Guitar Geek 001 : Getting Eddie Van Halen on a Standard Stratocaster
The Vega Trem
The Vega Ultra Trem for Stratocaster Guitars
You can usually tell a fellow guitarist at a gig. They hang around at the side of the venue so they can get a good look at what you're doing on stage. They usually look quite passive and stare at everything you do. You know the kind of guys I'm talking about… they don't tend to tap their feet, get animated with the music. They're looking at something else, taking in detail. I do the same. There's an unwritten code with guitarists - we all want to be better at what we do, and we hate to think that we can't do what the performer is doing on stage. It sends us back to our practice room, whether that be the lounge, the study, the man shed or the room in the attic. We don't like to think we are inferior to each other. There's a certain pride and need to be the best in the room. Often I'm not the best in the room. My teacher taught me many years ago not to be too hard on myself when I see another performer who's better than me. Pete said to me, “they'll always be somebody better than you and they'll always be somebody worse than you, however that doesn't mean what you have to offer isn't good enough. Music doesn't have to be complicated to be good.” I'm paraphrasing him a little bit but you get the idea. It helps to know that Music isn't just about how many notes you can play, how many arpeggios you know and how fast you can play. One of my biggest heroes, you may have heard of him… old slow hand… Eric The Clapton… is renowned for playing only the notes which are necessary and sticking to pentatonic scales (five note scales) often. That's his vocabulary, and let's face it - it sounds great! Why mess with that?
Sometimes these ‘guitar geeks’ or enthusiastic amateur guitarists will come and talk to me after my performance and ask about my guitar, how old it is, where it was made, what hardware it uses. So as a way of explaining myself and for those musicians who are doing their research. Hello! I'm gonna start with a modification I made to my guitar to enable it to do the kind of magic tricks that Eddie Van Halen is known for.
The Fender Stratocaster is an iconic rock 'n' roll instrument. In the UK, it was made famous by Hank Marvin of The Shadows. In its first iteration, the Stratocaster came in only a few colours and one of those was ‘Fiesta’ red. A sort of yellowish red. Hank’s sound used a lot of reverb on his amplifier and made use of something called the ‘tremolo arm’. If you listen to songs like FBI or Apache, you'll hear the vibrato effect that the arm is used for which creates a wobbly sound. Hank says that he used this arm rather than his fingers to generate vibrato because the strings in those days were very very thick. So they hurt when you vibrated them. Years later, Eddie Van Halen famously modified a Stratocaster and added a Floyd Rose Tremelo. This type of tremolo locks the nut of the guitar near the headstock and has a huge tremolo bridge at the other end of the guitar. It's so big, it needs a cavity routed out of the body of the guitar to accommodate it. The reason for this is very simple. It's enables the player to bend all of the strings down and up, at the same time. You will hear Eddie use this effect on many tracks such as Eruption and Panama. When he does a dramatic down bend, it's called a ‘dive-bomb’. If you try this effect on a standard electric guitar, without a Floyd rose, the guitar goes out of tune all of the time! It's very annoying. So if you're into that heavy rock thing, you're better off buying guitars built for the job like the Ibanez guitars that Joe Satriani uses.
“You will hear Eddie use this effect on many tracks such as Eruption and Panama. When he does a dramatic down bend, it's called a ‘dive-bomb’.”
I don't play a lot of Eddie Van Halen but I would say he's my favourite heavy rock guitarist. His solos are so unexpectedly good that I can't not be impressed by his phrasing, skills and inventiveness that made him so unique. Because I don't play a lot of Eddie Van Halen, I can't quite justify buying a guitar just for the job. And modifying my Strat by routing out a huge hole to accommodate a Floyd Rose seems like butchery!!
This is where the Vega-Trem comes in…
VT1 Ultra Trem Standard (image from the Vega-Trem website)
The Vega-Trem can be mounted on a standard Stratocaster, whether Mexican or USA. I think it can also be mounted on other Stratocaster-esque guitars too. It fits into the slot where the fender tremolo bridge would be and due to its innovative, compact design - it enables divebombs and dive ups without damaging your guitar! I couldn't believe it when I tried playing a modified Strat. Even with standard tuners, the guitar doesn't go out of tune! One of the benefit of the Vega-Trim, is it comes with many different spring sets of different tensions. From very light to very heavy which will suit almost any player and their preferences. I have my Strat set quite light, which is easier on the fingers and enables really easy string bends. It's truly amazing! The bridge doesn't look out of place either. From a distance, I don't think most people could tell that I'd modified the guitar at all.
Try the Vega-Trem for yourself and let me know how you get on!
USEFUL LINKS
Vega-Trem 2-point for Stratocaster - Amazon
Vega-Trem 6 screw for Stratocaster - Amazon