Nail the ToneFleetwood Mac

Go Your Own Way

Fleetwood Mac · Rumours · 1977

The Rumours electric sound is Buckingham's Stratocaster with an Alembic Stratoblaster onboard boost cranked full up into loud Hiwatt Custom 100 heads — the boost, not a gain control, is what makes it break up and bite. For the rhythm part set a loud clean-to-edge-of-crunch tube tone with treble and presence up, bass pulled back, and let your right hand do the dynamics; pickup position isn't documented, and the bridge gets closest to that cutting chime. Note that the record stacks that electric with a hard-strummed acoustic, so your single guitar will sound thinner than the mix unless you dig in.

Where these numbers come from: worked out from the documented rig and the sound of the record

Tuning

Standard tuning, no capo · Capo at fret 3

Record is in F; capo 3 with D-A-G-Bm shapes gives the ringing open voicings and sus2 embellishments you hear, and the album layers several guitars (electric plus a hard-strummed acoustic), at least one of them capoed.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Fender Stratocaster (Alembic Stratoblaster) · stock single-coils · bridge pickup
  • Acoustic dreadnought

Amp

Hiwatt Custom 100 (DR103) head, 4x12

GAIN
7.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
7.0
PRESENCE
6.0

Rick Turner, who tech'd the Rumours sessions, says the electric sound is the Strat with the Stratoblaster wide open into Hiwatts, so the breakup comes from the boost slamming a loud clean head rather than a gain knob; a competing account has Buckingham on 100-watt Marshalls (he told Guitar Player his Hiwatts got 'real dirty-sounding' and he moved to Marshalls), and some gear pages claim a Mesa/Boogie Mark I, though his documented Mesa switch is October 1977, after the album.

Pedals

  • Alembic Stratoblaster · onboard preamp boost · gain all the way up (12 dB) — documented for the Rumours electric sound
  • Sony TC-630 preamp (rehoused as fuzz) · fuzz/preamp · part of his 1975-77 rig; not confirmed on this track

Tone character

bright single-coil chime · light amp breakup · forward mids · tight percussive attack · cutting and compressed

medium

Driving syncopated strum with constant sus2/sus4 hammer-ons inside the chord shapes, plus a barre-shape minor chord in the chorus, and the groove falls apart if the accents drift.

Want this on your own amp?

These are the record's settings. Tell us what you play through and we'll translate every knob to the amp you actually own — free.

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Sources