[fratajcz]

I think that was just a way of the manual showing you how to have a sound "inspired by" Van Halen, since he famously got his distortion sound not from a pedal, but from a Marshall amp that he ran at a low voltage using a variac (as an aside, the boss heavy metal was famously used by Swedish death metal bands turning all the dials up, not really a Van Halen sound).

He also used multiple pedals, such as the Echoplex, MXR phase 90 (Eruption), flanger (Unchained) and wah pedal. He later started his own signature EVH range of pedals in a partnership with MXR.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

Well, you seem to know this better than I do. I was always more into the kind of music you got out of turning all the dials up, like you say. My (older) cousin fancied himself a more sophisticated rocker.

The booklet stuck in my mind because Van Halen was the only musician in there that was anywhere near a Metal musician. The others were all people I had never heard from bands I didn't know that probably played jazz or pop or stuff. Van Halen's simple setup, inaccurate as it may have been, somehow served to justify and enforce my preference for the simple, uncomplicated, no-fuss kind of pleasures I always looked for -and found- in Metal.

[scns]

The phaser is an essential part of the main riff from unchained