Kids Recreate Recording of Van Halen’s Debut Album in Just One Day
The first Van Halen album is already such a phenomenal achievement as one of the greatest rock and roll debuts in music history, but a group of kids in California have kicked it up another notch by recording the album in full -- and they did it in just one day!
The Produce Like a Pro team took students from the Los Rios Rock School in Orange County, Calif., to the legendary Sunset Sound for the recording project. It was there that Studio 1 was set up and in one day the students recorded the Van Halen album in its entirety.
The significance of being in Sunset Sound, and in Studio 1 in particular is that it is the exact room that the mighty VH made that very album. The studio is great at keeping records and they looked into the archives and found a copy of how Van Halen had the studio set up for tracking and it was recreated as closely as possible for the student's recording. Drums, amps, microphones, the console and echo chamber were set up the way that it was documented that Van Halen did it 40 years ago.
Produce Like A Pro and the Sunset Sound team mimicked the exact set up, in the exact same room and The Los Rios Rock School kids came in extremely well prepared with the guidance of the schools highly trained instructors and Teacherzone.com.
The young prodigies ripped through the landmark effort by the SoCal party rock band with professional aplomb, some of which is hinted at in the video above where a 13 year old girl blazes through Eddie Van Halen's signature guitar solo "Eruption" so effortlessly it's mind-melding. For the complete set of videos from the recording session, head over to the Produce Like a Pro site where all 11 tracks can be heard and seen.
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