With the arrival of the Boss SDE-3000EVH digital delay pedal earlier this year, the prospect of the ultimate Eddie Van Halen tribute pedalboard was truly within reach. Now solo musician and session guitarist Andy Wood – who calls Eddie the greatest rock n' roll player of all time – has seized the opportunity with most fully-realised floor rig we've seen for capturing his iconic tones.
It's all here: the SDE-3000EVH, MXR 5150 Overdrive, signature Phase 90 and Flanger – and let's not forget the Dunlop EVH95 wah. The Eventide MicroPitch is a wise addition, and I found from my review that it can nail the tone-widening sounds of post-1984 to Van Hagar era that Eddie got with rack units. There's a custom-looking boost in there too, plus the mini ISP Deci-mate noisegate. But things step up again when it comes to the wet/dry capabilities of this pedalboard.
"Wanna be W/D/W ? No problem flip the switches up on the tricked out iso output box," says Andy. "Need to be mono? No problem simply flip them to mono. No unplugging ever. Wet level control on its own custom controller. Lemme tell y’all this is unreal, you can use it with three half stacks, or three Deluxes (using the 5150 distortion pedal) or straight up three Micro Cubes lol – all the while being one switch away from old school straight into the amp."
We can't wait to hear Andy's video demo of it all. But in the meantime, check out a roundup of the session supremo's previous form paying tribute to Eddie and sharing his insights below. Needless to say, that pedalboard is in excellent hands!
