carvin legacy, the real one, not the profile

    here is a funny story. i have spent a considerable amount of my money over the past years (from 2006-11)
    in a pro shop in the middle of nowhere between augsburg and ulm.
    a short while after i had purchased my beloved red goddess there, the evh charvel series for 3 grand, i wanted to check
    a new amp, because i was not satisfied with my soldano hot rod.
    and - believe it or not - steve vai had just finished the german leg of his latest european tour (ca. 2008???).
    unfortunately i cannot remember the date exactly. this would be important, because i have changed the terrible humbucker
    mister eddie van halen wants in his guitar to the beautiful sounding DiMarzio 166DP166BK, which suits my tone much better and
    AFAIK this is exactly the pickup stevie has used ...


    anyway, i had the honour to play the carvin legacy top of mister steve
    vai himself. his signature on the back with white marker still fresh.


    i used his 4x12 of carvin as well. AND the amp was offered for a price
    considerably below 2000 euros, so you can imagine my face 8o 8o 8o ...


    before me the magic amp the master himself played and touched ...


    i started with the clean channel, everything @12'o'clock. 30 minutes
    later, after a considerable amount of firing funk riffs through the
    aisles of the shop, i seriously considered buying this gem. but - just for the fun
    of it - i wanted to check the gain channel before using my credit card, too. ;(


    good idea. bad for the shop. 8)


    i hope i am not going to be lapidated by some of you: the sound from the
    carvin crunch channel was awful, transistor-like, chainsawish and flat.


    to this very day i do not understand how in the world steve vai gets his
    sound out of this amp. i do not know for sure, but i can imagine that
    the master uses the clean channel which is terrific and superb and gets the tone
    out of boutique pedals and expensive effects. at least with my guitar
    and my hands no way of achieving at least a decent rock tone of some kind. i am very
    curious whether andi's profile will prove me wrong or right ...


    just wanted to share the story and remember: you are your sound. cheers.



    .

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    I've taken part to a workshop with Steve Vai (cannot remember when exactly, was the end of the 80's) and he show up without gear, borrows a cheap Ibanez (really cheap RG) from a kid, plug it in a JCM 800 combo (50W, I guess) from the service, turns a couple of knobs and start playing......with his sound! ;)

    "Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music" Serghei Rachmaninoff


    He also uses pedals in front of his amps , plus a G-System of late etc.... so dont get too cut up about it........


    I often wonder how much of the sound comes from the gear you see on stage ( the signature stuff ) and how much from the racks hidden behind or off-stage :whistling:

    Robman: exactly. unfortunately i dont have the time to translate this here .
    in this case of JB in germany, he had his (brilliant amp) carol-ann on the stage, while
    playing in fact an amp made by a german amp designer behind the curtains.
    the contract that was hoped for - however - did not take place. music is also just a business ...










    .

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Same as paults guitarnet and and44
    For the past years i've been playing a jcm800, then a laboga rad3, then a jvm 410h, and though i used different amp settings i always ended up with the same sound and tone. Maybe it's more related with the way you play your instrument than the setup you have.

    Geraldo7,


    That's an interesting story and one that I can relate to. I bought a Jem back in the day and always thought that it sounded thin and harsh. I almost always use the bridge pup for my lead tones and I just could not get any tones I could live with from the JEM. Then, I saw a Steve Vai vid and noticed that most of the cool lead tones he was getting were coming from the neck pup. When he did switch to the bridge it sounded a bit thin and harsh to me. I'm guessing that he eq's his amp to favor the neck pup for his leads...'just the opposite of what I do. :D

    amiller: yup. i once owned a white JEM with the golden hardware. a beautiful guitar.
    this was back in 90ies, so i dont have recordings made with the beauty, but i remember
    that i liked the versatility of the guitar und those evolution pickups. but one tipp:
    i fell in love with my guitar, the red charvel evh, immediately, but was never satisfied with
    the too harsh tone of the seymour duncan pickup. i was so fed up with the situation that i
    ordered three pickups. let a technician change the pickup to (by coincidence the first one
    was the DiMarzio 166DP166BK) and never looked back. (sent the other back to thomann).



    @the others of the bunch
    do not take it too serious, guys. it is just a story, the sound comes from the fingers, the personality,
    and last but not least from the heart chakra. you are your music. but how boring would a guitarist's
    world be without that little bit of the Gear-Aquisition-Syndrome?
    and it keeps you inspired ...







    cheers :)

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    believe it or not I got the following directly from Vai mouth..............


    during his clinic Steve told us a story which happened at the time he was going in tour with Zappa. He prepared the rig (carvin x100b and a ton of other stuff). Eddie Van Halen went to say hello to him and to see his Zappa tour rig. Steve offered Eddie to try it while he was going into another room.


    when Steve was out of the studio he heard his rig sounding like Eddie's sound. so he run scared into the room and asked Eddie what did he change in the amps settings since he didn't take notes on them. Eddie said he didn't touch anything and all the rig was like Steve had set it.


    that thought me that with a decent amp and guitar, the sound is like you want it..............it is a sort of arrival point.


    I can assure you that Vai or Van Halen would have the same sound even if they play a washing machine!

    "...why being satisfied with an amp, as great as it can be, while you can have them all?" michael mellner


    "Rock in Ecclesia" - new album on iTunes or Google music