The Brown Sound What is It ?

The Brown Sound What is It ? - Guitar guys will throw around the term the "Brown Sound" but really what is that ? Well we know it's a term to describe early Edward Van Halen tone of doom, especially the first 4 albums. It's a very overdriven, dark, and most important tubby saggy rubbery sound. It's heavy and purely overdriven, post Sabbath fuzz tone, pre distorted high gain metalica. I love it ! Guitar players love it. Fans love it. Eddie loved it. 

But it's tone that has been chased but hard to EXACTLY duplicate because EVH made it with a very odd pieces of gear. Either a voltage tool called a Variac, or a load box to the speakers that made his Marshall Super Lead heads work overtime. This is what I loved about Eddie, he worked outside the box, he made HIS tone. Now guitar pedal builders have been chasing this tone for years, but they really emulate it they don't nail it. It's hard to get a pedal to sound like a amp that is limited by voltage or pushed hard thru a load box. Most can't get the tools to even simulate that to copy it. But there are a lot of good VERY good EVH guitar pedals out there to get you close. Add some Flanger, maybe a phase 90, a crazy Kramer frankstein guitar and your close

Ohh and god given techinque that stopped the guitar player world in it's tracks in the late 70s !

Credit David Szabados with the drawing from legendary tones website