Fractal Axe-Fx II Patch based on the Brown Sound by Eddie Van Halen

Fractal Axe-Fx II patch based on the Brown Sound by Eddie Van Halen

The "Brown Sound" is more than just a guitar tone—it's a legendary benchmark in rock guitar history. Coined by Eddie Van Halen himself, this term describes his pursuit of a warm, rich, harmonically complex distortion tone that was both aggressive and smooth, raw yet refined. It’s the sound that launched Van Halen’s debut album into the stratosphere and redefined electric guitar tone for generations.

It's a sound with plenty of gain although the clarity and note separation remain intact—even with fast runs and tapping. It has a musical warmth that feels organic and responsive with ntural harmonics and overtones blooming effortlessly, making even simple riffs sound larger than life. Never too harsh or overly bright, it's perhaps that thing you've been looking for so long and Gymtar can finally provide to you!

The original design of the Brown Sound has been created by Eddie with a late-‘60s Marshall Super Lead (non-master volume). However, he wasn’t just plugging into a Marshall, it was probably more like a mad scientist’s experiment in controlled chaos. Just to mention a few add-ons, the most notorious one was the Variac (variable voltage regulator), lowering the AC voltage to about 90V to reduce headroom and add compression and saturation. He also used a dummy load and re-amped through studio equipment for extra control and tone shaping and often jumped the input channels and cranked the volume all the way up.
Not to mention his guitar (a Frankenstrat with a single PAF-style humbucker), the use of MXR Phase 90 and the Celestion Greenbacks or G12M speakers.

What? You would like something a bit easier than that, maybe? That's surely a way in this page to buy our patch and keep EVH alive forever with your guitar.

Please note this is a Fractal Axe-Fx II patch. It is NOT a FM3/FM9 patch and you can find this in our catalog. 

SCENE 1 Rhythm
SCENE 2 Lead

Effects : Phaser, Flanger, Volume boost, Delay, Reverb.