Iron Man
Black Sabbath · Paranoid · 1970
The "Iron Man" riff is the bridge P-90 of Iommi's 1964/65 Gibson SG Special through a modified Dallas-Arbiter Rangemaster into the bass input of a 100-watt Laney Supergroup MK1 and a Laney 4x12. Presence, mids and treble sit on 10 with bass on 0 and the gain wide open, so all the dirt is power tube breakup rather than pedal fuzz. Copy it with a bright single-coil-equipped guitar, a treble boost, and an amp EQ that is scooped of lows and stacked in the mids.
Where these numbers come from: the player said these settings themselves
Tuning
Standard tuning, no capo
Standard pitch and standard tuning here — the famous Sabbath down-tuning starts with Master of Reality; Iommi used light strings (roughly .009–.042) and a medium pick.
Guitar
- Gibson SG Special (1964/65 "Monkey") · Gibson P-90 · bridge pickup
Amp
Laney Supergroup MK1 100W head
Iommi plugged into the amp's bass input (with the Rangemaster in front) and ran a Laney 4x12, letting the power tubes do the distorting; engineer Tom Allom instead remembers Iommi with a double Marshall stack at the Regent Sound sessions, so the amp brand is contested even though Iommi himself consistently credits the early Laney.
Pedals
- Dallas-Arbiter Rangemaster Treble Booster (modified) · treble booster · Boost near maximum, into the amp's bass input; cuts lows and pushes the front end hard
Tone character
thick honking mids · hollow, boxy midrange · almost no bass · natural power tube crunch · bright single-coil bite
Two-note power chords and octaves moved in slow, heavily palm-damped eighths — the work is in locking the sliding chord moves to the beat and keeping the picking hand even, not in speed.
Want this on your own amp?
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Adapt it to my gearSources
No published source — the settings below are estimated by ear.