Dweezil Zappa

How funny! I TOTALLY remember when he used that term ( it was used in the July 88 Guitar World Magazine interview about the making of OU812 ). Never knew what effect he used that term for ( I always presumed it was for an earlier Eventide model ). 

“Jape” was a general term he used for any effects on the dry “guitar-to-amp” tone. He did specifically refer to the Eventide detune chorus sound and echo as being among these, but really it was a “catch-all” term. He used that term to differentiate the “effects” from the meat of his sound which was of course his fingers, the guitar and the amp. 

Not yet, Dweezil just released the 1st episode regarding the FUCK album the other day. 

Hi Allen,

As always, I enjoy your additions and insights. There is definitely a chorus used on the Women In Love intro. There's a direct guitar along with a clean amp which very well could have been a Roland Jazz Chorus. The clean overdubs in the verses also have the chorus on them. The outro solo on Bottoms Up! has a modulation sound that is delay modulated in the way that a chorus would behave and some early bootlegs show off this modulated sound. It's very different from any sound the phase 90 can make. Not sure what he used. Still also trying to figure out what octave divider he used on Fools. There's a low octave that appears to only react to the lowest notes, leaving the rest untouched. It's audible as part of the recorded guitar sound. Many more mysteries to uncover. Soon there will be answers though! Best, DZ

Excellent points Dweezil! I never even noticed a low octave effect on “Fools”-I’ll be sure to have a careful listen to that track again!

I agree that the sound on the “Women In Love” intro and the quiet parts of that recording do sound very much like a chorus sound and the “Bottoms Up!” outro solo undoubtedly has that unmistakeable delay modulated almost “ADT” sound. Interesting point about the possibility of a Roland Jazz Chorus or similar amp for this chorus sound. I have not seen any evidence of that, but it certainly is possible. There could also have been the DynoMyPiano Tri-Chorus or some other outboard effect that was popular among the session guitarists of the day. I theorize that the clean sounds might have been direct, but it’s always possible that he used an unknown clean amp rather than going direct. 

Here are a few reasons why I tend to veer away from Ed using a chorus floor pedal for these sounds. It’s not impossible that he did so, but I personally guesstimate that he possibly didn’t. The only pieces of evidence we have to work with (barring anything you may have heard from Donn?) which are our ears and the Sunset Sound Neil Zlozower studio photos (staged or not) from around the time of the recording of the album and photographic evidence of Ed’s stage gear of the time (which may or may not relate 100% to what he used in the studio). We see the Eventide H910 and Gotham Audio Delay System. I believe both of these units could achieve the almost “ADT” delay modulated sound on the outro solo from “Bottoms Up!”. The H910 could also be a candidate for the chorus sound on the “Women In Love” intro and quiet parts.

I hear something else happening on “Dance the Night Away”. It seems to be an Eventide sound and I had always assumed it was the H910. Obviously you can hear this effect best on the isolated track which features harmonic tapping, especially in the quiet “breakdown”. This had a slight phase or flanger sound to me, but it is one that differs from the MXR floor effects. This article https://www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/eventide-history-pt1?fbclid=IwAR0VzW5FDzpHkYp7i2SOZqfkHUPC94k7TkjG_ogxOgw0qLv28b80HJYkBHs mentions in passing that Van Halen used the early Eventide Instant Phaser at some point. I think that might be a possibility for the modulation in “Dance the Night Away”. 

Again, this is slim evidence and I hope we see more coming at some point. And I must state the obvious…I hope against hope that Donn can weigh in…I always say that he is really the Geoff Emerick and sometimes the George Martin of Van Halen (with all due respect to Ted). Assuming his memory or any records he might have kept are intact, he is the last accurate word on what really happened on the recordings from 1977-1989. 

I absolutely agree! And I hope that Donn sees some way to share his remembrances in any way that he can. I hope he understands that his contributions to Van Halen are highly valued by anyone that listens to the music, whether they know it or not!

To slip backward to “Women In Love” once again, I did a little experiment based on Eddie’s explanation of how he recorded the intro. When asked if he used an Eventide Harmonizer, he replied that he did not…but that he double-tracked it. I took this to mean that he did double-track it, and set the resulting tracks slightly apart to create that delay modulation sound that we hear on the album version of the intro. I did the same thing in this clip…I simply set the two tracks I recorded myself slightly apart by about .09 of a second. I included a simple chorus plug-in and compression from the Adobe Audition software I used at the time. I once again used my ‘68 Strat on the Middle/Bridge pickup selection. I think it resulted in a fairly faithful recreation of what he heard on the album: