Nail the ToneNoah Kahan

Stick Season

Noah Kahan · Stick Season · 2022

"Stick Season" is an acoustic-guitar record, not an amp record: single credits list Kahan on acoustic guitar and vocals with Gabe Simon adding a second acoustic and banjo, tracked at The Study in Nashville with Konrad Snyder engineering. No source names the specific guitars used in the session - Kahan only says on Song Exploder that they tried a few - so the honest read is a close-mic'd steel-string, dry and compressed, with tight lows and forward mids. Play it in standard tuning with a capo at the 2nd fret, fingerpicked in the first verse and strummed after that.

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 2

Standard tuning with a capo at the 2nd fret, playing G, D, Em, C shapes to land in the record's key of A major; the first verse is fingerpicked before the strummed sections, and a second acoustic (Gabe Simon) sits on the right side of the mix.

Part: Rhythm

Guitar

  • Steel-string acoustic (model not documented)
  • Second steel-string acoustic (Gabe Simon, right channel)
  • Gibson J-45 (Kahan's live guitar, not the session) · factory undersaddle pickup

Amp

Acoustic combo or DI/preamp (no guitar amp on the record)

GAIN
3.0
BASS
4.0
MID
6.0
TREBLE
6.0
REVERB
1.0

The record is a close-mic'd acoustic tracked at The Study in Nashville by engineer Konrad Snyder, so these are DI/acoustic-amp values chosen to match that dry, mid-forward sound; roll bass back if you use a piezo, since the record has tight, controlled lows. Kahan has said in Song Exploder that they tried several guitars in the session, but no model is named in any source, and his live Gibson J-45 is a tour guitar, not a documented session instrument.

Pedals

  • Compressor (mix-side, not a pedal on the record) · compression · Gentle, roughly 2-3 dB of gain reduction, medium attack, to even out the strum
  • Room/plate reverb (mix-side) · reverb · Short decay, low mix - the acoustic stays dry and close

Tone character

dry natural acoustic · bright pick attack · tight low end · mid-forward strum · close-mic'd, minimal reverb

easy

Four open-position shapes behind a capo at the 2nd fret, with the only real work being the steady fingerpicked verse pattern and keeping the accented 16th-note strum even at about 118 bpm.

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Sources