"Eruption" is the short solo guitar piece on Van Halen's 1978 debut album, and it changed what a lot of players thought a guitar could do. Eddie Van Halen's tone is hot and singing but never fizzy, with a swirling phaser and a wash of echo and room around it. Fast tapped runs sound smooth and vocal instead of harsh.
What was used
The gear most commonly cited for this era is an MXR Phase 90, an Echoplex tape echo and a Marshall Super Lead head. He reportedly ran the Marshall through a Variac, a device that lowers the mains voltage, which changes how the amp breaks up. The guitar is usually identified as his home-built striped "Frankenstrat", with a single humbucker in the bridge. Exact settings were never fixed and are debated, and the recording itself adds plenty of reverb.
The rig below is an approximation: a common way to get close to this sound, not the exact original gear or settings.
Playing it
- Tapping: tap firmly with a fingertip of the picking hand, then pull it off slightly sideways so the next note sounds. Match the volume of tapped and fretted notes.
- Mute idle strings with the heel of your picking hand and the spare fingers of your fretting hand. Hot amps make open strings ring.
- Wide, fast vibrato and dive-style tremolo bar moves are a big part of the vocabulary.
- Keep the phaser slow. Fast settings sound like a different song.