Red Wire - Free Marshall IRs and FXs. Which mics and positions best for Van Halen sounds

[billbassler]

There are quite noticeable differences between the tones on Van Halen, Women and Children First and Fair Warning. IMHO these are some the best rock tones ever recorded. For example: Eruption, Romeo's Delight, Mean Street, Unchained.

 

I've been trying to nail these sounds for some time now. None of the custom tones available on the Helix site are even as close as what have been able to achieve. But what I have is still not quite "there". I've used the Plexi bright channel instead of the jumped and extended amp controls to get a pretty good dimed Plexi sound. My presets are pretty "brown" but still lack some of that punchy-ness of a live cranked Marshall plexi. I've kind of given up on trying to use the built in IRs. To me they generally sound flat and dull compared to 3rd party IRs that I have used.

 

I've downloaded the free Red Wire Marshall 1960A IRs in the hopes that I can get very close to these tones. I've always heard that an SM57 was used on Van Halen. And maybe a touch of Eventide Harmonizer was used on some Fair Warning tracks. (and maybe some tracks were a Soldano SLO?) Any advise of mic positions, amps and FXs to get some solid presets for each type of tone?