate the Van Halen rig. As I previously said, stuff was handmade in those days, so you’ll never nail exactly what he has. You’re better off applying the general principles of brown sound to the stuff you have on hand and improving the tone you’ve already got. See what you can get out of that before you order up a vintage Marshall SLP.
—
To garnish this ham-fisted tutorial, I have some Van Halen capsule reviews prepared, which I seem to have left on another computer. Those should be appearing in this space before the day is over. - Ken
EDIT:
As promised.
VAN HALEN (MUSIC, 1978)
Bar tunes, with all the positive and negative connotations. Still, with this much energy, who cares if the record treats technique purely as a means to bring hammered people to their feet? +
VAN HALEN II (MUSIC, 1979)
This one might just commit the cardinal sin of boring the listener, but at least it has better production than its predecessor. And Edward seems to have realized he doesn’t need to play a billion notes per song to craft a good solo. FAVORABLE FACTOR: Sandwiched amidst the mid-tempo chuggers are “Dance the Night Away” and “Beautiful Girls,” which function almost as a throwback to 1960s California rock. Far out.
FAIR WARNING (MUSIC, 1981)
In the midst of a mostly unsuccessful experiment with variety that begins with Women and Children First and ends with Diver Down, Van Halen tried their hand at sleazy, densely tracked funk rock. Aside from the creepy shit at the end, Fair Warning is a welcome oddity. +
1984 (MUSIC, 1984)
If there’s a philosophy behind this lean cut, it’s “Forget the bullshit and know thy self.” They get funky, they get poppy, they boogie—and yet, it all holds together as the closest thing to a unified Van Halen mission statement so far. Ed backs off on the distortion so you can really hear the strings grind, as though to emphasize the album’s clarity of vision. +
5150 (MUSIC, 1985)
Despite his reputation, Sammy isn’t the problem with this album. Blame it on the wafer-thin production and the dearth of good quality rockers. “Best of Both Worlds” can’t hold the line on its own. FAVORABLE FACTOR: Believe it or not, it’s the keyboard tunes.
FOR UNLAWFUL CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (MUSIC, 1991)
For all the fans who begged Van Halen to get back to writing wall-to-wall riffy hard rock, here it is, but caveat emptor. The words “lackluster,” “uninspired,” and “formulaic” became critical clichés for a reason. -
VAN HALEN III (MUSIC, 1998)
Never mind the new face. This incarnation of the band is back to the old WACF/Diver Down tricks, throwing in everything but the kitchen sink in the desperate scramble for a fresh idea. If it weren’t for the fiery leads, you might forget who you’re listening to. -
