HomeVan Halen's "Jump" meltdown: the techs have spoken!
Oct 29, 2007, 04:33 PM | by Shirley Halperin
Categories: I'm Just a Geek, Music, Ouch! That was my ear!
It's been the buzz of the blogosphere for well over two weeks now, and we thought it was time to get to the bottom of Van Halen's "Jump" mystery. If you haven't seen (or rather, heard) the tortuously off-key live performance from Greensboro, N.C., you can find it on YouTube, as seen below. (It's not quite Ashlee Simpson on SNL, but substitute her Irish jig for David Lee Roth dry-humping a blow-up microphone, and it comes pretty damn close.)
So was it the sampling rate of the keyboard track? Eddie Van Halen's guitar out of tune? Were their monitors or in-ears to blame? We let the pros duke it out, enlisting Chris Vrenna, keyboardist for Marilyn Manson and Gnarls Barkley's drummer, Clayton Janes, a tech for Playback who's handling backing tracks for Ozzy's tour, and Lonnie Totman, Eddie Van Halen's former guitar tech, currently on the road with Matchbox Twenty, to pick apart the train-wreck (Warning: the following discussion involves some seriously geeky gear talk). Read on and jump to your own conclusions.
EW: What do you think went wrong?
Clayton Janes (playback tech):
I think it's a complete backing track issue. [The synthesizer] is a
digital recording off a computer and normally played at a sample rate
of 44.1k. In this case, I think it's already been proven that a master
clock source was at 48k, a higher quality playback. What happens is
that it transposes a pitch shift so all of a sudden, it's playing three
steps higher. If you know the song "Jump" and hear it on the youtube
clip, you could tell right away that it sounds a little higher and
faster. There's nothing you can do at that point. I don't think it had
anything to do with the guitar side.
In other words: The sample was played a wee-bit fast.
Lonnie Totman (guitar tech): It was 100 percent a guitar
issue. All of Eddie's guitars, except one, are tuned to E flat. He
typically has one in E, a half step off, for a couple of songs, and he
was either handed that one or he grabbed it. A lot of people on the net
are saying it was a sample rate issue, that's impossible. Ed is
actually playing that part, recorded into ProTools, and with ProTools,
if you want something to play back at a different sampling rate, it
won't allow it in that session, you have to set up a whole new session.
Plus, the keyboard guy on their tour is one of the most together guys I
know, so it simply wouldn't happen. I even confirmed with the Van Halen
camp, it was all Eddie.
In other words: Eddie played a guitar that was sharp. Or what Randy Jackson would call "a little pitchy."
Chris Vrenna (keyboardist): I believe the synth track was
playing fine. First, the original song is in the key of C. But live,
they play it in C sharp, up a semitone (bands will often change the key
of a song to make it easier to sing every night). I found another live
performance of "Jump" from a few nights later, then played along with
both performances on a piano and both nights the keyboards were the
same. Plus, what it would take for the backing tracks, or live
keyboards, to go out of tune, would be a series of events. If a
computer was playing back a prerecorded session, that session — and the
sample rate — would have been made and saved previously. If they were
using ProTools, someone would have had to go into the menus and
manually changed that info. I cannot believe any of their techs would
have done that. Some think there's a live keyboard player off stage.
Again, one would have had to go into the programming functions of the
MIDI keyboards to change the tuning. Pitch bend wheels are usually
spring loaded so if the pitch wheel was bumped, it would've returned to
the null position. Both of these scenarios seem unlikely. It was
Eddie's guitar that was out of tune.
In other words: No way it was the keyboards.
EW: So then what happened on stage?
Janes: Edddie's playing to what the files should be and his
guitars are probably perfectly in tune, and the whole band could be in
tune but all of a sudden this track is introduced and it's chaos. Maybe
they introduced a new piece of gear to the equation and it was a
situation of, let's match everything to 48k so we get the best possible
quality. Something changed, it wasn't like someone mistakenly flipped a
switch. But it's the backing track that's out of tune, not Eddie. In
the beginning of the video, you can tell he's trying to see if he's in
tune or not, he didn't really know what was going on, but the train had
already left the tracks.
In other words: Eddie's playing to a backing track that's out of tune with the rest of the instruments.
Totman: Eddie didn't change or swap out the guitar. For
whatever bizarre reason, he decided to keep playing. Because everything
else is in [tune]: Dave did an outstanding job of staying in throughout
the song, the bass was still in, even the drums are tuned to the
keyboards, it was clearly just the guitar. Eddie's a pretty ornery guy,
not the most pleasant human being that I've ever worked for. And he's
the kind of guy who would keep playing it to make a point, to his tech
or whoever. That's the only reasonable explanation that I can come up
with.
In other words: Eddie knows his guitar is out of tune, keeps playing out of spite.
Vrenna: Something must've happened to Eddie's guitar tuning.
Maybe he banged the headstock or the whammy bar threw it out of tune.
And when guitars go out of tune, they do it randomly, not in nice even
semitones. So the strings could be playing anything really. Maybe the
guitar was in tune with itself, but just tuned wrong. Or maybe the
tuner the tech was using was off. There are many variables to consider.
It happens to the best of them.
In other words: Eddie's guitar was off. S—t happens.
EW: Is it possible they couldn't or didn't hear what was really going on?
Janes: That's possible. Not knowing what they use, maybe in
their monitors or in-ears, they weren't listening to the track or a
little bit oblivious to what was happening. It could have been mainly
on the front of house, for sure.
In other words: Maybe only the audience heard it.
Totman: No. Eddie doesn't wear in-ears, the only guy in the
band that does is Alex. And they're very demanding of their monitors
and side fills. He heard it without a doubt. He does have a good set of
ears, he knows if he's out of tune. Watching the video, you can tell by
his reaction, the way he goes back to his cabinet to listen to it.
In other words: Eddie heard every note.
Vrenna: Perhaps. If Eddie's guitar was in tune with itself,
he may not have thought it was him, but the keys. But the way he and
Wolfgang look at each other, they both know something is wrong. In the
heat of a huge live show, it can sometimes be hard to immediately grasp
what's wrong when something does start going off.
In other words: Eddie and Wolfie heard something was off, but couldn't pinpoint the problem.
EW: Might as well stop? What could/should have been done?
Janes: The playback person should have had eye contact with
the band, and signaled or pulled Eddie over to the wings. Or the mixing
engineer could have pulled that track out. People really just wanna
hear Eddie playing guitar, so it would've been fine. They might have
thought, "Oh where did the synth go?" But there's Eddie's solo and his
guitar playing... We talk about these kinds of apocalypse situations at
the beginning of tours. Usually we decide with the artist that at that
point, we're gonna stop. And it's OK to do that. Any competent person
could check that really quickly and start again.
Totman: Eddie could have simply stopped playing and gotten
another guitar. It would have taken a couple of seconds, the song would
go on and they wouldn't have had to subject everybody to that.
Vrenna: No
matter what actually happened, one of the offending instruments should
have been stopped. If it was the guitar, Wolfgang or Eddie's tech
should've said something and quickly changed to a new guitar, maybe at
the verse where his parts aren't as important. If it was the keys, the
tech should've stopped the playback and the band finished the song
without it. It may have been missing some parts, but at least what was
there would've sounded musical. Between the band and their techs,
someone should have figured out the problem quickly and jumped in to
help. You can never just stop playing a song. That's admitting to the
crowd that something is wrong. You have to get through it, but the band
and crew didn't react fast enough, or at all, to try and fix the
problem.
EW: So, ultimately, who's to blame here?
Janes: Whoever's in the position to control the playback.
It's a weird discipline — a combination of studio engineer, somebody
that can troubleshoot computer equipment and also understand live
[sound]. And the person above who oversees that on a day-to day-basis,
like a production manager.
Totman: Either the guitar tech or Eddie for grabbing the
wrong guitar, which he's been known to do. One or the other, but
ultimately, I'd have to put the blame on Ed and his attitude because he
knew right away it was out of tune and he could have just stopped.
Vrenna: Eddie's guitar, so it could've been the tech's fault
in his tuning. Or maybe the tuner the tech was using was off
(especially if it was a strobe tuner. They are very accurate, but can
become un-calibrated easily.) It's happened to every band. [On tour
with Manson], I've had my MIDI keyboard controller lose communication
with the host computer even though it said it was online. We rebooted
and still nothing. Luckily it was also during our last song of the
night. The next day everything loaded fine and that problem hasn't
happened since.
Our verdict: Using the very unscientific method of playing two YouTube clips at the same time, we conclude that the guitar was off, since the keyboards sound the same on both nights. But without getting into locking nuts and things beyond our comprehension, we're not entirely clear on why Eddie didn't simply readjust on the spot. After all, he's one of the world's greatest living guitar players, right? Anyone care to keep the debate going?
Comments